CHAPTER 13
PREDESTINED TO FALL
GRIMM
“Bratva,” I let the word spill out of my mouth and felt as though it stabbed me for the first time in my life.
I held a certain pride as the future Pakhan, but all that pride crumbled as I waited for her reaction, which was… no reaction.
She remained frozen in my arms, like a beautiful statue that I dared not move for fear it would shatter. Her green eyes widened as she stared up at me, seemingly searching for something in my eyes.
What? What are you looking for, baby?
She seemed to be thinking deeply about something, because she opened and closed her mouth several times, and I was already searing with impatience. I broke away from her and I could have sworn something split inside me when I took my hands off her body.
After taking a bottle of vodka out of Klaus’ drinks cabinet, I poured myself a shot, which I downed in a second, then gritted my teeth as I clung to the counter with white knuckle force.
~ She’s going to leave us.
~No, she won’t!
~ What if she tries to run away?
~ She wouldn’t. No.
Arella wouldn’t leave me. She wasn’t that weak. She was strong. She could accept that I was part of that Russian mafia.
~ But what if she can’t?
I smacked the side of my head with the bridge of my palm as my heart galloped in my chest, fear clawing at my body from the inside out. Was I even capable of letting her go? No, I wasn’t. The thought of chaining her to my bed sounded more and more appealing as scenarios of her running away from me spun through my mind.
I’d had too much of her to let her go now. It was too late. She was mine.
I couldn’t look at her, though. I couldn’t watch how fear and disappointment would undoubtedly wrinkle her features. I couldn’t watch her slip through my fingers when I’d barely had her for a whole fucking day.
“
Nakhuy moyu zhizn’
[8]
,” I whispered under my breath and took another shot, then turned around with the bottle in my hand, ready to throw it against the wall and smash it.
“Grimm,” she called my name, stopping my hand in midair.
I turned to her and allowed my eyes to wander over her face, searching for the same disgust I saw when I showed her what Justin did to his ex, but it wasn’t there. All I could see on her expression was fucking compassion, not a drop of fear, disappointment, or anything in between.
She confidently stepped closer to me, pried the bottle out of my fingers and set it on the counter, then intertwined her fingers with mine.
The hands that had so much blood on them that no amount of holy water could ever cleanse them, the hands that took so many lives, the hands that relished in the slow disappearance of a heartbeat, the hands of a fucking ripper. And she touched those hands with her clean ones. With the hands that saved countless lives, with the hands that healed and caressed and soothed, with the hands that helped everyone, the hands of a fucking saint.
I brought them to my mouth and kissed them again and again, countless times, ready to fall to my knees and beg her not to leave me. But Arella only looked at me with the gentlest of eyes, much too kind for the monster standing in front of her.
“
Mne vse ravno, moya lyubov’
[9]
,” I froze on the spot with my lips pressed to her knuckles, “
Ya… ya khochu tebya.
[10]
”
I didn’t know how to react anymore.
~ What the fuck is happening right now? Since when does she speak Russian?
I took her face in my palms and stroked her cheeks with my fingertips, staring at her with shock and admiration. She didn’t care. She called me “my love”. She said she wanted me.
How could I not know she spoke Russian? How could I not figure out that she understood everything I said to her?
“You never told me you spoke Russian,” I whispered so close to her lips.
“You never asked,” she gave me a smile and shrugged.
I was instantly hard. I didn’t know if it was the fact that she spoke Russian, or the fact that she was still there, but my heart clenched painfully.
“Since when?” I asked as I slowly spun us around and pushed her against the wall.
“I started learning it after you called me Snezhinka on the plane. I was curious about what it meant, but then I liked the way it sounded, so I took a few classes,” she explained as I brushed my fingertips over the length of her neck.
I couldn’t control myself any longer. I pressed myself against her and crushed my lips to hers. Any form of gentleness was gone from that kiss as I forced her mouth open and intertwined my tongue with hers.
Fuck, it had been too long.
Too long since I kissed her last.
Too long since I tasted her.
Too fucking long.
Our teeth clashed as I hurried to undo her jeans and slide them down her legs.
“What are you doing?” she tore her lips away from mine, and let out a gasp as I cupped her over the panties.
