Page 79 of Nemesis

“Not tonight.” My voice strains to remain steady beneath the welling tears. Useless. All he wants is for you to act like the daughter he thought he’d finally found, and you can’t even make an attempt to be pleasant.

My eyes blur beneath the wet wave, but I hold in my sniffles. He already has an ungrateful kid. He doesn’t need a crying one, too. I hold perfectly still, not even allowing my lungs to inflate until the weight shifts off the bed and silence falls back over the room.

The bed shifts again.

The sun fell hours ago, but I’m still wide awake. Closing my eyes offers no escape. That’s when I hear those footsteps strolling towards the cage, and smell the stale iron scent that bathes the room, even though no one’s bled in my vicinity in days. When did I become so well-acquainted with the stench of blood?

So I stopped closing my eyes.

A scent reaches my nostrils. Familiar musk. A touch of spice. It’s difficult not to flip over and seek out the comforting source of that smell. I’d know its owner even if I were blinded by darkness.

Thankfully, the body shifts closer without me having to ask. A touch roves over my waist, and the pillow shifts, balancing another head. Hot breath tickles the side of my throat as a body comes flush against mine. It’s the shocking comfort of the contact that makes me speak.

“I can’t do this, Vas.”

“Do what?”

His arm wraps tighter around my middle, pressing me even closer. I hate how much I crave the feeling when I’m lying here alone.

“I can’t figure out how to be the person they all wanted to find.” My throat burns beneath a swallow. I tuck my legs tighter to my chest. “I can’t get up every day and pretend.”

I wonder when Vasiliy started feeling like an extension of my mind. It’s like I’m confiding in myself, not a separate person. I have enough sense to recognize the danger in that truth.

“Oh, zlaya,” he says, pressing his warm lips to my temple. “I’m not asking you to pretend.”

No, he’s not. The only thing he’s asked of me is to train with him for an hour each day. Still, I feel the pressure of everyone’s expectations. I always meet expectations. I had to.

“I know you’re all waiting for me to start acting normal.” And the most I can feel is a hot flicker of all-consuming rage.

His tongue clicks, and the sound vibrates against my throat. “All I want to do is hold you through the night. I couldn’t give less of a shit about you acting normal. Especially not after what we’ve been through.”

My body relaxes into his. Someone must’ve turned the lights off hours ago, because the only illumination comes from the bright moon behind the drapes.

“I owe you so much,” I whisper into the quiet night.

“Not as much as I owe you.”

The words startle me. I tilt my head back, searching for his gaze. His eyes are serious as they shine down on me, so many hues of that unearthly blue.

“I’m the reason we were taken in the first place. The reason you were hurt so badly in that chair. It was I who demanded you fly to Chicago, and it’s my family’s compound you’re currently trapped in.” I sniff, squeezing my eyes as tight as they’ll go. “We are not even. We never will be.”

“Okay, fine,” Vas whispers back. “We’re not even.”

My lungs deflate.

No, we aren’t.

“Yet,” he suddenly tacks on, brushing his lips down to my cheek this time. The touch is confusing—something between a kiss and a caress. “I’ll take twenty drops to settle up.”

My eyebrows leap up to my hairline.

Twenty. He’s never asked for so much before, but the prospect of making us even is too appealing to turn away. Besides, I gave Dead Fucker #1 at least twenty drops that day in the chair, and Vasiliy is owed way more than that asshole.

With significant effort, I sit myself up, pushing at his locked limbs.

“Ah ah. Where do you think you’re going?”

I frown. “To get a knife.”