Page 33 of White Rabbit
“Okay.”
Something about her demeanor seemed off, but I didn’t know what. She always had a mean-girl vibe, so this wasn’t really different.
Taking a breath, I stared at the steps a moment.
“God’s sake. Don’t tell me you need me to hold your hand and take you there like a toddler,” she groused then lapsed into bitter Ukrainian.
“No,” I said, starting forward. She swung away, and I heard her heels clacking away on the wood flooring. She’d left the door open, which reassured me and alleviated my suspicions. A little but not much.
My hand tight on the railing, I started downstairs then followed her directions until I got to the end room. And immediately knew I was in the wrong place.
Valariy stood before a man chained from the ceiling. Radomer.
“You touched what is mine,” Valariy growled at him, dragging a knife along the other man’s bloody torso like it was a paintbrush through paint.
“She wasn’t yours! She was mine. Ipaidfor her. She was my whore!” Radomer retorted. “I could do whatever I wanted with her. And I still can. I will as soon as I get my hands on her.”
“You won’t have hands. You won’t even have a body. She was mine, under my care when you hurt her at the hospital. You bruised her. You broke her fingers.” Valariy’s dropped the knife and his hand slashed out, punching Rad across the face and sending blood and teeth flying.
Demented from pain, Rad turned his eyes to me and laughed, the sound sending ice down my spine. He didn’t see Valariy move. Didn’t see the gun until it was between his eyes at the center of his forehead. Then it was too late.
In the aftermath of the rapport, my gasp was still loud. And Valariy turned, weapon raised. His arm dropped as his eyes widened. “Moya kokhána!”
My head shook as I realized the extent of who Valariy was. He scared me and it scared me that I’d fallen in love with him. Turning, I ran.
“Deal with him,” I heard him tell someone else in the room. I hadn’t even realized someone else was there. “Send his body back to Petrov.”
Valariy had just killed Rad. In front of me. He’d killed a man. Because of me. He’d killed a man, and I’d just seen a man die.
Blindly I raced as far from the scene as I could. I didn’t know where to go. My room? Not the one I shared with thepakhan. No, definitely not there.
Just feet from my old room, footsteps thundered behind me. I tried to dart through a doorway. If I could slam it then lock it then—
Valariy tackled me to the hallway floor just after I made it to the third floor. His hand wrapped around my throat, sending terror through me.
“You don’t run from me!” he roared. He jerked me over on my back, so I faced him. His fingers curled on my neck again. Wildness burned in his eyes. He knew what seeing him torture and kill Rad had done to me. He knew why I’d run. Shock. Horror at the reality of the life I now lived.
Shocking me, his mouth crashed down on mine, kissing me with all his vicious power and all the tension that lay between us. I clawed at him, shoving at his shoulders and trying to get away.
“Stop,” he commanded. “Remember who you are to him. My queen. And what I’ll do for you. Anything.Everything.”
Trapped I stared up at him, terrified, aroused, need spiking through me. What was wrong with me? I was completely down the rabbit hole here. And completely his. His kiss subdued me, even as I kept shoving at him so I could to squirm away.
He didn’t give an inch. And I could barely resist this or him. Not because I was weaker, but because I wanted him damn it, and because I had no self preservation. And he was my drug.
This was who we were. Fire and water. Night and day. Dark and light.
Opposites who needed each other to exist.
Valariy suddenly surged up and lifted me into his arms. In long strides, he carried me into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind us.
He dropped me on the bed. Dropped… Tossed… Jettisoned… Leaving me to whip wildly in the tension and fear.
I stared up at him with wide eyes for a moment until I realized I needed to move. To escape. I scrambled away, trying to crawl off the other side of the bed. He snagged my foot, dragging me back toward him.
The rending sound of my leggings and panties ripped through the room followed by the hiss of his zipper being yanked down.
“You’re mine, Brecklyn. And you’re never getting away from me. You don’t run from me,” he breathed, his nose running along my neck, breathing us in, while he dragged me back to him.
