Page 20 of Reign
Liarwhen I promised we were still enemies with his mouth on my neck, and his cock buried deep inside of me.
“Liar, Vincenzo. Always so fucking pretty when you lie.”
The memory stabs clean through the marrow of me. He sees it—of course he does. I’ve never been able to hide anything on my face when it comes to him.
“Why does it hurt you?” he asks.
I meet his eyes again. “Because I remember every second you can’t, and you didn’t choose to forget me.”
His face goes blank at that; a total shutdown that would terrify most people. But I’ve seen it before—it means he’s processing something he would rather not feel.
“You expect me to believe that we were… what?” he asks after a long moment. “Friends?’
The word is so off the mark that I have to bite back a laugh. It comes out more like a choked exhale. “No. We were never that harmless.”
“What then? Fucking say it, Vieri.”
“You say it,” I counter. “After you ask Arseniy why he carved duty into your chest.”
Horror crosses his expression, and his gaze automatically flicks down for a second before he clenches his jaw so hard that a vein stands out in his neck.
“How the fuck do you know about that?” he snarls, but it lacks bite.
“Because I was there in the aftermath. I saw what it did to you.”
“This is the price I pay for being yours, Vincenzo.”
He stares at me for a long time, and I let him look. I don’t bother to hide the exhaustion or the ache. He’s always been able to smell weakness in people; I’m not going to insult him by pretending I’m untouched by this.
“I swear to God, if this is another one of your games—”
“It isn’t,” I cut in. “We did the game eight years ago in a school that turned us into weapons. Whatever this is now, it’s not a game, Nikolaj.”
He shifts back at last and rises from the bed in one fluid motion, the dagger disappearing somewhere inside his coat. I slowly push myself up, one hand going to my throat, and my fingertips come away with a narrow smear of blood.
“Surface cut,” I say, then he lets out a huff of air that might almost be a laugh if it weren’t so bitter. He looks at me for a moment, then turns toward the door.
“Get some fucking sleep, Vieri,” he says, and the venom in his tone almost makes me smile. “You’re useless to me drunk.”
“I was asleep before you woke me with a knife to my throat,” I remind him.
“Then consider this a mercy.”
My laugh is quiet and fucking painful. “Goodnight, Nikolaj.”
He stands very still with his back to me, and the fact that he’s even taking that stance—as a Pakhan—says a lot. “You said I didn’t choose to forget you.”
My throat tightens again. “Yes,” I say hoarsely.
“Did I choose you before?”
It’s one thing to survive his blade; it’s another to survive that question in his voice. I grip the edge of the mattress because standing is beyond me, and lying is beneath what remains of us.
“Yes,” I say again.
He still doesn’t turn and simply stands there with one hand on the door, breathing heavily. “Did I love you?”
That breaks my heart so cleanly, but I don’t make a sound. My lungs forget what they’re for, and every defense I’ve spent the last eight years building crumbles beneath me.
