Chapter 6 – Konstantin
She’s been quiet since the wedding, and I don’t like it. I like her defiance. I like her fire. The sharp tongue, the fury, the way she looks at me like she wants to claw my eyes out. Let her fight me. Hit me. Slap me. Spit at my face. I can handle all of that.
This silence? It unsettles me.
She walks beside me down the corridor, her steps slow, measured, as if she’s moving through water. She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t resist. And that bothers me far more than her rage ever did.
She looks…devastating in the wedding gown. Ivory satin clinging to her like it was designed with her body in mind. Under different circumstances, I would tell her. Under different circumstances, I might even mean it the way men are supposed to.
But nothing about this is normal. And saying it now would feel like a cruelty I don’t need to add.
We stop in front of the bedroom across from mine.
Her room.
I open the door, already bracing for something—anger, accusation, another desperate attempt to bolt past me.
Instead, she steps inside and freezes just beyond the threshold.
Her back goes rigid. Her hands curl into the fabric of the dress like she’s holding herself together by force alone.
I turn to speak.
The words die in my chest.
She walks to the bed slowly, as if each step costs her something, then sinks onto the edge. Her shoulders slump. And then she lifts both hands to her face.
Her body folds inward.
Her shoulders start to shake.
At first, the sound is barely there—soft, muffled, restrained. But it builds, breaking through whatever wall she was holding up. The kind of crying that comes from somewhere deep. The kind that doesn’t care who’s watching.
Real crying.
Not defiance. Not rage.
Grief.
Something tight and unfamiliar twists in my chest.
I don’t move. I don’t speak.
I’ve seen women cry before. I’ve caused it. Tears don’t unsettle me. They’re a currency in my world—cheap, common, forgettable.
But this isn’t that.
This is a woman realizing, all at once, that her life has been ripped away. That there is no door she can open. No call she can make. No future she recognizes anymore.
She doesn’t beg.
She doesn’t accuse.
She just breaks.
And for the first time since this began, I feel something dangerously close to hesitation.
I don’t know what to do with this version of her.
Orders won’t help. Threats won’t land. Control—my usual weapon—feels useless in the face of this quiet devastation.
She isn’t fighting me anymore.
She’s mourning.
My jaw tightens.
This was necessary. I remind myself of that. Over and over. Necessary. Strategic. The only way to keep her alive.
But the words feel thinner now, stretched too tight over the image of her shaking on that bed.
I go still as stone. I’ve interrogated men until they begged for death, navigated intelligence networks that deal in ruin and blood—but Raelyn crying like this?
In a wedding gown? There’s no framework, no playbook.
My first instinct is to watch, to analyze, to understand the fracture.
But her pain is too raw—it drags me forward before I consciously choose to move.
I kneel in front of her, careful, intentional, as if approaching something fragile enough to break with a breath. She lowers her hands, revealing swollen, red-rimmed eyes, glistening with tears. And in that instant, the world shifts in a way I never anticipated.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, quietly. Not sternly. Not coldly. Almost gently. As if her sadness itself has altered the gravity in the room.
She doesn’t answer immediately. She just shudders, letting the tears fall freely, her body curled slightly inward as if it could shrink beneath the weight of her own despair.
And for the first time, I hesitate. I’m supposed to be the one in control. I’m supposed to protect, to contain, to dominate this situation with precision. But all I want now is to understand how something so small, so human, can unravel me without a single word.
The room is silent except for her quiet, broken sobs. I stay there, kneeling, letting her grief fill the space, letting her know—without speaking more than I have to—that I see it, that I am present, and that nothing she’s feeling will be punished here.
Not yet.
“What’s wrong, Raelyn?” I ask again.
Her name sounds different this time. Softer.
She inhales shakily, like the air itself hurts. When she speaks, her voice cracks straight down the middle.
“I…I always promised myself….” Her voice is just a whisper, but it cuts through the silence. “I wouldn’t marry unless…unless my father was there to walk me down the aisle.”
I stay silent, letting her words fill the space.
