The Captive #6
Instead, he gathered me in his arms, pulling me against his bare chest. His skin was warm, the hair on his chest soft against my cheek. One arm came around me, holding me close, while his other hand stroked my hair with surprising gentleness.
He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Sleep, Augusta.”
“But you did not—” I started to protest, confused. His cock was still hard against my hip.
“Sleep,” he repeated, his voice firm but not unkind. “We have many days ahead of us, krasivaya. I am not finished with you yet.”
Exhaustion crashed over me then—the terror of the morning, the long ride, the mind-shattering orgasm all catching up at once. My eyes grew heavy despite my confusion.
As I drifted off in the arms of the Wolf of the steppe, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear, one last coherent thought floated through my mind:
I had wanted an adventure.
It appeared I had found one.
The next morning, I woke slowly, warmth cocooning me, the scent of sandalwood and male sweat filling my senses.
For a blissful moment, I didn’t remember where I was—only that I was comfortable, safe, held against a broad chest that rose and fell with steady breaths.
I’d slept through the night for the first time in ages…
Then memory returned in a rush.
I was in Dmitri Volkov’s tent. In his bed. In his arms.
The realization should have sent me scrambling away in horror. Instead, I found myself studying the man who held me, curiosity overcoming caution.
In sleep, the Wolf of the steppe was softened.
The hard lines of his face relaxed, the perpetual smirk gone from his lips.
His beard looked darker against the paleness of the pillow, the scar on his jaw less threatening.
One arm was thrown over his head, the other still draped possessively across my waist.
My fingers twitched with the urge to trace that scar, to explore the planes of his face unguarded. I had never seen him like this—vulnerable, almost peaceful. The contrast with the commanding bandit who had stolen me was startling.
The tent was warm, the layered rugs insulating us from the morning chill. Sunlight filtered through the felt walls, casting golden patterns across the furs. Somewhere outside, a child laughed, and the scent of woodsmoke drifted in—breakfast fires being lit.
For a moment, I could almost forget I was a captive.
Dmitri stirred, his arm tightening around me before his dark eyes fluttered open. For an instant, he looked as disoriented as I had felt, then that slow, knowing smile spread across his face.
“Dobroye utro, krasivaya,” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.
“Good morning,” I whispered back, unsure what else to say.
His gaze dropped to my lips, then lower, to where my chemise had dipped over my shoulder, exposing skin. The memory of his mouth on me last night sent heat flooding through me.
Before I could stop myself, my hand lifted, fingers brushing against the rough stubble of his cheek. He turned his face into the touch, his beard tickling my palm.
Then his lips pressed against my skin—a soft, unexpected kiss that sent my pulse racing. Not the demanding claim of last night, but something gentler. More intimate.
“Last night,” he began, his voice dropping to that dark timbre that made my cunny clench, “you needed sleep. Today—”
A man called his name from outside the tent, sharp, urgent. Dmitri sighed, the sound vibrating against my palm where it still rested against his cheek.
He rolled from the bed with a fluid grace that belied his size, standing to stretch. The morning light played across the muscles of his back, the scars that mapped his skin. His trousers hung low on his hips, the erection I’d felt against me last night still evident.
My face heated as I realized the truth; he hadn’t found release last night, and he could have taken me by force. Could have used me however he pleased. Instead, he had brought me pleasure, then held me through the night.
A strange captor indeed.
He pulled a clean shirt from a chest, the movement drawing my attention to the way his muscles shifted beneath his skin. As he dressed, he bent down, capturing my chin between his fingers.
“You are free here in my camp,” he said, his thumb brushing my lower lip. “But do nothing foolish, Augusta.”
That wicked grin returned, the one that had haunted my dreams. “If you try to escape, krasivaya, I will hunt you down and punish you most severely.” He winked.
Then his mouth was on mine—his first real kiss, not the demanding claim I’d expected, but something softer. A promise.
When he pulled away, I was breathless, my lips tingling.
“See to your horses,” he commanded, his voice rough. “I will return tonight.”
And with that, the Wolf of the steppe strode from his tent, leaving me tangled in his furs, my body still humming from that single, searing kiss.
