This is why I love Badass Dimitri :)

Enjoy!

J.F

Dimitri's name pierced the silence of the house, ripping him out of a restless sleep.

Panic made him stagger to his feet and thunder down the stairs before he was fully awake. Not finding Anya on the living room couch where he'd left her, he followed the sound of Pooka's angry barking and ran toward the glow emanating from the back room.

He entered the kitchen and his heart stopped.

Their kind hostess' son had Anya trapped beneath his body on the floor. She struggled weakly, her eyes fluttering open and shut, like her eyelids and limbs were too heavy to operate.

Time seemed to slow to a quarter of normal speed, and in his state of shock it was as though Dimitri watched his own actions as an outside observer.

He saw himself leaping onto Ivan's broad back. Wrapping the crook of his arm tightly around his neck. Dragging him backward off of Anya, who animated and scurried to safety on her hands and knees.

Taking an elbow to the gut to force Ivan onto his back. Planting his knees on Ivan's chest, a hand on his throat. Balling up his fist and striking him like all their lives depended on it.

Mouth, eyes...jaw, nose.

Over and over.

Again and again.

Blood spurted Dimitri's face, forming droplets on his lashes and making it difficult to see, but he kept going. Kept pounding fist against face until he heard the crunch of bone, until the battered flesh gave like putty, until his own hand went numb. Then he plucked his knife out of his boot.

Hands tugged at his shoulders and arms, one set delicate and female and the other rough and male, trying to move him from his purpose.

Dimitri repelled them with a violent shrug. He was now an animal driven by instinct. This piece of shit had dared to touch Anya and now he had to die.

He cursed as the blood on his palm made the knife slip in his grip. Teeth bared, he brought the edge of the blade to Ivan's throat.

"Dimitri! Dimitri, stop - DON'T KILL HIM!"

Anya's hysterical warning filtered through Dimitri's haze of fury.

The passage of time began to normalize as he came back to himself, the distant roar in the background sharpening into distinct voices. Pooka's incessant yapping. Vladimir's anxious commands to put down the knife. Ivan's groans of agony. The woman of the house tearing into the kitchen with a wail and screaming at them all to get out.

Chest heaving, Dimitri wiped his face on his sleeve. He'd managed to abstain from slicing Inga's degenerate son open in her own kitchen, but he'd turned Ivan's face into a gory, mangled mess. Both eyes had swelled shut, already turning a purplish black. His jaw hung at an unnatural angle. His lips and cheeks had puffed up to the point of deformity. Several bloody teeth lay scattered on the floor nearby and his head lolled to the side as he passed out.

Vladimir's huge arms wrapped around Dimitri's chest from behind, pulling him away from Ivan's limp form.

Dimitri glared at Vladimir over his shoulder, eyes wild, his entire being still on fire as he wobbled to a stand. He let himself be shoved through the living room and out the front door, and the three of them stumbled together into the night.

They stood in the road within a lone gas lamp's circle of light, each working hard to catch their breath. The biting chill in the air had no effect on Dimitri. All he felt was the slow boil of his blood as he wiped his knife on a patch of grass and put it back in his boot.

"Dimitri..."

He couldn't bear to look at Anya. She had never sounded so broken and scared and it made him wish he had slit that psychopath's throat.

Dimitri spoke to her without looking, barely able to force the question past his lips. "Did...did he...?"

"No...I-I'm alright, I think." Anya sucked in a shuddering breath. "I just..."

The way she paused made the hair on the back of Dimitri's neck prickle in the worst way. "You just what - ?"

But by now his eyes were open and he could see Anya's face in the yellowish light. He watched her brush at the wetness on her cheeks with her hands. He witnessed her grimace in pain at the swollen fist-sized bruise near her left eye.

It pushed him past bearing.

He spun and stalked into the forest, hands balled into fists at his sides, his full-body trembling having nothing to do with the steep drop in temperature beyond the treeline.

Vladimir and Anya called after him and followed his trail, but he paid them no heed. He was too busy grappling with the excruciating knot Anya's tears had tied in his chest.

This was his fault.

He'd seen that monster eyeballing her like prey and said nothing. Did nothing. Even though his intuition had told him to stay with her, that she shouldn't have been alone. But he'd ignored it because being in Anya's presence always felt too damn complicated.

Dimitri slapped branches out of his path as he zigzagged through the trees, cursing viciously under his breath.