“I waited for him…for years,” she continues, voice breaking. “I kept telling myself he was alive somewhere…that he was coming back….”
Her hands clench in her lap, nails digging into her palms. “I imagined…when I finally married…he’d be there. It would be…joy. A moment after all the emptiness.”
I swallow, my jaw tight. “And…” I prompt carefully.
She lifts her head, eyes wet and red, staring at me with something raw and exposed. “And instead…it was silence. Nothing. No one. No family. No…him.”
I inhale slowly, resisting the urge to speak. “Raelyn….”
“Don’t,” she whispers fiercely, trembling. “I don’t want you to explain. I…I just….” Her voice cracks, and she looks away, covering her face again. “I just wanted him. Even for one moment.”
Her hands tremble in her lap as she wipes at her cheeks. “Since…since he disappeared…my life’s felt hollow,” she murmurs, voice barely audible. “Like I’m frozen in place while the world…keeps moving without me.”
She swallows hard, voice breaking. “And now…now I feel like I’ve been robbed of the one moment I hoped would anchor me again.”
I feel something twist inside me—guilt, possession, something unfamiliar and unwelcome.
Instinctively, my hand lifts. My fingers hover near her cheek, stiff at first, mechanical almost. I touch her skin. My thumb brushes a tear away.
She doesn’t flinch. She just stares at me: wide-eyed, raw, and trembling.
The softness surprises me.
“I…I…” she starts, voice breaking again, then falters.
I remain kneeling, still, letting her grief fill the space without speaking more than I have to. Her gaze lifts again, meeting mine with a helpless, wounded expression. She looks at me as if she wants to hate me, but the anger wavers, fragile, like it could shatter at any second.
The air between us tightens, thickening. I feel it coil, impossible and magnetic. She leans forward without meaning to. I lean in because I cannot stop myself.
Our mouths meet.
No force. No power. Just aching, emotional pull—like gravity has rewritten itself around us.
Her lips are soft. Fragile. Hesitant. And yet there’s a trembling demand in them, a plea I can’t ignore.
I press my hands gently against her face, steadying, comforting, grounding her even as my own chest constricts.
A soft, broken sigh escapes her, disappearing into the small space between our lips.
I can feel the heat of her skin beneath my palms, a stark contrast to the sudden chill of the room.
This isn’t like before; the frantic, raw hunger has shifted into something far more dangerous—something that feels like a beginning.
My thumbs trace the line of her jaw, memorizing the way she trembles under my touch.
She tilts her head, deepening the connection, and for a moment, the world is perfectly still.
There is no past, no future, no risks—only the taste of her and the weight of everything we haven’t said yet.
I pull her closer, my fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck, needing to anchor her to me before the rest of the world finds a way to pull us apart.
Her vulnerability drives me, sharp and consuming. I take nothing but care, letting her set the pace, letting her trust me without saying a word.
She shivers, tiny and human, against my hands. My own restraint is an ache I barely contain.
Then I don’t.
The tenderness snaps.
I’ve reached my limit of being careful with her, and the sudden, aching gravity between us turns into a violent, localized storm. I don’t just want to kiss her; I want to consume her.
I deepen the kiss, my mouth crashing against hers with a sudden, jagged hunger. The hesitation is dead. I become rough, possessive, my tongue forcing its way past her lips to claim every inch of her. She tastes like heat and surrender, and it’s driving me over the edge.
My hands slide from her face, my fingers tangling deep in her hair, gripping the roots just tight enough to make her gasp into my mouth.
I tilt her head back, exposing the elegant line of her throat, but I don’t stop—I’m devouring her, my teeth grazing her bottom lip, my breath coming in ragged, territorial hitches.
She is mine. Every muffled sound she makes, every frantic press of her body against mine, only makes me want to wrap myself around her until there’s no telling where I end and she begins.
I growl low in my throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated want, as I pull her even closer, pinning her to me with the sheer weight of my need.
She clutches the front of my shirt, her fingers tangling in the fabric as if she’s trying to anchor herself—or maybe anchor me.
That small, desperate movement is enough to break the fever.
