Page 8 of Brutal Conquest

I freeze as I stare at him.

I know that jaw.

I know that mouth.

He knows I’m looking at him and he doesn’t care. A smile touches his lips as he presses yet another kiss against my inner thigh.

No.

Itcan’tbe.

It’s a trick of the light.

“Let me see your face,” I say in a strangled voice.

“But I want to go on kissing you, Zenya,” he replies, and he’s not whispering now. A familiar deep voice twines through my senses.

With a shaking hand, I reach out, grasp his mask, and pull it off.

White-blond hair tumbles around his face. His handsome, smirking face. Pale blue eyes flick up to meet mine.

My blood turns to ice in my veins.

I’m imagining things.

This isn’t happening.

I sit up with a shriek. “Uncle Kristian?”

He grins wickedly up at me and takes another swipe at my sex with his warm tongue. “Hello, princess. Did you miss me?”

2

Zenya

Uncle Kristian was adopted by my grandparents when he was a baby, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him. We all have similar features and hair, though Dad’s and mine is ashier than Uncle Kristian’s. No one ever bothered explaining to me that Uncle Kristian isn’t actually Dad’s biological brother. I found out when I was eleven when I overheard my dad’s cousins discussing it. My favorite person in the whole world wasn’t my real uncle? I burst into tears and ran into the garden. I was distraught. After Mom died, I clung to Uncle Kristian. He was my biggest comfort. He knew how to make me smile even on my worst days. I adored my uncle. I loved his smile and the way my heart lit up whenever I saw him. I was too young to know what charisma was or understand that he was good-looking. What I did understand was that he was always happy to see me. Energy crackled around him, and he commanded everyone’s attention without even trying whenever he entered a room.

He found me sobbing my heart out in the garden. “Dandelion, what’s the matter?”

Dandelion was what he used to call me when I was a child. He said my platinum hair reminded him of a silky dandelion puff.

I could barely get the words out. “You’re not my real uncle? Are you going to leave me, too?”

Uncle Kristian drew my chin up and made me look at him, and until that moment, I’d never seen him angrier in my life. “Who’s been saying I’m not your real uncle? Who dares to spew such lies to my niece?”

I explained about overhearing my aunts talking about him—they were really my cousins, but I called them my aunts because they’re Dad’s age—and he ground his teeth together.

“Technically, yes. I was adopted into this family.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He got down on one knee and gripped my upper arms. “Because it doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m a Belyaev just like you. I don’t remember any other family.You’remy family. You and your father are my life.”

My sobs finally started to subside, and I wiped my eyes, gazing at his stricken face.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, dandelion. Can you forgive me?”

“You won’t leave me, will you?” After Mom died, I was terrified of people leaving me. Being abandoned by the people I loved most in the world and left in a lonely, dark hole. Mom suffered a massive stroke one day while she was gardening and collapsed. Uncle Kristian picked me up early from school and took me to the hospital. Mom was in a coma for a few days, and then she just slipped away.

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