Page 80 of Poisoned Vows

I’m not offered breakfast or even a cup of water. I’m marched directly back to the room where Nikolai was the night before, and when the door is opened, and I’m shoved in, I see that he’s still there.

He looks terrible. His face is still swollen, heavy, exhausted bags under his eyes, the cuts on his body crusted over with blood, and the bruises a sick shade of purple-green. He lifts his head slightly when I’m pushed into the room, and I see the look of horror in his eyes.

“Leave her alone,” he says thickly, and I see my father push off of the wall, striding towards me.

“Then tell me what I want to know,” he says simply, and Nikolai lets out a long sigh that seems to come from somewhere in the very depths of him. His blue-grey eyes turn to me, more grey now than anything else, and the expression in them is both sad and resigned.

“I’m sorry,krolik,” he says quietly. My father lunges towards him, his fist connecting with Nikolai’s shoulder, where deep lacerations run over his skin. I can see from the swelling that it’s likely already been dislocated.

Nikolai lets out a low grunt, and that’s all—though I can only imagine how much it must have hurt.

My father steps behind me, and I feel the prick of a blade at the back of my neck. “Don’t move,” he warns, and a moment later, I feel it slicing through the fabric, tearing through the thin material of the tank top I’d been wearing to sleep in when I was snatched last night. He shoves it off of my shoulders, leaving me bare from the waist up, and then shoves down the loose pajama bottoms I’d been wearing. My panties go with it, and I’m left standing in a pool of clothing, shivering, looking at Nikolai as he stares at my father with a venom that I’ve never seen on his face before.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he snarls, his hands curling into fists, as if he’d break through the straps to get to him and stop what I’m terrified is about to happen. “Don’t you touch her—”

“I’m not going to.” My father shakes his head. “Not like that, anyway. Get your mind out of the gutter, Vasilev.”

“I heard what you said you wanted. You sick piece of—”

“Of course. It’s what I’ve always wanted from my pretty Lilliana. So much more beautiful than her mother. She really took after me in the looks department. But I’m not going to waste the pleasure ofthatfirst time by doing it in front of you. Especially not when I’ve already had to sacrifice so much of her to you. No, I’m thinking something else.”

He reaches for the leather strap, which I see with a sickening twist of my stomach is crusted with dried blood—Nikolai’sblood. “Since you seem to be able to take your punishment so well, let’s see how she does, taking it for you.”

Nikolai’s helpless roar of fury mixes with the sound of the leather striking my bare skin. I stumble forward, nearly falling as the strap hits the side of my ass, swung with the full strength of the arm wielding it, hot pain bursting over my skin. I cry out, unable to stop myself, and I grip the back of a wooden chair near me, tears already filling my eyes.

“You must have trained her well.” My father clicks his tongue. “Look at her, on the verge of bending over like a good girl for her punishment. I haven’t had to spank her in years. But I think she’s earned it. Or rather—you have, and she’s going to take it.”

The belt comes down again. Nikolai is thrashing in the straps holding him, cursing, raining down threats on my father, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing but pain, the belt coming down onto my skin over and over, hot lines of pain welting my flesh, marking me, drawing blood. I sob, knowing it won’t matter, knowing that there’s nothing that can help me, and a small part of me wishes Nikolai would just give my father what he wants, so that it would stop.

The more rational part of me knows that if he does, it will all be so much worse, anyway.

I don’t know how long it goes on for. I don’t know how I’ll walk when it’s all over. All I know is that at some point, the blows stop, and my father’s hand is on the back of my neck, yanking me backward as he throws a towel at me. It smells faintly musty, but I’d take anything at this point to cover myself.

I wrap it around my shaking body, my knees turning to water, and I feel like I might pass out. Pain radiates up my legs and my back, curling into my belly like hooks threatening to tear me apart. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

My father grabs my arm, marching me out of the room and slamming the door behind him. He has to half-drag me, my legs threatening to give out as he pulls me into another, empty room.

“You can make this all stop,” he says, looking at me. “Figure out how to break him. Make him tell me what I need. And then I won’t have to hurt either of you any longer.”

I stare at him. “Is that supposed to be an incentive? Give you all the power you want, and you won’t continue to torture me and my husband? Do youhearyourself?”

“You always knew what I wanted, Lilliana.”

“No, I didn’t!” I blink back the threatening tears. “I never knewthis. I only knew that you wanted to go higher. You were ambitious, but I didn’t think you were this stupid—”

He slaps me so hard that when my head flings to one side, I almost think he will have broken my neck. As it is, I can feel something pull that I know will hurt later.

“I won’t help you,” I hiss, tears leaking down my cheeks. I’m in too much pain to stop it. “You lied to me. I was supposed to have my freedom after the night with thepakhan. I went along with all of it, endured, did as I was told, because I was promised that I could do what I wanted afterward. And instead, I ended up a fucking bride.”

“Is that your answer?” he asks coldly, as if I never spoke. “You won’t help?”

“I won’t do a goddamn thing for you that you don’t force out of me.”

A cold, evil sneer twists his face. It’s something unrecognizable—but then again, I don’t think I ever really knew him at all. “Then you’ll die along with him,” he says coldly. “After I enjoy what should have always been mine, anyway. Unless you please me, of course. Then I might keep you alive a little longer, daughter.”

This time, I can’t stop from being sick.

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