Stolen: Dante’s Vow by Natasha Knight
Mara
“He’s alive?”
I hear them through the radio, Matthaeus shouting orders, a car’s tires screeching. The soldier they left behind to babysit me looks up at me, nods once.
Alive!
Goosebumps cover my arms as my heart races.
He’s alive!
I can’t believe it.
But an hour later, I hear them. Hear their boots on the metal stairs outside. I rush to the door when it opens. Matthaeus and another soldier walk in, Dante almost passed out between them, face bruised, one arm soaked in blood, wearing a coat too small and too tight on his shoulders.
“Dante!” I rush toward him, shocked and relieved he’s here. Really alive.
One of the guards intercepts me as Dante manages to lift his head momentarily before they take him to his bedroom and disappear inside. The soldier won’t let me enter so I stand in the hallway and listen. Smiling every time I hear the low rumble of his voice. Happier than I thought I could be to know he survived. Know he didn’t die in that terrible cellar.
“Do you ever stick to the fucking plan?” It’s Matthaeus.
“I’m alive, aren’t I? It’s fine.”
“It’s not fucking fine. And this is going to hurt.”
I think I hear Dante’s groan and I push against the guard to let me in. He doesn’t budge so, after pacing for ten minutes, I drop to a seat on the cold cement floor, my back against the wall to wait.
It’s more than an hour before Matthaeus finally comes out. He looks tired. Exhausted. He’s talking into his phone in Italian. I know it’s Italian and I know I spoke it once, but I don’t speak anymore. I understand what he’s saying though.
I get up to see Dante but again, the soldier stops me.
“I’m going to see him!” I yell into his face.
Matthaeus turns around, looks at me and nods to the soldier who steps out of the way. I push the door open. It creaks on its hinges. Still no doorknob. Dante is lying on top of the bed. He’s shirtless. His boots are off but he’s still wearing the same jeans he’d worn when he’d left. They’re dirty. Filthy with dark stains that I’m pretty sure are blood. I wonder how much of it is his.
I walk toward the bed, see the fresh bandages on his shoulder, the bruises beginning to color the skin of one arm. He’s badly scratched.
I shift my gaze to his face. His patch is still on, the other eye closed. His chest rises and falls with his breaths.
As lightly as I can, I brush hair back from his face. It’s sticking to his forehead. He’s sweating.
I walk into the bathroom and retrieve one of the washcloths stacked on the shelf. After wetting it with cold water from the tap, I return to the bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed, wiping the sweat from his forehead. I also try to rid him of some of the dried blood on his shoulder.
That’s when his arm shoots out, hand like a vise around my wrist.
I gasp and he hisses. I look to his face, see he’s looking at me. I can’t help but think how beautiful he is, even with the scars, the leather patch. Maybe more so for them. There’s a darkness about him. Like an angel fallen. One who broke when he hit the ground.
He shifts his gaze to my wrist then and loosens his grip before finally releasing me.
“Mara,” he croaks. I think he wants to say more but I don’t know if it’s the drugs they gave him but his head rolls back on the pillow so he’s looking at the ceiling again.
“You’re not dead,” I say.
He chuckles, the eye without the patch closing.
I set the washcloth down and glance at the door. It’s closed as much as it can be without a doorknob, and I can see the soldier standing just outside through the hole. Do they think I’ll do something to hurt him?
I don’t care about them, though. I look back down at Dante. His big, broken body. Broad, muscular shoulders and arms, a dusting of dark hair on his chest, scars on olive skin, the ridges of muscle cutting across his stomach. The concentrated dark line of hair that disappears into his jeans.
Something stirs inside me at the sight of him like this. He had stripped to his boxers the night before but like this, he’s somehow more naked. And the sensations I feel looking at him make my heartbeat kick up a notch. It’s a strange and foreign reaction.
I decide to lie down beside him, pulling the blanket up a little although we don’t need it. He’s already hot with fever. I move his unhurt arm, tucking myself into his side. It’s warm enough this way. I lay one arm across his belly and feel his hand come up around me, closing over my waist. I look up at his face but he’s still asleep so I close my eyes, too, and listen to his heart beat. The faint hint of his aftershave is still there beneath the blood, sweat and man smell. It’s that last one that has me shuddering in spite of the heat radiating off him. That and the memory of him earlier. When he had me pressed up against the wall. When he promised he’d come back to me.
And I say a thank you to whoever or whatever it was that protected him. That helped him keep his promise. Because it’s impossible that he’s here. That he walked out of that cellar. That he’s alive at all.
* * *
I don’t realizeI’ve fallen asleep until a sound wakes me. I blink once, twice, slow to remember where I am. It’s fully dark now, the streetlamp only offering the faintest light.
“Get her out!” Dante orders and I lean up on my elbow looking down at him. I shift my gaze over my shoulder to the door thinking he’s giving an order. Telling one of his soldiers to remove me. But there’s no one there.
