Danika's POV
Nikola didn't let me go, at least, not until I had promised not to run away. His men came to get me out of the dungeon and brought me into my bedroom. In a few seconds, a woman strolled in, her hair filled with grey streaks and a box in her hand.
"Hello, dear," she muttered, her weight making the bed dip as she plopped on it. When she touched my face, I winced and moved back.
"Do you hate him that much?" she asked as she opened the box, retrieving a cotton pad.
"Who?"
"Your husband."
I was about to say that Nikolai and I weren't married when I remembered that we actually were. Just the previous day, he had made me go with him to the courthouse to sign our marriage certificates.
There was little I could do to stop him.
"Everyone hates him." I winced again when her hands touched my face, but this time, they held me in place, her fingers firm under my chin as she dabbed.
"I know Nikolai is a lot to handle," she started, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought she was describing another person.
"Saying it that way is putting it mildly."
"Danika," she continued, then paused. "That's your name, right? I heard him mention it on the phone."
I nodded.
"Give him time to come around. I have been taking care of Nikolai since he was a child, so trust me when I say I have seen all the shades there are to him. I watched the swaddling young baby forced into who he is today by his ruthless father."
I looked up at her.
"You haven't met him, and I pray you don't." Her voice reduced to a hush when she spoke about him. "Nikolai is nothing like his father."
I found that hard to believe, yet I asked. "So, you think if he hadn't been raised by his father, he might have turned out different?"
She nodded. "His father never gave room for any softness, and for a while, I feared that it would break the poor little boy. But then the worst happened. He seemed to enjoy it. That dungeon…"
"Don't remind me."
"You should try not to get him pissed, Danika." She moved further into the bed, proceeding to the scars on my lower back. "When he told me he was getting married, I was pleased. I thought… I thought that this meant something new for him, you know? That, finally, he would learn how to feel something."
"I can't do that," I found myself saying, shaking my head. "I never wanted to be here."
"Life has a way of throwing you into certain paths that you do not want to be on," she mused, a small smile playing on her lips. "But you can throw life into a state of confusion when you act like you enjoy it."
I turned a fraction to face her. "It sounds like you have a certain connection with the person who told you that. Your son?"
Her grin grew wider. "I guess you could call him that. He is the opposite of Nikolai, but I love them both. While Nikolai is hot-headed and sometimes impulsive, he is milder. He tends to calculate before making decisions or acting out."
"Sounds like a good person," I replied, thinking how different he sounds from Nikolai and the man who brought me to him the other day. "I wish life threw me into his path instead, rather than bringing me there. Then, maybe it wouldn't have been hard to act like I enjoy it."
"Oh," she chuckled. "I was about to add that I don't think I have ever seen him with a woman before. Now that Nikolai is married to you, I should talk to him about getting married too."
"What is his name?"
"Killian," she murmured. "Kill, for short, even though I don't like the short version."
Killian.
"Did someone call my name?" I heard an eerily familiar voice at the other end of the door, before it pushed open abruptly.
I barely had time to cover up my body before the stranger from that night sauntered in, with an air of authority around him. He looked the same, still in a well-tailored dark pants, a black silk shirt, and a pair of loafers.
His eyes fell on me. "Hello, Danika!"'
"What are you doing here?" I shrieked, pulling further into the bed. "You…I asked you to…"
"You two know each other, Killian?"
I turned to the woman with my eyes gaping. "He is Killian?"
"Violetta, can you please excuse us?'
She arched her brow at him.
"You can stay right outside the door if you think I am going to devour her." He brought his gaze to mine. "I promise that if I do, everyone in this building will hear every second of it."
A delicious tingle ripples through me as his blue eyes caress every inch of my skin, from the scars on the side of my face where the belt met, to my half-naked frame, the sheets I held tight against my chest threatening to drop.
"Killian!" Violetta chided, hitting his arm. "She has been through a lot already. Be kind."
"Aren't I always?"
Violetta gave me one last look before stalking away. When the door closed in a whisper behind her, he came closer to the bed, stopping at its foot.
"It hurt, doesn't it?" There is a sudden care in his eyes, mixed with anger, like he was trying to hold himself back from doing something.
"Of course it hurts, Killian!" I snapped, forgetting all about why I held the sheets against my body in the first place. "I was kept in that dungeon for a whole week, and not once did you come to see me."
"Did you miss me?"
"I asked you to save me."
"I did."
I shook my head. "You brought me here!"
Killian placed both palms on the bed, leaning closer. "Do you know what would have happened if I had left you out there that night? Nikolai would have found you. And it would have turned out much worse. He hates chasing people."
"And how would you know that?"
"He is my best friend."
My stomach dropped. The man I had asked to save me was in bed with the monster himself.
His eyes suddenly darken. "You should hold the sheet over your chest before I do something Nikolai would kill us both for."