Elena's POV
Pain exploded in her wrist. It wasn't just the pressure; it was the shocking cold of his grip and the sheer, terrifying strength behind it. Elena gasped, the sound sharp in the frozen air. Her flashlight clattered to the ground, its beam rolling wildly across the bloody snow and illuminating his face in strobe-like flashes.
His gray eyes were wide, unseeing for a second, then hyper-focused on her. They held no humanity in that moment, only the feral calculation of a wounded animal cornered. She saw his other hand twitch, clawing at the ground as if searching for a weapon.
He's going to kill me. The thought was ice-clear. She'd tried to help, and now he would snap her wrist or worse, because in his world, anything that moved in the dark was a threat.
"Let go!" she cried out, trying to yank her arm back. It was like trying to pull free from a stone statue. His fingers were vise-locks. Panic, pure and blinding, shot through her veins.
"Who sent you?" he rasped, his voice a raw scrape of sound. Blood speckled his lips. His eyes darted past her, scanning the alley's shadows for other shapes. "Where are they?"
"N-no one sent me!" she stammered, tears of pain and fear springing to her eyes. "I heard a noise! I'm a doctor! You're bleeding!"
Her words seemed to filter through the haze of his pain and instinct. His piercing gaze snapped back to her face, truly looking at her this time. He saw the fear, yes, but also the way her free hand was still pressed against the makeshift bandage of her sweater, staunching the flow of his blood. He saw her shivering violently in just her t-shirt in the sub-zero wind. He saw the open, worried look in her honey-brown eyes, not the cold gleam of an assassin.
The brutal pressure on her wrist lessened by a fraction. Not freedom, but the threat level changed. Confusion warred with the survivalist fury in his expression.
"A doctor?" he repeated, skepticism dripping from the word. He tried to lift his head to look at his side, and a wave of fresh agony contorted his features. A harsh groan was torn from him, and his grip spasmed again, making her whimper.
"A vet," she clarified quickly, the absurdity of it hitting her even in her terror. "But stitching is stitching, and you're losing blood fast. Please, you have to let me get you inside. You'll die out here from the cold or the blood loss before anyone finds you."
His eyes were losing their sharp focus. The adrenaline that had given him that burst of deadly strength was fading, leaving the catastrophic wound and the hypothermia to take over. His head fell back against the frozen ground with a soft thud. His breathing became more ragged, shallow.
"Orlov…?" he muttered, his words slurring.
"I don't know what that is!" Elena said, desperation giving her own voice strength. "My name is Elena. I own the animal clinic right there." She nodded with her head toward the open door, the wedge of warm, yellow light spilling onto the alley floor like a promise of safety. "That's all I am. Now, are you going to let me save your life, or are we both going to freeze to death while you decide if I'm a threat?"
A long, tense moment passed. The wind howled, whipping her hair across her face. The Christmas music from the main street seemed a universe away. In his gray eyes, she saw the internal war: a lifetime of trusting no one versus the undeniable, logical truth that he had zero other options.
With a final, shuddering exhale that clouded in the air, his fingers uncurled.
The release was so sudden she almost fell backwards. She cradled her throbbing wrist to her chest, staring at the red marks already forming. He didn't apologize. His eyes were closed again, his face a mask of exhausted defeat.
"Okay," she whispered, more to herself. "Okay. Now the hard part."
She stood on shaky legs and grabbed the flashlight. She would need both hands. She stuffed the light into the waistband of her scrubs. Then, bending her knees, she wrapped her arms under his shoulders again, hooking her hands under his armpits. He was a dead weight, all dense muscle and sodden wool.
"This is really going to hurt," she warned him, unsure if he could even hear her.
She pulled. Her boots slipped in the bloody slush. She grunted, muscles in her back and legs screaming in protest. She managed to drag him a foot. It was like trying to move a felled tree. A sob of frustration escaped her. She wasn't strong enough.
Yes, you are. You have to be. The thought of leaving him here, of watching the light leave those intense gray eyes, was suddenly unacceptable. She braced again, digging her heels in.
"On three," she muttered, a habit from coaxing large, frightened dogs. "One… two… THREE!"
She threw all her weight backward. His body slid another agonizing foot. The friction of his coat on the rough ground was the only sound. She did it again. And again. Each tug sent fresh bolts of pain through her own body, but she was making progress. The open doorway grew closer, inch by torturous inch.
Sweat mixed with the melting snow on her forehead. Her breath came in ragged pants, pluming in the cold air. She didn't allow herself to think, only to pull. He was a task. A patient. A large, unconscious, terrifying patient.
Finally, after what felt like an hour, his shoulders crossed the threshold. The warmth from inside washed over them. With one last, Herculean heave, she dragged his torso fully into the small back room of the clinic. She couldn't get him onto an exam table; she'd never manage that. She left him on the clean, tiled floor, panting from the effort.
She slammed the door shut, locking the world and whoever had done this to him out. The sudden silence was profound, broken only by their combined ragged breathing and the hum of the building.
She flicked on the overhead lights. In the harsh, clinical brightness, he looked even worse. Deathly pale, lips tinged blue. The pool of blood on her nice, clean floor was horrifying. Time was slipping away.
"Okay, mister. Let's see what we're dealing with."
She grabbed her trauma shears from a drawer. Kneeling beside him, she didn't ask for permission. She started cutting. The expensive wool coat gave way with a rough tear. The fine cashmere sweater beneath was next, soaked and heavy with blood. The shirt underneath was silk, now ruined. She cut through it all, exposing his torso to the air.
The wound was a savage, deep gash just below his ribs. It was clean, from a very sharp blade. It was still oozing dark blood. But her trained eye saw it had missed, by a whisper, anything immediately fatal. He was bleeding copiously from damaged muscle and maybe a nicked vessel, but his organs seemed spared. Luck. Incredible luck.
But as she reached for antiseptic and gauze to clean the area, her gaze traveled upward, past the wound.
And there it was.
Spread across the left side of his chest, over his heart, was a tattoo. But it was unlike any she'd ever seen. It wasn't a clumsy anchor or a blurred name. It was a masterpiece of dark ink and startling amber highlights. A massive, powerful wolf, its head thrown back in a silent, eternal howl. One detailed, razor-sharp paw rested on a simple, stark crown. The wolf's eyes, colored that eerie, piercing amber, seemed to stare right at her, full of ancient challenge and predatory grace.
It wasn't a decoration. It was a brand. A heraldic symbol. A declaration.
This wasn't just a man who'd been mugged. This was a man who belonged to something. Something organized, violent, and proud. The kind of symbol you saw in news reports about things that happened in other cities, to other people.
Her blood, already cold from the alley, turned to ice in her veins. Her hands, which had been moving with confident purpose, froze mid-air, clutching the antiseptic-soaked gauze.
She was alone, in a locked building after midnight, with a member of what could only be the Russian mafia bleeding on her floor.
And his eyes were open again.
He was awake, watching her. He saw where her gaze was locked. He saw the dawning horror on her face. He didn't look away. He just watched, as if waiting for her to make her next move. The wolf on his chest and the man lying beneath it were one and the same, a single, terrifying entity.
His eyes flutter open, and his hand locks around her wrist like iron.