Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
AUDREY
Outskirts of Alabastor Cove
Watching the woods blur past, my racing heart finally slowed.
Aleksandr had always known how to rip my control away while forcing me to face my darkest desires—full submission, only ever given to one man.
Him. The man played with demons that neither of us were able to deny.
But it had always been the quiet moments after the chaos that made me feel bared to the soul.
Sitting in the passenger seat of his car, I quietly contemplated what I could tell him—something he wouldn’t already know—hoping that he wouldn’t decide to raze town once he learned who I was thinking rigged my first trial and what it would mean for us.
I looked over at Aleks, who was tapping on the steering wheel to a beat only he could hear.
Always so calm. So in control. Like he already knew he had won this round of our perpetual game of chess.
“I thought I was the only one who could render you speechless, Printsessa,” Aleks muttered, briefly taking his eyes off the road to look at me. “You ready to tell me why you were out there alone?”
I risked a glance at his profile, noting the tick of his jaw.
Something in the tone of his voice had something scratching at the back of mind, almost as if he knew I would not tell him the truth and he was bracing himself for the blow.
I thought back to what happened to me—how I was taken, drugged, and left bound to a tree in the woods.
That clearing had struck me with familiarity, to a time fifteen years ago.
“I was sedated, and when I came to…I was told to find my way home by some stranger wearing a mask. Leaving my phone was a test. One I failed when I called you for…help.” I sighed, making eye contact with him once more.
“I felt like I was locked in a dream. Running and running. But this time there was no little boy to come and guide me home…”
“Lenochka, you know why they’re doing this, don’t you?”
My lips thinned as I recalled why I could never stand this man during our time at prep. And the years after, including the brief period I had given in to him.
He had always been too smart, always able to put pieces together, steps ahead of the rest. It was also one of the reasons we meshed so well together when we allowed our walls to break down. He always seemed to know exactly what I couldn’t voice out loud.
Of course he had figured out that The Guilda had already begun their twisted mind games on me tonight, as they dragged me from the safety of my home and left me tied up, seemingly weak and alone in the woods.
“Da1, podonok2,” I mumbled to myself, but of course, Aleks heard and sent me a scathing look.
My legs clenched involuntarily. I could still feel the aftershocks of how ruthlessly he fucked me.
How it felt to be filled full of his cum again.
His cock with that new piercing had sent waves of pleasure through me, making me want and wish for things I had no business to.
Normally, feeling his release dry on my skin irritated me. Tonight though, I found myself wishing I could feel it coat my core again…
“Do you, though, Lenochka?”
“Da.” My abrupt response left no room for argument.
I hated that he was making me think about how this town found out about my nightmares, bringing me back to reality after the exquisite pleasure he had given me. I knew why The Guilda thought that binding me and leaving me in the woods would be the perfect first way to fuck with my head.
But that was not what sent me into a spiral.
It was how similar tonight was to the last time this man had found me in the woods, how being left to fend for myself while shaking off the effects of whatever they had injected me with had triggered my long-repressed fight or flight instinct…
or in this case, the desire to fuck so hard that the sad, afraid little girl’s voice in my head disappeared.
Especially after that dream, that nightmare really sent me over the edge and into the abyss my mind loves to trap me in. Until him.
Aleks had become a haven of sorts over the years, tumultuous and anger-inducing at times, since we were both prideful at our core.
But in those quiet moments, before I had chosen to walk away…
there had been a sense of understanding.
Of standing bare before someone as they saw down into your bones, beneath the pretty skin, the hard-earned muscle, and the jagged teeth that kept everyone else away.
He had been that for me once upon a time, and him coming here tonight had relit that match…the tension lingered still as I watched him drive down the dark roads and winding curves, waiting for what all he would dredge up about our past now that I was at his mercy until he dropped me off at home.
“I just worry, Lenochka. It’s not just your secret, you know. It isn’t just my sanity that would go.”
He had always been the anchoring force to my uncontrolled chaos; I was not surprised that tonight wasn’t any different.
But for once, I just wanted him to burn, to rage at how the secret we both had kept was slowly eating our souls.
I wanted him to yell and curse at me for how I walked away, leaving him to deal with the fallout himself.
