Chapter 14
Ilya
Even in plain black leggings and a soft, navy sweater, she looks delicate. With her pale blonde hair, with the tones of muted strawberry in waves that tumble down her back, her wide blue eyes and face free of makeup, she’s exquisite.
I’d had my men pack her belongings, not that there was much. Her one-room apartment had been sparsely furnished. She had very few articles of clothing, and the boots and jacket she’d had weren’t fit for a Russian winter. They weren’t even fit winter in New York, what with the cracks in the soles. It’s no matter, though. I’d remedy the fact she has hardly any clothes, and ill-fitting-to-the-elements, outerwear, soon.
Until then, she’ll use Polina’s boots and jacket. It’s time I introduce the woman who will become my wife, to my most trusted men. I’ll also need to introduce her to the dogs who guard my property, my men, and myself, with their lives. Because they will also guard her.
She’s the most precious thing on this property.
She shoves her feet into Polina’s big black boots, before shoving her arms into the jacket. When she’s bundled in the too-big gear, she tips her head back to me and grins a rosy-cheeked grin that makes her look, for a moment, far too young. “I’m ready.”
My heart quickens. Or maybe it skips a sequence of beats.
She’s fucking beautiful.
I want to kiss her.
Jeez, I’m a bastard. Trouble is, I don’t care enough to do much about it.
“Come.” Taking her small hand in my own, I guide her from the house into the chill. “I have twenty men living on my property.” When her eyes snap wide, her pretty, pink lips popping open in a tempting O that has the blood rushing to my dick, I continue, “There are three more properties on this land.” I point to two plowed roads. “Not far from here,” I bend at the waist, continuing to point as she squints into the distance through the blowing snow. “There are two houses. On a clear day, they are easy to see. There is always a man on watch in each house, because there is only one entrance and exit onto the property. Unless one leaves by air or by foot through the forest.” I pin her with serious eyes. “I do not recommend taking on the forest. The elements are harsh, as are the animals.”
Her insolence is innocent. I can see the thoughts of escape playing out in her clear blue eyes. Everything she thinks, everything she feels, is telling. Her eyes display her emotions like inked words in a book.
She sniffs. “The third house?”
“It is behind the main house. Polina and Daniil have always lived in the main house, with me. As has Misha, my right hand. As of your arrival, Luka and Boris will also be staying in the main house.”
She twists to peer up at me, her nose scrunching as wind blows flakes of snow into her face. I watch, mystified, as a devious little grin tilts her lips. Giving her shoulders a suspicious little shimmy, she taunts low, “Are you afraid I might try to off you while you sleep?”
Something warm ignites in my chest at the idea of my innocent Little Blue, with her sad eyes and gentle touch, offing anyone. It is amusing to no extent.
Turning my body fully toward hers, my hands land on her hips in time to hear her gasp as I angle her out of the wind, shielding her from the bitter, blowing snow with my body. A snowflake dangles from her lash, tumbling to her pale, freckled cheek as she sweeps her eyes closed in a blink. They open, drifting back up to peer into my own. The flake melts into her skin like a tear I want to lick away with the tip of my tongue.
The urges this woman brews inside me.
I’m bewitched.
“Little Blue,” I rumble, desire sparking inside me when her eyes drop to my mouth a moment before they lift back to mine. A shiver rockets through her body, so intense, I feel it where my hands rest on her waist—even with Polina’s thick jacket between us. “You couldn’t hurt a fly.”
Her little chin lifts. “That’s not true.” There’s something sad in the way she speaks. Something haunted in her defiance. It instantly ignites my driving need to know all there is about this woman I’ve claimed as my own. “I’ve hurt people before.”
Well, that’s interesting.
I want to know more. “Tell me more?”
Her lifted chin sets in a look that can only be described as defiance. “Because he hurt me.”
He.The idea of anyone hurting her has every violent bone in my body burning—and, considering this is me we’re talking about—that’s every. Single. Bone.
“Who hurt you?”
Her head tips to the side curiously. “Why do you think I won’t hurt you?”
“Who hurt you?” I demand again, stepping toe-to-toe with her. “I want his name.”
She narrows her eyes on me. “Who are you?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You’ve told me your name. But you’re more than Ilya Volkov, business owner and sometimes-killer, aren’t you?”
I could tell her. I could bare all of me to her, but she already looks at me with fear. I can’t tell her who I am. Not yet.
She needs to trust me first. And if not trust, then she needs to at least yearn for me—with even a fraction of how I burn for her.
My teeth grit. “Who hurt you?”
She leans in, rising up onto her tiptoes as she does. With her face tilted up to mine, the desire to crush the inch of space that burns between us and claim her lips with my own in a bruising kiss, she couldn’t mistake for the mark of possession it would be, grows impossibly, painfully, sharply difficult to ignore.
“You have your secrets, and I have mine.” Her breathy words are a challenge masked in a whisper.
I don’t miss the flash of a dare that ignites the sad blue of her eyes. I want to strip her of her secrets until she’s open and exposed to me. Every soft piece of her, every broken shard, ready for me to devour.
What the fuck is this obsession?
I tip my head until I can taste the sweet cream of her breath on my tongue.
I want to kiss her.I want to climb inside her until I’m rooted so deep, she’ll never be able to uproot me. She’s an untouched garden, blooming bluebells. I’m the invasive weed that will surely overtake her. Yet, I can’t seem to stop myself from invading.
