He sat at the desk, flipping through paperwork, as if I wasn’t glaring at the damn bed like it had personally offended me.
Fine.
I grabbed the armchair. Dragged it across the floor with stubborn defiance. Positioned it by the fire. Threw every blanket and pillow I could find onto it like a fortress.
He didn’t even blink.
Eventually, I collapsed onto it, arms crossed. Daring him to comment.
He didn’t.
Instead, he moved to the bed, sat on the edge, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled like a man deciding how many demons to let loose tonight.
“You’re sulking,” he said at last. Calm. Flat.
“I’m surviving.”
A flicker, barely there, crossed his mouth. Not a smirk. Something darker. Something haunted.
“Sleep wherever you want, malyshka,” he said. “But don’t expect me to move if you fall.”
The nerve of this man.
“You think I want to be anywhere near you?” I snapped.
That flicker deepened.
Still, he said nothing. Just leaned back on the bed like a king surveying his battlefield.
I turned away before I could throw something.
The fire cracked low. The storm outside whispered against the glass.
But inside me, something louder stirred. Something dangerous.
I didn’t know when I drifted to sleep. Didn’t know what pulled me awake. A sound? A shift in air? My heart beating too fast?
The fire had burned low. The bed was empty.
My breath caught.
There, by the window, stood Misha. Shirtless. Silent. Still.
A statue carved in shadow and cold light.
His back was a battlefield. Scars and muscle and violence.
The kind that told stories you didn’t ask to hear.
Smoke curled from the cigarette in his hand. A slow, ghostly prayer to gods who never listened.
He hadn’t noticed me. Or maybe he had and he just didn’t care.
I hesitated. “I’m not a monster, Misha. I don’t know what twisted you into this, but... maybe we could just try talking. Like actual humans.”
A long silence. Then, the ghost of a smile.
“Go to sleep, malyshka.”
