Page 39 of Kidnapped Bride

KIRA

After that little stunt Nikolai pulled earlier, I had no intention of pretending to sleep when he came in tonight.

I was sitting up against the headboard with my arms crossed and my mind running laps around exactly how I could get out of a marriage I never agreed to in the first place.

Eventually, he'd have to let me be a part of the real world again, but even then, I felt like it would be a battle.

So when the bedroom door opened, I was wide awake and ready to tell Niko exactly what I thought of him and his forged paperwork. But the words died in my throat when I saw him.

He staggered through the door looking haggard and defeated.

His shirt was soaked through with dark blood from his ribs down to his waistband, and his face was pale.

He didn't look right. The way his eyes were sunken and he moved more slowly than usual.

And when he started to undress with his back to me, I started to get worried about him.

It wasn't like him to not say anything to me when I was awake in the room, but I'd never seen him sneak home soaked in blood, either.

And it was obvious it was his blood, not someone else's.

"What happened?" I sat up straighter and the anger I'd been nursing all night went quiet, replaced by something I wasn't prepared for. "Niko, what happened to you?" Concern wrapped around my heart like a tight chain, making my heart kick in my chest.

"Busy night." He pulled the shirt off and dropped it on the floor. The wound on his left side below his ribs was a dark, ugly hole surrounded by bruised skin with a line of fresh stitches holding it closed.

Whoever had patched him up had done a rough job of it.

The thread was thick and the edges of the wound puckered where the needle had gone through.

"Who else got hurt?" I asked, but he wasn't responding. Panic started to set in too, fear that my life had been permanently altered somehow. "Is my father okay?"

Nikolai finally looked at me, but the pain in his eyes rivaled any other emotion he might be feeling. "Your father wasn't there… At least not in the action." I watched his Adam's apple bob, then looked down at the red stain across his belly.

He had to have bled a long time.

I felt so guilty for feeling relief at hearing my father wasn't harmed tonight.

Nikolai stood in front of me clearly in a lot of pain, but I was thinking only of myself and what I stood to lose. Not him.

And I shouldn't have cared. I should've been glad someone put a bullet in him.

But my chest felt tight looking at the dry blood on his stomach and the way he moved stiffly toward the bathroom.

This time, I couldn't pretend it was anger or rage. He looked so pathetic.

He disappeared through the bathroom door and I heard the faucet turn on. Then I heard him growl, then a shout.

I winced, pressing my eyes shut before I pinched the bridge of my nose. I told myself not to get up or care.

In fact, I rehearsed in my head how angry I had been when he had Vlad drag me into his office and hold a gun on me so I'd stand still and not interrupt that priest.

But when he shouted in pain and then whimpered, the sound went straight to my heart.

I was only human, and he might be a monster, but it didn't mean I had to be. I couldn't let this man's wickedness change who I was.

I slid off the bed and padded to the open bathroom door, peering in to see what was happening.

Nikolai was standing at the sink completely naked with his stained pants and boxers in a pile at his feet.