From Russia With Fangs

by Jacey Conrad

  Papa’s hand came out of nowhere, striking Irina across the cheek already bruised from Marty’s violence. She wouldn’t have had time to block the strike, despite all that Viktor taught her.

  Irina hissed at the impact, but she didn’t cry out, gritting her teeth against the impulse. She saw the regret flash in Papa’s eyes immediately. “Irina—”

  “Don’t—” Irina shook her head and jumped out of his range, hot tears stinging her eyes. “Don’t touch me.”

  Papa’s gaze hardened and his jaw clenched. “You will marry Andreyev, Irina. That is my final word on the subject. You will not defy me or embarrass me. You will do what’s expected of you. As your father, I do not believe I am asking too much of you. All I want is for you to be safe.”

  Irina snorted indelicately, but she couldn’t speak. She wouldn’t humiliate herself further by crying in front of her father like a little girl. Papa stepped closer, stroking his hand down her hair. “I love you, Irina.”

  Irina closed her eyes. She heard Papa stride out of her office and the jingle of the shop’s front door. Viktor closed the door. She could smell his spicy moss scent as he moved closer, close enough to lean her forehead against his throat.

  “Tell me what to do,” Viktor said. “If you want to run, we’ll run.”

  For a split second, she considered it. She thought about abandoning Galina and Nik, everything she knew. She imagined how she would toss some clothes into a suitcase and run wherever Viktor wanted to go. She saw them living in some quiet town, where no one knew them. She saw them being happy. And then she saw Viktor, with a bullet hole in his forehead, sprawled across the forest floor.

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  Viktor stared at her, long and hard, but said nothing. “So you’re going to marry him?”

  “Galina says it won’t come to that.”

  “Galina doesn’t know nearly as much as she thinks she does,” Viktor told her. She shot him a dark look. He sighed, kissed her forehead, then walked out of the door.

  Irina sank down into her desk chair, rubbing her hand over bruised cheek. For Viktor’s sake, she couldn’t run. For Galina’s and her own sake, she couldn’t stay. She was trapped, a butterfly on a pin—colorful and elegant, but with no choices, no options but to remain a decoration in Papa’s collection.

  Irina watched the cars file into the driveway of the Sudenko house from the window of the family’s formal front parlor. She usually found such comfort in the rich, comfortable surroundings, the red-and-gold tapestry-covered walls, the tooled wine-colored leather furniture, the carefully crafted cabinets Mama Katrina had shipped over from Minsk. But now, the walls were closing in on her and her only comfort could be found in the liquor cabinet.

  For all Galina’s protests that he had no intention of following through with the wedding, Andrey didn’t seem to putting up any sort of reservations about their “union.” He’d happily agreed to this clusterfuck of an engagement party. Papa’s first act the moment she’d been allowed to remove and burn her mourning band, had been to send out the invitations.

  Viktor hadn’t spoken to her in two weeks. Following Papa’s announcement, he’d asked to be assigned to a different detail and by some miracle, they hadn’t crossed paths when she’d visited her father’s house. Alexei kept “dropping by” the shop, wanting to talk about “this travesty of an engagement,” but Irina got Ivan to tell her brother that she wasn’t at work, and kept her body sprayed down with wolfsbane to avoid his nose. She stayed with Franny to avoid his drop-ins at her house. Galina was too busy to talk lately. She told Irina that she was looking for “the solution” to Irina’s problem, but wouldn’t tell Irina what that meant, exactly. As far as Irina knew the only way to dissolve the engagement would be to find Andrey’s missing Bullet. But she doubted very much that Alexei was going to hand that over.

  Irina slugged down the contents of a champagne flute. She would need it, if she were going to survive this evening. She slid a hand down the emerald satin gown she’d selected for the party. Though she’d seriously considered wearing the backless blue “nunnery” dress for her engagement party, she was embracing the cliché—a redhead in green. Ivan had insisted on an elaborate necklace of square-cut emeralds alternating with three-carat round diamonds, framing an obscenely large oval-cut emerald that nestled in the hollow of her throat. He told her it made her look like a queen, but it felt eerily like Sergei’s diamond collar.

