Page 134 of Beneath the Light of the Moon

“Tell that to the blood collecting on your clothes,” she spat. While he was swathed in shadow, she could feel the wetness clinging to his clothing and see the darker stains of his blood. Anika remembered the way it felt when her knife had cut him, punctured his skin, andwhile it wouldn’t kill him, it’d make his healing processthatmuch worse.

Her fingers curled into claws, honing them into something to be feared. She aimed for his exposed flesh, eager to rend it from his bones. If she could bury a digit in any of his orifices or wounds, she’d be happy. While he may have brute force, she had pure rage. Currently riding the high of Levi being unconscious downstairs, she vowed none of her actions would be in vain.

Not for her.

Not for her parents.

“There’s going to be more once I get done with you,” Mikko said, his eyes flashing in the low moonlight streaming in through her bedroom windows. He caught her flailing wrists before squeezing hard to try and prevent her from continuing to attack him, but it had the opposite effect. Anika’s adrenaline dumped into her veins with a renewed vigor.

“I hope you bleed out on these floors,” she declared between grunts.

Mikko chuckled darkly. “You and me both,malyshka.”

The scent of him this close, the notes of patchouli and oiled leather, was something she hadn’t mentally prepared for. The last time they’d been this close he’d caught her making out with Levi.

Not counting the night he’d snuck in and watched her sleep…

Her secrets were unraveling, the plans she’d curated the past couple years coming to fruition. And she was drunk on it all.

“I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” she hissed.

“A shame honestly,” he said, releasing her wrists only to slam her against the floor. Her head cracked against it and all the air in her lungs rushed out, leaving her gasping. Reaching out, he clutched her jaw in his bloody grip.

“Look at me,” he demanded. Her mouth popped open in a smalloin his clenched fingers as her cheeks squished under his strength.

“You.” A gasp.“Fucker.”A wheeze.

Blood dripped from the laceration on his cheek, a droplet of crimson splattered on her bare face. He smiled as if the sight of his blood on her skin was intoxicating to him.

Bastard.

Mikko enjoyed making others suffer no matter what lies he tried to tell himself. He was exactly like Alek.

The cool kiss of his gun beneath her chin proved her point and stilled her movements. Desperation crept into the edges of her brain, warning sounds damn near blaring but she shoved it down. She wasn’t thirteen anymore; she could survive this. Resiliency was in her blood. Mikko wasn’t going to get away with this. She wouldn’t let him.

A taunt rolled off his tongue. “Fighting me only proves my point.”

“Typical that a man of your status would need such reassurances,” she fumed, whipping her head back and forth to try and break the hold he had on her face.

“The moment I walked in on you strangling Levi, I knew all I needed to.”

“And yet here I am, still breathing.” Her lips pressed into a firm line.

His muscles tensed at the insinuation, but he kept his mouth shut, content to prod her with the barrel of his gun. In his attempt to intimidate her, he’d loosened his hold, her arms wiggling free from between his thighs.

“Don’t make me regret sparing you,” Mikko murmured, the sound almost too silent for her to hear. She should’ve paused and asked what the hell he meant, but her brain was already in motion, her elbows swinging down, hard.

“Oof!”Air wheezed out of Mikko as Anika’s arm connected with his crotch. It served him right when he’d been too busy talking insteadof securing her. The wound in her arm pulsed with every beat of her heart, but she pushed on.

Bucking her hips up violently, she unseated him from around her waist. Knocking the gun from his grasp, she felt like she could breathe easier when it slid across the floor. In one final moment of retribution, she tugged at his mask. The eye portion was askew, momentarily blinding Mikko as she scooted away and got back to her feet. She only needed a few extra seconds to type in the code of her safe and she’d be free.

She could end it all.

Even if that wasn’t the original plan, but she’d acclimate—

Tendrils of her hair caught on his outstretched hands again as his fingertips ripped some of the strands free. She yelped, her thoughts of freedom and retribution cut short by his relentless grip. Mikko reeled her back, using her hair like a leash and she was a disobedient mutt, until her back collided with his chest.

His skin was hot against her sweat-soaked sleepwear, his chest heaving from the exertion. It reminded her of the night in the maze and the one in her house where he’d tied her up: the feel of him both infuriating and intoxicating. Even now, she couldn’t follow her brain when her heart refused to see this man as disposable.