2. Sierra
TWO
Sierra
The Russians’ mansion isn’t that much different from Ma’s home. It’s on the other end of the city outskirts, a good hour’s drive away, but at the end of the day, it’s a rich gated community with lavish houses in all directions, spread out across far too many acres of land.
The driver parks the car inside the large, 10-car garage. Nikolai’s arm around my shoulder tightens while Kotya gets out, as if he thinks I’ll be stupid enough to try to bolt.
“You don’t have to restrain me,” I say, irritated. “I already agreed to help you.”
Nikolai grins at me. “Yeah. You agreed. But you could be having all sorts of thoughts ,” he emphasizes the word, “that could get you into trouble. We wouldn’t want that, would we? Now come on.” He gets out of the car, gripping me tight and pulling me with him. “Come along, zaya .”
I get out of the car, refusing his offered hand, and he chortles. I hate that I’m providing so much amusement to him, but I’m no damsel in distress, and I’m not going to act like one.
I promised obedience. I didn’t promise I’d roll over and turn into someone I’m not. I’m done doing that. Still, going along with them will make things easier.
Or so I hope.
Kotya glances at me, then to Nikolai. He says something to Nikolai in Russian.
Whatever it was, it can’t have been good for me, because Nikolai grins widely. “ Da ,” he answers.
I know that one, at least. Yes . Whatever Kotya had said, Nikoklai likes the idea of it.
Kotya looks back at me. “You are willing to do anything for your dear mamasha , yes?”
I tense, not liking the sound of that at all. “Yes,” I say warily. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to just…” But I am just going to do what they want because I promised, because I don’t want anything to happen to me or her.
My mother’s been through enough heartache.
Kotya strokes his beard and nods. “Then we will start tonight. We will test how far you will go.” He heads into the house, leaving the door open for us.
Nikolai grabs my shoulder and squeezes. “You heard the man, zaya. Let’s go.”
“What does that word mean?” I ask, resisting the urge to try to pull free from his grasp.
Nikolai grins at me. “Little rabbit,” he replies. “But you’re going to be a properly cowed rabbit, aren’t you? Not one who tries to hop away at the first sign of trouble?”
I clench my jaw. “I’m not a little rabbit.”
“We’ll see,” Nikolai says, and there’s something ominous in his voice as he starts to lead me inside. He nods to one of the men guarding the door, speaking to them in rapidfire Russian. All I recognize is when he says “Winters,” and I hate the idea that they’re talking about me, let alone in a language I don’t know.
The two guards exchange a look, their eyes going curiously to me. “Da,” the taller of the two says.
Satisfied, Nikolai continues to manhandle me along .
The place is decorated with a lot of marble. Even my father hadn’t gotten an entire marble wall just as a decorative piece. If you want to show off how rich you are, though, I guess this is one way to do it.
We go through a long hall and towards a set of stairs that lead down.
I tense.
Basements are never a good sign. Sure, it could’ve just been a totally conventional rec room.
But of course it’s not. It’s the kind with doors that lock from the outside and drains in the floor, because why not?
I shift nervously. “You don’t have to keep me in the basement. I’m not going to try to run away or anything.” I can’t hide the note of pleading in my voice. I know I’m a captive, and I knew things weren’t going to be comfortable, but this room scares the hell out of me.
Kotya motions towards the padded bench in the middle of the room. “Lie down. Show us your conviction. Show us we can trust you.”
Nibbling on my bottom lip, I hesitate — and I feel every bit the little rabbit Nikolai has named me. “What…”
I know what’s coming.
I don’t want to know, but I do.
Fuck.
I go to the bench anyway, sitting down on it. “Do you, um… on my back?” I whisper.
Nikolai barks out a laugh. “I don’t know. What do you think, Kotya? Do we want to see her pretty face when we fuck her?”
When we fuck her.
I feel like a virgin all over again.
Kotya says something to Nikolai in Russian, and he gestures to a cabinet with closed doors. Whatever he said has Nikolai laughing and nodding.
