Chapter 12
Artem
In my own house, in my own bedroom, I’ve ended up hiding in the bathroom from a woman whose throat I could crush with my bare hands if I squeezed hard enough.
And yet here I am, leaving her side and taking the coldest shower, one that reminds me of the winters when my father used to throw my brothers and me into the almost frozen pool to teach us how to get used to the cold.
At least the memory helps me tame, a little, the erection that has been tormenting me since she rolled over in her sleep and settled half of her warm, tempting body over mine.
I woke immediately, driven by the first impulse I could have had in that moment.
Me, a cold-blooded killer – as some would say
– woken from sleep by someone climbing over me?
Imagine my reaction.
My entire body went rigid, ready to lunge at the intruder.
I don’t sleep with a gun beneath the bed, like others do, but I have a knife discreetly hidden behind the nearby dresser, and I was very close to reaching for it when my body, or some alert part of my brain, recognized the jasmine scent of the... intruder.
In two days, this girl, this stone that appeared in my path, has made me smile more than I probably have in my entire life. There is something different about her, something that enchants me and makes me forget who I am.
Worse, it makes me forget who she is.
That is exactly why I insist on a verry cold shower, then make sure my preparations in the dressing room take less time than it takes her to leave the bathroom, because she goes in immediately after me.
I spend the whole day restless. Not that I have so much work, but I'm trying to keep my mind busy. Anything to put my thoughts away from the woman I will sleep beside again tonight without touching her, even though I realize I want that very much.
Everything unfolds normally, as if it were a day when Ekaterina is not nearby, even though her perfume remains like an invisible thread through every place she passes.
I feel her in the hall.
I feel her in the kitchen.
I smell her perfume when I climb the stairs, even though she went up almost half an hour ago, after her ritual of playing piano after dinner.
I stop after only a few steps and breathe deeply. I close my eyes and can almost see her, elegant, with her hair twisted into that simple bun and the blue dress she wore at dinner.
“Fucking hell! We need to talk,” Yar suddenly explodes, leaving my side and heading toward the office.
When he reach the door, he decides to shout for our younger brother too, who was about to leave the house.
“Sasha, don’t go yet. Both of you, in the office!”
I press my lips into a thin line because his interruption keeps me from reaching my room faster.
From sleeping peacefully, the way I have for two nights.
From seeing her.
The voices are thirsty for her. They want to smell her, touch her. They scrape my brain with their sharp nails, screaming for me to go to her faster.
Leave them
!
We want her close
!
We haven’t seen her all day
! Ours
!
Ours
!
But I take a deep breath, clenching my fists. I turn back and follow him, already anticipating what he has to say.
And I’m already planning my answers. Visibly annoyed and confused, Sasha slams the door a little too hard behind him once we are all back in the office.
“What the fuck happened?” he snaps at our older brother.
But Yaroslav is tense, hands on his hips, giving me an accusing look.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” His tone is loaded with anger and... concern.
“Does it look like I have?” I ask, keeping my expression unreadable.
“Yes!”
“Then it only looks that way.”
“But you know what I’m talking about!”
My answer is a careless shrug.
“Well, I don’t,” Sasha complains. “And I’m the one who has a date with a famous model in half an hour.”
He taps one finger against his expensive watch, the one that will surely impress the girl, though not us.
“He likes her!” Yaroslav snaps, his words thick with exasperation.
“I just want to fuck her,” Sasha defends himself quickly, covering his chest with his hands like a shy virgin.
“I’m not talking to you!” Yaroslav shoots back, his sharp gaze drilling holes into my skull.
I don’t say a word and my expression stays perfectly indifferent.
“Yar, I don’t have time for riddles,” our youngest hisses, this time without a trace of humor.
“Artem, has something happened between you two since you’ve been sleeping together?”
“Oooooo,” the youngest breathes through pursed lips, realizing who this is about, then ends with an amused grimace. “Artem? Have you been a bad boy?”
“I’m always a bad boy. But not in this case.” I reply calmly, my gaze fixed on Yar.
“For how long?” comes his key question.
“As long as necessary.”
“And if you don’t?”
“War!” Sasha cuts in enthusiastically, and our older brother immediately strikes him with a harsh look.
“Going to war with all of England is not a good idea,” he tells him, though I know his words are aimed at me too.
