Ilian
I'd sooner drown this party in blood than leave without Dmitri's head in a box.
Gloria was across the room.
The first thing I saw when I entered was her. Gloria. Across the room, her figure drew every eye like gravity itself bent toward her, but mine didn't move past her.
Lord, the sweet things she did to me.
The dress hugged her curves in all the wrong ways—wrong for anyone but perfect for me—and the light from the crystal chandeliers danced across the fabric as if mocking the restraint I had tried to practice.
Obsession flared. My throat went dry, and restraint and need fought for dominance in my hands. She didn't even know what she did to me. She never would. Not fully.
My eyes fell on the man leaning against Adrian as if he had every right to be there. A predator watching, calculating. I noted the subtle stiffening in Adrian's posture, the micro-adjustments of a man who hadn't expected to face this storm tonight.
My jaw tightened. I could bet my left arm that Adrian had zero clue that Dmitri would grace the event with his presence, and this probably fucked his mind to think that his entire family was here.
How had Dmitri even known this gathering, this nexus of all my contacts, all my enemies? Luck, instinct, or his endless dogfuckery. I'd find out soon enough.
Gloria's eyes are still on me. My presence here was shocking, but the way her eyes drifted over my body, I wanted to do unspeakable things to her in this event.
I moved toward her, steps measured but fast enough to close the distance. My hand brushed hers enough to anchor her, and she stiffened under my touch. Her deep brown eyes looked at me through her eyebrows.
"Careful," I said. "Don't drift too far, Liora. Not tonight."
Liora was the wreckage of my old life—soft in a world defined by steel and blood, fragile and lethal all at once. Tonight, it was necessary to call her the name I had given her.
I positioned myself between her and Dmitri.
"It's been a long time, Ilian," Dmitri said, his voice smooth but hard, like a knife sharpened on steel. "Too long."
I froze briefly as memories of my childhood snapped into place. Blood, betrayal, nights spent waiting for the next strike. I shoved it down and forced my muscles to relax while my gaze pinned him to the floor.
"Some things don't need revisiting," I said, controlling the bile in my throat but laced with a warning that made him pause. I stepped forward slightly, closing the space, making it clear that if he reached for her, he would meet more than resistance.
Adrian flinched, but I gave him a look—acknowledgment and respect disguised as a silent message: back off. He did.
Dmitri's lips curled faintly, and then he walked away, leaving tension in his wake. His middle-aged figure vanishes from my sight. His intent of being here today was just to catch all his prey at once. He wanted me back on the throne, and he needed Adrian killed.
This event was a golden chance for him. Thankfully, I knew Dmitri to his core to realise that he would not strike tonight.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and pivoted to her.
I gently grabbed her wrist and moved her to a new place. Adrian insisted on resisting, but he knew, in his bones and veins, that his daughter was mine. One nod of assurance, and he gave up.
I moved with her.
She glared at me. The shock and intensity from earlier transformed into venom in her eyes. "Why are you here, Ilian? Why is it that ever since I landed in London, everything has been a mess? Everything!"
Her words cut, but her motion betrayed something else. I kept my pace steady, guiding her through the quieter corridors. If I keep her calm and unprovoked, I can gauge her next move.
"Don't," I said softly, but a warning she couldn't ignore. "Don't throw yourself against me."
She spat the next words like poison. "Is this just your way of making sure I'm trapped in whatever hell you've built?"
Every step I took was deliberate. Away from the crowd, away from curious eyes, toward a private stretch of corridor where her words could land without interception.
My brain fired through contingencies: She's afraid, she's furious, she doesn't understand, and if I misstep, she'll bolt or break. I could read the layers under her venom, but she wasn't ready to admit it, not to me.
The second-floor landing opened before us: private and isolated. Velvet walls absorbed the din of the club below. Soft golden lights cast sharp angles along the edges of the room. Her firm body wrapped in red was trying every form of resistance.
I lowered my hand, but didn't step back.
She jerked her arm away like she was flinging off chains. "You can't keep doing this. I can't confront you. You know my family, and they know but don't have a clue who you are and what it'll cost me to get close to you."
Her words cracked with bile, the anger nearly tangible, and I realized she wasn't angry at me entirely. She was angry at everything I represented.
I didn't answer. My dark silhouette blocked her retreat. Her teary eyes did not veil her anger. Valid. Ever since she met me, her mind has been in shambles, considering everything that is going on.
But to what extent did her family hide their secret?
Every step I took was counterbalanced by the tension she radiated.
Baby I'm Yours by Isabella LaRosa
"Why…why are you here? After everything, the shooting, my mother dragging me away like I'm a child, my father and Nico hovering over me as if I don't have a conscience." She breathed. "I don't even know who I'm supposed to trust anymore! And now you show up…here? Why do you always show up everywhere?" Her voice boomed through the hall.
I stepped closer. She instinctively backed up, her heels clicking against the floor until her back hit a door.
"Then," I said, letting each word land, "there is the magic of yours that your professor can't resist." I caged her between me and the door.
Her brow furrowed. My eyes filled with desire, locked into hers.
I pushed the gigantic wooden door behind her, and before she could fall, my hands caught her. Chest to chest. Her body stiffened, muscles coiling under my grip as her widened, doe eyes sparkled innocent desire.
Her orbs traveled from my hair to my eyes, then finally landed on my lips.
The scent of her hair, the heat radiating from her skin, the soft tremor in her throat—it all hit me like fire.
I dipped forward, just enough for my lips to brush hers. I felt her soft hands clutch my shirt as if bracing for impact. Her strawberry scent filled my mind.
My body signaled me to ravage her soul and make my dreams of years come true.
Instead, I moved away and spun her around, letting her see.
The library.
Grand. Towering shelves of polished wood, rows of books stacked like monuments, golden light from wrought-iron chandeliers casting warm, sharp pools on the floors. The smell of old paper, ink, and polished leather wrapped around her like a spell.
Her eyes went wide as her chest heaved up and down. I could smell her sensation but slowly but surely her haze cleared.
Big, dark, sparkling eyes, she looked like she'd walked into heaven. The kind of awe that made my pulse hammer in ways nothing else could.
She stepped inside as I did too.
"It's beautiful," she whispered, her voice catching.
I leaned against the wall, shoulders relaxed, hands tucked in my pockets, watching her take it all in. She turned slowly, hands brushing along spines, lingering on titles as if memorizing each one. The way she moved, alive with quiet wonder, had me holding my breath.
"If you like it so much," I said, "then it's yours."
Her gaze snapped to me, lips parted, a flicker of disbelief and joy in her eyes.
She didn't speak, only letting her fingers trace the edges of a nearby book, her posture relaxing slightly, the tension draining out of her shoulders.
I let her have this. If she raged at me, yelled, pushed back, I'd let her. She'd need that. But here…in this space she loved, I could see her lighter side, the side she rarely let anyone witness.
Belmont House belonged to my father, Mikhail Valevsky, and now, the uncrowned Leader of everything he owned was mine.
I stayed there, quiet, letting her explore. Watching her hands brush along the shelves, the small shiver when she pulled a volume free.
Watching her, I felt like I could believe in God. There was something unreal in her, something forged by hands I could never name. I couldn't convince myself she was human. Every curve, every glance, screamed of a design meant to ruin me.
And now the chaos outside, the blood, the obsession could wait.