14. Yaromir
YAROMIR
I don’t go to bed.
The house quiets around me long before midnight. Doors close. Staff footsteps fade from the corridors. The fire in my study burns low, then lower, until it’s only red at the edges. Still, I remain at my desk.
There is work to do. There’s always work to do.
I should care about that.
I do care. Just not enough.
My attention keeps moving upstairs. To my bedroom.
To Anya.
My wife is in my room tonight.
That fact sits under my skin like a blade.
She’s probably asleep by now. Or pretending to be. Either way, she’s behind my door, in my house, with my name on her hand, and I’m sitting downstairs like a coward pretending paperwork has suddenly become urgent.
I sign one document without reading it.
Then I throw the pen down. “Pathetic,” I mutter. The word sounds too loud in the empty study.
I stand and pour myself a drink I don’t need. The whiskey burns, but it does nothing to settle me.
Three days ago, I had her on this desk. Her mouth swollen from mine. Her skirt pushed up. Her thighs shaking around my hand. I can still remember the heat of her through thin fabric, the way she tried to hold back sounds her body was already making for me.
I stopped because she was cornered. Because she was exhausted.
Because I’m not my father.
Tonight, she is still all those things.
And now she is my wife.
A knock comes at the door, and I know who it is before she enters.
Larisa doesn’t wait for permission. She walks in with her cane in hand, dressed for the evening in dark silk, her hair pinned back, her face calm in the way old knives are calm.
“You are still awake,” she says.
“So are you.”
“I’m old. Sleep has grown bored of me.”
I take another sip. “What do you want?”
Her gaze moves over the desk, the untouched papers, the glass in my hand. She comes farther into the room. “The old custom should be followed.”
My jaw tightens. “No.”
“You know which custom I mean.”
“Yes. That’s why I said no.”
Larisa watches me carefully. “A white sheet outside the room by morning. Nothing more.”
“Nothing more?” I repeat. “You want to turn my bedroom into a public inspection.”
“I want proof that the marriage is real.”
“No. You want to humiliate her.”
Larisa doesn’t deny it. That tells me enough.
“She was Dmitri’s bride first,” she says. “Everyone knows it. Let them see what your brother left you.”
The words are ugly on purpose.
I stand slowly. “Careful.”
“She’s not some untouched saint, Yaromir. Don’t look at me like I’ve insulted a nun.”
I don’t answer.
The truth is, I have assumed the same.
Anya was engaged to Dmitri. They knew each other for years. She lived in that world, sat beside him, wore his ring. I never thought she was a virgin.
I never cared.
Larisa cares only because it gives her a way to shame the girl.
That’s what Larisa wants. I see it clearly now.
“You think there will be nothing to show,” I say.
Larisa’s mouth curves slightly. “I think the house should know what kind of bride you brought in.”
“She is my wife.”
“She is a weapon.”
“She’s both.”
“Then use her properly.”
My hands curl at my sides.
For a moment, I imagine throwing her out of my house. Aunt or not. Blood or not. The only reason I don’t is because Larisa is not the real problem. She’s only saying aloud what half the family will think by morning.
They will question Anya.
Her purity. Her loyalty. Her worth.
They will use whatever they can.
Larisa taps her cane once against the floor. “If you refuse the ritual, they will say you protected her because there was shame to hide.”
“Let them.”
“You cannot build power and then ignore the stories people tell inside your own walls.”
I hate that she’s right.
I hate even more that she’s enjoying it.
“No one waits outside my door,” I say.
Larisa studies me.
“No servants. No witnesses. No old women whispering in the hall. If there is a sheet, I decide what happens to it.”
“That is not the custom.”
“It is now.”
Her smile thins. “You are very protective of a girl you claim to be using.”
“Leave.”
“Fine,” she says. “Do it your way. But don’t pretend the question goes away because you dislike the method.”
I stand there for a long moment, angry with her, with the family, with myself.
A white sheet.
A stain.
A stupid, brutal custom designed by people who thought a woman’s body was family property.
Larisa assumes Anya is not a virgin and wants the silence of that sheet to become another humiliation. She wants the house to smirk. She wants Dmitri’s discarded bride marked as used, imperfect, lesser.
I shouldn’t care.
I do.
I leave the study and go upstairs.
The hallway outside my bedroom is empty. Good. If anyone had been standing there, I would have had them removed from the house tonight.
There’s light under the door.
She’s awake.
I open it.
Anya turns from the window. She’s wearing a pale nightdress someone must have left for her. Her hair is loose. Her face is washed clean, making her look younger and more tired than she did downstairs.
Her eyes move over me immediately. “What happened?”
I glance down and realize my knuckles are bleeding. I must have split the skin gripping the desk. “Nothing.”
“That doesn’t look like nothing.”
I close the door behind me.
She watches the movement.
Not afraid exactly. Wary.
Good. She should be wary.
“Your aunt came to see you,” she says.
I look at her. “You heard?”
“No. I guessed.” Her mouth tightens. “She doesn’t like me.”
“No.”
