by Lauren Smith
“Like emeralds burning me up. You won’t break so easily. I like that about you,” Vadym had growled. She had been chained to the wall in a secret hidden room in his office, suffocating slowly in the dark until he opened the door. That was the horror she’d faced every day. Wishing to die quietly, alone in peace in that dark little chamber, breathing in stale air, and not having to face the violence of the man who had stolen her life. There were so many days that she had longed for death, but it never came.
Now she was free, thanks to a paleontology professor named Royce Devereaux and his graduate student, Kenzie Martin. They had been kidnapped by Vadym and forced to help him smuggle fossils out of Mongolia, but Vadym’s plan had backfired. Royce and Kenzie had saved her life, and the three of them had made it safely to the US embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, about a week and a half ago. From there, they’d traveled to the US embassy in Moscow, where the staff had helped to sort out the logistics for her return home to the United States. So much of the days since her escape were blurry.
Once she’d been able to move around without constant pain, the US embassy in Moscow had moved her to one of their apartments while they worked on helping her get the documents necessary to return to the United States. Slowly, she’d begun to feel safe behind the gates of the secured building. And now, she’d started her journey back home by leaving those who had helped her.
Elena stepped onto the plane behind the other passengers and examined her seat number on her boarding pass. She paused in confusion because her seat number led her to business class. The US embassy had said they could only offer her economy, and her parents didn’t have enough money to pay for business class either.
“Miss, can I help you?” one of the flight attendants asked as he came toward her.
“Yes, um . . . My boarding pass says this is my seat.” She gestured to the expensive leather chair that could convert into a small bed.
The flight attendant examined her boarding pass and nodded. “Yes, that is correct. Please go ahead and take your seat.” He started to reach for her backpack to put it above her, but Elena clutched it to her chest. This was a mistake. It had to be. She sank into the seat by the window and waited for someone to come and tell her to leave. This couldn’t be her seat. She stared at the other men and women coming down the aisle. One of these people would have her seat. She just needed to wait for confirmation.
One by one the passengers walked by, but no one claimed her seat. She peered around the back of her headrest, noticing the plane was now completely full except for the seat next to hers. Why was she still in this seat? It made no sense. Airlines didn’t grant surprise upgrades, not for free, and she definitely hadn’t paid for this seat. Even though she was on the plane and should relax now, she couldn’t. Something was wrong—it had to be.
“We have one last passenger coming,” one of the cabin crew said to another as they started closing the overhead bins.
This had to be it, the last passenger on the plane. She blew out a relieved breath. Soon she’d find out where her real seat was, and she’d be all right.
She stared at the door expectantly, waiting for someone to come down the aisle and claim her seat. She mentally rehearsed her apology for taking the person’s seat. It was silly, but in the two months with Vadym she’d gotten used to apologizing for everything and begging for mercy. Now she felt she had to plan every encounter and rehearse every scenario so nothing bad could happen to her again.
Her breath suddenly caught in her throat as a tall, dark-haired man stepped through the hatch and into the cabin. He had a casual elegance to his clothes and movements that screamed old money. He smiled at one of the flight attendants, his lazy grin so charming that the poor woman nearly swooned as she offered to help him find his seat.
So this was the person who owned her seat. His gaze zeroed in on her. He came down the aisle to stop at her row. It was impossible not to notice the casual tightness of his charcoal trousers pulled against his thighs, and his white button-up shirt was what a rich man would wear to travel to a resort. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing the lightly tanned skin of his forearms. This man was an exercise in sexy elegance. Her throat ran dry, and she swallowed. Her heart kicked up a beat as something began to hum in her blood—attraction. She’d never imagined she’d feel attraction to any man ever again after what she’d been through.
Elena stood as the man checked his boarding pass and murmured a polite “Excuse me” before he sat down in the empty seat next to her, blocking her from exiting the row of their pair of seats.
“Excuse me, are you sure this isn’t your seat?” She pointed to her own.
The man faced her, his pure blue eyes so soft but also so intense that they made all the thoughts in her head flutter away.
“This is my seat.” He placed his hand on the armrest. His accent was Russian, but his voice was smooth, rich, like whiskey, not like Vadym’s guttural tones. This man was a true specimen of masculinity, with a jawline sharp enough to cut stone. He had the kind of face that she could see on a GQ magazine spread for Armani suits, Burberry coats, or Breitling watches.
“Oh . . . okay.” Elena collapsed back in the chair beside him, stunned. The hatch to the boarding ramp closed. So this was it. Somehow she had gotten insanely lucky, and for the next twelve and a half hours she was flying back to Los Angeles in business class next to this man. Maybe karma realized she owed her.
“You had better latch your belt,” the man beside her said as he put on his seatbelt.
“What? Oh, right.” She fumbled, shoving her backpack under the seat in front of her. She rushed to buckle herself, but her hands started to tremble and she had trouble getting the buckle to fit.
“Allow me.” The man suddenly leaned over, his muscled forearms right in her face as his hands gently brushed hers out of the way, then he clicked her belt into place. She flinched away at first, then relaxed. His fingers, even only briefly in contact with hers, made her skin tingle in a wonderful way rather than a bad way. She had the sudden urge to stroke her hands down his corded forearms and trace the veins that just barely showed on his tanned skin.
