Könyvek Anyának

Nikolai Volkov I STEPPED INTO MY father’s office a few days later, trepidation curling down my spine. He’d called an impromptu family meeting. Very unlike him. He was a meticulous planner and scheduled any kind of meeting in advance. Whenever he’d call us all together to his office out of the blue like this, it usually meant something was going on. Aleksandr and Lukyan were already seated when I arrived, Aleksandr spread out on the three-seater couch (his usual spot) and Lukyan in one of the two armchairs in front of Father’s desk. “Father not here yet?” I asked, taking a seat in the chair beside Lukyan. “No,” Aleksandr grunted. Lukyan looked at me. “Tatiana make it to New York okay?” “Safe and sound.” It killed me not being able to go with her yet. I had every intention of going. There was no way I could handle being apart from her, even if she wasn’t pregnant. The fact that she was just intensified all of  those protective, possessive feelings I already had towards her. Times a b...

 Nikolai Volkov DRIVE FASTER, NIKOLAI,” TATIANA panted, kissing down the side of my neck. I tried to keep my eyes from rolling in the back of my head, the feel of her lips on my skin making me groan. The woman was going to be the absolute death of me. I dropped down a gear, shifting into third and stomped on the accelerator, zooming forward. When I woke up this morning, the last thing I expected was for Tatiana to take me to our son’s grave. We hadn’t been there together since we laid him to rest. I hadn’t been there since we laid him to rest. I knew Tatiana went there constantly, but I could never work up the courage to. Deep down, there was a part of me that felt like I didn’t deserve to go and see him. That I had no right, that it would be an insult to his memory. I hadn’t been there for him when he came into the world. What right did I have to disturb his afterlife just to make myself feel better? Apart from that first night when I got home, when Aleksandr had pulled me from my...

Tatiana Andreeva  I GROANED, MY HEAD pounding like a jackhammer in my ears. Where the fuck am I? What is going on? My mouth felt dry, a heavy grogginess working its way through every single one of my limbs, making it almost impossible for me to move. The last thing I remembered was fighting in the Arena. The flash of a gun. The pain of getting struck in the chest. Falling. A complete wave of disorientation. Nikolai. I swallowed the lump in my throat and struggled to push past the haze that controlled my mind. There was some sort of repetitive beeping noise swimming around in my head. It reminded me of what you’d hear in a hospital, like a heart monitor. Was that where I was? It made sense, given the last few bits of fragmented memories I could make out. The heaviness over my eyes slowly started to fade, and I used all of my strength to open them. I was right. I was in a hospital. The room brought back painful memories of the last time I’d been in a room like that, but I shut them o...

Tatiana Andreeva  I STEPPED THROUGH THE rubble and into the well-lit arena, keeping my grip tight on the machine gun that was strapped across my body. My ears filled with the sounds of screaming, crying, people fighting. Smoke curled into the air, hindering my ability to see properly, and small blazes of fire burned bright around me, courtesy of the explosive we’d just let off. A blaring alarm rang out into the night. I fired my gun, the recoil hammering into my shoulder. Thump, thump, thump. I didn’t differentiate my targets. I didn’t hold back, didn’t hesitate. Anybody who wasn’t a Volkov or part of our raiding party was free fucking game. Including the people buried beneath mountains of stone, crying out for help. The people who’d been sitting in the stands, cheering for the death of my Nikolai when we’d blown up the side of the Arena. It had been a mission and a half to get there in time, and even then, we almost didn’t make it. Luckily for us, the majority of Talon’s army had ...

Nikolai Volkov I STEPPED OUT ONTO the field, hand up to shield my eyes from the blinding light bearing down on me. The crowd erupted, screaming, chanting, stomping their feet and clapping their hands. “Volkov!” “Volkov!” “Volkov!” The atmosphere was electric. The excitement was contagious. Having been on the other side, exactly where they were, it made being all the way down there slightly disorienting. You could barely see a thing up there in the stands. The spotlights placed around the Arena made it almost impossible. The only thing I could make out was the outlines of the box seats all the way at the top, but they were way too far away to see who was inside them. Lukyan and Illayana turned slowly in a circle, mouths open slightly as they took in the Arena. The field had been condensed into one terrain instead of being broken off into several. Sand. They’d chosen sand. I wasn’t happy about that. Sand was harder to fight on. Talon appeared on the jumbotron dangling above our heads. He...