Avrora
The cool night air wraps around my body, soothing my mind like ice against fire.
It's the only thing that can balance me and calm the myriad of thoughts clashing in my head like the rough waves against jagged rock in a tempestuous storm.
And yet, my chest still hurts, my lungs still feel tight, and my heart is still fragile, like it might shatter if I think too much.
I've been here for hours, sitting on the balcony outside the bedroom. It was just after midnight when last I checked. Usually when I get like this, the pool would have seen me by now.
But the cacophony of emotions tearing me apart feels different to anything else I've ever experienced. I'm scared that if I move, I'll fade away and become nothing, not even a memory. Like Mischa Butyrskaya.
Is that really who I am?
If that's me, what happened? How did I get to be here, living the life of Avrora Galitze?
And what happened to the real Avrora?
Mischa Butyrskaya.
I've tried on the name several times in my mind and on my tongue since Anatoli gave me the shocking news that pushed me further into the dark abyss of confusion.
While I can't get used to it, the concept of me being someone else makes sense. It makes more sense than anything I've ever been told.
When I think back to how my mother acted around me for years after the accident, it was as if she didn't know me. But I thought it was because I didn't know her.
That was the giveaway-I didn't know anyone. I didn't remember anyone, and those who were supposed to know me didn't know me either.
So, what the fuck happened?
Dad, what did you do?
Dad?
He's not my father.
I'm already thinking like this is true because it's just the kind of fucked-up thing Uther Galitze would do.
I just don't know what he did. Did he steal me from my family? Is that what he did?
Jesus.
I've been living this life for so long, slipping into another person's shoes, and I never guessed things were off because I wasn't the girl people thought me to be.
I reach for the little picture in a golden frame I picked up downstairs earlier. It's of the Butyrskayas. Pavel, Vittoria, and their baby boy.
I've seen this picture and other paintings of them maybe a thousand times since I've been here. To me they are just people. I don't recognize any of them, and I barely look like them. It's just Pavel who has really light blond hair like mine. Vittoria's is brown and so is their sons. But Vittoria has the ice-blue eyes.
My ice-blue eyes.
I can't believe I could be here looking at pictures of my family without recognizing them as such, and I don't remember them.
The soft pad of footsteps has me lifting my head.
Anatoli comes outside and walks toward me. In my angst-filled state, I'm surprised I can think of him as the most gorgeous man I've ever seen in my life. And he just rolled out of bed with his hair a sexy mess.
He's wearing nothing but his boxers, and the moonlight bathes his dangerously gorgeous, tattooed body in a sexy silver glow.
I always want him, always need him even when I don't know I do. But is he still mine after we received this news?
He lowers his body next to me and takes the picture out of my hands.
"I wish I never had to tell you." His deep baritone voice, rusty with sleep, cuts into the silence.
"I needed to know. The time of truth that I've been waiting for has come. I'm just not ready for it, and if this is real, I'm not sure how to deal with it."
"Together. We deal with it together. The way husband and wife should." He holds my gaze, and I wonder if he means those words.
Does he even know what he's saying?
"Until... you realize what this all means, and the truth hits you, too. Then you won't be mine."
He straightens and stares me down. "What are you saying that for, Avrora?"
I can't even bear to hear him call me that. By that name. I would even prefer one of the endearments he christened me with. Valkyrie. Or baby girl. Anything.
"It's true. You took Uther Galitze's daughter. Your enemy. If I'm not her, then you have the wrong girl, and the appeal of it is gone. All you're left with is me. When you go back to sea, you'll most likely make that your new home, and I will never see you again." I hate the way my voice shakes then breaks. And the tear that slides down my cheek.
I go to wipe the tear away, but he reaches out and does it for me.
The gesture brings more tears, and my heart warms when he kisses them away, then kisses me softly at first, then hard and desperate.
So desperate he awakens my own need and desire for him.
He grabs my waist and lifts me onto him, then picks me up so I can wrap my legs around him.
Anatoli carries me back to bed, still kissing me in that devouring way I've grown used to. It makes my body come alive with spell-binding pleasure as the sensation sizzles through every part of me.
Thrills rush through my nerves when he sets me down on the bed and pulls off my nightshirt, leaving me in just my panties, which he rolls down my legs with that wicked smile he first used to charm me out of my dignity.
Now that I think back, he hardly had to do anything to charm me.
I was always his. Right from the moment we first saw each other.
I'm aware he hasn't said anything, but I want this moment so badly that I don't care. And while it would break me, if all we had was this moment where I could be with him as my husband one last time, I'd take it.
He lays me out on the bed and trails fiery kisses over my body, pausing to suck my hard nipples and lick and suck my clit.
When he has me moaning, he returns to my lips, and I taste myself on his mouth.
Moving to my ear, he licks the lobes. His warm breath strokes my skin, taming the fire into submission.
"Want to know how I feel about you?" he finally speaks. "Let me show you, my Valkyrie. Let me fuck the confusion and the pain and the sadness out of your system. Then you'll know where my heart lies."
My breath catches, stalling my senses, wrapping me in the protection of his words. I watch him take off his boxers, part my legs, then grab my hips to ram his cock into me.
The force is so strong I arch off the bed and cry out. Not in pain, but in pleasure. So much pleasure I'm robbed of every breath in my lungs.
My heart beats wildly, vibrating throughout my body in its own symphony until I'm lost in him and this moment where he's making me feel him.
He starts pounding into my body, fucking me deeper into the sensation. I feel him everywhere. Inside and outside of me, fracturing time and reality so nothing matters but us.
He takes me higher and higher with every secret part of me screaming for more.
I give myself to him, and he gives himself to me. We're no longer stealing; we're giving and taking equally. It's mindless ecstasy I want to remember forever.
The blissful pleasure turns to liquid fire, and I come hard and scream his name, pulling him under, too.
The savage energy burns between us, forcing another orgasm from my body as his furious pumps slow. When our breathing calms, he lowers himself on top of me and searches my eyes like he's looking for me inside this shell of a body I borrowed.
The longer he looks, the more I worry it's because he can't find the woman he married. But he cups my face with the gentlest touch and presses his forehead to mine.
He brushes his lips over mine and meets my gaze again.
"I have loved you since the first time I saw you." His voice holds a reverence I never thought possible from him, and his words fill me with everything I've wanted. "Love will always lead me back to you, because you are my home. And wherever I go, on land or sea, you will always be at my side and in my heart. I belong to you, Valkyrie."
Elation reinvigorates my soul, and the tears that come now aren't caused by pain but by love pouring from my heart.
"I love you, Anatoli Scarfoni."
He smiles. "I know."