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Alexei paid a price—in blood and lives—for sex with me. Because that’s what this marriage is, ultimately: he gets my body, however and whenever he wants. And I can’t even put up a decent fight.
Disgusted, I look away from the mirror and grab a toothbrush. Why can’t I be stronger when it comes to him? Would he still want me if he had to force me into his bed each time? If the touch of his blood-stained hands left me cold and dry, as by all rights it should?
Furiously, I scrub my teeth and spit out the toothpaste. I hate myself. I really do. Why do I even care what I look like around him? If anything, I should be doing my best to repel him, to make it so he can’t bear to touch me—since I can’t seem to resist his touch. This compulsion to primp and make myself more desirable makes no sense in light of my situation, yet I can’t stop my hands from reaching for the hairbrush and the drawers full of my preferred brands of makeup.
Without them, I feel naked. More naked than when I am simply without clothes.
A few minutes later, my face and hair are back to normal, and I feel a smidge better. More in control, even though that bit is an illusion. I have no control in this situation, no say over anything that’s happening to me. Alexei makes all the decisions here, no matter how many bargains I try to make.
A rapping on the bathroom door jerks me out of my thoughts.
“Alinyonok?”
My heartbeat leaps at his pet name for me, uttered in his deep, rough voice. “Yeah?” I call out, wrapping the belt of the robe tighter around myself.
“Dinner is ready,” he announces. “Get dressed, and I’ll meet you up on the deck.”
Dinner? How long have I been asleep? I haven’t spotted a clock anywhere, so I have no idea what time it is. In general, I have no idea how long it’s been since he took me away from my family. Two days? More? By now, my brothers must be going crazy, deploying all the resources at their disposal to track us down.
A low, pulsing ache forms at the back of my skull, a vise-like pressure tightening my temples. I wince, dread filling my stomach. It’s the beginning of a migraine, one of my bad ones, not the tension headache that threatened to show up this morning before breakfast. I recognize its insidious start, and I can’t help wondering why I’m getting it now as opposed to yesterday or before the wedding, when I was, by any measure, more anxious about my fate. Not that I’m not anxious now; if anything, what happened after the swim has shown me that pregnancy isn’t the only thing to fear in Alexei’s bed—a place where I will undoubtedly end up after this dinner.
“Alina?” His voice takes on a different tone. “Are you all right?”
He sounds concerned. Somehow, he knows something is off.
“Alina?” The door handle rattles violently. “Answer me.”
I snap out of whatever paralysis was holding me in place and step up to the door to unlock it before he decides to break it down. “I’m fine,” I say, yanking the door open. A swell of nausea belies my words as the pain in my skull intensifies with the sharp motion.
He grips my arms, his dark eyes drilling into me. “You’re pale.”
He can tell that with all the makeup? I must not have done as good of a job as I thought. “I’m…” I swallow against another bout of nausea. “I’m getting one of my headaches, that’s all.”
He swears, the words low and harsh. “Then you need to lie down.”
Before I can protest that I don’t want to go back to bed, he picks me up again and carries me there. He lays me down onto the blanket as carefully as if my bones were made of matches, and then he strides over to the door and exits into the hallway.
It’s only after he’s gone that I realize he left the cabin fully naked.
Chapter 14
Alexei
“What the fuck?” Ruslan exclaims as I burst into my office and yank open the top drawer of my desk, behind which he’s sitting with his laptop. “Did you forget something… like pants?”
“I need Alina’s medicine,” I say tersely as I grab the pills and a bottle of water. “And for Vika to do her needle voodoo. Tell her to bring whatever she needs to our cabin.” As I speak, I head for the closet, where I grab the first pair of jeans I find—if only to shut my brother up.
Ruslan’s tone turns serious. “Alina’s got one of her headaches?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t faking either. Her face had that pale, slightly greenish hue that I remember from her eighteenth birthday party.
