Chapter 31
I forcemyself to look him in the eye. This moment was inevitable the minute I swiped that credit card at the pharmacy just days earlier. But I thought I’d have more time than this.
“What are you doing in here?” My shoulders sag under exhaustion and the unceasing weight of secrets.
Mine. His. And the unpredictable future before us.
And maybe it’s relief too.
Because pretending Lexi belongs to Faith was slowly killing me. Nursing her in secret. Fighting tears when it ended too soon, and I slipped back into the role of honorary aunt. The resentment burning in my gut the entire time.
The jealousy I constantly shoved down watching Faith get to hold my little girl freely while I slowly withered away under spiteful irrational feelings.
I’m the one who vomited for three months straight, all day every day carrying her. I’m the one who felt her swell and grow inside me. I’m the one who battled through eighteen hours of brutal labor to bring her into this world with nothing more than Faith holding my hand despite having her own baby to care for, just two weeks old.
Every milestone changed me. Endless hiccups and an insatiable craving for cucumbers and salsa, by far the weirdest combination of foods I’ve ever eaten to this day. The first gentle swell of my hardening belly. Her first kick. And the first time she opened those solemn eyes and looked at me with endless trust.
“Answer the question.” His gruff voice cuts through my racing thoughts, an emotion in his tone I can’t quite identify.
Focusing on Lexi, I gently turn her in my arms. I push aside Konstantin’s shirt, nestling her on my other side, brushing my nipple over her lips until she latches on. “Answer mine first.”
“To check on you.” His hungry gaze roams my face before trailing along the skin exposed by his open shirt and the swell of my breast showing over Lexi’s dark hair. Naked yearning etches his features. Like he’s on the outside of some reality he so desperately wants to be a part of.
This is where anyone else would have a niggling of doubt about their decision to keep her secret.
I have none.
The first time I looked into her eyes, I knew I’d suffer whatever I had to for her. I’d force the people I love to endure anything to protect her.
“I wasn’t sure we’d be safe.” I glance down at my baby girl and think about what the Petrovs do to their women. The choke hold on me is swift, and the spill of tears quickly follows.
Outside these moments, I’m vicious with the need to protect her. People don’t have good natures. I don’t categorize them by their good deeds, how respected they are, or loved ones waiting for them at home. They’re animals at their most basic level. They’re a friend, or they’re the enemy.
Enemies are a threat. I eliminate threats.
But in moments like these where we’re warm and safe, and I’m doing something so natural and simple as feeding her, something only I can do like this, I feel everything.
I feel the deep-seated fear. And the horrible images flood my head before I can stop them.
“It’s more than just me now, and if the Petrovs got ahold of us…” I don’t have to say it because he knows. My brother’s army survives and grows in safe houses and an underground city he built because of the dangers to all of us.
Even if I came back the minute I found out I was pregnant, even if I could tell Nikolaj the whole truth without him putting a bullet between Konstantin’s eyes, they lived a good portion of their lives underground hiding out. How long would I have been forced into those tunnels to stay alive? All I could think about was endless days, the walls closing in, no sunlight, and despair. And when it came time to deliver… would we still be underground? Would I be opening some hidden hatch, carrying my little girl down a narrow ladder? The darkness swallowing us the way it had when Grigori brought me down to the crypt. The thought of keeping Lexi down there indefinitely—no.
The alternative comes to life in my nightmares. Where they’re tearing her away with sinister laughs as she screams for me.
“We’ll never let them get ahold of you.”
After seeing him tonight firsthand, there’s no one I would trust with my life, or with hers, more. But it’s still not enough. If it were just me… but it’s not now. I have to think about her first.
We’re limited by the same means and share the same enemies. Together we make an irresistible target.
And he was right earlier. I shouldn’t have exposed myself while bullets were flying. I made a huge mistake that could have cost my little girl everything. Like playing honorary aunt had skewed my priorities in the heat of the moment and I forgot myself.
