Page 30 of Darkest Oblivion

“Don’t use that word in my house,” he snarled.

His voice wasn’t human—it was fire wrapped in steel.

Then, without warning, he crushed me beneath him, slamming me onto the couch.

My back hit velvet cushions, his weight caging me, his body a fortress I couldn’t fight.

Panic clawed up my chest, my fists pounding his shoulders, my legs thrashing wildly.

“Let go! Let go, you bastard!” I screamed, my voice raw. “Don’t you fucking rape me! I’d rather die!”

Dmitri’s mouth seized mine, not a kiss but a conquest—hungry, brutal, as if he meant to swallow me whole.

His teeth sank into my lip, merciless, tearing until pain flared white-hot. Blood spilled between us, metallic and coppery, and still he didn’t let go.

His tongue licked the wound like a claim, a groan vibrating through his chest as though my pain fed him. I gasped, choking, my nails digging into his arms, clawing for release, desperate to push him away even as his grip only tightened.

“It hurts,” I wheezed when he finally tore back, my lip bleeding, my chest heaving under his crushing weight.

His eyes burned down at me, rage and obsession intertwined.

“Say that word again,” he hissed, his voice lethal, “and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

Blood trickled down my chin, my jaw aching under his grip.

My body trembled with terror, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of breaking.

I lifted my eyes to his, blazing with fury and defiance.

My voice shook, but I forced the words out anyway, sharp as broken glass.

“What word?”

“Rape,” he said, his voice a low growl, his grip loosening just enough for me to breathe—though his body still caged mine. “Say it again, Penelope, and I’ll do exactly that.”

My blood ran cold.

His words cracked through me like thunder, yet something in his eyes—dark, tortured, violent—held me prisoner just as tightly as his arms did.

“Didn’t you plan to force yourself on me?” I whispered, my voice trembling.

“No.” His answer was final. “If I wanted your body, Penelope, I could have taken it the moment you collapsed in my arms. But I don’t want a corpse that hates me. I want you—breathing, burning, breaking for me. And I’ll wait as long as it takes, because I don’t need to force what already belongs to me.”

He pushed himself off me at last.

His shadow still loomed.

His eyes burned with that same obsessive fire that both terrified and bound me. “You’ll be mine, milaya. And I’ll be yours—in this life and the next. You’re bound to me forever. I don’t give a damn what you think you feel.”

His vow wasn’t love—it was chains.

“I’ll never be yours,” I spat, dragging myself upright, my lip throbbing.

I wiped the blood from my chin with the back of my hand, smearing red across my skin like war paint. “Not in this world, not in your dreams. You don’t treat people like this and expect them to—”

“I didn’t sleep with any woman,” he cut in, his voice like a blade.

His gaze pinned me, daring me to doubt. “And I won’t break the vows I made at that altar.” His mouth twisted, the faintest shadow of a sneer curling his lip. “Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant.”