“Yeah,” Nikolai answers. “Okay, on her back, then. We definitely want to see her face.”
“Could you at least talk in English so I know what you’re about to do to me?” I ask, my voice wobbling. It makes me feel even worse .
“No,” Kotya says calmly.
Nikolai laughs again, and he goes over to Kotya to bump their shoulders against each other. He then quirks a brow at me when he looks back and sees me still sitting up. “Lie down, zaya . You really don’t want to make Kotya tell you again.”
No, I don’t think I do.
Dizzily, I lie down on my back on the bench. I’m grateful I’m wearing an old shirt and sweatpants, nothing to really look at, but… I don’t think I’ll be wearing them much longer.
Kotya ruffles Nikolai’s hair before going over to the cabinet. He has to unlock the padlock so he can open it.
My breath catches when I see what’s inside.
Those are torture devices. Long knives, whips, a very large saw. They’re all pristinely clean, but I don’t dare hope that means they’re an empty threat.
I let out a squeak, unable to even form words. I shake my head, my fingers clenching into fists as the urge to fight or flight overwhelms me.
I freeze instead, watching as Kotya pulls out a metal rod with a flat surface. It has a handle with a depressor, and I realize with dread that it’s an electric branding iron.
Nikolai, who seems in a perpetually good mood now that he has me here under his control, says cheerfully, “It’s a branding iron, if you don’t already know that. Because you’re just a piece of meat to us now. Isn’t that charming, zaya ?”
“No,” I croak out, shaking my head as the panic builds and builds. I’m going to throw up. I just know it.
“You are ours now,” Kotya says as he approaches me. “This will be the proof of that. Shirt up. Lift it above your breasts.”
“Wait, where are you putting it?” Nikolai interrupts, following him over. He doesn’t give me a chance to lift my shirt, instead doing it for me. He whistles. “Nice rack. Just the perfect handful.” He reaches down to squeeze one of my breasts, and I whimper.
“Above her heart,” Kotya answers. His lips twitch into a grin. “There will be no looking into the mirror without remembering who she belongs to. ”
I don’t want that.
I don’t want any of this.
“P-please,” I manage to get out, shaking my head. “Please. I’m not going to… I don’t… I can’t…”
“I still like the charm of branding the ass,” Nikolai says with an exaggerated sigh, ignoring me completely. “But you’re the boss.”
“It’s too easy to ignore a brand on her ass,” Kotya says. He places his large hand on my chest, just above one breast.
The branding iron hovers far too close to my skin now, and I can feel the heat radiating from it.
Kotya looks me in the eyes and smiles. “Take a breath and relax. The pain will be easier to handle that way.”
Incredulous at his so-called advice, I start to say, “Take a?—”
Kotya pushes the iron against my chest, and the pain makes me scream. The nausea I’d felt rises up again, and the second he pulls it back, I’m turning my head, vomiting all over the floor from the pain and humiliation and fear and everything else I can’t even put a name to.
The smell of burning flesh doesn’t help.
Nikolai groans. “Why do they throw up half the time?” he complains. “It doesn’t even hurt that much.”
I’m trembling all over, and I raise my hand to wipe my mouth off. The taste still lingers on my tongue.
“Not everybody has your pain tolerance,” Kotya answers. He sets the branding iron aside and wraps a hand around my throat to force me to lie back down, making me shudder all over again. “Nikolai, bandage her up. We don’t want it to get infected.”
“Yeah, got it,” Nikolai says. “ Then can we fuck her?” He walks away to one of the cabinets that isn’t locked, pulling out bandages and some sort of bottle.
“Please, not… not right now. I might get sick again,” I whisper, trying to hold still but finding it impossible not to shift beneath Kotya’s hand.
“You can fuck her,” Kotya answers coolly.
“You can choke her while I do,” Nikolai says as he comes back to me with that self-satisfied smirk .
I can’t say anything. The idea of Kotya choking me is horrifying, especially since Nikolai seems to like it.
