Page 9 of Silenced

I have no fucking clue why, but his appreciation has me spinning on my heel and grabbing him by the throat.

Pinning him to the nearest wall, I loom over him, my broken voice unlocking long enough to roar, “Mine.”

My fingers tighten around his windpipe as his eyes widen in bewilderment and his Adam’s apple bobs beneath my palm.

Immediately, he raises his hands in surrender, croaking out his agreement of: “Yours, Niko.Yours.”

I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding, then still pinning him in place, I turn to face mysolnyshkoonce more.

She should repel me.

A man who lives in the shadows? Who made them his home?

She’s the antithesis of that.

The antithesis ofme.

But that just makes the craving stronger.

The urge to touch her is unreal.

To be bathed in that light, to be coated in a warmth I’ve been denied since the day I was pushed out into this cold, unforgiving world…

Dmitri presses his hand to my arm. “Nikolai, do you know her?”

Aggravated, I skewer him with a look I know he can’t decipher. Which, for my ‘radar,’ has to be disconcerting. But I don’t understand this so how can he translate the uninterpretable?

As his brow puckers, I release him and turn away.

Striding to her side, I take note of the fact that she hasn’t moved an inch evenafterthe noise I made strangling my son over her.

Drugs?

Some kind of internal bruising that shows only on her back, perhaps?

Whatever Rundel’s done to her, if he’s killed my little sun before I have the chance to bask in her warmth, then what Kadare put him through will seem like a walk in the park—I’ll make exploding condoms full of heroin in his small intestine look like a good time once I’m through with him.

As I study her stillness, I absorb a singular truth—she has a face worthy of starting a war. One worthy of ending it too.

Possessiveness spikes inside me, which is when her eyes flutter open.

She’s dazed for a handful of seconds, her pupils like pinpricks, the irises flooded with the warmest amber. She tenses as she spies me looming over her. Her breathing quickens and her nostrils flare as if she knows she’s walked into a bear’s den and has to hide but her body isn’t cooperating.

No other part of her moves.

Paralyzed with fear? Or drugs?

Shehaswalked into the den of a man many believe to be heartless, to be a beast, but I see her.

She cannot hide from me, and she will not.

Solnyshko.

Mine.

Her eyes widen as if she knows I’ve come to an internal decision, the sensation of paranoia undoubtedly flooding her because of her position.

As I kneel in front of her, kneeling for her when I kneel for no man, my hands reaching for the cuffs that bind her to the disgusting footboard of the bed, I know she’s watching me.

---