XV: (Fifteen) (War of Roses Book 1)

by Lana Sky

  “You want to know what happened the night you think you saw me? A young fuck-up had been on a mission to claim the next victim in the feud. Thirteen. And he failed. But I haven’t. You will pay the price for Anna’s life,” he declares. “She was the sole heir to the Vasilev name, niece of its head, Sergei. You haven’t heard his name, either?” He chuckles, low in his throat as if amused by the absurdity of it all. “Oh, I’m sure your husband knows. He may seem collected now, but Sergei was a million times worse than I am, Little One. During his prime, he would have gutted you without hesitation, and so much worse. I can tell you for a fact that he wouldn’t be fooled by your little stunts—” He breaks off, his eyes narrowing at his use of the phrase.

  By accident?

  “And neither am I.” He shakes his head fiercely and grits his teeth together so hard that I hear them crack. “Sergei wreaked hell over the Winthorps. I will finish what he started.” There’s admiration in his tone. There’s some disgust as well, lurking deep where I doubt he even realizes it. “You are nowhere near the prize Briar would have been. But your husband seems to want you back. The question is: How badly?”

  Me? No, Robert wants his numbers back. His dutiful wife. His willing victim. So many titles are tied to me, personally. Yet here I am. Still captive. Still Mischa’s.

  Does that reality dishearten me? Or comfort me?

  “Don’t look so excited,” Mischa warns. “I’ve been wondering why he let you go so fucking easily if he’s willing to kill to have you back. Is he that confident I won’t kill you? Or does he have that much trust in you?”

  Heat prickles through my skin as he advances, backing my body into the wall with his sheer presence alone. I taste his flavor on my tongue, unwanted and unbidden. Salt. Musk. No Vodka, however. He wanted to be sharp tonight. For the meeting? Or to finally put an end to his game?

  “T-trust?” I echo, playing along.

  His nostrils flare in triumph and he nods. “Oh, yes,” he murmurs. “You have Vanya wrapped around your finger—he begged me not to kill you. Did he tell you?”

  I swallow hard. Is he lying? I want to assume so, but his eyes are too dark. Confused. “N-no,” I croak. “He didn’t.”

  “Your husband must have trained you well,” Mischa admits. “I saw how Kostas looked at you, though I can tell that you didn’t choose him for yourself. Did he make you, hmm? Your precious Robert?”

  He pauses for an answer I don’t bother to give. I can’t.

  “And yet, you love him,” he reiterates, lowering his mouth near my throat as if to taste my pulse through my skin. “Describe it for me, Little Rose. How does a man like that earn your love?”

  “W-what?” My thoughts run together and collide, thrown into turmoil by the question. “He is my husband—”

  “That’s not what I asked.” He lunges, grinding his weight into me with more menace than any weapon could ever inflict.

  I want to run. I want to shove him off and risk his anger. But I can’t; my arms stay woodenly at my sides, paralyzed by his heat.

  “When he touches you, what do you feel?”

  He cups my breast through the silk of my gown. What do I feel? Fire.

  “Does he make you scream, Little One? Do you come around his cock as easily as you do around mine?”

  Too…dangerous. My mind shies from the mocking taunt, but there is no escape from him. No escape from the memories haunting me—not Robert. Just him. Wrecking, violent, unbearable him.

  “If I were a good man, I would just kill you,” he breathes out almost as if to himself more than to me. “But I’m not. Am I, Little Rose? I want your husband to suffer more than just your death.” The words come in growled snippets. It’s like he’s thinking up the plan as he goes, embellishing his own twisted ending. “I’m going to break you…” He brings his massive hands to my skull, cupping both sides of my face. Bit by bit, he applies enough pressure to make me wince. “I’ll exorcize him from your head, Little One. I’ll rip him from you until there’s nothing left.”

  It’s a heated promise. A threat. And he means every word.

  So why does a part of me sigh in relief?

  CHAPTER 19

  A world without Robert. Would I even survive such a reality?

  The answer is simple: no. Which is the only damn reason why Mischa suddenly seems so eager to replace my husband.

