Page 133 of Beneath the Light of the Moon

Flicking his gaze back to Anika, he saw she’d stood on wobbly legs, defiant look evident in her golden eyes.

A stillness fell over the room. The calm before a storm.

Mirroring her, he stood, body aching in places he hadn’t felt inyears,but he was dead set on catching her. His stance turned predatory, eyes honing in on her weaknesses. She was half naked—her nightgown splattered with blood and torn—and smaller than he was. Unlike Levi, he hadn’t been drugged; she couldn’t overpower him.

Tensing, she sensed the impending doom—the tranquil resolution settling into Mikko’s bones.

He stalked toward her, slowly.

“It’s too late,” she breathed, “you’ll either have to kill me, or I’ll kill you.”

“You could never kill me,” he mocked. “I think you get off on the idea of me being your last victim. The final piece to your twisted puzzle.”

Adrenaline coursed through his veins, and he could practically taste hers. It took everything in him to relish the moment, to not to rush it. He wanted to savor the closeness of her before he took her within his palm andcrushedher.

“Maybe Iamsaving the best for last.” Her words were haunting, a horrid promise he found himself wanting to test. He’d been begging for people to kill him for as long as he could remember. If someone finally succeeded, he might thank them.

“You’re stroking my ego,malyshka,”he said sarcastically, a grin spreading across his face.

Shifting around the coffee table, her feet stepping through glass if only to put distance between them, she hovered in the doorway. “Just what you need.”

He stepped toward her, intent on turning her dreams into nightmares, but she turned and vanished into the darkness of her own house. And he let her go.

With a devious smile still adorning his face, he called out after her, “I forgot to mention, Anika…Ilikethe chase.”

39

Violets

Anika

Battered and bleeding, Anika scrambled up the stairs toward her bedroom. While she’d dismantled Levi’s gun, hers was still in working order next to her bed. All she had to do was get there.

Mikko’s chuckle followed her up the steps, a terrible promise if he caught her. Glass shards dug into the bottom of her feet, each step burning and leaving a trail of her blood. Her back burned equally, more pieces embedded there. Once she had her weapon, it wouldn’t matter; Anika wasn’t a little girl anymore, and she could hold her own. She’d shown as much with Ivan and Dimitri and now Levi. Men always had a way of succumbing to her.

Mikko wouldn’t be any different.

He may think he had the upper hand, his knowledge of her encompassing all the variables at play, but they still wouldn’t help him in the end. Her sweaty palms gripped the door frame of her bedroom as she flung herself through. Behind her, she heard thethudof hisboots on the steps, his stealth abandoned in hopes of exacerbating her fear.

But she wasn’t scared, she was angry.

All her life had consisted of moments like this: constantly proving herself and fighting for what was right until she’d relinquished her morals in favor of winning.

Sometimes to tame the monster, you had to become it.

There, in the dark, she saw the glint of her safe, her salvation within reach—

Sharp pain erupted across her scalp as fingers tangled within her midnight strands andpulled.The momentum she’d built immediately shifted, the floor rushing up to meet her as Mikko threw his weight into her.

Thud!

Together they fell to the floor, the rug barely cushioning the impact. The wind whooshed out of her lungs and for a moment, Anika contemplated if she’d be able to walk without a limp tomorrow. That was if she made it out. With a grunt, Anika clawed at the rug, desperately trying to pull herself free of Mikko’s ironclad hold.

“Not so easy now, is it?” he breathed into her temple.

She wriggled and swung her elbows, eager to feel one of them dig into his ribs or the wound on his side. “I don’t know…what you mean,” she gasped. He swatted her arms away, treating them like more of a nuisance than a threat as he pressed her harder into the floor.

“No violets,” he flipped her around, strong legs straddling her torso, “no advantage.”