Nikolai
The woods are quiet tonight.
Even the wind knows better than to stir when I’m on the perimeter. There’s no moon, just the occasional glint of starlight off wet leaves, and the distant hum of nightlife beyond the trees. It’s peaceful. Predictable.
And I’m so fucking bored.
The estate has become a cage of its own.
Our enemies know better than to come too close, and our allies are too afraid to bring trouble to our door.
Every day blends into the next. Training, meetings, handling business, keeping the family in line.
Maksim rules. Roman plots. And I take turns patrolling the edges of our world like a ghost.
Sometimes, I wish someone would be stupid enough to test our borders.
A crack of branches draws my attention. I freeze mid-step, letting my senses sharpen. There. Just beyond the gate. Something moving. Stumbling. Breathing ragged.
I drop low, hidden in shadow, and wait.
And then I smell her.
Not just the panic, though it’s thick in the air like fog, but something else. Cheap perfume, yes, but underneath it: alcohol, sweat, woman. Rich and heady. I catch notes of peach schnapps and some kind of syrupy candy-like body spray, the kind young women wear when they want to feel cute.
It shouldn’t be intoxicating.
But it is.
I hear her muttering to herself through short, gasping breaths.
Then she staggers forward, into the light of one of our security posts.
Her dress is short and ripped, revealing more of her left breast than it did at the start of the night, if the torn strap is anything to go by.
Her knees and thighs are scraped and bloody.
Her dark hair is tangled around her face like a halo of chaos.
She looks like she’s walked straight out of a nightmare.
And yet, she doesn’t fall apart. She lifts her chin. Squares her shoulders. Gives a mirthless laugh and I catch a bitter swear word leaving her mouth.
That spark. That fight. I feel it hit me like a jolt to the spine.
She doesn’t know where she is. She doesn’t know who I am.
But she’s just walked into my world.
And now she’s mine.
I step forward, slow and deliberate. I want her to hear me coming. I want to see what she has awoken.
She turns.
Big golden brown eyes. Dilated pupils. She’s still buzzing from whatever she drank, and from whatever scared her into these woods. She takes a step back, but she doesn’t bolt. Not yet.
“Who are you?” she asks, her voice shaking. But there’s defiance under the fear.
Good.
I take a deep breath, tasting the air again. I could devour her with just my stare. She doesn’t know it yet, but this, this moment, this is the part she’ll remember every time she closes her eyes.
I speak low. Measured.
“Run.”
She blinks, not understanding.
“If I catch you,” I murmur, “you’re mine to keep.” The thought alone, the threat, is enough to get me hard. But the way she looks, the way she smells, it’s enough to drive a man insane.
She hesitates. I see the calculation flicker across her face. She’s not stupid. She knows I’m faster. Stronger. She knows this is a game she’s going to lose.
But something in her likes that.
That makes two of us.
“Last chance, little rabbit,” I add, baring my teeth in a smile that makes men piss themselves.
And then, she moves.
She takes off into the trees, scraps of her dress flaring behind her, her breath ragged.
I wait. One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three.
Then I chase.
My feet barely touch the ground as I move through the woods. She crashes through branches like a storm, but I glide like a shadow. I know every root, every slope. She doesn’t stand a chance.
But fuck, she runs like she wants to be caught. Her calves and thighs working just hard enough to push her ahead.
Like maybe she needs to feel the burn.
Branches whip past me. I hear her stumble and gasp, but she keeps going. She’s fast. Fierce. She doesn’t cry or scream. She laughs. Breathless, wild laughter that slices through the night and sinks into my bones.
I want to hear that sound under me. Around me. I want to drag it from her throat again and again until she forgets her own name.
I lunge.
My arms wrap around her waist as she tries to veer left, and we hit the ground hard. I take the brunt of it, twisting us so she lands on top of me, panting and wriggling like a snared fox.
Her fists hit my chest, and then she stills. Her breath is hot against my neck. Her thighs straddle my hips. And when she lifts her face to look at me, the heat in her eyes knocks the air from my lungs.
She’s not afraid.
She’s hungry.
She grinds down against me, a challenge, making my already solid cock throb harder with want.
“Now what?” she breathes.
I roll us, pinning her beneath me, my hands caging her wrists in the dirt.
“Now,” I say, voice low and thick, “I take what’s mine.”