Damaged love

My life

Otabek POV
Yuri was asleep in the bed. Carefully I had pulled myself out from under him. It was mid February. Already Lila was getting impatient. Two others had come for the teen. Taking them out was child’s play. I feared the closer his birthday came, the angrier she would become. I wasn’t sure if I could stop all of them.
My hand brushed through his hair. His eyes fluttered, but closed once more. I chuckled. He was too cute. Laying face down in the soft warm bed his arms wrapped around my pillow, who could harm him looking like this? “Yuri, you need to wake up, love.” I whispered.
“Be a prince and kiss me then!” he mumbled. With a chuckle I leaned forward to press our lips together. He rolled over wrapping his arms around my neck. I stood pulling him from the bed. Walking down the hall I brought him into the bathroom. I sat him on the sink. Pulling back I ordered him to get ready.
We had talked about this. Ending this thing that hung over our heads. The last few weeks with him had been the happiest of my life. I needed to give him his life back. Yuri belonged on the ice. I couldn’t, wouldn’t let anyone take that from him.
It took him almost half an hour to get ready. Shoving the toast and coffee into his hands I guided him down the stairs. I hooked the helmet on his head as he ate the food. He still looked sleepy. Dropping a kiss to his cheek I got on the bike. After he finished the toast he swung on behind me. I really needed to get a car. I took us south were the weather was better. Yet she had still found him.
With his arms around me, his face buried into my back to keep the wind down, I drove us to our meeting spot.  The boy at my back began to tense up as we got closer. What was going through his head?
I had asked him why Lila wanted him dead, he didn’t know. When I pressed saying how adamant she was about it being before he turned sixteen, he yelled at me saying he had no clue. Letting him out of my sight gave me anxiety, so I kept him close. That wasn’t a way to live though. That’s why I arranged this. A meeting with her.
I didn’t tell her I was brining him with me though. She didn’t know I had told him everything. Yuri had dipped into his savings to give me the money to pay her back the advancement she had given me on the contract.
As the park came into view, I saw her sitting on the bench. Yuri stiffened. I pulled into a parking lot knowing he was in the cross hairs already. I stopped the bike under a covered bridge. It was the best protection I could give him.
We got off. Moving up to where she waited. She stood. The grace of a dancer. Her stone cold gaze struck me. It reminded me of the Greek gorgons. It only shifted over me. Then she gasped when she saw him. He walked at my side, one hand clutched in mine, the other knuckle white around his coffee cup.
“Lila.” He said. His tone was emotionless. I knew that only proved how terrified he was. Shifting my weight I moved him before me. I couldn’t block all sides but he wasn’t going to die. I pressed him to move over. A tree would block him from the front.
“Why did you bring him here?” she growled at me. Her eyes darting around.
“Why do you went me dead?” Yuri demanded. Her face paled. Those small beady eyes flew to his. Yuri was trying desperately to not show weakness. I could tell those words had torn him up. Instead of talking to him, she swung back to me.
“You told him!” she screamed. This was what we had talked about. Yuri knew her well. It had been two weeks ago. We were in some flea bag hotel. The kind that made Yuri's skin crawl. He never slept well in them.
“It’s a month until your birthday.” I pointed out. His back was to me. Naked he looked strong. The muscles that rippled over his body tightened at my words.
“Will you leave me then? When I don’t need your protection any longer?” The hands holding the green shirt shook as he spoke. I was across the room in a flash. My arms giving his body warmth.
“Yuri, no!” I cried. “I want you to be safe, that doesn’t mean I want to leave you!” he turned in my arms. The shirt making a soft thud on the floor as he dropped it. His arms holding me as he pressed his face into my chest. Moments like this was when I knew I had fallen to far to come back. I was in love with him.  There was no force on this earth that was going to hurt him while I still breathed.
“I love you too much to let you go. Call me selfish, but I’m staying right here.” He had pulled away from me, just enough to lift his face up. His eyes searching mine. Then his hands had moved into my hair. Gripping fistfuls painfully, he had pulled my head down to his.
“I don’t know what this feeling is, Otabek. I’m afraid to call it love.” He had told me. “I know I don’t like it when you go out. I don’t like being alone, but I am finding I worry about you.” I had cut him off with a light laugh.
Of course he had punched me. slipping away completely he had yelled at me. “I’m trying to tell you my feelings and all you can do is laugh!” There was no way I could stop smiling. I was able to curb the laughter. I caught his flailing arm. Yanking him off balance, which was a feat for a dancer and ice skater like him, he fell back into my chest.
“Will you stop roaring little tiger?” I whispered to him. He had to calm down to hear me. As he relaxed back into my arms I explained that I hadn’t been laughing at him, just at the absurdity of the situation.
“Whenever I can’t see you, I fell physically ill.” I told him. “Mostly because I know there are people out there hunting you.” I buried my face into his silky blond hair.
“Then how about we just stay here, inside, for the day?” he asked.
“We would starve!” I groaned. That had been why he was suppose to be getting dressed, so we could go get something to eat. He punched me again.
“Fine, but can we go to a good hotel? These thugs are looking for me in places like this because that’s where they know you would hide me.” Tilting my head I thought about that. Yet Lila would know the kid would want better accommodations.  That was when I asked him about her.
