Page 15 of Dance with Death

She tilts her head to press a soft, precious kiss to my lips. Her gentleness is still and chaste. But after a few moments, I part my lips, begging her for more. She gives, letting us fall into a sultry kiss.

Is this the last kiss?

I hold nothing back, pouring all my love, my heart, my soul into my kiss, taking the time to taste every inch of her mouth. I memorize the way she tastes, the way her body feels molded to mine, the glorious heat between her legs in the way her desire is inexplicably linked to mine. I sob once into her mouth as I feel her tears slip along both of our cheeks. I taste the salt of them as they slip down over our lips, bleeding into our kiss.

It’s one of those perfect moments.

Tragic, yes.

But perfect, all the same.

Until Vigo insists on reminding us how our lives have been destroyed beyond reason.

He grabs Anya’s hand and lifts it away from me. The motion breaks our kiss and we both turn to look as he places her small hand on his tented trousers.

Sick motherfucker.

My passion for her explodes in a supernova of rage against him. I lose control of myself and thrash again, but I only end up hurting Anya in that uncontrollable surge. She slips backward down my legs and clamps one hand down hard on my shoulder to hold herself up. It was an instinctual clench of her grip to grab hold of something rather than falling backward to the floor—only her other hand had already been removed from me and had instinctually grasped Vigo’s groin.

Her hand grips his erection momentarily and then she rips it away, tilting her body away from him with a gasp.

He only smiles.

“Patience,” he says, snatching a fistful of her hair and yanking her off me without any effort. “You will have plenty of time to interact with that, my pretty little girl.”

He drags her toward the center of the room by her hair. She scrambles to stay on her feet, only she’s forced to use her injured ankle to do that given the swiftness with which he pulls.

The pain on her face screams loudly in my soul.

Vigo releases her in front of the leather couch. She’s lost her balance entirely with the way he tosses her around and she immediately falls to sit.

I’ve seen her scared before. I’ve seen the look on her face when she thought she was going to die by Nikolai’s hand. But this fear that grips her is something else entirely. It’s the uncertainty of what’s next that scares her, and fuck, it terrifies me, too.

Vigo bends, reaching down to grab the cane she walked in with earlier. He holds it out for her and she takes it from him slowly, eyeing him warily as she does.

“Use it now to walk if you must. Come,” he commands, walking to the door.

“Anya,” I call after her as she rises, fighting through pain with tears pouring from her eyes.

The look she gives me is something indescribable.

She looks…lost.

Broken.

Hopeless.

Yet stilldevoted.

Taking in a long, steadying breath, she asks, “Mine?”

“Yours,” I reply.

It was never a question that I would always belong to my blue-eyed girl.

Chapter 5

Anya

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