Page 44 of Sweet Obsession (Savage Vow #1)

MISHA

The first thing that hit me was the scent, sterile, like antiseptic and painkillers. The second thing was the dull ache that stretched across every inch of my body, a reminder of how close I’d come to not waking up at all.

I opened my eyes, blinking at the dim light overhead, the ceiling unfamiliar. It took a few seconds for my brain to catch up with my surroundings.

I was back at the estate.

But how?

The thought left me groggy. I tried to sit up, only to feel the pull of bandages around my throat, my wrists.

I groaned, the sound raw and jagged in my chest. The pain was immediate, sharp, and deep, but it wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst was the emptiness that flooded my veins when I remembered what had happened—what I’d almost lost.

Luna.

A twinge of panic shot through me. I forced my eyes to focus, and it took another second to see her, sitting by the window, her back to me. She was still. Too still. And she was staring out into the yard like the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

She hadn’t been the same since everything went down. I hadn’t been the same, either. But I hadn’t had the time or the luxury of reckoning with what had happened, what she’d done for me.

What she had become.

I’d known her as a weakness, something to control. Something delicate. But when she’d thrown herself into the chaos to save me, that was the moment I realized I didn’t understand her at all. I thought I had power over her. I thought I had all the answers.

But she had taken control in the most brutal way, and I was still here because of her.

It wasn’t just the rescue. It was the way she fought. The way she didn’t hesitate.

I took a shallow breath and winced. My throat burned like fire, and it was all I could do to force my body to cooperate with the overwhelming desire to move. To get to her.

She hadn’t waited for my permission. She hadn’t even cared what it would cost. She’d seen the path and taken it, without hesitation. And in that, I saw the strength I had ignored for so long.

She was no longer a fragile thing to protect.

She was the storm.

I swallowed hard, managing to push myself up a little more, leaning against the pillows. My body was a mass of aches, bruises, and blood—too many reminders of the battle I’d barely survived.

“Luna,” I rasped, the word barely more than a whisper, but it sliced through the quiet of the room.

She didn’t turn at first. But then, slowly, as though the sound of my voice was a rope pulling her from the edge of her own thoughts, she did.

Her eyes locked on mine. There was no relief in her gaze. No joy, no peace. Only the cold distance that hadn’t been there before. Her lips tightened, but I saw the way she flinched, the way the breath she took was uneven.

She didn’t know how to deal with me anymore.

I could feel the divide between us, thick and suffocating.

It had never been there before. She was different now.

I wasn’t sure what it was. But I knew it.

She was stronger than I’d ever realized, and the change was unsettling.

Because it meant she wasn’t the woman I could manipulate anymore. She was something else.

“Luna, I...” The words were harder to say than I thought they would be. A part of me didn’t know if I deserved to speak them at all. But I had to.

She lifted her chin, a stubborn tilt that made something twist deep inside of me.

“You don’t need to say anything,” she replied, her voice low, almost hollow.

She stood from the chair by the window, her eyes locked on the floor as she moved closer.

Her movements were stiff, like she was forcing herself to remain composed.

“I do need to say something,” I pressed, my voice rough, each word a struggle. “You saved me. And I didn’t ask for it.”

Her gaze flicked to mine briefly, sharp, as though she was studying me. “I didn’t do it for you,” she said, her voice flat, a shield she had put up in front of herself. “I did it for me. Because I couldn’t just stand there while you died.”

There it was, the truth between us. It wasn’t about some twisted sense of duty or love. It was about survival. Her survival. And maybe, for the first time in a long time, I understood that. I wasn’t just the man she clung to anymore. She was the one who made the choice to survive.

I knew then that we weren’t the same anymore.

I was breathing, but I wasn’t alive the way she was.

“You’re different,” I said, my voice quieter now. “You’ve changed.”

Luna hesitated. Her shoulders tensed as she looked at me again, and I saw the flicker of something behind her eyes—something I couldn’t quite place.

“I had to,” she replied. “If I didn’t, I would’ve lost myself too. And I’m not about to let that happen.”

I watched her, the woman I thought I knew, now entirely untouchable. And I knew, with the weight of everything in me, that the world we were walking into was different now. I had seen it in her eyes, in the way she fought.

And I couldn’t control her anymore.

Not the way I thought I could.

The realization hit harder than any blade.

“I won’t let you go,” I said, my voice low, full of determination.

Her lips parted slightly, and for a heartbeat, I saw something softer in her eyes—something I hadn’t seen since before the violence. But just as quickly, it was gone.

“I don’t need you to let me go,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “I need you to let me be.”

