When the Devil Bleeds

When the Devil knocks.

Seth woke with a jolt.

For a moment he didn’t know where he was. The sunlight slanting across the room was too warm, too soft, too gentle compared to the pounding in his chest. His breath hitched, sharp and ragged, before the details settled into place: his apartment, the familiar sag in the mattress beneath him, the faint hum of traffic outside his window.

And then last night slammed into him.

The parking garage. The men. The hands on his chest. The flash of metal.

And Dimitri—dark coat, colder eyes, impossibly controlled movements—stepping out of nothingness like a perfectly timed nightmare or miracle.

Seth scrubbed a shaking hand over his face.

Get it together.

He sat up slowly, testing his muscles. His shoulder hurt where one of the men had shoved him. His wrist was tender from the grip that had twisted it. Nothing serious. Nothing he couldn’t brush off. He’d had worse from slipping on wet ER floors.

Still, when he stood, his knees wobbled slightly.

He hated that. Hated feeling weak.

Coffee. Shower. Normalcy. That’s what he needed.

In the bathroom mirror, he caught sight of himself and froze.

A faint bruise was blooming along his jaw, shadowy and ugly. Dark fingerprints on his wrist. And beneath his eyes—god, the bags looked carved into his skull.

He leaned on the sink, breath slow, controlled. “You’re fine,” he whispered. “It’s over.”

He didn’t believe it.

Not really.

Not after the way Dimitri had moved. The way he had taken down three grown men like they were nothing. The way he’d watched Seth afterward, gaze heavy and unreadable, as if memorizing every breath Seth took.

And the way he’d disappeared.

Seth should have called the police. Should have reported the attack. Should have done something more responsible than collapsing on his couch.

But the thought of explaining Dimitri—of trying to convince someone that a man who had been shot just hours earlier had fought like he hadn’t bled at all—felt impossible.

The coffee maker sputtered loudly, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Seth wrapped both hands around the mug, grounding himself in the warmth, in the normalcy. He took a long sip. Then another.

He was halfway through when his phone buzzed on the counter.

Unknown number.

He hesitated before answering. “Hello?”

A brief pause. Silence thick enough to raise the hair on his arms.

Then a voice—deep, smooth, unmistakable.

“Seth.”

His lungs squeezed tight.

“Dimitri?” His voice cracked halfway through the name.

“You should put ice on your wrist.” Dimitri’s tone was even, unhurried, as if discussing the weather. “Bruising will worsen by noon.”

Seth looked down at the dark prints on his skin. His mouth went dry. “How do you—”

Another stretch of quiet. The kind that suggested answers he was not ready for.

“You left your curtains open,” Dimitri said.

Seth’s heart stuttered. “Were you—”

“Only ensuring you reached home safely.”

Seth swallowed hard. “You followed me.”

“I watched you,” Dimitri corrected softly. “There is a difference.”

No. No, there wasn’t. Not really. Not when Dimitri said it like that—calm, factual, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Seth set the mug down before he dropped it. “You can’t just— that’s not— Dimitri, why?”

A faint shift in Dimitri’s breathing. Not quite a sigh. Not quite amusement. Something in between.

“You saved my life yesterday,” he said simply. “I will not pretend that means nothing.”

Seth pressed a hand to his chest, trying to steady his pulse. “I was doing my job.”

“You stitched me,” Dimitri replied, voice dropping half a register. “You touched me. You saw me bleed.”

The words shouldn’t have felt intimate, but somehow they did. Too intimate.

Seth gripped the counter for anchorage. “You didn’t even give me your name.”

“You never asked,” Dimitri said.

He had him there.

Seth exhaled shakily. “What do you want?”

Another pause. Heavy. Considered.

“To thank you.”

“I don’t need thanks—”

“Not with words.”

Something in Seth’s stomach dropped, cold and hot all at once.

Dimitri continued quietly, “If you are going to work today, let me take you.”

A sharp, choked sound escaped before Seth could stop it. “Why would I get into a car with someone I barely know?”

“You know enough.” Dimitri’s voice was silk and steel. “And I am not asking. It is not safe for you to walk alone after last night.”

Seth’s pulse raced. “I’m not— I don’t need protection.”

“You were nearly killed.”

The words landed like a physical blow.

Seth bristled. “I said I’m fine.”

“And I said I am not asking.” Dimitri’s voice held a subtle shift—command rolling beneath calm. “You will not walk alone today.”

Seth opened his mouth to argue—

A sharp knock sounded on his front door.

He froze.

Slowly, mechanically, he turned toward it.

