Page 68 of Beautifully Damned
We break through the tree line, Matvey just behind me. He reaches for her, and something inside me snaps.
“No one touches her.”
“Pakhan, you’re bleeding badly. You can’t—”
“I am never incapable of taking care of my wife,” I growl. I’m currently more of an animal than anything in these woods.
He exhales, but I’m not done.
“Chase them.” I order.
“What?” His eyes flicker.
“Those dogs. Hunt them down. Put a bullet in each one. Don’t come back until it’s done.”
For a second, he looks at me like I’ve lost my mind—and I know I have. He doesn’t question me again. He grabs another man and disappears into the woods.
Nothing hurts my wife and lives.
I keep walking toward the house, her weight against me, her blood and mine.
Is this love? I don’t think love is enough of a word for it. If she lives, I will never let her go. If she dies, there will be nothing left of me worth saving.
I used to tell myself she was just a pawn, a distraction I’d move off the board when I was done. No feelings, no love—those words were armor I wore like skin. I didn’t understand affection, didn’t even think I was capable of it.
But now? Now she’s under my skin, in my lungs, in the quiet space between thoughts. I still don’t know what love is supposed to feel like, but I know she triggers something in me—something sharp, consuming, and obsessive. And for the first time, I admit I don’t want to fight it anymore.
Whatever this is, it has already consumed me. I need to confront it. It’s not going anywhere, and this accident is the slap in the face that makes me realize that.
?Chapter XLIV?
Ayla
Teeth tear through my skin. The pressure and ripping turn my body into fire and glass. I can’t think, can’t breathe. Pain blooms in every nerve until it swallows thought. I am being eaten alive.
Somewhere in the chaos, my mind reaches for Roman. But the world gives me nothing back.
The agony is too much. I feel myself slipping under, as though I’m sinking in black water, lungs locked. My vision folds in on itself, and time unravels. My life plays in fragments.
I see the truth clearly for the first time. I was loved, yes, but never chosen. My mother loved me, but never enough to stop abusing her sleeping pills. My father loved me enough to keep me alive, but not enough to keep me safe. Emir… he said he loved me, yet his fantasy dragged me toward death. There is no running from this world, and he knows it best.
My parents’ love was always conditional. The moment I crossed the invisible line and ended up in Roman’s bed, they carved me out of their lives.
Roman… he was never even part of that list. He let me see pieces of him no one else touched. Told me secrets. Made me feel cared for. For a moment, I thought he was human with me. But he can’t love. Roman Volkov can be fascinated. He can be consumed. But he cannot love.
Pain drags me back under. This must be the end. Even if it is, maybe it’s a release. Dying means I don’t have to keep forgiving people who never gave a damn. It means I stop carrying the weight of loving people more than they ever loved me.
Heat rolls through my body again, a savage heat, as though flames are being drawn across my skin. My mouth opens, and the scream that’s been building finally bursts out.
The cold vanishes. Warmth seeps in. Gentle, steady, coaxing my mind back to the surface. There’s a voice in the haze. My name. Over and over, as if the person saying it is trying to pull my soul back into my body.
My eyelids flutter open.
Roman’s face looms over me, and I’m in my bedroom. He looks feral, and for a moment, I wonder if I’m still trapped in the nightmare.
I cough when I try to speak. Roman moves so fast he nearly sends the water glass crashing to the floor. I try to take it from him, but he makes a low sound in his throat and holds it steady for me. Each swallow stings, but I drink until I can’t anymore.
He takes the cup away. I expect him to snarl, to be livid that I tried to run and take away his spoil of war. Instead, his arms come around me. He crushes me to him, burying his face in my hair.