“Give her the full experience. Well.” Nikolai shrugs. “Not the full experience, not until Yura gets out of jail…” He starts to slather cream on the brand. “Yura is there because of your family, by the way.”
Yura .
I’d known someone named Yuri , once — a Russian, too. But he’s gone now. Gone, but not forgotten, no matter how much my father had wanted me to forget about his existence.
That doesn’t matter right now, though. What does matter is that there will be one more person to hate me.
One more person to torture me.
This is just looking better and better.
Kotya gives my neck a light squeeze. Even as terrified as I am, I can see the interest in his eyes.
Yeah, he’s going to enjoy choking me. His hand is so large that he can wrap it almost all the way around my neck. If he decides to choke me for real, I’ll have no way to stop him.
But he did just brand me. Surely he isn’t going to want to kill me immediately.
“Yura will like her,” Kotya answers. Then he laughs. “He will like hurting her.”
It definitely can’t be the same person. Yuri had made it clear he didn’t hurt women. “You don’t have to hurt me,” I try to say, but my voice is raspy.
“Of course we do,” Nikolai says, applying the bandage to the brand. “There we go. Now we can have some fun.” He sets the bottle aside, looking down at me. “We’ll buy you better clothes than… this. Pretty clothes.”
Kotya snorts. “Let her hack computers in panties. Or in the nude.”
“As long as they aren’t those… granny panties,” Nikolai says, making a face. He slides his fingers under the waistband of my sweatpants, teasing me for a moment before finally pulling them down. “But I like lingerie. It’s like having a pretty package to un wrap.” He snickers, glancing at Kotya. “You would look good in lingerie.”
Kotya scowls at Nikolai. “I am a big, hairy man. Lingerie is for women.”
The fact that they can joke while stripping me down — while holding onto my throat, a light squeeze here and there reminding me of its presence, like I could forget — terrifies me even more.
The brand fucking hurts , and the idea that it’s forever makes it even worse.
Kotya reaches for my bare breast with his free hand and squeezes it once, before he starts rubbing circles around the nipple. “Yura would want to pierce her,” he says as he pinches the nipple. “But we will save that for when he is here.”
Nikolai makes a low rumbling sound of agreement, pulling my panties off and leaving me clad only in the pulled-up shirt.
I shiver, either from the cold or the fear; I’m not even sure which it is.
“Nice,” he says as he runs a finger between my legs. “I like it when they’re neatly trimmed like this.”
Like I want his approval. I do it for me, not anyone else.
Well. Maybe I’d started doing it for James, but I’d liked how it felt enough to continue.
Kotya nods approvingly. “What are you waiting for, then? For her cunt to send an invitation?”
Nikolai laughs. “Spread your legs, zaya.” When I hesitate, he spreads them for me, shaking his head. “You don’t get to lie there like a dead fish. Remember, your mamasha‘s life is on the line.”
A small whimper escapes me. “I’m… I’m not on birth control.” I’m regretting not just dealing with the side effects now, but it hadn’t felt worth it when a condom was just as effective and protected against STIs to boot.
“Then maybe we’ll end up having a bastard.” Nikolai shrugs. He has to force his finger inside of me, and he grimaces. “She’s tight and dry,” he complains.
Kotya pinches my other nipple, the one closer to the brand. “ Then you should work to make her less dry. Or have you not had a woman in so long you’ve forgotten how?”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were mocking me,” Nikolai says in what I’m sure is meant to be a display of indignation. Then he laughs and shrugs. “I’m not in the mood to warm her up.” Again he goes to the cabinet, and this time he comes back with a bottle of lube. “Sometimes I like to just shove it in, and you and Yura don’t let me do that!”
Well, great.
Now I’m going to potentially have to navigate a triad, which sounds about as fun as the rest of this.
“I am definitely mocking you,” Kotya answers with a deep chuckle. He squeezes my throat again. “Our zaya will grow bored if you keep delaying.”