“Seth.” Dimitri’s voice hummed through the speaker. “Open the door.”

Seth’s heart slammed so hard it hurt. He walked toward the entrance, each step slow, cautious, pulse roaring in his ears. He reached for the handle.

For a moment, he hesitated.

Then he opened the door.

Dimitri’s POV

Seth opened the door like a man bracing for an earthquake.

Dimitri watched the exact moment fear hit him—the flicker in his eyes, the tightening around his mouth, the way his hands curled lightly on the edge of the doorframe as if ready to slam it shut.

He didn’t.

Good. He was learning.

Dimitri stepped inside without waiting for permission. He never waited for permission. The door clicked softly shut behind him. Seth backed up a step, forcing Dimitri to stop only inches away.

Up close, Dimitri could finally see the bruise on Seth’s jaw.

It turned something cold and violent inside him.

“They touched you,” Dimitri said quietly.

Seth swallowed. “I’m okay.”

“You are not,” he replied. “But you will be.”

Seth’s breath caught at that, chest rising in a small, involuntary pull—like the words had dug under his skin before he could stop them. Dimitri watched every micro expression, storing each one away.

Seth looked different in the morning light. Softer. Pale sunlight caught on the edges of his hair, made the bruise stand out more vividly. Dimitri’s fingers twitched once, an instinctive urge to tilt Seth’s chin and look closer.

He didn’t. Barely.

Seth finally found his voice. “You can’t just show up here.”

“I am here,” Dimitri said, stepping in closer until Seth had no choice but to tip his head back slightly to keep their eyes level. “And nothing happened to you between last night and this moment. That is not coincidence.”

Seth’s jaw clenched. “You followed me.”

“I protected you.”

“That’s not— you cannot decide that for me.”

Dimitri lifted one brow. “You would prefer I let those men finish what they started?”

Seth’s stomach tightened. Dimitri watched the motion beneath the fabric of his shirt, slow rise, slow fall. Seth didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

He didn’t need to.

Dimitri leaned against the wall, arms folding—not relaxed, but contained. His energy filled the small apartment, sharp and controlled. The scent of coffee lingered in the air; Seth’s half-finished mug sat on the counter. Dimitri’s eyes landed on it.

“You did not sleep long,” he said.

Seth blinked, thrown off. “How do you—”

“You turned off your light at 4:23,” Dimitri said simply. “You turned it back on at 7:06.”

Seth stared at him. “You were watching my windows.”

“I was watching you.”

Silence cracked between them—thin, stunned.

For a moment, Seth looked like he might run.

For a moment, Dimitri wasn’t sure he would let him.

Seth exhaled a shaky breath. “Why?”

Dimitri pushed off the wall and approached him again, slower this time, measured. When he stood close enough to feel Seth’s warmth through the air, he spoke quietly:

“Because someone tried to take you from this world last night. And because I do not let what is mine go unguarded.”

Seth flinched—not from fear. From confusion, maybe. From something that pulled him inward and outward at the same time.

“I’m not yours,” he whispered.

“Not yet,” Dimitri said.

Seth’s breath stuttered.

Dimitri took in the lines of him—the tension in his shoulders, the stubborn set of his mouth, the tremble he so desperately tried to hide. Seth was all contradiction: brave enough to open the door, terrified enough to regret it, foolish enough not to understand what he’d stepped into.

Dimitri admired that kind of foolishness. It made people unpredictable.

It made them interesting.

He brushed past Seth and walked deeper into the apartment. Seth followed him on instinct, still arguing with his own heartbeat.

“My car is outside,” Dimitri said without looking back. “You will not walk alone today.”

“Dimitri—”

“You can argue while we drive,” he said, turning and pinning Seth with a gaze that stilled everything. “Or you can argue now and be late for work. Either way, you are coming with me.”

Seth’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “You think you can just decide where I go?”

“I already have.”

Seth released a helpless, frustrated breath. “You barely know me.”

Dimitri stepped forward, bridging the space between them in two slow steps.

“I know you went to bed shaking and tried to hide it.”

Seth froze.

“I know you brewed coffee this morning because you didn’t trust yourself to stand without something in your hands.”

His eyes widened.

“I know you have not told a single person what happened. Not out of fear. Out of habit.”

Seth’s throat worked, but no words came.

“And I know,” Dimitri said, lowering his voice to something dangerous and intimate, “that you opened the door even though you knew it was me.”

Seth stood perfectly still.

Then, softly—almost a confession:

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

Dimitri didn’t smile. He didn’t move. He simply studied him.

