Page 295 of Untamed

“If you let me walk,” he snarls, muscles straining against their grip, “I’ll never stop hunting you. You hear me? So, let her go and fucking kill me if you need to, but you lay another finger on her, and I swear to God, Moretti, I will rip you apart with my bare hands.”

Nicolai chuckles, cool and unfazed. “I’ve always said that temper of yours is going to get you killed.” Ares roars, lunging, but the men restraining him slam him back and punch him hard across the face.

“Stop it!” I cry again, tears burning tracks down my cheeks as I twist, helpless, in Nicolai’s iron hold. “Please, just stop!”

Ares fights them with everything he has. Until they vanish down the corridor and the door slams shut behind them, and then… silence.

A silence that shatters something inside me.

The door slams behind them, but the echo still rings in my skull like a gunshot.

Ares.

His voice. His eyes. That look, raw and breaking and unmovable. It’s still burned into the backs of my eyelids, chasing every blink. My knees nearly buckle beneath me, but Nicolai’s hand is still around my arm, holding me upright like a leash.

“You’ll get used to it,” he says, like this is routine. Like this is normal. “Eventually, he’ll just be a memory you cry about in private.”

I twist out of his grip, venom climbing my throat. “You can chain me to your side. Parade me around like some prize. But you will never have me. I willneverbe yours.”

Nicolai smiles, mocking and indulgent. “That’s where you’re wrong, Stellina. You already are. You agreed to the wedding.”

“I agreed to save him,” I snap. “But don’t confuse survival with surrender. I will stand there tomorrow, say what I have to, but it means nothing.”

His smile fades slowly, replaced with something colder. More calculating. He steps in close, his voice low and poisonous. “You’ll be mine in name, in body, in every way that matters. And Ares, he’ll watch you become mine.”

I feel the nausea rise in my chest, but I don’t flinch. I meet his eyes, even as mine fill with tears. “If you even think about going back on your word… if he doesn’t walk out of here, if you hurt him, if you so much as touch him again, I swear to God, Nicolai… I’ll finish what he couldn’t. I will kill you. I don’t care how many guards you have or how high your walls are. I will find a way and kill you.”

A slow, almost admiring chuckle leaves him. “Such fire, Stellina. A shame to waste it on a dead man walking.”

“Then don’t test me,” I whisper. “Because I’ve already lost everything that matters. That makes me dangerous.”

He stares at me, a slow, mocking smirk tugging at his mouth. Then he lifts his hand, casual, deliberate and brushes the back of his fingers along my cheek with a mockery of tenderness that makes my stomach turn.

“You think that makes you dangerous?” he murmurs, voice smooth and venom laced. “No, Jordyn. It makes you desperate. And desperation, in the wrong hands, is just another kind of weakness.”

And then he leans in closer, his breath brushing my skin.

“Lucky for you, I like broken things.” I step away from him, a disgusted look on my face, and he chuckles. “I can’t wait to see you in white,” he murmurs. “Try to get some rest. You’ve had a long day. I want my bride to be fresh and looking as beautiful as ever for our wedding.”

Then he turns and leaves, locking the door behind him with a heavy finality.

And I collapse, the silence pressing in from all sides.

How did my life come tothis?

When I used to imagine the day I’d get married, I pictured warmth. Love. A dress I chose myself, not something laid out like a costume for a role I never wanted to play. I thought I’d be smiling, surrounded by people that I love. I thought my heart would be full, not breaking apart with every breath I take.

I certainly never thought I’d be forced into it at gun point, no less. And definitely not to a man like Nicolai Moretti.

I sit curled in the windowsill, knees drawn to my chest, forehead pressed against the cold glass as a pale strip of sunlight cuts across the sky. For everyone else, a new day is beginning. For me, it’s a day of doom. It should feel like a beginning, but it doesn't. It feels like the slow death of everything I thought I had time to hold on to.

My fingers rest over the slight curve of my stomach. I can’t feel anything yet, but the weight of it crushes me. A secret I carry alone, one that twists itself into every decision I make and forces me to pretend I have strength when all I feel is fear.

Tears slip silently down my cheeks. I don't try to stop them. There’s no one here to see me fall apart, no one to judge the way I’ve unravelled in the dark. I’ve screamed already, beat my fists bloody against the door hours ago. Now there’s only this quiet ache, the kind that settles into your bones and stays there.

Ares is somewhere in this mansion. Alive, I hope. Hurt, I know. And it’s my fault. I should have listened to him and stayed put. Instead, I made him to walk straight into a trap. And now, I have no choice but to give Nicolai what he wants. To protect Ares, I said yes to marrying him. My voice barely carried when I did, but it was enough. Enough to seal the deal. Enough to make Nicolai smile like he’d already won.

And maybe he has.

---