Chapter 33 033
Natasha
I was good at being invisible. Years of practice had perfected the art of moving through rooms unnoticed, of helping without drawing attention, of existing in the spaces between other people's lives.
I was the quiet healer. The helpful sister. The woman no one really looked at twice and it was safer that way.
I had built my entire existence around being useful but unremarkable. I tended the sick, organized events and smoothed over conflicts.
Dimitri relied on me in his absent-minded way, grateful for my assistance but never really seeing me.
Seraphina was kind and appreciative, but I was simply part of the household machinery that kept things running, and that was fine. I preferred it.
Being noticed meant questions. Attention meant scrutiny, and scrutiny meant someone might see the rot festering inside me. The twisted desires I kept locked away inthe darkest corners of my soul.
So when Seraphina casually mentioned that Mikhail was returning for the coronation, I had barely held myself together.
It had been weeks since he left the pack, since I had last seen his face or heard his voice.
Weeks of carefully constructed distance, of trying to excise him from my thoughts like a cancer, and now he was coming back.
I fled the library before Seraphina could see how badly my hands were shaking. Before she could ask questions I couldn't answer.
The horror on my face must have been obvious, but she had probably assumed it was probably hatred, sibling rivalry or perfectly normal family dysfunction.
She had no idea of the real sickness that lived in me.
Night found me alone in my small chambers on the third floor, far from the Alpha's suite and from the main guest rooms.
It was a deliberate choice. Privacy was essential when you harbored secrets as vile as mine.
I had kept myself busy all evening, throwing myself into last-minute preparations, but now in the quiet darkness, there was nowhere to hide from my own thoughts.
Mikhail was coming home.
My adopted brother. My brother.
The word should have been a wall, an absolute barrier. We had been raised as siblings since we were children, both taken in by Dimitri when we had nowhere else to go.
We should have had a normal sibling relationship, affection, annoyance and the comfortable familiarity of shared childhood.
Instead, I burned for him.
The shame of it had haunted me for years, this twisted wrongness that made me hate myself.
I had been seventeen when I first realized my feelings for him weren't sisterly. Eighteen when I started having dreams that made me wake up gasping and mortified.
Nineteen when I first touched myself while thinking of him, then spent the next hour sobbing with self-loathing.
I was twenty-four now. When he left, I kept telling myself the distance would cure me. That the absence would kill this poisonous want. It hadn't.
The moment Seraphina said his name, my entire body had reacted. My pulse had spiked. Heat had flooded between my thighs. That old familiar ache had returned with vicious intensity.
I sat on the edge of my bed now, trembling and trying to maintain control, but the need was already clawing at me, demanding release.
No, I told myself firmly. Don't. Don't do this again.
My hand was already sliding beneath my nightgown. I fell back against the pillows with a shuddering breath, hating myself even as my fingers found the wetness between my legs.
Fuck, I was already soaked just from thinking about him, from knowing he would be here tomorrow. What kind of sick creature was I?
My fingers circled my clit with practiced efficiency, and I bit my lip to stifle the moan that wanted to escape.
The household was asleep, but I couldn't risk anyone hearing. I couldn't let anyone know what I was doing, what I was thinking about.
Mikhail.
His name in my mind was like pouring gasoline on flames.
I remembered the last time I had seen him. He had been hardened by military training, his body powerful and dangerous.
He had barely acknowledged me then, just a brief nod before leaving. As always, we had maintained our careful distance, the unspoken agreement to exist in separate worlds.
He had no idea how I watched him. How my eyes followed the way his muscles moved beneath his shirt, how I memorized the harsh lines of his face, the rare moments when he almost smiled.
My fingers moved faster, slipping through my slick folds, and I surrendered to the fantasy that always lurked in the shadows of my mind.
Mikhail finding me alone. Mikhail finally seeing me, not as his sister, but as a woman.
In my imagination, he cornered me somewhere private, his gray eyes, so like Dimitri's but colder and more predatory raking over my body with unmistakable hunger.
"You think I don't notice?" Fantasy-Mikhail growled, backing me against a wall. "You think I don't see the way you look at me?"
"I don't—" I would protest weakly, but he would grab my wrists, pinning them above my head with one large hand.
"Liar. You want this. You've always wanted this."
Two fingers pushed inside me now as I played out the scenario in my mind, my hips rocking against my own hand.
I imagined it was him touching me, claiming me and taking what he wanted without gentleness or apology.
He would tear my dress open, rough hands palming my breasts, squeezing hard enough to make me gasp. Then his mouth would be on my neck, biting and marking me as his while his other hand shoved up my skirts.
"Such a filthy little sister I have," He would hiss against my ear. "Getting wet thinking about her own brother. You're sick, Natasha. Sick and depraved."
"Yes," I whispered into my pillow, my fingers pumping faster, thumb working my clit in tight circles. "Yes, I am."
He wouldn't be gentle. In my fantasy, he never was. He would spin me around, bend me over and kick my legs apart.
I would hear the rustle of his trousers, feel the thick head of his cock pressing against my entrance, and then—
He would thrust into me brutally, no patience, no care for my comfort. Just taking, claiming and fucking me like I was his property.
One hand would fist in my hair, yanking my head back, while the other gripped my hip hard enough to bruise.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" He would snarl, pounding into me with savage intensity. "To be used by me. To be ruined by your own brother."
"Please," I moaned softly into the darkness of my room, my fingers working frantically now. "Please, Mikhail."
I could almost feel him, the stretch, the burn and the overwhelming fullness of him inside me. He would fuck me without mercy, each thrust punishing, claiming and marking me as his in the most fundamental way.
"Going to fill you up," He would growl. "Going to pump you full of my cum and make you walk around knowing you're dripping with your brother's seed. Make you remember who you belong to."
The orgasm hit me like a lightning strike, my back arching off the bed, my hand clamped over my mouth to muffle the cry that wanted to tear free.
Waves of pleasure crashed through me and it was intense and devastating. My pussy clenched rhythmically around my fingers as I imagined it was him, his cock and his release flooding me.
For a few perfect seconds, there was only sensation and release, then reality crashed back.
I lay there trembling in the aftermath, my hand still between my legs, my nightgown rucked up around my waist. Slowly, disgust replaced pleasure.
What was wrong with me?
Hot tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as shame engulfed me. He was my brother.
We had grown up together. Shared meals, shared space, shared a family, even though we barely spoke, and I was fantasizing about him violating me, using me and treating me like a whore.
I was sick. Twisted. Broken in some fundamental way.
This was why I kept myself small and invisible, because if anyone knew the truth about me, they would be horrified.
Dimitri would cast me out. Seraphina would look at me with disgust. The entire pack would know what a depraved creature lived among them.
And Mikhail... God, if he ever suspected...
I cleaned myself with shaking hands, changed my nightgown and crawled back into bed, but sleep wouldn't come. I stared at the ceiling, hating myself, dreading tomorrow.
He would be here. in the flesh and I would have to face him, knowing what I had just done, what I had imagined, what I wanted from him.
I would have to pretend I was just his sister when all I wanted was to be his.