“There you are.”
She turned to walk away, but it was his hand quickly curving around her wrist that stopped her. She froze all over, and a small tremor worked its way through her sinew. Air sucked fast and sharp into her lungs.
At the same time, she enjoyed the warmth of his palm against his skin. She liked the way his fingers tightened against her skin, and the pressure of his fingertips pressing into her racing pulse point. There was no way to hide the way his touch both terrified her and confused her.
Excited her.
Viktoria looked back at Pav but said nothing.
He quirked a brow. “I was going to say thank you.”
She nodded. “You don’t have to.”
Now, let me go.
The words came out in her mind, but not out of her mouth. She wanted to say them, and she didn’t want to say them at the same time.
How strange …
“Da. I was going to say it, but now I want to say something else.”
Viktoria wet her bottom lip, muttering, “So, say whatever it is, then.”
“You’re still scared of me?”
She blinked.
Her mouth worked, though.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“The same reason that everyone else scares me, Pav.”
He tipped his head to the side. “But do you approach them like you do me?”
“No.”
He nodded, and then let her go.
Viktoria swallowed hard, pushing back her fear. “You know, you should get out of the Compound more often.”
Pav’s gaze darted back to hers. “Why?”
“You look good out in the light like everyone else.”
Pretending to be normal. Acting like you fit in. Just like me.
He did smile that time.
Wide and beautiful.
Sinful, even.
She wondered if he could read her mind.
Was that possible?
“Except I’m not like everyone else, Viktoria.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, me either.”
• • •
“You look terrified.”
Viktoria didn’t even bother to hide her smirk when her oldest brother, Kolya, spun on his heel to face her. His gaze, colder than even hers on his good days, warmed momentarily as his stare landed on her. She grinned and held up the baby shower gift that she had brought along to add to the other three dozen gifts that were already piled high on a table and now spilling onto the floor. She was trying to ignore how full Kolya and Maya’s house was with guests for their party—it was hard.
She would try for her brother, though.
Maya, too.
Viktoria liked her.
“Do I?” Kolya asked.
“Hmm?”
“Look terrified?”
Viktoria laughed. “A little. I watched you stare at Maya for a minute or two. You looked … out of your element.”
Kolya passed a look over his shoulder at where his wife was currently engaging a whole room full of people. Viktoria didn’t miss the young woman who stood close to Maya, either.
Zoya Bennett.
Her half-sister seemed slightly uncomfortable from all the attention, and she supposed that was normal, all things considered. Zoya hadn’t really been a part of their world—Vadim kept her and her mother well-hidden from the rest of them.
“Who invited her?” Viktoria asked, referring to Zoya.
Kolya cleared his throat. “Be nice.”
“I never see her to be mean, Kolya.”
“Be that as it may, Maya invited her. Be nice.”
Her brothers assumed she just hated Zoya because she was the second daughter—the secret Vadim had kept. Frankly, Viktoria felt very little for Zoya in that regard. It wasn’t her fault that Vadim was a goddamn dog, or that he’d lied to his children for their whole lives. She was just a byproduct of their father, the same way the rest of them were.
She was fine with letting her brothers believe whatever they wanted to about her feelings regarding their half-sister. She didn’t plan to make an effort there—Zoya had never been a part of their world, and Viktoria figured it would be better if the girl stayed out of it altogether. Maybe then, she could be free.
God knew they weren’t.
They never would be.
Viktoria wouldn’t drag her in—not even to be friends.
She wasn’t surprised that Maya had invited the young woman, though. Unlike the two of them, Maya was a social butterfly. She could make friends with the Devil, and then proceed to make everyone else like him, too. How her brother—being a man like he was, with very little desire to be around other people—had found a wife like Maya … Viktoria would never understand.
But here they were.
“I just realized …”
Viktoria raised a brow when her brother didn’t finish his statement. “Realized what?”
“That I’m going to be a father.”
“She’s like six and a half months pregnant.”
He scowled as he looked back at her. “Quite aware, yeah? I go to the appointments and keep up to date on it all.”
Viktoria pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Kolya sounded so fucking defensive that someone might question his involvement or level of dedication to his wife and unborn child that it was amusing. Anyone who spent more than two minutes with her brother when he was around his wife knew very damn well that Kolya cared about nothing and no one the way he cared about Maya Boykov.
He shook his head and sighed as he crossed his arms over his broad chest. His gaze came back to her, and she offered him a small smile. “I think I didn’t have an … example of how to be a good father. And seeing all the blue things made me realize some people here expect one thing from a boy of mine.”
“Different than what you expect from him, you mean?”
Kolya shrugged. “Take it that way, if you want.”
She would because she wasn’t stupid. That was exactly