I lost my mother far too young, but at least I remember her.
Lexi would have nothing but a few pictures and the surrounding people to tell her who her mother was. She wouldn’t remember my scent, the feel of my hair, the sound of my voice talking and singing to her—all things I at least had of my mother.
“You say that, but when Nikolaj finds out, he’s going to lose his mind. He won’t take this well, and I don’t know how to tell him without putting us all at risk. Anger makes people vulnerable. Simple mistakes are deadly. I can’t—” My voice wobbles and I swallow against the tears clogging my throat. She’s their best weapon against me, and the minute they find out about her, they’ll know it. “I won’t let anything happen to her. I’ll keep her a secret forever if that’s what it takes to keep them from getting their hands on her.”
“You love her… you”re fierce with it.”
I stare at him wide-eyed for a couple of seconds before I realize my mouth is hanging open. “Of course I love her. Why wouldn’t I?”
He pushes to his feet and paces the floor at the foot of the bed. “Some women can’t. When they look at their child, it reminds them of their assault. But not you.”
“Assault? What?—”
He lets out a growl through gritted teeth, his jaw tight. “I swear, if I could, I’d resurrect that fucker and kill him again for what he did to you.” His shoulders hunch with agitation, his clenched fists hanging at his sides.
“Who?”
“Who do you think? Elijah,” he snarls, whirling on me.
A burst of laughter slides out of me, startling Lexi. She throws the arm not tucked against me out wide, her eyelids squeezing tight before softening again. “Kostya. You saw what I did to him. Do you really think I would have let him get inside me? Think about it.”
“If not Elijah, then who?” He leans toward me with his palms flat on the foot of the bed. “Tell me and he’s dead, Pcholka.”
Lexi’s latch breaks free then. I brush my nipple against her lips one more time and when she doesn’t react, I close my shirt and lift her to my shoulder. Smiling, I kiss her soft pink cheek and take a deep breath before I look him straight in the eye. “The only man I’ve ever been with.”
He freezes then, his face freakishly blank, like he doesn’t understand a word I’m saying. Or maybe he understands all too well.
“Lexi is your daughter, Kostya.”
Before I realize what’s happening, he sinks to his knees and drops his head in his hands. My stomach knots with tension and the niggling doubts I buried long ago because they change nothing.
I’ve never seen him on his knees. Never.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing the image away as it slices at my soul.
His harsh breathing fills the room, in and out, in time with the hammering of my heart echoing in my head.
I don’t know if he’s hurt or he realizes the gravity of what will happen when we tell Nikolaj, but either way, the discussion is not happening until Lexi is out of the room. “Let me put her to bed and we can talk.” I reach for him. “I’m sure you want?—”
His head snaps up, his hard gaze pinning me to the spot. I can’t read him, but something tells me to pull my hand back and get Lexi out. “You probably have a million questions.”
When I get to the door, I glance back and he’s still on his knees, but it’s the cutting look as I passed him that’s now burned in my mind.
Careful not to wake Faith, I settle Lexi in the crib next to Alex. They brought in another crib, but we’ve continued to put them together in one. They’ll grow out of it soon, probably in the next few weeks. This special ritual is slipping away, so I’m taking advantage of every moment.
“It’s going to be okay, baby girl. No more pretending. You get your mommy back starting now.”
Lexi grins just then in her sleep. It’s fleeting, a quick twitch of her cheeks. I know it’s likely gas, but I don’t care. I’m pretending she heard me and she’s just as happy to have me back as I am to have her.
When I get back to my room, Konstantin is off the floor, with his back to me in the corner I’d found him in earlier. Reaching for a packet on the table, he flips the little blister pack between his fingers the way I’ve seen poker players flip chips during tournaments on TV.
“What was your plan? Marry someone else and let him raise my child without ever telling me a word about her?”
