His brother.
Zahkar.
Gorgeous. Pure. Powerful.
His intensity blends with Rodion’s and it’s like staring at the sun and the moon all at once. I’m willingly blinding myself because they’re too beautiful to look away from.
It’s a formidable thing being the center of their attention that could make any man quake and any woman fucking weak. I’m not immune. Even after all this time.
My knees are shaking and the words barely stumble past my lips. “You found me.”
Rodion’s eyes dip to my lips for a brief moment before they’re back to searing two holes into me.
“We didn’t find you,” Rodion growls, “because we weren’t looking.” He stalks past me, his massive shoulder barely knocking into me. The tiny zap of connection has my heart in my throat.
Ouch.
He may as well have shoved a knife in my gut on his way past because it hurts that bad. The woman inside me who’s stillhopelessly in love with him crumbles at his dismissal and at the pain that was clearly evident in his otherworldly green eyes.
I’m going to cry. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“It’s really you,” Zahkar says, still towering over me, dragging my attention his way. His brows furrow as he seems to drink in my magnetic presence. So often, I would fall into his arms, as it felt so safe and comforting to be in them.
“Zahkar,” I whisper, tears heavily slipping past my cheeks and racing down toward my jaw.
“You’re the thing I could feel,” he murmurs, pain in his voice. “Thedread.”
I’ve never seen him so…broken.
I did this. I broke the unbreakable.
“Zahkar…” I start, but he stops me with a finger to my lips. Soft and sweet. “Don’t fucking speak my name. I don’t exist to you anymore,krasotka.”My beauty.A term of endearment that used to taunt me within the ring is now a sneer upon his lips.
Pain explodes in my chest like a bomb just detonated there. My soul fractures and the strong walls I’ve built up come tumbling before him like a sandcastle meeting the waves of the ocean. I’m fading, disintegrating at his words.
Like the sun chasing shadows away, he disappears.
More tears fall racing after the other ones on my cheeks, but no one is there to witness them. Zahkar followed his brother, leaving me with my own heartbreak and regrets.
With a sob lodged in my throat, I hastily wipe away my tears with the palms of my hands. I didn’t want to hurt them. They hate me as they should. I just didn’t fucking realize how devastating it would be to see them and know I’m nothing to them anymore.
Every part of me aches with the understanding that I’m no longer loved by them.
You made this bed, Alyona. Now, lie in it.
Please be asleep.
Please be asleep.
I do not want to satisfy Jeremiah’s appetite tonight. I need to go shower and cry myself to sleep.
Of course, that would be too easy, and my life is anything but.
When I push through the door into our house, my stomach bottoms out. He’s awake and there’s no doubt he’s pissed.
“Took you long enough.” Jeremiah’s tone is like ice in my veins.
I move into the room and find him sitting on the couch, a tumbler of Wild Turkey in his grip. Next to him is Adam and…nun girl?No fucking way.“Joy?”