And that was the moment everything between us shifted. No longer would I be the man who saved her. She had saved me, in a way I hadn’t even known I needed.

And now, the question was, could we survive this new dynamic between us?

Would we even want to?

Two weeks had passed since Luna dragged me out of that hell. Since I crawled through blood and metal, since I looked death in the face and chose her instead.

Recovery was slow. My right hand still trembled when I held a pen too long. I couldn’t lift my left arm past my shoulder without pain spiking up my neck. But pain was nothing new. Neither was the silence in this estate, now that the worst of the noise had been silenced.

Alexei was dead. Lev too. As for Chernov himself? The coward ran. Disappeared across a border with forged papers and no name. He’d been legally implicated, enough that his arrest would be instant on Russian soil. Exile was mercy.

He was nothing now. A ghost with no empire, no family. Forgotten.

And I should have felt victorious.

But Luna had been vomiting in the mornings.

And refusing to tell me why.

I’d asked. Once. She’d lied. Once. I didn’t ask again. But I watched her from the doorway every morning, bent over the bathroom sink with shaking hands and pale cheeks. I knew. And it scared me more than any knife.

I had no time to dwell. Being Pakhan meant no hours off, no room for doubt.

Yakutsk was fire and teeth. Every man wanted something from me.

The city’s veins ran thick with bribes, contracts, and blood.

The legal side alone took a full team—permits, logistics, laundering.

Then came the war meetings, the territories that needed my voice, my signature, my wrath.

Even now, I was buried in maps, reports, phones ringing every other minute—when the door opened without a knock.

Luna.

She walked in like she owned the place, but her face was guarded. That quiet steel she wore when she meant to start a fight she didn’t want to finish.

I didn’t look up. Not at first. “I’m busy.”

“I see that.”

Paper rustled. I forced my eyes to stay on the page. “Say it, malyshka.”

She leaned against the edge of the desk. “Two weeks left.”

My pen stilled.

She didn’t have to say it. We both knew. The contract. The twelve months. The countdown we pretended didn’t matter. It was almost over.

“I tore that paper months ago,” I said. “It was never real after you bled for me.”

“But it was,” she said softly. “And it still is.”

I finally looked at her.

Her hair was tied back. No makeup. Eyes rimmed with exhaustion. She looked like a woman unraveling—and I hated that I’d barely seen it until now.

“I’m not letting you go.”

“You don’t get to choose.”

“I do,” I snapped. “I have. Every day, I choose you. In this house, in this war, in every goddamn decision I make...”

“Then choose me properly.”

I stared at her.

She folded her arms. “No control. No threats. No force. If you want me beyond that contract, you do it right. Because I won’t stay trapped under your title just to rot in a gilded cage.”

“You think this is a cage?”

“I think it used to be. And now it’s something else. Something we haven’t figured out yet.” Her voice wavered. “But I want to be asked, Misha. Not claimed. Not ordered.”

“And if I don’t?” My voice was low.

“Then I want a divorce.”

The word sliced deeper than any knife.

She wasn’t bluffing. She meant it.

I stood slowly. “Where would you go?”

“Anywhere but here. I just... I need space.”

“You want space? Take the winter estate. Hell, take Yakutsk. Just don’t ask me to pretend I don’t want you here.”

“That’s not the point.”

She stood, too fast, and stumbled a little before heading straight to the bathroom.

I followed.

When she came out, I was there—close, too close, blocking her path.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, voice cold. “Tell me the truth.”

“Nothing.”

“Luna.”

She hesitated. Blinked too fast.

I reached for her arm, gently, and felt her tremble. “You barely sleep. You avoid meals. You vomit in secret like you think I won’t hear. You think I don’t notice?”

Silence.

Her lashes lowered. “Ever since you became Pakhan, you’ve been distant, always too busy for me.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“I know.”

“We are not what we used to be.”

“I’ll fix it.”

“You can’t fix it with promises. You fix it by showing up.”

She wasn’t yelling. That was the worst part. She wasn’t angry. She was hurt.

“I love you,” I said. “I’d burn the world again for you. But don’t ask me to be less than I am just to earn what I already died for.”

She looked up at me, eyes glassy.

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

I exhaled. Stepped back. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“The cinema.”

She blinked. “Now?”

“I booked it out hours ago. But I didn’t go. Too much work.” I paused. “Watch something with me. Sit next to me like you used to. We don’t have to talk.”

She hesitated, eyes darting to the door—like she meant to walk away. But she didn’t.

A long beat.

Then a whisper. “Okay.”