  Irina refilled her own champagne glass and drained it.

  Nik opened the parlor door, looking dapper in his dark suit. “Irina, maybe you should slow down on the stuff. You’re not looking so good,” he said, closing the door behind him. “I mean, you look fabulous. The emeralds were definitely the right choice. But you’re so pale that you’re practically transparent. Can I get you anything?”

  “An escape pod?” she suggested wryly.

  “Would that I could,” Nik quipped. “Papa really pulled out all the stops on the invite list for this shindig, nothing but the crème de la crème—and Alexei. I guess he’s trying to lay it on really thick, making Andrey feel like one of the inner circle.”

  “I take it Galina hasn’t made any progress in her little side project?” Irina asked.

  Nik shook his head and lowered his voice. “No. She’s looked everywhere for that shit, can’t find a trace of it.”

  “If I have to marry Galina’s boyfriend, I’m going to kick her ass.” Irina huffed, tossing the rest of her champagne down her throat. Just then, the parlor doors opened and three of the tuxedo-clad security team—including Viktor—opened the door and gave the room a visual sweep.

  Viktor looked right through her, like a pane of glass, backing out of the room without a word. Irina felt pain so acute she could actually feel it piercing her heart. Her knees sagged and she braced herself against an antique wingback chair. Yuri nodded in deference to Nik and Irina and left the room.

  “Fuck,” she muttered, clutching at her chest.

  “Rina?” Nik caught her elbows and lowered her gently into the chair. “I know you’re entitled, but you’re a little young for a heart attack.”

  “This is my life now,” Irina said, her eyes darting madly about the room. “This is my life. He acted like he didn’t even know me. I might as well have been a piece of fucking furniture. Fuck.”

  “Rina?” Her brother rubbed her ice-cold hands between his own warm mitts. “Sweetheart, you aren’t making any sense—holy shit, you and Yuri? You’re fucking Yuri? I thought you had better taste than Yuri. The man has one eyebrow, for God’s sake.”

  “No, it’s not Yuri!” Irina hissed. “And lower your voice! It’s Viktor.”

  “Oh,” Nik said, nodding. “Yeah, that makes more sense. I can picture that.”

  “Stop picturing it!” Irina whispered.

  “Straight people are so weird,” Nik sighed, tugging her to her feet. “This explains so much about your behavior lately. You’ve been secretive and twitchy since Sergei’s funeral.” A flash of guilt flickered over Irina’s face. Nik’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god, what did I miss? What did you do at Sergei’s funeral? Is that why you left early? And Galya’s been covering you for all this time? I’m going to kill her for keeping this a secret.”

  “Okay, this is where I disembark the crazy train,” Irina sighed, wiping at her eyes. “I’m going to go to my room and touch up my makeup.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No, it’s fine, but if you see Galina, could you let her know I went upstairs?”

  “Sure thing, doll.”

  “Thanks.” Irina squeezed his hand and carefully made her way to the door, fluffing her skirts around her ankles. As she closed the door behind her, she heard Nik mutter, “Viktor!”

  Irina stood in front of her vanity mirror in her childhood bedroom, applying a fresh coat of cinnamon colored lip lacquer. The room hadn’t changed since she’d moved out for her first wedding—same lilac-colored walls, same girlish w
hite furniture. She studied the photos stuck in the mirror frame—pictures of her and Galya when they were kids, one posed in front of some fountain in Paris on one of the few trips they’d been allowed abroad. Papa had been too nervous for them to travel much as a family, always concerned that they would be targeted for kidnapping or retribution from his associates. There was a picture of her and Franny in their graduation gowns, and one of Nik and Irina on his first day of law school, when he’d been so nervous he’d asked her to meet him in front of the class building to keep him from running back to his car. This was why she couldn’t run, she reminded herself. This was her life. Running meant losing this, even if the cost to keep it was intolerably high.

