CLAIMED BY THE RUSSIAN TYRANT

12

“Oh, come on now, Princess. Don’t be shy. Take a good look at the brute face you just tried to carve your Sokolov initials into,” Alexei probed sarcastically.

“Stop moving, Boss,” Ambrose muttered, frowning. “Your wound is deep, and it’ll swell if I don’t stitch it properly.”

“Try not to render me any more of a beast for Miss Sokolov,” Alexei said, his gaze pinned on Anastasia.

“You’re forgetting that I’m just your butler. I’m not a doctor,” Ambrose replied, the needle and thread poised above the deep gash that began near Alexei’s temple and followed his jawline.

There was a pause. Then, Alexei pushed Ambrose’s hand away.

“Come here.” Alexei gestured to Anastasia in a calm voice that nevertheless rang with authority. No longer eager to provoke him, she stood, feeling Xander’s gaze on her back like a hawk.

“Come closer,” he commanded. “It would only be fitting that you stitched up my face, since you’re the one who cut it open in the first place.”

Before Anastasia could protest, he motioned behind her. “Get a bucket, Xander. I don’t want her vomiting on my rug.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can’t be serious. I’m not a doctor,” Anastasia gasped. The sight of the torn flesh made her stomach churn; the thought of driving a needle through it felt diabolical. She swallowed the bile in her throat. “I can’t do it.”

“You can, and you will.”

With visible reluctance, Ambrose handed her the needle. Anastasia’s hand shook as she held it above Alexei’s face. Just as she was about to touch him, he warned, “I hope you aren’t foolish enough to entertain any thoughts of making this unnecessarily painful just to spite me?”

“No. I won’t,” she said weakly.

“Here. Drink some of this first. It’ll steady your nerves.” Alexei offered her his glass of vodka. If he had offered her poison at that moment, Anastasia would have taken it.

She took three long swallows, choked, then drank more. She would have finished it if Alexei hadn't removed the glass from her clenched hand.

“Too much will cloud your vision and make you clumsy,” he said dryly. “I don’t want you trying to stitch my ear closed. Now, get on with it.”

Turning his head, he calmly offered his torn face for her ministrations. Anastasia had never pierced human flesh with a needle before. She moaned in protest as the steel entered his skin.

Watching her from the corner of his eye, Alexei tried not to wince, fearing she’d see it and faint. “For a ballet dancer, you have an amazingly weak stomach. Didn’t you lot break your toenails in those shoes?”

Biting her lip, Anastasia dug the needle into his flesh again. The color drained from her face, and Alexei tried to divert her with conversation. “What made you think you had what it takes to be a dancer, anyway?”

“I... I’ve always wanted to be one.”

“But why?”

“Because...” She started, then stopped as a realization dawned on her. She had wanted it for her father. To make him proud. “I wanted to make my family proud,” she finished quietly.

“Because you didn’t want your father to see you as just a shiny prospect for marriage?”

That almost made her laugh. He watched the color return to her cheeks.

“Actually,” she admitted, “my sister... she was a great dancer. Is a great dancer. I wanted him to see me as a different version of her. A better version.” One that didn't disappoint, she almost added.

“Really? That must be awful. Fighting for your father’s attention like that.” He sounded so genuinely disgruntled that Anastasia couldn’t suppress a smile.

“It wasn’t exactly ‘fighting.’ I just wanted something for myself, you know? Away from Russia.” There was a pause. “Believe it or not, I have a performance next week. Well, I had one. If I hadn't come back...”

“And if I took you back to New York, would you still dance?” Alexei asked out of the blue.

She arched a brow. “Well, yes... I would.”

“And you won’t, by any chance, connect with your former lover?”

“Dmitri was never my lover. He was a friend. My betrothed, yes, but we never—”

“f****d?”

Anastasia flushed deeply.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Alexei said, completely unbothered. “That explains why you acted that way toward me when we first met.”

Anastasia took another tiny stitch, and then another, trying to stave off her sudden awareness of him as a handsome, virile male. Clean-shaven, he possessed a rugged beauty that had taken her completely by surprise. But what was truly disarming was her latest discovery: the Siberian Wolf, whose very name struck terror in the hearts of men, had the thickest eyelashes she’d ever seen.

“Are you a virgin?”

“You’re being too forward,” Anastasia snapped.

“How many damned stitches do you mean to take? It was only a small gash.”

Offended, Anastasia drew back and glared at him. “This is a huge, nasty cut. Quiet down so I don’t hurt you.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but his gaze fell drawn to her chest, where the fabric of the hoodie strained. Desire leaped inside him, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Have you ever been kissed?”

The question made Anastasia almost lose her grip on the needle. She shook her head, her eyes lowering to his lips. They were full, sexy, and tempting.

“Answer me with words, Anastasia,” Alexei rasped.

“No,” she whispered, acutely aware of the audience behind her.

“You’ve never been kissed? Not even by the Mirov boy?”

“No.”

“That’s unusual,” Alexei muttered. He raised his hand and traced her lower lip with his thumb. “You have beautiful lips, Anastasia. They deserve to be kissed more often.”

Time seemed to stop.

Alexei’s hand curved around her jaw. Her breath hitched. Just then, someone cleared their throat, and Anastasia pulled away as if burned.

She had finished. She’d stitched him in record time without retching.

Alexei might have grinned at her, but he caught the disdainful look on Xander’s face. It dawned on him that he was behaving like a lovesick fool—and with the daughter of his enemy, no less.

“You haven’t said anything about what’s to be done with Ambrose,” Xander said, breaking the spell.

“If I might say something—” Ambrose began.

“You have no right to utter a word after you snuck Miss Sokolov’s phone out of my pocket!” Xander snapped. He turned back to Alexei. “What are we to do with him? He’s not to be trusted. Let’s kill him and be done with it.”

“No!” Anastasia yelled. “You will do no such thing while I’m alive!”

“And who the hell do you think you are?” Xander challenged.

“Everyone!” Alexei said loudly, his head beginning to throb as the vodka kicked in. “We’ll settle this in Siberia.”

“What?”

Alexei gave Anastasia a look that was half-guilty and half-exhausted. “We’re leaving for Siberia tomorrow. I have business to handle there.“

“You—You said you would release me.” Anastasia Said, her anger returning in waves.

“Yes I did. After I’m done with you. But for now,” he stood up, dreading the words he was about to say. “I have a wife in Siberia who needs me.”