Page 11 of Poisoned Vows

His hand carves a path through the air toward my cheek, prepared to put me on the floor before I even have a chance to obey. But Nikolai is there before the blow can strike, his broad hand shooting out to grab my fathers.

He closes my father’s fingers into a fist, surrounded by his, and I see the pain flash across my father’s face at the strength of his grip.

“Give me a moment with her,” Nikolai growls, and before anyone can respond, he puts his hand on my waist and steers me toward the back of the room, away from either of the other men.

“There’s nothing to fear, rabbit,” he says softly, that strange nickname sounding oddly hoarse on his lips. “But there’s no point in trying to refuse, either. Iwillmarry you. But I won’t harm you. You don’t need to fear that.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. I close off the sound behind tightly pressed lips, choking it back. “You marrying meishurting me,” I tell him, the words choked and smaller than I want them to be. “You can’tnothurt me. It’s who you are. Who youallare.”

He doesn’t smile. His face hardens at that, and his hand tightens on my waist. “There is no refusal, Lilliana,” he repeats, and once again, the sound of my name in his heavy, accented voice sends a flush of heat through me that makes no sense. “You will marry me, if I have to have guards march you down the aisle and hold you there while I say your vows for you.”

My mouth drops open a little. I can’t help it. There’s a vicious certainty to his words that makes me feel—strange. I don’t understand what’s happening. “Why do you want to marry me?” I whisper, looking up at him and fighting both the urge to try to run and the urge to lean into him all at the same time.

Both seem as if they could be equally dangerous, and I only understand one.

His mouth tightens, and his other hand lands on my waist as he leans in, drawing me against him. Through the layers of fabric between us, I feel the hard shape of him against my pelvis, a warning of what’s to come.

Literally, I think, and have to swallow back another burst of hysterical laughter.

“Because, little rabbit,” he murmurs against my ear, his breath warm against the shell of it—

“I want to decide the nature of your trap for myself.”

—

Trapped.

It’s certainly how I feel right now.

After Nikolai pulled away from me, leading me back to where his father and mine were waiting, it was decided that we’d be married in two weeks. Why that particular length of time, and why the rush, I don’t know.

Nothing makes sense.

A contract was signed, in ink and in blood. A quick swipe of a knife over my thumb, Nikolai’s, and each of our fathers’—the witnesses—pressed below each of our names. Barbaric, I thought, but I hardly felt it. I was too confused. Too numb.

I thought Nikolai would take me to some other room and fuck me after that. That he’d want to enjoy the prize he claimed. But instead, his father rang a bell, and a black-uniformed woman showed up in the doorway. She escorted me up a winding staircase, to the third floor, and left me in the room I’m standing in right now.

I heard it lock behind her. And now I’m frozen in front of it, trying to make sense of what’s happened.

I’m going to marry Nikolai Vasilev. The heir to the Vasilev Bratva.

It feels like a nightmare. Like it can’t possibly be happening. My thumb throbs where it was cut, and I look down at it, seeing small drops of blood still beading from the cut.

Angrily, I swipe it over the skirt of my dress, ruining the pristine fabric. It stings, and I squeeze my hand into a fist, leaning into the pain. Into anything that can help ground me in what feels like a fog of impossibility.

I was supposed to be free when this was over.But there is no freedom from this. No possibility of escape from a marriage into the Bratva.

No visiting the Hollywood sign in California or roller-skating down Venice Beach’s boardwalk. No dipping my toes into bright white Florida sand. No wandering among old buildings in England or looking at ancient art in Italy. Or at least, if I go to any of those places, it won’t be on my own, to wander as I please and spend my days however I choose. It will be with a man who has his own agenda, who will want my time and attention for himself. It won’t be the way I dreamed it.

Nikolai will possess me forever, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Somehow, my feet propel me forwards. I grab the doorknob and rattle it, but it’s locked, just as I thought. I’m every bit the rabbit caught in a trap, just like he said. Panic overwhelms me, thick and hot and bleeding through me until I lose the control that I’ve been clinging to all night with my fingertips.

Clenching both my hands into fists, I start to bang on the door. I slam my fists into the heavy wood, again and again, and when no one comes, I add screaming to it. I scream my throat raw, beat my hands bruised, until the pain becomes too much and I taste blood, and then I crumple to the floor.

I lean back against the door, hot tears welling in my eyes.I’m trapped.The words repeat in my head, over and over in a miserable loop, and I try to force myself to accept them, as I’ve accepted everything else in my life so far.

What will it be like being married to Nikolai Vasilev?I don’t understand him, and that frightens me more than being given to his father would have. I know men like his father. He would have taken everything he pleased from me, and it would have hurt me, maybe even killed me, but it would have been predictable. I would have known what to expect.

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