“You cannot imagine the hell we endured. Children being groomed for nothing but killing. Oh, we had other lessons—how to act like a lady, how to eat properly, how to speak different languages, and how to dress. He made sure we knew how to kill and remain women. His theory was that a man would never suspect a pretty woman had been sent to kill him.
“Our lessons were hard and brutal. One day I’ll share those things with you, but not today. I want to harm others when I remember those things. We bonded over her death. Until then, we had done nothing more than use one another to survive. Ninka, as the weakest, was the fulcrum around which we pivoted. Every action we took was to survive but also to protect her. We were a unit but until her death we weren’t blooded.”
Dmitry sighed at her neck. “Stop, moye. We need not speak on these things.”
“But we do. If not for Ninka I wouldn’t have survived long enough to stand behind you in London, breathe you in and realize I was meant for more than dealing death. I would have broken as she did and been no more.”
“You are here with me now and that is enough,” he said, squeezing her tightly.
“I took your father because he was a contract but I was aware of whom he was and the horrible things he had done. I took your mother because she gave up Ninka to Joseph—handed her baby over to a madman. I do not regret taking them, Dmitry, but I do wish you hadn’t known that pain.”
Dmitry rose above her, pressing her back and kissing the skin he exposed. “This bed will not know death. Where we lay together as one will not be defiled with the past. Do you understand me?”
She nodded at the ferocity of his words.
“You haunted me from the moment I knew of your existence. You sank so deep inside me I couldn’t have prepared. All the way to my bones, moye. Bone deep. That’s how far you are inside me now and I will not let anything tear me from you.”
It was a whispered promise and her heart stilled as the amazing peace he always brought stroked her soul.
“You are mine, Asinimov. You will always be mine.” She gave her own promise and the moment stretched taut.
He smiled then, a slow curving of his luscious lips, accepting her avowal as truth.
And then her stomach growled.
Dmitry laughed and Bone allowed her own lips to curve at the sound.
“I guess I need to feed you more than cheese and crackers, eh?” he teased with a leering grin.
Bone sighed and got up, stretching.
“You are beautiful, serdtse mojo,” he told her with a smile.
“I know nothing of beauty other than what you make me feel,” she told him honestly.
They showered and dressed with an ease that spoke of years together rather than mere days.
The others were eating when she and Dmitry walked in. Bone wondered if everyone in the room knew what they’d been doing.
“Wooing went as expected, eh, Russian?” Adam called out.
Dmitry flipped him off and Bone smiled.
She didn’t understand teasing but like all of the other soft emotions, Dmitry would teach her.
Bullet nodded at her. “Bone.”
Arrow did the same. “Bone Breaker, it is good to see you looking healthy.”
“Achot,” Bone said in response—both greeting and warning. Dmitry was off limits. Her sisters nodded but they were quiet—almost too quiet. There was much to discuss.
Carmelita spooned a thick, heavy stew into bowls and placed the bowls in front of them.
“I saw Blade today in Sydney,” Rand said into the silence.
Arrow and Bullet stopped eating. Bone pinned the man with her gaze. “Are you tracking her?”
Rand shook his head. “But someone is.”
All eating stopped. “Have you seen that someone?”
Again he shook his head. “I haven’t but the signs are all there.”
The sisters looked at each other, expressions shut down. Bone drew within herself. After the delight of her days with Dmitry, to have the past revisit was abhorrent.
“You know who she is,” Adam threw out.
Bullet leaned back in her chair and glanced at Bone. “It is not my story to tell.”
“You were there, standing guard,” Bone bit out. “It is as much your story as it is ours.”
“No. I didn’t tend her. The story is yours, Arrow’s, and Blade’s. If it is to be told, one of you will do it.”
Arrow’s eyes were closed and a single tear tracked down her cheek.
Bone would not cry. The scalding hot drop on her cheek belied her intentions. Perhaps if she purged this, it would ease the blister in her soul.
“We were ten years old when Blade was taken from us to the big house. She would be gone for days at a time and she would return sad. We did not know why until one night when the rains were upon us and she ran to our quarters and got us out of bed. The girl was bleeding, she kept murmuring. So we followed her and she took us into the forest, to a building we had never seen.”
Bone drew in a deep breath. She was there with the rain and lightning and thunder.
“She took us inside and into a darkness so complete I wanted to scream. I thought I was until I realized the sounds weren’t coming from me.”
Arrow sighed. “They were coming from her, the girl.”