Lies of My Monster (Monster Trilogy #2) by Rina Kent

Relief washes over me. Here I thought she was doing something stupid somewhere I couldn’t find her, but she’s been in here.

In hindsight, I should’ve checked my room, but I didn’t think she’d be here, of all places.

I stand in front of her, and she slowly looks up at me with wrenched eyes.

“You done dropping your fiancée off at home?” A slur interlinks with her words.

Sasha never, and I mean never gets drunk. Not even during her off days. When everyone else gets hammered, she’s more concerned about driving back here safely or making sure none of them commits a mistake they’ll regret.

So to see her like this is…strange, to say the least.

She always called me an emotionless vault, but she’s closed off herself. Even though she’s warm and friendly with the guards, she has this reserved quality that’s fairly hard to read.

“I didn’t.” I speak as calmly as I can muster. “As a matter of fact, she went back with her family.”

She laughs, the sound loud and unhinged before it ends in a hiccup, and she chokes on a tear. “You’re not even going to offer any excuses?”

“There are no excuses to offer.” I crouch in front of her. “Kristina is nothing but a business transaction. She’s only a step I’m using to reach the top, and she knows it.”

“And…you think that’s okay? You think that makes it any better?”

“Don’t be irrational, Sasha. You know that my goal has always been the sky, and this is a perfect method to accomplish that.”

“Irrational…yeah. I guess I am, right? I’m irrational for thinking about you with her, for seeing you holding her hand in public and putting a ring on her finger. You’re going to marry her, too. You will also have to put a baby in her to make sure this thing works out, no? It’ll be like a fairy tale.”

“Sasha—”

“I’ll never have that with you,” she cuts me off in a voice so pained, so broken, I want to kick myself in the balls. “I can’t be your woman in front of everyone.”

“That’s not a choice I made. You did.”

“I know…I know…I made myself into a man, and I have to live with the consequences. I have to…stay like this.” She sniffles and takes another sip from the bottle. “But if I…if I become a woman again, would you end it with her?”

I slowly close my eyes, and when I open them, she’s looking at me with so much expectation, the fact that I have to turn them black sickens me. “I can’t do that. You’ll be killed by the Pakhan and Igor.”

A sob rips out of her throat, and she hits my chest with the bottle of vodka, sending splashes all over my shirt and jacket. “And you don’t think you’re killing me right now?”

“It’s temporary. Once I become the one who rules everyone, you can be a woman all you want. No one will dare defy me.”

“And what am I supposed to do until then? Be your guard while you court Kristina? Watch you marry her? Kiss her? Bring her here? I can’t do that, Kirill!” She sobs. “I just can’t!”

My jaw tightens. “If you prefer to stay with Karina for a while, I will allow it.”

“No! I’m still in your space that way. I will still hear about you and your future wife, and I can’t…I can’t…”

“What do you suggest then?”

Her lips tremble. “End it with her. Choose me.”

“I told you I can’t do that.”

Fresh tears stream down her cheeks, and she lets her hand that’s holding the bottle fall to her side. “Then let me go.”

My hand flexes, about to turn into a fist and choke the fucking shit out of her. “No.”

“You can’t have us both!” She punches me in the chest. “I won’t be your damn mistress!”

“You’ll be whatever the fuck I want you to be, Sasha.” I grab her by the throat. “You owe me, remember? You also told me you love me and wouldn’t leave me only a few hours ago. Do you remember that or did you already forget about your promise at the first test?”

“I didn’t think you’d have another woman, or I would’ve never said that!” She pushes at my chest. “Please let me go. You’ll have your wife, duties, and stupid power, and I’ll have my own path. Do it for both of us.”

“No. You already pledged your life to me.”

“I want out, Kirill. If you…make me watch you with her, I’ll run away, and you’ll never find me.”

“Who are you running to, hmm?” I squeeze my fingers tighter around her throat. “Your lover in Russia? Are you using this chance to reunite with him?”

“What if I am? What if I fucking am!” She pushes me so hard, she actually manages to make me loosen my grip, then she frees herself and knocks me on my back.

I let her straddle me, tears clinging to her eyes, but her expression is that of a warrior. “You have a damn fiancée, so you have no fucking right to talk to me about a lover or a hundred of them. Fuck you, Kirill! Fuck you! Fuck you!”

Her tears drip onto my cheek, my nose, and I taste them on my lips.

My fingers bunch in her shirt. “You’ll never leave me, Sasha. Never.”