"It is what we have." I stand and walk to the window, looking out at the street where Alena just left with her guards. "Klaus coming here is either an opportunity or a trap. Either way, it ends with one of us dead."
"It will be him," Marcus says with absolute certainty. "We will make sure of it."
I turn back to face them—Marcus, Konstantin, Dmitri, the beginnings of my own crew, my own brotherhood separate from Klaus. "Then let us get to work. We have three days to prepare for war."
We raise our glasses together, and the vodka burns going down, but it is nothing compared to the fire building in my chest. Klaus is coming. Good. Let him come. He thinks he is arriving to inspect his empire, to check on his heir, toreinforce his control. What he does not know is that he is walking into a trap.
And this time, I am the one setting it.
50
ALENA
I wake up two days later to the feeling of my legs trembling and an empty bed beside me.
The sheets are still warm where Drogo had been, but the space feels strangely hollow without his weight pinning me down. It is almost seven in the morning according to the clock on the nightstand, and the room is quiet—too quiet. For the past forty-eight hours he has been glued to me, his arms, his breath, his body never far away, like he is afraid I will vanish if he lets go for even a second. Now the bed is empty, and the silence presses against my skin.
My thighs are sticky with dried come—his come—from all three times he filled me last night, and I groan softly as I shift, feeling the evidence of our activities smeared between my legs. Damn. We have a lot of sex. A lot of sex. And all of it unprotected. The thought floats through my mind like a lazy cloud: maybe I should take a pill or something, get on birth control before this becomes an actual problem instead of just a theoretical one. But even as I think it, something stubborn inside me resists. I push the idea away for later.
I sit up slowly, wincing at the delicious soreness in my muscles, and look around the bedroom. Something feels… different. It takes me a moment to place it.
No shadows. No cold spots brushing my skin. No whispers at the edge of my hearing. No ghosts.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, the room is empty of them. Completely silent from the supernatural. Noflickering lights, no temperature drops, no faint pressure of being watched by something not quite human.
I should feel relieved. I don’t.
Instead, a strange ache settles in my chest. I start to miss them. Why the hell am I missing the ghosts that have haunted me my entire life? I miss their contacts, the way they would communicate through flickering lights or sudden chills. I miss the stories they told in fragments, the way they made the dark feel less lonely. What the hell is wrong with me that I am sitting here wishing my ghost friends would come back?
I shake my head at my own weirdness and drag myself out of bed. The floor is cool under my bare feet. I pad to the bathroom, turn on the shower, and let the hot water pour over me. It washes away the evidence of last night—the stickiness between my thighs, the faint bruises on my hips from his grip, the ache that reminds me exactly how thoroughly he claimed me. The steam fills the small room, fogging the mirror until I can’t see my reflection anymore, and for a moment I stand under the spray with my eyes closed, letting the heat soak into my bones.
When I finally step out and towel off, I feel more human. More awake. I pull on soft yoga pants and one of Drogo’s oversized t-shirts—his scent still clinging to the fabric—and head downstairs.
The house smells like coffee and gun oil.
Drogo is sitting at the kitchen table in nothing but grey sweatpants, bare-chested, the eight-pointed stars on his collarbones catching the morning light. He is methodically cleaning a gun with practiced efficiency—disassembling, wiping, reassembling—like it is the most normal thing in the world to do at seven in the morning.
When I appear in the doorway, he looks up. That devastating smile spreads across his face—the one that still makes my heart skip—and he immediately stands, crossing to me in three long strides. He kisses me softly, then deeper, his hands sliding around my waist like they belong there. Before I can catch my breath, he lifts me as if I weigh nothing. My legs wrap around his waist on instinct, and he carries me to the table, setting me down gently in a chair before turning to bring me coffee and a tuna sandwich.
“Oh, coffee!” I say when he places the steaming mug in front of me. He leans down to kiss my forehead while I wrap my hands around the warm ceramic.
“Hey,” I say after the first sip, the bitterness grounding me. “I was thinking of taking a pill or something.”
He pauses, plate in hand, looking at me from across the counter. “What pill?”
“Like… for preventing a pregnancy?” I say it casually, like it is no big deal, but the way Drogo’s eyes immediately darken and turn dangerous tells me I have just stepped on a landmine.
“The hell are you talking about?” His voice is low, sharp, edged with something possessive and raw.
I laugh because what else can I do when he is looking at me like I just suggested burning down an orphanage. “You want a baby?”
“Yes!” He says it loud enough that I blink in surprise.
“You are a mafia boss,” I point out, raising an eyebrow.
“Not yet, but soon. And your point is?”
I laugh again, shaking my head. “Ha! A mafia boss is serving me breakfast. I just realized how weird that is.”
