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Of course, he would.
This was a war and eventually, all wars meant a battle. I just didn’t want him to. I didn’t want him anywhere near Volkov. I didn’t want the risk of losing him forever. If it were up to me … I didn’t finish the thought. I couldn’t. It ended with us being together and I knew I had to be realistic.
“Could you talk to him?” I offered stupidly instead.
The warm fingers on his free hand swept back locks of hair away from my temple and tucked them behind my ear. “He wants blood. He won’t settle for less.”
“But maybe…?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t settle for less if it were me. I would abolish his entire bloodline.” His thumb caressed my cheek. “I would destroy everyone he’s ever loved.” It brushed my bottom lip. “I would make him watch as I picked them off one by one and let him hear every one of their screams.” He tipped my chin up. “I would send him pieces of them every day as a reminder that I was coming for him next. He only wants me. I would want them all.”
Talk of such gruesome acts of violence with such calm detachment should have horrified me, but all I felt was a warm ripple of warmth course through me, muddling my brain to everything, except how much I loved this man.
“I don’t want him to want you.” I touched the front of his top with my free hand, smoothing the soft material over the heat of his chest. “I don’t want him anywhere near you. The thought of him hurting you…” I gritted my teeth. “I want to kill him myself.”
His kiss was feather light brushing across my lips, yet the weight of it crushed my heart.
“What do you think I would do to him if he touches you, kitten?”
Hand still flat against his chest drifted up to cup the back of his neck, holding his face bowed over mine.
“I just don’t want to lose you,” I whispered. “I don’t … I can’t handle it.”
His kiss was harder, desperate. It caught my words and me in its web of promises he had no right making when we both knew better. But I didn’t stop him. I knew I should. Every voice in my head screamed my idiocy but my body couldn’t give a shit when it felt like it was finally home again. Even my heart couldn’t protest how right it felt being enveloped by his arms, his heat. Both ignored reason for that brief moment of weakness.
I love you,I wanted to tell him. It burned in my throat and teetered on my tongue. Instead, I kissed him back one moretime, hard and filled with everything I wished I could tell him before pulling back.
“We have to stop,” I breathed.
His fingers slid into my hair and cupped the back of my skull, holding me in place as he rested his brow against mine. “One more second, kitten.”
I didn’t protest.
I let my curled fingers brush along his cheek to his jawline. I kissed him lightly. I was about to let him tip my face back for a deeper kiss when the front door unlocked with a muffled click.
For a full second neither of us moved. The very air around us seemed to still as Lavena’s voice filled my apartment.
Standing in my bedroom doorway, clad in a towel with Darius before the sun even had a chance to touch the sky was going to raise a lot of questions I didn’t know how to answer.
Panicking, I grabbed Darius and pulled him to the bathroom and shut him in just as Lavena appeared where we’d been standing seconds below.
“You’re not dressed,” she observed.
Trying to act as normal as possible, I hurried to the outfits I’d tossed onto my bed and picked up the green one.
“Just got out of the shower. I’ll be ready in a minute.”
Lavena flopped down onto my bed and crossed her long legs at the ankle. “No rush. I’ll wait here.”
Struggling not to grimace, I gathered my clothes and slipped carefully into the bathroom … and turned.
Darius stood directly behind me, eyes the calm of the ocean before a storm.
I shut the door quickly and faced him fully with my clothes held against my chest.
“Did you get Mom’s text this morning?” Lavena called from the other side.
I shook my head, eyes never leaving Darius. “No.”
