I never wanted to be a father. I never thought it would be in my future. I didn’t think I would care for anything or knew how to love. But Clara cured me of that ridiculous notion. She’d taught me what my true purpose was. She brought me back to life and if it was up to me, I’d have a fucking plethora of children.

I sighed, entering the private room where Hazel rested. It was late, and the neonatal wing of the hospital was hushed.

The bedside light glowed softly, pooling around Zel. I stopped beside the bed, drinking in the tiredness around her eyes, her tangled hair spread on the pillow. She couldn’t have looked more perfect. She’d fought and won. She’d created two intricate, incredible little lives.

Her forehead furrowed while she dreamed and I wondered what went on behind her mask. Oscar had been right about her. She was quiet but there was so much I didn’t know about her. So much she hadn’t shared. I didn’t know who’d fathered Clara. I didn’t know how she got the scar below her eye.

I’d tried to piece together little puzzles of what her life might’ve been like before Clara, but found I couldn’t. She hid her past so well and threw all her attention into her future.

I hadn’t pried because I wanted her to tell me on her own terms. But the curiosity never left. Then again, she didn’t know much about me. We’d come into this relationship hiding who we truly were and found a new identity in each other.

Our baggage had no room to be aired. And I liked to think nothing in our past mattered. If we kept it sealed and hidden, it would eventually cease to exist. Just a distant memory.

Reaching to cup her pale cheek, I swallowed back the overwhelming love.

Her green eyes opened. Foggy at first, but the moment she recognised me, her smile beamed with affection. Affection for me. What did I ever do to deserve her?

She cleared her throat and shifted, wincing a little. “Have you held them yet?” Her voice was hushed in the quiet space only interrupted by low beeps and monitors around the room.

A flash of fear darted down my spine. Hold them. I couldn’t. The past few months had been torturous. Day by day, the conditioning grew stronger again rather than fading.

I’d hoped it would disappear the more I ignored it, but it was the exact opposite—crushing me from the inside out.

“No. I can love them from afar.” I dropped my hand to link with her fingers, tensing a little as her grip threaded with mine. The familiar, unforgiving orders radiated up my arm, coercing with commands to hurt her.

“They’re yours, Roan. You have to hold them. They need to see their father.”

I swallowed hard, looking over at the twin bassinets. The babies were barely visible in bundled up blankets. They wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t made Zel my handler.

Not a day passed that I didn’t thank my fucking genius plan at giving her power over me.

If I hadn’t, she’d be dead.

After the incident in May, I’d had two more episodes. Two more times where she had to leave the realm of my equal and assert command over me. I’d told her how to say it, what tone of voice to use.

“Take your fucking hands off me, Operative Fox. Stand down this instant.” She cried every time she had to yell it, but at least she was alive. I didn’t begrudge her the power over me. It was the only way to love her and not chain myself twenty-four seven. Sleeping with handcuffs was bad enough.

“Maybe when they’re older, dobycha. Don’t make me. Not tonight.”

Her eyes flashed and the strength I loved about her tensed her body. “Tonight, Roan. It’s important.”

I wanted to scream at her not to push. This was one instant where I didn’t want her help. I needed time. Time to get my head straight and hope to God I had control. I stupidly hoped I could wait till the twins could speak and teach them the command to stop me.

That way my family became my handlers and they would all be safe from me.

I’m a fucking Rottweiler on a leash.

“Don’t.” I glared at her. “Leave me alone. Let me keep them safe the only way I know how.”

Her jaw clenched.

I leaned forward, encroaching on her space. “Think for a moment. You want me to hold two very innocent, very tiny human beings. You want me to touch new life while barely containing the violence of my past.” I jerked a hand through my longish hair. “You should know not to ask for miracles, Zel. Every night you try to push me to snuggle. To see if I have the strength to sleep with you in my arms.”

I leaned further, breathing hard. “Tell me what happens. Tell me how successful I am at holding you tenderly and sweet.”

Her gaze skittered from mine, sadness mixing with anger. “I don’t need to tell you what happens. We both know you’re getting worse instead of getting better. But…” She plucked the bedspread, eyebrows drawing together. Finally she looked back into my eyes. “If it’s getting worse don’t you think you should hold them now? In case you can’t at all?”

I hated that I’d lumped her with half a life. Half a man who could fuck her but never make love to her. A man who wanted nothing more than to give her everything all while my past tried to steal her future. I feared every day that she’d grow to hate me for my shortcomings.

I shook my head. “No.”

Zel clutched the covers. “Don’t be scared. You can do this.” She played the card that always made me bend to her will. “I trust you.”

It was an aphrodisiac to me. Gaining her trust. Doing things to justify that trust.

“You’re destined to kill me, aren’t you?” I groaned, dragging a hand over my face. She’d won and she knew it.

She smiled softly, her beautiful lips distracting me. “Not killing you—making you live.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “But be prepared to stop me if I can’t control it. I can’t handle the thought of hurting them.”

She nodded. “You have my word. I’ll watch you like an over protective mother.”

Ever so slowly, I drifted toward the two small cots. I looked upon two tiny raisin-like faces. One pink hat. One blue.

So tiny. So small.

Vasily and Vera.