  There was a knock at the door, and before Irina could answer, Viktor stuck his head in the door. She watched him in the reflection of the vanity, unsure if she was strong enough to look at him directly. “Your father is asking for you. The party’s about to start.”

  “Just leave me be for a minute,” she said, her voice steely. “Just give me a moment alone. I’ll be right down, in just a moment.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  He took cautious steps forward. “No.”

  “You don’t think I maybe deserve just a second to collect myself?” she snapped, still not turning around, even as his breath grazed her bare shoulders. Her glare was so hot and focused she was surprised the glass didn’t melt.

  Viktor wrapped his hand around her neck, bracing her hips against the dresser. “I think you need to stop turning in on yourself every time you come up against an obstacle. I think you spend too much time in your own head. And I think you need to stop being afraid.”

  “That’s really easy for you to say.”

  His hand stroked over her shoulder, along her collarbone. “Nothing about this is easy, Беда. Do you want me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you see me?” he whispered against her neck. She nodded. But he reached down the front of her dress and flicked her nipple—hard. “No, I want you to answer out loud.”

  “Yes,” she whimpered, arching up into his hand.

  Viktor’s free hand slid down her back, gathering her skirts around her hips, seeking wet heat between her thighs. “And can you feel me?”

  She began to nod again, but he pinched her clit lightly, making her cry out. “Yes!”

  “Good,” he said. “Now, I want you to keep your head up, look in the mirror and watch. Watch me touch you, Irina. Watch me fuck you.”

  She watched his long, elegant fingers work their way into the bare cleft, playing her like a violin, wringing the notes as she bucked and rode against his hand.

  “More,” she panted, even as his thumb circled her wet, swollen clit, the pressure building deliciously even as rivers ran down her thighs.

  She heard the faint whine of a zipper and felt him between her legs, hard and hot and bare.

  Her heels made her hips the perfect height to line up with his. And the sight of those little heart-shaped calf muscles was just too much for him.

  He slid into her without hesitation, filling her to the hilt. He pressed his hips into her ass, thrusting her against the dresser. Perfume bottles rattled and fell as she braced herself against the wood. She could feel every inch of him, his chest against her back, his thighs against hers, the hot length of cock inside of her. His hand splayed across her collarbone, stroking and pinning her back against him.

  Her footing failed as he landed against her and they both pitched forward.

  His palm slapped against the mirror, holding them upright. He didn’t miss a stroke, grinning into her neck as he thrust home.

  She lifted her knee, kneeling on the little vanity bench and pushing her ass back, changing the angle. He groaned as she tightened around him and his hips faltered. His rhythm went to hell and she kept a stranglehold on his cock. She arched back, resting her head against his shoulder as she came, fluttering and spasming in time with his thrusts.

  “Irina,” he panted. “Rina…”

  Irina felt a strange swelling sensation at the entrance of her sex, like Viktor’s cock was growing from the base up, expanding inside her. She felt the knot of his flesh blooming inside of her contracting core, bumping against her cervix as he continued to move, unable to stop as the mating urge took hold. She glanced up at Viktor’s panicked face in the mirror. Even as the pleasure coursed over his face, she could the see the horror in his eyes at what was about to happen. She stretched her hands over his and laced their fingers together as she felt the first pulse of cum flood into her.

  He was knotting her.

  His forehead slammed between her shoulder blades as he yelped. Jets of cum spurted against Irina’s sensitive inner walls, bathing her in his release. Viktor’s arms closed around her, pulling her tight against his chest as their bodies locked together in a position as old as legend.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, but she only laughed, butting her head against his cheek as their mingled juices ran down her legs.

  His mouth worried at her ear as the cum kept flowing and flowing, flooding Irina’s body.

  The doorknob rattled and Viktor turned their bodies away from the entrance, covering her.

  He only relaxed when he heard Galina groan, “Oh, come on.” She pocketed the secret key she’d kept to Irina’s old room. She shut the door, quick and quietly. “What is wrong with you people? People who should not be having sex in Papa’s house, should stop having sex in Papa’s house. Do you guys have no sense of self-preservation?”

