Counts of Eight (The Four Families Book 1)

by Brynn Ford

  I don’t know what this means.

  That fresh panic rips through me, tearing apart my rehearsed calm and lighting a fire to an unhinged part of me I thought had died three years ago.

  I throw my arms down to my sides and step forward. “You will not take him from me, Nikolai Mikhailov. You’ve taken my life, my freedom, all the best parts of me. But I won’t let you take him.”

  He cocks his head and smiles at me, licking his lips before he says, “Come here, rabynya.”

  My breaths quicken, but I inhale slowly to try to steady them. I can’t let him see my fear, though it’s there.

  It’s there in spades.

  I step forward, one, two, three steps and I’m less than a foot in front of him. Though I would normally bow my head this close to him, I lift my chin instead.

  Yes, Ezra has changed me, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose him now. I’ll go with him if Nikolai wishes to take him from me, make us both slaves to a crueler master or give us death.

  “I’m going to let that outburst slide, for one reason and one reason only…” Nikolai’s hands reach for my neck, sliding up either side to hold my face firmly at the jawline, “you were stunning tonight. You danced more beautifully tonight than you ever have.”

  He bends, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to my lips. I’m frozen in stunned silence, confused beyond belief. When Nikolai speaks again, he keeps his lips close to mine and holds my attention with his gray eyes.

  “I’m going to let you keep your pet, Anya. I like that he’s brought your light back, your fire. You’ve been so cold with me and I much prefer your warmth. So, I’ll let him stay, allow him to spark that fire in you so long as he keeps it burning. But you know that if you cross a line with him, I will know. If you fuck him, I will know. You are my belonging and I choose what you do with your body,” he lifts his head, his eyes leaving mine and he looks beyond me, over my shoulder, “and yours, mal’chik. Do you both understand me?”

  I swallow hard and somehow manage a quick nod. “Yes. Da, khozyain.”

  “And you?” he says to Ezra over my shoulder.

  I press my eyes shut, so fearful that a sarcastic comment will shoot from between Ezra’s lips

  He clears his throat. “Yes. I understand.”

  Nikolai bares his teeth, tilting his head, squeezing my jaw too tightly. “I understand…what, mal’chik?”

  I hold my breath for Ezra’s response.

  “I understand. Master.”

  My eyes flutter shut and my shoulders relax, so thankful Ezra understands, so thankful he’s behaved, so thankful that Nikolai hasn’t torn him from me.

  “Come, mal’chik. Kneel beside Anya. Show us your obedience.”

  Please, Ezra, please.

  I feel him approach almost immediately and his heat is comforting. I see him beside me as I turn my eyes to look and Nikolai does the same. I hear him huff out a rough, agitated breath, but he lowers to his knees all the same.

  “Good, mal’chik,” Nikolai says.

  His tongue runs across his bottom lip and his eyes narrow in a look I’ve only come to know as wanting. Only Nikolai isn’t directing that look at me…he’s looking at Ezra.

  For today we are safe. But now I fear that the interactions to come will be more brutal, more terrifying than ever before.

  Because they’re going to involve Ezra more and more.

  My mind is spinning, wondering if everything I thought I knew was wrong. Maybe stealing my partners from me was never about punishing me at all. Maybe it was about finding the right fit to satisfy all his needs.

  I shake my head against Nikolai’s grip on me, but he squeezes me, forcing me to still, forcing me to give him my complete attention.

  “You have twenty minutes,” Nikolai says. “Get cleaned up, get dressed, and come find me. Both of you. I expect you to remain at my side throughout the reception. After, you will have the evening to yourselves to celebrate your successful performance while I discuss business with my colleagues.” He steps closer, invading my space. “Remember who you belong to. Don’t make me regret giving you that freedom. If you do, I assure that both of you will have regrets of your own.”

  Finally, he releases me and strides away.

  I burst into tears.

  I’m still half-panicked, yet half-relieved.

  I’m happy yet horrified.

  I have no idea what just happened or why. I know I should count my blessings and be thankful that Ezra is still here beside me. Yet I can’t fight the nagging feeling that something so much worse than losing Ezra is to come.

  Chapter 22

  Anya

  Standing in front of my wardrobe, I struggle to select my dress for the reception—a black-tie affair. Nikolai placed two gowns in my wardrobe to choose from for this evening.

  One black.

  One bright fuchsia.

  He always does this. He always gives me two gowns to choose from. One was always black as night, the other bright as day.

  I always chose black before.

  Everything around me was black when Nikolai tormented me by stealing away my partners. Men I had grown to trust, men I had developed friendships and connections with, only to have them ripped away for no good reason other than Nikolai’s incessant dissatisfaction.

  There’s an itch of confusion in my mind that I can’t quite seem to scratch.

  What was different about this performance?

  Is it Ezra?

  What will Nikolai do with us now that he has us both?

  Will he hurt Ezra in all the ways he’s hurt me?

  I cross my wrists over my chest, rubbing my hands on my upper arms, adding friction to ease the chill from the foreboding shiver that refuses to let me feel okay about anything.

  It all feels so wrong.

