by Lana Sky
Still thrusting, he commands me in a twisted language of curses and grunts. “Prove you’re not his. Scream for me.”
I do. Long and loud, without a damn given for who might hear me. I scream until the sound breaks off and air just wheezes from my lungs. Only now does he come, howling his release into my hair. Biting me. Digging in with his nails. The pain keeps me grounded. It makes it harder to ignore what’s happening. Harder to forget. Harder to survive.
With one more jagged pass of his hips, he kills me. Ellen Winthorp is no more, and there’s no one around to mourn her demise. Left behind is a hollow shell that falls to her knees in the dirt while her murderer looms above, wrestling his cock back into his pants.
Limp, I collapse against the cool earth, tears seeping from my eyes as my chest heaves. I’m sobbing in a way I haven’t…ever. Not after my mother died. Not after Robert made me his. Not after a madman mistook me for the sister who betrayed me.
Nothing has shattered me like this: his seed seeping out of me and his scent on my skin. Curled into myself, I howl, and I cry, and I bleed.
“Get up.” He nudges me with his foot when I don’t move. “Get the fuck up!”
I don’t. So he lifts me himself, hefting me by my shoulders with my legs dragging over the ground. He doesn’t return me to my seat. Instead, he moves to the back of the van and opens the trunk. It’s connected to the back seat, with a view from the rear windshield. Hiding or terrifying me isn’t his goal by shoving me onto the ledge and slamming the lid over me.
This way, I’m out of his sight. Only my mewled, smothered cries give me away as he returns to the front seat and continues to drive.
CHAPTER 13
T he van comes to a sudden stop. It’s too dark to get my bearings. I have no choice but to wait for the next phase of this ordeal in darkness.
My only coherent thought is to pull my pants up and refasten the zipper before the hood of the trunk raises and night air floods in. Blinking back moonlight, I can only make out a man’s general shape looming above me, rigid and shrouded in shadow. Mischa.
He says nothing as I huddle beneath his scrutiny. Instead, he turns away, his footsteps heavy and grated over an uneven surface. Gravel, I see once I lift my head. It paves a makeshift driveway stretching toward a weathered, two-story farmhouse a few yards away. It isn’t until I climb out of the van and approach the structure that I realize it’s the safe house—and that Mischa never covered my eyes this time. Why? A part of me hesitantly ventures an answer.
Because he knows I won’t be leaving. Alive, anyway.
Heavy with dread, I linger at the mouth of the doorway as my vision adjusts to the darkness. He’s paces ahead of me, and when he disappears down the hallway, I choose to follow him, finding my way through feel. Disorientation isn’t the only reason I cling to the wall for balance. I’m limping. Even Robert never left me so sore after one of his sessions. My legs shake, incapable of supporting my weight.
Breathe, Ellen.
Hushed voices drift from a nearby doorway, giving me some context as to where to go.
“I’m surprised he didn’t demand that fucker’s head on a platter,” a man says. Vanya? “Either way, it was smart to appease him. You can’t risk any more enemies. Not while we’re out in the open like this.”
“Even Nicolai wouldn’t dare challenge me,” a gruffer voice replies. “He knows who he owes his empire to.”
All conversation ceases the moment I reach the doorway. As it turns out, Vanya was the owner of the first voice. I spot him crouched in a corner, cleaning the parts of his gun. One look at me and the color drains from his face while round pieces of metal clatter from his lap to the floor.
“What the hell?”
I should move. I try to, but my legs don’t bend correctly. Before I hit the ground, someone grabs me, wrapping their arm around my waist. Vanya? No…
He’s in front of me, gazing on with horror as I’m lowered to the ground. “Mischa… Mal’chik, what have you done?” The fear in his voice wasn’t there before, not even when he warned me of what his leader was capable of. He won’t fuck you, but he will hit you.
“I’m done lurking in the country like a fucking animal,” Mischa says, continuing the thread of whatever conversation I interrupted. He sounds distant, as if he’s walking away, leaving me on the floor. “Tomorrow, we come out of hiding. We’re going home.”
