There were three guards and a tall, blond man already seated. When Viktor carried me through the door, they all looked up and then pointedly looked away as though they had seen something private.
I wriggled hard enough to turn my head and see the door slide shut, locking me into the plane with him. With the man who now tossed me unceremoniously down into one of the seats. He stepped back, running a hand over his mouth and jaw, and moved toward the liquor shelf. I watched, my heart pounding and my fists clenched, as he set a glass down on the low table between us. He was so casual about everything and it infuriated me. Especially because my temper was flaring, out of control like a wildfire threatening to consume me whole.
The rage burned in my chest and I blinked, my body working of its own accord. My arm came up and I seized the glass and threw it as hard as I could at his face.
As soon as it left my fingers, I regretted what I’d done. Yes, I might have a temper, but I’d never before loosed it on anyone like this, not even someone I hated as much as this man.
In the half second I had to feel remorseful, Viktor whipped his hand out and plucked the glass from mid-air. Dead silence reigned as he stood there, arm out and glass wrapped in his fist. His jaw twitched, but he kept his composure.
“You will sit down,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “And you will be quiet for the rest of the ride to South Carolina.”
Shaken, I slipped back into the seat and wrapped my arms around my body. Viktor didn’t look at me as he filled the glass and moved to sit with the blond man. They began conversing quietly and I watched them, my head leaned against the armrest. Once in a while, the blond man would laugh and Viktor would follow suit, although his laugh was far more reserved.
The trauma of the day had stripped everything from me, leaving me so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. It was morning when the turbulence from the plane bucked me awake, sending a jolt of fear through my body. I’d slept for the last few hours of the trip and I was draped over the chair, my coat open and my skimpy dress exposed. Pushing my aching body upright, I pulled the jacket close and blinked in the bright light.
We had just alighted on a strip of lawn with a brown tangle of forest visible through the window. Rising, I moved close and peered out into the sunlight. The woods outlined the yard in tangled branches and silvery trunks and they led down to a marsh edged with dead grasses blowing gently in the breeze.
I didn’t fight Viktor as he helped me from the plane, his hand resting on my lower back. The air hit my face, warmer than I was used to for January. The sun rising through the trees prickled my skin pleasantly and the air smelled balmy, like salt with a little hint of warmer days to come.
“We can walk across the lawn to the house,” Viktor said, taking my hand.
I stiffened at the contact, but followed him around the plane. On the other side was a large, modern house with a circular driveway and a spacious front porch. I’d expected any house belonging to him to be cold and off-putting, but this one was warm. Almost inviting. My eyes drifted beyond the house and my breath caught at the sight of the acres of marshland spreading out behind the house. There was a gazebo where the water started and a dock that led out through the rushes.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed, not even realizing I’d spoken aloud.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “We’ll be spending a lot of time here now that I have the alliance with Lucien.”
The alliance—a promise of peace between two warring clans. The promise that locked me away in the arms of this man. I glanced up at him as we walked toward the house and a spark of rebellion flared in me once again. I couldn’t break Lucien’s promise and refuse to marry Viktor. That would result in war and violence for everyone I loved.
But I didn’t have to just lie down and let him mold me into the perfect, little wife. No, I wasn’t going to become one of those unhappy women, traded away and locked behind their husband’s wealth. Lonely and unloved if they were lucky and terrorized and abused if they were unlucky.
Viktor’s hand closed around my wrist and he helped me up over the porch stairs. As he unlocked the door, a little, brown bird flew around the corner and alighted on the railing. I glanced over and a swell of warmth filled my chest. Even here, in this strange new world, the birds still sang, the wind still churned the trees, and the wind still blew the scent of earth.
I had always loved the outdoors. My father had indulged my interests and purchased me anything I’d asked for—binoculars, a butterfly net, hip waders, and dozens and dozens of glass jars to keep my specimens. My mother had found it somewhat disgusting, but allowed me to do as I pleased as long as none of my pets got free in her clean house.
I blinked at the bird hunched on the railing and it sized me up, its head twisting this way and that.
“Carolina Wren,” I said softly.
Viktor looked up as he pushed in the door. His pale eyes glinted almost white in the morning sun. “What?”
“It’s a Carolina Wren,” I said.
He frowned slightly as if confused and stepped through the doorway, gesturing for me to follow. Feeling distantly sad that he didn’t care, I stepped through the door. The wren flitted off into the dead ivy on the side of the porch and I stepped aside to let Viktor shut the door with a finalizing click behind us.
The house was decorated in a tasteful, modern style with exposed beams and light pine furnishings. I followed Viktor through the living area set with leather couches and a large, stone fireplace and entered the kitchen. There was a set of double doors leading out to a patio and beyond that stretched the marshlands.
Even in the brilliant, morning sunlight, there was something alluring about the marsh. The miles of flatland, dotted with bits of exposed water and brown rushes, made me wish desperately that I had my things with me. I could have waded out into the water and stood there in the early morning, listening quietly as the ducks rose up into the sky around me in flashes of color and sound.
I doubted Viktor would give me that kind of freedom. He probably wanted me stuffed into a perfect dress and heels, waiting for him to return from work with a meal already on the table. The mental image made me cringe.
“Are you coming?”
I glanced up to find Viktor already halfway up the stairs. Scrambling to keep up, I followed him to the second floor. We moved to the far end of the hall and he pushed open a door, revealing the master bedroom furnished similarly to the rest of the house. Sparse, like a single man lived here, but not entirely unpleasant.
“Are we…sharing a room?” I asked, my throat dry.
Standing beside him, the heat of his body scorching mine, I hoped he would say no. But he gave a quick nod and my stomach sank.