I saw something break loose inside him, like a beast being uncaged. With both hands he tried to yank down my britches and I fought him even harder, well aware of his powerful erection pushing into me though his pants. I could see in his eyes what he was thinking—I was his, and he was going to take me. By force if that was what it took.
“Nooooo!” I screamed, gritting my teeth but he met my scream with a grunt, his hands working me toward naked and my flesh burned at the swirl of emotions.
I froze, stuck between yes and no. Between wanting and fearing. The idea of him doing that, of him taking me against my will… it was almost too forbidden a thought to let my mind glide over. And yet, and yet…
He hovered over me like an animal about to go in for the kill. My bare ass pressed against the snow. He was one tug away from my pants being completely off.
“Don’t you dare!” I snarled at him, my shrieks echoing through the wintry air. “Don’t you dare!”
For an instant, I didn’t know if he would listen to me. His hunger looked unstoppable. Ruthless and terrifying.
The fire in his eyes made it clear that he didn’t know what he was about to do either. And I too was torn between wanting to be forgiven…softly.
Or punished. Violently.
But suddenly he took a deep, steadying breath. That wild danger that I’d seen in him dissipated, just slightly, and he shifted his weight so he sat up more fully on his knees, putting some distance between us. He let go of my britches and pressed his hands to his face.
“You make me fucking crazy,” he growled into his palms.
“Not as crazy as you make me,” I said. “Gangster. Mobster. Murderer. Gambler.”
Disentangling his body from mine, he yanked my pants back up and brought me back up to sitting, helping me to slowly get my head back up above my heart.
Then, after a moment, he helped me up to standing as well. Keeping his arm tight around me, he led me back through our scuffed tracks toward where Vela stood. From his saddle bag, he took a length of rope and turned to me. The muscles of his jaw flexed and fluttered impatiently.
“When you have my ring on your finger, then are you going to stop fighting me so goddamned much?”
Setting my teeth, I stared up at him. “Probably not.”
“Listen. I’m re-joining the business, yes, but things are going to change. That was my condition. My father wants the same things I do. I’m going to put a stop to the less savory parts of the business. It will take time, but Jesus, again Valeria, trust me, will you? I will do what’s right and best for us. For my family. That includes you in case you haven’t figured that out yet. Married or not, you are part of me already.”
“What about Petre? He’s just going to all the sudden be a law-abiding citizen?”
“Don’t worry about Petre. With my father behind me, he will fall in line, or we will take care of making sure he does.”
“I don’t know, Vasile.” I glared at him, unsure, but in my core I believed what he was saying so I said the words, unsure if I was trying to convince him, or myself. “Okay, I trust you.”
I watched him exhale a sigh of relief.
“Promise me. Because, honest to fuck, Valeria, I love this side of you but I can’t be worried about losing you all the motherfucking time. It’ll make me insane.”
That, at least, made sense to me. Every time I ran, I was making him question how I felt about him, which wasn’t what I wanted. Not at all. And so I looked him in the eye and nodded.
“I’ll stop running. I promise. But I can’t guarantee I’ll ever stop fighting.”
His growl of approval came from deep in his chest.
“Good,” he said sharply. “But just in case you change your damned mind, we’ll do this.” He grabbed both my wrists in one hand and held the length of rope in the other.
When I realized he was about to bind me, I gasped. “Really?”
“Yep. Really.” With quick, deft gestures, he wound the rope around my wrists as I rolled my eyes. Yanking the ends of the cord tight, he then grabbed me by the hips and hoisted me up onto his horse. I felt slightly off balance there in the saddle, but by pinching my legs a bit, I found my center of balance again.
“This is excessive.”
“It’s necessary. And, maybe,” His dark eyes flickered with heat. “I just like you tied up.”
“That makes more sense.” I feigned annoyance but the flutter in my heart and between my legs told me I may just like it as well.
