Page 121 of Jewel of the Assassin

I grab her wrist mid-strike, yank her off balance, and slam my shoulder into her chest. The breath rushes out of her. She stumbles but snarls, driving her knee toward my side. It glances off, but I seize the opening. My arm snakes around her throat, locking her in the chokehold she once taught me, the one she warned me never to use lightly.

Her nails rake at my arm. She kicks, twists, but my grip is iron. “Don’t—hold—back,” she gasps, words shredded by lack of air.

And I don’t.

Valentina replaces my mother’s face. All faces.

I squeeze until Mamma’s body goes slack.

She crumples to the ground when I let her go. Still. Too still. My chest heaves like a war drum. My throat burns. The world tilts. “Mamma?” The word tears out of me before I can stop it. My heart claws against my ribs. Did I just—?GOD FUCKING DAMN ANTON TO THE DEEPEST HELL!

Anton approaches, crouching and checking her pulse with two fingers. “No pulse,” he says coldly. “Well done, Roman. You did what was required.”

“Youfucking killed her, Anton.” My voice breaks, Russian spilling hot and vicious from my tongue. I lunge at him, wanting nothing more than to break his throat, tear him down to bone. “Coward! You hide behind us all, behind her, behind me?—”

The guards are on me before I reach him, iron grips on my arms. I roar, spit, and curse. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Valentina, face buried in her hands, defeated, mourning.

Anton watches me, smiling faintly. My strength ebbs against the guards’ hold, the fight bleeding out of me, my hands shaking, the marks on my back howling. Another guard picks up my mother, throwing her body over his shoulder. I am a weapon turned on my own blood, a son forged into a monster.

And for the first time in years, I feel hollow. I feel nothing when they strip me and chain me to a long steel bench this time, my upper body positioned over half its length, the other with my feet on the ground.

A spreader is fixed to my legs and chained to a stake in the ground as Anton leers, “This client had very specific demands. How exhilarating the performance will be.”

Another night of whippings? I’ll welcome the pain. What else can he fucking take from me?

And then…shesteps into the arena.

Mother of God. Bloody Christ. And Devil take me!

My heartbeat pounds in my ear. Chest tightening, gut twisting, I watch as the one woman I’d vowed never to see again advances toward me. A man follows just behind her, carrying a black bag. My fists harden in the shackles. This is not going to be pretty.

Fiery red hair, icy blue eyes, and every curve in her form-fitting black dress impossible to ignore, she is a contract bounty hunter, one who uses her feminine wiles like a black widow to lure weak men into her web. And yet I was never interested, never tempted, evading her every time. She seduced me. And failed. It drove her mad.

When I learned she was spying, invading my supply routes, and threatening my allies, I exposed her to some powerful rivals. I believed she had been rotting in a dark hole somewhere all this time.

Now she’s back, sharpened and more vicious, ready to make me pay. I have my Queen, Valentina. No other woman could fill my mind—or my dick—with blood. This isn’t just pain she’s bringing. This is personal. Her presence presses down on me like a vice.

“So good to see you again, Roman,” Selene coos, her red-painted fingernails sketching my back.

My shoulders tense. “Wish I could say the same, Selene,” I taunt, appreciating her incensed reaction to the familiar mocking term. Nothing but salt in her.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

She stops behind me, her hands digging into the globes of my ass. “So strong. Such a beautiful specimen of masculinity.Wouldn’t you say, Alaric?” she asks the man.

He smiles, full teeth, brown eyes gleaming, confirming his twisted desires. “You were right, Selene. I’ve never seen his equal.”

I clench my eyes shut as her lithe fingers curve around my dick. Fuckfuckfuck! But I take a deep breath, controlling myself, willing myself not to respond. Wrong hand. Wrong woman. Wrong everything.

The horror rips through my blood because I know it’s inevitable. But I’ll hold out as long as possible.

She tightens her grip, rubbing harder, faster. “Youwillget hard for me, Roman,” Selene adds.

Every muscle in my back clenches.

The eager tension in the crowd thickens.

And then, she kneels, shifting until her wet mouth wraps around me. Valentina’s ear-splitting scream pierces the night. Enraged, I roar, writhing and struggling, muscles bulging. I thrash in the chains. But no matter how much I do, the stake behind me does not give. No escape. My tongue bleeds from my teeth, cutting it. The organ responds, forced from the strong, wet suction of heat. My throat constricts, and I hold back bile.