“She's smart, but mean. She rules by fear. It where I learned most of it. Not that I don’t have other reasons for my anger issues.” He had muttered.
“She looks at the big picture. Lila will find a way to kill me by getting you out of the way.” I had kissed him. Telling him that only death would take me from him. I was staying where I was..
“Plus I’m pretty good at staying alive. Managed it this long.” I had teased.
Now he stood as a barrier between us. She still refused to look at him. Her nostrils flared as she glared at me. “Well, I fell in love with him. There wasn’t going to be anyway I was going to kill him.” I told her my blood turning to ice.
“Just so you know, no one else will touch him either.” I heard my tone darken. Saw him starting to turn. Watched from the corner of my eye as those green eyes grew round. His lips parting as he looked up at me.
“Lila if you want him dead, your going to have to kill me. I already stopped the two you sent after him.”
I must have said something wrong, or she at least thought I did. Her smile, cold as it was, blossomed over her withered lips. Eyes began to sparkle. I narrowed mine as I watched her.
“Why don’t you just say it, Otabek?” She demanded. Although I had never given her my real name, it didn’t surprise me that she knew it. She was still involved with the skating community. I simply stood there, watching her.
“You see, Yuri darling…” now she turned that hawk like face to look at the boy, my lover. I ground my teeth together. Was he so hungry for affection that he would fall back under her spell? I prayed not, but I didn’t know how badly he yearned for a mother figure that cared for him.
He was turning back to her. With his back to me held stiffly I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t know what he looked at her with. Was it pride that she finally noticed him? Could he hate her for all that she is putting him through? I hoped so. The hate in me sizzled as I watched her. I could almost taste the bile as she tried to pull the teen back into her web.
“Your beloved Otabek was the first assassin I hired to kill you.” She sneered at him. “What that hateful little mouth is not telling you is…” she flashed those dark eyes at me as if what she was about to say would change how the skater saw me.
“He killed them.” She stated triumphantly. I laughed. Yuri glanced at me.
“Did you honestly think I hadn’t told him what I was? What I do?” Yuri had kept our linked hands behind his back. Not once had he let go. I smiled kindly down at him. “He knows, I will never leave his side.” My tone softened looking into those green eyes. The strength in them lifting me up. I squeezed his hand.
“Why do you want me dead, Lila? Do you honestly think I kept you on as a beneficiary? If I die, did you think you would get it all?” He knew. I looked at him closing my face so she couldn’t tell he had never mentioned this to me.
“It wasn’t until I saw you, with that look of superiority on your face that I put it together. My fathers will. You were the one to take me to the bank. As the adult with me you put your name down as the person to get the money. Did you think I left it like that? When you kicked us out?” She blinked at him.
“Did you think I had to wait until I was sixteen to get the money? I only had to wait until I became an adult. The courts granted me emancipation when you kicked me out last year. I have been considered an adult for a year. My father's money was given to me then.”
Her hand shot out. I didn’t know martial artists who moved so fast. She struck Yuri's face so hard his head snapped back into my shoulder. “You ungrateful creature!” she screamed.
She moved forward to strike him again. I pulled him to me catching her hand. She wasn’t done. “I opened my home to you. I gave you everything! I made you a star!” she ranted.
“You tried to break me.” Yuri's voice was low. “You told me how my own mother couldn’t stand the sight of me. That was not making me a star. I did that on my own!” he yelled.
“Yet you couldn’t beat Victor.” She spat. To my utter shock Yuri laughed.
“Neither could you.” With that he pulled on my hand. “Lets go.” I stayed close behind him as we made our way to my bike. We went home. Back to Yuri's apartment near the skating rink. No one else came after him. Yuri never told anyone what I had done to earn the money to pay for a skating coach.
March came in like a lion. The thunder and rain of the morning turned to snow and ice by the afternoon. I kept the sixteen year old busy in our home. His birthday was one he would not forget.
I made him wait until after dinner, one which I cooked for him, before I gave him his presents. “I only got you one!” he cried.
“Just open them.” I flopped naked on the bed beside him. He too was naked as I had kept him all day. He opened the large stuffed cat pillow I got him. Laughing he put it under him curling up on it. The damn cat came to check it out as well. The smaller gift he opened.
Laying inside was a golden bracelet. He lifted it up. Running the sparkling braid through his hands. “Its like the one you wear.” He whispered.
“My grandfather gave me mine on my thirteenth birthday. It was to remind me that no matter how far I went, I always had a home to come too. He died before my parents kicked me out.” I told him. Reaching over I took the gold from him.
“I am giving you this to let you know that no matter were you go, I will be right there. This is also a promise. When you’re ready, Yuri…” I said looking up. I cupped his face in my hand.  “I want to marry you.” I kissed him before he could say anything more. He shoved me back.
“Right now, I don’t want to be married. I’m too young, but Otabek, promise me something.”
“Anything?” I said.
“In five years, to the day, ask me again.”
“I promise. I love you Yuri.”
“I love you Otabek.” It was the sweetest sound I ever heard in my life.
 
The end.