The old woman returned with the sun, still smiling, as though the night had improved us both.
She brought tea and porridge with honey, and after I’d eaten she led me down to the stream, where three younger women stood holding lengths of cloth as a screen and giggling and pointing at what I suppose they thought were my strange clothes.
The water was cold enough to blaspheme in. I did, in English, and my attendants laughed so hard one of them dropped her corner of the screen, exposing a bathing duchess to two boys, a dog, and most of the picket line.
Somehow, I laughed too. My dignity had been left behind on the road somewhere, and I missed it less each hour.
Then they dressed me, and since I had no way to ask them to fetch my travel gown from my valise, my wardrobe was out of my hands.
First a short chemise of linen so fine it must have crossed a border illegally. Then, to my astonishment, trousers—wide, soft, gathered at the ankle, the sort of garment I’d seen in engravings of Turkish harems and never imagined I would see in person, much less wear.
Over it all went a long silk gown of a cut I had no name for, fitted at the ribs and flowing loose below, scandalously red, fastened down the front with a row of little silver buttons, and belted with a woven sash.
The silk was Ottoman, the buttons old, and the whole of it had assuredly been stolen from someone glorious.
The old woman tied the sash, turned me by the shoulders, and made a sound of such frank satisfaction that I flushed like a girl.
No stays. Nothing between silk and skin but one thin layer of linen. Every step reminded me of it.
I pointed at myself. “Augusta.”
“A-gooooosta!” she agreed, delighted, and then produced a torrent of syllables from which I salvaged, on the third attempt, “Marfa.”
It was my first successful negotiation on the steppe. I felt disproportionately proud of it.
Nobody guarded me. That was the thing I kept turning over as I walked out into the camp—no escort, no watcher at my shoulder, nothing but Marfa waving me off toward the fire like a landlady recommending the garden.
The message required no translation. Where, precisely, would I go, out here on the steppes?
So I explored my prison, and my prison was a village that happened to have wheels.
The wagons stood behind the tents in neat rows, but nothing else about the place felt temporary.
Women worked hide and wool in the shade with their sleeves rolled.
Men mended tack, argued over a cauldron of pitch, sharpened things.
An ancient man with one eye sat carving a spoon and singing to himself in a cracked whisper, and children ran everywhere in loose howling packs with the dogs, cheerful as sin and not much cleaner.
Smoke, crushed grass, horses, mutton fat: the whole camp smelled of industry.
And everyone worked beside everyone. A woman in a red kerchief shoed a horse while a man held its head. I stood watching that for a long while.
My French was useless. My English was a party trick—the children followed me chanting “gud moaning” in a teasing chorus until their mothers swatted them.
But by afternoon I had gathered words the way a gown gathers burrs: kon’— horse. Voda—water. Khleb—bread. Spasibo—thank you. This last earned me such beaming approval from Marfa that I resolved to deploy it recklessly.
My horses, when I finally allowed myself the visit, were an insult.
Juno gleamed. Someone had bathed her, picked out her feet, and combed her mane into better order than her own groom managed at home, and she stood drowsing at the picket line among the shaggy little steppe horses like a countess fallen asleep at a farmhouse table.
Hector had acquired an entourage of boys who fed him grass one blade at a time in exchange for the privilege of touching him.
The wiry young rider from the raid—Grishka, the boys called him—walked me around both animals, pointing at legs and feet and rattling off commentary I understood perfectly despite knowing none of the words. Sound. Fit. Feeding well.
They did not need me. I checked everything twice and could improve on nothing.
I stood at Juno’s shoulder with my fingers in her mane, and I considered—honestly considered, for the length of ten heartbeats—swinging up bareback and running.
Until I took a deep breath and looked to the horizon.
Flat land to every horizon. No map, no water, no Russian, and behind me forty riders who could track a hawk across the grass, led by a man who had promised, with a wink, to hunt me down.
And beyond all that, beneath all that, the truer thing: I had struck a bargain, and I had not yet gotten the better end of it.
You want to see what happens tonight.
I fed Juno a crust of stolen bread and stayed.
The riders returned at dusk, and I heard the cheering before I saw the dust.