God of Pain (Legacy of Gods #2) by Rina Kent

I sigh. “Then I guess I’ll tell Jeremy about how you not only burned his property but also snuck into his sister’s room. Le sigh. I can’t guarantee he won’t be all savage.”

“If you wanted to tell him, you would’ve already.” The calm, rich timbre of his voice echoes around me like a song.

The one that haunts my waking and sleeping moments.

“I only wanted to give you a chance, and I did, but you chose not to take it. That’s just sad. One last chance to change your mind?”

“Tell him.”

“You…you’re bluffing.”

“You are.”

“W-what?”

“You hate conflict so much that you hide from it like Little Miss Ostrich. That’s also why you didn’t let that guard come in last night, then covered for me. It’s completely out of character for you to personally create conflict, so yes, you’re bluffing, Annika.”

My lips fall open.

Oh. My. Tchaikovsky.

Please tell me I’m not dreaming and that he actually said a whole paragraph. Oh, and he knows this much about me.

I didn’t think he really knew anything about me, let alone my character.

Maybe I underestimated just how attuned to details he is.

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to tell me the reason yet. We’ll get to that someday.” I link and unlink my fingers on my lap. “But you asked me what I want, right?”

He raises his brows, and why the hell is such a simple gesture enough to trigger a flutter in my stomach?

As if that’s not enough, a little part of me is whispering, whining, and absolutely grouching about where I’m going with this.

It’s wrong and you know it.

You’ll only get him in trouble and regret it.

But I can’t just ignore the other part, the one that’s yearning, living on borrowed air and needing to feel what it’s like to be alive.

To not just pretend I’m living, popular, and loved, but to actually breathe life into my sheltered existence.

Still, my voice comes out small, unsure. “I want you to spend an hour with me every day. Alone.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know, anything. Talking, just sitting here, reading, eating, maybe go shopping…” He scowls and I backtrack. “No shopping, got it. We can watch a movie.”

“A movie lasts for more than an hour.”

“Uh, okay. No movies either. But we can do everything else.”

“No.”

My heart shrinks behind my rib cage, but I force a smile. “Why not?”

“I will not date you.”

“I…I’m not asking you to date me.”

Okay, so maybe I was? But why the hell is he such a stone-cold asshole? Can’t he hurt people more gently or something?

“All the better then.” His face, expression, and tone are all caught in the freaking Arctic Ocean. “No dating will happen.”

“Hypothetically speaking, and only hypothetically, because this isn’t a real situation, why do you not want to date me?”

He reaches a hand to my face again and I freeze as he lifts my chin with two fingers. A charge of electricity rushes through me like a slowly brewing storm.

Tension rises, clings to my skin, and rips through my bones. I shiver, but I still can’t tear my gaze away from those ocean eyes.

They’re dark again, a manifestation of their owner’s changing mood.

I don’t know if the change is due to me or the fact that he’s touched me more in the span of twelve hours than he has in all the weeks I’ve known him.

But I’m caught in his web.

Unable to move.

Absolutely trapped under the calloused touch of his lean fingers that dig into my sensitive skin with the lethality of a whip.

When he speaks, the low, deep words nearly paralyze me.

“Hypothetically speaking, I have deviant tastes and violent tendencies for the opposite sex. You’re so fucking breakable, I’d crush you in no time.”





“How are you, baby angel?”

I internally shake my head to focus on my mother’s radiating features.

We’re FaceTiming like the coolest mother-daughter pair because that’s a thing.

If Jeremy counts as Papa’s clone, I’m Mom’s successful attempt at a 2.0. I’d like to point out that I would never be able to pull off her elegance, but we share the same petite features, the brown hair—though mine is longer—and the round eye shape. Though mine have a lot of gray—like Papa’s.

Hers are more haunting, as if they’re harboring a tragic story. And I know they are. A long time ago, before I was born, Mom wasn’t as happy as she’s been during my life.

Another thing Mom will always beat me at is ballet. Lia Volkov was one of New York City Ballet’s most renowned prima ballerinas. I spent my childhood watching her performances—secretly, because she wouldn’t have liked it—and being spellbound. I wanted to be like her at any price, to fly into the sky and know exactly where to fall.

Am I at that point? Not really. I’m at that crossroad where I have no clue whether I should focus on college or aim to be a professional ballerina instead. I fell in love with ballet at first sight at four years old, but I still find myself gravitating more toward academics. Since ballerinas have a short professional life, I don’t want to be caught with nothing to do later on.