Page 19 of Maksym

It was not enough.

Nothing on that table could account for what had been taken from her. Still, the body had its own brutal laws. She needed blood. Meat. Salt. Rest. Instruction. Patience.

And I needed to keep my hands to myself.

Taras stood near the door, posture exact, face unreadable except to me. To anyone else, he would have looked like a court blade waiting for a command. To me, he looked furious, which was only a warmer variety of afraid. His hazel eyes moved over Grace, over Millie, over me. He assessed risk with the cold devotion that had made him invaluable to me and occasionally unbearable.

He did not want to leave me alone with her.

He did not want to leave her alone with me.

Both were insults. Both were reasonable.

I lifted one hand. No words. Words would have made it an order, and I did not want Grace to hear more orders from me. Not yet.

Taras’s jaw tightened.

For one moment, my twin held his ground. That, too, was familiar. We had shared a womb, a childhood, a thousand secrets, and enough bloodshed to make obedience between us more complicated than rank. His eyes flicked to Grace again, and I felt the protest he swallowed. You are not steady. She is terrified. I should stay.

I did not lower my hand.

He inclined his head at last, not quite a bow. “I will be just outside.”

His voice was smooth, controlled, and carved thin around the edges. Grace’s gaze followed him.

Taras opened the door and stepped through. Before he pulled it shut, he looked at me once more. Then the door clicked shut, leaving his presence on the other side like a blade laid across the threshold.

The corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it. Not amusement, not exactly. Relief, perhaps, absurd and brief.

Millie made a small sound. I looked at her.

“Come, dear,” she said to Grace, as if neither kings nor twins existed unless useful. “The chair there. Slowly. There is no hurry.”

Grace obeyed her.

I stood where Millie had left me standing and watched the woman who had become the center of my existence within the span of an hour cross my room as if every step required negotiation with memory.

Millie kept one hand at the middle of Grace’s back without pushing. Grace let her. The shame of that settled behind my sternum.

She had known Millie less than two hours and accepted touch from her. She had known me less than two hours and had every reason to recoil. It did not matter that I had dragged her back from death. It did not matter that my blood even now moved through her marrow, sealing wounds, knitting tissue, awakening strength. The body remembered hands before it understood intention.

Mine had held her down. Mine had forced blood into her. Mine had compelled her to swallow. The truth was not made less true by necessity.

Millie drew out a chair and guided Grace into it. “There. Good. Sit back if you can. Your body is doing quite a bit of work just now.”

Grace’s hands went to the edge of the table. Thin hands. Lawyer’s hands, I thought suddenly. Hands that had held pens, files, arguments. Hands that had once belonged to a woman who expected the world to answer questions in orderly sequence.

Grace looked at the steak, then the decanter. Her throat moved.

Millie followed the direction of her gaze. “You will need fuel. More than you’d expect. The meat is rare for a reason. Your body will prefer it that way for a while.”

Grace’s face tightened.

“It is only food,” Millie said gently. “You do not have to like the reason tonight.”

Grace glanced at her. “And that?”

Her voice was still rough, but cleaner than before. The sound of it moved through me.