Claimed by My Mafia Alpha King Chapter 81

Irina’s POV

The first thing I was aware of was warmth.

Not the fog-adow kind. Not the white, impossible softness of that other place. This was real warmth—heavy, close, the kind that ca from a room with the heating turned up too high and a body nearby.

I didn’t open my eyes right away.

I lay there and let the world co back in pieces. The weight of blankets. The dull ache in my shoulder—present but muted, like soone had wrapped it in cotton. My ribs, doing sothing unpleasant every ti I breathed too deep. The specific sll of the dical wing—antiseptic and clean linen and that faint herbal note that was Nadia’s doing.

And sothing else.

His scent.

I turned my head. Slowly. The pillow was too soft. Everything here was too soft—it still caught off guard sotis, the fact that things were allowed to be soft.

Nicolas was in a chair beside the bed.

Asleep.

That took a second to process. I’d seen him in a lot of states by now—angry, controlled, that particular quiet that was worse than anger, the occasional almost-smile that he didn’t seem to know he was doing. I’d seen him bloody. I’d seen him mid-shift.

I had never seen him asleep.

He looked—

Different. Not softer. That was the wrong word for him and it would always be the wrong word. But the tension that lived in his jaw, in his shoulders, in the permanent set of his mouth—it was less. Dialed down. Like his body had finally stopped scanning for threats long enough to let him close his eyes.

His chair was pulled right up against the bed. Close enough that his knee was touching the mattress fra. His head was tipped back at an angle that was going to make his neck hurt when he woke up, one arm stretched across the gap between the chair and the bed, his hand—

His hand was on the mattress. Right next to mine. Not touching. An inch away. Like he’d fallen asleep reaching for and stopped just short.

Sothing in my chest did a thing I didn’t have a na for.

I looked at his face.

The cut on his shoulder was closed. Healed. Of course it was—he healed fast, faster than anyone, that was one of the things that made him what he was. But his shirt was still wrecked. The sa one from the hall. Torn at the shoulder, blood dried dark into the fabric. He hadn’t changed.

He’d been here the whole ti.

I moved my fingers.

Barely. Just a curl—my pinky shifting a quarter inch across the sheet, brushing against the side of his hand.

His eyes opened.

Instant. One second closed, the next second open—those green eyes sharp and alert and locked onto my face like he’d been waiting for exactly this even while unconscious.

He sat up.

The chair scraped against the stone floor. His hand found mine—not gentle, not careful, just *grabbed,* his fingers closing around mine like he was checking I was solid.

"Irina."

His voice was rough. The specific roughness of soone who hadn’t used their voice in hours and was using it now on pure reflex.

"How do you feel? What hurts? Talk to ."

I opened my mouth.

Nothing ca out for a second. My throat was dry. The words had to travel a long way to get anywhere. I shook my head instead—small, careful, because moving my head too fast made the room want to spin.

"’M fine," I managed.

His hand tightened on mine.

"You collapsed," he said. "In the hall. You went down and you didn’t—" He stopped. His jaw worked. The tension was back. All of it, all at once, flooding into his face like it had never left. "Don’t tell you’re fine. Tell what hurts."

"Shoulder," I said. "Ribs. Little bit." I swallowed. "Mostly just tired."

"You were unconscious for eleven hours."

I blinked. "Eleven—"

"Hours. Yes." He was looking at with that expression—the one I’d seen right before everything went dark. Not anger. Not the controlled blankness he showed everyone else. Sothing underneath all of that. Sothing raw.

He was still holding my hand.

I looked down at it. His fingers around mine. The size difference—his hand swallowing mine completely, knuckles still rough, still scarred, still the hands of soone who broke things for a living.

They were very careful right now.

His thumb moved across my knuckles. Once. I don’t think he knew he was doing it.

"Don’t do that again," he said.

"Do what?"

"Step in front of a shifting alpha when you weigh a hundred and ten pounds and don’t have a wolf."

"I wasn’t thinking," I said. "I just—moved."

