20. Casandra
One moment, I am looking into Lukas’s amused, glacial eyes. The next, the world is a dizzying blur of black and gold.
A massive, calloused hand clamps onto my upper arm, the grip so sudden and violent it nearly snaps the bone. With a roar, Nikolai wrenches me away from Lukas. The force of it sends me stumbling into his rock-hard chest, the impact knocking the air from my lungs.
“Get your fucking hands off her!” Nikolai’s voice isn’t human. It’s a vibrating snarl that makes the floorboards beneath us groan.
Lukas doesn’t flinch, but his eyes sharpen into silver shards. “She chose to be here with me, Nikolai. Perhaps if you spent less time snarling and more time—”
Nikolai lunges, his free hand catching Lukas by the throat. He slams the Swedish heir backward against a marble pillar with a sickening thud. The sound of stone cracking echoes through the hall.
“If you so much as breathe in her direction again,” Nikolai hisses, his face inches from Lukas’, his fangs fully descended and dripping with clear, predatory venom, “I will peel the skin off and hang it in V?rmland. She is mine.”
“Nikolai, stop!” I find my voice, my fingers digging into the stiff fabric of his shirt. “Let him—”
Nikolai’s head snaps toward me. The molten gold in his eyes is so bright it’s blinding, a lawless, ancient fire that freezes the words in my throat. He doesn’t say a word, but the look he gives me is a physical weight—a command so absolute it feels like a collar tightening around my neck.
I feel the dark, dormant power in my blood stir. Before I can think of something to calm him down, Nikolai moves. He bends at the waist, hooks an arm behind my knees, and heaves me over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
“Nikolai! Put me down!” I shriek, my fists drumming against the small of his back.
He ignores me, his stride long as he makes a beeline to the stairs. I am dangling upside down, my dress bunching around my thighs, the blood rushing to my head.
“I will bite you, Nikolai! I swear, I will drain you dry right here!” I snarl, my fangs aching, the tips brushing against the sensitive skin of my inner lip.
“Do it,” he rasps, his hand coming down to swat my ass with a stinging, possessive force that shocks me into a momentary silence. “Bite me. Mark me. See if I fucking care.”
He storms up the staircase, his breath coming in heavy, jagged hitches. By the time we reach the fourth floor I am vibrating with a mixture of need —fucking mate bond — and an ego-bruising fury.
He kicks a set of doors open and slams them shut behind us, the deadbolt clicking with finality. He marches into the center of a sprawling, darkened suite and tosses me onto the bed.
I bounce once on the soft mattress, scrambling to sit up, my hair a chaotic curtain around my face. “You arrogant, territorial—”
He is on me before I can finish.
He pins my wrists above my head, his massive frame caging me into the soft duvet. He is heaving, his chest pressing into mine, the heat radiating off him like a furnace. He looks down at me with a hunger that makes my toes curl.
“You are a fucking nightmare,” he whispers, his voice thick with a needy, desperate edge. “A blood-drinking nightmare. And I can’t breathe when you’re near that Swedish pup. I can’t think. All my wolf wants is to bury himself in you until you smell like nothing but me.”
“You called me a monster,” I remind him, my voice trembling as his nose brushes against mine.
“You are a monster,” he groans, his grip on my wrists tightening until it almost hurts. “But you’re my monster. Mine to hate. Mine to break. Mine to keep.”
“Go fuck—,”
He crashes his mouth onto mine.
It’s an invasion. It tastes of bitterness and desperation, of the cinnamon I crave and the iron I need.
For a heartbeat, I fight him, my body tensed to strike, but then the mate bond—that treacherous tether—snaps taut.
My resistance crumbles into a soft, pathetic moan.
My mouth opens under his, and I find myself pulling him closer, my legs tangling with his as the ice in my veins finally begins to thaw.
Nikolai lets go of my wrists, but only so his hands can roam. They are everywhere, mapping the curves he’s been staring at from across the hall. He groans into my mouth as his palms slide down my dress, bunching the fabric upward.
