Page 169 of Jace
I remember the night we escaped my father. It was bitterly cold. The air. The risk. The fear. My little body shook with it. But I huddled with my brothers, guided by our mother, protected by Maxim.
“Ya tebya lyublyu.”I love you.
It was the vow whispered to each other so many times that night that I learned to believe in love and never looked back.
I looked forward tothismoment. The moment when we’d finally confront the devil again. The kidnapper. Rapist. Abuser. The criminal.
The Pakhan.
I told myself a story of violence and vengeance. Convinced this moment would be dark, dramatic, and deadly. Hell, I even wished for it.
I should’ve known better.
Now I do.
There’s nothing but love and light when the kings and queens stand together. Even surrounded by the dark walls of my mother’s club.
Elysium, indeed.
A place of perfect happiness; the heaven for heroes, and yet, I don’t feel like one.
I feel like more.
I’m a husband. A father. A friend. A brother. A son. A hopeful romantic who refuses to hate.
Even as my father stands before us, licking his mottled lips with a sneer in his evil eyes. I don’t know how many souls he had to eat to find the strength to be here, flanked by his Bratva soldiers in black suits, but he is.
Tall. Gaunt. Hiding his gasps for air. His power, prowess, and potency are all ghosts in the graveyard of his frigid eyes. Spirits of his wrath withering. The short time left in his life is far more threatening than he is.
My, how the mighty will fall.
“Moya zhena, ya?—”
“I amnotyour wife.” Mom interrupts him. She speaks English and lifts her chin. We form a line, standing behind her. “I never was. I was your captive. Your prey. The princess you underestimated.” She lifts her jeweled hands, framing her proud progeny. “Did you not, Ruslan? Did you dare to underestimate a queen?”
We tower, shoulder to shoulder, before Ruslan in the order of our birth, our thrones. Kings and queens. No children. We left them guarded, with our in-laws.
I’m the only one, clasping Vivian’s ringed hand, with his precious future in the room roiling with risk.
Ruslan’s guards are armed. So are ours. No club staff is here. Only the snipers and sentinels we’ve trusted for years. They’re posted high and low, every skull in their crosshairs.
His snarl is wicked. His nod noble. “It is why I bred you, my beautiful Princess Pavlovna.” It’s what he always called her,mockingly, cruelly. “Royalty runs in your veins. You gave me powerful, princely stock.”
“And yet, we’renotall your sons.” Axel smirks, jeering. His true paternity is such revenge. He was supposed to be Ruslan’s heir, the next Pakhan, but he’s not even his. He’s Maxim’s. The salt in the wound is so sweet.
“No matter our paternity, we will never beyours,” Sire vows. “We serve our mother, The Queen. Always have; always will.”
“You aremyson, Sergei!” Ruslan snaps. “You, Grigori, Jasha. My doch, my Sasha. My bloodhonorsyour veins.”
“And so what?” Nash barks bitterly. “You’re not their father; you’re a fucking fool. What did you think would happen? You’d beat them into loving you? Lash them into loyalty? It’s the opposite; they loathe you.”
Ruslan scoffs haughtily. “You do not matter. You are not Russkiye.”
“You’re right. Nash ismyson.” Mom proudly claims him. He’s one of us. “They’re all mine.” Her hand summons a handsome, leashed man. Her voice rich with salacious retaliation. “Evenyourson is my loyal lover.”
Normally, the kings cringe when our mom uses thatLword.
Roman Kholodov is thirty years our mother’s junior and sent here by his father to kill us. Roman’s mother was Ruslan’s maid, another one of his victims.
