Chapter 1 - The Shadow King Steps Into the Light
The voice was not loud. It did not need to be. It possessed the heavy, vibrating baritone of a man who was accustomed to having the world stop turning the moment he opened his mouth.
It was a voice wrapped in dark velvet and crushed glass.
I froze. My breath trapped itself somewhere in the middle of my chest.
Julian’s cruel, braying laughter died in his throat. He lowered his pointing finger, his brow furrowing as he tried to identify the man who had just dared to interrupt him in his own territory. The crowd of wealthy onlookers shifted, parting like the Red Sea, pulled back by an invisible, suffocating gravity.
If someone had painted the scene, immortalizing the exact moment the power in the room violently shifted, it would look exactly like the image captured in
In the center, there I was in my emerald green dress, my hands protectively cradling the heavy curve of my stomach, my face a mask of shock. To my right, Julian was caught mid-laugh, his posture reeking of unearned arrogance, oblivious to the doom gathering behind me. And looming over my left shoulder, rising from the periphery like a god of vengeance in a pitch-black suit, was Nikolai Machado.
He stepped fully into the light of the crystal chandeliers.
He was even more terrifyingly beautiful than I remembered. His storm-gray eyes locked onto Julian with a cold, predatory stillness that made the temperature in the Hartwell Grand Ballroom plummet. The scar near his shoulder was hidden beneath the impeccably tailored lines of his dark suit, but the danger radiating from him was fully exposed.
Julian, realizing the man standing before him was not a waiter or a minor donor, puffed out his chest, trying to salvage his dominance.
"Excuse me?" Julian snapped, his pale blue eyes narrowing. "This is a private conversation. Who the hell are you?"
Nikolai didn't look at him. He didn't even acknowledge Julian’s existence. Instead, he stepped to my side. He didn't hover. He closed the distance completely.
He reached out, his large, calloused hand moving with a gentleness that defied every rumor attached to his name. He bypassed my waist, bypassed my trembling shoulders, and laid his palm directly over mine, resting over the swell of my stomach.
The baby kicked immediately against his warmth.
A muscle feathered in Nikolai's jaw.
"She is beautiful," Nikolai said, his Russian accent wrapping around the English words, thick and intoxicating. He was speaking to me, ignoring the hundreds of people watching. "You are carrying her beautifully, moya dusha (my soul)."
A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers. Julian’s crimson-clad fiancée covered her mouth with a manicured hand.
"What is this?" Julian sputtered, his face flushing a mottled, ugly red. "Serena, who is this man? Are you telling me you got knocked up by some random thug?"
Nikolai finally turned his head.
He didn't yell. He simply looked at Julian. It was the look of an apex predator observing a particularly loud, very stupid piece of prey.
"My name is Nikolai Machado," he said quietly.
May you like
The name hit the crowd like a shockwave. I saw a senator in the front row actually take a physical step backward. Julian’s father, standing near the bar, dropped his champagne glass. It shattered against the marble floor, but no one moved to clean it up.
"And I am the father of the child you just insulted," Nikolai continued, his voice dropping into a lethal register. "I am the man who holds the mother of my child in the highest regard. Which means, Julian Castro, you have exactly ten seconds to remove yourself from my line of sight before I decide to dismantle your entire bloodline."