This was insane. Why wasn’t she panicking? A strange man being so close, touching her, should have sent her into a dizzying spiral of PTSD, causing her to pass out. But it hadn’t. Ever since she’d escaped Vadym, she hadn’t been able to let any man touch her. And now . . . ?
Was it because his eyes were kind? It sounded silly, but maybe it was the truth. Lips could lie, but cold, calculating malice couldn’t be hidden in a person’s eyes.
“Thank you.” She turned her face to the window to watch the ground crew load the final suitcases on the plane.
“Of course. My pleasure, kiska,” the man beside her replied.
Kiska? That was a word she didn’t recognize. She had studied two years of Russian, but there was still so much she didn’t know. She opened her backpack and pulled out her small pocket dictionary and searched for the word. When she found it, she shot another glance at the man.
He’d called her kitten? She shivered, yet not out of fear. A couple of years ago, when Elena had turned eighteen, she’d learned that she had a submissive tendency, but only in the bedroom. She hadn’t experimented, at least not officially, in the BDSM lifestyle. She’d had sex a few times with a college boyfriend that first year, and he’d tied her up once or twice, but while she’d enjoyed it, he hadn’t been that interested in the experience. She’d started researching about BDSM and learned that many Doms saw themselves as wolves and their subs as kittens or sweet things they would fiercely protect.
She had gone with a couple of friends to that bar in Moscow that night hoping to watch some BDSM play, to see if it excited her in real life the way it had in her fantasies. That had been her mistake. Even going with a group of friends, she hadn’t been safe. She had been ambushed when leaving the restroom, and for the next two months she had lived at the mercy of a sadist.
Elena closed her eyes as the cabin
crew was told to prepare for takeoff. She gripped her armrests tight, her hand brushing against the man’s fingers. She stared at the point where their fingers connected before she flinched and moved her hand away.
“Afraid of flying?” the man asked.
“What?” It took Elena a second to process what he had asked her. “Oh, it’s not that.”
He watched her with those vivid blue eyes. She’d never seen a blue so pure and clear. “Then what?”
“I . . .” Elena bit her bottom lip. She shouldn’t be talking to the stranger, yet something about him made her want to trust him.
“I really need to leave Moscow, and I’m just terrified that something will keep me here,” she said as the plane rumbled down the runway.
A breath released from her lungs as she felt the plane accelerate, and she sagged back in boneless relief. It wasn’t until she felt the plane leave the ground that she realized how tense she had been. Now every muscle in her body ached, and she tried to hold in a flood of emotions. Yet she couldn’t stop the outpouring of fear and relief that overwhelmed her.
“Excuse me!” she gasped and unbuckled herself.
His eyes widened in surprise as she scrambled across his body and into the aisle, but she couldn’t just sit. A flight attendant who had strapped himself in for takeoff waved his arm and told her to stay seated, but she turned away from him and headed toward the business-class bathroom. She couldn’t stay seated any longer. The gnawing anxiety of the past months made her feel sick to her stomach, and she needed a private place to cry.
She yanked open the door, the interior lights snapping on and disorienting her.
“Kiska.”
The sound just behind her had her whirling toward the man from her row, and a scream welled up in her throat as he crowded her. Terrified thoughts raced through her mind, and the pain of her experiences with Vadym battered against her nerves. She brought up her arms to stop him—Did he mean to strangle her? Rape her? Murder her?—but her strength was depleted after being so long abused. She was tired, defeated, and when he gently pushed her into the bathroom and locked the door behind them, she let him do so without a fight. She pitched forward as a sob racked her body.
“Kiska,” he murmured again, and then his arms were around her stiff body, gentle and firm.
The sob turned into real cries as she fell into his embrace, knowing now he wouldn’t hurt her and uncaring as to where his kindness originated. She leaned into his strength where hers was failing. The two months of having to be strong, of not allowing herself to cry or feel anything but terror or numbness and the threat of her imminent death, all washed over her. She was overwhelmed.
The plane hiccupped in its rise, the ding of the seatbelt warning lights sounding out, and she was reminded again that they were in the air, on the way home, far from the sadistic animal who had harmed her. She was safe. Her life was hers again. Even if she knew she’d never feel as alive as she used to.
“Kiska, please, dry your eyes,” the beautiful Russian man begged. “You’re too beautiful to cry.” He pressed his lips to the crown of her hair as if standing in an airplane bathroom with a stranger while she sobbed her eyes out was the most normal thing in the world.
She felt the plane level out and knew they were high up in the sky. Moscow was behind her, and she was never going back. When her body stopped shaking, she became all too aware that she was still in the man’s arms. A very strong and gorgeous man.
I should be afraid. I should be screaming.
Yet she wasn’t. She looked up at his face. Those eyes were still unbearably tender, and his lips were fuller than most men’s. Soft and kissable. But she didn’t want to think about kissing anyone ever again. Even if she wanted a love life, she was certain she would never be able to have sex again. She had scars, both inside and out, and the thought of being with a man again sexually filled her mouth with a metallic taste.
