"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost.
She couldn't help the snort that escaped her as she rolled her eyes, after scanning the scene below her. There were more bodyguards than guests and she couldn't help finding the situation amusing.
"What a joke." She said to herself, looking at all the men well beyond their prime, peacocking around.
"You're bleeding?"
The voice behind her questioned thought she knew it was a statement of I'm considering strangling you right now. And she really did not want to deal with this now. Pasting a bright smile she knew she could see right through she turned to face the big tank of human who was partially visible because of the lamps she turned on.
"Nothing a band aid won't hold solve Mr Litovchenko." She teased.
The balanced the glass she had not yet drank from on the balcony railing before sashaying towards him. The clink of her heels muffled by the soft carpet she stopped a few steps in front of him, still having to crane her neck as she pulled her leather coat off the arm in discussion, brushing her hair away onto the other shoulder.
"See, just teeny weeny a scratch."
The man in front of her seethed. And it dripped off his behemoth form. His mouth opened and closed. And repeated the motion, she was amused, he was not as he shook his head walking off towards the bathroom muttering to himself. Better to himself than have a go at her she shrugged, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, she new it would need two or three stitches. He returned, putting the first aid box down on one side before half curling around her.
"Arm." Okay so silent treatment was how he was going to go about it this time.
He shifted the arm and his leg so that it rested upon it before going in to disinfect. He worked quietly and with precision, preparing the needle, telling her he's starting and then stitching up the jagged line. Once done he disinfected again, before silently getting up to tidy away the stuff he used. Clean freak. She sighed with a shake of her head as she got up.
She took a look at the dress that sat on the bed knowing it wasn't going on. It looked like a nuns dress. And frumpy. She was anything but frumpy.
"Over my god damn dead body." She muttered to herself as the silent giant returned.
Ignoring him she walked to the mirror checking out his neat handiwork once again. She knew it would scar faintly, it wouldn't be her first. Small nicks and long scars were etched across her forearms, her back and upper thigh. A particularly pinkish one, long, jagged and deep across her neck and right collarbone. She often found herself rubbing her hand across it in when it deep thought.
"Bandage Iskra." He said as if she was a child.
"I know Niki." She turned to smile at him as she rolled her eyes.
The behemoth simply shook his head as he approached, bandage in had finishing off his handiwork. Once done he took a step back to glare down at her. She peered up at him through her lashes, her uninjured arm rising, finger feathering across his chest.
"People would think you love me Niki with the way you're trying to incinerate me to a pile of ash at your feet with the way your glaring at me." She cooed.
"You're a force to be reckoned with you know that woman." He sneered. She decided to believe it was laced with love.
She tutted, shaking her head before she turned around to make sure she still looked okay. The latex high waisted shorts stuck like second skin, she simply wiped off the little stain she was sure was blood. The legs harness she wore had three straps each looped around her legs, sitting over her sheer tights to create the thinnest of barriers between skin and her sharp shiny metal pieces that sat strapped to her inner thigh. Unsafe, yes but she loved the shivers it sent down her spine, that one wrong move and she could nick herself. She played with her hair, considering if she should put it in an updo so if she wished to take her jacket off her back would be on show, considering the halter neck was held together by two buttons at the nape of her neck and began again to cover her lower back. The thick harness she wore around her waist like a belt was more to support her boobs, the end being two long pieces of leather that she wrapped around her waist, settling it right above where the halter connected so it could bite into her skin just, with the end bought to the front and tied right in the centre in the daintiest of bows.
"Don't let my brother hear you Mr litvichenko, he'll hit you even though he would agree." She sang.
Hair down she decided it, so she can feel it against her skin. Deciding against her shoulder pads, she took them off cleaning up her red lipstick that matched the red soles of her black boots. And only then did she turn to look into the eyes of the behemoth she was in love with. She batted her eyelashes, exaggerated the sway of her hips just a little as she beelined for him. He wasn't immune to her that much she knew making her smirk a secret smile that was only for him. He looked like an formidable beast but Nikita Litovchenko was just as affected by her as she was him and it sent delicious shivers down her spine every time.
"Now, there's not much you can do now is there Mr Litovchenko, after all, I'm a woman on a mission and the path in front of me mapped and cleared by you and my brother."
She patted his cheek letting the hand rest against his chest for a second as she leaned her weight into him. He stood stock still, eyes boring into her. She recognised the look in his eyes, the emotion that made them turn the dark brown it almost looked black.
"I could simply take you over my knee until you understand personal safety." He shrugged nonchalantly.
