Page 82 of Claimed By the Pakhan

Relief swims through me as Luka stumbles backward. He trips over Alexander’s body, landing on top of his master. They make quite a pair, especially from this angle. Luka wears Alexander’s crotch like a hat, blood streaming down his face.

“He’ll be dead in a few seconds,” I say to Fia, keeping my gaze averted from her.

Her silence forces me to look at her eventually.

“Fia?” I say, capturing her attention. Her eyes are fixated on Luka as he dies. The uneasiness of this all is making me feel sick. “We should get out of here.”

Fia registers me and my men outside, but she dismisses us all, lowering to her knees and retracting the knife from Luka’s head.

“Fia,” I warn.

Ignored, yet again.

I clench my jaw, watching her fingers curl around the knife. Her wrist trembles, guilt cutting through my chest as I’m reminded that she should not be here holding a knife of this size, kneeling over a dead body, exposed to such horrors.

I thought putting that ring on her finger would keep her protected, but it’s done quite the opposite. I’m traumatizing her more each day.

Fia is the sort of woman you should admire from afar, like artwork, appreciated but never touched.

“Fia—”

“You almost killed my unborn children,” says Fia, the blade fixated in her hand as she stares at Luka.

The trembling is now behind her as she kneels over Luka with purpose.

“Mess with Emil, mess with me,” she continues, “mess with the entire fucking universe for all I care. But if you mess with my children, you pay the price in blood.”

She stabs him repeatedly in the heart, blood squirting in every direction. Fia blinks through the mess, stabbing, spilling as much blood as humanly possible. The ends of her hair are dipped red, her clothes soaked through, and yet she keeps going, as though she’s operating on autopilot.

“Fia,” I say, rushing over, hooking my arms under her armpits and pulling her away.

She can turn around and kill me and I’d die a fucking happy man…

I turn around, locking eyes with her.

A single tear runs down her cheek, mixing with the blood. It will take more than one shower to scrub her clean. Perhaps the blood will never go away. It drips from her face, mixing with the cuts.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” I say. “Your open wounds could mix with the blood and?—”

“I don’t give a fuck,” she says, dropping the knife. “Can we please get out of here?”

I smooth a piece of hair away from my face, my heart breaking right down the middle. As Luka poetically said, life is a series of rising and falling, death the only absolute.

“Kill me,” I say, taking a step back, showing her my palms.

“What? Emil?—”

“Do it.”

Silence falls between us, my men outside gathering around, watching.

“Pakhan,”interjects one of them. “Are you sure?—?”

“I never wanted them to kill me, Fia. I am untouchable to enemies, to the laws of the universe, to death himself. You are the only one who can touch me, who is in control of my destiny. Stab me like you stabbed Luka. Put me out of my misery.”

“And bring misery on myself as a result?” asks Fia, her eyes drawn wide. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“A lot,” I sigh. “Alexander and Luka are right. The monster is always hiding, cursing those I love the most. Their pain equals my pleasure, and that is why I could never let you go, spitfire. Just thinking about the pain has me reaching for the knife, making me want to slit my own throat, so please, do the honors.”