She sets the journal aside, stands, brushes past me toward the door. For a moment her hand lingers on the knob, her back stiff, her shoulders trembling.
Then she whispers, so quiet I almost miss it: “I don’t know if I hate you for saving me… or for making me yours.”
Chapter Nineteen - Vivienne
I wake tangled in sheets I don’t remember climbing into, still wearing scraps of white silk from the night before. The dress is torn, wrinkled, the veil discarded on the floor.
The rage from the ceremony hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s sharpened overnight, searing through my veins the moment I open my eyes and see him sitting at the edge of the bed, already dressed, already composed, like nothing’s been shattered.
The ring on my finger feels like a shackle. A pawn dressed in white. That’s all I was yesterday, paraded into the lie he created without asking, without giving me a choice.
My voice cuts through the silence, raw and unsteady. “You think this is protection?”
He doesn’t look at me right away. His profile is carved in shadow, jaw tight, hands loose on his knees. Calm. Always calm.
“I asked you a question,” I snap, sitting up, silk slipping off my shoulder. “Why? Why the lie, why the performance, why chain me to you?”
When he doesn’t answer fast enough, fury bursts out of me. I snatch the vase from the nightstand and hurl it across the room. It shatters against the wall, shards scattering across the floor. He dodges it smoothly, unfazed, eyes locking with mine.
“You should’ve known,” he says finally, voice low, even. “You should’ve known what I’d do to keep you alive.”
The silence that follows is sharp, electric, humming between us like a live wire. My chest heaves, my throat burns.
“Keep me alive?” I spit, rising to my feet, fists clenched. “You’re not a savior, Alexei. You don’t get to play God with my life.”
He stands, slow, deliberate, towering over me. “You’d be dead if I hadn’t spoken.”
“This isn’t about saving me. It’s about control. Ownership. You want me bound to you, marked as yours, like some prize you dragged from the fire.”
His eyes narrow, storm-gray and dangerous. “I did what I had to.”
“No,” I hiss, stepping closer until I can feel the heat of his body. “Saying it doesn’t make it true.”
Something cracks in his expression, subtle but sharp. He leans down, his voice clipped, hard. “The Council doesn’t care about your vengeance, your grief, your pride. They would’ve put a bullet in your head and gone on with their business. I gave them no choice but to leave you standing.”
I shake, more from the tremor in my chest than from rage. “You’re a coward. You hide behind power. Behind codes. Behind lies.”
His mouth tightens. He takes one more step, closing the distance until the air between us is gone. His words come low, biting. “You’re my wife now. Act like it.”
The silence snaps.
Our mouths crash together, violent, desperate. There’s no tenderness, no hesitation, only fire. His lips bruise against mine, my teeth scrape his skin. I claw at him, nails raking down his chest, dragging fabric with them. I don’t want him gentle. I want to burn, to erase everything, to feel nothing but this.
He pins me against the wall, one hand gripping my wrist, the other digging into my hip. I arch against him, gasping into his mouth, biting, fighting, surrendering all at once.
It’s not forgiveness. It’s not love. It’s need, sharp and searing, born from fury and betrayal and something far more dangerous lurking beneath.
We don’t stop.
His mouth crushes mine, swallowing every curse, every scream, every bitter word I wanted to throw at him. His hands are rough, relentless, pinning me against the wall. I fight him, nails raking down his arms, biting at his lip, but it’s not to stop him. It’s to match him, to give as much as I take.
I hate that my body melts against his, that the fury turns molten the moment his tongue slides against mine. My back slams harder into the wall as his hips press forward, the thick heat of him grinding against me through our clothes.
A sound tears from my throat—half rage, half need—and he growls into my mouth like he’s been waiting for this.
I shove at his chest, breaking the kiss for air, but before I can speak, he grabs my jaw, forcing my gaze to his. His eyes blaze with a hunger so sharp it steals my words.
“You want this,” he rasps, voice low and dark, “no matter how much you hate it.”
