26
ALIK
Iwalk Sera back to her room, my whole body buzzing. She’s practically asleep on her feet, her head on my shoulder as I guide her through the silent house. I can still hear the little gasps she made as she fell apart on my desk, her orgasm so powerful I came with her, my knees buckling and my cock pulsing as I cursed and growled her name.
Sera’s sexy, pleasured sounds have formed a new soundtrack in my brain, a melody I’ll be playing on repeat for the foreseeable future. Even now it’s distracting me, making it so hard to think straight I almost walk by her suite.
“Alik, stop. We’re here.” Sera gives my sweater a little tug, pulling my mind out of my very favorite gutter. She leans against the door frame, eyes already closed. “Come in with me?”
FuckI want to, so much. I want to follow her into bed, curl myself around her, and keep her close until this whole monstrous thing is over. I’m so close to saying yes when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Dimitri is standing at the end of the hall. From his expression it’s clear I’m not gettingany sleep tonight. I tell him with a nod that I’ll be right there, then turn back to Sera.
“I want to,moya voitelnitsa, but I can’t. You go, get some sleep. I’ll see you when you wake up.”
“Promise?” Her head lolls, already seeking a pillow, but the smile on her face is pure temptation.
“Da.Ya tebe obeshchayu.” I kiss her cheek, her neck, a patch of her chest that’s hidden behind her hoodie. “We’ll get the tattoo removed, too. As soon as we can.”
Sera’s eyes flutter open, the green fierce despite how exhausted she is. “We’ll do it when this is all over and we’ve put those men in the ground. We’ll make it a celebration, to mark the end to their rein of horror. Deal?”
I kiss her forehead to stop myself from kissing her mouth. To stop myself from dropping to my knees and worshiping her the way she deserves.Moya voitelnitsa. My warrior. “Deal,” I say, voice tight as it battles the constriction in my chest. “Now go before you fall asleep right here in the hall.”
Sera teases me with a mockingly obedient smile, drops a peck on my cheek, then vanishes behind the door.
I’m still standing there a few moments later, arms braced against the doorframe, head bowed as I try to come to terms with everything that’s happened in the last ten hours. Seeing Sera get attacked in the club has unleashed something inside of me, a primitive creature that’s vicious and untamable and wants nothing more than to destroy anything that dares harm her.
But talking about Rina has unearthed memories and failings that are too strong to push aside. I loved my sister from the day she was born. She was sweet and joyous and mischievous and the reason I didn’t run away when my father beat me and broke me, adhering to our family’s long-standing tradition of sculpting the first-born male into the brutalpakhanhe’s required to be.
I survived my father’s brutality so I could protect my baby sister, to keep her life untouched by violence, only to fail her in the worst way possible.
I was Rina’s protector. I failed. She died.
It’s a truth I’ve had to live with for two years, but one I’ve been able to keep buried deep beneath my single-minded pursuit for revenge. Sera’s arrival has upended all that, unearthing too many unsettling feelings to count. Protectiveness and unworthiness, yearning and love, and a near debilitating fear of loss.
That’s the one that makes it hard to breathe.
The one that makes me simultaneously want to send Sera to the far ends of the earth while never letting her out of my sight.
Which means traveling to the ends of the earth with her.
But I can’t leave.
Not yet.
Which is how I end up standing there, praying to a god I abandoned long ago, desperate for some divine assurance that I’ll be able to keep Sera safe.
Assurance that doesn’t come.
At the end of the hall, Dimitri clears his throat. “Boss?”
“What?” I fall into step beside him. “It’s almost six. I need to get some fucking sleep. Whatever it is, can it wait a few hours?”
“Sorry, boss. It definitely can’t.”
I follow Dimitri down to the mansion’s grand foyer. A few hours ago, I had Sera pressed to that door, my dick inside her gloriously tight body. Now, a man I don’t want to see is standing in practically the same spot.
I come to a dead stop in front of the Italian, entirely unsurprised that he’s wearing a custom-tailored suit before dawn. Such an aggressively classy fucker. “Marchetti. What do you want?”
“Bastardo. If you checked your fucking phone, you’d know.Instead, I have to come all the way out here, wasting precious fucking time while Pagano is leaking blood everywhere.”