“I would have eventually told you.” The packet crinkles with every transition between his fingers as he keeps his back to me. I miss his face already. The way I could read him better than anyone. The way he could read me.
The way we could speak without more than a glance.
“But yes, I would have waited until I was married. Once I found someone who could protect her.”
The package snaps to a stop and he goes still. Nerves skitter along my skin and goosebumps bloom on my arm, over my shoulders, along my neck, right into my hair.
“I have just one more question, Pcholka.” His even voice has a strange edge, making the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
When he turns to me, the frigid calm in his eyes sends dread slicing down my spine. I could have handled anything. Yelling. Fighting. Swearing. Insults. Any or all of them would have been preferable to the way he’s looking at me right now. An expression more terrifying than any show of anger I’ve seen from him.
The look he aims at me now is the very look he directed at the guy pinned to the ground under his shoe earlier tonight. The man he promised would beg him to die long before he’d finish causing him pain.
The way he stares me down is a vivid reminder. Everyone falls into one of two categories. A friend or a threat.
When I held my knife to his belly at the commune, even when I sliced him at the cemetery, he’d never been even close to the threat he transformed into before my very eyes in this moment.
“Are you going to give back what you stole from me or do I have to take it?”
I fight the urge to take a step back and stand my ground. “I didn’t steal one damn thing from you.”
“But didn’t you?” Sliding a hand in his pocket, he draws out a Zippo and sparks the flame to life. “You stole an entire pregnancy, childbirth, and the three, maybe four months of my child’s life from me. How old is my daughter?”
Surely he has to understand why I did it. My God. He spent a lifetime protecting me. He, of all people, should understand better than anyone.
“She’s three and a half months old.” I work the buttons closed on the shirt, needing to do something with my hands. What I really itch to do is reach for my blade. Maybe both of them.
He holds the flame to the edge of the packet and watches as the plastic curls and blackens, finally lighting with a modest flame. Slowly, methodically, he lays the blistered, twisted remains in the crystal dish and slides the lighter back in his pocket.
“What was that?”
“The morning after pill.” He shoots me a piercing, narrowed look over his shoulder. “We don’t need it anymore.”
“What? Yes, we do! Why the hell would you burn that?”
Oh, he has definitely lost his mind. Twice tonight he fucked me with no protection and—God, I grind my fingertips at my temples and wince. I slept just long enough for my rest to have the same effect as a power nap. Jittery energy courses through me as a chilling calm settles over Konstantin.
The room goes deathly silent as he slides his jacket from his shoulders and tosses it on the chair.
My brain latches on to the math as I try to remember what day it is and how long it’s been since my last period. My wildly inconsistent period since it only just came back—if you can call it a full comeback considering the breastfeeding.
He reaches for his cuffs next, slipping the buttons from the holes before rolling the crisp white sleeves up his arm to just below his elbow.
My eyes dart about the room. I choke back hysterical laughter as unease swells inside me to the point it pounds viciously in my ears.
When he finally turns, he slides his hands in his pockets with an eerie calm. “I’ll ask you again. Are you going to give back what you stole from me, or do I have to take it?”
Methodical and cold, he tilts his head and I know he won’t let me get away with not answering a second time.
But if he thinks he can break me with a tone so freakishly benign it’s terror-inducing, he should sit his ass down and think again.
He didn’t teach me to cower. “You’re going to have to take it.”
A spine-tingling laugh breaks from his lips and I’m hit with the stark realization… I don’t know this man standing before me. I have no idea what he’ll do or how far he’ll go.
“Just the answer I expected.”
“I won’t make it easy for you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you won’t. I’m looking forward to the battle, Pcholka.” His hand shoots out so fast his watch is barely a flash streaking past my vision before his hands lock in my hair and he yanks my head back. Pain shoots through my scalp.
“I’m looking forward to it very much,” he says, marching me backward toward the bed, his other hand going to his belt.
