Chapter 52
Aurelia
Iwalk out of the shower, a towel wrapped tightly around my body, to find a white shirt and a pair of Nikolai’s black boxer briefs on the bed.
I look over to see him sending a message on his phone, unbothered in a new black shirt, like I didn’t just stab him.
“Change and then on the bed.”
I look at him—he still doesn’t bother to look my way—then at the bed, before grabbing the clothes and heading back into the bathroom to change.
No.
There is just no way this is the same guy.
Nikolai is a controlling ass who thinks he can have whatever he wants, and the guy from my birthday was perfect.
He was everything.
After changing, I walk over to the bed, sitting on the edge.
“Alright, Your Highness. Now what?”
He smirks, puts his phone down, and walks to my front. “I want to see just how much nothing you feel for me.”
“Well, I hate you, but the stabbing helped a bit.”
He doesn’t say anything, which is a shocker.
So far, he hasn’t given up on me so easily, but just as I’m about to speak, just as I’m about to tell him that I’m glad he’s giving up on me, he kneels.
The heir to the Bratva.
Nikolai Orlov kneels at my feet, his hands tight against my thighs.
“I need you to feel for me, malyshka. I saw it in your eyes. I know it’s still there. I’m still me, and you’re still you.”
My blue eyes lock with his dark ones as he presses a gentle kiss to my knee.
“I—what are you doing?” I whisper.
He doesn’t respond, instead, he lands another kiss on the top of my thigh.
I don’t move, and I know that I should.
I should be fighting and screaming and pushing him off of me, but instead, I wait.
I watch to see where he kisses next.
He lifts my shirt and kisses my hip, this time sliding his tongue over my skin, heat trailing before his lips touch.
My breath hitches, causing Nikolai to look up, his eyes hungry as he pulls on my thighs, spreading me for him, his briefs hanging like shorts on me.
He takes my thigh again, this time sucking on the bare skin before pulling his lips away. He kisses again and again until he is at the inner thick of my thigh, inches from my entrance.
My breathing gets heavier, but the moment I hear his voice—
“Did you feel that?”
I snap back into the reality that I hate him and quickly respond, “No. I felt nothing.”
His tongue runs across his cheek. “Really?”
I don’t reply, but shrug my shoulders to show that he just isn’t affecting me the way he wanted.
Even if he is.
Without another word, he stands and goes back into his closet, returning with a set of chains similar to the ones from the basement cage.
I immediately feel the need to run, to get away from this psycho, but I don’t know what’s wrong with my head.
I don’t see him as the same threat.
I see him as my first kiss, and Lord does my body crave him.
So instead, I don’t move, watching as he secures the cuffs—two at the headboard and two at the footboard.
“Get in them.”
I stare back in silence, knowing any response will show him that I care, and slide back on the black silk.
Putting my wrists and ankles into the curve of the cuff, I work not to flinch as Nikolai circles the bed, locking me in place, my body completely at his mercy.
I lie there for a moment, eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening to him shuffle around the room some more, when suddenly cool steel runs up my leg, lifting my shirt, snagging lightly as it moves up my body.
Goosebumps erupt on my skin, and I jerk, pulling my head up, watching where the cool metal lands, the prick of the sharp knife pointed at the centre of my chest.
I guess this is how I’m dying.
I look to my side, staring at the monster, my devil in disguise, holding a blade to my chest.
“Do it,” I hiss, staring down the blade between my breasts. “Stab me,” I say with more bite.
Okay, I don’t necessarily want Nikolai to kill me right now. But I’m proving a point. I am not a toy he can play with.
He tilts his head. “Can I take your shirt off?”
I blink.
Is he seriously asking me?
I swear I’ve been kidnapped by the most unstable, confusing man alive.
“Yes,” I hear myself say.
And yep—apparently I’m just as insane as he is.
His eyes sparkle with something sharp and pleased as he drags the knife down, splitting my—technically his—shirt in two. The sound of the fabric tearing is both violent and intimate.
Cold air rushes over my bare chest, shocking every nerve awake. My nipples harden instantly; goosebumps prickling all over my skin.
Nikolai stays leaning over me, his shadow swallowing half my vision as he drags his gaze down my body. It’s not a look—it’s possession itself.
He inhales once, steady and heavy, before repositioning the knife like he’s resetting himself. Then he draws it down again—between my breasts, then lower across my stomach. He’s not pressing hard enough to break skin, but enough that I notice the sting.
Regardless of how it feels, I force myself to maintain my cold expression, showing no glimpse of emotion, but he keeps going.
