Ryland lifted his head, his steel gray eyes as cold as ice. Menacing. He didn’t try to hide the danger he represented. They had created him, they had betrayed him, and he wanted them to be afraid. There was tremendous satisfaction in knowing they were…and that they had reason to be.

Everything inside of him stilled. Calmed. Reached. He studied the woman. Her eyes were incredible, but wary. Intelligent. Knowledgeable. As if she recognized him, too, in some elemental way.

He wanted this woman to trust him. To give herself to him. To let him into her life.

My woman has a temper?”“I prefer to say I have a sense of justice and when someone crosses it, it is at their peril.

He had the feeling she hadn’t ever felt loved. That was going to change. He knew he loved her. He didn’t know when or how it started, it just crept up on him, but he wasn’t going to let her feel alone. She would always know she could count on him.

I need you, malen’koye plamya, just to breathe, to live . I’ve never said that to another human being, but it’s the truth. Not for Shturm, but for me.

He wanted to mesmerize her. To bring her under his spell. She was completely captivating him. Ensnaring him when he hadn’t thought it was possible for anyone to do such a thing.

She looked at him with an expression far too close to reverence. Bordering on real adoration. Real. He didn’t get real. He didn’t even deserve it.

She had taken him over when he wasn’t looking . When he’d been so busy binding her to him. Wanting his own woman for all the wrong reasons and realizing when he had her, what the right reasons were.