Chapter 42
Gustav
Peighton presses her thigh against mine as the car hums along the frozen highway, and I am struck by how quickly my body reacts.
A slow ache rises, vivid and distracting.
I should not be this hungry for her, especially after the pool, after the feel of her wrapped tight around me, after the way she whispered my name the moment I slid into her.
Yet even now, even with the memory still fresh and pulsing in my blood, desire claws through me as if I have been starved for years.
I reach over and touch her. Just a brush of my fingertips along her leg. Warm, soft, perfect.
She looks at me with that little smile she thinks I do not notice. It hits like fire under the ribs. I want her again. I want her always. This is the addiction I feared — the thing the voices warned me about — yet I cannot bring myself to stop.
I pretend we are heading to St. Andrews because that is what she expects.
Truthfully, I am already steering us toward home.
Toward the castle. She does not belong away from me, tucked behind walls with other men teaching her things, breathing her air, watching the way she moves.
I cannot stand it any longer. I need her where I can see her.
I need to feel her near me, smell her hair, know she is safe under my roof, not some monastery’s.
The castle is where I keep everything that matters.
And she matters.
More than I ever intended.
I drag my knuckles across her thigh again, needing the contact to settle me.
She responds with a soft inhale that curls heat down my spine.
My jaw tightens. I want to lay her across my lap right here in the backseat and sink into her until nothing in the world exists except her voice saying my name.
Instead, I hold myself together with fraying threads.
The car jolts suddenly.
A violent thud. The whole frame dips right.
Petyr curses under his breath in Russian. The driver pulls us to the side of the road, snow spraying up in white plumes.
We stop directly beside a sign with a cracked radiation symbol.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone. Close to Pripyat.
Fuck.
Petyr and the driver climb out to check the tire. Peighton leans forward between the seats, frowning at the glowing yellow sign. “Why is that here?”
“Because this is bad area,” I mutter, scanning the tree line. “Stay in the car.”
She nods, but I know better than to assume obedience the first time.
The driver returns with a tight expression. “Boss. There is no spare in the trunk.”
My entire body goes cold, colder than the wind that slices across the clearing.
“No spare,” I repeat, each word clipped. “In a Bratva-owned vehicle. On a journey that crosses the exclusion corridor.”
Petyr’s jaw locks. He understands the implication immediately. Sabotage. Intentional. Someone wanted us stranded.
I step out, pacing slowly around the car. The wind whistles between the pines like a warning. The air tastes different here — metallic, sharp, wrong. A raven croaks somewhere above us. Another sound follows, a faint snap of wood deep in the trees.
I stop moving.
My breath frosts in front of me.
Something stirs farther down the road, a blur against the horizon. A figure. A man jogging across the asphalt with an unnatural gait. The gray sky behind him bleeds into his silhouette like he is made of smoke.
I raise my gun.
Peighton slips out of the car and steps toward me, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders, worry tightening her face. “Gustav. What is it?”
“Get back inside,” I tell her, low and harsh.
She turns to obey, but something catches her eye and stops her in place. Another shape moves at the tree line. He is closer than the runner on the horizon. Much closer.
Then a third branch snaps behind us. Snaps clean, like something stepped on it deliberately.
Peighton’s breath hitches. She back to me and clutches my sleeve.
We both turn.
A man stands in front of the car, blocking our way, silent and sudden as a ghost.
He’s wrapped in pelts over a reinforced jacket, looking like he crawled out of a Siberian myth and stole a soldier’s armor. Thick blond hair, heavier beard, both unkempt. A jagged scar splits his face from forehead, eyebrow, to cheek. His eyes gleam like an animal’s.
A golden madman with a killer’s appetite. No question, this is their leader.
For a moment, he merely watches us.
Then something thin and sharp loops around my throat.
Wire.
Someone behind me yanks it tight.
Pain explodes across my windpipe. I choke out a sound and reach back, trying to wedge fingers between my neck and the garrote. The world tilts. Black dots stain the edges of my vision.
Peighton screams.
The animal in me roars to life.
I slam my elbow back. Something cracks under the force — a rib, maybe. The man choking me grunts and stumbles, his hold loosening. I seize the opening, grab him by the hair and flip him forward over my shoulder. His skull hits the pavement with a splat and crunch. He groans in agony.
I draw my gun and shoot him in the forehead.
The sound echoes.
More figures burst from the trees.
Petyr shouts something, firing rapid shots. Keira screams as hands smash through the SUV windows to drag her out. Arrows whistle. Hatchets flash.
They fight like hunters, not soldiers.
I shoot one through the throat. Grab a hatchet from another and bury it between his eyes. The cold wind fills with the scent of blood and animals.
“Peighton!” I roar.
She is fighting. My little wife throws herself at a man reaching for me, clawing at his eyes. It is brave and stupid and makes something savage twist in my chest. I grab her around the waist, lift her, and run.
Petyr follows close, firing behind us in frantic bursts. Keira stumbles beside him, face bloody but alive.
We sprint toward the forest, feet sinking in the drifts.
Before we reach the tree cover, I look back and see our driver fall.
The man with wild blond hair and a scar grins and slams on a metal helmet like a medieval knight.
He steps forward and splits the dead driver’s head with a hatchet in one brutal motion.
My stomach twists into a knot of rage and fear.
The helmeted man calls out to me in Russian, voice booming.
“Leave the women. We only want them. Pretty little things. Bring them back to play.”
Maddened laughter ripples through the trees. The sound feels wrong, too human and too feral all at once.
Peighton clings to me harder. I feel her shaking.
Voices swell in my mind.
You cannot protect her. They will rip her apart. Kill her now before they get the chance.
Another. Mother.
Run. Hide. Protect her.
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches.
Cannot lose Peighton.
Not her.
We reach a cluster of boulders deep in the forest and drop behind them. Our breath frosts in the air. Petyr reloads. Keira shivers quietly. The woods creak above us.
I check my gun. Two bullets left.
Peighton stares at me with wide, terrified eyes. She does not speak, but the question is all over her face: Can you protect me?
I tuck her under my arm, hold her tight, and lie — the thing I prayed we would never do to each other — my voice steady.
“You are safe. Nobody will hurt you, moyá mishka.”
But the truth sits heavy in my lungs.
I have never been less certain in my life.