“I do mean it,” I tell him when we come to a stopping point. “I want to escape this life. I’ve been talking to Kostya.”
“Yeah?”
“I think he’s…Well, I feel like he’s on our side. And with Nikolai gone, it almost feels like I’m the only family he has left. I think he might help us if I foster a friendship with him. I have to try. I want to try.”
He seems relieved, as if he’s been waiting for me to say something, as if it would be so easy to just up and leave.
It won’t be anything resembling easy.
“Then I’ll find a way for us, baby. I will.”
“We’ll do it together. Because we’re better together?” For some reason, it comes out of me as a question.
His hands slide up from my back and he grabs hold of my face, leveling his eyes with mine. “Listen to me. You and me, together? We can do anything.”
I nod and he kisses me. Then we wrap our arms around each other tight, and he hugs me in a way that warms my soul and positively melts me.
The icy cold exterior that’s kept me shielded for all these years melts away, drop by drop, the permafrost threatening to fade away for good.
And I hope it does.
I want the tundra to become a desert.
I want to spark a fire in the dry heat, explode into flames, and burn down the four families with Ezra by my side.
Chapter 15
Ezra
“It’s not too late to change your mind. You don’t have to be punished this way.” Renata runs her fingers down my bare chest.
The feel of her touch still makes my skin crawl, but sadly, I’m growing used to it. “Do your worst,” I tell her through gritted teeth. “I’m not fucking you.”
Her face slips from seductress to villainess as she takes a step back. “Have it your way, then. If I can’t have your cum, then I’ll take your blood.”
“Drain me like the vampire you are. I’m. Not. Fucking. You.”
She claims I have a choice, but it’s no goddamn choice at all. Fuck her or let her hurt me. My blood is her retribution for her brother’s death. I’d let her bleed me dry before ever letting her have my cock.
Her eyes narrow to slits and she snaps at Luca. The three of us are alone in her bedroom, as has often been the case over these past few weeks. He rushes to her side and begins to wrap the familiar coarse rope around my wrists. He’s good at tying escape-proof knots, and I have a feeling Renata is the one who taught him how to do that.
I used to fight him, but that got me into trouble. It’s not that I care if I get in trouble—it’s just that I know if I’m causing problems, it comes down on Anya. Aside from the singular fact that I would do anything to keep them from hurting her, we need her to keep what little status and authority she’s attained—which means keeping the inane dealings of an unruly slave far from her concern. Anya has to be a master in this realm as long as it takes for us to figure out how to escape together. So, while I do it with a sour attitude, I comply.
“Stand here, raise your arms.” Renata guides me to the foot of the bed, positioning me to face it, and I lift my arms above my head.
She and Luca work to tie the ropes to the canopy, one knotted around each of my wrists. My arms stretch wide above my head, pulling apart into a V as they tie me. The wooden frame that forms the canopy is solid and I know the knots are, too. It doesn’t stop me from giving a good yank to test them, though.
I’m locked down.
My heartbeat spikes.
I take in a slow breath and blow it out to steady myself.
“What’ll it be tonight?” I ask. “More of the knife? Add a few more knicks and scars?” It’s not pleasant when she punctures my skin and marks me with tiny scars, but it’s not unbearable, either.
Somewhere behind me I hear a drawer open and shut, and I turn my head to look over my shoulder. It’s not until Renata comes up to my side before I can see what she’s holding in her hand.
“I think a good whipping is in order for you. Twenty lashes? Thirty? What do you think you deserve for denying me, Ezra?”
I laugh, though a ripple of anxious adrenaline pulses through my veins. “Make it fifty. I don’t give a fuck.”
“Fifty? Hmm. Have you ever been struck with a cat o’ nine tails before?”
“No.”
But I’ve been struck with a cane by my blue-eyed girl.
Anya struck me the first day I met her, when Nikolai brought me to her. She had me strung up in the dance studio and struck me eight times with the cane. That was when her only choice was to break me to save herself.
That was before we fell in love.
“I’ll give you twenty lashes to start. If you’re not begging for me to fuck you by then instead, then I’ll give you thirty more and call it a night.”
“Just get on with it. I’m tired of hearing you talk.”
There’s a sudden slicing through the air and then a crack before fire licks across my skin, just to the right of my spine. I groan as my body sways forward from the unexpected hit, my shoulders straining against the ropes.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
“Oh, did that hurt?”
“Nah, I’m good,” I lie.
Fire flashes again, only this time it’s brighter, lashing in nearly the same spot as the first strike. I clench my hands into fists and swallow the shout that claws up my throat. I won’t give her the satisfaction.
Renata’s fingers trail from the base of my neck, slowly down my spine. She intentionally strays from the path to trace over the line of flames—the way they flare against her touch tells me I’ll have welts before this is over.
“Wouldn’t it feel better to sink inside me?” she whispers.
I drop my head and my jaw ticks as I hold back my anger. “I can’t think of anything that would feel worse.”
“Fuck you!” she screams and strikes me again.
I grunt as I sway, but there’s no time for me to take a breath, to calm myself, to prepare for the next lashing. I stripped her façade of control with my insult and I know I’m fucked now. She strikes, again and again, and fucking again.
She hits me with fury until my skin is ablaze.
She hits me until I shout for her to stop.
She hits me until my body slumps and the ropes hold my weight through my arms, until my head droops in surrender, and my heart is pounding.
She’s given me fifty lashes, just as I asked for, and I already know this pain will last for days. I feel blood trickling down my back, and I can only imagine the scars this will leave on my body.