The honesty surprises her.
“At least you admit it,” she says.
I walk to the side table and pick up a clean cloth, wrapping it around my knuckles.
“She wants the old wedding custom followed,” I say.
Anya goes still. “What custom?”
I look at her.
There is no easy way to say it.
“A white sheet.”
For a second, she doesn’t understand.
Then she does. The color leaves her face. “She wants proof?”
“Yes.”
“Proof that you…” She stops, unable to finish.
“That the marriage has been consummated.”
Her arms fold across her chest, defensive and small. “That’s disgusting.”
“Yes.”
“And humiliating.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because you should know.”
Her eyes flash. “And what? You expect me to agree?”
“No.”
“Then what do you expect?”
I set the cloth down. “Nothing happens tonight unless you want it.”
Her breath catches. She searches my face like she doesn’t trust the answer.
I don’t blame her.
I walk to the dresser and open the top drawer. There’s a small silver letter opener inside. I take it and close the drawer.
Anya turns at the sound. “What are you doing?”
I don’t answer immediately. I press the blade against the side of my finger and cut.
Her eyes widen. “Yaromir?—”
Blood wells quickly, bright against my skin. I walk to the bed, pull the top sheet back, and press my bleeding finger against the white fabric. Once. Then again, smearing just enough to make the lie believable.
Anya stares at me.
I look at her. “Because no one in this house gets to ask what happened in my bed.”
Her lips part, but no words come out.
I press one more mark into the sheet, then wrap the cloth around my finger and tighten it with my teeth. “There,” I say.
She looks from the sheet to my hand, then back to my face. “You don’t think I’m a virgin?” she asks.
I say nothing.
There is no good answer. Silence is safer than insulting her with another assumption. For a moment, she looks young and furious and far too beautiful for the amount of restraint I have left tonight.
Anya watches me for a moment, and I can see the exact second something shifts in her. The hurt is still there, but anger rises over it.
She takes one step toward me. Then another.
“Of course,” she says. “I was engaged to Dmitri, so everyone assumes.”
“Anya.”
“No.” She stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the soap on her skin. “Let me understand. If I’m untouched, I’m something to prove. If I’m not, I’m something to shame.”
My jaw tightens. “That’s not what I said.”
“But it’s what everyone thinks.”
I don’t deny it.
Her eyes drop to my mouth.
I should step back.
I don’t.
She lifts her chin. “I guess virgins don’t do this.”
Then she touches me through my trousers.
My body reacts instantly. Hard. Violent.
I catch her wrist before she can move again, but she only looks up at me, mouth parted slightly, breathing faster than before.
“Careful,” I say.
Her gaze drops to my hand around her wrist. Then back to my face.
She twists her wrist free, not because I let her overpower me, but because I let her go. Then her palm comes back to me, slow this time, deliberate. She strokes over the hard line of me through the fabric, and my jaw tightens so hard it hurts.
Anya notices. A small smile curves her mouth.
It nearly undoes me.
“You like that,” she whispers.
I look down at her. “You’re playing a game you don’t understand.”
“Maybe.”
Her hand moves again.
I inhale through my nose, forcing myself still.
She rises on her toes, but she doesn’t kiss my mouth. She brushes her lips against my jaw instead, light enough to be cruel, then lower, to the side of my neck.
The contact is almost nothing. It burns anyway.
My hand closes around the back of the chair beside me.
She kisses my neck again, slower now, learning what my silence means. Her palm presses more firmly over me, and she feels me swell harder beneath her touch.
Her smile widens against my skin. “You’re not as calm as you pretend,” she says.
“No.”
That makes her pause. She expected denial. Her confidence flickers for a second, but then her hand moves again, and this time a rough breath leaves me before I can stop it.
Her eyes lift.
She heard it. She likes that she heard it.
Something dark and hungry moves through my chest. “Stop,” I say.
She doesn’t. Her fingers curl around my rising cock through my trousers, stroking like she has no idea how dangerous curiosity can become.
“Anya.”
This time my voice is lower.
She shivers, but she still doesn’t step back. Instead, she leans in and presses another almost-kiss to the corner of my mouth. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
“I’m not scared of you,” she says.
“That’s a mistake.”
“Maybe I want to make one.”
That breaks the last of my restraint.
She gasps as I lift her off the floor, one arm locked around her waist, the other under her thigh. Her hands fly to my shoulders, and for one second her eyes go wide. I carry her back against the nearest wall and take her mouth before she can say anything clever.
There’s nothing careful or controlled about the kiss.
Her arms lock around my neck, and her fingers dig into my hair as if she wants to hurt me a little. I let her. I like it. I like the fight in her, the heat, the way she gives in and resists at the same time.
Her legs tighten around my waist.
She feels me then. The hard length of my cock pressed against her through my trousers. Her breath catches into my mouth, and I feel the shock go through her body.
I pull back just enough to look at her. “Still want to play?”
Her cheeks are flushed. Her lips are swollen. Her eyes drop between us, then back to mine.
“Yes,” she says.