The door opened.

Roman ca through first. He was dressed immaculately. Not a wrinkle. Not a hair out of place. He looked like he’d stepped out of a board eting, which he possibly had.

Andrei was right behind him. Grinning.

"She’s awake," Andrei said. Not to anyone in particular. Just announcing it to the room like it was breaking news. "She’s alive, she’s awake, and Nicolas hasn’t killed anyone in the last eleven hours, which I think is actually a record."

"Twelve," Nicolas said flatly. "And the night’s not over."

"See, that’s the spirit." Andrei crossed to the other side of the bed. He looked at . His face was doing the thing where he was smiling but his eyes were doing sothing sharper underneath—checking, cataloging, the way he always did. "How are you feeling?"

"She says she’s *fine,*" Nicolas said, in a tone that communicated exactly how much credibility he assigned to that claim.

"I am fine."

"You were unconscious for eleven hours."

Roman cleared his throat.

Everyone looked at him.

"It’s good to see you awake," he said. Stiff. Formal. The way Roman delivered anything that might accidentally sound like warmth. Then he looked at Nicolas. "You need to eat sothing. You haven’t eaten since yesterday."

Andrei snorted.

Roman closed his eyes for exactly one second. The expression of a man who had been managing this particular individual for years and had accepted that it was, fundantally, a losing battle.

"I’ll have soone bring food," Roman said. "For both of you."

"I could eat," I said.

Nicolas looked at . Sothing loosened in his face. "Good."

"Amazing," Andrei said. "She’s been awake for ten minutes and she’s already more cooperative than you’ve been in a decade." He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, that easy posture that looked casual and wasn’t. "Roman’s been pacing the corridor since hour four, by the way. In case anyone was wondering who the real worrier is."

"I was not *pacing,*" Roman said.

"You were absolutely pacing. I counted. Fourteen laps."

I looked at Nicolas. He was watching them with an expression that was almost—almost—fond. The way you watched sothing familiar. Sothing that had been happening for a long ti.

Andrei caught looking and winked.

"She deserves *rest,*" Roman said. Then he looked at . The formal stiffness wavered for a second. Sothing human underneath. "Truly. It’s good to see you awake."

Sothing warm moved through my chest.

"Thank you, Roman," I said.

He nodded once. Brisk. Looked away. Possibly embarrassed—it was hard to tell with Roman, but there was a slight color at the tips of his ears that hadn’t been there before.

Andrei pushed off the wall. Stretched. Rolled his shoulders like he’d been carrying sothing heavy and was only now setting it down.

"Right," he said. "So. The important things." He held up fingers. "One—Maxim is in the wind. We’re tracking him. Roman has every resource on it and he’s doing that thing where he doesn’t sleep until the problem is solved, which ans he’ll be insufferable for approximately a week. Two—the proceedings are officially on the record. Every alpha on the continent has the full picture now. Maxim’s done. Doesn’t matter where he runs." He put down the second finger. Looked at . His expression shifted. Still warm, still Andrei, but sothing gentler in it. "Three."

He paused.

"Three," he said again. "And this one’s important, so listen."

I waited.

"You need to take care of yourself, Irina." His voice was quieter now. Not joking. The sharp thing behind his eyes coming to the front. "I an it. Properly. Eating, sleeping, not throwing yourself in front of alpha wolves—the whole thing. Because even if you feel fine, even if everything seems okay—" He looked at steadily. "Your body’s got more going on than just you right now. And whatever you think you can push through, the little one in there might have a different opinion about it."

The room went very still.

I stared at him.

"The... little one," I said.

Andrei blinked. Looked at Nicolas. Then back at .

"Oh, *shit,*" Andrei said softly.

I looked at Nicolas.

He looked at .

The room was spinning again but not from the shoulder, not from the ribs—from sothing else entirely, sothing that was rearranging every single thing I thought I knew about this mont, this bed, this room, this body.

"What," I said. My voice ca out very small. "What is he talking about."