A door slams shut, rattling the floorboards, and I know without even having to look that he’s gone. I can breathe again, noisily and labored.
“Fuck.” Vanya crouches beside me, swiping my hair from my wounded cheek. Agony alights his gaze: a pain I’ve never witnessed on anyone before—I’ve only ever felt it. That horrible feeling that someone you love might have done the unthinkable. Betrayal. “Did he…did he hurt you?” he asks softly.
He’s not referring to physically. Somehow, he’s been able to rationalize that difference to himself. His Mischa may hit and abuse others, but violate them? That would cross a line even he can’t fathom.
Slowly, I shake my head. It’s the truth. Mischa hasn’t hurt me. He’s decimated me.
And you wanted him to…
Vanya clenches his jaw, biting back a question he can’t voice. Instead, he rolls me onto my side and covers me with a jacket shrugged from his shoulders. “I’ll bring you food,” he tells me as I give in to exhaustion. “Get some sleep…”
F or the second time in a row, I awake on my own. A hazy, dreamlike daze coats everything in a fog. As I blink up at a peeling ceiling, I almost don’t remember. Where I am. What I’ve done.
I almost forget…
But then an undeniably masculine scent slams into me, ripping away the ignorance. I feel him, even before I see him towering above me.
“Get up.”
I comply, maneuvering my sore limbs just enough to rise onto my knees. Vanya’s jacket pools on the floor beside me, but I know better than to reach for it, even as my teeth chatter. I’m shocked to find a bottle of water and a sandwich on the floor as well, a few feet away. He kept his promise.
“Eat.” Mischa jerks his chin toward the food.
I don’t wait for a more explicit invitation. I cram the sandwich into my mouth and barely take a sip of water when he turns for the door.
“Come.”
I stagger, an uncoordinated heap. After I nearly run into a wall, he snatches my arm and manually steers me into the hall and out of the house. Outside, a strip of orange accents an otherwise dark sky. Sunset.
Once again, I’ve slept for an entire day. During that time, Mischa and his men have been busy. There are four vans gathered out front. The men move freely between them, packing materials. In one, a familiar face watches mutely from behind the glass and my heart aches. Small. Round. The girl.
Mischa kept her alive—for now.
“Look at the ground,” the man in question hisses.
I obey, allowing him to shove me toward one of the vans and inside it. I expect him to leave, but no. He climbs in after me, this time smothering any space that might separate us. His shoulder deliberately presses against mine, his thigh searing my hip.
As the door closes, his voice trickles down my spine, low and dangerous. “Did you think I’d let you stay near Vanya so that you could feed him more lies?” He rakes his fingers through my hair, unconcerned when they catch on tangles, making me wince. “What did you tell him?”
“N-nothing.” I breathe the truth against the window nearest me. Beyond it lies a lonely landscape of naked trees swaying in the darkness. The moon shows full and round—like his thumb blazing a trail across my shoulder and down, igniting a path through the cotton of my shirt.
My chest tightens as the air thickens in my lungs. Breathe, Ellen. But I can’t. He’s in my head as much as he’s beside me. Taunting. Teasing.
Destroying.
“Did you tell him that you threw yourself at me like a goddamn whore?” he snarls, his voice low for my benefit.
The d
river doesn’t react. Not even as his leader’s hand creeps…
I stiffen as his thumb grazes the clasp of my jeans. A slow, ruthless tugging undoes my zipper, link by goddamn link. Without panties as a barrier, his nail grazes my curls, tugging so hard that I jerk in place.
“Did you tell him that I forced you? Huh?” Something in his voice tugs at my consciousness through the building heat. An emotion. What is it? “Or maybe you came clean to him? Perhaps he’s the one encouraging you? I wouldn’t put it past him. The old man thinks a woman might save me—” A hiss rips from my lips as he tightens his grip on my hair, forcing my attention back to him. “Is that it?”
