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I shut my mouth instantly, holding my breath.
The silence stretches until the entire room feels like it’s holding its breath.
Zevran turns his head and sweeps his lethal glare across every refined Bratva man and woman in the room.
“I would like everyone to meet my—” He pauses, his jaw ticking. “I was going to say my future wife. But this woman hasn’t agreed to marry me yet.”
A collective shift ripples through the crowd. Natasha’s mouth drops open.
“Her name is Cora.” Zevran’s voice fills the silent room, rich with authority. “She spent eleven days captive in a basement, hungry, beaten, and terrified. She saw terrible things. She held a dying woman in her arms and refused to leave her side. She came here today and said things that needed saying to people who were too ungrateful to listen.”
His dark gaze lands heavily on Dragan.
“That,” Zevran declares, “is the bravest fucking thing anyone in this room has ever done.”
His words expand inside me, stealing the breath right out of my lungs.
Slowly, Zevran turns back to me. All the thunder in his expression melts away, leaving only devotion. His voice drops into a low murmur meant only for me. He reaches out, cradling my hands in his massive, tattooed ones.
“You are mine, Cora,” he says, his pale eyes glowing with a hope so deep it breaks my heart. “I want you to be my wife. Will you do me the honor of saying yes?”
I stare down at his hands. At the dozens of small marks etched into his flesh. I understand what this life is. I know the danger, the blood, and the darkness.
And I know that this man will do anything and everything to keep me safe.
I look up into his eyes, softened with an emotion he’s probably never shown anyone else in his entire life.
“Yes,” I whisper.
A breathtaking smile flashes across his face, and his arms wrap around my waist and lift me right off my feet.
He claims my mouth in a deep, possessive kiss.
He kisses me like the room, the Bratva, and the rest of the world doesn’t exist. There is only the pounding heat of his heart against mine, his massive arms holding me so tightly. With his kiss, he declares to every dangerous person in this city that I belong to him forever.
When he finally sets me on my feet, I’m glowing from the inside out.
He gently tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and smiles down at me.
I’m going to marry Zevran.
I remember the terrifying stranger who loomed over me in a dark basement just a few short days ago. How completely, utterly devoted he is to me now.
“Want to go home, printsessa?” he murmurs, tracing my cheek with his thumb.
“Yes,” I say, smiling radiantly up at him.
He turns me toward the exit, his hand resting at the small of my back, and I walk beside him with my head held high. I don’t spare a single glance for Dragan or Natasha.
I walk out of Kosmos on my fiancé’s arm, in my floral dress, and I have never felt more right.
24
Cora
The cool city air hits us as we step out of Kosmos, and I breathe in a deep lungful, happy to be back outside.
Demyan is waiting by the sleek black car, holding the rear door open. I start to step inside, but Zevran’s hand on my waist anchors me to the spot.