“So pale,” he mutters against my skin, his lips trailing down my jaw to the sensitive dip of my throat. “Like marble. I want to see every inch of you.”
He works the zipper of my dress with frantic, trembling fingers until it falls away, leaving me in nothing but lace. He pulls back for a second, his eyes raking over my body with a possessive, territorial heat that makes me feel more exposed than if I were naked.
“So fucking beautiful,” he whispers, his voice dropping into a dirty, low-frequency hum. “I bet you’ve never had a wolf’s touch, have you?”
I have, in fact. But now’s not the time to mention that.
His tongue licks a slow, agonizing path from the center of my chest up to the peak of one breast, circling the lace-covered nipple until I am arching off the bed, my fingers buried in his hair.
“Does that feel good, baby?” he murmurs, his hand sliding between my thighs, his thumb rubbing through the thin fabric of my underwear.
“Nikolai...” I gasp, my head tossing back.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he commands, his fingers finding the damp heat of me. “Tell me you’ve been waiting for me to claim what’s mine.”
He doesn’t wait for the answer. He slides two fingers inside me, the intrusion sudden and deep. I cry out, a sharp, high sound that echoes in the quiet room. He is relentless, his pace steady and demanding, his thumb working my clit with a rhythmic, punishing precision.
“I’m going to mark you,” he growls, leaning down to nip at the junction of my neck and shoulder, his teeth grazing the skin but not breaking it.
“I’m going to leave my scent so deep in your pores that every male in Blackmere will choke on it. They won’t even be able to look at you without smelling me.”
I’m lost. The world has narrowed down to the friction of his fingers and the heat of his mouth. I can’t remember my name, my mission, or the fact that I’m supposed to hate him for everything he’s put me through. I am just a vessel for the pleasure he is pouring into me.
“That’s it,” he purrs, feeling the tremors start in my thighs. “Come for me, Casandra.”
The climax hits me like a tidal wave, shattering my vision into sparks of white and gold. I scream his name, my body clenching around his fingers as the high takes me, lifting me far above the politics and the blood-debts.
I drift for a long, blissful minute, my breathing slowly evening out as the fog of pleasure begins to lift. I feel heavy, warm, and for the first time in my life, completely settled. My soul reaches out for the bond, wanting more. I want the weight of him inside me.
I reach for his belt, my fingers fumbling with the buckle. “Nikolai... please. I want you.”
He freezes.
The heat that was radiating off him vanishes, replaced by a sudden, jarring chill. He pulls his hand away from me. He stands up, adjusting his trousers, his face hardening.
I look up at him, confused, my body still humming with the aftershocks of the high.
He looks down at me, and there is no gold left in his eyes. Only a cold, clinical blue.
“You’re a vampire, Casandra,” he says, his voice flat, devoid of the passion that had just consumed him. He wipes his hand with a look of mild distaste.
My heart drops into my stomach.
“I’m not sure yet if I want to keep you,” he continues.
The words are a bucket of ice water poured over my head. The shame hits me instantly—thick, hot, and suffocating. I had let him touch me. I had let him hear me scream his name while he was mentally calculating my worth.
“Excuse me?” I ask not actually expecting an answer, my voice cracking despite my best efforts.
I scramble off the bed, grabbing my dress and clutching it to my chest. I don’t look at him. I can’t. If I look at him, I might actually try to kill him, and I’m not ready for that war yet.
I stop at the door without looking back. “To answer your question — I have, in fact, had a wolf’s touch before.”
I burst out into the hallway, fumbling with my dress as I run toward the elevators.
By the time I reach the fifth floor and slam the door to the West Wing apartment, I am shaking so hard I can barely stand.
I go straight to the bathroom and turn on the shower, scrubbing at my skin until it’s raw, trying to wash away the scent of cinnamon and the lingering, humiliating warmth of his touch.
He thinks I’m a “maybe.”
I look at myself in the steamed-up mirror, my eyes glowing a feral, vengeful red.
He has no idea who he just played with. And by the time he finds out I’m not only a Corvin, but the heir to the throne, it will be far too late for him to decide if I’m “worth the trouble.”
I’m going to make him crawl.