“I am not delaying!” Nikolai huffs and pulls his own pants down, and I close my eyes. I don’t want to see what he’s going to come at me with. I can hear it when he opens the container of lube, and after a moment, he yanks me down so my pussy is at the edge of the bench.
Just like that, without concern for my body — or mind — Nikolai starts to shove his way into me. “Fuck, Kotya. She feels amazing.”
It doesn’t feel amazing for me.
It’s painful without my body’s own lubrication, and there’s no desire to lessen the sensation. He just forces himself inside, inch by inch, groaning all the while. “Zaya,” he chokes out. “Enjoy being tight while it lasts. Because… ungh, we are going to use you until you’re sloppy and loose, then use you some more.”
I squeeze my eyes more tightly closed, whimpering and making soft noises of pain that he ignores — or that he gets off on, since he’s hard as stone as he pushes his way in.
My eyes fly open when the pressure on my neck gets stronger. I glance up at Kotya, and he’s staring straight at me, his lips slightly parted as he squeezes my neck. I gasp, trying to suck in air, but he only tightens his grip.
I make a noise and reach up to claw at his arm. My body convulses, and the panic ratchets up inside me. I shake my head, but his fingers flex in warning, making it clear he could go even harder if he wanted to.
He could cut off my breathing entirely.
“Yes,” Nikolai crows. “It’s so hot seeing you do that.” He’s all the way inside of me now, bottomed out and feeling so impossibly big. I know that realistically, he’s probably not, but it still hurts.
Right as my vision starts to white out around the edges, Kotya loosens his hold on my neck. I gasp hard, sucking in the sweet air.
I didn’t think something could hurt worse than the brand, but almost choking to death has somehow overshadowed that pain.
“Her neck is so skinny,” Kotya says. “Easy to squeeze.” His eyes rake across my body. “And her body trembles so beautifully.”
“She’s squeezing me so tight,” Nikolai says, thrusting inside of me. He pulls almost completely out before driving himself back in again, still heedless of my body.
I think I’ll be bleeding after this.
Assuming they let me survive.
Kotya glances at Nikolai. “Are you close? I want to fuck her.” His hand pushes down on my neck, not quite enough to restrict my breathing but coming dangerously close.
I let out another soft sound of protest, blinking back tears. This is it. This is going to be my life now — used and discarded, stuffed away in a basement to be branded and fucked and choked and hurt.
I’m just a piece of meat to them.
But even as Nikolai fucks me harder, faster, I remind myself that the main reason they took me was because they needed me. They need what I know . They can’t just use me as a sex doll every second of the day if they actually want me to provide the information they’re demanding.
“Yeah, just a… Just a second.” Nikolai grins down at me. “Let’s see if one load gets you knocked up, zaya . Ready?”
I shake my head as much as Kotya’s hand will allow.
“Good!” he says jovially. He’s breathless, sweat dripping down his forehead, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. A few jerky thrusts, out of rhythm with the rest of them, then he groans as his body goes still.
I feel him spilling into me, and dread fills me as it does. I can’t. I can’t let them get me pregnant. No matter what I do, I can’t .
I barely even notice Kotya’s hand squeezing me tight again.
Nikolai stays there for a moment, his fingers flexing on my hips, then slowly pulls out of me. “That was a good fuck,” he says, wiping his cock off on my leg. He pulls his pants up, then grins at Kotya. “Your turn, Kotya.”
Kotya finally releases my throat, and I take in a deep breath. I don’t know if he’s going to start choking me again. I need to breathe while I can.
Kotya moves so he’s between my legs, and he stops to run his fingers along my hole. “She’s so sloppy now,” he says, and from the tone of his voice, I can tell he likes that.
“Just wait,” Nikolai says. “Me, Yura, then you… she’ll be wrecked, and you’ll get to feel all of it on your cock.”
I let out a little whine, half of panic and half of despair. “I said I’d help you with looking for things for my father,” I say helplessly.