The thought of what could have happened to her if he'd been a moment too late made him want to vomit. Despite being quick enough to prevent the unspeakable, Anya's wounds - physical or otherwise - were evidence of his failure.

Dimitri's regret went deeper than that of a businessman allowing his merchandise to be damaged prior to sale. Much deeper.

Anya had somehow wormed her way into the weakest part of himself, the part he tried so hard to keep buried. In all her skinny, petulant, witty, foul-mouthed glory, she was his now. Dimitri suspected if any man had so much as tried to touch her, his violent reaction may not have been that different.

He knew what that could mean. And it made him furious.

He doubled over at the edge of a small clearing, heart threatening to punch a hole through his sternum. Leaves crunched beneath Vladimir's heavy tread as he emerged from the thick foliage and approached Dimitri, his silhouette silver in the bright moonlight overhead.

Dimitri straightened, frowning. He hadn't heard an accompanying set of footsteps.

"I sent her off to tend to Pooka," Vladimir said, answering the unspoken question. He'd evidently been able to spirit their belongings from the house and dropped them on the ground at Dimitri's feet. His voice turned grave. "You and I need to discuss this. Now."

"We sure as hell do." Dimitri started to pace, feeling like the beast within would escape if he stood in one spot. "Do you have any idea how far this set us back? It'll take weeks for her to heal enough to be presentable. At a minimum."

Vladimir heaved an uncharacteristic sigh. "Dimitri..."

"I'm serious, Vlad! We could run out of money before then. Then what, huh? How's that going to work? What are we going to do then?"

When Vladimir reached for Dimitri's shoulders to hold him still, he wrestled out of the older man's grasp. Vladimir let his arms drop to his sides in resignation. "Dimitri, listen to me -"

"How can you be so calm?" Dimitri vented his anger on his partner, gesturing violently with his hands. "What the hell is wrong with you? This is a disaster! How the fuck is she supposed to meet the Dowager like that?"

"Dimitri - "

"LOOK AT HER FACE!"

Vladimir stared at Dimitri in the stillness that followed his anguished roar, unmoved.

Dimitri whirled, punching his fist into his palm hard enough to bruise. Closing his eyes did nothing to erase the image of Anya sprawled on the floor in that kitchen, of her tears glistening beneath the lamplight. He clenched his teeth so hard pain shot through his jaw.

"Dimitri, look at me."

Shaking, he met Vladimir's strangely sympathetic gaze, the dark eyes seeing straight through Dimitri's bullshit, as always.

"That is not the reason why you are so upset."

He and his mentor watched each other, their breaths forming white puffs of steam in the brisk air. Dimitri didn't have it in him to entertain the discussion any longer. Scowling, he turned away again. "I'm going to look for firewood so we all don't freeze to death out here."

He kept himself occupied for the hour it took to build a fire with the little dry tinder he could find and the matches in his coat pocket. Anya returned with Pooka and sat beside him on a fallen log. Dimitri tensed, continuing to poke at the fire with a long stick to coax it into growing brighter.

They sat in weighted silence, until Dimitri noticed her patting her chest with her hand and wincing. He gave her a sidelong glance. "What's wrong?"

Anya looked surprised he'd spoken at all. She pulled her misshapen collar up to her neck. "It's nothing."

The fire began to burn in earnest, casting them in an orange glow. Dimitri studied the hand clutching at her dress. He wet his lips. "Let me see, then."

Anya averted her eyes, pale cheeks growing pink. "Don't worry about it."

"This isn't negotiable, Anya."

She removed her hand with a roll of her eyes. The firelight danced over the angry red welts Ivan's fingernails had left on her chest, just below her collarbones. Dimitri began to simmer with disgust and rage all over again.

His fingers reached out and traced the marks on her overheated skin before he could stop them. Anya gasped.

Dimitri snatched his hand back, the heat pooling in his face rivaling that of the fire. He stared at the flames and coughed into his fist. "Do they hurt bad?"

Sensing Anya shake her head, he nodded. "Good. That's...that's good."

After another long stretch of silence, Anya spoke in the quietest voice Dimitri had ever heard from her. "Are...you okay?"

He snorted in disbelief but avoided eye contact. "I should be asking you that." He noticed Anya's tiny smile from the corner of his eye and marveled how she could even manage it.

"I'm okay. Or will be, I guess." She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "I'm...I'm glad you were there."