The fingers in my hair flex, easing my pain, but solidifying his grip as he drags my head back impossibly far and looms over me.
“If you hit me with that fucking belt, Konstantin…” My voice dips almost as cold and deadly as his. My throat strains with every word from the angle of my neck as I glare up at him. “I swear on my mother’s grave I will cut your fucking heart straight out of your chest and shove it down your throat.”
“Invoking your mother, huh?” He sneers the question, a cruel tilt to his lips. “Just remember, you brought her into this, not me.”
The minute I open my mouth to reply, he swallows my response with a violent kiss. Sucking the air straight from my lungs, he snarls and bites, keeping my head tipped back so far I’m sure my neck will snap at any minute.
With a brutal yank, the belt flies from his belt loops, his arm rearing back with the force.
My hand is on the knife as the words fill my head once again.
Everyone falls into one of two categories…
I don’t think. I strike. My blade slices clean from his abdomen and up over his ribs.
A violent grunt tears from his mouth and he gives me one hard shake. “You think the slice of your blade can possibly do more damage than your betrayal?” He bites my lip and drags it away from my mouth before letting it snap back. “You have no idea what you’ve done. None!”
He throws me on the bed as though I weigh nothing, knocking the wind out of me. My teeth rattle and the knife rolls out of my hand, his blood smearing on the gray sheets.
Just as I push onto my elbows, he’s on me. “Oh no, you don’t.” He yanks my ankle, leaving me flailing on my back.
Leather hisses through the air and my eyes shoot open wide. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Barely winded, he straddles me. With lightning speed, he cages one wrist, then the other, his movements too fast for me to see much more than loops flipping through the air. Before I know what’s happening, he’s created snug makeshift cuffs. The leather bites into my skin, a painful promise I will not wiggle my way free.
“I earned every scar on this body protecting you… I guess it’s only fitting you leave a few of your own. But tonight, one slice is all you’re going to get.”
I can scream. I can let out one good fucking scream and someone will come.
But I don’t and I don’t dare examine why.
Yanking the belt a fraction tighter, he drags my hands over my head. I crane my neck and catch sight of a metal loop he’s dragged from behind the mattress.
The blood-soaked slash of his shirt hovers over my mouth. Crimson leaks from the cut, and a subtle metallic odor tickles my nose. The urge to taste him surges through me. Before I realize what I’m doing, I dive my tongue through the slit of his shirt, landing on the gash over his ribs.
The minute my tongue makes contact, he freezes. He thrusts a merciless hand into my hair and draws me in for more.
I trace my tongue over the damage, lapping over the blood, pain and revenge metallic and warm on my mouth.
When he decides I’ve had enough, or he has, he settles over me. He has to outweigh me by at least a hundred pounds of pure hard muscle, and although he has me pinned to the bed, he’s keeping the bulk of his crushing weight off me.
His eyes flash down to my breasts. The air crackles with curious energy as he dips his index finger into the valley between them.
“Your mother didn’t breastfeed either of you.”
I stiffen under the quiet words, sounding as though they’re coming from another time, another place.
“Fuck you, Konstantin!” I buck and thrash under him for bringing her into this. Nothing he’s done up to this point was nearly as humiliating as hearing about her from his fucking lips after everything happening between us tonight. “Fuck you for bringing her up right now when you know?—”
He grabs my jaw and forces me to look at him. “You don’t get to be indignant right now. Not after keeping my child from me,” he sneers, tossing my chin as he lets me go.
“I hate you.” A sob breaks free before I can stop it and I detest to my core he heard it.
“Well, this time, the feeling’s mutual, Pcholka. I hate you too.” His gaze slides away like he can’t stand to look at me. Curling his fingers around the lapels of the shirt I’m wearing, he tears the fabric from my breasts, his eyes flaring hot. “But it won’t stop me from breeding that tight pussy of yours and putting another baby in you. Only this time, you’ll be by my side for all of it. Once my baby begins to grow inside you, you’ll never leave my side again.”
