Page 33 of Devil's Vows

“Together, the princes conquer and kill the dragon and free the princess from the tower.”

For a fairy tale, there’s nothing new there. “And what do you think will happen in the next book? Since this one is done?”

She’s here now, trapped, as trapped as Milana, only shedoesn’t realize it yet. My little bird, mymoya ptichka,hopped into the cage all by herself.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Irisha quips. “The princess saves herself.”

Gabriella breaks out in a laugh, and I chuckle as I shove my hands underneath those little armpits and lift my eldest into the air. “It that so? That’s Papa’s girl. You go for it,malyshka.”

I might need sons and that’s still my primary focus when it comes to my family, but in our new world, my princesses won’t be locked up in towers. They will know how to fend for themselves.

“Even better,” I say. “She’ll become a dragon herself, protecting her own treasures.”

17

GABI

Irisha is giggling down at Ivan, eyes sparkling as little Katya inches closer to me.

“I’m hungry,” she whispers, and I stroke my hand over her soft, golden curls.

There’s no jealousy between these girls, as Katya isn’t clamoring for her dad’s attention while he’s giving it to Irisha. Whatever Petrov has been doing as a single dad, he’s been doing it right.

“Me, too,” I whisper back, even though I’m too tense to even think of food.

Right now, I’d do anything to get away from Petrov, from his muscular thigh and its heat transferring to mine. His arm on the backrest. His hand right there, ready to play with my hair.

The way he just fell in with us caught me off-guard. Sitting down to read with the girls as if this is totally normal. I can’t even scoot up because I’ll squash Katya, and she’s such a little thing. His wife must have been a delicate woman, because these girls are small for their age.

“Pakhan,” someone calls from the corridor.It’s an olderman’s voice, scratchy and deep from decades of smoking cheap cigarettes.

“Vkhodi, Yuri,” Petrov says as he lowers Irisha to his lap.

Come in, Yuri.

I recognize the lean man from Central Park as he walks into the room. Without his cap and now dressed in a suit jacket and pants, he looks very different, but his eyepatch gives him away. The cap was good at hiding it, especially when he looked down, but I was on high alert and soaked everything in.

“You’re needed, boss. An urgent call from our supplier,” Yuri says in Russian, his gaze slicing to mine for a mere second as he holds out a phone to Petrov.

A rush of goosebumps floods over my skin at his words. His accent, the tone, everything reminds me ofhim.

Don’t even go there. It’s just the language’s cadence tricking my mind, making me think all Russian males sound the same. I’ve only heardhimspeak to me that one time, and it’s as if his voice got imprinted on my mind like a scent: flee at the first whiff of it.

Yuri is standing here, towering over me and blocking my exit. I can’t run. The clock turns back to a time long past and fear starts pulsing through my veins.

Surely, Petrov and Yuri won’t do anything to me in front of the girls. The thought is irrational, but it sprouts from deep within me. Having children around has never stopped the cruelty of men. No, sometimes, their cruelty is aimedatchildren.

“Irisha,” Petrov says, attempting to lower her to the floor.

As if she already senses he’s going to leave, she wraps her arms around his neck in protest. “We haven’t finished the story, Papa.”

“Some other time,malyshka. I’ve been neglecting my work for too long.”

Petrov unlocks her from his body with such gentle urging, itmakes me want to cry. It’s more than him being soothing and careful with her… It’s because I clung like that, too, once.

Irisha stands, and Petrov takes the phone.

Yuri’s one eye is on me, and my shoulders tense even more under his scrutiny. I hold my book too tight, denting the paper. I consciously let go, closing it to protect my illustrations but really hiding the tremors running through me by gripping the hard cover.