I’ll protect her, I vow to myself.
Even from myself—from the monster who lurks beneath my flesh—I will protect her.
Her lips part as I begin to speak, my pitch low and uncharacteristically soft. “I have the power to uncover all your secrets, Little Blue. Every. Single. One. Don’t tempt me.”
That sad light flashes in her eyes, but she doesn’t sever my gaze. The scent of sugar cookie mingles with the fresh cold of the Russian winter. Warm and cold. Light and dark. Soft and hard. Her and me.
Finally, she shrugs. “Do your worst, Ilya. But be careful the skeletons you unearth. You might find you’ve kidnapped a harbinger of misery, and not the innocent damsel you think you’ve captured.”
Her words ping inside my brain, fighting to escape even as I lock them away for further dissection. If this is how she sees herself, as a harbinger of misery, I want to know why.
I will know why.
Before I have a chance to reply, to tell her she’s my salvation, the crunch of snow alerts me to another presence. My head whips up, my hand jolting for the gun tucked at my back. It’s a reflex I don’t see through, as I let my hand fall back to the woman. My woman.
Next to Misha, Luka stands. They’re both looking at me like they’ve never seen me before. Probably because I’ve never, not ever in my life, been so oblivious to my surroundings that someone—much less two people—were able to get this close without my realizing.
She’s messing with my equilibrium.
I’m going to have to be more focused. I can’t risk not being aware of my surroundings. Not when the price I could be forced to pay, is her.
I give my shoulders a roll, straightening my spine. It will never happen again.
“Misha, Luka, this is Irelynn,” I introduce, though they already know. “Irelynn, Misha and Luka.”
She offers them both a smile she’s never offered me. It’s bright, and wide, and beautiful. Misha’s brow rises and he rocks back on his heels, mouth hitching in a shit-grin that tells me without words, I’m going to have my hands full. As for Luka, he looks momentarily enamoured. Then his eyes flick to me, and I know by the way his face falls blank, he knows I’m pissed. Me pissed, is a dangerous, dangerous thing.
My hand twitches at my side as I fight the urge to lift it to my chest to rub at the burning ember there. What is this?
My eyes slide back to the little temptress currently wrapping my most trusted men around her little fingers with a smile that rivals the sun in the winter-gray sky.
She’s never smiled at me like that.
“It’s so nice to meet you both.” Is she fluttering her lashes at them? I stiffen. What the fuck? “You’re both so big and strong. Heroes, I just know it.” She steps away from me, toward them. For a moment, I’m incapable of movement. What the fuck is she doing?Hero’s?
Christ.
Misha laughs, the sound boisterous and entirely entertained. No, not entertained. Like Luka, he’s enamoured. With her. With my woman.
I growl. It’s an animal sound. A sound that promises death.
No one hears me. They’re too taken with her.
What is happening?
She’s standing close enough to touch them now. They’re both looking down at her in bewitched fascination as she tips her head back and says softly, innocently, “I’ve been kidnapped. Please, please help me.”
At this, Luka’s head whips up and his eyes land on me. He looks struck dumb.
He’s not the only one. I could throw her over my knee and…
Misha laughs again. Then he mutters, “Nice try, sweetheart.” I growl at the endearment. “But we can’t help you with that one.” To me, he huffs, palming the back of his neck. “Good luck with her, brother.”
Luka pushes a breath from between his cheeks the same time he shoves a hand through his hair. “He’ll need it.”
As for my part, I pull Irelynn into my chest with an arm around her belly. Her round ass lands against me, and hot blood rushes to my groin.
She doesn’t even fight me as I drop my lips to her ear, growling, “Misha grew up with me. He is like a brother.” My accent is thick, rich with my anger. My jealousy. “I love him, but if you flirt with him again, I’ll kill him.” Misha hears every word, and grins like the fool he is. I don’t think he realizes quite how unhinged she makes me. “Luka is one of my most trusted men, and now he is your guard. I would hate to have to end his life because you couldn’t keep yourself in check.”
If I think threatening my men’s lives is going to make her remember herself, I’m dead wrong.
Twisting her neck to glare over her shoulder at me, she tells me honestly, “You took me. You stole me. I told you I’d never stop trying to get away from you. I told you I’d run every chance I get. I won’t stop.” She shivers in my arms. “If you want that, you’re going to have to kill me.”
The idea of her death sparks something inside of me the like I’ve never felt before. It’s—devastation.
Grief.
I feel, for a moment, as though I have no air.
I want to shake her.
“The dogs can wait for another day,” I mutter. And then I throw her over my shoulder, stomping through deep snow, back to the house.
I’m pretty sure I hear Misha laugh even as tiny fists pound into my back and a little woman spits curses and weak threats from where she hangs over my shoulder.
I know I promised to never hurt her, and I never will. Not really.
Discipline however…
I let my hand crack against the swell of her little round ass, barking, “Enough.”
Again, she gives me a run for my money as another stream of curses splits the winter air.
My ears burn. The heart in my chest thunders.
My palm lands on her ass a second time. Now she’s spewing threats, like all five-foot-two of her can render me weak.
The thing is—clearly, she can.
I see red.
Luka’s laugh joins Misha’s.