She snorted into his face. Couldn't help the glint on amusement that for sure was in her eyes and she hated her teeth as if about to bite.
"You could try love, but it wouldn't end well. I'm not a child never got to be and the scars I have only silently scream so." She sneered.
Turning her back on him she decided ignoring him until he let go of his stupid blinding anger would be the most grown up way to deal with him. Especially considering how she knew the man refused to hear rhyme and reason when in a mood. He could rival her pms any day.
"але ти мій" he replied.
The three words had her heart melting a little into a pool at her feet. Made her glare waver as she came to a halt, hand still on the doorknob as she looked back at him over her shoulder. She sighed, loudly before turning her head and leaving him in her room, the door wide open and the beast of nightmares hidden half in the dark.
"You've checked with your men again?" Misha asked once they were alone again.
"Yes, the last family just walked in." He replied eyes scanning the garden.
"And Iskra?" The man stated.
Niki couldn't help the huff that escaped his lips as he glared at the man next to him.
"Your sister got back over an hour ago. Cut to the upper arm but otherwise completely fine. Said it's been taken care of." He crossed his arms as Misha reciprocated his look.
"Watch yourself Niki, you know there's no controlling a woman seeking revenge, you know that." He did, didn't mean he had to like it.
"I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it." He ground out giving up a battle he knew he'd never win.
Misha Skliar regraded him empathy. His sister was no an easy person to deal with, even he knew that. And ever since his boss had come into power he made his sister his equal, giving her every choice she had been robbed of growing up, given her an identity and power that was not defined by what she had between her legs. He respected the man more for it considering the younger Skliar sibling had been beaten, bruised and scarred up by her father and his men when she should have been protected. Safe to say a thirst for blood made the Skliar siblings people you didn't want as enemies in this day and age.
He felt his hackles rise. So he naturally sought at the sight of the woman who ran through his veins like a drug. Just the sight of her safe and in front of him making him breath just a little bit easier.
She was outright sad at this point. She was just glad she hasn't begun visibly pouting yet as she sat at the bar. She was shit at ignoring him, his presence even though he was across the garden to her, standing by her brother.
"They're a sight aren't they?" The soft husky voice of the woman she loved spoke from next to her.
Sahar Skliar, her sister in law and best friend had that dreamy look in her eyes that she got every time she looked at her husband. Iskra rolled her eyes a little in disgust considering it was her brother she was looking at like that.
"He's the one who should be considering himself lucky that you chose to keep him around after the crap he pulled." She snorted, taking the little bundle out of her arms.
She sniffed the new baby smell in like it was an aphrodisiac. The doesn't sent a little pang to her heart. Her niece yawned before a gummy smile took over, still awake at baby god forsaken hour.
"You talk as if you wouldn't lay your life for you loved ones even if they hurt you Iskra, you bark louder than you bite." Sahar laughed softly at her, before stroking her baby's head.
"You know I wouldn't hesitate, and you love my bark." She bared her teeth in a full scale smile.
"Lord I miss this smell so much." She groaned cradling the baby more tightly into her bosom.
Sahar simply laughed at her crazy.
Misha was engrossed in conversation in one corner of the room. The woman seated at the bar. Iskra just finished with chewing out one of the man from one of the other families which had him tense and ready to shoot him dead if he touched even a strand of her hair, when one of the monitors on his belt sent vibrations down his. The feeling of duty, he headed inside instead of to the woman who was staring him down from across the room like she could incinerate him with just a look .
She was angry. I will behead you angry. She knew her nostrils flared because it never failed to make Sahar laugh. And that woman laugh could even make her crack a smile at the worst of times.
"Stop it." She side eyed the woman.
Turning her focus back onto the people she took note of exactly who from where was here tonight. Mentally combed through every file her, Niki and Misha had put together over the past four months to bring them to this night. The beginning of a new era if the night and next month went according to plan. She wasn't above holding her breath to ensure it did.
"Your lover boy is on his way." She said to Sahar louder than needed.
Her brother ignored her rolling his eyes as he took his daughter from her arms.
"I love you too sister." He ruffled her hair with one hand.
She swatted at it half heartedly as she let out genuine smile take over her face. This was a part of her family. Family she loved and prayed to see happy one day. She felt complete when an arm swivelled her stool and a heater of warmth hit her from the back. Lips as familiar as her own reflection met the skin of where her neck met her shoulder. She sighed giving him more access as she leant all her weight into him. His arm the size of a tank wrapped around her midriff like a band of steel. And all she could feel and smell was her Niki.
