I know it before I even knock. Actually, I don’t knock. I won’t.
The garment bag’s weight in my hand is a silent command, one I fully expect her to spit on. I don’t bother with the handle of the bedroom door. I simply shoulder it open. The suite we share always smells of her lately—peonies and a sharp, electrified layer of defiance that seems to coat her skin whenever I step into her orbit.
I stop dead in the center of the room.
Lena is standing before the pier glass, her fingers trembling as she adjusts the strap of a pale, shimmering champagne dress. It is elegant. Modest. The choice of a woman who thinks she still has a say in how the world perceives her.
“I don’t recall giving you a choice in tonight’s attire,” I say, my voice dropping into that low, jagged rasp that usually makes my soldiers look for the nearest exit.
Lena doesn’t flinch. She meets my glare in the reflection, her chin tilted at that suicidal angle she favors. “I’m wearing this, Razvan. I told you yesterday. I’m not a doll you get to dress up for your Pakhan duties.”
“You are my wife,” I say, the words feeling like a collar I’m tightening around both our necks. I toss the garment bag onto the edge of our bed and rip the zipper down. The deep, blood-red silk spills out like a fresh kill. “And tonight is a coronation. You will dress like the woman who sits beside the Pakhan, or you won’t leave this room at all.”
I step into her space, the heat radiating off her making my own blood feel thick and sluggish. I watch her through the mirror. Her pupils are blown wide, swallowing the hazel of her irises until they are almost black. A fine sheen of sweat has broken out along her collarbone, and the pulse in her neck is drumming a frantic, panicked rhythm against her skin.
She isn’t just angry. She is vibrating with a physical awareness of me that she can’t hide. Her chest heaves, the champagne silk straining against her breasts with every shallow, ragged breath. She is aching for a fight or touch—at this point, I don’t think she knows the difference.
“I said no,” she hisses, finally turning to face me.
I move before she can blink, my hand snaking out to catch the back of her neck, my thumb digging into the sensitive dip beneath her jaw. I force her head back, exposing the long, pale line of her throat.
“Do you need a reminder of what happens when you tell me no, Lena? Should I carry you back down to the cellar and let the damp remind you who owns the air you breathe?”
Her breath hitches, a soft, broken sound. I lean in, my lips ghosting over her ear, smelling the salt and heat of her. “Change. Now. Or I will strip that rag off you myself. I won’t be careful with the fabric, and I certainly won’t be careful with you. If you make me late, I’ll put you back in the dark and leave Theo unattended for the night. Is that what you want?”
She freezes at the mention of our son. The defiance doesn’t vanish—it just curdles into something deadlier. She snatches the red dress from the bed, her knuckles white as she grips the silk.
“Fine,” she whispers, her voice trembling with a rage that is purely sexual. “You want your trophy? You’ve got her.”
“Well?” I settle back into the armchair and cross one leg over the other. “I don’t have all night.”
“Why in the hell are you still here?” she snaps, her eyes looking like they can shoot lasers through my skull. “Are you planning on watching me step into it, or do you just enjoy being a creep?”
I don’t move from the chair. My head tilts slightly, staring at her. She’s trying to rile me up. That’s cute.
“I’m ensuring my investment is handled with care,zayka,” I said, my voice smooth.
“Get out,” she hisses, her face flushing a brilliant, furious pink. “I’ll wear your silly, over-expensive rag. I’ll play your little game. Just. Get. Out.”
I let out a low, dry chuckle. The sound seemed to bounce off the walls, grating against her nerves. She is trying so hard to rile me, to find a crack in the my armor, but her defiance is…refreshing.
“You’re almost cute when you think you have a choice in the matter,” I remark.
That is her breaking point. The sound she makes is not a word. It’s something between a growl and a shriek and she spins her back to me and starts yanking at her zipper, and I hear her under her breath, this steady furious stream of muttering that she clearly believes is too low for me to catch.
It isn’t.
“—arrogant, self-important, controlling son of a…” A pause while she wrestles with the zipper. “—thinks he can just walk in here and stand there like he owns the—well he does own it, technically, which is the most infuriating thing about—” Another pause. “—not even embarrassed about it, just sitting there like a?—”
I’m smiling. I can feel it happening and I don’t stop it.
She reminds me of something. There is a film I’d seen once, during a rare moment of downtime—some animated thing about a city of animals. There was a rabbit in it. Small, fluffy, but absolutely convinced it could take down a rhino if it just shouted loud enough.
A cute little bunny,I think, watching the way her nose crinkled in genuine loathing.Stomping her feet and thinking the earth should shake for her.
Then the dress is on, and the smile vanishes.
The dress is a goddamn sin. It plunges to her navel and vanishes at the small of her back. It leaves nothing to the imagination and everything to the ego.