“All work and no play makes everybody angry,” Kotya answers glibly. He inserts two fingers inside me, rubbing around like he’s trying to feel Nikolai’s cum.
Maybe he is. I try to close my thighs, but Kotya uses his large hands to push them down again.
“Nikolai, hold her open while I get myself ready,” Kotya says with a grunt.
“You aren’t ready yet? All that bitching and moaning about making me hurry up,” Nikolai says, his eyes searching mine out as that now-too-familiar smile quirks onto his lips, arrogant and amused.
Despite his words, Nikolai does as he’s told, spreading my legs even more and holding them there.
Kotya withdraws his fingers and undoes his belt and fly. I close my eyes at first, but dread has me opening them at first to see exactly what is going to go inside me.
I pale when I see just how large Kotya’s cock is. I don’t want to say it’s as thick as a beer can, but it’s large enough that I know it’s going to hurt going in.
“Wait,” I beg in a high-pitched tone. “Please, that’s not going to fit.”
Kotya laughs. “They always say that. But they enjoy it, in the end.” He glances at Nikolai. “But maybe we can help. Play with her clit. Get her properly wet for me.”
I shake my head vigorously. “No. No, I’m not going to enjoy it. I—” My voice hitches. “It’s been a while, and Nikolai was bad enough.”
“Bad enough!” Nikolai says. “Zaya, you wound me.” He scoffs. “But fine. Maybe I will show you good enough then.” He reaches down, starting to stroke my clit.
He knows how to touch it, too, not going at it like it’s some sort of button on a video game controller like my ex had always treated it as. Nikolai has finesse, and no matter how little I want to, I find myself biting back soft little sounds.
“Bad enough,” Nikolai scoffs as I start to get wet.
I have no idea how he can be offended when he just raped me . It’s no wonder that my body isn’t reacting to him, that I didn’t enjoy it. I hadn’t wanted it. I’d only gone with it because they’d threatened my mother.
“Be glad you had him first,” Kotya says as he goes back to fingering me. “He loosened you for me. When Yura joins, by the time you get to me, you’ll be glad I am this large.”
“Is he bigger than you?” I choke out, alarmed even as I squirm while the two of them play with me — one inside, the other on my clit, both of them working in tandem to bring me unwanted pleasure. “Please. You’re just… I can’t .”
Jesus Christ, I’m not even a virgin. I sound pathetic. But I’ve never been a size queen, and James… Well, James had been small, especially in comparison to this thing .
Nikolai laughs. “I don’t think anybody is as big as Kotya. But Yura’s cock is long, and he knows how to jackhammer with it.”
Kotya nods as he pulls his fingers out. When he holds them up, I see them glistening with my fluids .
“Yura has never left a woman unsatisfied,” he says as he wipes his fingers on my thigh. Then he lines himself up and smiles at me. “Relax, little rabbit. You will enjoy yourself.”
I highly, highly doubt that.
Well, at least the pain of the brand has receded, overtaken by the soreness they’ve caused.
The pleasure they’ve caused, this unwanted, unwelcome thing inside of me that scares me as much as the rest of this.
Would it be better or worse if I did enjoy myself?
I look up at him, taking a shaky breath. “Do you want me to like it?” I ask hoarsely, still able to feel the brush of his fingers against my throat, the way he’d squeezed so tightly.
Without answering, Kotya pushes in.
I gasp and arch my back, shocked at the burn, how I’m completely speared open.
But it doesn’t hurt half as much as I expected.
Nikolai keeps playing with my clit, too, sending jolts of pleasure through me interspersed with the burn.
Once Kotya is completely seated inside me, he strokes the insides of my thighs. “You see? I fit.” He glances at Nikolai. “I want to feel her cunt convulsing around me. Make her come while I’m inside her.”
I swallow hard, finding it just as difficult to breathe now as I had when he’d been choking me. He fills me entirely, uncomfortably so, but at the same time, my body has started to react.
Fuck.