I risk more pain to shake my head. “N-no—”
“Maybe you’re right.” There it is again. That subtle dip in his inflection. Guilt? Fear? Suddenly, the answer comes to me. Shame. He cares about what Vanya thinks of him. “Vanya isn’t that selfish. He’d think you’re too good for me. Too innocent. Damn, you have him fooled.”
His thumb continues its deliberate descent, grazing me beneath the denim. I’m still sore from the night before. I haven’t washed. Wet, tender skin is an easy target. When he shoves his hand down the front of my pants, my body turns against me; muscles and nerves take on a life of their own. My thighs jerk. Spread.
“Maybe this is all your doing? Your plan to stay alive?” Mischa demands. His fingers cup me fully even though his seed is still there, drying between my legs. Rather than cringe in disgust, his hand twitches at the realization, stroking… “Are you really that desperate?”
“Y-yes.” The word comes unbidden as his fingers still. My hips jerk, seeking out his touch. I need it. Dark thoughts in my head battle for supremacy. But this…
As humiliating, and wrong, and terrible as it is. This keeps it all at bay like nothing else.
But I’ve angered him again. His thumb flicks against my needy flesh, nowhere near hard enough. Punishing me.
“Robert must like his whores cock-hungry,” he hisses into my ear while his thumb laves a slow, cruel circle along my entrance.
Cock-hungry. My inner muscles clench at the word. The raspy, dangerous way that he says it. Cock. His cock. Inside me.
My eyes flutter shut at the thought. The air feels thicker. My teeth descend into my bottom lip without permission, maintaining what little pride I have left by locking away a moan.
“What the fuck are you?” Mischa asks, flexing his fingers, dipping them inside me. “Do you really think this changes anything?”
Of course I don’t. Not even as my hands grip the seat on either side of me, my nails breaking off against the leather. That pressure begins to build again, sweltering in my stomach. Spreading. Tightening.
And then, just when I fear it might boil over…
He pulls his hand away.
Before I can regain my senses, something nudges my lower lip, ripe with the musky scent of me. It’s like I know what he wants before he even grates out the vulgar request through clenched teeth.
“Suck it.”
My tongue shoots out, tentatively brushing the rough pad of a finger. I taste myself. His sweat.
I swallow it down.
“Fuck.” He shoves away from me.
I open my eyes and find him glaring toward the front of the van. My legs are still spread, my pants hanging open. Slowly, I draw my knees together, hissing at the pressure still mounting between them. My fingers shake as they redo my zipper, but the tight confines of the denim aggravate the reckless heat he already started.
Cock-hungry. Cock-hungry. That phrase circles the inside of my skull incessantly. I can’t escape it. I can’t escape him.
My only refuge is found when I close my eyes and focus on my shallow breathing. Only now do I dip into the one arsenal I have against Mischa. I think of Robert. His face. His mocking, lethal smile. His brown, soulless eyes.
I remember the words he told me nightly, smothered against my hair.
“You belong to me, Elle. You belong to me…”
CHAPTER 14
“G et up.”
A car door slams in addition to the shout, snapping me awake. We’re here. Wherever here is. A hotel? As I peel my eyes open, I make out a shape looming in the darkness. Tall. Grand. A house? It’s nearly twice the size of Winthorp Manor, casting an impressive silhouette, even in the dark.
“I said get up,” someone commands. Mischa.
I scramble in the direction of his voice, stepping out onto a paved courtyard. A grand array of stone steps lead to the front of the house. The lair of another criminal who deals in cocaine?
No… Mischa’s posture is too relaxed for that, and his past words to Vanya spring to mind. We’re going home.
There’s an undeniable familiarity as he mounts the steps with me in his wake. Around us, the other vans park and the men disperse, carrying various materials in different directions on the property. I expect Mischa to shove me aside or direct me to Vanya.
But no.
I’m the sole possession he hauls with him to the front door of the mansion while his men clutch their guns and fall in beside us. I’m his captive, dragged across a grand entrance and up a winding staircase too quickly to even get my bearings or take in the finery.
His shoulders serve as my only scenery. Tense, solid muscle.
