Page 69 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

To say I don’t regret it is a lie.

To say Idoregret it is a lie.

I’ve never felt that way in my life. When I was strapped down to whatever the hell that thing was called as Leo whipped me, I’d never felt so weak. And then, when he lost himself to his lust and buried his face between my legs, I’d never felt so strong. I never knew until that very moment just how badly he wanted me. He couldn’t resist for even one millisecond longer. He fell to his freaking knees and licked me until I came like a shuddering train wreck.

And then he kicked me out?

None of it makes sense. If my ass wasn’t still welted and sore, I might’ve assumed it was all just a dream. But there’s no denying that I did the damn thing.

And there’s no denying that I want to do it again.

What a stupid, repetitive cycle of thoughts. How many times have I been down this road since I ran back into this room? When I jumped straight into the shower, still stinging from the spanking I’d suffered at Leo’s hands, I scrubbed and scrubbed my skin. I sat there under the jet until the water ran cold, and even then I didn’t move. I felt so dirty, so alive, so confused.

“Stupid and repetitive” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

The thought of doing that again is so overwhelming that I can’t even begin to address it head-on. It sneaks up on me like a mirage in the corner of my eye. Like some other voice in my head is sneakily suggesting, “What if you went back and …?” The in-charge voice, therealMilaya voice, has to scream back “NO!” If I don’t resist, I might do what I’ve been dreaming of doing: opening my bedroom door, searching for Leo, and pleading with him to tie me down once more.

The light outside is fading. Two days have passed since I last talked to another human being. I don’t have a clue why the brothers are leaving me alone, but the bedroom is such a huge upgrade from the cell that I don’t want to ask. I just soak in the silence and try to focus on anything other than the here and now.

I still can’t get over the fact that I dreamed of this room almost exactly. The walls, the posters of the bed, the floor—I saw it all when I was hallucinating in the cell. I wondered idly for a little while if maybe they heard me babbling in my sleep or something like that and recreated it. That’d be a crazy conspiracy theory, and it’s definitely not true, but I’m having a hard time shaking the eerie feeling of seeing my dream world come to life. I only know it existed already because I can see fingerprints worn into the edge of the nightstand. This room was occupied before I got here. It predates my arrival at the castle. Who exactly was in here, I don’t know. But someone definitely was.

I’ve been pacing all day long, back and forth, practically wearing a ravine into the carpet where my footsteps have passed over a thousand times. I try to count my strides, to think of other things, but every time I close my eyes, I see Leo’s face again, and his lips forming those words—”Would you like to find out?”—and I start my pacing all over again.

Finally, when my ankles are aching and my lower lip is raw from gnawing on it since I woke up, I decide to try meditating. Supposed to be the hot new thing these days. My hippie organic chemistry professor, Dr. Lovelady, was always getting on us to give it a shot. As left-brained science nerds, all her students were all doubtful about it, not to mention constitutionally inclined to be skeptical. But Dr. Lovelady showed us some research that seemed fairly convincing, and I found it to be useful for calming myself down whenever I spent too long looking at flash cards with chemical formulations on them.

This particular scenario I’ve found myself in isn’t exactly late-night cramming for an O-chem midterm, but I could definitely use some calming down. So I settle into a cross-legged seat in the middle of the lush carpet, close my eyes, and try to breathe.

I do the humming the professor taught us. There’s supposed to be something to the resonance of your vocal chords producing some kind of gamma brain wave—or is it beta? Shit, I should know that—that amplifies the calming effects. I just like it because it drowns out the world around me. I need that now more than ever.

I take in a deep breath and let the hums reverberate through me. I picture the cells of my body bumping back and forth into each other, like reckless dancers in the mosh pit at a concert. One by one, they collide into their neighbors and keep the wave going, until I feel as though my whole body is sizzling with life and energy and vitality.

Then I try to find my place amidst all of that.Find your frequency. Breathe through it.Unbidden, I see Dr. Lovelady in my mind’s eye. Frizzled gray hair, thick-lensed glasses on a colorful bead chain, a Sanskrit tattoo that peeks out from the back of her neck. She has that eccentric old granola lady smile, the kind that says, “Of course everything is going to be okay! Everything is already okay.” She smells like patchouli and lavender, she drinks chamomile tea all day long, and she is an absolutely ruthless grader. I love her.

I try to breathe all of her in too, to internalize it and pretend that I believe the things Dr. Lovelady says and does. If she says everything is okay, it must be true.

Right? Right.

Little by little, I start to convince myself. I find my anxiety slipping away, as if a fist knotted up inside of me is loosening its hold on my guts. I sigh, and that feels good, so I sigh again. It’s like lubricant on my soul. Everything is easing up. The sharp edges of my thoughts are insulated, or maybe I’m insulated from them. It’s calm. It’s cool. Everything is okay.

I stay there for a long time, breathing and buzzing.

Then I open my eyes.

Dante is sitting in front of me.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I screech. I jump up, trip, fall back down, then scramble backwards on my hands like a crab until I’m a couple yards away from him, safely out of arm’s reach. “What the fuck are you—goddammit, don’t scare me like that!”

He smiles. It’s kind of a lopsided version of his regular smile, off-kilter somehow.

When I finally stop feeling like I’m about to have a heart attack, I realize that he is obliterated drunk. The stench of whiskey is rolling off him in waves.

“Sorry to startle you, princess,” he slurs. “Looked like you were having a moment there. Didn’t wanna, you know …” He waves a hand in the air while he searches for the right word. “Interrupt.”

I feel like there are ants crawling underneath my skin. So much for inner peace. “What are youdoinghere?” I finally say.

He shrugs. “Dropping in on my new roommate, yeah?” He chuckles at his own non-joke, starts to lean over, straightens himself back up. I watch as he pulls a metal flask from a back pocket and takes a swig. “Or whatever it is that you are.”

“Right,” I answer uneasily. “So just a social call, then.”

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