“Darling,” she says, her voice dripping with that new, dangerous honey. She steps into the line of fire, forcing herself between me and the dead man walking. She wraps her arms around my neck, her body flush against mine, forcing my focus onto her. “He’s a nobody. A drunk. Don’t let him stain your hands tonight.”
Then, she crushes her mouth to mine, her tongue forcing its way past my teeth, her body arching into mine with a desperation that tastes like iron and silk. The bloodlust in my veins doesn’t vanish—it just changes shape, exploding into a raw, territorial hunger that makes my vision blur.
I groan into her mouth, my hand releasing Borodin to tangle in her hair, yanking her head back so I can devour her more completely.
She pulls away just enough to look me in the eye, her breath coming in short, jagged gasps, her lips swollen and reddened from my mouth.
I look over her shoulder. Borodin is trembling, his face the color of ash as he clutches his mangled wrist.
“Thank your lucky stars, Mikhail,” I rasp, my eyes locked on Lena’s. “That my wife can distract me so easily. If you’re still in this city by sunrise, I’ll peel the skin from your bones myself.”
Borodin flees into the darkness of the club.
The car ride back to the compound is a suffocating, silent war.
The partition is up, but the space feels like a pressure cooker. Lena sits on the far edge of the seat, her chest heaving, her gaze fixed on the passing streetlights. The seductress has vanished, replaced by a vibrating, electric tension that makes the air feel heavy.
I watch her. I watch the way the light catches the golden chains against her skin, the way she bites her lip as if trying to keep a scream inside. My own body is a mapped territory of nerves and heat, my blood pounding a heavy rhythm in my ears.
She used herself to stop me. She gambled on my desire for her being stronger than my need to kill. It is a move a Pakhan’s wife would make, and I hate her for how well she played me.
The car rolls through the iron gates and lurches to a halt before we even reach the front steps.
I am out the door before the driver can move. I reach back in, my hand hooking around Lena’s wrist, and haul her out into the cool night air. The gravel bites into her heels as I spin her around, slamming her back against the side of the SUV.
The metal groans under her weight. Her hands fly up to my shoulders, her eyes wide and wild in the moonlight. I lean in, my body pinning hers to the vehicle, my hand finding the curve of her throat.
“Now,” I growl, my thumb pressing against the frantic, leaping pulse in her neck. “Let’s discuss tonight,zayka.”
17
LENA
The metal of the SUV is a shock against my bare shoulder blades, a biting cold that does nothing to douse the fire roaring under my skin. Razvan is a wall of heat pressing me into the vehicle, his hand a heavy, familiar weight at my throat. He isn’t squeezing, not yet, but the threat is there, vibrating through his palm and into my pulse.
“Now,” he growls, his breath ghosting over my lips, smelling of dark liquor and possessiveness. “Let’s discuss tonight,zayka.”
My heart is a trapped bird hammering against my ribs. I should be terrified. I should be thinking of the cellar, of the days he kept me in the dark until I forgot what the sun looked like. But my body is a traitor. The red silk of the dress is so thin it feels like nothing, and where his thighs pin mine against the door I am agonizingly aware of the friction.
The dress, the golden chains, the way he watched me move for the last three hours—it’s all sitting in my blood like a toxin. I’m breathless, my lungs struggling to find air that isn’t him.
“You wanted a show,” I rasp, my hands curling into the expensive wool of his coat. I don’t push him away. I pull him closer. “I gave you one.”
His eyes are black voids in the moonlight, stripped of everything but predatory intent. “You played me. You used that mouth to stop an execution. You think you’re clever, Lena? You think you can manipulate me with a kiss?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
His grip tightens, just a fraction, just enough to make me gasp. “Don’t mistake my hunger for weakness. If you ever cross me like that in public again, the punishment won’t be something you enjoy.”
He hauls me away from the car, his hand sliding from my throat to the small of my back, his fingers digging into the exposed skin. He marches me toward the house, his pace relentless. The compound is a tomb of silence. The guards are shadows at the perimeter, the staff long gone to their quarters and Theo fast asleep. It’s just us. The dark, the gravel under my heels, and the suffocating weight of what’s coming.
The moment we step through the heavy oak doors, I jerk away.
I need distance. I need to breathe without the scent of him filling my head. I stumble toward the center of the foyer, my heels clicking sharply on the marble. I don’t look back. I can feel him watching me, a physical pressure at my spine. He doesn’t chase. He doesn’t move. He just stands by the door, his silhouette tall and terrifying against the moonlight spilling through the glass.
The silence is worse than the shouting. It’s a vacuum, sucking the resolve out of me.
“I’m going upstairs,” I say, my voice cracking. I start for the stairs, my hand gripping the banister like a lifeline.
