Chapter 42
“God, this must be better than drugs.”
ROMAN
Fuck, I could not love her more.
My wife moves down the aisle like a violent poem, graceful and lithe even as she steps right on the bodies piling up.
The chapel reeks of copper and salt, but all I smell is Valentina, her musk, the notes of her own perfume. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Fleur weaving in and out of the bodies, showering flowers upon the corpses.
I shake my head with a chuffed laugh. I read the language in the three blooms.
Black Dahlias: betrayal, dishonor, and dark fate. A perfect curse-flower.
Belladonna: poisonous, historically tied to curses and death.
And last but not least, hemlock: associated with execution, a curse of justice against the damned.
Only Fleur could toss symbolic blossoms of eternal hell upon the dead, looking every inch a Gothic queen. If Levka is King of Spirits, then Fleur is officially our Queen of Flowers…and Darkness. If they prefer the term Queen.
At the sound of a strident caw, I turn to see Shalun picking away at the dead. Da, he will have a great feast tonight.
Levka is at the head of the chapel, standing sentry with his eyes locked on Fleur.
Mikhail never takes his eyes off my brother.
Anton still looks at me or Valentina, his upper lip occasionally lifting in a scowl.
He won’t move. He knows Mikhail would shoot him in the leg. He knows his reckoning is coming.
Zina holds her post at the sound system, ready to cue another song at my signal.
And fuck me, I almost laugh. She’s kicked back in the chair, bare feet up on the table, her usually immaculate hair wild and tumbling down her chest. A bloody beer bottle dangles from her hand like a trophy.
At her feet, one of Anton’s guards sprawls facedown, a motherfucking shashka jutting from his spine.
“There you are,” Valentina chimes a few paces ahead of me, diverting my attention.
I know exactly who she is targeting.
I follow her down the aisle just as she locks one strong hand around ruby red hair and drags her out of the pew where she and her lover tried to hide.
And like a bloody weakling, he runs in the opposite direction.
I lift my dagger—and hurl it right at him, grinning when it embeds right in his goddamn ass.
Just as planned. He howls. I make my way to him, mirroring my wife’s actions of dragging him to join his fellow rapist.
At the sound of a feral scream, I turn to find Valentina tearing at Selene’s clothes. Nothing held back. Fuck, she’s flawless—rage, retribution, and jubilation.
My pulse sprints through my veins. I reach into my jacket pocket, retrieving a small bottle of my strongest vodka.
I’ll give her this. I’ll stand back with a smile on my face and glory in every moment of my wife avenging me.
Alaric is a sobbing mess on the floor next to her, still bleeding from his ass. I’ll deal with the poltroon soon.
Crouching over Selene with her hands wrapped around the foul woman’s throat, Valentina leans down and hums, “You want to know what I’m going to do to you?” Then, my wife flicks her eyes to mine. “Roman, honey, can you hand me one of your knives? A nice long one?”
“Yes, dear.” I reach into my belt, then hand her the blade.
Valentina presses the knife to Selene’s throat. But I know my wife. She’s not going to make it a simple one-and-done cut.
By now, Alaric has passed out—after pissing himself.
“First, you slut-bitch in a red wig, I’m going to have my husband teach me how to cut out your tongue.”
“No, pleeeease!” Selene screams, shrill and strident, thrashing, which only results in the blade slicing a thin line across her throat. “I’m sor—”
“Then…” Valentina lifts the blade, training the keen point along Selene’s bottom lip.
Blood droplets fall from her golden hair, hitting my rapist’s face.
“I don’t care if I retch doing this, I’ll simply vomit in your tongueless mouth while I take this knife—and I am going to jam it up your carrion whore cunt before I take it out and stab it right up your little pancake bitch ass! ”
Fuck me six ways from Sunday.
She really means it.
And I just got a goddamn raging boner.
“Roman, darling?”
I kneel on Valentina’s other side. “It would be a pleasure, Moya Koroleva.” I steady my voice as though I am instructing a first-year apprentice and the woman who has sworn herself to me.