Kotya pulls out slowly before thrusting in again, and a shudder runs through me as Nikolai’s fingers expertly play with my clit. The feeling of fullness — the stroke of those fingers with my slickness and his cum on them — is good. Better than good.
I already hate myself for the way my breath is coming in soft gasps, the way my hands have to clench into fists to keep from reaching out like I might have in another time and place, the way I want more .
“She’s not arguing now,” Nikolai crows.
I try to stave off this foreign pleasure. Sex has never made my body react like this before, not even with the two guys I’d slept with before James. I’d thought I was one of those women who couldn’t get off from penetration, or who had a low libido.
I accidentally clench, and Kotya groans loudly in response.
“Good,” Kotya answers. “Squeeze again.” He does something to change the angle, and I can suddenly feel him rub along an even more sensitive spot inside me.
I’ve read smut before, dirty, kinky little stories. For all that I’ve never felt the explosions and fireworks from another person’s touch, I’m not unfamiliar with bringing myself pleasure. But this?
This is what they describe.
The discomfort, the pleasure, the feeling of him thrusting in and out of me while Nikolai touches my clit…
I’m going to come.
I don’t want to come.
Not with them, not like this, not here, not now.
Never with them.
But that telltale feeling is building and building, and I squirm as I try to get away from that inexorable pleasure — or so I tell myself. It only makes it rub against me in the best ways instead, and his cock is so thick that I can’t get away from it.
Kotya’s thrusts start getting faster, and that should make the friction worse but somehow only ramps up the pleasure. My attempts to hold off the orgasm only make things worse, because tensing my body has me feeling his cock more.
Maybe if he comes first, he’ll give up on me. Maybe I can be spared the indignity of coming.
“Close,” Kotya murmurs. “Do a better job, Nikolai.”
“You do a better job,” Nikolai retorts. “Put that big cock of yours to work.” He looks at me and laughs. “Put a big load in her, Kotya, so we can put her away wet and sloppy, just like you like it.”
But despite his words, he finds a rhythm too, fingers lightly dancing along the side of my slick clit as the orgasm builds and builds and?—
I can’t stop it.
It crashes into me like a tidal wave, leaving me gasping and whining and spasming on Kotya’s cock. Nikolai doesn’t let up, chasing me as I jerk and move and wail out my pleasure, and all the while, Kotya only fucks me harder. Faster.
Until he’s spilling into me, too, and I’m too dazed to think about anything.
I slowly come back to myself. I hear my labored breathing alongside Kotya’s loud huffs. A drop of sweat trickles down from him onto my body.
And when he pulls out, I immediately notice just how empty I am now.
“Not bad,” Kotya says. He reaches for a tissue from the side table and begins to wipe himself off. “What do you think, Nikolai? Do we leave her wet and sloppy until tomorrow?”
“Definitely,” Nikolai says. “I want to take some pictures when we get her upstairs. To, you know, commemorate the occasion.”
I hate his fucking smirk.
“After all, this might be the night you get pregnant, zaya. We wouldn’t want to forget about this.” He pauses, and I only dimly notice him taking his phone out of his pants pocket as those words wash over me with surprising force.
No. I can’t get pregnant. I’m only twenty-two. That’s barely old enough to drink, let alone have babies, and I definitely don’t want to be a mafia man’s whore.
“Wait, actually,” Nikolai says, and I almost think he’s going to suggest something, anything, to keep me from this nightmare. I’m a fucking idiot, though, because all he says is, “Spread her cunt for me.”
Kotya tucks himself in before reaching for my legs. He hooks an arm under my knees and forces them up, exposing my cunt more. Nikolai immediately starts taking photos, and all I can do is lie there, a total mess who can barely even catch my breath with words I don’t want to think about running through my mind.
Pregnant .
“You will share those with Yura,” Kotya says. It doesn’t sound like a question.
Nikolai hesitates with the phone, lowering it for a moment before starting to slowly walk around me, taking more pictures. “Maybe we shouldn’t show Yura before he gets out,” he says cautiously. “He only has a few weeks left. I would hate for him to go into a rage and extend that sentence.”