Vasile looked up at me, narrowing his eyes, before reaching into his saddle bag once more. From there, he produced a small jewelry box, which he held out toward me. I blinked hard, trying to piece together if I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing.
With a flick of his finger, he popped the box open. And there, nestled in dark red velvet, sat the biggest diamond ring I had ever seen in all my life. In the center sat a massive diamond, as big as an acorn, flanked by equally massive diamond baguettes.
“It was my mom’s,” he said, pulling it out from its soft cradle with his big rough fingers. “But now it’s yours.”
“Is that how you propose?” I replied, the sound of my pulse racing in my ears.
“Yep.” He returned then he slipped that big, beautiful, breathtaking diamond on my ring finger even as my hands were tied together. And smiled at me a bit, while at the same time shaking his head in simmering frustration.
I opened my mouth but no words would come. Vasile looked up, his eyes gleaming.
“Trust me, my love. Remember, you agreed to trust me.”
Chapter 20
Vasile
We rode hard through the forest, with me riding behind her in the saddle. Though Valeria wasn’t aware of it, I had Daniel following behind us at a distance of about a quarter mile or so, just in case we needed backup.
He was no soldier, but he knew how to stay unseen and he was quick with a blade, among other talents and more to the point I trusted him with my life. And hers. I had plans to bring him on board with the business once I took over.
Once we were married, and I was the head of the family, it would take a man braver than my brother to come for us. But until then, we were in danger.
The snow had drifted since last I rode this stretch, blocking certain parts of the bridle paths. Keeping Valeria safe in my arms, I maneuvered around the drifts and into the windswept forest itself. The winter-black poplar trunks streaked past, as their branches creaked and groaned above.
Near the river, Vela drew up short, annoyed by our breakneck speed, thirsty and frothy in spite of the cold. Rather than push her through it, I let her slow to drink and eat some of the sparse grasses that poked out from the snow at the river’s edge. She’d need all her strength to get us all the way to my father’s house as fast as I needed her to go.
Once we were there, I knew Valeria would be safe. My father, his power, respect and guards would assure it. And then we’d be married and there wouldn’t be a single goddamned thing Petre could do to get between us.
A far away whinny made my mare prick her ears. Valeria turned to face me, looking worried.
With a glance, I warned her not to say a fucking word, just in case it wasn’t Daniel.
I shifted my reins to my left hand and tightened my embrace around her, slipping my free hand around her stomach, with my thumb tucked between her breasts from below. Her heartbeat pounded hard against my palm, telling me she wasn’t just worried. She was fucking terrified.
Pulling on the bit, I pulled Vela away from the water, and then turned her around. But no sooner had she started to make our way back to the path than the rumble of fast-approaching hoofbeats made her freeze in her tracks.
In my arms, Valeria stiffened, every muscle tightening with fear. It was difficult for me to figure out which direction the hoofbeats were coming from. Unless they were coming from every goddamned direction at once.
They were flanking us from all sides.
“Fuck,” I hissed, giv
ing my mare a ruthless kick with both heels. Whatever was about to happen, it wasn’t going to be good.
A sudden roar of brutal blood-thirsty shouts sent Vela whirling with confusion, but I knew that fucking sound. It was my brother’s goddamned goons—vodka-soaked, drugged, and going berserk.
They rushed us like wolves, all of them mounted and armed. I did everything I could to keep us in the saddle, but my mare was too fucking spooked to control. She half-reared once and we stayed on, but as a big male stallion, wild eyes and snorting, rushed her from the flank, she reared up even higher, sending both Valeria and I flying backwards.
I broke her fall, and we landed hard together on the frozen forest floor. The bare branches spun above me and I blinked off the pain in my head. But before I could even sit up, before I could think what the fuck to do next, I saw the face I most detested, staring down at me from above.
Petre.
His men might be drugged and drunk out of their minds, but he wasn’t. In his eyes I saw that cold clarity that I’d seen so often—way the fuck more dangerous than any liquor or drug.