“First,” I murmur, tracing my fingertip just beneath Selene’s jawline, “you have chosen an exceptional dagger. A narrow, sharp blade is preferable—the tongue is a muscular organ, and resistance increases the deeper you cut. Broad knives tear. Yours will slice.”
Valentina rolls her eyes, but she tilts her head and grins, her violet eyes brighter than flaming amethysts. My clinical instructions will be a worthy balance to her visceral savage energy.
I draw a careful breath. “Next, incision begins here.” I guide Valentina’s wrist lower, showing her the seam between the lips.
“You cut cleanly across the frenulum, the small band anchoring the tongue to the floor of the mouth. It will bleed profusely. Expect a gurgling sound. Ignore it. Maintain your angle. You are not trying to kill her with this stroke. You are disarming.”
Her breath comes fast, but her grip does not falter.
“Is everything clear?” I murmur.
Valentina nods, steady, and I watch her take a deep breath. My chest swells, not just with pride, but with that dark, possessive arousal only she can stir in me. Everything she does is perfect, whether baking a perfect Baked Alaska or commanding a crowd just by walking into a room. And now—this.
She moves with precision, grace, and unflinching resolve. The first cut. Selene’s bloodcurdling screams rip through the chapel, bouncing off the stained glass and holy stone like a hymn from hell. Music to my ears.
When it’s done, Valentina exhales a long, trembling sigh of relief. With a careful hand, she places the severed tongue into my palm, her touch feather-light against my skin—as though she’s handing me something sacred.
“I hope you like your wedding gift, Moya Korona,” she whispers.
I close my hand around it. And God help me, I’ve never loved her more.
Selene has passed out. Also wetting herself.
On our right, Fleur appears, a twinkle in her eyes, a smile on her face. A glass jar in her hands, perfect for a scientific specimen to preserve.
“Aww, Fleur!” Valentina gushes and gets to her feet, leaning over to kiss our Queen of Flowers on the cheek. “What a wonderful wedding gift.” My wife twirls, splattering blood drops over Selene.
Fleur shrugs sweetly as Valentina hands the jar to me. I drop the tongue inside, seal it, and hand it back to Fleur, who skips away, showering more flowers upon the dead.
Valentina looks back at Selene with a snort. And swallows hard. The NSYNC song has ended. Silence thickens in the chapel, other than our heavy breaths.
“Do you require instructions for the next procedures, Valya?”
She shakes her head. “No. But I think I really will vomit.”
“Perfectly normal. I am here, whatever you need.”
I summon my digital chip and relay a text to Zina for the next song, also quite appropriate.
Valentina turns to me, her eyes overflowing with love as she blinks back tears. All I see is her. I mouth the opening words to Sting and the Police’s “Every Breath You Take”. A slow, intimate, and hypnotic rhythm. “I will be right here, Moya Samotsvet, watching you…”
Her hands shake as they pick up the dagger. “Would you mind shoving her thighs up to her chest?”
“Not at all.”
The others watch, a little shell-shocked, I’d say. Our fathers will be next. And we save the worst for last.
For now, I obey my wife, and there is a certain amount of…reclamation in gripping the legs of my rapist, of putting her on display for my wife to fulfill her bloody vow. A precursor of a bridal vow.
“Figures. She doesn’t wax or shave,” Valentina mutters.
I don’t look down. I stare at my wife. Every micro-expression. Every twitch. The shake of her hands as she grips the knife with both palms.
“God, this must be better than drugs,” she whispers.
Valentina brings the blade down, driving it deep in the carrion whore’s cunt.
Blood gushes in a red fountain, coating Valentina’s hands.
Selene wakes up, screaming. No, screaming is too demure for the unholy sounds coming from her throat.
She passes out again, the loss of blood too much for the body to bear.
Valentina doesn’t loosen her grip. But I recognize the signs of the bile rising.
As my wife yanks out the blade, I push Selene’s body up a little more, giving Valentina the position until she shoves the dagger right up the ass, lodging it there.