  It still feels like Nikolai is going to tear Ezra from me at any moment. I know he could if he wanted to. That’s all it takes with him, a simple choice and the Earth shifts beneath my feet.

  I’m still standing here, staring at the two gowns as I hear a knock at the door. I know it’s not Nikolai because he doesn’t knock. I know it’s Ezra and not Kostya alone when I hear the knock continue unnecessarily, tapping out a jaunty rhythm against the wood. It makes me smile and for that moment, I’m able to let relief wash over me that he’s still alive, he’s still here, and he’s still mine.

  I go to the door and pull it open. Ezra stands in front of me, slick and smooth in his black tuxedo, vest, and tie. The sandy blond hair that’s longer on the top of his head is slicked back, styled impeccably, and his grin threatens to split his beautiful face in half.

  He looks down at me and his eyes widen. “Something’s missing.”

  My dress is missing.

  I’ve just opened the door in my underwear and strapless bra. Not that I have any shame for being exposed in this nightmare manor. Ezra has had the misfortune of seeing me every which way from Sunday by force rather than by choice. I just hate that it’s become so normal that I hardly notice it anymore when I’m bare and exposed.

  “I don’t know which dress to wear,” I say, taking a step back.

  He steps inside the room and I push the door closed behind him. Kostya is in the hallway, lurking as always, and though I used to care enough to leave the door open, always open, I’ve lost my will to try to appease Nikolai. He won’t care tonight, anyway. The four families are here for the quarterly business report, so aside from the reception, he’ll be otherwise occupied.

  In the past, I’d spend that time crying alone in my room, grieving the loss of another partner, wallowing in my misery, pleading desperately with gods, angels, with the universe itself to take me into death along with them. With Ezra still here, the first of my partners to survive past the performance, I don’t know what we will do with our time tonight.

&nbs
p; My breath catches in my throat when it hits me that Ezra and I have time together.

  Uninterrupted time.

  Tonight.

  “Show me what you’ve got,” he says after I’ve closed the door.

  My head snaps up to look at him after being so lost in thought. “What?”

  “Show me the dresses. I’ll help you choose.”

  He swallows and his eyes drift, skating over the curves of my body. That hungry look of a man in lust should set off warning bells inside me, but it doesn’t with him. It clenches low and deep, and I find that I don’t mind it all that much.

  I might even like it.

  I might even crave more of it.

  I walk over to the wardrobe and grab the bottom of each gown, pulling on them so they swing out by the hanger.

  “I’ve always worn black.”

  “So, wear black.”

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “So, wear pink.”

  “It doesn’t feel right, either.”

  He holds out his hands. “Okay, I’m at a loss here.”

  “Why are you in such a good mood?” I narrow my eyes at him, unintentionally short with him.

  His forehead wrinkles as if he’s confused by my question. “Because I’m not dead, Anya.”

  Because he’s not dead.

  He’s not dead and he’s not gone.

  I exhale, slowly releasing the pettiness of such an insignificant decision as the color of my dress.

  It doesn’t matter.

  All that matters is that we’ve performed, we’ve completed our task, I’m alive, he’s alive, and we’re both here, together in my room with the door shut.

  We look at each other.

  We breathe in at the same time.

  We move at the same time.

  He opens his arms for me, and I give him my body to fill them. I think he expects me to wrap my arms around his waist and hold him, but I need something more, a greater connection.

  I grab his cheeks in both my hands and pull his face down to meet my lips. I rise onto my toes to press my mouth harder to his, but then he bends, pressing back, pushing me down to my flat feet. He steps forward and I step backward with him until I collide with the open door of the wardrobe, slamming it shut as he kisses me with force.

  His body arches forward into mine, molding with me, as if he could move right through me. When a groan escapes through his lips—a guttural sound of need from deep within him—I feel it rattle inside me, shaking my core.

  My hands slip around to the back of his neck, my fingers lacing together and holding him too tightly. I sigh into his mouth, a whisper of a plea to give me more of everything. His tongue licks mine, swirling deeper inside my mouth, tasting me with ferocity that makes dampness pool between my legs.

  His hands slam against the wardrobe on either side of my head with a thud that makes my heart leap. I feel his body tremble along mine as he uses the leverage to force himself to stop.

  As quickly as the kiss began, it ends. Ezra pulls his head back, though his body still pins mine to the wardrobe door.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so...insistent.”

  “Don’t apologize,” I pant, putting a hand on his chest. “You don’t have to stop.”

  He smiles, but it almost looks sad. He lets his forehead fall to rest against mine.

  “When we took our final bow, I looked at you and I thought...I thought, what if this is the last time I ever get to look at her?”

  “Ezra.” I sigh and my body rolls forward, curling into him.

  “I know I should be fearful,” he goes on, “I know we’re still in a shit situation, we’re still slaves, I know all that. But fuck, Anya, I’m so grateful to be alive, to have even just one more day with you.”

  I feel his sincerity in my gut, and it warms me from the inside. He melts me in ways no one else ever could. Ezra is my sunshine after the snowstorm in my soul, a springtime thaw that makes the ice inside me a heavy puddle rushing desire through my veins.