He smiled down at us and cracked his knuckles. The first time I’d ever seen him look like that I was five, when he’d been fighting me for that goddamned fishing pole. When the hook had gotten lodged right below my eye, he’d looked at me exactly like he was looking at us now.
Pure fucking evil.
I glanced around at his men and saw that they’d be no help to me now. They might’ve been on my side during that poker game and during our scuffle the next day, but that was before he’d pumped them full of their drugs of choice. Now, they were his dogs and he was their master, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to break through that wall.
Fuck.
Petre grabbed a hold of Valeria, yanking her off me. As I fought to stand up, with the forest still spinning, she went at him with everything she had—clawing and screaming, kicking and elbowing, but one of his human hounds stunned her with a sucker punch to the temple that quieted her screams and disoriented her enough for them to restrain her even more.
“You motherfucker,” I said, launching myself at my brother from behind.
But before I could even get a solid punch in, one of his hounds came at me from behind my periphery, body slamming me hard back into the forest floor and pinning me down with a boot on my throat.
Petre seized Valeria by the hair and hauled her off toward his horse. There wasn’t a fucking chance, not a fucking chance, I was letting him take her from me now.
I snatched my hunting knife out of my boot and plunged it into the meatiest part of the calf of the man pinning me down.
But as I did, nothing happened. Nothing at all.
It was fucking surreal, like being in a nightmare. There was my knife, buried up to the hilt in his calf. But he was so high, so fucked up, that he hadn’t even flinched, instead staring down at the trickling wound like it belonged to someone else completely.
Fascinated. Mesmerized.
“What the fuck?” I said, plunging my knife into a different place, with the exact same reaction.
My brother laughed a little, a slippery little hush from his nose that sounded more reptilian than human.
“Black henbane,” he said. “I put it in that disgusting fucking Turkish coffee they like. Magic, isn’t it?”
Fucking horrifying is what it was. They were like wild animals without the sense that an animal should have.
I landed a brutal kick to the balls of the one holding me down, and lunged for Valeria. But I’d hardly gotten to my feet before two other men seized me, one of them punching me in the throat, and the other giving me a boot heel to the kidneys that made me roar with pain.
Doubled up though I was, I rolled back towards my brother so that I didn’t lose sight of Valeria. My brother and another of his men slung her over the back of Petre’s saddle. Her hands were still bound from the bindings I’d tied, and Petre made short work of tying her feet. Then he turned to me, looked me right in the eye, and gave her a hard smack on the ass. She screamed and tried hard to wriggle free, but I knew she was in a race against herself. In a matter of seconds, she passed out cold.
As she went quiet and still, I saw the distinct look of disappointment on Petre’s face, as if her fear and screams were more than half the fun of this for him.
Monster.
Still with his hand on her ass—the ass that belonged to me—Petre said, “I know you stuck your dick in her. Loyalty is easy to buy, brother. And my spies are loyal. But I’m willing to sacrifice raping the virgin in order to get the title that marrying the whore will give me.”
A thick clot of bloody bile came up into my throat and I spat it onto the forest floor. I stayed silent, I wasn’t going to confirm what could be a bluff.
“Surprised?” He smiled. “I have many favors owed to me, brother. Many little birds that bring me information. Fear and need make for effective servants. The stone walls are not as solid as you may think.”
I clenched my jaw. He’d turned our home into his own playground, and I vowed once I stood by my father, I would restore order and real loyalty to our once proud manor.
Petre yanked the reins of his horse and turned it around so that I had a view of Valeria’s head. Her long hair dangled down, nearly dusting the dirt-scuffed snow. Petre crouched down in front of Valeria, pinching her unconscious cheeks.
“Annoying when they pass out. But nothing a nice daily dose of foxglove extract won’t cure.”
If I could’ve killed him right then and there, I would have. But his hounds kept me on the ground. He turned to me, looking satisfied and more dangerous than ever. He gathered up a handful of her hair and yanked it up, to make it look like she had turned to face him.
