“Jeez. When you guys tell stories like that, all I can think is that I’m glad you’re on my side.” He laughs and I squirm in my seat. “Nikolai, I really need a shower. I’m going down, okay?”
“Do you need any help—”
“No.”
He holds up his hands, palms out to placate me. “I was going to offer to walk you down the stairs. Not shower.”
“Can never be too careful with the Bugrov brothers. You two have a habit of overdoing it. Just stay here with Lev. I need a couple minutes.”
“I’ll come down to check on you in ten.”
“Twenty.”
“Fifteen. Final offer.”
“So annoying,” I mumble as I wobble unsteadily towards the door. His laughter follows me all the way down the hall.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I get to my room and I’m able to strip down. Throwing off my clothes is liberating, not least of which is because my body temperature is straight-up haywire these days and I’m sweating like a pig. I crank the water on and adjust the temperature until it’s cool and soothing. Then I get in, ready to soak down my blood pressure for fifteen minutes.
Knowing Nikolai, though, I’ll be lucky to get half that.
I’ve just soaked my hair when my bathroom door is thrown open. Thinking it’s Nikolai, I scream and grab my towel—but then I freeze when I see it’s Uri.
“My God! You scared me.” The look on his face is bleak. It definitely doesn’t help my blood pressure. He opens the shower door and turns off the water. “Uri…？”
“Get out now,” he orders. “And get dressed.”
My brow ripples with unease. “Why?”
“Because we’re leaving. It’s not safe here anymore.”
31
URI
“This is our ‘bare bones hideaway spot’？” Alyssa is gawking at the cabin like she’s never seen Scandinavian architecture and exposed timber before. Her hair is still damp from the shower and twisted into a long tail over her shoulder. I want nothing more than to wrap it around my hand and coax her down…
Grimacing, I haul a bag onto each shoulder and nod. “Do you have a complaint you’d like to voice, narushitel?”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “You said we’d have to ‘rough it for a while.’”
“The cabin has only six rooms and no staff quarters. So we’ll have to cook and clean up after ourselves.”
If her eyes rolled back in their sockets any farther, they’d get stuck there permanently. “You poor man. How ever will you survive?”
I roll my own eyes in return as Dimiv comes up around the corner just in time to chime in. “Uri may be good in the kitchen, but he’s never lifted a broom in his life.”
Alyssa turns to him. “You must be Dimiv.”
“And you must be the famous Alyssa. Practically glowing, I see.”
“Aren’t you the charmer?” she says with a shy smile. “Are you sure you’re related to these two?”
He chuckles and nudges me with an elbow. “I like her, Uri.”
“Of course you do. Fucking figures. How about you make yourself useful for once and grab a bag?”
He’s reaching for one of the duffels on the stone path that leads to the cabin when a long, strangled scream comes from inside the SUV. Alyssa whips around. “Shit!” she yelps. “Lev.”
“No, I don’t wanna get out!”
Nikolai is still in there with him, begging and pleading to get our brother to set so much as one toe out of the vehicle. “Lev, come on. It’s not so bad. It’s actually pretty great. Can you smell all the trees?”
I arch a skeptical eyebrow. “Can you smell the trees?”
Nikolai shoots me a glare. “Do you want to try getting him out, wiseass?”
“I’ll try,” Alyssa interjects, pushing both me and Nikolai out of the way. “Hey, Lev, it’s me. I checked out the place. It looks amazing.”
“I don’t wanna see it.” Through the dark tint, I can just barely make out the silhouette of him hunched over, chin tucked to chest, arms folded across his body like it’ll keep him safe from the dangerous dual threats of pine trees and fresh air.
“But if we don’t go in now and pick our rooms, then everyone else will choose the best ones. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”
Silence. Nikolai and I exchange a glance. Surely he won’t…
“Fine,” Lev says and the next thing, I know he’s putting his hand in Alyssa’s and emerging from the car.