Sweat covers him and he feels hotter than earlier. I touch a hand to his forehead, and it comes away slick.
He blinks rapidly, his agitation obvious. He’s dreaming.
I should get Matthaeus. He’ll know what to do. But Dante is talking again, words I can’t make out. His forehead wrinkles, hands fisting then relaxing again and again as he tries to grab for something but only catches air.
“Wake up,” I try, noticing the gun on the floor on his side of the bed. It’s not his. This one is smaller.
“Get her out. Now!” he snaps, and I try again.
“Dante?” I sit up. “Wake up.”
He mutters a string of curses, switches to Italian, his arm reaching as if for the shoulder holster, the gun he keeps there.
I lean across his body and push the pistol out of reach just in case. It goes sliding across the floor to stop in the middle of the room.
But it’s the wrong thing to do because the next thing I know, he’s got me by my arms, and he flips me onto my back. He’s not gentle. He’s above me, straddling me, one hand closing around my throat.
“Dante!”
He’s strong. Too strong even as I wrap both of my hands around his forearm and try to pry him off. I can’t speak. Can’t make any sound at all. He’s crushing my windpipe. And when I try to move my legs, to kick, he tenses his thighs, squeezing painfully against the brand. All the while he’s looking at me but it’s like he can’t see me. Like he’s still trapped inside his nightmare.
I twist, slapping one hand against his chest, his face when I can reach it, kicking my legs as much as I am able and as my vision begins to fade along the edges, he finally blinks.
He looks at me for a long minute, gives a shake of his head, loosens his grip around my throat. I cough, rub my throat. In the next instant, he’s lying on top of me, some of his weight on one of his elbows, the arm without the bandage on his shoulder. But much of his body is on me as he looks down, eyebrows furrowed, gaze dark so the green is only a thin circle around his dilated pupil.
It feels good to have him like this. The weight of him crushing me feels strangely safe even as it stokes those feelings of earlier, as if fanning the flames of a building fire inside my center.
He searches my eyes, pushes my hair back from my forehead, touches my cheek. The expression on his face is unreadable. He brings one big hand to the back of my head, cupping it, and it all happens so fast. He leans closer, without a moment’s hesitation, and his mouth closes over mine.
It’s not a kiss. It’s a devouring. A hungry, starved beast feasting.
My mouth opens for him. I taste him, feel the intensity of him. His muscular, hard body, the weight, the heat of our kiss. His tongue in my mouth, mine meeting it. It’s not just a kiss. It’s more.
It’s everything.
He grinds his hips against mine and I moan at the sensations his hard cock pressing against me through his jeans sends through me. He shoves my sweater up roughly to press himself against me, against my clit. Bare chest against bare chest.
My nipples harden and he draws back, watching me as he grinds his hips. His breath is short, like mine. And that hand on the back of my head shifting now as he closes his mouth over mine again, kissing me like he’s starved. That hand moves between us, and he lifts himself up just a little, just enough to slip his fingers inside my panties.
I tense for a moment. He senses it. But this feels different than ever before. It feels good. And when he closes his fingers around my sex, I let out a sigh, a deep, guttural sound, an exhale contained for too long. His hand is rough and big and so good. So, so good.
He draws back to watch me, and I bite my lip as his thumb moves over my clit. I glance between my open legs at the thick length of his erection pressed against his jeans.
Tension builds inside me, something tightening, tightening, being rung out. I can’t catch my breath as he moves his fingers over me, inside me.
I watch him, too, and this feeling isn’t just between my legs. It’s spreading through me, from my core out through my stomach, my chest, arms and legs.
“Oh, God,” I mutter.
He kisses me again like he’ll swallow my words, my breath. Like he’ll have it all. And all I can do is open my mouth to let him. To give it to him.
I moan into his mouth as he pushes a finger inside me once, twice, then draws it out, smears my arousal over my clit. When I arch my back, his touch takes me over the edge, and I come undone. He watches me and I can’t look away, not when he’s looking at me like this. Not when I’m feeling this thing. This pure, electrifying sensation.
Not when I’m coming for him.
I’m breathless when it’s over and my body goes slack as he draws his hand out of my panties. He doesn’t speak, just looks at me. But then something changes. He blinks hard. His forehead wrinkles and after a very long moment, he shifts his gaze away.
“Fuck.”
He pushes off me, stumbles from the bed. Glances back once before taking two steps away and needing to grab the edge of a nearby chair to stay upright.
“Fuck!” he roars.
I sit, pulling the blankets up, my heart racing, a panic replacing that euphoria of moments ago. That strange calm I barely registered. The rightness of things.
Boots rush down the hall toward the bedroom and the door slams against the wall, as Matthaeus and another man stand in the doorway. They look at him, then at me, then back.
Matthaeus rushes to Dante. “Help me get him back in the bed!” he orders the soldier.