How it was likely we could fill crypts with the skeletons of our lives.
I wanted that resolve he forced upon himself to break, for him to take what we both knew he wanted—me.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that the one secret that would drown us was the same one that could help me achieve my goal: to outmanoeuvre The Guilda and win these games.
But it wasn’t an option, as it was not just Aleksandr I would harm if the truth came out.
It was the truth behind the fracture in my sanity and the resulting time that had forced me to leave for months after turning eighteen.
Even if you miss him more than there are seconds in a day…
“Da,” I forced out, realizing that I had answered him with silence. “Nobody will know. I’ll always protect him, korol. Before me, you, and anyone else who becomes entangled within these games.”
“I know,” he whispered, glancing at me once again. “He just misses you. I do too. Pictures and brief memories will never be enough, not really.”
“I know, I miss luchik3 too, you know.” A smile stretched across my face as I thought of the last time all of us had been able to be together, or at least in the same room. “Just a little longer, korol, until the trials are done. Then I’ll come home to you. For good.”
“Printsessa,” he warned. “You need to start being smarter. Play this game like you herded the sheep back at Prep. But remember, these ones will have claws and teeth.”
Snapping my gaze to his, I responded with ire. “Will you spank me, daddy? If I refuse to bow at your feet?”
Aleks clenched his jaw as his knuckles blanched on the wheel. “Parshivets4,” he muttered as he began the turn down my street. “Nyet, I would just have you crawl to me.”
“You would want that.” I groaned, realizing the house light was on, so my escape into my room wouldn’t be an easy one as I had hoped. “But I have it handled, you will see.”
He pulled up to the garage, and I hopped out of my seat, thinking about how I originally was going to wait to pull him in, but fate played my hand.
“Thanks, korol. You know you just wanted to see me.” I threw him a cheeky wink before walking up the stairs leading to the house, already reminiscing on memories in the woods and of monsters baring their teeth as they played chase in the forest.
“You know I won’t be able to stay away now, Lenochka.
I always loved how much you enjoyed riding my cock.
How much I—” His words cut off when he caught the look on my face—abject fear, no doubt—and instead, chose to shift his car into reverse.
The last thing I heard as he reversed out of the drive and onto the street was a muted, “Oh and happy birthday, Printsessa.”
Yes. The pull of desire between us would be a problem, as would the impending explosion that would result if the truth of how deep our ties ran was exposed. Both were secrets that neither of us were ready to share, even if he was more prepared than me.
With renewed strength, I continued into the Yates mansion. Aleks and I had kept a secret, one that could crumble the very foundation, one that would shred any form of peace our families had.
Not just my adopted name, but my born one that tied back to both the British aristocracy and a rather-dangerous Russian Bratva—one that had always been led by a pakhana, something that was unheard of within the Russian mafia but no less powerful, if it were to be found out.
And I knew without him putting it into words that my choice to call him tonight, instead of Lex or Worth, had officially started another clock’s countdown.
A countdown that his family had begun to enforce when he turned twenty-one.
The law in our world, the underground criminal one, said he had to be married by the age of twenty-five, or he forfeited his right to rule when his father stepped aside.
He would be coming full force now after sensing the green light I had yielded, since I was his choice for a bride.
Except, this hidden truth of what happened that summer I chose to walk may have damned us both if anyone were to find out.
The Yates, the Ellsworth, and the Volkovitch lines held the truth of how I became an orphan.
The betrayal that all three families would shame us with for the lies we told last summer would topple the beliefs the founding families held so dear.
But it was the identity of the boy we hid from them that would dismantle the whole town and bring scandal to all who lived in Alabastor Cove.
The identity of luchik was a truth we all guarded ruthlessly.
I could not be sure any of us would ever truly forget what had to be done to save this one shred of innocence from the den of depravity we lived in.
Or that we would ever forgive ourselves for the choices we made in order for them to remain hidden, untouched by the whims of The Guilda or the disaster that their presence would do to the founding families of the Cove.
1 Da (Russian): Yes
2 Podonok (Russian): Fucker
3 Luchik (Russian): Little sunray
4 Parshivets (Russian): Brat