Earth Bound (10 page)

“It's probably nothing, but I prefer to stay alert,” he added quietly.

Lexi held it together, following his instructions exactly, going to the bathroom and closing the door. She moved with unhurried steps, looking natural should anyone be watching.

The moment the door was shut, Gavriil reached for his jeans, turned and slipped into them almost in one motion. He shoved his feet into his boots, and concealed the weapons in their usual places. He was dressed and armed in seconds. He moved with casual grace to the open window. He waited there, just to the left, out of sight. Still. Patient. Baiting his prey. His knife was in his palm, a familiar extension.

There was silence. His heart rate remained exactly the same. His pulse never changed. This, he understood. This was his world. Here he had control. Discipline. Power. He understood the rules.

A whisper of movement told him his prey was growing restless. A shadow moved. Stopped. Gavriil didn't so much as tense. Deep inside, he was coiled and ready to spring, but for the moment he remained utterly still. His mind didn't race. There was no chaos or fear. He was in complete command.

A head appeared in the window and he struck with lightning speed. Grabbing the thick dark hair, he dragged the head all the way inside, exposing the neck, pressing the razor-sharp blade of his knife against the throat. Dark eyes stared up at him. Shocked. Scared. A child's eyes.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Gavriil demanded. “Who sent you?”

“Lexi!” The boy screamed her name.

Lexi emerged from the bathroom at a run. Gavriil, still holding the knife to the boy's throat, blocked her rush, shoving her back behind him.

“Do you know this boy?” Gavriil asked. He didn't take his cold gaze—or the knife—from the boy, not once. In his experience a child could be just as deadly as an adult. He'd made his first kill at fourteen.

“Let him up. That's Benito, Max's boy.” Lexi peered around his larger body, staring at the knife that bit just enough into the boy's throat to cause a thin line of blood. “Please don't kill him.”

Gavriil removed the knife from the boy's throat, and not so gently dragged him into the room, mostly by his hair.

With one hand he patted the kid down; the other kept him immobile. He retrieved a Glock from the waistband of the boy's jeans and held it up in the air.

“What's this? Were you planning on killing me, boy?” Gavriil kept searching for more weapons. He never just carried one on a job. Evidently the kid felt the same way—he had a hell of a big knife shoved down into his boot.

“Benito! What were you thinking?” Lexi asked, trying to step around Gavriil.

He cut her off with a sweep of his arm. “Stay behind me until we straighten this out. I don't give a damn whose kid he is, not when he comes sneaking around with a gun and knife.”

“He's twelve years old,” Lexi said. “A child.”

“He's not a child when he's armed.” Gavriil transferred his hand from the boy's hair to his throat. “You'd better start talking, kid, I can break your neck just as fast as I can cut your throat. Were you hired to kill Lexi?”

“Oh, for God's sake,” Lexi said, exasperation in her voice. “He wouldn't do that. He lives here on the farm with Max.”

“Then
he
can convince me. You stay behind me, Lexi, or I'm going to have to hurt this kid. I'm not taking chances with your safety.”

“Are you her bodyguard?” Benito asked, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head with fear.

The boy didn't move though. Not even a tiny inch to try
to get away from the deadly grip Gavriil had him in. Gavriil had to give him credit for that. Benito was terrified, but he was thinking it all out.

“If you didn't come here to kill Lexi, or me, what the hell were you doing outside the bedroom window? Are you some kind of Peeping Tom?”

Benito shook his head. His gaze clung to Lexi's. He didn't look at Gavriil. “No sir. I was practicing.”

“Practicing what? Scaring Lexi?”

His voice was a low whip of menace. What the hell was the kid doing? Did he have any idea just how close to death he'd come?

Lexi started around Gavriil once again to comfort the boy, but he shifted just enough to keep his body between hers and the kid's. She put her hand on the small of his back. For a split second, he was more aware of that contact than anything else.

“He's working on his skills. Guarding all of us. Moving quietly without detection,” Lexi explained.