I scoot out of the bed as they haul him back into it. Dante is fighting them like he doesn’t recognize them. Matthaeus curses when they finally hold him down enough that he can feel Dante’s forehead.
“Keep him down,” he tells the other man who has a knee on Dante’s chest and his hands on his shoulders. I can see the bad one is bleeding again.
“You’re hurting him!” I cry out, going to the soldier, trying to pry him off. Another one enters then, and I’m yanked off, held at the opposite end of the room, my struggles having no impact on him.
Matthaeus opens a black medical bag I hadn’t noticed before and takes out a syringe and a small vial of clear liquid.
“What are you doing?” I yell as he fills the needle then pushes the plunger to get rid of any air bubbles.
“He needs to sleep,” he tells me without looking at me.
“No!” I scream, propel myself forward, but the soldier won’t let go.
He moves to Dante’s side and grips his arm hard so Dante can’t move. He pushes the needle into Dante’s arm and the stuff works almost instantly before my eyes. I wonder if it’s the same thing they gave me.
“What did you do?” I yell, struggling against the soldier holding me back as I watch Matthaeus work on Dante.
“It’ll help him relax. We need to get his temperature down,” he says calmly to me, in complete opposition to my panicked words. He takes the dressing off Dante’s shoulder. “Shit.”
“You’re hurting him!” I managed to slip free and grab Matthaeus’s arm, but I’m caught again in the next instant.
“Get her out of here,” he tells the man at my back when he’s done.
“No! You’re hurting him! Let go of me!”
Matthaeus turns, comes to me, his eyes fall to my throat.
I stop fighting, reach up to touch it. It’s tender. I’m sure it’s red and I wonder if he can make out Dante’s fingerprints.
“Did he do that?” he asks.
I don’t answer.
“What happened?” he asks.
“He was having a bad dream. I tried to wake him—”
“Don’t do that. Don’t touch him when he has those dreams, understand?”
“Why?”
“Just don’t.” He turns to the soldier. “Take her inside. Make her some tea.”
“I don’t want tea. And I don’t want to go inside. I’m not leaving him.”
“You shouldn’t be in here. He needs to rest. Recover.”
I look at Dante who seems to be sleeping peacefully now. But then Matthaeus turns back to him, presses against his wound. Dante winces because even in sleep it hurts as a line of blood streaks his arm.
“Why are you hurting him?” I kick my heel into the soldier’s shin. He mutters a curse and as soon as his grip loosens, I lunge for Matthaeus.
He spins, grabs me. He’s fast. They’re all so much faster than me. He shifts my arms behind my back and holds me tight, jerks me once.
“You need to leave this room. Now. I don’t want to have to make you.”
I glance beyond him to Dante, then back, registering what he means by making me “You can’t. I...” Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Let me go!”
Matthaeus sighs, walks me out of the room, not letting his grip loosen once. “Mara,” he says once we’re inside and he directs me to one of the kitchen chairs. He keeps his hands on my shoulders and leans down so we’re at eye level. “You need to calm down and do as I say, or I can’t help him. Understand?”
“You’re hurting him.”
“I’m not hurting him. I wouldn’t hurt him. Ever. Do you need something to help you sleep?”
I exhale, my lips tight, forehead wrinkling. I shake my head.
“Drink a cup of tea. By the time you’re finished, I’ll be done, and you can see him. All right?”
After a gesture from Matthaeus, the soldier who’d held me moves to make the tea. He takes a mug out of the cabinet and pours hot water in it from the boiler on the tap. He then opens another cabinet and takes out a box with a few tea bags in it. He glances at Matthaeus who nods.
“You don’t need to look at him. Look at me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I turn back to Matthaeus. “I don’t want any drugs.”
“You’ll sit here and drink the tea, understand?”
“I want to be in there with him. He needs me in—”
“You will sit here and drink the tea. Am I clear?”
I press my lips together and glare at him. I hate him.
He raises his eyebrows.
“Fine. Just until I drink the tea.”
“Good.”
The soldier sets the cup in front of me.
Matthaeus is slow to release his hands from my shoulders, but he does, waiting until I pick up the mug to take a sip. “Good. When you’re finished you can come back inside.”
I nod and I’d drink it faster, but the liquid is scalding hot. Matthaeus leaves the soldier with me and hurries back to Dante’s bedroom. I look up at my companion who is leaning against the counter watching me with his arms folded. I don’t know his name, but I’ll remember which one he is. I drink another sip, blink, my eyelids feeling heavy. The room grows a little fuzzy. I look down at the mug. The tea is half gone. When I look up at the soldier, he hasn’t moved. He’s still watching me.
I take another sip, tasting something strange.
“What is this?” I set the mug down, but when I try to stand, my knees give out. He’s at my side in an instant, catching me. “What did you give me?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing bad.”
My head lolls against his chest as he carries me down the hall. I pass out before I can even say another word.