Chaos Tryst (10 page)

“Ariana Golde…” Maks paused. “Your father is Anansi, your mother Inari. From where does this Golde come?”

Oh-kay.
Talk about a non sequitur.

“When I was little I wanted to have a last name. My skin is golden-brown, my hair is sandy-gold. Golde made sense.”

“It is meaningless.”

“Maks.” Bad enough she’d exposed her feelings for him and he hadn’t spared her a thought. He didn’t have to get mean.

He sighed. “Perhaps,” he drew out the word, “you would like to choose something else. Something with more meaning?”

Had he lost it? Why was her middleman talking about last names? Who cared?

“What’s the point?”

Maks placed his hand on her knees and rubbed the length of her thighs. “I am open to helping you make a choice. For instance, how do you feel about the surname…” Another pause—this one longer than the others. “…Medved?”

Ari swallowed hard to push her heart out of her throat.
How do I feel…?

“Ooh, I like it.” Their gazes met and he…
Jeezy winkies. He smiles.
Epic pulchritude.

Maks entwined the fingers of his left hand with her right. He took her chin between thumb and forefinger, gently tugging her mouth to his. She closed her eyes so anticipation wouldn’t send her bouncing around the room.

Schwap.

Maks was wrenched from her grasp and she blinked to find him stuck to the far wall with webbing.

“
Baba!
” Ari kicked imaginary dust. Maks clutched the window frames on either side of him, struggling to pull free.

“I am here. Your man dares to give you his name without asking me first.” Her father tucked his hands beneath his arms, forming a W over his chest.

“
Baba,
you’re being nuts.”

“I would agree,” Inari chimed in, her hammer-striking-bells tone a warning to her husband. “We have tricked them in hopes of this outcome.”

“Any son-in-law of mine will observe propriety. There is a dowry to discuss and traditions to be honored.”

Dmitri sauntered over to where Maks remained pinned to the wall. Assessing his brother’s plight he tested the strength of the webbing, plucking a strand and allowing it to pop Maks in the chest. The younger Medved winced. Another chuckle rumbled through Dmitri. “I am wishing you the luck, Maksim,” he said. “Please try to negotiate with the spider so we may keep some of what we own.” More mirth followed as big brother left the room and subsequently the house.

Konstantin hadn’t budged. Off Ari’s look he shrugged in a gesture of
I wouldn’t miss this if my pants were on fire.
Medveds. They were a lot to handle. Ari stalked over to her father. She’d almost sealed her betrothal with a kiss and the trickster had messed it up with his shenanigans.

“
Baba,
you’re being ridiculously old school.”

Within a nanosecond her father went spider on her, filling the sitting room. He pointed one great, multijointed leg upstairs. His voice thundered inside her head.
“There must be something to occupy you in your room.”

She’d never yelled at her father before.
Big night for firsts.
“Are you freakin’ kidding me, grampy? I’m not thirteen.”

Five minutes later Ari threw herself onto her bed and texted her friends in a fury.

The sun had risen. At last. Maks balanced the covered plate he carried and rolled his shoulders. Fatigue lay over him like a fine coating of dust, but he’d finally struck a deal with the spider. Ari’s suite lay at the top of the staircase he climbed. She’d be his bride soon. Technically they were joined already. He had made her cookies to celebrate and, if he were being honest, in hopes she would look on him with the affection he craved. If cookies didn’t work she’d be happy to know Corbel and Trajan had ridden up on her Vespa an hour ago. The news would surely earn him a smile. Lovely returner.

And to think she believed herself a liar because she’d kept his parents’ statue and thus him with her through the night. Ariana Golde did not know her own power. There’d been no lie—she’d tricked him for his own good and gifted him with the confidence to utilize his chaos magick without limits. Destruction and creation were one. He understood it now. And in making him a better man she had also blessed him with a wife.

Maks reached the landing and knocked on her door. If his brothers could do for themselves what they had done for him, the Medved clan would live again. Perhaps then they could figure out a way to bring their parents back. Reviving Valentina and Mikhail while the reach of the curse was still uncertain did not sit well with any of the three. They wouldn’t risk it—even if they knew how.

