Page 21

Luka's eyes cracked open, somehow managing a weak smirk despite a fever. "Pain is temporary. Sexy is forever," he slurred, somehow maintaining his brand even while cooking from the inside out. His eyes rolled back before I could formulate a suitably sarcastic response.

I quickly moved the washcloth to safer territory .

"Jesus, Luka," I whispered before stopping myself, fingers hovering over a cluster of small round scars, perfectly circular and uniform, scattered across his ribcage.

His fever-glazed eyes suddenly widened, focusing on something—or someone—beyond me. The blue of his irises seemed unnaturally bright, almost luminous.

"Sorry," he murmured, the word slurred and barely audible.

"What for?"

He reached up with trembling fingers, grazing my cheek in a touch so gentle it seemed impossible from hands that had killed so many. "For not saving you," he whispered, fevered gaze looking through me rather than at me.

I blinked and placed my hand over his, brows furrowing. "But... you did. Sort of."

"Do you hate me for not saving you, Ana?" he asked, and I froze.

Something in Luka's eyes... The desperation there was unlike anything I'd ever seen, but he clearly wasn't talking to me.

"Ana," he said again, and I thought maybe it was a name. His words trailed off into mumbled words in another language, head tossing restlessly against the tub edge. I continued the methodical task of cooling him down, which seemed to be working.

"Papa's crawl space," he muttered suddenly, eyes unfocused. "Ana... hide... soldiers coming." He thrashed weakly, water sloshing over the tub's edge. "Blood... so much blood..."

The fragmented phrases painted a horrific picture of a traumatized child witnessing violence. Classic dissociative flashback triggered by fever. I'd seen similar reactions in my PTSD patients, but never this raw, this unfiltered by conscious restraint.

"They took her," he sobbed, voice suddenly childlike, accent thicker. "I failed... supposed to protect... "

I gently stroked his forehead. "You're safe now."

He quieted under my touch, drifting back into semi-consciousness.

I found myself mentally assembling the pieces.

Eastern European accent, childhood trauma, sister named Ana, military violence.

The clinical psychologist in me constructed a tentative trauma profile even as my hands continued their work.

Time lost meaning as I worked, occasionally draining water and adding fresh cool water to maintain temperature. Luka drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes silent, sometimes mumbling in what must be his mother tongue, occasionally surfacing enough to recognize me before slipping away again.

His fever-soaked skin had taken on a particular metallic and sharp scent, like copper pennies soaking in salt water.

It mingled with the antiseptic smell of the bathroom and something uniquely him, something I'd caught hints of when we'd shared the bed.

Even ravaged by infection, that underlying scent triggered an inappropriate response in me that I struggled to suppress.

It was during one of these more lucid moments that I found myself tracing edges of a particularly nasty scar.

"Taipei," Luka said suddenly, voice clearer than it had been all morning.

I jerked my hand back as if burned, caught in intimacy I hadn't intended. "What?"

"The scar," he clarified, eyes now focused on my face, though still bright with fever. "Got it in Taipei. Target had a balisong knife. Batshit crazy butterfly blade skills."

"I shouldn't have touched it. I was just..."

"S'okay," he murmured, eyes closing. "It's kinda nice to be touched... and not have it hurt. "

My heart squeezed. What kind of awful life had this poor man had that the default was pain?

He opened his eyes.

Our gazes locked, and something shifted in the space between us.

Here was Luka, stripped of his usual bravado and innuendo, allowing me to see his most vulnerable self, both physically and emotionally.

And here I was, choosing to care for him despite knowing what he was, what he'd done, the danger he represented.

The moment stretched.

Then came a knock at the door, sharp and authoritative, cutting through the silence like a gunshot.

Luka's entire body tensed instantly, fever forgotten as survival instinct kicked in. He attempted to rise from the tub, but his weakened state betrayed him, sending him slumping back into the water.

"Don't answer it," he whispered.

Another knock, this one demanding. Then a voice through the door. "I know you're in there, Luka. We need to talk."

The little color fever hadn't already stolen from Luka's face vanished. His body went rigid, instinctive terror overriding even his infection.

"Prometheus," he breathed, the name dripping with such dread my skin prickled in response.

"Who's that?" I whispered, though some primal part of me already knew the answer.

Luka's eyes locked onto mine, fever-bright and haunted. "My boss." A pause. "And the man who put the hit out on you."