“What, are you going to light me up, too?” Mikhail taunted her, tugging at his shirt and loosening it from where it had been tucked in.
Anastasia stopped, all of the blood leaving her face as that awful day came rushing back to her — the shame, the guilt, the leering looks, and the day her freedom ended.
Without thinking, she picked up the lid of a cloche, reeled back and threw it at Mikhail’s head. It narrowly missed him as he ducked to the side, crashing into the wall with an echoing, metallic clang.
Mikhail turned to look at her, his eyebrows raising, all of the hatred he had struggled with towards her rushing back to the surface.
He turned and stalked towards her, Anastasia backing up until she was standing against the wall. Mikhail moved across the room and was towering over her, his massive frame boxing her in.
“Go on,” Mikhail teased her with a sneer that she hadn’t ever seen on his face before, “Try something. What’s the worst that can happen… You’ll kill me too?”
Anastasia let out a strangled cry, the tears finally slipping down her cheeks as she screamed in frustration. She raised her hands in front of her face, hardly able to see through her tears as they came harder, holding her palms out in front of Mikhail’s chest to try and summon her magic… but nothing happened.
She let out a scream of frustration and slammed both of her hands down on his chest, railing against him with fifteen years of caged emotion.
Mikhail grunted, grabbing her wrists and raising them above her head in one rapid motion. She pushed her back off the wall, refusing to be subdued until he moved his leg between hers and pinned her there.
Anastasia gasped and tried to wiggle free as his hands tightened around her, not enough to hurt but enough to convey that she wasn’t going anywhere.
He leaned in impossibly close until their bodies were flush, heat radiating off of one another. They stood there for a moment, neither of them able to make a sound as they worked to catch their breath.
Anastasia tried to twist out of his grip again, once, twice — to no avail. Her eyes went wide as she felt his anger beginning to melt off of him, a dark chuckle vibrating along her skin and forcing her to glance up at his face.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Mikhail muttered, shaking his head in mock sincerity. “You would need magic to get out of this,Your Grace.”
“Fuck you.”
Anastasia cursed internally as her tone betrayed her, now utterly bereft of any malice.
“I think, despite everything... you’d like to,” he winked, “You do look rather torn up about it, though.”
Mikhail gave her a saccharine smile and released her wrists, letting her push off the wall and shove past him — forcing the thoughts of his weight pressed against her out of her mind. She reached the door to her bedroom when his voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Lessons are at noon.”
“Excuse me?” Anastasia spat indignantly, turning on her heel and staring at him, her eyes livid and full of fire.
Beautiful.Mikhail thought.She’s a murderer with no control of her magic… but she’s stunning when she’s alight.
“Lessons,” he cleared his throat and nodded at the destroyed breakfast in front of them. “Your mother will want some sort of report from me. And, I’d rather prefer it if you got a grip on whatever… power,” he rolled his eyes at the word, “you do possess.”
Anastasia felt something cold wash over her as if she had jumped in freezing water. As volatile as their relationship was, he wasn’t like anyone her mother had ever sent before. That something different had given her brief glimpses of hope.
If he was hellbent on being another tutor… he wanted something. Riches from her parents, a title, land, maybe. Whatever the past three days had been, she thought it at least had been real.
He’s been trying to get under my skin this whole time to get a rise out of me, hasn’t he? It’s all a show to be the man who unleashed Anastasia’s magic.
“I’ll let you calm down,” Mikhail winked at her, settling back down next to the spilled food as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “We’ll try in a few hours.”
Anastasia stood in her doorframe, shaking her head. “When a tutor fails, my father has them killed,” she opened the door to her room. “If my magic doesn’t kill you, the fact that it won’t appear, will.”
10
Anastasia disappeared into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her and running her hands through her hair. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm down and regain her composure.
Her thoughts ran wild as she tried to reconcile the man who had brought her breakfast with the man who still blamed her for Asya's murder.
I was a child. I didn't know...
