: Chapter 33

I grit my teeth as the hot weld bites. It’s not over, not really. But I breathe through it.

Yana taught me how to breathe through tattoos. Polina explained that in natural childbirth, bracing against the pain makes it worse, so you have to relax and breathe through it. Accept that fear is natural. Pain is only pain. Fear is the killer.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Matvei watches, curious. “Did you even feel that?” he asks, shaking his head and staring at me in disbelief. “When they branded me, I thought I was going to die.”

I blow out a breath and wipe my brow. “It hurt.” I laugh under my breath. “Honey, I say this with love, and I hope it doesn’t sound condescending, but if men were the ones going through childbirth, the human race would’ve gone extinct centuries ago.”

My back throbs. My skin sears. But I breathe through it.

And I’m here.

I’m fine.

I wink at him. “Try keeping up, big guy.”

He doesn’t try to hide the way his gaze drops to my raw, red skin seared across my lower back. His breathing shifts. Slower. Heavier.

His voice lowers, intimate and rough. “You let me mark you. I’ll never forget this, Anissa. Thank you.”

I turn to face him, the heat between us already thick and coiled. He’s close enough that I feel his breath on my cheek.

His hand curls around my jaw firmly. Commanding. The kind of touch that doesn’t ask but claims. His mouth meets mine, all heat and hunger. I kiss him back, biting, resisting, pulling him in deeper because I love to fight him, and I love when he fights me back.

He groans low in his chest, the sound vibrating against my mouth. His knee slides between my legs and presses my thighs apart. “Show me your ring,” he growls. “I want to see it.”

I wiggle my fingers, my diamond engagement band glittering in the overhead lighting.

“Fucking gorgeous,” he says, gently moving his hands up and down my sides but careful not to touch the throbbing pain in my back. “You’re mine.”

“You think you own me?” I throw back at him, teasing, defiant, pushing against the wall of resistance I love. “You better fucking earn it.”

He does. He does.

In one swift motion, he lifts me as if I’m weightless. My legs wrap around his on instinct as he carries me toward the bed. He lays me down and places me headfirst. I grin, already half-naked from the branding. His hands make rapid work of undressing himself. And then he’s there.

Skin to skin. Heat to heat.

“I’ll stop if you say it, baby,” he says, his voice raw and possessive. “I know you’re in pain, and if you⁠—”

“Stop it,” I say, my words breathy. “Fucking take me. I want you. I need you.”

He takes his time, his movements torturously slow and deliberate. Slowly, his grinding thrusts force me to feel as he slides himself into me. His mouth never leaves me for long—on my neck, biting across my shoulder blades, dragging across my spine, but careful to leave the throbbing brand alone.

I dig my fingers into the bed, wishing I were on my back so I could drag my nails along his shoulders and mark his skin.

“I want you like this. Trembling under me. Marked by me. Mine.”

He thrusts in and out, perfect pleasure making the pain fade and give way to bliss.

I come apart beneath him, and he follows, moaning my name, buried to the hilt, his body trembling over mine.

His forehead meets my back. His breath kisses my skin in the brutal aftermath of branding and lovemaking.

“I love you,” he whispers.

My eyes flutter open, landing on the pressed black clothing that hangs on the back of the door. I let out a sigh.

“And I love you.”

“Let’s go, baby.”