“Is that true?” Gavriil asked, slowly allowing his hand to drop away from the boy's neck.

Benito touched his fingers to his throat and looked at the blood smeared on his fingertips. He nodded. “Yes sir.”

Gavriil let his breath out slowly. The kid had guts, and even though he was clearly a pain in the ass, one had to admire him. He willed Lexi to let him handle the situation without her. The kid needed a scare thrown into him—which Gavriil had given him. Now he needed to feel as if he was going to learn something from the experience.

“Lexi was about to make me some tea and we were going to eat lunch. I'll clean up your throat there and then we'll sit down and I'll tell you where you went wrong.”

Lexi's fingers slipped down his bare back to the pocket of his jeans. She curled her fingers there. He glanced at her over his shoulder.

“Are you all right?”

“I was afraid,” she admitted. “I really thought some of Caine's people might have come after me. Now that I know
there's nothing wrong, I think my knees are a little weak, but I'm really okay. I am.”

He wanted to blast the kid all over again. He turned back to the boy. “That's another reason you don't slink around and scare people. Everyone has a history. You don't want to make it worse for them, do you?”

Benito shook his head. “I'm really sorry, Lexi.”

For a moment, Lexi pressed her face against the small of his bare back, right where her hand had been. Right over a series of scars from a whip tearing his flesh open when he was a child. Gavriil wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, but he stopped the impulse.

“I really am sorry, sir,” Benito said, the fright fading that fast. “And I want to know what I did wrong. I mean aside from coming here in the first place,” he added hastily.

Gavriil reached behind him without turning, and put his hand over Lexi's, pressing her palm into his buttocks where she held on to his pocket. “Never try sneaking up on me again. Not ever. It isn't safe. You're very lucky I was in the mood to ask questions. Otherwise, you'd be dead and Max would be coming after me. Do you understand? You can't play around with this kind of thing. If you're going to learn, you need to understand the difference between playing and coming after someone like me.”

Benito nodded his head several times, wincing a little. The cut was shallow, but it had to hurt.

Lexi lifted her head. He felt the warmth of her breath against his skin. Her fingers traced the long, numerous scars crisscrossing his back, a whisper of movement only, barely there, but his body stirred and his gut tightened into knots.

“Didn't Max tell you to stay away from here?” He caught Lexi's hand and pulled it down, away from his bare skin. She had to stop if he was going to be able to think clearly. All that did was bring her attention back to Benito's plight.

Gavriil held her still, preventing her from going to the boy. The kid had to learn, and being babied wasn't going to help. “Lexi, would you mind making me that cup of tea?”

She was silent a moment, clearly making up her mind whether or not to let him handle the situation without her. In the end she capitulated. “Benito, would you like some as well?”

He shook his head, looking a little apprehensive now that she was leaving.

“Lexi, I left my war bag just outside the greenhouse, concealed in the brush on the west corner. I wouldn't want a child to find that bag. It also has clean clothes in it. Would you mind getting it for me while I make certain this wound doesn't get infected?”

Lexi studied his face for a long time, clearly trying to read his stone-cold features. “Benito is very much treasured here, Gavriil. He's trying hard to be a man under difficult circumstances.”

Gavriil had lived through difficult circumstances. He wasn't going to allow that to be an excuse. The kid was spying on them, looking through bedroom windows. That wasn't okay in his book. Benito also needed to know that that kind of behavior could get a person killed.

“The west corner,” he repeated, his tone implacable.

“See. I knew you'd forget our deal at the first opportunity,” she accused.

He caught her chin, forcing her green eyes to meet his dark blue ones. “Just this one time,
solnyshko moya
, while I'm seeing to your safety.”

“Well don't shoot him. Or stab him. Or beat him up either. I want him in good condition when we return him to Max and Airiana.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Gavriil noticed the boy squirming. He didn't much like the idea of Max or Airiana finding out what he'd done. “That leaves me a lot of room, Lexi.”

She winked at him. “I'm well aware of that. Just make certain he's alive when I come back. Benito, you do everything he says. He isn't nearly as patient as Max.”

