42
The first thing I see when I wake up is… Clouds against the orange sky of dawn and some kind of engine in the back that vibrates everywhere. Where am I? And how long have I been in this place for it to be morning again? I look up, feeling like I’m in someone’s lap.
“Slept good?” He asks with a hint of a smile. I look at my hands and feet. They are bound with chains. Then the memory comes flooding back.
“Are you kidnapping me?” I hiss.
“No.”
“I never said I wanted to come with you. You drugged me!” I say, squirming in his lap.
“Because you’re angry. Otherwise, you would have agreed to come with me.”
“I wouldn’t have agreed to come with you under any circumstances, so let me go right now!” I retort with a furious look. He takes my words as an invitation, pulling me closer and pressing his lips to my ear.
“If you want to put that dirty little tongue of yours to use, there are better methods.” His low voice sends a shiver down my spine, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“I said let go of me!” I scream, pushing him away again, my cheeks flushing red. The more I try to escape, the more he holds me against his bare chest. Why is he shirtless anyway? Is he doing it just to fuck with me? I hate him. I loathe him.
“Fuck. Someone put her to sleep again,” Sergei complains sleepily from the seat behind us.
“You shut the hell up, arseho—” His hand covers my mouth as his eyebrows furrow with annoyance.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll have to drug you again. Is that what you want?” he asks in a dry threat, then removes his hand.
“You won’t be able to hold me for long. They’ll come for me.” I hiss through gritted teeth, glaring at his stupid, cocky smile.
“If that’s what you think then I’m sorry to burst your bubble, love, because even without a fucking heart beating in my damn chest I’ll come after you, and believe me, I’ll always catch you.
Maybe the only way to let you go will be to summon a demon to take me to hell, but that won’t keep me away from you for long.
Most likely, I’ll find a way to escape and get you back in my clutches, where you belong. ”
My eyes soon begin to fill with tears of frustration for not being able to unleash my rage. It is futile. If I ever had any hope, it has just been crushed into the ground. He’s not who I thought he was. Not anymore. Everything was just an illusion, a broken dream, and now I will pay the price.
Now we’re in a car. He insists on holding me, and his eyes don’t miss a single detail of how my face tenses up when I see him.
I turn my face away, preferring to look at the leafy trees—unusual in California—than look at his lips, but he holds my face with his fingers and brings our mouths together.
I bite his lower lip hard until I taste his blood.
He lets out a guttural groan and deepens the kiss.
“We’re almost there,” the blond guy says. He pulls away from my mouth and says something I don’t care to understand.
I wish I could stop liking his kisses, stop wanting him, but I know that’s not going to happen. Maybe after I die, when my brain is no longer functioning.
He looks at me, licking the trickle of blood with the diamond on his tongue protruding for a second between his teeth before unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the door. My lips part, my mouth ready to continue with the tantrum, but when my eyes scan the place, I close my mouth.
Beautiful twisted trees surround us with dark-coloured flowers.
From the smell of damp earth, I can tell it has rained recently, although it may rain again from the clouds hiding the sun’s rays.
The plane we landed in is visible in the distance, and now before my eyes stands a kind of castle or palace.
It is quite large, even larger than his old house.
Everything looks so eccentric and old on the outside. Like something from the Victorian or Neo-Gothic era. I just hope inside the house isn’t full of ghosts of people who lived here centuries ago.
I’m not surprised to see dozens of men in army uniforms and holding assault rifles surrounding the house. I fix my gaze on one of them, looking at the white, red and blue flag on his chest. I feel the blood leaving my face as I look around again.
“Like what you see, lyubov’?”
“Did you bring me to Russia?” I ask already knowing the answer. The colour of my face comes back with the flush of anger.
In the end Grace was right.