  Robert Winthorp is my identity. Without him, Ellen is a hollow shell with enough space for a new monster to infest.

  “Killing you would be too easy,” Mischa muses, lowering his head enough to pierce my shrinking bubble of personal space. “No…”

  I jump as a fiery line of heat traces the edge of my windpipe: his tongue stealing away the gasp building in my throat.

  “You deserve worse than that.”

  “W-why?” I instantly regret challenging him—a sharp, warning bite on my collar is his retribution.

  Only he can do this to me: make me question despite the consequences. Make me disobey every instinct in my body urging me to do the opposite. Run. Scream. Survive.

  “Because your sins are so much greater than that fucker’s.” He presses my skull tighter between his palms, breathing heavily into my skin. Lust mingles with the hate, a familiar, stomach-churning scent even he can’t disguise. “You love him. You accept that evil, twisted fuck. Don’t you?”

  I can’t escape the suspicion that he wants me to deny it. His eyes glint, illuminated by an emotion I’m unable to name. A part of me hazards a guess anyway and my stomach clenches in foreboding. Jealousy?

  “You do,” he deduces before I can answer. “Fine. Since you have no problem sharing your bed with a fucking monster, you should have no problem accepting me.”

  He grabs my arm and shoves me toward the bed. My back hits the mattress, leaving me looking up as he advances, his head bowed with predatory intent.

  Fear shoots through my veins, stealing my breath away, even as my legs drift apart despite every instinct screaming at me to run. You’re afraid…

  “My Little Rose,” Mischa murmurs, gritting the words out through clenched teeth. His gaze hungrily sweeps over my splayed limbs and the skewed dress. “Should I crush you all at once? Or rip you apart, petal by petal?”

  The poetic language is a new weapon in his arsenal. It’s devastating. I’m paralyzed as he uses his knee to nudge my legs farther apart, creating enough space for him to fit in between them.

  With slow, deliberate motions, he tugs at his waistband but grunts in disapproval when I begin to stare. “Eyes up here. I want you to look at me. I want to see him die in your eyes.”

  Eyes. As commanded, I meet his gaze and hold it. I fracture beneath the strength of it. His deepen to a shade unlike any I’ve ever seen. Endless amber. Fathomless. God. Ripples of tension release all over my body, making me quake against the sheets. They still reek of our combined scents. Blood and sweat. Harsh and soft. The conflicting aromas flood my nostrils as the rasp of an unraveling zipper pierces the air.

  “I want you to think of him.” The request resonates down my spine as his silhouette flickers in the shadows, suddenly looming larger. Closer. “I want him in your head when I fuck you.”

  Think of him. That’s impossible. For the first time in so long, Robert isn’t here, and the silence left behind is deafening. A new man fills the abandoned space, his pupils pinprick as his body effortlessly mounts mine, his face coming within inches of my own.

  Heavy hands palm my waist, wrenching the hem of my dress up, revealing me bare underneath.

  “Look at me, Little Rose,” Mischa hisses, his voice raspy, his gaze almost unbearable to meet head-on.

  A heartbeat later I feel him: running his fingers between my legs before replacing them with something thicker. Harder. Pulsating.

  Then…

  One thrust takes him deep, jarring him closer, his nose brushing mine, his groan uttered against my parted lips. My eyes flutter shut as sensation floods my entire being. The world fades for a brie
f, cruel moment and I’m alone inside my body, even as he dominates it. God, the way he feels. It’s. Unlike. Anything. Else.

  My thoughts scatter. I can only piece them back together in snippets. Full. Need. More.

  “Fuck, look at me.” His eyes are heavy-lidded when I do. His teeth seize his bottom lip as he rears back on his knees, slipping his hands beneath me for enough leverage to control the depth of every thrust. Deep. Deeper. Deeply.

  My head lolls—I’m a slave to every frantic motion.

  “Should I tell your husband how fucking wet you feel, Little One?” he grunts out, yanking me closer. “How your eyes roll back into your fucking head when you come. The sounds you make…”

  I can’t. My eyes squeeze shut, blocking out his face, chiseled with concentration. He snarls in anger, and I feel his cock stiffen—thicker, harder.