The metal glides lower.
When the cool steel touches just above my clit, my breath betrays me—helpless. My hips jolt upward before I can choke the reaction down.
He pulls back immediately, stepping away with his head tilted. “Interesting.”
“What?” I let out, clearly frustrated with what he’s able to do to me.
“It’s interesting,” he says, almost amused, “how you claim you feel nothing for me, yet the moment I get close to your clit, you can’t control your breathing.”
“Fuck you.”
He smiles. “Tell me you feel everything you did when we first met.”
I do.
“I don’t.”
“Hm.”
He sets the knife on the table beside my head, the soft clink absurdly gentle after everything else.
“Let’s see if my touch changes your mind.”
I close my eyes without meaning to.
My body aches—hot, tight, desperate—for more.
He follows the same path the knife did, letting his fingertips trail down my skin in place of steel.
This time, when my body shudders, he doesn’t move away. Two fingers rest deliberately over the fabric covering my slit, warm where the knife was cold.
My breathing grows heavier, and I need him to keep going.
I slightly bring my body into his touch, needing more pressure on my skin.
“Tell me you want me to keep going, princess.”
I don’t answer, struggling not to beg him for more as I buck my hips at the pure nearness of him.
“Tell me you want me.” He pushes again.
I want you.
I want you so badly it disgusts me.
“I don’t want you,” I whisper, breathless and unconvincing.
I wait for him to keep pushing.
To break me open.
To take everything he wants while I’m chained down and furious and trembling.
Instead—my arm drops.
The cuff opens.
My eyes fly wide.
He’s… letting me go.
Silently, he walks around the bed, freeing my ankles next. I push up onto my elbows, completely thrown off balance—inside and out.
He doesn’t look at me as he takes off his black shirt and hands it over.
His voice is quiet in a way that feels like another kind of violence. “Goodnight, Aurelia.”
He turns off the light, and darkness swallows the room whole.
I don’t move.
I’m still trying to make sense of what just happened.
I’m pretty sure Nikolai is lying on the makeshift bed a few feet away, but I stay completely still—the room is so dark I can’t tell if he’s actually there or somewhere else.
But after a few minutes pass, and I don’t hear anything, I ask into the darkness, “You don’t want to fuck me?”
I’m pretty sure I’m drawing on my insecurities from Elijah, but I have to ask.
“Malyshka, I want nothing more than to fuck you senseless until you can no longer walk and are begging for my cock inside you. But I meant what I said, I do not force women to be with me. I will wait for you to ask for my touch.”
Yep, I hate him.
I hate how I want nothing more than to crawl onto that floor and seduce him into breaking that promise. But I can’t because I’m trying very hard to show that this man means absolutely nothing to me.
“I’ll try a different approach tomorrow.”
He says it so quietly I don’t think he wants me to respond.
I sink into the pillows, exhaustion dragging at my limbs. My body feels heavy and worn down.
I’m on the edge of sleep when a sharp thought slices through the haze—the knife.
There’s no way.
He left the damn knife on the table beside my bed.
For a second, I don’t believe it.
I hold my breath and my pulse spikes. I’m afraid even the rise of my chest might give me away.
Then, as slowly and as quietly as I can, I roll onto my side.
The silk sheets whisper under me, smooth and cool against my skin, every movement exaggerated by the silence.
I lift my arm, fingers spreading as I move inch by inch, tapping softly at the empty air, barely brushing the surface beside me, until something cold meets my fingertips.
Metal.
A shock goes through me. My lips twitch, forming a smile I haven’t felt in… God, it feels like forever. Not since Adrian. Not since I remembered what it was like to have something—someone—light enough to make me forget where I really was.
The knife feels heavier than I expected when I curl my fingers around the handle. Power in my hand for the first time since they took me.
I bring the blade close to my chest, holding it against my heartbeat. I can feel the thrum of adrenaline through my ribs. My body can barely contain the rush.
I could stab him right now.
Kill him and get away while the house sleeps.
But the room is pitch-black. I don’t know how many locks stand between me and freedom. I don’t know the hallways, or the guards, or how long it would take before someone noticed Nikolai wasn’t breathing anymore.
My fingers tighten on the handle.
I think about it—really think about it.
Then I breathe out slowly.
Not yet.
Not when one wrong step could get me dragged back by my hair and punished in ways I don’t want to imagine.
No—this is a tool, not a victory.
I slip the knife under the mattress, pressing it deep into the corner where he won’t notice.
And just like that, I have a plan.
A way out.
A chance.