I don’t understand why seeing pictures of me would make anyone rage.
Kotya scowls at him. “Yura will want to see. And it will be worse if he comes home and finds a woman here.”
Nikolai scowls right back at him, speaking in rapid Russian. Kotya replies in kind, and their voices gradually calm as they finally seem to work out their argument.
I hate not being able to understand it so fucking much.
“Good,” Kotya finally says. He lifts me up, and I let out a quiet yelp as he starts to carry me bridal-style toward the door of the cell.
“Make sure to keep her legs spread,” Nikolai says with a low chuckle. “Let everyone see this wrecked pussy.”
The red of humiliation in my cheeks only deepens, but there’s nothing I can do but bury my face against his chest. That feels too intimate, so I stop doing it, but that means I have to look around me.
I try to tell myself that it’s better this way, that it means I can get a sense of my bearings, but it doesn’t help — especially when we come across the first set of guards at the top of the stairs.
“Look,” Nikolai crows. “This is ours now.” He jabs a finger between my legs, and to my horror, a trail of semen and my own wetness comes out.
The guard, a man with a beard thicker than Kotya’s, takes a long look, and I close my eyes. “Is she for everyone?” he asks.
“No,” Kotya says immediately. “Unless she doesn’t like us. Maybe then we will find her more men to try out, until she finds somebody she enjoys.”
I can hear the threat in that statement. If I don’t behave, if I don’t play along, then I get shared with everybody in the household. “I enjoyed you! I’m good!” I hurry to say.
“You heard the man,” Nikolai says with a wolfish grin, clasping the guard on the shoulder. “Maybe we will find you a new toy to play with. But would it be a boost to your morale or a distraction, eh?”
The other guard snorts. “For him? A constant distraction. Better to keep the women away, Nikolai.”
The bearded one scowls at him, and they start bickering in Russian as Kotya continues to walk through the house.
There are so many guards here, but then, it’s a large house, and things in New Bristol aren’t exactly peaceful these days. It feels like there are even more, too, because they stop to show me off each time we get close to them.
I’m sure I’m going to die of mortification by the time we get to wherever they’re taking me, but I manage to get there fully conscious and coherent.
I expected a cell of some sort, but instead, it’s a simple guest bedroom. There’s even a TV and a shelf with books on it. Kotya sets me down on the bed and gives me a calculating look.
“Do we need to chain you?” Kotya asks. “Or will you behave overnight?”
“You don’t need to chain me,” I say quickly. The number of guards is enough to dissuade me from trying anything. I’m not stealthy or particularly sneaky, and the idea that I’d get far is laughable.
Kotya glances toward Nikolai, then back to me. “Hmm. I don’t trust you.” He laughs. “Let’s make it a test. Tomorrow morning, we will see how obedient you are. Do not clean yourself up. I want to see the mess tomorrow, too.”
“You want me to stay like this all night?” I ask, incredulous. “No.” I want all of this out of me. I want the reminder of them gone. I don’t want to feel them drying on my body any more than they already have.
“No?” Nikolai asks, quirking a brow. “Is that a word you’re allowed to say, zaya ?”
I grit my teeth.
Kotya shrugs. “If you cannot obey, then we bind your hands. Nikolai, go to my room and grab the manacles.”
“Wait!” I say hurriedly. “I’ll…” I grimace. “I’ll leave it. ”
I probably won’t.
“Don’t lie to us,” Nikolai says, reaching down to pet my face. “You will regret it.” He shrugs, though. “But it’d be fun if you didn’t behave. For us.”
“I’ll be angry if you disobey,” Kotya says, smirking. “I’m sure you don’t want to see me angry.”
“You sound like a bad movie villain,” I mutter.
Chuckling, Nikolai heads for the door. “Be a good girl, zaya . Or don’t.”
Then they’re gone, and I’m left alone with my shame.