Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Xeniya Morozova
My skin prickled. A gaze seared into my spine.
I didn’t need to turn to know who was staring at me.
Severin Volkov. No matter the life, the universe, the time, his eyes always found me.
And while most of my appearance had changed, the shape of my body never had.
I always had an hourglass figure and far too many curves, even when I trained with the boys every single day.
It didn’t matter how much I worked out. It wouldn’t matter. My body never changed. Still soft in places that should have hardened after everything I had endured.
So like I said, nothing had changed… except everything.
Anxiety poured through my bones, licking at my insides until bile stirred in my stomach.
I pinched my eyes shut, and I tried to keep the pain from clawing its way up my throat, but I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t unhear his words. Get rid of her.
Get rid of her.
The last words I’d ever heard him say.
I sucked my lower lip between my teeth. I had thought I was prepared for this. I was supposed to be fine. But nothing was fine.
The worst part was I’d trained for this moment. I had practiced exposure therapy—looking at their photos over and over, watching videos on repeat—so that I could walk into this room and not react. So I wouldn’t let them know how deeply they hurt me.
I was fury made manifest. I wasn’t supposed to feel anymore. Ghosts didn’t feel. But right now, I was a ball of emotions—tightly contained, awful emotions.
My fingers curled too tightly around the stem of my champagne glass. I brought it to my lips and downed it.
Three glasses in, and I still wasn’t numb. I should have chosen whiskey.
But this would do.
I tilted my head, needing to see him.
It was a mistake.
My stomach tightened, and I gulped. It all hit at once. All of the emotion and memories, eating away at me.
My lungs forgot to work.
Severin Volkov was the devil in human form, and like Lucifer, he was stunning. Light clung to his tailored suit as if it didn’t know he had fallen from the heavens.
He had no right to look better at thirty-six.
The sheer audacity.
Everything about him was sharper and deadlier. The cords in his neck, the ropes of his muscles, his heavier build. It was like he had grown into his body—like he had grown into the violence and thick muscles.
Young Severin had been all cocky smiles and arrogant words, but this version was darker, moodier, and far, far deadlier.
And fuck me, I found him more attractive now.
He always had been attractive. I shouldn’t be surprised.
But the worst part was this: despite hating him, despite knowing he was responsible for all of my pain, despite knowing he sold me to a sadistic cult, my body still recognized him.
It still wanted him.
The Lethean Order had broken my body so many times it should have forgotten how to want.
It didn’t.
But as I glared at him, as I remembered how much I hated him, I also remembered his hands on my hips. His lips against the column of my throat.
Heat flooded my body and desire coiled, unwanted and alive.
I fucking hated it all.
I despised him, and I would kill him. Slowly. I’d make him suffer the way I had. Maybe I would keep him in my torture chamber for three years. Three years in a cell. Three years on his knees for me.
Begging.
Maybe I would fuck him for every time someone hurt me.
No. Stop. What the hell do you even mean?
That would only torture me. Not him.
I hated Severin Volkov.
Worse, I hated that I didn’t hate him enough. I hated that he still reminded me of love. That was the most unforgivable part.
I turned away and grabbed another glass of champagne. Fuck it. Who cared if I was tipsy? It wouldn’t change anything. I was still going to burn his world to the ground, a little drunk or not.
His betrayal had not been kind. His sin was biblical. Unforgivable. Unimaginable. Killing me would have been far more merciful. Instead, his betrayal had branded itself into my body and mind, every day, every moment someone else hurt me.
It was him scarring me.
Get rid of her.