Claimed

ALEXIA GREEN. 

Russia is unrelenting. 

The winds blow right at us carrying the sheer cold that makes my cheeks go numb. I can’t feel my toes either and that might be a sign my body has stopped resisting the cold. 

The chances of hypothermia clawing every cell in my body, I loop my arms around his lean neck 

the more. 

He doesn’t speak. 

Doesn’t even groan at the wound that throbs the more he walks and the more he carries me. 

Deep down, being afraid and all, a strange feeling settles in the pits of my stomach maybe because I’m starting to understand this man more than I 

should. 

He doesn’t feel anything because he’s not allowing himself to. 

Almost as if the very thing supposed to make him feel is hollow. And I know his heart is made of stone metaphorically speaking but right now? 

His ugliness seeps into the air and I smell it and it almost makes me want to cry. 

15 

I’ve hit rock bottom so many times and each of those times I allowed myself to feel. To cry, to 

vexa 

break something, to shout and call my ex a ‘bloody pig‘ for everything he did. 

This man however? 

Vicious trudges on in the snow as if he’s not about to die. 

His jaw is locked too tight like he’s crushing his molars inside his mouth but other than that? His face reveals nothing. 

No pain, no anger, nothing. 

Two steps in, my eyes are on his dark silky hair. The one that now falls to cover both sides of his 

forehead. 

Has anyone ever touched your hair, Christian? A woman, a friend? Just anyone? 

My eyes slowly fall to his cheeks, hardened by years of scowling, probably getting angry most of the time and you’d think someone who was angry most of the time would have an ugly face but not 

him. 

No, he’s as handsome and as intriguing as a black cat and I’m not even a fan of cats. 

Did your mother caress your cheeks when you were young? Did you allow her to do that in the first place? Were you loved as a kid? How’d you turn out to be like this? 

2/10 

Setting 

How’d you turn out to be Vicious? 

“You are not speaking. That makes me believe you are either dead or staring.” 

His voice startles me adding new hives to my already cold skin. 

“I’m not dead and pretty sure you wouldn’t want your nurse dead either.” 

I hold on to his working shoulder. The one that feels like a ton of bricks lined up together and sculptured to mold a mountain of a man. 

“There are many nurses out there, little Nurse.” 

The way he says Little Nurse every time frustrates me but there’s still something about those two little words that feels fuzzy on the inside. 

“Then you should have left me in the car to die it there are many nurses who’d willingly work for you.” 

“Are you saying I’m not an easy man to work with?” 

“You said it yourself, not me. I’m here and not in 

Chicago because of you so yeah, I think you are 

not an easy man to work with.” 

“I’m carrying you.” 

“You are carrying me out of guilt.” 

After you’ve countlessly scared me half to death 

Chapter 15. 

with threats. 

Vicious doesn’t reply. Instead, I feel his back straighten and his eyes glance at something far off. 

Covered with snow and next to a huge willow tree, the small cabin blends with everything and if you didn’t look close enough, you’d almost miss. 

1. it. 

“The safe house“, I exhale. 

Christian confirms my suspicions by taking a couple more steps to the small cabin. Thirteen steps later and he slowly drops me on the small stairs leading up to the cabin. 

I watch as he taps something by the side of the door and some sort of digital key card asks for a 

code. 

One shoulder bleeding, he uses his other hand to tap in the code and the sound of the door clicking roars louder than the wind. 

“Come on.” 

The cabin might be ugly from the outside but on the inside, it looks like a modern apartment from Manhattan. 

Expensive leather couches, a kitchen blended. with the living room that has almost everything including marble counters, a sink, a kitchen. island, two cookers and a two–sided fridge. 

Christian barely looks around as he storms inside the small house with his shoes on and a bigger scowl than when he ordered me to hop on his 

shoulder. 

“Are Maximo and Jett here? You said they would 

be…” 

“They are not. They left.” 

“Okay and what does that mean for us?” 

“We are stuck here unless I get a signal for this“, he waves a black talkie in the air. 

Throwing it on one of the couches he disappears down the small hallway where I’m assuming the 

bedrooms are. 

He shows up a few minutes later with a duffel bag and a red first aid kit in one hand. 

Except this time, the man towers over me 

shirtless, a bleeding wound on one shoulder and his suit pants hanging lowly on his torso you can almost see the V lines escaping inside his pants. 

If he sees me ogling, he completely ignores it because as soon as he throws the duffel bag in my direction mumbling, ‘Clothes‘, he moves right to the kitchen, dripping more blood as he moves. 

I take the bag; I open the zip and peek inside to see the clothes. 

My clothes feel almost wet, I should be removing 

D 

them from my body and wearing the very large sized t–shirts from inside the bag. 

Instead, my feet scurry to the kitchen and the image I find there almost pains me. 

Vicious sits on a kitchen stool, the first aid kit 

opened, a needle in his other hand as he tries to 

reach his shoulder. 

My hands catch his before he can continue with 

the futile attempt of trying to patch himself up. 

“Let me do it.” 

I’m almost pleading. 

Did the last doctor do this for him or did he just patch himself up to avoid human touch altogether? 

“No.” 

Ouch. 

“I’m the nurse. This is literally what you brought, 

me here to do.” 

“I didn’t think I would get hurt. You were here to treat Maximo and Jett if they got hurt.” 

“You are not a superhero Vicious; you could have gotten hurt too. Actually, you did get hurt so why don’t you quit being a big baby and let me look at your wound?” 

His gaze bores into mine and I almost feel his 

wrath. 

His legs, the ones that feel and look humongous trap me between him. I’m standing between his thighs, he either accepts my help or we stay in 

this uncomfortable situation for hours. 

“I let you look at my wound and you’ll end up getting hurt. Any time anyone inflicts pain on my body. I react. I won’t think, I’ll react.‘ 

It takes his brown eyes and the fury flashing in his eyes to understand what he’s telling me. 

I peruse through every moment I’ve been with 

this man. 

Every time he’s reacted and done something out of the usual norm for a man as evil as him. 

Like the time he choked me when we first met. When I told him I didn’t know where Rhett was and he reacted by choking me like a madman. 

I didn’t hurt him then. Or did Rhett hurt him and me not telling him about Rhett’s whereabouts provoked his reaction? 

The second time he reacted was when he choked. me back at the store. After I had just slapped him. after I had hurt him. 

Ooh. 

“Who stitches you up when you are too wounded to do it yourself?” 

Why do you hurt people when you get hurt? Did someone hurt you? I want to ask all of that but I don’t. 

“Maximo.” 

“Do you hurt him when he does it?” 

“Yes. He can take a punch or two and you can’t.” 

If he punched me, I’d probably die on the spot. 

“We have to stop the bleeding and you need not to hurt me while I’m doing so. That’s why I’m going to recommend a distraction.” 

“A distraction?” he asks surprised. 

“Your body reacts that way because you are stuck reliving a memory. A memory of someone probably hurting you so any time a different person hurts you, you think it’s the same person and you react. A distraction keeps your mind from reliving the past and focusing on the 

present. 

Focusing on me and realizing I’m not gonna hurt you. At least not intentionally.” 

His eyes which have already gone wide glaze over my eyes, over my nose and settle for my lips. 

The action itself makes the apple of my cheeks 

flush and burn with scorching red heat. 

“What distractions do you propose