  “I told you to look at me.” His nails pierce the flesh of my hips in a warning. “Look at me, Little Rose.”

  I hear the threat of punishment in his voice. Still, I shut my eyes tighter. It’s an act I’d never perform with Robert. I’d never disobey him. I’d never tremble at the brutality as anger takes over his movements, driving him even deeper. Into my head. Into my goddamn soul.

  I’d never relish the violation.

  But Mischa makes me speak a new language composed of frantic, whispered words.

  “Please…p-please—”

  “What?” He pauses, still buried to the hilt, leaving little room to suck in enough air to speak. “Please what?”

  What? Those words won’t come. I have to show him. My trembling fingers poorly convey what I want—need. They brush my breast in a timid stroke.

  “You want me to touch you?” Mischa wonders, barely intelligible. “Beg me to.”

  I just nod, smothering my moan into the sheets as his thick, callused fingers graze my skin beneath the plunging neckline of my dress. He doesn’t touch me. He violates me, clenching flesh and squeezing to the point of bruising. It hurts, drawing a gasp from my lips. It…feels.

  My nerves can’t resist him the way years of abuse trained them against Robert. His warmth sinks into my skin, his callused flesh grating over mine and melting any hint of resistance. The pinpricks of pain meld with the friction of him still inside me, churning my insides to mush and melting every sane thought in my head.

  Mischa grates out something that isn’t English, capturing my nipple between his thumb and his forefinger, guiding it to a stiff point. Then even words cease to matter. Our language becomes a series of groans and gasps smothered into silk and skin. His fingers roam without care or reason, fanning over my rib cage, plunging through my hair, and grasping strands so hard that my eyes water.

  “Look at me.” His teeth find my earlobe, grinding it between them. “Fuck. Look at me.”

  I do. And the sight of his face, hard with determination, steals my breath away.

  He looks too powerful. Too real. Too raw, hungry for me.

  He crushes me with his last thrust, refusing to shift his weight even as he empties himself into me. I’m trapped beneath him, forced to bear every lethal pound. It’s almost as if he’s trying to drive Robert out through his presence alone.

  I try to hang on to that familiar monster. I try…

  But, with every passing second, his evil is harder to grasp, like smoke chased away by a raging inferno.

  And, without his protection, I’m devoured whole.

  CHAPTER 20

  I wake up twisted in black sheets that smell of musk and sweat. For a brief, dangerous moment, I forget. My eyes flutter open as I expect what I’ll see: a view of my suite at Winthorp manor. Breakfast should be coming soon, Robert soon after. Resigned, I turn toward the door—but white walls don’t greet me. Then the hum of a man’s deep, unsteady breathing rips the fantasy away once and for all.

  Not Robert.

  He always let me recollect myself in peace. He never watched over me in my sleep, his gaze searing my skin.

  “I know you’re awake,” Mischa says after nearly a full minute of silence, his voice gruff. “Get up.”

  I dutifully roll onto my side, taking in more of my surroundings. He left me slung over the edge of the bed with my feet against the floor. I still feel his release drying against my inner thigh, along with his taste on my tongue. A flicker of motion from the corner of my eye reveals him standing near the opposite side of the bed, fully dressed.

  “Here.” He lets something fall beside me onto the bed and offers an object clenched in his hand: a glass of water. “Swallow it.”

  Swallow? Groaning, I muster my sore limbs enough to sit upright as my hand feels over the sheets. Something small and round strikes my fingers. White. A pill? “W-what is it?” I risk asking, my voice hoarse.

  Could he have devised some new plan to use me against Robert? Drug me? Poison?

  He doesn’t provide an answer for so long that my muscles start to protest from the awkward position. Is it a test? Or maybe something so much worse, I realize, looking up. His eyes are narrowed, his jaw clenched against a response.

  “My plan doesn’t include sending you back to your husband pregnant,” he says finally.

  Oh. The pill in my hand takes on a less nefarious purpose. I swallow it diligently and sip from the glass he’s shoved into my hand. This action raises a question I don’t have the nerve to voice: Why now? Only days ago, he scoffed at the idea of contraception.