“Please let go of me,” Elena said.
The man instantly obeyed. “Do you feel better?” he asked in a low voice.
She nodded. He studied her a long moment before he seemed to agree she was ready to go back to her seat. “Good, because the cabin crew will be very unhappy. Let me speak with them first.”
Again she nodded, happy to let him deal with the mess she had created. She was too tired to face it herself. He opened the door, and she peeped around his shoulder to see one of the cabin crew glaring at them. The man who had come to her rescue spoke quickly in Russian to the flight attendant, and his glare faded.
“Are you feeling better, miss? Can I get you anything?” the flight attendant asked in English.
“Thank you. Can I just have some water?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Of course.” He went to the drink cart, and she and the mystery man returned to their seats. Everyone was staring at her, but she was too tired to care. She was unable to deal with the exhaustion and simply collapsed in her chair and closed her eyes.
“Thank you,” she told the man beside her, who had remained silent. She was glad. He wasn’t a talker, and for that she was relieved. She couldn’t have handled trying to answer any questions he’d asked her just then.
“You’re welcome,” he replied. She drifted off to sleep a few seconds later.
Dimitri Razin held his breath as he watched Elena fall asleep. It was taking every ounce of control he possessed not to let his dominant side out. He knew about Elena’s trauma, about her kidnapping, rape, and torture. He had been one of the people working behind the scenes to free her. And just today, as he watched her from a distance at the airport, he’d received confirmation that the man who’d done this to her, Vadym Andreikiv, was dead, by Dimitri’s own command.
Elena was safe from all but herself now, and that would be the hardest battle. It took a warrior’s heart to conquer pain and trauma such as what she had survived, but it was a battle he would not let her face alone. She didn’t know him, didn’t know he was friends with the professor who had freed her from Vadym, but that was a good thing for now.
She needed to look forward, not back. Learning who he was would only delay her healing. So he would keep his involvement a secret for now.
The flight attendant returned with a bottle of water and saw that Elena was sleeping.
“How is she feeling?” the flight attendant asked in Russian.
“Better, but very tired. I’m sorry we frightened you,” Dimitri said. He knew it probably looked like he and Elena were having sex in the bathroom, so he’d explained that she had a terrible fear of flying and had suffered a panic attack.
“Let me know if either of you need anything.”
“Thank you.” Dimitri turned his gaze back to Elena. He’d pulled a few strings to get her seat changed to business class and had made sure his seat was next to hers. His foresight had been prudent. She had already needed him, and he had been there.
He curled his fingers on the lever of his seat as he remembered how soft and silky her hair had felt beneath his hand. She was beautiful inside and out. Her honey-blonde hair glowed in the soft overhead lights, and her pure green eyes had fascinated him. She was fierce and brave. Now it was his duty to protect her from harm. He had grown bored in Moscow. Fighting corruption and greed had become less and less inspiring as time had passed. Saving Elena had given him a new purpose in life.
Dimitri grasped the gold signet ring on his pinky finger and twisted the thick band, an old habit he had while thinking. On the ring’s surface was the emblem of a feathered bird rising from a flame. A phoenix. Inside the band was inscribed “Virtute et valare luceo non uro,” which was Latin for “By virtue and valor I shine, not burn.”
It was the motto of the White Army, a private army of men and women who still believed in protecting the memory of the dynasty of the Romanovs in Russia but also in the power of a Russia that allowed freedom and truly democratic ideas to reign. They had spent the last century fighting against the Communists and the Soviets, as well as t
he corruption that had thrived and now fed upon its carcass.
To live in the White Army was to live with danger. The government sought to wipe them out, but Dimitri and his closest friends were talented at playing the game of seeming corrupt when in reality they were far from it. It kept them off the Kremlin’s radar.
Dimitri set the water bottle in the cupholder between his and Elena’s seats and retrieved his tablet from his briefcase. The other passengers were either asleep or watching movies or reading. He’d chosen the back row of business class so he would have a large dividing wall between him and the first row of economy class. That way no one could see his tablet screen.
He turned on his computer and logged in with his fingerprint before he accessed the file he wanted and then scrolled down until he found Elena Allen’s dossier. His friend Leo was the technical genius in their small cell, and he had dug up all there was to know about Elena, right down to her blood type. She was twenty years old and a junior at Pepperdine University. She had skipped a year of college by having good exam scores and taking college classes while in high school. She was a double major in anthropology and finance. Her favorite foods were pizza, lobster rolls, clam bisque soup, chocolate ice cream, and Diet Coke. She loved silly rom-coms and romance novels. She was a dreamer, but also a doer. She had been adopted at birth, taken in by an older couple in Maine who’d always wanted children.
Leo had acquired pictures of Elena’s past from God knows where. There were pictures of a tiny blonde girl in a grass-stained soccer uniform grinning at the camera. There were pictures of her face bent close to birthday cakes ablaze with candles, graduation pictures, and even one of Elena standing in front of a car at sixteen as she proudly held up her driver’s license. From the outside it looked like she’d had a perfect, coddled life. But Dimitri could read between the lines, she’d pushed herself at school, worked jobs during high school and college, earned a scholarship and worked hard. She was strong.