Page 26 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
The room is a ruin of tangled bodies, rumpled clothes, sweat and sex thick in the air. The silence stretches, a living thing, broken only by the sound of our ragged, mingled breathing. Her dress is half shredded, her hair wild around her face. I can still feel the echo of her nails down my back, the lingering bite of her teeth at my shoulder.
I pull back, but only just enough to see her. Her lips are swollen, cheeks flushed, throat mottled where my mouth and hands have left marks. She looks at me not with victory or surrender, but with something raw and questioning. She’s still angry, still trembling, but the heat hasn’t faded from her eyes.
I don’t speak. Words would break whatever has just cracked open between us. Instead, I hold her gaze, letting her see me in the raw aftermath—no mask, no shield, nothing but the reality of my hunger and the ache I can’t hide. My eyes lock on hers, unreadable, drilling through every barrier she tries to rebuild.
For a moment, I can’t hide it. Something flickers underneath all the cold, all the cruelty. Something painfully human and real, something I never intended to show her. She sees it. I know she does. It unsettles her more than violence ever could.
She looks away first, her breath still shaky, her body curling in on itself like she’s unsure who she’s become.
I know she’s searching for answers—why I saved her, why I want her, why I let her see what’s buried under my ruthlessness.
I give her nothing. No explanations, no comfort. The words die on my tongue, locked behind everything I still refuse to name.
I rise, turning from her, the cool air biting at sweat-damp skin. I don’t look back. I can’t. If I do, I might admit to things I have never let myself feel. So I leave her there, caught between rage and something deeper, darker.
In the silence that follows, she learns a new kind of fear—not of me, but of herself. For yielding to me. For wanting more. For sensing that beneath all the brutality, there is something dangerously alive, waiting for her in the dark.
Chapter Thirteen - Karmia
I wake tangled in sheets that smell like sweat, sex, and his cologne. Sunlight slices through the curtains, cruel and unflinching, spilling across my bare skin. Every muscle aches, but not from bruises or fear.
No, it’s the echo of the night before, the memory of his hands marking me, the way I burned for him even as I fought.
For a moment, I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the memory away. I try to rewrite it in my mind: I was forced, I had no choice, I was manipulated. I repeat it like a prayer, as if enough insistence will overwrite the truth etched into my skin. He wanted control, he took what he wanted. I am a victim, nothing more.
Except my body betrays me. The ache in my thighs, the bruises on my hips, the ghost of his mouth on my neck—they pulse with heat, with something that isn’t pain. I press my palm to my chest, feeling my heart hammering far too fast, a shameful flush creeping up my throat.
I want to blame him for all of it, for every trembling second where I stopped saying no, for every gasp that sounded more like want than hate.
The problem is, I remember it all too well. The way his hands gripped me, holding me together even as he threatened to break me. The roughness, the hunger, the way I gave in—not out of terror, but out of need. How easily I let go, how fiercely I answered him, matching every demand with a desperate plea of my own.
I roll to my side, pulling the sheets tight around my body, hating the way I still crave the heat he left behind. Fury and shame wage war inside me, twisting into something I can’t untangle. I want to scream, to tear the bed apart, to scrub everytrace of him from my skin and my memory—but I can’t. The more I try to separate the violation from the desire, the more they feel bound together, a knot that only tightens when I pull.
I am furious at him for doing this to me. For making me feel powerless, for making me want him. I’m angrier still at myself for yielding, for craving, for shattering in his hands and still wanting more. The contradiction is acid in my veins, burning through every excuse I try to build. It unsettles me more than anything Rostya Sharov has ever done, more than any threat, any violence, any cage.
I lie still, watching sunlight crawl across the ceiling, and wonder how I’ll ever forgive myself for last night. Or if I even want to.
I can’t bear to see him—not after the way my body still aches for him, not with the shame gnawing beneath my skin. So I drift through the mansion’s endless halls, a ghost in silk pajamas, shying from every footstep that might mean he’s near. The corridors are suffocating in their beauty: velvet drapes, oil paintings in gilded frames, floors polished to a mirror-shine that throws my hollow-eyed reflection back at me with every step. Chandeliers overhead spill light so bright it feels like accusation, every glint a bar in a gilded cage.
I walk aimlessly, hands knotted in my sleeves, trying to make sense of what’s become of me. Each step rings with guilt, the soles of my feet tapping out the memory of his touch. I replay last night in my mind, desperate to rewrite it, to edit myself into a victim, untouched by the fever that claimed us both. If I could just keep hating him, if I could only cling to outrage, maybe it would be easier to breathe.
But every flash of memory betrays me. The way I arched into his hands. The way I clung to him, hungry, not resisting buturging him on. My skin remembers even when my mind screams denial. I can’t erase the truth: I wanted it. I wantedhim.
The realization curdles inside me. I stop before a grand mirror, the kind meant for preening royalty, and stare at the girl reflected back. My face looks drawn, hollowed by a night without real sleep. My lips are still swollen from his kiss, the faintest shadow of bruises dotting my collarbone like a brand.
Disgust wells up in my throat. I lean closer, searching for the cracks in my armor, for any sign of the old Karmia—the one who would have fought, who would have spit in his face, who wouldn’t have moaned for him even as she cursed his name.
The reflection doesn’t change. My eyes are glassy, my cheeks flushed, and there’s a softness around my mouth that makes me want to shatter the glass.
“You’re pathetic,” I whisper, my voice shaking. The words hit the glass, bounce back. The mirror shows me nothing but the evidence of my own undoing, painted in color and shadow across my skin.
No matter how many times I say it, the girl in the glass doesn’t become a victim, or a survivor. She is only herself—ruined, wanting, and utterly lost.
At breakfast, I try to slip in quietly, hoping maybe I can cross the room like a shadow, take my coffee and disappear.
He’s already there. Rostya sits at the head of the impossibly long table, black shirt open at the throat, a paper in hand, the sunlight gleaming off the silver at his wrist. He doesn’t look at me when I enter, doesn’t so much as nod, only flicks his eyes my way for a heartbeat before returning to whatever report has his attention.
The tension in the room is suffocating. Servants glide around us in silence, setting dishes I can’t taste and pouringcoffee I can’t bring myself to sip. The only sound is the clink of cutlery and the rustle of pages.