She shot Benito a warning glance and then left the room, taking the tray of needles with her. Gavriil was pretty
certain, if he were capable, he would have fallen in love with her right then and there. He had no clue how love felt, so he dismissed the idea and turned his attention back to Benito.

“Let's get you cleaned up, kid,” Gavriil said. He blew out a couple of candles as he went by them on his way to the bathroom. The first aid kit was under the sink. “Sit in that chair over there. You never let a knife wound go. Not ever. Sometimes the germs on the blade are worse than the cut. Always clean it as soon as possible.”

Benito sank into the chair, staring with wide eyes at the massive scars covering Gavriil's body. There was everything from burns to what looked like grated skin as well as bullet and knife scars. There were whip marks across his back and a large shiny indentation from a shotgun. The scars on his chest were the worst, the ridges circular from where the knife had been twisting as it was brought out of his flesh.

“Yeah. Take a good look, kid. This isn't the high life. You don't want to go into this business and end up with no life, no family and a body like mine. Raise your chin. This is going to sting.”

Gavriil pressed an alcohol wipe to the seeping wound. The boy didn't make a sound. Tears welled in his eyes but he sat absolutely still. Grudging respect had Gavriil hastily applying the soothing ointment that contained a triple antibiotic. He sank into the chair across from the kid.

“I'm Gavriil. Gavriil Prakenskii. You're Max's boy?” He crossed his arms across his chest, allowing his legs to stretch out in front of him. He was well within striking distance. Both arms could swing up or down easily blocking any attack, and both feet, in that lazy sprawl, could easily kick a target. The position was very deceptive and one he'd cultivated to look as if he was completely relaxed.

Benito cleared his throat. “He's adopting us. My sisters and me.”

Gavriil nodded slowly. “I hear you lost your parents.”

“They were murdered.” Benito nearly spat the words, rage welling up.

“Tough. That's tough. My parents were murdered too. You have to be careful, kid. That burn you feel in your gut can be dangerous and lead you down paths you don't want to go. Max is a good man. He's tough as nails and he's a scary son of a bitch, but he's a good man. You listen to him and learn from him.”

“He told me to stay away from here.”

“But you didn't listen. Why?”

“Something bad happened this morning but they don't want to tell us. I think it happened to Lexi. She's . . . like us. She knows.”

“And that makes her one of you,” Gavriil said, making the jump in the boy's thinking.

Benito nodded. “We wanted to make sure she was all right. If she was alone, I was going to ask her to tell me what happened so I could tell my sisters. Lucia is really upset and having a hard time. She likes Lexi. We all do.”

Gavriil studied the boy's face. There was more to it than what the kid was admitting. He softened his voice, reminding himself he was talking to a child and a traumatized one at that. “You came here to protect her, didn't you?”

Benito ducked his head. “Yeah.”

“That's why you brought the weapons, isn't it?”

Benito squirmed, looking extremely uncomfortable. “Yeah,” he admitted, looking down at the floor.

The kid was priceless. He was capable of being a little assassin if Max didn't watch out. “Do you know how to use either of them properly?”

“Max has been teaching me,” the boy mumbled.

“The fact that you won't look at me tells me you know you were wrong to touch those weapons, Benito. Playing with guns or knives is a really bad idea. Protecting the people you love is a serious business. You don't do silly things. If you take possession of a weapon, you need to know what you're doing. You don't get to be a kid playing a game. The moment you pick up that gun or knife, you're a man making a man's decisions and they'd better be right, they'd better be something you can live with.”

Gavriil felt Lexi's approach. She moved across the ground lightly, a part of nature, but he had her imprint inside of him and he knew the flow of her, the feel of her. The moment she was near, the pull on him was strong, as if they were two magnets drawn to each other. He wondered if she felt the same way.

He wasn't entirely certain what the Prakenskii connection did in terms of sealing or binding Lexi to him, but he felt that bond in every cell of his body. He knew he would always know when she was close. She wasn't alone either.