Page 9 of Watched and Bred by the Bratva (Bred by the Bratva #7)

W e don’t move at first. He’s still inside me.

Heavy and immovable. His weight pressing me deep into the mattress.

His chest is damp against mine. Our breaths are ragged, syncing slowly.

My whole body feels wrung out, trembling, full—not just from him, but from something greater.

From the sense that something inside me has finally bloomed after years of lying dormant.

I had been so afraid.

Afraid of pain. Afraid I was broken. Afraid I’d never feel what other women spoke of in hushed voices.

And now—this.

Every nerve hums. Every muscle aches sweetly. And I feel… alive.

Nikolai shifts just enough to kiss me. A slow, searing kiss. Not greed this time. Not hunger. A vow. He lingers there, lips soft at the corners, his large hand cradling the side of my face as if I’m made of bone china he’s finally allowed himself to touch.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine. His breath is rough velvet. “You’re mine now,” he whispers, reverent. “No undoing it. No going back.”

I can’t speak, so I just nod, dazed.

Eventually, he eases out of me. I shiver at the loss. I feel his release spill, hot and slick between my thighs. My cheeks flame, but he gently hushes me when I move to clean myself. “Don’t,” he growls. His voice dark, final. “Leave it there. Keep me inside you.”

The command alone makes my knees weak.

He leaves the bed briefly. I think he’s gone, but seconds later he returns—shirtless still, towel in hand.

He kneels next to me and wipes delicately between my legs, his strong fingers unbearably gentle where minutes ago they were merciless.

Stripping back one of the ruined sheets, he replaces it and arranges me as if I were spun glass.

It disarms me, this tenderness from a man who kills with steady hands.

Then he tucks me in against his chest. I nestle into the heat of him, dizzy, overwhelmed, my lips ghosting over the crosshatch of scars on his sternum.

I realize too late that some sound slipped from my throat—a small hum, almost like contentment. His body stiffens, then relaxes.

“Zoya…” he whispers. His pet name. The Russian endearment curling like smoke. Little one.

I blink up at him, and that unreadable face softens by a degree I’ve never seen. He murmurs something low in Russian at my temple. Words I don’t understand—except I do. They sound like devotion. Like blessing.

I think I’m floating into sleep when he presses a kiss there, breath warming my hairline.

“Drink.”

I protest weakly as he sits me up, but he lifts a crystal tumbler of water to my lips.

I sip, and he watches every swallow like it matters.

Then, without asking, he tears a cluster of grapes from a silver plate by the bed and presses one to my mouth.

I take it. He feeds me another, then another, until I whisper hoarsely, “I’m not a child. ”

“No,” he says simply. “You’re my woman. Which means you’ll eat when I demand it. And sleep when I say it. And walk this earth marked as mine.”

Heat blazes across me all over again, and I don’t fight it. I curl closer, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I fall asleep in arms that feel like a fortress.

I’m still trembling from having him inside me for the first time when he presses a kiss into my hair and mutters it again.

“I’ll give you that baby.”

My face burns, and the words tumble before I can stop them. “Not now. I checked my app. I still have five days until ovulation.”

His head snaps up and I rush to defend myself. “So if that’s all you wanted—”

His mouth crushes mine. Violent and hot, swallowing everything I meant to say. “If you never gave me a child,” he growls into my lips, “I’d still want you. You. Always you.”

He pushes inside me again to prove it—slow, steady strokes that drag me apart until all I can do is arch helplessly and believe him.

The days blur after that.

Each morning I wake to his mouth between my thighs, his tongue coaxing me awake as though my body is his first prayer of the day.

Sometimes he mounts me in front of the gilt mirror. One hand in my hair, ordering me to watch as he forces inch after inch into me. Other times he bends me over polished furniture, growling Russian filth into my ear while I come undone.

We skinny dip in the pool once, his body slick against mine under blue water, his cock spearing me with the wet slap of skin on skin.

Another afternoon he carries me into the lake, the sun flashing like fire on the waves as he thrusts into me at the water’s edge, his mouth stealing my laughter while I cling to him.

One night I beg to please him. My hands tremble as I wrap them around him, my lips sliding down slow, unsure.

I expect him to mock or correct me, but instead he fists my hair and groans like he’s unraveling.

“Good girl,” he pants. “So good. So beautiful in your submission.” And when he spills, he praises me until I flush with power I’ve never felt before.

One lazy afternoon we don’t even touch. We lie tangled under the sheets, sunlight pouring over us, my cheek against the beat of his heart.

“Tell me about your mother’s boyfriend,” he murmurs.

My stomach knots. I don’t want this. “It was nothing. Just a man who drank too much. He tried to grope me. I screamed. Neighbors came. It wasn’t—I probably overreacted.”

His body tenses like drawn steel. He tilts my chin up, his eyes burning into mine. “Don’t you dare minimize it. You were a child. He was not. There is no just. ”

I swallow hard. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“I do,” he insists. “Tell me—if you could serve justice, what would you do? Would you kill him?”

“No.” Tears prick behind my lids. “I’m not that kind of person.”

He studies my face, voice a rasp. “What if he hurt others? Girls who didn’t have neighbors to come running. Would you still look away?”

I choke. “He’s probably in jail or dead by now.” But curiosity edges past my fear. I whisper, “Would you kill him? If I asked you to?”

His voice goes low. Deadly calm. “If he hurt you? Yes. If he even thought about you? Yes. Because I am that man, Zoya. I can live with the blood of monsters. I will never live with your hurt.”

Something cracks open inside me. I don’t fully believe him, but I want to. God help me, I want to.

When he kisses me next, I kiss him like I’ll drown if I don’t. And when he slides inside me this time, it isn’t rough or wild. It’s slow. Reverent. His hand cups my face. His lips whisper my name. It’s the tenderest love I’ve ever known.

The next day I wander the property aimlessly, body loose and dreamy from too many hours in his bed. My legs still ache, tender reminders of him moving inside me.

Sunlight dances across the lawn as I drift toward the water’s edge. That’s when I see it—the smaller house tucked near the lake. Stone and glass. Beautiful in its seclusion. A guest house, maybe.

But the air feels heavy here. Too still.

I climb the short steps, press my hand to the cool brass latch, and push the door open.

Inside it’s dim. Shadows crawl across the tiled floor. The air smells sharp, metallic, wrong.

I step further in.

And then I see him.

Not Nikolai. Not anyone I know.

A man.

Naked, wrists bound in steel above his head, body sagging, face swollen and blood-caked. He hangs limp against the restraints bolted into the wall.

Alive. Barely.

My scream snags in my throat. Soundless.

I stumble back a step, heart pounding, vision spinning.

The sunlight, the sweetness, the laughter of moments ago—gone.

And with it, the fragile illusion I’ve let myself believe. That this house, that this man, could ever belong only to me.