  My words rush out of me and I don’t regret them. “I love you.”

  He answers me with a happy sigh. “I love you,” he whispers as he places a soft kiss to my lips.

  “Mine?”

  “Yours.”

  My hands fall to his hips and now all I can think about is touching him and being touched by him. I want to feel him, keep him close, live in the reality that Ezra is still here with me.

  Alive and mine.

  Mine.

  His hips rock forward. There’s a brief flash of fear through the logical part of my brain, the part of me that fears the motivations of sexual touch. But that fear dissipates swiftly as my heart kick-starts, pulsing fire throughout my entire body, effectively shutting off the rational thought that tells me to be careful.

  I pant, grinding my hips forward to meet his as I realize just how much I want him.

  I need him.

  I need him so much it makes me feel desperate and that scares me.

  I’m almost thankful when Kostya raps loudly on the closed door to my bedroom and yells, “Five minutes.”

  Ezra jumps back, shaken from the reverie of being mine, and blows out a heavy breath, linking his fingers together on the top of his head.

  He grins at me still standing there in my underwear and my knees go weak.

  “Pink,” he says with a playful look in his eyes. “Wear the pink dress. It’ll go with your cheeks.”

  I touch my fingertips to my cheek and it’s warm, surely flushed as warm as the deep fuchsia of the gown inside my wardrobe. I smile back at him and probably turn magenta for the way the heat inside me prickles like fire sparking beneath my skin.

  His hands drop as I open the wardrobe to pull out the dress. I unzip it and push my arms through the bottom of it, shimmying it down my body. The style hugs my curves almost precisely. I shake it into place and turn my head over my shoulder.

  “Zip me?” I say to Ezra.

  He steps up behind me and I feel his heat. His fingertips tickle my skin as he pulls the zipper up slowly.

  The mermaid style dress is tight over my body until it hits my knees. There, it fans out around me, fading into a chiffon sort of fabric that layers to create the mermaid effect.

  The thick straps hang intentionally off the shoulders, sweeping an elegant line across my chest, dipping into a sweetheart neckline between my breasts. I wouldn’t normally have much in the way of cleavage, except for the way this dress presses everything together so tightly.

  I spin to face Ezra and he gives me a once over.

  “Perfect,” he says, and I feel like the most wanted woman in the world for the way he stares at me with those emerald eyes.

  I hurry into my shoes and take a quick look in the mirror, making sure I look perfect per Nikolai’s scrutinizing standards. I place one hand over my stomach and take a deep breath, knowing that Ezra is about to see just how deep into the underworld he’s been taken.

  Chapter 23

  Ezra

  Eyes are on us as soon as we begin our descent down the grand staircase. We walk hand in hand down the marble steps, following Kostya, who leads us to the reception. There’s no applause or appreciative welcome.

  Just eyes.

  Eerie, watching eyes amidst the quiet chatter.

  It makes me feel agitated, uneasy, but I try not to care too much. I’m fucking alive and I’m still with Anya and happy for that much. I expected to be dead by now, or at the very least, on my way to a new owner without her.

  I don’t know how I would survive separation from my blue-eyed girl. I love her. And now that I know she loves me, too, I’ve vowed to myself to find a way to save us both, come hell or high water.

  I lean over to her, “Did you go to your high school prom?”

  She t
urns her head to glance at me with confusion before looking back down at the steps she treads carefully in her high-heeled shoes.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Prom. Did you go?”

  “No,” I see a hint of a smile tugging at her lips, “I had a dress rehearsal that night. Why?”

  I grin. “Figures. You were probably too cool for prom, weren’t you?”

  There’s her smile. “And I would’ve been too cool for you.”

  I put my free hand over my heart, feigning ache. “Ouch. I’ll try not to take that personally. Though it’s probably true.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She’s still smiling.

  “If we’d gone to school together, taking you to prom would’ve been a highlight for me. I’d consider myself a damn lucky man to be the arm candy for a girl that looks so hot all dressed up like this.”

  She looks over at me as we reach the landing. “You should consider yourself a damn lucky man to be my arm candy for this.”

  She meant it to be light-hearted, but she looks sad immediately after she says it.

  I let go of her hand and place mine on the small of her back, leaning over to whisper close to her ear in reassurance, “I do.”

  She looks up at me and our eyes meet and it’s soul-searing. I don’t want to look away. What I want to do is kiss her. But I feel the oppressive cold of a deep winter freeze swirl around us both as Nikolai approaches. I straighten but keep my hand on the small of her back, stepping a little closer because I’m feeling fiercely protective.

  “Come with me, you’ll greet my colleagues with grace or suffer the consequences later,” Nikolai says, looking at me when he says it.

  He holds out his arm, expecting Anya to take it and fuck, if that doesn’t make my blood boil. I don’t want to take my hands off her. I want to keep her close. I don’t know anything about these people other than the fact that they are a part of some sick slave trafficking empire. That alone makes them beyond dangerous. Because we are slaves to them, I don’t know what to expect here. I don’t know how we’ll be treated. I don’t know whether Nikolai will let them touch Anya or hurt her.

  I know he shared her once with a Vittori.