“No.” Could the word have fallen flatter than it did in this moment when my mind resisted everything he promised, but my thighs squeezed tight and I grew impossibly wet with his primal threat?
“Cute, Pcholka,” he says with a knowing smirk. “You made the unilateral decisions last time. This time, it’s my turn.”
He never tears his gaze from my nipples as he peels away his ruined shirt. The angry red line I carved into him sliced through the dark hair smattering over his abs. I itch to run my fingers through the curls. The desire so strong, his confining my hands feels more cruel than anything he’s done to me thus far by denying me a way to touch him.
To connect with him and bring him back.
He’s doing it to protect himself.
My heart breaks with the realization that I did this. I had to choose between a man who has loved and protected me my entire life, and the defenseless life we made. A life I have to put before everyone, even him.
And now he’s closing himself off from me. One piece at a time, he’s stealing away our connection so I can’t hurt him again.
But in severing our bond, he’s embracing the same cold cruelty of men like my father.
I did this.
I did it and I have no idea how to undo it.
“Our little girl looks safe and happy suckling these.” Tracing his finger over the inside curves of my breasts, his mouth works as he sucks his lips between his teeth and narrows his eyes. When his lips roll back out, they’re wet.
He’s the absolute picture of spite, hunger, and resolve. “Oh God, what’s that look? What are you going to do?”
“Whatever I want.” He leans down, flicks his tongue over my nipple, then traps the stiff peak between his lips and sucks my flesh deep into the warm recesses of his mouth. He’s relentless, sucking hard.
When he swallows, I feel the tug so fucking deep, I cry out with the agony of ecstasy even as my skin grows hot with embarrassment.
“Mmmmm,” he lets out a sultry hum, his eyelids sinking shut as he savors the taste of my milk.
“Oh fuck,” I choke out. “Why do I like that?”
“Because you’re not dignified. You’re an animal. Just like I am.”
My skin bursts into flames. Arousal burns in my belly. When he pinches my nipple and milk spills over the tip, drenching his thumb, a whimper of pure needy anguish tears from me.
“I’m going to spend a lot of time right here, devouring every sweet, warm drop of what our little girl leaves behind.”
“Kostya,” I whisper as everything inside me screams for more. “Look at me.”
He brings his thumb to his lips and sucks the milk from his skin. His eyes narrow to slits as he keeps his focus on my breasts, never even flicking a glance above my neck. “Liars and thieves don’t make demands, little girl.”
“You should be happy about the lengths I went to in order to protect her.”
His jaw tightens, but he stays stubbornly silent.
Another door shut in my face. One more of our connections fracturing before us. A life of longing looms before me. Endless years waiting for any piece of him I can get. Just like my mother did with my father.
Because Konstantin is doing that to us right now. Helpless rage fills me. My brain races, searching for the right words to snap him out of this prison he’s locking himself in. “You should thank me for what I’ve sacrificed for her.” I hurl the words like an accusation—anything it takes to get a reaction out of him.
Memories of my mother live inside me. They have a heartbeat and the uncanny ability to bring happiness or endless wells of pain. Days where the light in her eyes dimmed at best and flickered out completely at worst. A childhood spent trying everything to light her up again.
I see Lexi in my mind. She’s running, laughing, her dark hair flying behind her. She’s picking flowers, and when she brings them to me, her smile slips. Not all the way. Just a little. Because she sees the wistful void, the one she can’t fill, eating away at me. Because she’s young and hopeful, because life hasn’t broken her spirit yet, she tries.
God, how she tries.
Just like I did.
I won’t let him send us to that place. I refuse to let us turn into them. “You should be on your knees?—”
With a jagged growl, his face contorts. He rises off me, and his punishing fingertips bite into my hip as he flips me onto my stomach, the ring I’m tethered to conveniently swiveling with me.