Named after my brother and mother. I’d asked Zel if she wanted to call our daughter Clara, but her face had tightened and tears glossed her eyes. She said Clara was unique, and no one could live up to her name.

But then her gaze had come alive and she offered me the world. She proposed to call them after my lost family, I had to walk out of the room and hide my suddenly burning eyes. I’d turned into a fucking sap. I wanted to buy her every fucking jewel on the planet to show how much the gesture meant to me. I still hadn’t told her about my lineage, or that the twins were now twenty-fifth in line to an obscure royal family who would never be recognised again.

Zel sat higher in bed, watching me. “Hold them. They’re yours, Roan.”

She could’ve fooled me. Both had dark hair, no red in sight. Vera had vibrant green eyes like her mother, while Vasily had ice blue just like his namesake. A small piece of me wrapped up in so much of Hazel.

I wonder if Clara looked so tiny when she was born.

My heart spasmed at the thought of the little girl who I missed with every part of me.

“Roan.”

My eyes darted to Zel; my heart thumped like a crazed animal.

She sat higher in bed, face strained from the delivery and what I was about to do. “You won’t hurt them. Believe in yourself.”

But I will hurt them.

I was too big, too unpredictable. Some days I was fine—able to contain myself. Others, I was a fucking menace and spent the day running on the beach or hiding in the shower with a razor blade.

I loved my perfect world, but I was exhausted for trying to be just as perfect. No matter how hard I tried, I would never fit in.

“Operative Fox, you will hold your son right now,” Hazel commanded in the voice she knew would give me no choice.

Obey. Obey. Obey.

“Goddammit, Hazel.” I glared, hating her for a brief moment for using the power against me. “You broke your vow, dobycha. I don’t appreciate being made to do something that might end up destroying me.”

Her shoulders slumped but eyes flashed with green fire. “I’m doing it for your own good.”

My limbs were no longer mine to control. They’d been given an order and I had no choice but to move forward and obey. Damn her. Damn me. Damn everything.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to dispel my anger. I loved her for wanting to help, but I was pissed.

How dare she break her promise? How dare she force me to do this?

That’s why I hadn’t wanted another owner. Willpower was never my own. It sucked ass not having a choice over my own fucking destiny.

I stood vibrating, looming over the cots. Don’t do it.

Obey. Obey. Obey.

I can’t!

My muscles hurt with disobeying but they were so tiny. So vulnerable.

Zel sighed heavily. The bedding rustled as she moved against the pillow. “I take it back, Roan. Operative Fox, you no longer have to obey.”

The release on my body was instantaneous. The crippling urge to scoop up my infants gone in a gust of relief.

I sucked in a breath. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair of me. But, Roan. Hold your son. You have to do it eventually. He can’t grow up with a father who won’t touch him.” She looked pointedly at the sleeping boy. “You’re the one who committed to this. So do it.”

I didn’t want to do any of this. I wanted the twins back inside Zel where they could be safe forever.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered.

“I heard that,” she snapped. “Watch what you say around them. You don’t want their first word to be a curse. And watch your emotions around them, too. You don’t want them to feed off your anger or frustration.”

I whirled to face her. “Then why the hell do you want me to pick him up! Aren’t I safer over here?” I stalked to the other side of the room, breathing hard. I hated the way my muscles wanted to obey and pick up the delicate bundle of baby, but I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have the strength.

I’ll kill him.

I’d be responsible for yet another death. Another murder of a life called Vasily. I. Couldn’t. Fucking. Do. It.

Zel huffed, looking like a queen in her blue nightgown. “Don’t make me command you again. Don’t think I won’t do it. You know you’ll have no choice and you need to make this your choice, Roan.” Zel’s face softened. “I trust you; otherwise I wouldn’t tell you to do it. As much as I love you, I wouldn’t let you near Vasily and Vera if I thought you’d hurt them.”

My heart swelled, and I almost fell to my fucking knees. It never got old hearing that she loved me. She—this perfect woman who put up with all my fucking bullshit. I also loved the way she said their names. It was like conjuring the family I barely remembered. Making me whole for the first time in my life.

Ah, fuck. She was right.

I had to do it. I had to face my fear and win.

Clenching my jaw, I moved back toward the basinets and bent over the tiny newborns.

With my heart in my throat, I placed shaking hands around the thick blue blanket and scooped up the lightest human being I’d ever held.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

The conditioning crescendod through me with the power of a wrecking ball.

No!

My muscles locked down as I stood shaking and terrified. My jaw ached, battling the conditioning, forcing myself to hold on.

He was so light and tiny. So fragile. It was utterly dangerous for me to be anywhere near him.

Keeping him far away from me, I looked into his screwed up, frankly ugly, little face. The blue hat made him look like a shrivelled up old man.

You’re mine.

He’s mine.

The bond that exploded through my heart almost beat back the conditioning.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

“Support him against you.” Zel laughed quietly. “He’ll feel unprotected at arm’s length like that.”

What was this woman trying to do to me? Fuck this was hard. Turning to face her, I demanded, “You have him. I can’t do it.”

She pursed her lips. “You’re holding him. You can do this.”

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

My head shook wildly. “No. I can't. It’s back. It’s worse. I don’t—I can’t—”

Zel didn’t say a word, but her eyes gave me the final order.