Chapter 206: Need for him

"A whore," she seethed.

I clicked my tongue and sighed dramatically, rolling my eyes. Then I pulled my hand back to flip my hair over my shoulder.

"Babe, I'm the goddamn Prima ballerina of New York City," I gave her the cruelest smile I could muster but I hated how it made me feel. "You can have Andrey Volkov when I'm done with him," I added.

After this encounter, that might be sooner than later.

All those feelings I thought I had a moment ago were now down the drain. There was nothing special between us.

This entire time I had been nothing more than an expensive fuck toy just like Luke said. Had it been thrilling for Andrey Volkov to pay for me?! Was it fun for him to own the city's ballerina?

The woman, his assistant, just stood there staring at me. Perhaps in shock that I would give up Andrey Volkov as if he was the toy in this scenario. I took the opportunity to turn and push the door before she could open her mouth again. Once under the brighter lights in the hallway, I turned and made my way for the stairs.

Despite knowing that I should go back and find Andrey Volkov at the ballroom, I was too rattled. Instead, I went for the stairs, in hopes of getting away. I needed to do it. Even if it was just for a minute. I needed to clear my head.

My hand lifted on its own and curled around his initial on my skin. It now felt like there was a rock on my chest and I yanked the necklace off as I swallowed the sob.

However, before I could throw it, the sounds of heels quickly clipping on the tile floor behind me made me turn around, and I saw just in time as Andrey Volkov’s assistant rushed to me. My hand reached out for the banister at the top of the stairs as I stared at her.

"It doesn't matter who you are. You're just another dirty human whore," her hands flew up at me. "Get out of my way."

I immediately missed the banister when she shoved me in the chest. The wind was knocked out of my lungs and I felt the world spinning as I fell down the stairs.

I tumbled fast and each tiled step would leave its mark on my body.

"Elena!" Andrey Volkov’s shout was the last thing I heard before my head hit the ground and the world turned black.

The lights through the windows were blinding. When I tried to pry my eyes open to the brightness of the sun, it hit me in my eyes and my head pounded against the inside of my skull. My heart was beating hard against my ribs and I heard the rhythmic beating echoing my heart on the monitor.

It felt like my body was weighed down by a ton of bricks and when I tried to move, I felt something in my arm. As I finally managed to open up my eyes, I looked out over the sea of white and blue of the hospital room and down to the IVs and monitors in my arm.

"Oh! My God." Sheer panic flooded my system and I tried to remember through the fog in my mind what had happened for me to end up here.

"I don't fucking care what you have to do."

That voice. I think I would know that voice anywhere.

"You take care of Harriet and make sure that we never see her face again."

"Eh! You want me to take care of her for good? For you, my Alpha, that's no problem."

I realized Andrey Volkov and someone  were just on the other side of the curtain in my room, right next door. My head was too clouded and my heart was racing too fast for me to focus on what they were saying.  I really didn’t even know why he was called Alpha.

I heard Andrey sigh deeply and I closed my eyes against the brightness of the sun blinding me.

"Don't worry, Alpha, your mate will be fine," The man comforted him. "Consider Harriet taken care of. You will never see her again."

"Thank you." I could almost imagine Andrey rubbing his hand over the back of his neck with the tension in his voice. "Keep it under the radar. No one is to hear a word of this."

"I have been at this game a lot longer Alpha. I can handle a wayward assistant. You, on the other hand, have a famous dancer to deal with."

I wished I could sink deeper into the bed as I continued to listen in on a conversation that I didn't think I should be hearing.

"To deal with? Elena is mine, and I take care of what's mine," Andrey snapped back at the man he was talking too and my heart flipped over.

"Alright, but you have meetings to attend after", The man huffed and I heard the doorknob creak.

"We can talk more once Elena wakes up," Andrey said, and the sounds of the hospital outside drifted into the room as the door was pushed open. "Keep me in the loop."

"Yeah, yeah. Nadeyus', yey skoro stanet luchshe." I recognized he was speaking Russian but couldn't understand what the man was saying.

"Ya Nadeyus', chto ona tozhe. Spasibo," Andrey replied in their mother tongue, then I heard the door shut.

The following silence was only broken up by the beeping of my heart monitor. I held my breath, listening to his shoes on the tile.

There was something else beneath that steady rhythm , a low hum in the air, like the faint vibration of energy thrumming in the room. His presence felt heavy, not in a usual  way, but in a way that made my pulse race faster. I didn’t understand it maybe it was just the medication, or the fear  but Andrey Volkov’s presence had always done this to me. I had a lot to ask him but not now.

Memories of the gala were rushing back to me, and I could feel tears building up in my eyes. All the unshed emotions were rushing back to me after the encounter.

Andrey Volkov and I had fucked in an alcove. I admitted my feelings for him to myself. Then his assistant revealed that she had been intimate with him before she pushed me down a flight of marble stairs.

Outside the curtain, his quiet breathing  changed and my heart pumped more.

But what reason did I have to fear? He was just a man , wasn’t he?