“You want me on my knees, little girl?” he snarls. “Your wish is my fucking command.”
He kneels behind me, the sound of his zipper loud under the violent jerk of his hand. Gripping my hips, he hauls me to my knees.
The minute I try to push onto my elbows, he dives his hand into my hair, turns my head to the side, and pins me to the mattress. My blood pounds through my system, leaving me lightheaded.
“But you’re going to be on your knees with me because I’ll never bow down to you again.”
In one punishing thrust, he drives into me. I swallow the scream of agony just before a wave of pleasure explodes low in my belly. My eyes sink shut as a shudder ripples through me.
The sound of his labored breathing grows distant as I struggle to keep my eyes open. I’m swollen and soaking, the taste of his blood lingering in my mouth. Intoxicated on every wildly violent thrust, something primal surges to life.
With a roar, he brings his palm down on my ass, the sharp crack splitting the air. Pain explodes over my skin and I suck in a harsh breath. Before I can exhale, his brutal swing slices through the air again, his hand searing my skin like a brand as he lands a vengeful blow on the same spot.
Biting the sheets, I refuse to give him a reaction. Fuck him.
Lungs heaving, he drags his hard, heavy cock out of me completely before plunging back in with a stunningly barbaric shout.
“Do you…” he growls, his hips bottoming out with his thrust.
Pure aggression rolls off him. I drive my hips back, burying him deeper, his rage only fueling mine.
“Have any…” he pants, as he draws completely out of me, leaving me hollow. All of a sudden, with his every dirty word, his violent fucking, I want him to fill me up.
“Idea…” The word is a grunt as he impales me again.
“How exceptional…” He fists the flesh of my ass, spreading me open obscenely to his ravenous gaze.
I told him he’d have to take it, but fuck… I want this. I want him to make sure the whole fucking world knows just who I belong to.
“Her conception was…” His chest heaves as he savagely drags me back on his cock.
I tear my mouth from the sheets, my teeth ripping the cotton with the force. I can’t get enough air in my lungs.
“On that altar, where I promised to protect you.” The words graze over my ear with his hot breath as he looms over me.
“Your virgin blood drenching my cock,” he says before sinking his teeth into the delicate skin of my neck just below my ear. His hair drags along my cheek, teasing me, and I swear to myself I’ll get to fist those silver-streaked waves and bury his mouth between my thighs.
“Yeeeesssssss.” The word drags out on a low groan as my orgasm painfully throbs, demanding release. Tears stream from my eyes as helpless whimpers tug from my throat.
“You’re going to drip with my cum. All day, every day,” he promises, dragging biting kisses down my shoulder.
“And when my baby grows inside you, I’m going to keep you dripping with my cum.” He pulls me up, yanking me back on his cock by the hand locked in my hair.
On the sheet below me, two dark spots, wet with my milk. I gasp and my pussy spasms with the sight.
“You want to know why?”
“Why?” I choke out.
“Because you’re mine, and I can.”
He pinches my clit and I fly apart. Gasping and crying, my inner walls cling to his every hot demand delivered with his punishing hips.
“And you, my feral deceiving little goddaughter, are going to keep me bleeding.”
Yes, yes, I am.
“Because you like when my blood stains your skin.”
I do. Fuck yes, I do.
“You’re a liar, but you’re my liar.”
His.
“You’re a thief, but you’re my thief.”
Only his.
“I’m going to keep this belly swollen and full so you don’t for one minute fucking forget it.”
He comes with a ferocious roar, every exhale a growl as he fills me up, pumping his hips, driving his cum deeper.
I collapse the minute he lets go of my hair. I can’t even open my eyes when I hear his belt slipping free from the ring. The minute my wrists are free, he’s off the bed, wordless in his retreat.
When the door closes, and the only man I’ve ever loved is gone, leaving me in a cloud of misery and animalistic euphoria, I’m left with one truth.
I’ve been worried about the wrong war all along.