Page 26
“Sleep well?” he finally speaks, probably sensing my frustration.
People say not to poke the bear, but screw that. “You drugged me.”
“You needed to be drugged.” His answer comes quicker than I expect. It’s like he was waiting to say it.
“You could have killed me.”
His lips tilt upward. Finally, a change in his expression, but his back is still turned to me. “If I wanted to kill you, you could tell by the part where you’d be dead already.”
Ugh, what an asshole.
The nonchalance in his tone pushes me to move on to something else. Besides, death is the last thing I should be talking about with him.
There is something worse I need to ask about. “What did you do to me after?”
Now he turns, and I’m not really prepared for the full-blown vision of him in the sunlight. Moonlight made him look like a god. But the sun…
The radiant rays mingle with the bright blues of his irises and wash over the brutal angles of his face.
He has the kind of face you want to stare at because there’s so much to get lost in. Too perfect to be human. Too beautiful for a man. At least a man like him.
Maybe that’s part of what makes him deadly. In the wild, beautiful things are always the danger you need to be wary of most. Often, they’re the most poisonous. The kind of poison that kills you the moment you touch it.
He cocks his head and blinks, that irritating amusement from last night dancing in his eyes. “What do you think I did, malyshka?”
Here we go with the pet names again.
I level him a hard stare, looking at him as if I’m the one with the keys to what happens next. “I woke up in your bed. How about you tell me?”
He squints and looks me up and down, seeming slightly impressed. Then a wicked grin slides across his face. “Don’t worry, malyshka, if I had fucked you and popped that virgin cherry between your legs, you’d remember it.” He leans forward and rests his tattooed hands on the back of the chair before him. “You wouldn’t be standing here asking me.”
The sudden warmth in my cheeks suggests I shouldn’t bother to wonder if I’ve gone red. From the heat, I imagine my skin is not that much different from the deep crimson of my dress.
His crude words stick to my mind like tar, and I struggle to speak. How embarrassing. Does the whole underworld know I’m a virgin?
God, why am I even surprised? My father treats me no different from one of his real estate properties. On the market and on display. Of course, everyone is going to know about the prized feature that drives up my market value.
Lev keeps his eyes on me, his stance powerful and menacing. A reminder that I’m out of my depth. There are only two things I can ask right now that will mean anything to me.
“Did you hurt my parents?” I don’t think he did—at least I pray so. He looks like the kind of person who’d enjoy taunting me about their deaths. And if they were dead, there would be no point in keeping me.
“Your parents are alive.”
Grazie a Dio. “I want to go home. You have to let me go.” I swallow hard and try to keep breathing. Arguing for my freedom is the only thing that will get me away from him.
He straightens. “No. You are not going home. And no, I don’t have to let you go.”
“But—”
“You are to be my wife. This is your home now.” He doesn’t smile, but there’s a smile in his voice.
“What kind of madness is this?” I shake my head. “I don’t even know you. I’m not marrying an asshole like you.”
He laughs, actually laughs, then he places a hand to his heart, pretending to be hurt. “Asshole? Woah, you certainly know how to hit below the belt, myshonok.”
“Stop calling me that. I’m not a weak little mouse.”
“Maybe not, but the name suits you. Princess? Is that better?” He’s toying with me. That’s why he keeps calling me mouse, baby girl, and princess. They’re all designed to make me feel insignificant and weak.