“And don’t think you would have any place back home either, because Bratva would deny us immediately and hunt us everywhere if they found out this bastard touched the princess they themselves promised to another man.”
“I still don’t see the problem,” Sasha’s tine is flat, looking at me like a confused child. “As long as I get to kill someone, I’m in. Let there be war!”
Yar sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers, visibly exasperated.
“What is your plan?”
This time I know he is speaking to me, and I let both of them wait a few moments before answering.
Meanwhile, I move slowly toward the desk and pick up a knife I recently received as a gift.
I turn it between my fingers, then look toward my older brother. “My plan is to sleep well tonight.”
“Artem, talk to us,” he asks, forcing his tone to remain calm. “We don’t want you to lose control and face consequences we can’t repair.”
The knife blade is so sharp that the simple pressure of my thumb against its edge opens a cut along the length of my skin. The wound is not deep, but it is large enough for blood to begin gathering.
And the sensation is divine.
To know I have complete control over pain I do not even feel. Control over everything that belongs to me. Because that is what my life is built around: control, and the power to resist the monsters that are always fighting me.
But not right now.
“She silences the noise in my head,” I answer quietly, watching the blood begin to collect in the superficial cut. “I told you yesterday.”
“And today I am much more worried than yesterday, because I see how you are changing from one day to the next.”
I can tell this discussion will not lead anywhere good, so I prefer to end it before absurd scenarios start spilling from their mouths.
“As I’ve already said, this whole thing is a test for me. But it doesn’t help if you go for my throat every day.”
“Artem, to manage those dangerous urges, you first need to be honest with yourself,” he tells me, coming closer with that same worry on his face. “Step by step. Accept what you feel.”
“There’s nothing wrong with liking her,” Sasha adds, without irony. “I like her too. She’s beautiful, charismatic, elegant, and actually funny. Not to mention that song she keeps repeating twice as often as the others. Is stuck in my head. You know it?”
Of course I know it, but there is no point admitting them that, just as our older brother refrains from answering too.
“But along with accepting the idea that you are attracted to her,” Yar continues, “you need to understand that you are not allowed to get close to her. You need to leave her alone and not touch her. Don’t forget, this wedding must happen.”
“Because Father said so.” My tone is sharp, making Yar tense.
“Because it has to,” he says firmly. “She loves that man. You know her story. She left Moscow to get out of this world, and now she has the chance at a normal life with a man who can offer her everything. What could you offer her? A few nights of sex.
Then after you got bored of being with the same woman, you would disappear for days while she stayed locked inside the house from morning until night because it would be too dangerous for her to go outside. Everyone would hunt her, just as they would hunt us.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you. But I see you’ve thought about that scenario.”
“No,” I say, contemplating his ugly prediction. “I hadn’t thought about it until now, but you’re helping me a lot by showing me there are options.”
I wink, annoying him even more.
“Fuck it, Artem! That is not what I want. But admit you’ve thought about taking advantage of the situation you have with her in that room.”
“You wouldn’t?” Sasha asks, grinning like a small, playful devil.
“You are not helping at all,” Yar roars at him.
“I don’t want to help. I want bloooood!” the blond exclaims, overly theatrical, raising his fists in the air.
“So do I, but not like this!”
“What is more beautiful in this world than going to war for love? She is Helen of Troy in a contemporary version.”
I watch the two of them argue while there is just as much noise inside my head, demanding I leave them and go to the place where I know there is peace.
“Yar, I need you to trust me.”
They look at me, falling silent immediately.
“I always trust you. But now something is different. I’ve seen the way you look at her...”
“This wedding will happen,” I say with conviction, despite the stings traveling through my entire body. “Even if I have to drag her to the altar myself.”
“Good.”
“So can we end this subject once and for all?”
“I can’t promise that. Can you promise you won’t fuck her?”
I feel my lips curve upward, and it takes effort not to grin wider, like an idiot.
“I can’t promise that.”
My answer makes Sasha burst out laughing, while Yar stares at me, horrified.
“You don’t usually smile. And now you’re doing it when you think about her?!”
“There will be waaaaar!” Sasha exclaims with the enthusiasm of a child in the amusement park. “I can’t wait!”
If they knew how often I have smiled because of her...