"No, I can manage on my own - "
He gave her a no-arguments lift of his brow. "The shirt, Renata. Let me help you out of it so I can have a better look at what's going on with that wound."
Obviously, he wasn't about to give it up. Renata sat very still as Nikolai unfastened the last few buttons on the tent-sized oxford and gently eased it off her. The cotton fell in a soft crush on her lap and around her hips. Despite that she was wearing a bra, modesty ingrained in her from her early years in the church orphanage made her lift her hands up to shield her br**sts from his eyes. But he wasn't looking at her in a sexual way just then. All his focus was on her shoulder right now. He was gentle, careful, his fingers probing lightly around the area. He followed the curve of her shoulder over and around to where the bullet had left her flesh. "Does it hurt when I touch you here?"
Even though his touch was barely a skimming contact, pain radiated through her. She winced, sucking in her breath.
"Sorry. There's a lot of redness and swelling near the exit wound," he said, his deep voice vibrating in her bones while his touch moved lightly on her. "It doesn't look great, but I think if we flush it out and..."
As his voice trailed off, she knew what he was seeing now. Not the raw gunshot wound, but two other blemishes on the otherwise smooth skin of her back. She felt those marks sear as hotly as they had the night they'd been put there.
"Holy hell." Nikolai's breath left him in a slow sigh. "What happened to you? Are these burn marks? Jesus...are they brands?"
Renata closed her eyes. Part of her wanted nothing more than to shrink away and vanish into the tile, but she forced herself to remain still, her spine rigidly erect. "They are nothing."
"Bullshit." He stood before her and lifted her chin on the edge of his hand. She let her gaze drift up to meet his and found his pale eyes sharp with intensity. There was no pity in those eyes, only a cold outrage that took her aback. "Tell me. Who did this to you - was it Yakut?"
She shrugged. "Just one of his more creative ways of reminding me that it's not a good idea to piss him off."
"That son of a bitch," Nikolai fumed. "He had his death coming. Just for this - for everything he did to you - the bastard damn well had it coming."
Renata blinked, surprised to hear such fury, such fierce protectiveness, coming from him. Particularly when Nikolai was one of the Breed and she was, as was made clear to her often enough the past two years, merely human. Existing only because she was useful. "You're not like him at all," she murmured. "I thought you would be, but you're nothing like him or Lex or the others. You're...I don't know...different."
"Different?" Although the intensity hadn't left his eyes, Nikolai's mouth quirked at the corner. "Was that almost a compliment, or just your fever talking?"
She smiled despite her state of general misery. "Both, I think."
"Well, different I can handle. Let's cool you down before you start throwing around the n-word."
"The n-word?" she asked, watching as he took the bottle of liquid hand soap from the sink and squirted some into the running bath.
"Nice," he said, and tossed her a wry look over his thick shoulder.
"You're not comfortable with nice?"
"It's never been one of my specialties."
His grin was crooked and more than a little charming as it made his lean cheeks dimple on both sides. Looking at him like this, it wasn't hard to imagine he was a male of many specialties, not all of them the bullets-and-blades variety. She knew firsthand that he had a very nice, very skilled mouth. As much as she wanted to deny it, a part of her was still burning from their kiss back at the lodge, and the heat she felt had nothing to do with her fever.
"Get undressed," Nikolai told her, and for one addled second she wondered if he'd been able to read her thoughts. He ran his hand back and forth through the sudsy water in the tub, then shook it out. "It feels about right. Go on, climb in." Renata watched him set the soap bottle back down on the sink, then start a search of the vanity cabinet below, taking out a folded washcloth and a large towel. While his back was to her and he was distracted searching the toiletries pack for soap and shampoo, Renata quickly slipped out of her bra and panties then stepped into the bathtub.
The cool water was bliss. She sank down with a sigh, her fatigued body instantly soothed. As she carefully settled in and submerged herself up to her br**sts in the soapy bath, Nikolai ran a washcloth under cold water at the sink.
He folded it and pressed it gently against her brow. "That feel all right?"
She nodded, closing her eyes as he held the compress to her forehead. The urge to lean back against the tub was tempting, but when she tried to, that brief moment of pressure on her shoulder made her recoil, hissing in pain.
"Here," Nikolai said, putting the palm of his free hand at the center of her back. "Just relax. I'll hold you up."
Renata slowly let her weight come to rest on his strong hand. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had taken care of her. Not like this. God, had there ever been a time? Her eyes drifted closed in silent gratitude. With Nikolai's strong hands on her tired body, a strange, utterly foreign sensation of safety spread over her, as comforting as a blanket.
"Better?" he asked.
"Mm-hmm. It's nice," she said, then opened one eye just a slit and glanced at up him. "N-word. Sorry."
He grunted as he took the cold compress away from her brow. He was looking at her with a seriousness that made her heart kick a little in her chest. "You want to tell me about those marks on your back?"