"Not mad at me anymore." She whispered as she watched her brother fawn all over her best friend in half happiness and half disgust.
"Love you too much for that, Mrs Litovchenko."
She looked up at him, soaking in her husband. The man looked resigned to the fact she was essentially a feral cat. This was just the dance they danced every other day and she was okay with it. Just meant he cared and love her too much for his own good. Like the scars on his body, the blood he had bled for her didn't already prove that.
The baby giant in his arms cooed. So she cooed right back reaching her arms out to him as Niki lent down to give the baby giant to her.
"Missed mama didn't you," she sang into his face.
Her son babbled back wide awake before stuffing his hand into his mouth.
"Mikhail napped longer during the day which means no sleep for us tonight." Niki grumbled.
She laughed, catching his eyes as she turned into him.
"You we're just hoping to get lucky tonight Mr Litovchenko."
His other arm wrapped around and their son taking some of his weight off her arms. The child was nine months going on looking over a year old with how big he was. Size of a tank she marvelled at how he came out of her without ripping her in half and had told her beloved husband so. He simply had the nerve to just laugh because seriously man and son were disproportionately big if you ask her.
"Do you blame me? I'm obsessed with my woman." He snapped her out of her thoughts making her narrow her eyes at him.
"You're woman who has no plans of letting you near her anytime soon." She lied.
"Two behemoth humans are enough to deal with at the moment." She nodded at him and Mikhail.
What did he do? He laughed, making the few people who caught it turn their head as if they've just seen that Bigfoot exists. She stared at them blankly catching their eyes. Her way of saying turn the hell back around.
"You think everything's going to be okay from now." She whispered to him voicing her biggest fear.
Her biggest fear was this happiness being ripped away. Her family had settled, there were children. A new order which her family led. Power, security, contentment. All the things she was convinced she would never have in this lifetime. She couldn't help the niggling thought that sometimes crept in, her fathers voice.
"I fought for you didn't I?" Her pillar of strength whispered back.
"Killing me is the only way anyone will get me to stop." He stated like it was fact.
She didn't want to cry as she looked into his face, puckering her lips which he took as the sign she was sending and lent down the kiss her. Soft full lips against hers. The familiar taste of him that led to her dropping all her armour and blossom with peace she had never been privy to feeling before him. She knew a tear must've escaped with how one of the bands of steel left her waist swiping at her face before settling to cradle her cheek.
"Preferably this time could you maybe not face the brink of death." She joked as the distant memory fleeted behind her eyes.
"Was worth it thought wasn't it." He smiled back down at her, giving her another kiss.
"Hmmm true I guess, nothing screams serious like my father almost killing you and that being how my brother finding out his little sister has actually been married to his right hand man and best friend for over a year in secrecy."
He hummed back nibbling on her neck letting her sarcasm wash over and down his back like water. She couldn't help the voiceless laugh as he snuggled into her neck. How many times had he ignored personal safety for her, and now thinks he can lactire her about it? The man had saved her from the edge too many times. And the times he couldn't he fell right into the dark with her so that she wouldn't be alone. She felt the sins of the past begin to clog up her airways. She stamped them down as much as she could, trying to settle her racing heart and mind back into the moment of now.
"Have I told you I love you today Mr litvochenko." She said in a hushed tone just for him.
She felt the no more than head the garbled sound against her skin.
"I love you" she whispered the lovers secret.
She smiled cheekily at herself.
"Have I told you I think I might be pregnant again."
Now that had snap up straight like a Jack knife looking surprised.
"What?!" He hissed.
"Just a feeling, I missed my period last month and this month." She was playing with him.
"Plus my boobs have been feeling a little heavier than normal." She teased.
The man, her man simply narrowed his eyes at her.
"You really are going to be the death of me aren't you love?"
She shrugged as much as she could in his arms.
"Two under two huh? Guess things are about to get crazy."
Those eyes she loved, that her son shared with him looked down at her with soft tenderness.
"As if our lives are normal." She snorted, eyes soft and crinkling at the sides..to yelp.
"Ow, you little shit." She hissed, head snapping down to look at her little boy who just yanked at her hair now bored with people watching and giving goofy smiles at her brother who was laughing at her pain.
She elbowed the man at her back as she felt his chest rumble with laughter. She narrowed her eyes, looking at one than the other.
"Not funny assholes."
"I love you too." The two smart asses replied at the same time making her shake her head up at the sky like an over exaggerated actress as if she wasn't smiling.
She really did love her little family.