Page 33 of Little Blue

No one hears me. They’re too taken with her.

What is happening?

She’s standing close enough to touch them now. They’re both looking down at her in bewitched fascination as she tips her head back and says softly, innocently, “I’ve been kidnapped. Please, please help me.”

At this, Luka’s head whips up and his eyes land on me. He looks struck dumb.

He’s not the only one. I could throw her over my knee and…

Misha laughs again. Then he mutters, “Nice try, sweetheart.” I growl at the endearment. “But we can’t help you with that one.” To me, he huffs, palming the back of his neck. “Good luck with her, brother.”

Luka pushes a breath from between his cheeks the same time he shoves a hand through his hair. “He’ll need it.”

As for my part, I pull Irelynn into my chest with an arm around her belly. Her round ass lands against me, and hot blood rushes to my groin.

She doesn’t even fight me as I drop my lips to her ear, growling, “Misha grew up with me. He is like a brother.” My accent is thick, rich with my anger. My jealousy. “I love him, but if you flirt with him again, I’ll kill him.” Misha hears every word, and grins like the fool he is. I don’t think he realizes quite how unhinged she makes me. “Luka is one of my most trusted men, and now he is your guard. I would hate to have to end his life because you couldn’t keep yourself in check.”

If I think threatening my men’s lives is going to make her remember herself, I’m dead wrong.

Twisting her neck to glare over her shoulder at me, she tells me honestly, “You took me. You stole me. I told you I’d never stop trying to get away from you. I told you I’d run every chance I get. I won’t stop.” She shivers in my arms. “If you want that, you’re going to have to kill me.”

The idea of her death sparks something inside of me the like I’ve never felt before. It’s—devastation.

Grief.

I feel, for a moment, as though I have no air.

I want to shake her.

“The dogs can wait for another day,” I mutter. And then I throw her over my shoulder, stomping through deep snow, back to the house.

I’m pretty sure I hear Misha laugh even as tiny fists pound into my back and a little woman spits curses and weak threats from where she hangs over my shoulder.

I know I promised to never hurt her, and I never will. Not really.

Discipline however…

I let my hand crack against the swell of her little round ass, barking, “Enough.”

Again, she gives me a run for my money as another stream of curses splits the winter air.

My ears burn. The heart in my chest thunders.

My palm lands on her ass a second time. Now she’s spewing threats, like all five-foot-two of her can render me weak.

The thing is—clearly, she can.

I see red.

Luka’s laugh joins Misha’s.

Fifteen

Irelynn

The front door slams against the wall with a crack that ricochets through the mansion, surely alerting Polina and Daniil to their employer’s pissed-off countenance. I half expect them to come scurrying from the depths of the kitchen to rescue me from the very clearly enraged psychopath that kidnapped me, but no one comes. No one intervenes.

Here, in this house, in this Country, I’m at his mercy.

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