“I’m hungry,” I rasped over her neck, rubbing over the thin lace of her panties.
“They might hear us,” she whispered as she held onto my arms.
“Then you better keep your mouth shut,” I grinned and dropped to my knees in front of her, sinking my teeth into her thigh as I took her jeans off.
She slapped a hand over her mouth and her head fell back when I slipped a finger under the elastic of her lingerie and ripped it off her body. I pushed my nose into her mound and inhaled her scent as if I was snorting the most addictive drug, then opened my mouth around her clit.
“Grimm,” she moaned as she pushed against me, and I turned feral.
“Say it again,” I demanded as I lifted her leg over my shoulder and watched her face as I flattened my tongue against her sensitive skin.
She looked down at me with hooded eyes and parted lips, which she licked before she spoke. “Grimm,” she mumbled in a breathy voice, sending tingles down my spine.
I devoured her flesh. I licked and sucked and bit until she trembled on my tongue. Her hands ran through my hair, grabbing as much of it as she could, and I made a mental note to let it grow longer so she could pull on it as much and as hard as she wanted.
She gulped as I ran a finger through her folds to spread her open before I pressed my tongue to her entrance and savored her taste.
Arella had me committing six of the seven deadly sins in a matter of seconds, and if I wasn’t already on the devil’s most wanted list, that moment of surrender from her definitely damned me to hell.
I felt
envious
of everyone who had the privilege of knowing her before me, and it made me angry that I didn’t know anything about the people in her life before she moved to the States. I wanted to unleash
wrath
on anyone who ever hurt her, and I wished to find each and every last one of them and make them suffer. I was a
glutton
for her taste. I was
greedy
for her, because I wanted to take and take and fucking take. I felt unadulterated
lust
every second I was near her, because even when she cried, I still yearned to touch her in the most decadent of ways. And in the end, I was full of
pride
that I had her, that she wanted me.
And I didn’t regret any of it.
I would have never been able to respect her wish had she chosen to leave me, so it was better that we didn’t have to go that route, because she’d chosen to be mine, and that was all that mattered now.
She struggled to stifle her moans when I slid two fingers inside her and curled them to hit that spot that made her part with reason. As she crumbled under my tongue and I swallowed every drop of her orgasm, I knew I wanted to wake up with her taste in my mouth, with her scent in my nostrils, her body in my hands and her face in front of my eyes forever.
I was a selfish bastard.
I wanted to claim her in the most depraved ways, stain her with my malice, tear her purity to shreds. I wanted to ruin her for every other man, even if I knew there would never be another. I wanted to corrupt her with the most decadent of wishes, bend and break her, then put her back together again. I wanted to take her pleasure to the brink of pain and have her walk that edge forever.
I sat still on my knees, my forehead pressed to her thigh, panting as she came down from the high, then when I finally stood up, I pulled up her pants and fastened them.
Without any restraints, I claimed her mouth once more, allowing her to taste herself on my lips, maybe that way she could understand why I was so desperate for her.
“You’re insane,” she whispered with bated breath.
I grinned, then slid the fingers I had inside her into her mouth and watched as she greedily sucked on them.
Huge fucking mistake, because now the only image in my head was that of my cock pushing past those perfectly plump lips of hers.
“Maybe, but it seems like you’re taking my insanity perfectly,” I grabbed her hips and pressed her against my front. “You were made for me, Snezhinka,” I whispered over her mouth. “You’re my only piece of heaven in this hell we call life.”
*
Arella was changing Klaus’ bandage while Fleur fell asleep in the most unnatural position on the couch. I imagined that a woman in her situation was used to sleeping in uncomfortable ways. A fact that made me wish she hadn’t been the one who killed that motherfucker, so I could have tortured him first, so I could have made him feel everything she felt and more.
My brother, on the other hand, was acting strange. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, and when Arella finished working on him, he pulled down his T-shirt, then stood up and walked to the redhead, gently picking her up, careful not to wake her.
I still didn’t know what was going on with him. He hadn’t been himself since he saw her, and while he had his broody moments and bad days, this was different. I was almost a hundred percent sure he knew her, but how was a mystery to me.
