Page 1 of Kadra: The Unfeeling

Prologue

Some say the devil was once an angel who fell from grace because of his corrupted desires and wicked greed. Others believe he fell because he lost faith in humanity. I think it was both. Both light and darkness. Because just like light can’t exist without the dark, good can’t survive without evil. God knew this. He also knew his favored angel couldn’t remain in paradise while his heart never belonged in the light from the start.

It belonged to the shadows.

He knew this, just like I know the organ inside my chest never had a place in the light.

I wasn’t always like this.

I did have a heart that once thrummed with purpose but life managed to corrupt it like it does everything else, everything that is good.

I am darkness. The chaos around us proves it.

This is who I’ll always be.

Always the dark cloud, never the sunny day.

No matter what the man currently standing in front of me with betrayal written on his handsome and cold face chooses to believe.

He knows as well as I do that this was always meant to end like this.

Holding my head high, I look at him and only him. Only ever him. “I can’t go on with life like this, Vitali.” My grip on the item that will end my torment tightens as I try my best to harden my heart while facing one of the two people who can pull me back from the edge. The man who became my light in the dark. My salvation and my faith. “I can’t…” My voice breaks in the end, my throat feels raw. “This pain in my chest has to end.” I hiss as tears fall rapidly down my blood-soaked face.

He knows I’m right. I can’t go through life just existing and never truly living, too stuck in the past that I’m unable to fully embrace a future with him. I no longer want to wake up each morning and wonder what could have been if only darkness never touched me. I don’t want to fight every waking moment of the day trying to keep myself afloat. I only desire to put an end to this once and for all. Only then will I be free.

Only then will the voices finally disappear.

They will be free too.

From the painful reminder of their past. That’s the least I can do for the people who brought me back to life even if it was only for a little while.

I never dreamed of one day in the sun like my sisters used to but one day came for me regardless.

And for the first time since I was a young girl with more demons than grown men who fought selfish wars, I wish it didn’t have to end like this.

I wish for more. Just… more.

“You can, kotyonok.” This man, my savior, and my ruin, takes a tentative step closer while I take two steps back. This is how the story ends. It’s poetic really… just like our love. “I got you. I always have and I always will. We do this together. Always us. Just us!” He shouts the last part, shredding my soul into a million tiny pieces.

Without looking away from those mesmerizing gray eyes that have the power to bring a dead heart back to life, I whisper, feeling exhausted. “This is no longer your war.” This was always my battle. My war. The endgame until he barged into my world and rearranged all my perfectly laid plans.

He takes a long pause before he speaks again. “What is this nonsense? Your wars will always be mine. I am your sword and your shield or have you forgotten? You only have to take my hand, Moya dusha. Just take my fucking hand!” My eyes dart to his gloved hand and for a second, a long one that feels like an eternity, I imagine a future where Vitali stands by my side and helps me fight my battles. It’s bittersweet.

I don’t dream or make wishes like most humans do. My father beat and burned the childlike innocence out of me before the real world had the chance to, but then I met this man and my world was no longer empty, cold, and dreamless.

It wasn’t perfect by any means but it was more than it once was.

It’s warm and full of a thousand emotions I can’t kill. Trust me, I tried.

But this is not a man easily pushed to the shadows, no. He stormed inside the iron-clad walls I spent years carefully building around my soul and took possession of it.

My beautiful Russian.

The other half of my black soul.

Vitali Solonik.

Looking at him now, standing tall and so very mad with war raging in his eyes, I wish we could meet again in another life. Maybe I could be someone worth loving. Someone who adds magic and light to his world instead of plaguing it with more darkness.

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