The raw, possessive heat that was just about to consume us both suddenly cools into something much deeper and quieter.
I feel my shoulders drop, the tension bleeding out of my jaw.
I don’t want to hurt her; I want to cherish her.
I let the frantic pace of my heart settle, my hands moving from the roots of her hair to cradle her face instead.
I soften again, leaning in one last time, not to devour, but to reassure.
I end the kiss with a very soft peck, my lips just barely brushing hers, light as a breath.
I stay there for a second, my forehead resting against hers, just listening to the way our breathing hitches in the silence. The air is still thick, but the jagged edge is gone, replaced by a weight that feels a lot more like forever than just tonight.
When we finally part, it’s barely a breath between us. Her eyes, glistening with tears, lock onto mine. I hold her gaze, silent, letting her see everything I cannot yet speak.
“You okay, Raelyn?” I murmur, voice rough, low. But the word is almost drowned out by the storm of feeling between us.
She swallows, her lips trembling, and I know—this is only the beginning.
I rise to my feet before I taste her lips again.
“I’ll have your wardrobe set up tomorrow,” I tell her, voice low. “For now…get dressed. I’ll grab you a shirt and sweatpants.”
She nods silently, eyes still glistening, trembling.
I leave the room. Without looking back. Because I know—if I do—I won’t be able to walk away.
I reach my own room, shut the door, and lean against it, jaw tight.
I yank off my tie first. Then the jacket. Then the shirt. Buttons scatter across the floor. My hands shake just a little. Not from fear, not from pain, but from the storm I can’t name, the heat and ache that won’t release me.
I step into the bathroom, cold tiles under my feet, and turn on the shower. Cold. I need it. I need to feel something besides her, besides the fire in my chest.
I let the water beat down on me. Hard. Sharp. Unforgiving. My hand presses against the tiles as I let the current strip the tension from my shoulders and the blood in my raging cock.
I close my eyes. Focus on the sting. Focus on the cold. Focus on anything but her.
But it doesn’t work. Her lips. Her hands. Her trembling. It’s all still there, carved into me.
I take a shaky breath and let the water pound against my back, trying—failing—to wash her away.
I want to stay under the water forever. Let it wash away everything—the chaos, the ache, the impossible pull she has over me. My muscles tighten against the cold, my jaw clenches. I almost let myself sink into it, let the night pass while she waits in that room, fragile and trembling. Almost.
But duty wins over want. I promised her comfort. A shirt. Sweatpants. Something to wear while she sleeps, while she recovers. And she’ll be waiting. Expecting. Trusting, in her own way, that I’ll keep it simple, that I’ll keep her safe.
I cut the water and step out, the tiles slick under my bare feet.
I dry myself quickly, each motion mechanical, a shield against the memory of her lips and the tremor in her hands.
I move to the dresser, pause, and stare at the folded clothes laid out with careful precision: a soft gray cotton shirt, sweatpants that will hang loosely, oversized enough for comfort but not so large as to swallow her entirely. It’s the smallest one I own.
I pick up the shirt first. My hands linger over the fabric, and for a moment, I fight the urge to fold it, smooth it, press it to my chest as if that could somehow hold her there, safe. I shake my head.
No. Keep it together.
This isn’t anything more than a duty.
The sweatpants follow. Same hesitation. Same tension. I feel the weight of them in my hands, heavy with the knowledge that she’ll wear them and—like it or not—think of me. Think of me as the man who caged her, who promised her safety, and who stirred something she doesn’t want to feel.
I bundle the clothes, careful not to crease them. My mind races. Do I leave them on the bed? Do I hand them to her? Will she recoil if I touch her again? Every choice feels loaded, every movement a potential misstep in a dance I’ve never allowed myself to learn.
I take a breath, steadying the storm inside me. The ache is still there. Desire, frustration, guilt, obsession—they twist together like a fist in my chest. I swallow it down, lock it away behind the cold, hard wall I’ve built over seventeen years. Duty first. Survival first. Control first.
And then I step into the doorway of her room.