In the same moment, Valentina lurches. I catch her hair, holding it back as she retches all over Selene’s bleeding cunt.
“Wrong mouth,” I comment as my Valya lifts her head. Or the right one, I reflect with amusement.
Wiping away a smear of vomit, she shrugs, smiling sweetly. “Tomato, tomahto.”
God, I love this woman!
Together, we reduce Selene’s lover to a bloody pulp. My method is slow and precise, but Valentina’s is wild, just like when I caught her with the trespasser. The song fades by the time she finishes.
I remove my coat, wipe myself down, then offer it to her.
“Spasibo, Roman.” She wipes away the blood, but she can do nothing for her soaked wedding gown. For the first time, I rake my gaze across her, licking my lips. My cock has not gone down this whole time, and her eyes flick down. She gets that gleam in her eye.
Then, she glances back at Mikhail. “You have him?” she double-checks, cutting her gaze on Anton’s for the first time. He spits.
“Yes, my Lady,” Mikhail responds.
Even Levka and Fleur remain alert. Fleur is still holding the black bag, reminding me of Mary Poppins and treasures without number.
Her eyes return to mine, but she does not rise. “Roman?” She looks at the tenting fabric again. “Will you help me get rid of the taste in my mouth and do me the honor of letting me give you the best blowjob you could ever imagine?”
With a wry smirk, I unzip and take myself out. “Da, Moya Koroleva. But I believe it’s your turn for another song.”
She smiles. “Promise not to laugh?”
“On my honor.”
“Zina?”
Our house matron salutes us and lowers her hand to the shashka, giving it a little wiggle to make the lifeless guard twitch. Shalun caws and ruffles his feathers. She takes another swig of beer.
“Please play ‘It’s All Coming Back to Me Now’ by Celine Dion.”
Zina makes the selection.
My wife moves toward me, steady despite the tears in her eyes, and my chest tightens. I’m still raw from the violation done to me, and yet every nerve in my body screams for her. She’s here, and she’s mine, and for the first time since Selene’s touch, I feel like I can exhale.
And from the first musical chords, powerful and resounding, Valentina leans in and takes me in her hand. My breath accelerates. The music, along with her mouth, threads through my chest like she knows exactly how to pull me apart and put me back together at once.
She gives me everything. She tantalizes me with her tongue, spiraling it all over my shaft and sucking my balls one at a time.
I dig my fingers into her bloody hair, letting the heat of her presence burn through the ache and rage.
She looks up at me, and I see it all—devotion, fire, love.
My own hunger twists in my gut, sharp and desperate, and I know I will follow her command, whatever it is.
Fucking love the sight of those stiff nipples, taut and erect for me, the outline of her breasts accentuated from the soaked gown.
Blood pulses to my length. I should take her head and guide her slowly and steadily.
But dominance takes over every muscle, bone, and breath in my body.
We are beyond casualties. Beyond tenderness.
Here, in this bloody chapel, with the corpses rotting all around us and the scent of gunpowder and the echoes of screams in the air, our energies collide in a hard-driven coupling.
So, I drive myself deep into her mouth. I fuck her throat. I pour every drop of trauma into her, using her like a flawless, holy vessel to give me life again. Only she could do this, Valentina Makarova.
She ruins me for all other blowjobs.
Eyes fixed on mine, she doubles down on her efforts, sucking my cock, tonguing all around it like a feminine and possessive gift. My heavy balls draw up tight, on the verge of bursting. The hunger coils tighter than a strained wire.
It snaps.
Gripping her hair with ruthless abandon, I fire back-to-back thrusts and blow my load down her throat. She swallows every goddamn drop. I put my erection back into my pants, because it’s still hard for her.
And when she rises, I kiss her. A mad, vicious kiss. She kisses me back, and I taste my cum, her possession, and her feminine claim.
She was mine from the moment I laid eyes on her at that ball.
“I remember, Roman,” she says against my lips.
I cock my head, brows lowering.
“I remember you.” She touches her palm to my chest. “I remember the ball. But only that night, Moya Korona. I remember it all.”