MILA
Igritted my teeth as I rammed my shoulder into the man’s chest. He resisted, digging his feet in as he tried to prevent me from taking him down to the mat. But I fought harder. I sought a little more energy.
No mantras of staying calm filled my mind when I was in this huge training facility.
No repeated warnings not to panic filed through my head while I was on this navy-blue protective mat.
No bursts of anxiety threatened to drown me and render me immobile.
Come on.
Come on!
I growled and doubled down on trying to bring my opponent to the shiny surface of the cushion.
You can do this.
You will do this.
Reaching around and twisting slightly, just to let him think that I was going to adjust my hold on him to bring him down, I waited for him to react.
And he did. Thinking that I was moving to shift my weight to my right leg as we twisted in this wrestling scenario, he countered to bring me down from that angle. I used his momentum against him, rolling over and finally slamming him to the mat.
“Good,” Roman praised from where he watched on the side, a strict coach and ever-watchful leader in this building. It was his domain, I’d come to realize.
“Good?” the soldier said as he winced and caught his breath on the mat.
I reared back and stepped off him while I waited for my heart to slow and my lungs to stop heaving from the exertion of defeating him. Him, another Bratva soldier who was easily a foot taller than me with a lot more musculature.
I’d taken him down.
Me.
The scrappy, short slave.
I tamped down the urge to smile in victory.
“Good?” he asked again as he got to his feet and shook his head. “That’s pathetic.”
“Pathetic that short stuff over here got you down on the mat, too?” another soldier in training teased from where he watched with others off to the side.
“Yeah,” Roman grunted, praise evident on his face as he watched me. “Very good, Mila.”
“That was downright embarrassing, Roman,” the soldier whined good-naturedly.
He held his hand out to shake mine, but I ignored it.
I wasn’t going to let anyone here trick me into thinking I was just “one on the team”.
Until I knew precisely what my role would be for Lev and his cousins, I had to stay on guard.
But Roman was right.
That sparring exercise was good. It made me feel good. And I tried not to let it get to my head.
“Go on, take a break,” Roman instructed, tipping his chin in the direction of the water bottles on the bench.
I wiped the sweat from my brow and stayed apart from the others as I went to hydrate.
It didn’t matter how tired I was at the end of a long day in here.
It was a healthy tired, a purely physical exhaustion of using my body hard and earning a deep rest in return.
It didn’t bother me how difficult it seemed at times, calculating which maneuver would best help me in a hard fight.
It was a mental exercise that pushed me to improve and learn from my mistakes.
I sat, sipping water as I watched other recruits, soldiers, and vetted Bratva men spar or fight on the other mats. This building was so large that it seemed like an entire army could practice in here and still have room leftover.
But that’s what they are.
An army.
Not a gang of buddies I’ll ever fit in with.
I heaved out a sigh at that morbid reminder. It didn’t depress me for long. Nothing could weigh me down with the rush of endorphins that followed a hard workout.
I wouldn’t admit it if anyone were to ask me, but I was thrilled to have this chance to spar and learn more moves.
Since I began here a week ago, starting that day after I instinctively wanted to protect Elena and Carina, I’d been enjoying this training.
It wasn’t a light and fluffy Pilates hour.
This was no easygoing cardio workout on machines.
Every day for a week, I’d been grunting and sweating and grappling and straining to stay on my feet with this crash course of defense and combat training.
It gave me the illusion of power, of tangible might that could be measured in the aches of my muscles. Of physical prowess that could be registered in the increased range of motion in my arms and legs.
But I knew better than to assume they were subjecting me to this intense workout regime for the sake of improving my confidence or stamina.
I had to have a purpose here, and since Lev had stolen me as his slave, it seemed that he was tweaking how I had been inclined to act like an extended member of security that one day.
He probably wants me to join the ranks of patrolling guards.
I’d be the only woman to do so, as far as I could tell, but that wouldn’t bother me.
Or maybe he’s going to set me up to be a spy and take out hits.
I wasn’t opposed to a more offensive and solo assignment like that.
Regardless of whatever my master and owner planned, I wasn’t gullible enough to assume that I was given the opportunity to train and exercise like this for the sake of my own interest or pleasure. All that they did for me here was to increase the success of what I could do for them.
Not myself.
Lev entered the building right then, and I willed myself not to react to him. Not to let my heart race.
He still doesn’t want me, though.
I hated how he’d seduced me that first day and proved how easily he could master my body into responding to him.
Instead of standing around and watching how I did, he approached Roman and then came to speak to me. On his way toward me, the two men sparring on the mat were instructed to leave.
“Ready for more?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.
He stood before me, stretching. I’d tried to shore up defenses and immunity to how good he looked, how hot he was, and how dangerously tempting he was with his lean physique and rugged face.
Only now, as I peered up at him from my seat on the bench, did I acknowledge he wasn’t in his usual suit or formal button-down with slacks.
