Page 123 of Jewel of the Assassin
A dry sort of hollow forms inside me. I pour every ounce of hellish fury into it. The fury of a woman who will go to whatever lengths to get her man back. The fury of a queen who will crush every goddamn piece on the board. A demonic, feminine creature who will crawl out of the bowels of hell and burn it all down. For him.
I don’t stop watching. I let it fester. Let it open and bleed. Because I will make this psychotic, rapist bitch pay for every thrust, every drop of blood. I won’t stop until she is screaming with her sick heart still beating in my hands when I squeeze it to a pulp.
And after? I will give Roman so many goddamn blow jobs, he will never remember any other mouth on him butmine.
“I expectyou to be well-rested and well-behaved for our wedding tomorrow,” Anton says, his hands casually folded behind his back as he escorts me back to the bedroom.
I glower as he opens the door. “I’ll sleep like a baby, dreaming of how I’ll wake up and make a goddamn snow angel with your blood drowning the bed.”
He chuckles and rubs a few of my blonde tresses between his fingers. “You and he are so alike. No wonder you fell so hard for each other.”
“You’ll fall hard too—when I throw your sorry ass right off a cliff,” I snarl and turn my back, shocked when he doesn’t grab me.
“I love your violent, little mind and your burning heart.” He follows me into the bathroom. “I look forward to breaking you, Valentina.”
“I’m a diamond, you spineless ignoramus,” I spit. “I don’t break.”
Somehow, I will break him. Into a thousand pieces. The will blazes hotter than ever. But the hollow ache inside me doesn’t stop throbbing. I stare down the woman in the mirror before me, ordering her to stay strong for him, for everyone. Queens don’t break.
“You know, I quite like this island,” he muses, and my blood runs cold as I stare at him in the mirror. “I believe it is a good place to settle down and raise a family, don’t you?”
“I’ll kill myself before I ever bear your bastards, Anton.”
He chuffs a laugh, his smile one of ease because he still holds the keys to every chain around us. “A shame you don’t seem to understand the gravity of your situation. All your threats are quite adorable. And quite empty. Even when Roman is dead, I have a host of other weaknesses to exploit. The house matron and her squawking bird, for example.”
The moment I spin around to attack, he’s ready for me, seizing my thrashing, flailing hands and bringing his mouth down hard over mine. I bite down and taste blood. He pulls back with a growl. At first, I think he’s going to close in, violateme like he has so many times, but he stands there, tipping his head back with a laugh.
Wiping the blood away with a handkerchief, Anton locks his eyes on me. “Thank you for confirming another weakness, Valentina. Oh, the multitude of nooses I have around your lovely throat.”
I flinch when he steps toward me. I hate it. I don’t lower my chin, but waves of icy fear crash through me, threatening to crush my heart. This torture can’t go on forever.
And then, my heart ricochets when I remember his earlier statement.
“WhenRoman is dead?”
“Naturally.” He tilts his head, eyes gleaming upon me. “You did not think I would truly keep him alive, did you,Moya Samotsvet?”
Split-second trigger.
I grab the first thing I can reach: a porcelain soap dish—and hurl it right at his face. Instant pride heats my skin when it lands on his cheek, and his head snaps back. My victory is short-lived when he has me up against the wall three seconds later. He takes his hardness out. And I choke on a gasp when he tears my dress, forces my legs apart, and buries his cock inside me.
“You goddamn bastard!” I shriek, bucking and thrashing, scratching and biting.
It doesn’t take him long to slam me up against the mirror, shattering it in a second. Ramming me. Careless over the splinters of glass cutting me, opening my still-healing wounds.
“You fucking said no dick if he did your goddamn arena ga—ahh!” I screech when he sinks his teeth into my neck.
“Do I look like the sort of man who gives a shit over honor, Valentina?” He pauses, his cock throbbing inside me as he meets my eyes with a brutal grin, heartless, hellish. “If I’m not keeping my word to my brother, what makes you think I won’t fuck you when that little hellion inside you comes out?”
“You. Don’t. Fuck, Anton,” I remind him, burning. “You rut.Yourape.” I take what little victory I can with the deep bruise on his cheek from the soap dish.
He ruts three slow and deep thrusts inside me, stretching me, scorching my smoldering inner walls. “So adorable, Valya. A man cannot rape his own wife.”
“Patriarchal bullshi?—”
He crushes his mouth to mine, hammering into me in vicious, inhuman strokes. And once he’s shot his load in me, Anton dumps me on the bathroom floor, leaving me there in blood and cum.
He pats my head like a fucking child. “Good girl. If you wash off my cum, I’ll break the little crow’s beak and make sure your precious house matron is there to hear its screeches.”
