Angel's Cage by Anna Zaires

Author:Anna Zaires [Zaires, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mozaika Publications

29

Nikolai

My clever zaychik. She does know me, no matter what she claims.

The little vial is already in my desk, the liquid inside ready to be sucked into a syringe and pumped into her veins. It’s the mildest, gentlest form of one of our special drugs, the dosage just barely enough to blur the edges of reality and lower a person’s inhibitions.

When I use it on Chloe, she’ll be aware of what’s happening, but she won’t object… because deep inside, she also wants this.

I know her by now as well.

Which is why I’m not surprised when she takes a breath and squares her slender shoulders instead of pleading or crying. “Fine,” she says, her voice shaking only slightly. “You win. But just so you know, I won’t forgive you if you go through with this. It will poison everything between us… just like your grandfather’s actions ruined whatever chance his marriage ever stood.”

Fucking Alina. I should’ve expected this, yet Chloe’s words still spear me like a fishhook, penetrating deep and snagging directly on my heart.

I lean forward, my tone sharpening. “You’re leaving me no choice.”

“No. You’re trying to leave me no choice.” She leans forward as well, glaring at me from across the table. “The no-condom thing—that was on purpose, wasn’t it? You didn’t actually forget.”

I hold her gaze, the flare of anger cooling as a peculiar ache bands around my chest. Is she right? At the time, it didn’t seem like a conscious decision, more like a primordial directive, an overpowering urge to be inside her with no barriers of any kind. The condom wasn’t even a consideration; it’s as if my mind had blocked out the existence of such protective measures, much less the need for them.

I don’t want more children—or at least I thought I didn’t. Then I saw my seed on Chloe’s thighs, and all sorts of tempting images flooded my mind: of Chloe growing round with our child, of her nursing a chubby infant… of us playing with a brown-eyed toddler whose radiant smile lights a room.

It was like a montage from some fucking Hallmark movie, except it made me ache deep inside.

With effort, I shut down that line of thinking. Whether or not I acted consciously doesn’t matter. The outcome is the same either way.

Forcing my shoulders to relax, I sit back and study Chloe’s tightly drawn features. “Tell me something, zaychik… what will it take for you to accept our marriage and be happy? For the two of us to avoid my grandparents’ fate?”

She’s too smart, too cautious to come in here just to castigate me. There’s something she’s after, some kind of goal she’s hoping to achieve, and I suspect I know what it is.

She stares at me for a couple of long seconds, and I sense the battle playing out in her mind. Continue pressing me on the condom question or move on to her actual agenda?

She must decide on the combination of the two because she sits up straighter and says, “Well, for one thing, unless and until I agree to have a baby, I want us to always use protection.

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