“You shouldn’t carry anything for a few days,” Arella scolded. “Grimm can take her to bed.”
“Yeah, fuck that right off. First of all, I’m pretty sure she’s not comfortable around him because he unsettles people. Second of all, she’s so skinny I can barely feel her. She weighs like… fucking nothing,” he whispered back and set about carrying her up the stairs to his bedroom.
“Klaus, first of all, stop saying your brother unsettles people,” Arella spat out, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “She wouldn’t be safe right now if it weren’t for him.”
My heart flipped in my chest and my eyes settled on her, widening as I took in her stance. She was defending me in front of Klaus, for a so-called joke he always pulled. A joke people usually laughed at, but she wasn’t laughing. She felt insulted by it, bothered by the fact that my own brother said I unsettled people.
I did, but she didn’t like to hear it out loud.
“Duly noted, blondie,” Klaus winked at me. “And second of all?”
“Do you mind if we take the couch tonight?” she asked as she played with her fingers. “I want her to have a familiar face around when she wakes up, and while it’s clear that she’s somewhat comfortable with you, I don’t want her to feel like I just left her here after everything that happened.”
“Knock yourself out, blondie,” he smiled down at her. “Just don’t fuck on my couch.” He looked at me and I flipped him off, which finally ripped that smug grin out of him again.
I knew for a fact that my brother had never fully recovered from what happened to him when he was ten. I also assumed he saw a piece of Amaliya in Fleur, and that he wanted to help her exactly because he was now strong enough to protect her like he couldn’t protect his mother back then, but there was something more beneath the surface between him and the redhead, because he wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction to a total stranger.
He was sensitive to these situations, and he tried to help the best he could in general, donating substantial amounts of his money to all kinds of women’s shelters.
This time though… this time he was hiding something.
Arella paused at the foot of the stairs and watched him close the door behind him, then she sighed and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Oh, shit,” she breathed out. “I have a twelve-hour shift tomorrow, shit, shit, shit,” she started pacing, munching on her lips.
“Then why don’t you call in sick?” I offered, and she scowled at me as if I’d just told her to dip her hands in acid.
“I don’t do that,” she said as she threw herself onto the couch. “I don’t want her to be alone in a place she doesn’t know.”
I pulled her into my arms and kissed her forehead, then ran my fingers down her arms in an attempt to soothe her.
My own actions shocked me, and I narrowed my eyes on my hands as they gently caressed her skin, wondering what the hell was going on with me.
~ Look at you, being all docile and shit.
~ You really need to get that word out of your vocabulary.
~ Only after you get your balls back.
I closed my eyes for a second and shook my head, then returned my full attention to her.
“She won’t be alone. She and Klaus seem to have some sort of weird connection, and he wouldn’t hurt her. He’s…” I sighed, not wanting to reveal my brother’s dirty laundry to her.
It wasn’t my story to tell.
“He’s what?” She lifted her chin and looked at me.
“He’s sensitive to women in her situation. Trust me, there’s no safer place for her than with him,” I reassured her, and she nodded.
We stayed on the couch for what felt like hours. We didn’t speak as we lost ourselves in the embrace, and it almost felt like we were recharging our batteries, taking energy from each other and finding peace in our closeness.
It was the purest moment I ever experienced.
We laid down at some point, and she was almost completely on top of me with her head resting on my chest and her legs tangled with mine.
“Did you know that your name means messenger of God or angel and that your last name means little saint?” I blurted out when I started missing the sound of her voice.
“No, and I’m not sure I want to know why you know that,” she giggled, bringing her palms together on my chest and resting her chin on the backs of her hands as she looked up at me.
“Because I want to know everything about you.” I narrowed my eyes, confused as to why she was asking about something so obvious. “Besides, I think it suits you perfectly.”
“I’m further from God than I have ever been right now,” she said, her face turning sad for a moment before she shook her head. “Does your name have a meaning too?” she asked before I could inquire about her sudden change.
“Stern and severe,” I laughed.
“Okay, and your last name?”
“What about it?” I took her chin between my fingers.
“What is it?” she asked and pulled away when I wanted to kiss her. “You’re not allowed to distract me, you devil.” She punched my arm, and I pretended it hurt.
