Page 81 of Poisoned Vows

I’m thrown back into the cell with Marika. She’s too weak to talk very much, and I can’t find the energy either. I’m a swollen mass of pain, nothing other than the towel to protect my modesty, and the rough terrycloth chafes against the bloody welts on my skin. Marika is so far untouched, and I’m terrified of what might come in the morning for her. If my father thinks that I won’t be the key to breaking Nikolai, I have no doubt that he’ll try her next.

I’m correct in that. We’re both dragged into the room the next morning, where Nikolai is bound in the same chair, his torso a further mass of cuts and bruises, his mouth so swollen that I’m not sure where his lips end, and his flesh begins. It’s horrifying, and I start to cry the minute we’re shoved into the room, a sinking hopelessness spreading over me.

Marika is stripped, just as I was yesterday. She stands there, looking at her brother, as the leather comes down on her flesh. “Don’t tell them a fucking thing,” she whispers, before she’s jolted forward, down onto her knees, too weak to stand up under the rain of blows. She stays like that, crouched on the floor as Nikolai watches in utter misery, his expression one of a man who wishes for death.

“You can stop hurting them,” he growls out through gritted teeth. “It won’t change a fucking thing. I won’t tell you what you want to know. It’s all wasted—”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out by now that you won’t,” my father says, as he brings the strap down hard across Marika’s back. “But it’s not wasted. It’s just for my own enjoyment now.”

He kicks me down next to Marika, both of us crouched on the floor as he stands behind us, the belt coming down on my skin, too, marking all the flesh left untouched yesterday. I feel tears leaking down my face all over again, and I want it to be over, too. I’d rather just die and let it be finished. After everything, this is too much.

I’m so lost in my misery and pain that I don’t hear the sound of the door being kicked open at first, or the shouts. It’s not until I hear the burst of gunfire and fling myself to the floor in anticipation of feeling the sharp pain of a bullet that I look to one side and realize that it’s not Marika and I that are being shot at, that my father didn’t decide it was finally time for our execution.

Someone has come to rescue us.

A bullet goes wide, and I hear Marika scream, blood spattering across the floor as it strikes her calf. The workbench full of tools is toppled over as two men grapple across the room, and Marika flings herself forward, a streak of blood following her as she grabs for a knife. For one wild moment, I think she’s joining in the fight—and then I see her cutting at the straps holding Nikolai, getting him free.

He bursts out of the chair like a wild thing, his face so full of a dark rage that it terrifies even me. I can’t hear anything over the gunshots, and soon the room is a haze of smoke, blood spattering in every direction, a fight like nothing I’ve ever seen or imagined breaking out all around us. I feel a booted foot drive into me, kicking me aside, and then something heavy lands near me, making me cry out.

I can’t breathe. All I feel is pain. I reach for Marika, but I see a muscled man in cargos and a tight shirt lifting her, a sheet wrapped around her body as he cradles her in his arms. I can’t see Nikolai, and suddenly Iwantto see Nikolai, to know he’s there, but I don’t see him at all.

The room is spinning. I feel someone picking me up, cool cloth wrapped around my body, and I cry out anyway because it hurts, even as gently as I was touched. I don’t know where I’m being taken or who is holding me. I hear Nikolai’s name on my lips, numbly, feel the shape of it—and then everything is black, and I know nothing.

Lilliana

I’ve never been glad to wake up to Nikolai before.

He’s not in bed with me this time. He’s sitting across from the bed, in a chair near the glass doors, and I realize we’re back in his penthouse.Ourpenthouse, I suppose, technically, since we’re married. It’s a strange thought.

“How long was I out for?” I whisper, my voice coming out cracked and hoarse, and Nikolai jerks in his seat, turning to look at me. He’s dressed in loose sweatpants and a t-shirt, and the skin that I can see is still mottled with bruises. His face is bruised too, the cuts on his cheekbones and jaw scabbed over, and his lips are still swollen, though not as severely. I’m afraid to see what I look like. “Marika, is she—”

“You’ve been out for a few days,” he says quietly. “A doctor hooked you up to an IV for a while, to keep you hydrated.” He nods towards my arm, and it’s then that I see the bandage in the crook of it, stark white against all the bruising. “Marika is—well, I hesitate to say she’s fine. But she’s alive. And she will be fine, in time.”

“And you?” My voice sounds like a croak. I can see that he’s alive. It makes me happier than I would have thought it would, and I try not to let it show. I don’t want him to know that I’m glad, not when I don’t know how I feel about everything else involving him and our marriage. Not when I don’t yet know what I want to do.

“I’m in one piece.” He holds up his left hand, which is splinted, the fingers individually wrapped in gauze and metal. “But I’ve definitely felt better in my life.”

I push myself up a little against the pillows—or try to—and he’s on his feet in an instant. I can see from the stiff way he moves that he has a good bit of healing left to go himself, but he walks to the side table closest to him, pouring me a glass of water out of a pitcher.

“Here,” he says, handing it to me as he helps me bolster myself with the pillows. “This should help.”

I’d never known how good water could taste. It’s clear and cold, and I force myself to sip at it. I’m glad, too, that it gives me something to do that doesn’t require me to speak. He stands there for a long moment, looking at me, and I don’t have the slightest idea of what to say.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” he finally says, his voice low and quiet. “It was—unconscionable. Your father—” He clears his throat. “He escaped. I have a manhunt out for him. He won’t get away forever, and when he does—”

Nikolai doesn’t have to finish that sentence. I can see the anger in his eyes, the carefully controlled rage, and I know that my father won’t escape him forever.

“I meant what I said before I left,” he continues. His voice flattens, growing emotionless, but I have the strange feeling that it’s that way because it has to be for him—because he would betooemotional otherwise. “When I’m sure it will be safe for you to leave, you can. I’ll give you a divorce.”

He pushes his unharmed hand into his pocket, and he finally meets my eyes. I can’t read the emotion there, but it looks—resigned. “I should never have kept you against your will. I can’t change what happened, but I can let you choose your own life going forward. I’ll avenge you and Marika—and then you can be free.”

I hadn’t expected him to keep the promise. I hadn’t expected him to really mean it. He sits slowly on the other side of the bed from me, and I do something I know I shouldn’t. I lean forward, slowly and carefully, and I touch his face as gently as I can manage.

Leaning forward, I brush my lips over his.

He groans at the touch, and I pull back instantly, but he shakes his head. “That wasn’t pain,krolik,” he murmurs, and I hear the tinge of lust in his voice. “It’s been days. I’d have to be more badly hurt than this to not want to be inside of you.”

A rush of sensation tingles over my skin at that, prickling every hair, my pulse leaping into my throat. I shouldn’t kiss him again. I should tell him to leave. But I find myself leaning forward, my lips brushing against his again, still careful of the swelling.

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