Dimitri sighed, guilt washing over him in a sickening wave. "Me, too."

He caught Anya wiping her eyes again. She mimicked his sigh. "Bad shit happens sometimes, right?"

Dimitri had seen many flavors of bad shit, much more than his fair share. Violence. Homelessness. Starvation. Abandonment.

Death.

"Yeah." He grunted and tossed a stick into the writhing tongues of flame. "Bad shit happens."

Anya lapsed, then said, "This might be some of the worst shit that's happened to me, though."

Dimitri didn't answer. He sensed their conversation edging toward dangerously personal territory. With his emotions still tumultuous and erratic, he was having a hard time separating Dimitri The Con from Dimitri The Man who might have feelings for her he shouldn't.

Really, really shouldn't.

He jumped at the cool touch of Anya's fingers on the back of his right hand. "What are you doing?"

She nodded toward his beaten, bloody knuckles. "You need to clean that out before it gets infected. Got any liquor?"

"Vlad has a flask, but you don't have to -"

"This isn't negotiable, Dimitri." She gave him an expectant look.

Dimitri groaned and dug the flask out of the inner pocket of his coat, which Vladimir had tossed onto the log next to him before going to sleep.

Anya took it from him and soaked a clean piece of fabric she'd ripped from the hem of her dress. She centered his hand on his knee and didn't speak as she dabbed at his wounds. It stung like hell, but Dimitri couldn't make a sound for the lump he'd developed in his throat.

Then: "Thank you." Anya stilled.

Dimitri could feel her stare. Taking in a silent breath, he turned his gaze from the fire.

He was unprepared for the nakedness of her gratitude, the way her eyes shone so blue and devastating in the firelight. He refocused on the ground.

Anya's voice became soft as fine velvet. "I won't forget what you did for me."

Dimitri closed his eyes again, trying to block out her expression and the implications of the soul-deep ache it had triggered. "Anyone else would have done the same thing," he said.

Anya scoffed. "That's not true and you know it." She began to smooth the cloth over his raw knuckles, wiping away flakes of dried blood. Somewhere amidst the pain, Dimitri felt something indecent that made him want to squirm. He hazarded a look in her direction. "It wasn't your fault, what happened tonight. You know that, right?"

Anya met his eyes, her bottom lip caught in her teeth. "Yeah. I know."

They fell quiet again, listening to the hiss and pop of the fire feeding on the logs. The heat and the soothing way Anya tended his wounds made Dimitri's lips looser than he had ever thought possible. Or allowed. "I...I was an only child. For a long time, anyway. I was very young when my father left us, when my mother was pregnant with my little brother or sister."

Anya kept dragging the rag over his skin.

"She lost the baby right after, when she was almost due." Dimitri wanted to shut up but couldn't. "Stress, or something. That's what the doctor said. And, uh...she couldn't handle it."

Anya looked up at him, eyes wide.

Dimitri could never forget the room he'd shared with his mother in the servants' quarters of the palace. Or the resistance when he'd tried to open their bedroom door one night after dinner. Or the pitch blackness waiting for him on the other side. Or the feel of her feet swinging into his face when he found her hanging from a beam in the ceiling.

"She killed herself. I...I found her body."

Anya gasped and dropped the piece of cloth. Her words became a whisper. "How old were you?"

Dimitri coughed to keep his voice from breaking. "Eight." He shuddered, the horror of the memory close to suffocating him. Like he almost had tonight, Dimitri arrived too late to make a difference. Rescuing the Grand Duchess and her grandmother had acted as a private redemption. "That's the worst shit that ever happened to me, I guess. Compared to that, everything else was a piece of cake."

"God...I'm so sorry, Dimitri."

Dimitri shrugged. "Don't be. It happens." He didn't like the sympathy that had settled along the curves of Anya's face. What had possessed him to tell her about his mother? Even Vladimir didn't know.

Anya's trembling hand covered his and she repeated his previous words to her, her eyes soft. "It wasn't your fault. You know that, right?"

No, Dimitri didn't know that, but as their eyes met that strange internal knot condensed into something warm and tender and altogether terrifying.

He had to get out of there.

Anya's face fell when he stood and extracted his hand. He grabbed his coat from the log and draped it over her shoulders, looking everywhere but at her.

"Try to sleep," he said, fleeing towards where Vladimir lay on the opposite side of the fire. "You need the rest."