My Cold Prince [On Hold]

I shut my eyes as his hand wrapped around the back of my neck and his breath mixed with my own. I willed myself to believe my heart was racing in fear, in hatred, of all this man had done to me and my people. That I loathed the way his other hand tightened on my waist, tracing circles into my hip. The way his soft lips pressed against mine, gentle but insisting as his tongue slipped into my mouth. The way I felt the coldness in my heart call out to him as more swam into me, consuming every thought in my head until I wasn't sure where I ended and he began.

"Anastasia," he whispered against me as his lips trailed to my neck.

Something inside me broke as I reached up, trembling, to run my hands up his chest, his neck, and into that lovely black-blue hair. As he pulled my body tighter against him, the heartbreaking truth of what I had to do settled into me. The dagger on my inner thigh weighed down on my body and that useless part of me, the one begging to find a way to save him without wrecking the peace my people had known for millennia, sank further into my mind.

I let myself have this moment. My racing thoughts zeroed in to Dmitri's tongue tracing a line from the base of my neck to a sensitive spot below my ear. As my eyes rolled back and my body curved into his, he let out a dark, humorless laugh.

Right before his own blade pressed against the middle of my throat.

"Now, my love, you will learn just what we do to traitors."