“That,” he murmured, “is the first honest thing you have said to me today.”

Seth’s face flushed, breath unsteady.

Dimitri turned toward the door. “Get your bag.”

“What if I say no?”

Dimitri paused, hand resting lightly on the doorknob.

“Then,” he said without turning, “you will force me to stay here instead.”

Seth inhaled sharply.

Dimitri did not wait for an answer.

He didn’t need to.

He already heard Seth moving.

Seth moved around the apartment gathering his things—gentle movements, careful footsteps, completely unaware that Dimitri watched every one of them. Not with hunger. Not with lust.

With recognition.

Seth slung his bag over his shoulder, sighing shakily as he approached. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

Dimitri turned fully toward him.

“You will,” he said.

He didn’t elaborate. Not yet.

He opened the door, letting Seth pass first. He followed him down the hall, down the stairwell, across wet pavement toward the street where Dimitri’s black, tinted sedan waited.

Seth glanced at it with hesitation. “You drive something like that in Chicago?”

“I drive whatever I want.”

Seth didn’t argue. He slid into the passenger seat; Dimitri took the wheel. The engine purred to life.

After a block of silence, Seth finally said, “You still haven’t answered me.”

Dimitri’s fingers drummed once on the steering wheel.

“Answer what?”

“Why me.”

Dimitri didn’t look at him yet. He kept his eyes forward, watching the rain blur the skyline.

“You think too small,” he said. “You think the world notices people for neat reasons. Simple reasons. Convenient reasons.”

Seth frowned, thrown by the tone.

“You think I want you because you’re a doctor?” Dimitri scoffed softly. “Do you know how many doctors I’ve met?”

Seth’s jaw ticked. “I’m sure—”

“It is not your job,” Dimitri cut in quietly. “It is you.”

Finally, Dimitri looked at him.

Seth shifted, breath catching under the weight of that gaze—sharp, assessing, but something else too. Something like… knowing.

“You move through the world like someone expecting to be hit,” Dimitri said. “But you carry yourself like someone who refuses to fall.”

Seth’s lips parted.

“You walk alone, but you look over your shoulder without ever slowing down. You talk softly, but when you stand your ground, you do not move.”

Dimitri’s voice dropped.

“You are not fearless. You are afraid all the time. And yet you keep going.”

Seth looked away quickly, throat tight.

Dimitri let him.

“Most men break,” he continued. “Most men fold the moment someone stronger closes in. But you—”

He watched Seth’s profile, the stubborn line of his jaw, the bruise darkening beneath pale skin.

“Last night, with three men cornering you, you stood up straight. You argued. You didn’t beg.”

Seth swallowed. “That’s not— I wasn’t trying to be brave.”

“I know,” Dimitri said. “That is why it matters.”

Silence stretched between them, thick, intimate, electric.

Dimitri continued, voice low enough to be almost a murmur:

“I see the way people overlook you. I see the way you let them. But under it, there is steel. Raw. Unshaped. But real.”

Seth’s fingers tightened around the strap of his bag.

“You think you hide your fire,” Dimitri said. “You don’t.”

Seth drew a shaky breath. “That still doesn’t explain why someone like you—”

Now Dimitri smiled, a small, slow thing that somehow held no warmth at all.

“Seth,” he said, “I have spent my entire life surrounded by monsters.”

Seth slowly turned toward him.

“People who kill for convenience. People who love without softness. People who take what they want because nothing in this world tells them no.”

Seth’s heart thudded louder.

“And then,” Dimitri said, eyes locked on his, “I turn a corner one night, and I find someone who still flinches at cruelty—but refuses to bow to it.”

Seth’s breath hitched audibly.

“You think I chose you?” Dimitri asked. “As if the universe asked my permission?”

Seth didn’t answer.

Dimitri leaned back in the seat, gaze softening only slightly.

“I didn’t want this,” he said. “But there you were.”

The car fell into silence again—but it wasn’t empty. It was charged.

Seth stared out the windshield, chest rising unsteadily, face flushed with something he couldn’t name.

Finally, barely above a whisper:

“I’m not special.”

Dimitri didn’t look away from him.

“You are,” he said, “exactly the kind of dangerous I cannot walk away from.”

Seth blinked, startled. “Dangerous? I— I’m not dangerous.”

“You are to me.”

Seth turned fully toward him, confused, stunned, thrown off balance.

Dimitri’s voice softened, but the truth in it was unflinching:

“You make me want to protect something that is not mine. That makes you the most dangerous person I have ever met.”