Page 21 of Untamed Beast
She flinches away when I reach for her, but I splay my hand on her waist, feeling her tense with fear. I don’t delude myself that there’s any kind of excitement on her part. Not from Maksim Bryusov’s daughter. That fire flickering in her clear green eyes is hatred.
Her gaze travels past me down the aisle. I’m fantasizing about fucking her and she’s fantasizing about escaping me — of course she is. That’s her reputation, the bride who leaves men on the altar.
Too bad. My first kiss with my wife will not be while she’s staring over my shoulder and thinking about leaving.
I take her chin in my hand and yank her gaze to mine. Her soft green eyes widen, her lips parting on a gasp. I want to make her do that again, in a different context.
My other hand glides up her back to that patch of skinmy fingers brushed while I was lacing up her corset. She’d liked me, then. I can be charming when I need to be. She shivers against my touch and I pull her closer. It might be wishful thinking but I think she takes a half-step closer, so that she’s tucked against my chest, staring up at me with those impossibly clear green eyes.
I bend down to kiss her — such a long way to go, because she’s fucking tiny, and brush my lips over hers. The sigh is what gets me. A puff of air that smells like roses and sugar right before our lips meet, drowning me in her scent.
Fuck.
She barely kisses me back, parting her lips beneath mine in the gentlest motion. I lose myself for a minute and lick her upper lip, needing more of that taste and for one second, I forget who she is. Forget that none of this is real. She tastes sweet and pure… and metallic?
Metallic. Like blood.
The sharp pain hits me a second after the taste.
Natalia Bryusova just bit me.
She pulls back and smiles up at me sweetly, as I bring my hand to my lower lip and wipe the blood away.
Those green eyes flicker at me as she turns to the cheering crowd, who don’t know that she’s not the pretty little princess they all think she is.
Confirmed. This girl is going to fight me every step of the way.
That was the most enjoyable part of the whole ceremony.
What I didn’t foresee was the melodrama afterwards.
As soon as we’re out of the chapel and back in that ridiculous fucking mansion — which will be repurposed into ahome for children in need as soon as that motherfucker Maksim is where he belongs, in the ground — Natalia’s mother starts up on the waterworks.
Throwing herself at my feet and begging me not to take her daughter. Maksim stands by and watches, incapable of controlling his wife or comforting her.
Natalia just sits quietly in the corner, her cat curled in her lap.
“Wait,” she calls when she sees my men have packed her things. She dashes out of the room and comes back with a crate for the cat.
“Please, can I bring Dasha? She’s well behaved.”
Natalia’s face is absolutely neutral as she looks at me, as though she’s used to schooling her emotions into bland politeness. She’s not matching her mother’s waterworks or hysteria. Which is good, because I’m getting a fucking headache from it all.
There’s no reason to deny her this. She is not Maksim.
“Fine.”There is a rat problem on the docks. From the size of that tabby cat, it should be able to make a dent in the population.
I nod my head to the door to signal that it’s time to go.
Now her mother starts on her, instead of me, shaking her daughter’s shoulders.
“Malyshka… I know your father has agreed to this. I know that you are married to this monster now in the eyes of God. But I beg you, please don’t consummate this marriage. Do not get into bed with the man who killed Fyodor and Pyotr.”
Her face darkens as she glares at me.
“Fight him off. Stay away from him. Make this a marriage in name only and I will find you a way out of it.” She raises her hands to the sky then kisses her crucifix necklace.
Good luck, lady.