“Abaddon,” I pulled her back, and she allowed me to kiss her.
“Aren’t you Russian?” she frowned.
“My great grandfather took his wife’s name,” I shook my head.
“That’s actually so sweet,” she cooed, smiling. “Does it mean something?”
I sighed as I let my hands wander over her back and down her thighs. “The correct translation from Hebrew is destruction. It also has some religious references I’d rather not associate myself with.”
“I thought it sounded familiar.” She sat up on my lap and propped her palms on my chest.
“You know about it?” I raised an eyebrow, surprised.
“I think you already know I used to be religious, because you’ve stalked me for six years,” she giggled. “His story isn’t entirely clear, though. In the Old Testament, Abaddon is described as a place of destruction and death, but according to a sermon, he was an angel named Muriel who was appointed to be Adam’s guardian, and even before his fall, angels, demons, and mortal creatures were afraid of him.”
I nodded, and she shivered above me.
“That sermon fascinated me the first time I heard it, so I researched it further.” She shook her head, and I continued to listen, even though I knew the story probably just as well as she did. “There’s no real way of knowing if he’s a fallen angel, a demon born from hell, or just an angel of the abyss.” She bit her lip as she looked at me, and I patiently waited. “The one thing that is certain about him is that he’s the only being in all of hell that Satan himself refuses to have a confrontation with.”
“It’s just a name,
Snezhinka
.”
I swallowed my words when she gave me a naughty grin and rolled her hips on top of me.
“I don’t know; I kind of like the idea of the devil himself being afraid of you,” she laughed when I shook my head. “Still, don’t you think it’s poetic?”
“What?”
“That a messenger of God might be destined to fall for the demon of destruction?”
“Might?” I raised an eyebrow and pressed her down on my erection, eliciting a moan out of her.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she laughed.
“Well, my little angel, if destiny does exist, and we are fated to one another… maybe we’re meant to balance each other out.” I pulled her back onto my chest so her head rested on it again, and I wrapped my arms around her waist. “Perhaps you are destined to tame my destructive tendencies, and I am destined to murder your demons.”
She shivered at my words, lifting her head to look at me as I brushed my fingers through her hair, its silkiness still amazing me even after I had it wrapped around my fist.
“You know, you think you noticed me first, but it’s actually the other way around,” she giggled, toying with her fingers around the collar of my T-shirt.
I froze for a second, then my brows drew together as I lowered my chin to look at her.
“What do you mean?”
She munched on her lips, almost as if she didn’t want to give much away, but it was too late.
“I was in line at a luggage pickup, nine years ago, and across from me, was this handsome man who had a darkness around him. You were waiting on your bag from a different flight, but I felt myself drawn to you,” she smiled, moving her hand up, hovering her fingers above my face. “May I?” Arella asked, her eyes filled with warmth.
I swallowed hard, finally understanding what they meant by “
fate works in mysterious ways
”, so I nodded, waiting for her to continue the story.
“I wondered why everyone around you whispered and quickly looked away from you, as if you were some sort of monster,” she said as she slowly brushed her finger over my scar. “I wondered why they judged you so harshly without knowing you, and I wondered…” she swallowed, closing her mouth for a second as she peered into my eyes.
“What?” I asked, pulling her up until her face hovered above mine.
“Who did this to you?”
Her tongue darted out to lick her lips as I stared at her, thousands of needles seemingly piercing my stomach, as if a swarm of bees were trying to sting their way out.
“The things I do sometimes put me face to face with people who are as bad, or sometimes even worse than me. I’m human. I get hurt, and all it takes is a second of hesitation,” I said as I tucked a few strands of hair behind her ears.
“Is he dead?” she asked, leaning forwards until her lips almost touched mine, the hint of a smirk curling her mouth.
“Who?” I narrowed my eyes until I could barely see her anymore, pushing my nose against hers.
“The man who did this to you,” she explained. “Is he dead?”
I grinned. “He’s ashes,
Snezhinka
.”
“Good,” she spoke categorically, and I moved my hand up her spine to cup the back of her head.
The fact that she was worried about me sent a shiver through my body, and I pulled her down until her lips pressed against mine, pouring every ounce of gratitude I had for her into that kiss.