Page 57 of Cruel Knots

“Huh?”

Leaning in, she presses her lips to mine.

I gasp from the surprise.

She sweeps her tongue along my lips before deepening the kiss.

I freeze, wondering what the hell was happening. Why the hell is she kissing me? The sharp scent of peppermint wafts into my nostrils. It’s too potent and strong to belong to either an omega or a beta.

Lilja is an alpha too, I realize with a start.

“How did that feel?” she asks, breaking away from me.

“Strange,” I whisper, meeting her gaze.

She chuckles and lets go of me, allowing me to shift away.

“Thank you for what you did back there,” I say, tasting cherry gloss on my lips. “My brother is not a nice man. I’m sorry he tried to hurt you.”

Surprise flickers through her eyes. “Really? Aren’t you sorry we stopped him from taking you away?”

“I do want to get out of here but not with my brother,” I say honestly. “My relationship with Callum isn’t...” I try to find a word that can describe it. “He doesn’t care for me. It’s just a sick kind of obsession.”

“What do you mean?”

I think of the way she’s with her brothers. They’re protective of her and adore her, but they don’t cripple her. Unlike me, Lilja was taught to fight and allowed to be strong from the time she was a child.

There’s no way she’ll understand my relationship with Callum.

“Your brother’s a crazy bastard,” she says bitterly. “My brothers were a broken mess when he was done with them. It took months for them to recover from their injuries. They weren’t the same when they returned home.”

“This was their home?” I ask, my curiosity rising.

Lilja is as lethal as her brothers but she’s not being threatening or forceful. Even her kiss was soft and gentle. Maybe she’ll give me the answers I seek and fill the gaps in my understanding.

“This has always been their home,” she says.

“I thought they were homeless,” I say in a confused tone. “They lived with my family for over three years.”

She chuckles and nods. “You don’t know a thing about them, do you?”

“They used to be homeless,” I say. “My dad let them work for us and live in our home. He tried to send them to school too but they refused.”

A loud guffaw escapes her, her brown eyes glittering with mirth. “He tried to tame a Volkov.”

“Volkov?”

She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Right. I forgot you know nothing about us. Well, we’re the Volkovs. Our family descended from a guild of Russian assassins that used to work for the czar a long, long time ago.”

I blink, taking in the information she casually gave out.

“One of our ancestors moved to this part of the world and continued the family tradition,” says Lilja. “The boys are trained from a very young age. They’re taught to kill from instinct alone. When they turn fifteen, they’re thrown out into the world without any family support. They must live and survive on the streets using the skills they acquired. That’s the rule. It makes sure the weak are weeded out and only the strong allowed to become part of the Volkov pack.”

Lilja’s words explain the ancient manor and all the paintings and historical artifacts dotting the place. I stay silent for a while as the truth about Damien, Leon, and Mikhail’s origins slowly sinks into me.

Damien, Leon, and Mikhail aren’t dead. They’re alive and far stronger than I could’ve ever imagined. They’re assassins, my mind repeats.

“Your family tradition is extreme,” I whisper.

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