  Has he decided to extend his timeline for my capture? When put into perspective with my inevitable death, I’m not sure what’s more appealing: dying sooner or later?

  “I think you played your role too well last night, Little Rose,” Mischa adds, frowning. “You caught more notice than I expected.” His hand brushes my bandaged cheek and I recoil. The touch almost felt genuine. Unconcerned, Mischa curls his fingers into a fist instead. “Someone offered to buy you. They offered me a lot to buy you.”

  “You still plan to sell me,” I deduce, folding my hands together.

  Suddenly, his previous action makes perfect sense. Am I surprised? Disappointed? At least he saw the value in ensuring he only has one life to take when he finally tires of me. How noble.

  “Who said anything about selling you?” Mischa wonders, tilting my chin toward him. “Oh, no, Robert’s wife. I am not finished with you yet.”

  But… I sense a big one, even as the seconds pass without him saying it.

  He scans my face with renewed interest. Something is on his mind. Something pressing enough to supposedly make him overlook accepting money for me. At least for now.

  “You said Marnie was your mother.”

  It’s surprisingly difficult, hearing her name come out of his mouth. His accent distorts the two beautiful syllables I’ve only heard uttered inside my head for so long.

  “Y-yes—”

  “When were you born?”

  “She died when I was seven,” I admit, skirting the question directly. Why? I don’t know. He’s asking for too much. More than Robert ever has. More than anyone.

  “Which makes you twenty-three,” he says, deducing my age for himself. “You are younger than I thought, Little Rose.” He genuinely seems surprised, and I can’t resist attempting to gauge his age as well.

  His skin is weathered by more than just scars. Hard, long years. Brutal years. If someone put a gun to my head, I’d peg him to be around his mid-thirties, the same age as Robert.

  He never reveals the number himself, however. Instead, he cocks his head, observing me even more closely. “I suppose it makes sense now,” he says, almost to himself. “You must look like her. Perhaps he wanted to finish the job.”

  “W-who?” I don’t know where the courage to voice the question comes from. “Who wanted to buy me?”

  “A dangerous man, Little Rose,” he admits. “Whoever told you that story about your mother lied to you. Or you’ve been lying to me—”

  “No,” I say, risking his anger to cut him off. “I’d never lie about her.”


  “Well, she didn’t ‘leave’ Winthorp Manor before you were born,” he says. “She was taken—no, she was marked.”

  “You mean…” I reach up automatically, feeling my brand sting beneath a layer of gauze. “My mother?” A part of this feud? It seems too fanatical. Too convoluted, even for the Winthorps.

  And yet…

  For the first time, Mischa doesn’t sport either his mocking smirk or his hostile glare. “It seems I have much to teach you, Little Rose,” he says softly, drawing his hand away. “I am not your only enemy. Not by far. In fact”—he rubs his chin while an unreadable expression shapes his features—“I’ll leave the choice up to you. I won’t bind you or lock you away tonight. You may have full run of the property to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. And I hope you remember what lurks beyond my protection.”

  “P-protection?”

  It’s the first time he’s phrased my captivity in that way: protection. Mangled by his accent, the word sounds more like doom than salvation.

  “Perhaps.” His lip quirks in a dangerous imitation of a smile—or a grimace. “I don’t want to break you just yet. Your death should mean something, Little Rose. I want it to count. I want you to know full well when and why your blood is being spilled. All in good time.”

  He pulls away before I can see his expression. I have to discern what little clues I can from his stance. His shoulders harbor tension, his spine rigid. He’s serious. He means it—and something warns me that he’s thinking over my eventual death very carefully.

  In a sick way, he almost reminds me of Briar as she planned her wedding, pouring her attention into every tiny detail to distract herself from the overall picture: that she was marrying a man her father had chosen and what dress she would wear or salad she selected didn’t mean a damn thing in the grand scheme.

  I don’t know what’s worse, really: being a slave to the whims of others or believing that, even for a second, you can somehow shape the narrative. That you have say. Maybe that’s one small part of Robert I admire. Apart from sex, he never planned a damn thing. He took, and he fucked, and he let the cards lie where they may.