Wildblood

Chapter 7

7

Kai

It was close to four in the morning when Kai returned, his body and ego equally bruised. He didn’t have to flick on the light to know Miya was curled up on the couch waiting for him; her anxiety wafted through the air like a bitter odor.

She sat up, the throw sliding from her shoulders. “Where the hell have you been?”

Worry and agitation laced her voice, the latter winning out now that he was home. He hit the switch, and the dull overhead bulb winked on. “Sorry.”

She’d probably called a dozen times, but his phone had died while he’d been hashing out the terms of his blunder with Sergei.

Trailing over him with widening eyes, her gaze lingered on his jaw where fresh bruises had bloomed. She flew off the couch and cradled his face between her hands. “What happened?”

He fled her probing stare, fixating on the floor between them. “I met someone like me.”

Her fingers stilled against his cheekbones. “What?”

“I lost.” It came out strangled, and he chuckled darkly. He really was stunned.

Miya’s mouth hung open as she parroted him. “You lost?” She stepped away, hands dropping to her sides. “Back up. What do you mean, you met someone like you?”

“Big Russian guy. Smelled like Siberia. Strongest, fastest motherfucker I’ve ever seen.” He swallowed, fighting against the lump clotting his throat. “Said his name was Ivan Zverev.”

Miya was silent as she sieved through the information. “Is he a wolf? Like you and Ama?”

“I don’t know.” It didn’t matter. His parents had been like him, but it wasn’t just genetic; he was the reincarnation of a god of destruction: Sendoa, the wolf from the Dreamwalker’s fable. None of it made sense. Even Ama wasn’t like him—a different bloodline, an origin she wouldn’t disclose.

Miya sat down on the couch’s armrest. “And you said he smelled like Siberia?”

Kai nodded, exhaustion tugging at his bones. “We might be from the same area.”

Miya knew he was born in Surgut, Western Siberia to a Russian father and a Tatar mother. They left when he was young, and he remembered only fragments of his life before Alice. Curious about his heritage, Miya had researched the region’s history while he feigned indifference, but he’d listened while she regaled him about Tatar and Slav migrations, deportations, and the oil boom of the ’60s. In the absence of something concrete, he quietly adopted Miya’s theories. They were true for someone, and they might’ve been true for him too.

“Are you okay?” Her question snapped him back.

“I’m good,” he said automatically, then bit the side of his tongue. Connor was right. He had no clue what he was talking about. “I’ll be fine,” he amended, scooping her from the armrest and planting a kiss on her forehead. He was tired, and he didn’t want to talk—a convenient excuse to omit the worst part of his night.

“Are you okay for money?” she asked.

“Money’s not a problem.” Vague, but technically not a lie.

Miya accepted his evasion and pressed her lips to the uninjured side of his jaw. “Coming to bed?”

“I’ll be there after I shower.” His hold on her slackened, and she disappeared into the bedroom.

With a heavy sigh, Kai trudged to the bathroom, feeling like a sack of shit. Stripping off his clothes, he gripped either side of the sink and took stock of himself in the mirror. If his ribs were tender before, they were completely mangled now. A mural of blue mottled one side of his abdomen and stretched over his hipbone all the way to his groin. His legs were shredded from the strain, and he’d definitely pulled a hamstring. Shadows clung to the hollows beneath his eyes, the faint purple matching the bruises lining his cheek and jaw. His lip was split again, and he ran his tongue over the swollen scab, iron and salt greeting him. Despite the wraps, his knuckles were scraped raw. Several of his fingers were jammed, and at least one was fractured. Scratching through his disheveled black hair, his hand came away moist with sweat, and he reached into the shower to turn the knob. Normally, he preferred cold showers, but something warm on his skin sounded…nice. He had more than the loss weighing on him, and he was pissed that Sergei hadn’t told him the stakes of losing.

Kai closed his eyes and let the water cascade down his back. It took a while for his hair to soak; it was like the double coat that protected him when he was a wolf—coarse and water resistant to guard from the elements. In the dreamscape, he could transition seamlessly between his two forms, but here, restricted by the laws of nature, it was excruciating. Like being broken apart and put back together.

He took his time lathering up, distracted as he replayed the night’s events. Apparently, he’d lost something highly coveted by two competing factions of Bratva—one of them run by Sergei’s boss, Pyotr . Neither could claim the thing because it’d been discovered on neutral territory. Unwilling to start a turf war, the match at the Confessional was meant to determine who’d claim the prize. And because Kai had squandered the damn thing, Sergei demanded he steal it back before the other faction retrieved it.

So much for a fair contest.

The mission was entirely covert; Pyotr didn’t know that Sergei planned to surprise him with the retrieval. Kai had refused, but shirking a debt to Bratva wasn’t that simple. He could skip town, but he knew from experience that outrunning demons was like pulling a gun on a fruit fly. For the first time in his miserable life, he’d built his own home, and he wasn’t alone. He had Miya, Crowbar, and Bastien. They depended on each other, and Sergei made no bones of reminding him.

“We know you’ve got a girl at home. She works at that bar your friends run, yeah? That’s in our territory,” he’d said as he snuck a puff of his cigarette. “Is all that worth sacrificing because you don’t want to get your hands a little dirty?”

Fuck . Why hadn’t Sergei told him that if he lost, his life would change?

Kai rinsed out the suds, then leaned against the cold tiles, enjoying the water a few moments longer. Sergei called it the forgery , though he couldn’t explain what it was.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” was all he’d divulged, but he had no leads on where this neutral party was stashing it. The location would be revealed to the winner, and Kai had until the exchange to filch it.

Vigorously toweling off, he stepped out of the steaming bathroom, the cool hallway air prickling his skin. As soon as he crawled into bed, Miya rolled over and plastered herself to him. He wrapped an arm around her and exhaled slowly. He had to tell her. He could excuse not doing it tonight, but tomorrow…

She mumbled, the crown of her head fitting snuggly under his jaw. Guilt settled in the pit of his gut like a stone. He’d messed up. Really, really messed up. He tried keeping Miya out of Bratva business, but he’d been na?ve to think they wouldn’t eventually leverage her. Her absence from his fights staved off a few prying eyes, but it was impossible to avert every pair.

Kai refused to drag her further into his shit. He’d fix this quickly and quietly, and when he was done, he’d tell Sergei to keep him out of mob business. Anything less would earn him a maw around his jugular.

Maybe then he could show Miya how badly he wanted her at the Confessional with him .

He had to find out where this forgery was kept. Sifting through Bratva was out of the question, but maybe an outside party would be willing to squeal—someone like him. A freelancer.

Kai’s heart juddered in his chest. There was, in fact, someone like him.

Ivan Zverev.

He’d probably been contracted for the fight like Kai, which meant he had no real stake in this charade. Mobsters had loose tongues, and Vanya Zverev had sharp ears.

All Kai had to do was sniff out his kin.

His nerves settled now that he had a plan, but the rest of him revolted at having to interact with Zverev.

Zverev.

What was it about those six letters that twisted him up?

Kai let his weight sink into the mattress, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion even as his mind reeled. His thoughts raced in an incoherent blur, and when he could no longer cling to a single thread, his body finally let go.