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Chapter Twelve
Kirill
I pause at the edge of the doorway, watching Tiana with my mother.
Anger and something else twist inside me as I take in the scene.
Blyad!
She’s defied me yet again. But I can’t deny that it’s also a part of her appeal. And to my surprise, my mother… she looks happy? A foreign emotion stirs within me as I see a light in her eyes that has been extinguished for too long. I can’t remember the last time I heard her speak so much.
“Kirill pomozhet. On budet,” my mother says, no doubt trying to tell Tiana that I’m here to help them speak to each other. I have no intention of doing that.
“Did Kirill do this to you?” Tiana asks. “Did he lock you in here?”
Annoyance mingles with amusement. She’s absolutely clueless and assuming the worst of me. Can’t say I blame her, but the thought of anyone believing that I’d harm my own mother makes my teeth set.
“Kirill,” my mother says, smiling radiantly and warming my heart. Tiana turns around and then her head snaps up, dark eyes wide as she spots me. The shock and the fear on her face is almost comical. When I stride in, she practically cowers. But I brush past her, moving to my mother and cupping her cheek tenderly.
“Ya ne mogu ostat’sya, mama. No ya skoro vernus’,” I tell her, hoping she’ll understand why I can’t stay.
She gives a nod, returning to the silence I’ve come to expect of her. I lean down and brush my lips over her forhead, then turn back to the girl.
“Kirill, I-”
“Come.” I don’t wait for her to finish. I close the distance between us, grip her arm firmly, and yank her out of the room. I swing the door shut behind us, moving with controlled precision so that my anger doesn’t ripple out and upset my mother. But I’m angry nonetheless. In fact, I’m growing increasingly furious as I stride out of the East Wing, with Tiana stumbling alongside me.
I shove the door of my bedroom open and pull her in. I can feel the tension as she follows me. Grinding to a halt after striding across the room, I glare down at her. She stares back with eyes wide, her bottom lip trembling. She knows what I’m capable of, yet I think this is the first time she’s truly been afraid of me since we met.
And she fucking should be.
“What the fuck do you think you were doing in there?” I snarl into her face.
“Kirill… I- I-.” She licks her lips. “I was just…” She fumbles for words, clearly uncomfortable at being caught out..
“You were just what?” The fact that I’m not shouting at her is probably scaring her even more than if I was yelling. Good. Let her be scared.
“I’m sorry,” she responds a little more firmly, her chin lifting slightly, masking the fear I know she is feeling.
“I don’t think you understand just how fucking sorry you should be.” My voice is cold velvet.
“How much more sorry do you want me to be, dammit? Really, Kirill, I was just… curious.” Her chin has lifted more firmly now, her jaw taking on a defiant angle that I’m coming to know now.
“Curious? You were disobeying me! You did the one thing I told you not to do.” My eyes dip to her chest heaving beneath the crisp cotton of my shirt. Which looks too damn good on her for my sanity. “Perhaps I should have been clearer. Perhaps you did not understand yesterday who is in charge.”
“For God’s sake, all I did was take a look. I don’t see what the big deal-” the words come out quickly but stop when I snap a hand up and close my fingers around the slender column of her throat. She yelps, her fingers grasping my wrist as I take wide strides, shoving her backward until she bumps up against the glass of one of the tall windows.
“I think you need a more ‘hands-on’ lesson,” I growl. My fist tightens, and she heaves in a rasping breath.
“Please… Kirill,” she manages to gasp out past the pressure of my fingers.
“Please, what?” I swivel her face to look out the window. “Please don’t throw you out there? Please spare you even though you continue to defy me?”
Her breath rasps out, terror glazing her eyes as she clings to my arm. She looks like a terrified fawn facing a predator. That should please me… but it doesn’t.
“Chert voz’mi! I should kill you right now and save myself the trouble.” I spin her away from the window, my hand tight on her neck as I haul her to where a tall armchair is set nearby. Sinking into it, I yank her down until she’s sprawled face-down over my lap.
“Kirill!” she shrieks. “What-?”