A huff escaped the closed door. “Please tell me I’ve been set free.”

He entered and schooled his face lest he reveal the heart palpitations she evoked on sight. Ari lay sprawled on her bed, her chin resting in the bowl of her palms.

“You remain under house arrest but I have baked you cookies to make up for it.”

“Maks,” she breathed, giving him the smile he’d hoped for. She sprung to her feet.

He feigned indifference and sat down on the padded bench butted up to the foot of the bed. “It is nothing. Your mother suggested I do something with my hands—other than clenching them into fists—while I negotiated with your father.”

Her eyes lit up when he whipped the cloth off the plate of toffee choco-chunks he’d made her.
Good.

“I do not think I can live with the man. He has given us twenty minutes and warned me not to touch you.”

Ari took her place beside him. “There’s irony there,” she said, taking a cookie. She munched her treat, moaning and swaying a bit.

He had made a mistake coming into her bedroom. The bed whispered to him of bare bodies and heat and…Oh gods, he would be spider food before lunch. His vixen-
vorovka
saved him—and possibly her ability to walk straight. “We’re going to live here?” she asked.

“We must. At least until my training is over.”

A question scrunched her face. “Okay, break it down for me.”

Maks lay back, half on the bench and half on the bed. “I have to pay a dowry.” He groaned.

“More than your parents’ statue?”

“Yes. Four goats, twenty-five chickens and forty pieces of gold.”

“Get out.”

Maks shook his head with a smirk. “I am making the joke.”

“You had to be. My
baba
and I hate goats.” Off his look she clarified: “Too long a tale to tell now—” she flashed on fiendish, “—but they’re evil.” A pause. “So?”

“I have made your father a promise.”

“Okay.”

“I am to be his apprentice.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’re going to be the trickster’s apprentice.”

“Yes.”

Her hand fell across his thigh. “You’re going to learn to lie?” she said.

Just a little higher.

“I am not going to lie, vixen-
vorovka
. I am going to practice whatever your family calls lying.”

Ari snorted. “You love me don’t you?”

Why did he bother resisting? Maks pulled her on top of him. Grasping her face, he kissed her in an effort to wipe away all coherence. His hands slid down her neck and over her chest until his palms found her breasts. Perfection.

“Hmm, middleman. My father is going to break all your bones and suck out the marrow.”

He shuddered, but Bear could wait his turn. “Then we should stop. You are not worth dying for.”

“Maks!”

He couldn’t say what came over him but he laughed, great belly-shaking guffaws that flipped them both across the duvet. “The look on your face.” He curled into a ball with the force of his amusement.

Ari stroked his hair. “He laughs,” she said. “He finally laughs.”

It felt good to laugh. He pushed further up the bed and flopped onto her cushions, unable to stop chuckling.

Ari moaned as though in the throes of ecstasy—if said ecstasy were projected over a loud speaker. He was not touching her. Why should she moan this way?

“Unh, Maks. Ooooohhhh. Don’t put it there until we’re properly married,” she cried.

Vixen!
“
J’accuse,
” he told her. Maks threw his legs over the side of the bed. Anansi would be up the stairs and commence making Ari a widow in heartbeats. Jumping out of the window seemed a good option. And Maks would have tried—he definitely would have—if his vixen-
vorovka
hadn’t stripped off her jumpsuit. Her tawny-gold body looked exquisite in a red bra and panty set.

“You will be paying for this,” he said.

“You first,” she answered, diving for her covers as the sound of arachnid legs climbed the stairs.

“I will handle your father, Ariana Medved. And then I will come for you. After all, I don’t mind a little chaos.”

Where no great story goes untold.
The variety you want to read, the stories authors have always wanted to write.
With new releases every week, your next great read is just a download away!

Keep in touch with Carina Press:

Read our blog: www.CarinaPress.com/blog

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarinaPress

Become a fan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarinaPress