Chapter 3
I can barely make out her sleeping form on the other side of the room.
She’s got blackout curtains drawn, so I can’t see shit.
Feeling my way across the floor, I make it to the edge of the bed without a sound.
I set my bag down and get to work. I don’t give a fuck if she screams and I want to question her, so I forgo the tape and snatch her wrists from where they were tucked from under her face.
The zip ties easily loop over her hands and I cinch them tight before forcing her arms above her head, securing them to the iron bars of her headboard.
I expect her to scream, to cry, to fight, or even curse me.
But the only thing I get from her is a soft gasp that almost sounds like a sigh of relief.
Weird, but whatever.
Not wanting to waste any time, I straddle her thighs and pull an arrow from the quiver strapped to my back.
I hold the point flush to her chest, letting it press in hard enough to try and startle her.
I know she’s awake from the way her breaths saw in and out of her chest, but she doesn’t fight me.
She doesn’t scream. It’s nearly pitch-black in the room, but I can feel her eyes on me like a physical touch.
Taking her throat in my hand, I squeeze until I’m almost cutting off her airway, keeping her right on the edge of consciousness.
Again, she doesn’t resist or push back against my hold.
She doesn’t fight her restraints. I don’t get a single damn reaction from her.
Alrighty then. Bending down closer to her face, I hold myself inches away as I speak in a low tone.
“Do you know why I’m here?” I question, and she barely manages to nod her head once in my hold, but I feel it.
Progress, I guess . I tilt my head in question, even though she can’t see me.
“And what is it that you’ve done to earn this?
” I press the tip a little harder against her skin until I feel it break, the coppery tang of her blood mixing with the coconut aroma that floods the room.
She says nothing. Doesn’t even react. Actually, no. Scratch that. She is reacting, but not the way I’m expecting. This girl doesn’t even fight to get away from the sharp sting of my arrow. No, the crazy bitch bucks up against my hold, like she’s trying to impale herself before I can get my answers.
I don’t fucking think so.
Pulling the arrow away, I toss it to the side and reach out, feeling blindly until I find a lamp and flip it on.
Something isn’t right if she’s this eager to meet the wrong end of my arrow.
I’m more than ready to watch as the light fades from her eyes, but only after I siphon the information I want out of her. Not before.
The room illuminates around me, and it’s not what I expect from a spoiled rich girl living in a mansion like this.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s filled with expensive furniture, but the entire space looks sterile.
White on white on fucking white. There’s absolutely no feminine touch to this room whatsoever.
Red flag number one.
Then I look down at the woman beneath me and?—
What in the actual fuck?
It’s… her.
Odessa Kuznetsov.
As in… the lost Kuznetsov Bratva Princess.
A hard, painful thump resounds within the empty cavity in my chest at seeing her face beneath me for the first time in ten years.
The first thing I notice is that she’s covered in bruises. She’s got a black eye, possibly a broken nose with dried blood crusted around it, and a cut slicing through the left side of her lips. Her neck is already littered with purple bruises, as well as her chest and shoulders.
You know what, let’s just say her entire body is one big fucking bruise, okay?
Somebody hurt her, but this wasn’t just a punishment.
They wanted to deliver a message that wouldn’t need repeating.
Evidently it wasn’t enough since I’ve been called here.
The nightmares that once haunted her have come to life and to be frank, it’s got me seeing red.
The second thing I notice is that she’s fucking flawless beneath her injuries.
She’s got the features of a goddess. Deep tan skin and high cheekbones.
I can tell that beneath all the blood, bruising, and swelling, lies a pert nose accompanied by a full set of lips, accentuated with a prominent cupid’s bow.
Her left arm is covered from her shoulder to just below her elbow with fine line leaves and vines, tiny little stars woven in between the loops and whorls of the foliage.
Her ears are covered in mismatched gold hoops and studs.
Bright, pastel peach-colored hair fans out on her pillow, framing her face and almost giving her an ethereal glow.
The acceptance in her eyes makes the vacant cavity in my chest do that odd thumping thing again, this time so hard that it blurs my vision, and suddenly I feel the last threads of my control snap.
A decade of time and space between us doesn’t erase the fact that she fucking ran from me after I’d taken her heart and carved my name into it.
In a blink, I don’t care what the reason is, I need her dead.
No person who makes me feel so out of control so fast can be allowed to live.
I like to think I’m a killer with some decorum and control.
You take that carefully constructed control away and I’m the fucking grim reaper on speed.
I snatch the arrow from her side and renew my efforts to end her as quickly as possible.
Beneath the swelling and bruises, she has an innocence and a sweetness about her that has a foreign feeling coiling around my gut.
I can’t demand answers when it wasn’t part of my contract.
I won’t. The curiosity has me fucking unnerved and I’m starting to feel twitchy.
“Any last words?” I ask, as I usually do with each of my marks, but this time I hope like fuck she stays silent so I can kill her that much quicker. I don’t want to hear her voice. I don’t want to fall deeper out of control.
Raising the arrow, I drag the tip down her cheek, pressing just hard enough to draw the smallest bead of blood.
It bubbles up so beautifully that I feel an odd compulsion to rip my mask off and lick it from her face.
I shove the unwarranted thought away, collect the droplet on the tip of the arrow, and move on.
Fuck, it looks even better when I smear it down across her lips.
The deep crimson color against her tanned skin is exquisite, the sight of it calming my heart rate.
Taming the brutal monster that is me can only be sated with ichor drawn by my hand.
I think she’s about to grant my wish and keep her full lips sealed, but then she relaxes down into the pillow, acceptance of her fate in her eyes, and the saddest smile I’ve ever seen in a human barely tugs at her lips. She closes her eyes, and the deep brown of her irises vanishes behind her lids.
The next words out of her mouth are not what I expect to hear, and for some unknown reason… I don’t want to hear them, either.