Chapter 12 #2
“We’re done with this subject,” I say shortly, becoming serious again. “I’m tired, and I want to go to bed early.”
“I’m late for my date, but it was worth it,” the youngest declares.
When he reaches me, places his palm on my shoulder, but now his gaze is serious. “Whatever you do, I’m with you.”
And after he walks out, I hear him yelling from the hall,
“WAR!”
I am left with my older brother, who runs a hand through his hair.
“I’m going to kill someone before I end up killing you,” he mutters.
Everyone has their own thing, but all I can think about is getting back to the room.
“So I’m the only one going to bed like a good boy?”
He moves slowly, stopping in front of me and studying my face for a few seconds. “You’re smiling again.”
I haven’t even realized it, but he is right, and I carefully try to correct myself.
My brother is steel looking at me with his dark blue eyes and sighs. “I haven’t seen you smile since Mother used to make you pancakes and draw a smiley face on them with chocolate, even though you were twenty.”
This time, I know I am smiling.
“She still does that when we visit her.”
He nods slowly at my statement.
“Except you haven’t smiled in years, not even at her pancakes. Not a real smile, like the one you have now.”
I choose not to answer, because he is right. So this time he smiles sadly, shaking his head with bitterness.
“Be careful, Artem.” His words are more as a plea than a warning.
“Go have your fun.”
“I think I’ll let the bastard run through the warehouse so I can practice shooting a moving target. I have a feeling I’ll need it.”
He leaves the office, and I look at the knife in my hand, then at the wound still bleeding onto the carpet. And that is how I leave the office, heading toward my bedroom, where something tells me the princess is not asleep.
I find her leaning back against the headboard, watching a movie where people are dressed in oldfashioned clothing. I assume it is the one she mentioned.
Her eyes find me the moment I open the door, and her breath stops for a second.
Perhaps mine would too if I did not know how to control my reactions. Carefully hiding the knife in my pocket, I close the door and head toward the dressing room when her voice stops me abruptly.
“Wait.”
She quickly gets out of bed and comes toward me.
This time, my body reacts, especially when she takes my injured hand and examines it.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“I’m going to change,” I tell her, trying to escape her unsettling touch.
“Absolutely not! You’ll get blood all over your clothes. Let’s go to the bathroom.”
I am used to being attacked from behind, to being shot at from around corners, and I react immediately whenever danger stands before me.
But there has never been a woman who raised her voice at me, except my mother or Polina.
Caught off guard by her attitude, I follow as she pulls me to the sink.
I’m lost in her image.
Her beauty comes from the shape of her oval face, the beautifully defined chin, the smooth skin. But her eyes carry the most emotion, and even now they define my existence in a way I never imagined I would allow.
She is worried.
Over a simple cut, she does not hesitate to show me that she cares.
She is perfect for us.
Yes. She truly is.
“Are you alright?” she asks when she sees me staring, as she turns on the water.
But she lets it run, waiting for me to react.
“Artem?”
I slowly lift my bleeding hand and run my finger over her lower lip, smearing it with my blood.
The image is divine.
Through her parted lips, warm air caresses my skin like the kiss I am desperately seeking.
“Are you going to stop me?” I whisper, my finger still against her lip.
But when she brushes the very tip of her tongue over it, something cracks inside the wall of my resistance.
“Yes,” she says softly, her voice broken.
But she doesn’t.
The air becomes harder for me to breathe too, while the voices scream and desperately seek release.
Do it
!
Do it
!
“How?” I ask, continuing to smear my blood across her skin.
“I don’t know...”
I should walk away from her.
I should step under another stream of cold water. Alone.
But my control is standing on unstable ground, stealing every thought I possess. Everything I want in this moment, I need to have.
And she does not stop me when I slowly push my finger between her lips, which she parts just enough for me to feel her warm tongue.
She tries to close her lips around the cut, but in my mind, the image unfolds differently.
“No,” I command her softly, stopping her. “I don’t want you to suck it. Stick out your tongue.”
The voices purr with pleasure when she does exactly what I tell her, whispering just as softly that she is ours.
Yes
!
Yes
!
But the blood shows signs of stopping, even though my need is not fully satisfied. I feel my pulse pounding in my ears. My skin tightens, wanting more.
More blood
!