“But since I know you like being fucked by whatever man happens to be nearby, I’ll make sure to pass you around often, until that little cunt of yours aches every time you move. How does that sound, Princess?”
By way of response, he made her nod and then let her head drop. Then, in one swift movement, he shoved Valeria’s limp body to the front of the saddle and mounted behind her. He jammed his German stirrups hard into his stallion’s belly, and the horse bolted forward, barreling into the forest with clumps of snow flying.
“Kill him.” Was the last thing he shouted over his shoulder as he rode off.
He didn’t look back and with every passing half-second the distance between me and her grew by a length or more.
“Valeria!” I roared.
Petre’s remaining hounds stayed behind, each of them coming at me from a different direction. I met punch with punch, unsure of which one I was hitting, but feeling the satisfying crunch of bone and blood on my quickly swelling knuckles.
If I could hold them off long enough, I knew that I wouldn’t be alone. Daniel would arrive and he wouldn’t hesitate to step in. Even drugged as they were, they wouldn’t stay standing after he sliced their throats. But until then, I had to fight like my life depended on it.
Both our lives.
Because without her, my life was over anyway.
Chapter 21
Valeria
Regaining consciousness through a fog, the organ inside the Coronation Cathedral bellowed in the cold air, telling me where we were long before I could see the cathedral itself.
I struggled to get my bearings, but I was hog-tied to Petre’s stallion and every pounding gallop made my head throb so painfully that I had little orientation on my surroundings.
Every muscle in my body ached and I had to keep my eyes shut to stop the snow and dirt from blinding me as we tore through the forest. Craning my neck, I got a glimpse of the road that led to the cathedral up ahead, but Petre veered off down a snow covered back trail approaching the cathedral from the rear.
He pushed his stallion hard, whipping his flanks until bright red bloody lash marks appeared on the haunch nearest my face. I felt the stallion ready for a jump, and then we were airborne. A crumbling low stone wall passed benea
th us, and I braced for the impact of the landing, which winded me in spite of my best efforts to hold my breath.
Petre pulled up sharply, making his stallion rear, and sent me tumbling brutally onto the ground. I curled up in an agonized ball on the frozen ground while he circled me, huge bone-crushing hooves mere inches from my head and body.
Though I was exhausted and in pain, I willed myself into focused alertness. Now was no time to give up. Now was no time to give in.
Rolling onto my back, I glanced to the side to try to orient myself.
Time-worn gravestones stared back at me, crooked and forgotten, like decaying teeth. Nearby, the broken wing of a stone angel poked up from the snow. Delirious and desperate as I was, I scrambled toward the broken wing, hoping to use it as a weapon. But before I could muster up the strength to get very far, Petre hopped off his horse with a thud and planted his boot on the small of my back, digging the heel into my spine making me yelp in pain.
“You’re a fighter, I’ll give you that much,” he said, spitting on the ground so close to me that I felt his saliva spatter my cheek. “But today is the last day you fight me, you hear? If you fail to comply, if you fail in any of your duties as my wife, I won’t just take it out on you, my love. Your father will be strung up as an example, and if that fails to change things, it will be your mother that will pay in pain and blood for your ill manner. If I have to, I’ll murder every single Valentine on this earth to get you to become the wife I deserve. And Vasile? He isn’t coming to save you either. You fainted before you could see what happened. I killed him. Such a shame you missed it. He’s in pieces by now, food for the wolves.”
My gut churned and my eyes burned. Vasile dead? I swallowed hard, trying not to give him the satisfaction of the grief that felt like a fist to my gut.
And my parents? If I couldn’t save Vasile, I would do everything I could to protect them.
The sound of nearby footsteps made my heart somersault in my chest. Help must be coming. It had to be. But as I craned my neck, I saw that it was just the opposite.
Wild Heir (Fated Royals Book 4) Page 14