  Irina was laughing. The little jerks of her body made Viktor moan, sinking his face in Irina’s neck. He couldn’t look Galina in the eye right now. He just couldn’t.

  “Could you at least pull out of my sister, so we can discuss how we’re going to get out of this colossal shit storm you have created?”

  “We can’t,” Irina said, looking over her shoulder at her sister, who looked very much like a disappointed mother at the moment.

  “What do you mean, you can’t?” Galina demanded.

  “Viktor knotted me,” Irina said as calmly as she could. “I’m locked on. He can’t pull out.”

  Galina’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit. How long ago?”

  “Just a few minutes,” Irina said. “So we could be stuck like this for—”

  “Hours!” Galina hissed. “You could be stuck like this for hours. You asshole!” Galina threw a Kleenex box at Viktor’s back. “A whole house full of very hostile guests and you pull this? I thought you guys were able to control it! This is some crazy higher level mating shit!”

  “Your voice is helping,” he groaned, slipping just a little out of Irina’s body. “Keep talking.”

  “You bet your ass I’m going to keep talking.” Galina began to pace, needing to do something with her pent up energy. “Are you mentally deficient in some way? You are balls deep in my sister at her engagement party! This is a whole new level of stupidity!” She fixed Viktor with an angry glare. “I can’t believe we trust you with our lives! Seriously, we’d be better off with an idiot five-year-old for a fucking bodyguard.”

  “Hey!” Irina protested, obviously offended on behalf of her paramour.

  “No, no, this is good,” Viktor interrupted, pulling away from Irina a bit. “It’s working.”

  “Papa is having a damn litter downstairs in the front parlor, worried that you might be pulling an Elena. I can only imagine what he would do if he came up here and found you two like this.” Galina threw up her hands in utter exasperation. “I just can’t even…it’s like I’m babysitting a couple of hormonal fifteen-year-olds who don’t have the sense that God gave a duck!”

  “You’re the one who didn’t think Papa would go through with this engagement!” Irina whisper-shouted.

  “I didn’t think Andrey would go through with it!” Galina growled.

  Everyone in the room went quiet. Irina wore a stricken expression. “Oh, Galya,” she said, opening her arms as if she wanted to give
Galina a hug.

  Galina looked at her in horror. “I am not hugging you while you’re still…attached to him. That would just be weird and there isn’t enough therapy on earth that could fix it.” She waved away Irina’s sympathy. “I’m fine. It’s just not what I expected.”

  Viktor pulled free of Irina with a groan. Galina turned around, not needing or wanting to see any more of him than she had already. “Clean yourselves up and then get your asses downstairs. I’ll cover for you with Papa. And lock the door behind me. Morons.”

  Galina slammed the door and Viktor, pulling up his pants as he crossed the room, locked it.

  Viktor grabbed a washcloth from her bathroom and ran it under the tap. He propped her ass on the vanity and knelt between her thighs, pushing her skirts aside so he could methodically, gently wipe the evidence from her skin.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. He pressed a kiss to each of her knees and stood.

  He bent his forehead against hers. “We’ll figure something out, I promise you. But I’m not letting you go, do you hear me? You’re mine. I’m yours. That’s all there is to know.”

  She wanted so badly to believe him. But she just didn’t see a way out for them. Not without Andrey’s cooperation or some sort of miracle. She pulled her bottle of wolfsbane perfume from her purse, and sprayed them both down liberally. She even pulled his pants loose from his waist and sprayed down his crotch.

  “So I need to go downstairs,” she said, straightening her hair and checking her lipstick, “and pretend to be a happy bride-to-be.”

  “I will be in the kitchen, never making eye contact with Galina again.”

  “Good plan,” she said, laughing lightly as he kissed her forehead.

  He cupped her face in his hands, his blue eyes soft and happy as he told her, “Be careful, down there, Беда.”

  She kissed his cheek. “I always am. So, stay here. Don’t come out for ten, fifteen minutes, okay?”