So I pull the knife from my pocket, but instead of pressing my finger against it again, I touch the blade to her lip. One single movement, and I could obtain the liquid that feeds my monsters.
“Why aren’t you running?” I ask when I see she has no reaction.
“I don’t know,” she says softly, but her voice trembles. “I can’t...”
“I’m not stopping you.” Carefully, I move the knife, still avoiding hurting her.
“I know.” She is lost in my eyes.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me, Ekaterina? You know very well who I am and what I can do. You know what people say.”
I slowly move the knife toward her throat, aware that while she speaks, I risk cutting her if I press even a little harder.
And I truly do not want to.
She is ours.
“People say you are a monster,” she murmurs.
“And the princess wants to be ruined by the monster?”
Her lip trembles slightly, but her eyes glaze over, growing wet.
I don’t think my cock has ever been so hard as it is right now.
“You want to cry, and yet you say you are not afraid of me.”
She gulp and blinks several times, trying to banish the tears. And when she looks away, I press the knife to my palm and cut into it, making blood run toward my wrist.
“What are you doing?” she exclaims again, panicked when she sees the cut, which is almost as shallow as the last one but creates quite a spectacular image in this moment.
With my bloodied hand, I wrap my fingers around her throat, holding her chin raised with my thumb. I look deep into her widening eyes, and even now, she is not afraid. Her chest rises and falls faster, and I can swear she is just as aroused as I am.
And she is wearing only that damned pajama set, which lets me see her hardened nipples.
“Why do you want me to ruin you?”
“I don’t want that.” She struggles to get the words out because of my fingers tightening around her throat.
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know...”
I squeeze harder, this time bringing the blade back to her throat, beside the vein pulsing blood at a frantic pace.
I don’t know if she feels it, but a thin line of blood slips from that spot.
And when I move my hand, I mix her blood with mine on the thumb I bring to my lips, giving her the chance to breathe.
The taste of iron explodes in my mouth like a drug that ignites every cell and completely changes the purpose of my existence.
“Ours,” I whisper so softly, for myself and my voices, though I don’t know whether she hears it.
She shouldn’t.
I drag my tongue over the bloodstain, then bring it back over her lip, making her share with me the blend of our blood.
As my hand lowers and closes around her slender throat, I drive the knife into the wall behind her and push her back until she is pressed against the cold surface.
Her thighs clench, and I know that small, involuntary gesture pushes me beyond the limit.
“Moya.” There’s no doubt in my voice, looking deep into her eyes.
And I kiss her.
An explosion of starving voices screams inside my head, celebrating the fulfillment of what they have demanded from me since Christmas.
I barely hear them, because in my ears there is only the echo of the gasp that escapes her chest when my tongue passes through every last trace of restraint she has left.
With my body pressed completely against hers, I lose myself in desire. She is so warm and small that I could shatter her in a heartbeat.
Only one voice remains strong, the one telling me to tighten my fingers, controlling my hand and forcing me to obey.
I feel the air entering her lungs with increasing difficulty. I feel how my kiss steals the final breath leaving through the lips I devour with the hunger of a man who has been starving for an eternity.
Her fingers grip the flesh of my arms, and a gasp escapes her chest.
I recognize the pain in that small sound, and the thought pulls my mind to the hand gripping her throat, to the cut that is probably still bleeding, to her soft skin and the light in her eyes, which I don’t think I’m ready to lose yet.
I want to kill her, but at the same time, I don’t want to lose a single chance to taste those delicious gasps again.
Even the voice that kept ordering me to kill her goes quiet, as if it’s considering the situation too.
We’re caught in a stalemate, until her small fists hit my arms and her moan twists into something even more painful.
My fingers loosen and I begin to caress the fine skin, while my other hand slowly slides down her waist, feeling each rib like something delicate.
Her body relaxes, though she is still trembling in my arms.
My hunger takes another shape, and this time, the starving kiss turns slower and more sensual. Eager only to savor her properly, without rush, without the pressure of my voices, now fed by this new kind of food.
I am not a fan of kissing, and the women I fuck are barely ever touched by me in such an intimate way.
But Ekaterina’s lips are so soft and feel too good for me to stop.
A new obsession ignites fiercely inside my head, because the voice – that, until now, demanded I strangle her until her lips turned blue – is now whispering for me not to stop tasting them, only so I can keep them forever red and swollen from my touch.