A tight T-shirt emphasized his muscles. The hint of those tattoos beneath the fabric were more prominent now. His joggers didn’t hide much from my imagination, either.
I swallowed hard, catching on quickly.
He’s here to spar with me now?
That was new. That was… an interesting development.
I hadn’t been overly shocked when Nikolai, Viktor, Maksim, and even Alexei had taken their turns training with me.
They all came to work out here often, but I hadn’t felt this flutter of excitement when I was paired up to spar with them on the mat.
“Ready for what?” I asked, wishing that Lev would answer me fully for once.
Any time I spoke up to show my curiosity about what he expected of me felt like a vulnerability.
I wasn’t supposed to let him think that I wanted anything from him, not even an instruction or direction.
It had been drilled into my head from my years with Cartels and gangs that I wasn’t supposed to ask anything.
I wasn’t supposed to wonder or be a human with questions.
I wasn’t supposed to be a person who thought at all.
Just a thing, ready and primed to follow orders when they were given to me.
To ask more questions about what my job would be here, I’d suggest that I was impatient. That I expected something from my owner.
Lev never acted frustrated with me, though. He only seemed lazy and laidback about finding a job suitable for me. And that unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.
He tilted his head toward the mat. “I’m curious.”
I stood, determined to keep my cool around this man I hated to be so attracted to.
Curious about me?
Why?
You own me.
I’m not anything to you.
I followed him onto the mat, nervous and excited.
“I’m curious how you’ll handle me.” With that, he twisted and caught me by surprise, nearly slamming me down to the mat with a brutal maneuver.
I caught on quickly, though, peeved that I had lowered my guard at all.
It surprised me that he wanted to personally train with me, but I wasn’t going to let him think I wasn’t up to the task.
Over an hour, he tried to get me down on the mat. I suspected that he was going easy on me, not using all of his brute strength, but I wasn’t complaining.
I couldn’t. He had earned his reputation as a deadly man, and I felt it in his moves, in how rapidly he could assess the situation and anticipate my next move.
He was teaching me new tricks the others hadn’t, and I fully realized that he had no concern about advancing my skills.
He was committed to expanding my knowledge, even like this.
Similar to a key fitting into a lock, the notion that he wanted the best for me, to expect the best from me, simply made sense.
As the time blurred by in a long series of us facing each other off on the mat, with all the kicks, hits, and blocks between us, I had to admit to myself that I didn’t mind the physical contact with him, either.
Emotions that hit me when he seduced me that first day resurfaced.
And it was only with him. All the other men I’d sparred with had just been that. Men. People. Opponents.
I held my breath, tense as Lev succeeded at pinning me to the mat.
A grunt slipped from my mouth as the back of my head smacked the cushion.
Ow.
But also…
Whoa.
An intense spear of desire lit me up from the inside out.
He hovered over me, his skin shiny with the hint of sweat from how hard we were training.
His tongue slid out to trace the seam of his lips as he caught his breath.
But it was the potent stare he locked on me that had me nearly whimpering with need.
He covered me. Sheltered me. But he still had that predatory gleam of lust shining in his dark eyes, and that was what threatened me most.
I furrowed my brow as I gazed up at him, caught off guard with this experience of conflicting emotions.
Panting hard and wishing that I could be as impervious to him as I was to the other men here, I feared that his constant control and guidance were making me want something I couldn’t dare to have.
That his slow and deliberate consideration was mixing with a reliance on him, one I couldn’t allow if I still wanted to be free.
“Finally.” He roved his heated gaze up and down my face, still catching his breath. When his stare latched on to my lips, a zing of desire had me aching between my knees.
Finally?
Finally what?
Finally, you will kiss me?
Finally, you can let me know what this desire can taste like with you?
“Finally got you down,” he muttered with the hint of a cocky smile. He didn’t complete the expression, holding back. Instead of saying anything else, he climbed off me and offered me his hand to stand.
I ignored it, too shaky to trust myself to touch him when he induced such a bold charge of wanting more physical contact with him.
Fuck.
What are you doing to me?
What do you want with me?
I almost wished he’d assign me as a spy or guard or something, a position far removed from him so I wouldn’t have to analyze how he made me feel.
He thrust his hand out again as I watched him.
Then I took it, prompted not to let him see me as a defeat. In taking his hand, I tried to pull him back down. He growled at the fight, then with a huff of a laugh, he resumed sparring with me and doing his best not to let me tackle him.
As I tried to hide behind the focus of combat with him on the mat, I hated the nagging worry that wouldn’t be silenced in the back of my mind.
That stubborn concern that this could all be a trick. A game. A ploy to mess with my head.
He’d ‘bought’ me, and I’d never be able to feel “free” with him. It’d only be a mistake on my part to allow myself the pleasure or excitement of attraction.
He’s not here to flirt with me.
I’m not putting long days in here for a fitness routine.
I’m a tool to use and they’re only honing me like that.
As something to use.