Page 44 of Dark Promise

Our breaths synchronize, our heartbeats slowing into the same rhythm. I’m not one for pretty words, but I know this: Sabina is mine. And I’ll destroy anyone who dares touch her.

“That was…” she begins, her voice trembling. She stops, her cheeks flushed, her lashes sweeping down.

“Perfection,” I murmur, my lips brushing her temple. “You are perfection.”

She lets out a soft laugh, but it wavers, almost shy, before her expression shifts. Then worry slides across her features.

“I’m an idiot,” she says, sitting up and looking at me. “We didn’t use a condom.”

“You’re on the pill,” I say calmly.

Her brows knit, and she looks at me with startled eyes. “How do you know that?”

I glance toward her purse on the nightstand, battered from the chaos of the past few days but still intact. “I’ve seen you take them,” I admit. “And if you’re worried about anything else, you don’t need to be. I haven’t been with anyone since the night of your engagement party.”

She freezes, staring at me like I’ve just grown a second cock.

“Since my engagement party? That was months ago,” she says, her voice rising. “I don’t understand.”

I sit up, mirroring her, and hold her gaze. My voice is steady, unflinching. “That night, I asked your brother for your hand in marriage. Even though he refused, in my mind, I’d already committed to you. And I don’t cheat.”

The words hang in the air between us, the silence sharp and brittle as she processes what I’ve said. Her lips part, but no sound comes out at first. Finally, she whispers, “You… committed to me?”

I nod, my fingers brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I knew what I wanted, even then. You.”

She shakes her head, her eyes wide and shimmering with unspoken emotion. “I—I haven’t been with anyone in three years. Not since that night…”

Her words trail off, but I know the night she’s talking about. The night she was forced to take a life.

“That boy you were engaged to…?”

“No,” she says with a shake of her head.

Her admission makes the animal inside me sit up and roar.

“Good,” I say.

She cuts me a glance and shakes her head. “Neanderthal.”

I reach out, cupping her face in my hands. “Sabina,” I say, my voice low and firm. “This isn’t just sex for me. It’s not a game. This—what we have—is something…different.”

Her breath catches, her hands trembling as they cover mine.

“I’ve never felt this way,” she admits. Her words are barely above a whisper, but the weight of them crashes into me like a tidal wave. “Not about anyone. Not like this. But, this isn’t real. This is a fairy tale, a moment out of time. In the real world, you’re still—”

I press my finger to her lips, cutting her off.

“In the real world, you will still be mine,” I say, my voice unwavering. “Always.”

She huffs a soft, almost sad laugh. “That isn’t how this works. You are still an Ivanov, still my enemy—”

“Your father and my uncle Vlasta were allies,” I interrupt, my voice sharp. “Being enemies isn’t written in stone.”

She says nothing, only climbs from the bed and pulls on the sweatshirt and sweatpants, her expression unreadable. Then she glances at me, and I see a storm of emotions reflected in her light blue eyes. Trust. Longing. Fear. It’s all there, and it makes something sharp twist in my chest. Something raw and unnamed. Something I don’t know how to hold.

I don’t know what love is. It was a fleeting wish in my childhood, a wisp of smoke I could never hold. I don’t believe in it, don’t trust it. But if I did—if I could—I think that maybe Sabina would be it. But I can’t give her love. Only possession, obsession, protection.

I need to move. To act. To protect her.

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