Page 88 of Corrupted Heart

I smile bitterly. “Funny, my dad promised me the same thing!”

Milena makes a face.

“W-what does this mean for you?” Naomi asks uncertainly. “Like, with dancing, with…your whole life?”

I sigh. “I don’t think anything changes. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to stop dancing or anything.”

“What if he makes you?”

“Then she stabs him in the nuts while he sleeps,” Milena mutters. “C’mon, the arranged marriage thing is ass-backward. But it’s usually not that hardcore. I mean, no one’s being chained to a bed until they pop out an heir or anything.” She shoots me a quick, furtive look. “You’re not, right?”

I roll my eyes, blushing. “No.”

“Okay, but with these arranged things…” Naomi’s cheeks redden. “I mean, do you have to…”

Milena snickers. Naomi blushes even harder.

“C’mon! I don’t know these things! Is it assumed that you’ll have sex? Can you say no?”

“It depends on the families, the arrangement, all that,” I sigh. “But no, nothing’s implied or expected with my situation, okay?” I glare at Milena. “No one’s being chained to a bed to be a baby-maker.”

“So…” Milena eyes me as we grab our stuff and walk out of the dressing room. “Is he hot?”

My cheeks sizzle, and they giggle.

“That’s totally a yes,” Naomi snickers.

“Which means you’re totally fucking him,” Milena grins.

My face burns hotly. “I am not!”

Not yet, anyway.

We walk down the little hallway and onto the dimly lit, empty stage.

“Is he old?” Naomi asks.

“He’s…older?”

She grins. “Well, whether you’re screwing him or not, we definitely need to meet this fiancé of yours.”

“That could be arranged.”

Naomi shrieks and the three of us jump, whirling at the sound of the deep, rough, baritone voice. Kratos materializes like smoke out of the darkness of the wings as he steps onto the dimly lit stage. My pulse roars as his eyes lock onto mine, that same animalistic, feral look in them that I saw the other night at the engagement dinner.

When he beat the shit out of Grisha.

And then kissed me for the first time.

It’s not like I hadn’t noticed that Kratos hadn’t ever kissed me before. But in my head, I guess I’d just assumed kissing wasn’t something he did. At least, not as part of the dark games we’d been playing.

Kissing isn’t necessarily a given when you’re being chased around an abandoned church, pinned down, and made to scream in vicious pleasure.

But I never realized how much I wanted Kratos to kiss me until he did, the same way he does everything when it comes to me: violently. All-consumingly. Like a conqueror.

It was everything. It was madness and bliss. Heaven and damnation.

It was the hottest kiss of my life, with a man who scares me as much as he turns me on.

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