I’m not sure which direction he takes me in. I only know when he stops—at the mouth of a room with solid oak floors and a bed in the center.
It’s his. I smell him on the air, faint, as if he hasn’t been here in a while. The black sheets still contain some part of him, however. It’s a far cry from the lumpy mattresses he’s dominated before now.
“Take off your clothes.” He issues the command while slamming the door behind us, twisting the lock.
It’s a test. For some reason, he feels the need to try me in this arena. Like Robert, he’s addicted to this violent game.
But Robert never broke the rules. Impatient, Mischa rushes me from behind and strips me himself.
There’s no finesse in the way he yanks my jeans down my legs for the second time. There’s no predatory care taken to heighten my fear with every touch. His erection pulses against the base of my spine. Thick. Heavy. Like a steel rod encased in denim.
“Get on the fucking bed.” He shoves me forward.
I obey the command, mounting the mattress on my hands and knees. For a split second, I’m back with Robert, trapped inside his private suite while he runs his hand down my spine and watches me tremble.
“Beg,” he’d prompt me, like always.
“Jesus Christ, you’re perfect,” Mischa growls, fury lacing every word. “Too perfect.” He shoves his palm against my ass, making enough room for him to brace himself behind me. His fingers return between my legs, finding that same slickness from before. “Fucking hell.” A sound rumbles from him I’ve never heard a human make. Deep. Throaty.
It rips through me, leaving me quaking in the aftermath.
“You…you’re wet for me, Little One,” he accuses in a tone that proclaims it’s the worst possible offense I could have committed against him. “Say it.”
My lips move of their own accord, breathing the words against the silken comforter in front of me. “I’m wet for you.”
“Damn.” He doesn’t expect the candor, sucking in a breath. A grunt breaks loose when he exhales, his breath fanning the back of my neck. “Say it again.”
My entire body shivers beneath the weight of such an insane command. I obey anyway. “I…I’m wet for you.”
Hissing, he rears back, forcing his legs between mine so that I’m straddling him from behind. He hooks his knees against me and spreads his open, forcing mine to part even wider. I have to brace my hands against the mattress for balance while he slides his fingers beneath me, cupping my thigh.
“Then show me.” His erection nuzzles that tender place between my thighs, impossibly hard.
Without thinking, I reach for it, blindly wrapping my hand around the base.
“Easy,” he snaps, grasping my wrist and forcing my grip to loosen. “Slower,” he explains. “Like this.”
Numb to reality, I keep going. He hums low in his throat as I stroke him from end to tip and my mind reels. He feels terrifyingly big. How the hell did he ever fit inside me?
My grip falters as he grows slicker with sweat. I have to rely on him more to support my weight. My knees shake, threatening to pitch me over at any second. I’m too far gone to give a damn about anything but this. His teeth graze my throat without a shred of gentleness or mercy. Just naked, scorching lust. The slower my hand moves, the more his cock twitches impatiently, until finally he bucks out of my grip altogether.
“I see it now,” he tells me. “Why he wants you back so fucking badly.”
I whimper as his teeth seize a chunk of skin, grinding it between them. My eyelids flutter, my spine curling and driving my hips against him. Nothing describes how it feels when his crown grazes my entrance. Nothing.
I’m still gasping at the feeling when his hand finds mine, guiding me to the sliver of space between us. He forces my fingers to curl and places them along the ridge of his shaft. Then he arches his hips, wedging the tip of himself between my folds. “Put me inside you.”
My eyes widen. Robert would never issue such an insane request. He’d never give me that kind of control. Over him. Over myself.
But it’s not surrender Mischa offers as he allows me to steer him inside me inch by painful inch. It’s possession in an entirely different way than domination. It’s madness.
It’s fucking unbearable.
I can’t stifle my moan. It trickles out of me, high and tight as my head falls back against his shoulder. Once again, he sinks in easily. Too deep. Too real. Desperate, my nails scrape at his hips, hunting for stability. Just when I find a position that works, he lunges, shoving me onto my hands and knees.