Page 6 of Poisoned Vows

My father glances at me, but he doesn’t tell me to stand up. I feel my heart beat in my chest, a hard rhythm, and I try to count each one, something to focus on beyond what comes next.

If I let my mind run away with itself, the horrors I’ll come up with will be too terrible to manage. I’ve become very good at controlling my fear over the years. Counting heartbeats, counting breaths, counting the seconds until something is over. Counting the strokes of a belt against my skin.

I nearly jump out of that same skin when the door opens, and a harsh, strongly-accented voice carries into the room.

“Thepakhanwill see you now. Follow me.”

I stand up automatically, without having to be told, smoothing my skirt under my hands.

The moment of reckoning has come.

Nikolai

I’m barely out of my father’s office before a delicate hand snags my shirt and drags me into the next room.

“Nikolai!” My sister, Marika, is staring up at me with a furious expression on her face. For all that she’s a foot shorter than me, and a hundred pounds lighter, her anger is nothing to scoff at. Right now, she looks as if she wants to scratch my eyes out. “You’re not actually going to go along with this, are you?”

“You should know better than to eavesdrop.” I’d like to say that our father has a soft spot for his daughter, but I’ve long since known that my father hasnosoft spots, not where anyone is concerned. If he’d known Marika was eavesdropping, she’d be punished.

“I never get caught.” She sniffs, brushing her white-blonde hair out of her face, blue-grey eyes the same shade as mine sparking up at me. “You can’t be serious. You’re going to take that poor girl, and—”

“You don’t even know who she is.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Marika stamps a petite foot. “What if it was me? What if our father was sending me off to fuck some man just so—”

“That would never happen, and you know it. You’re thepakhan’sdaughter. Whoever you marry will be handpicked for you.”

She wrinkles her nose. “You’re still missing the point.”

I run a hand through my hair, letting out a sigh. “Marika, be reasonable. Do you really think I’m going to hurt her?”

“You can’t agree to this andnothurt her.”

“If you were eavesdropping, then you heard all of the conversation. Our father is very pleased with himself for coming up with this idea. You know I can’t tell him no.”

She purses her lips. There’s no comeback for that—she knows as well as I do thatnois not a word in our father’s vocabulary.

“What are you going to do?” she asks finally.

“You know I don’t hurt women. I don’t mind violence—but I won’t do that.”

“You’re not going to—” Marika swallows hard. “Force her?”

My face twists, and I glare down at my little sister. “I’ve never forced a woman in my fucking life.” The words come out harsher than I mean for them to, but I don’t apologize. The very idea is insulting. “Of course, I’m not going to fucking do that.”

“Technically willing doesn’t mean—”

“Christ, Marika. I fucking know that.” I drag my fingers through my hair again. “I’ll figure it out. Maybe I’ll just keep her for a few days, make them think I fucked her, and then let her leave. It sounds like her father doesn’t care what happens to her afterward. I’ll give her some money and then send her on her way.”

“Like a whore?”

“Oh, cut the outrage.” I glare at her. “I adore you, Mari, but you know as well as I do that there are very few choices in this world, and even fewer for girls like you and her. You might be on different ends of the spectrum, but it’s the same goddamn thing.”

“What if you want her?” Marika bites her lip. “Are you still going to leave her alone?”

I can’t believe I’m having this fucking conversation, but Marika is like a bulldog when it comes to something she’s fixated on. She won’t let go until she has an answer that satisfies her.

“Then I’ll find another woman I want,” I tell her flatly. “I can have just about any woman I please willingly, and if I want something darker, I’ll pay for it. I don’t need to break my own moral code to fuck.” I narrow my eyes. “Now, can I stop having this conversation with my goddamned sister?”

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