Stolen: Dante’s Vow by Natasha Knight
Mara
Iwake up slowly but the difference this time to the last time is I remember exactly what happened. Matthaeus drugged me after Dante said he wouldn’t do that again. Although he didn’t say exactly that. He said he didn’t want to drug me again. One word that makes all the difference.
It takes my muscles a little time to catch up to my brain’s order to move. To get out of this bed. I’m not in Dante’s bed even though I can tell from the room itself that I’m still in the warehouse.
The quiet around me is so complete, I wonder if I’m alone. I peel the blanket back and see that I’m still dressed. But I didn’t expect not to be. These men aren’t that type. They wouldn’t touch me like that.
But Dante did.
I pause at the memory. I imagine how he felt on top of me. How we were skin to skin. How he looked when he kissed me. How his mouth tasted.
And when he put his hand inside my panties… I close my eyes, my stomach fluttering. My body remembering.
When he put his hand inside my panties, I wanted it. I didn’t want to cringe away. Didn’t want to close my eyes and pretend it wasn’t me, pretend my body wasn’t mine. Didn’t want to not feel it.
And I came. I had my first orgasm. It was amazing. More incredible than I could have imagined.
I’ve never come before. Not alone. Not with a man. Never. I pretended when Petrov made me. It was over quicker that way. And I’ve never touched myself. Never wanted to.
Now as I lie here, I close my eyes and imagine him like he was, as I slide my hand down over my stomach between my legs. I touch myself gingerly over top of my panties. Not inside. And I imagine his fingers there. Imagine how I felt to him.
Just then a noise from inside the apartment startles me.
I turn to the closed bedroom door. Hear someone laugh. A cold shiver passes through me at that sound. Because I know it.
My legs finally get the message from my brain to move, and I push the blankets off. Sitting up I swing my legs over the bed. There’s carpet on the floor here. A small, scratchy circle with an ornate Persian design. Better than the concrete.
Another noise comes from one of the other rooms. Glass breaking.
I get up, go to the closed door, put my ear to it. It’s thick but I can make out some sound. Men. More than one. But it doesn’t sound like it did with Dante’s soldiers.
I gasp when someone curses loudly and something shatters. Not a glass this time. This is too loud for that. I turn the lock on the door and jump at the next crash. Inside this room is a large bed, a proper nightstand, and a dresser. At the far end is a large window but this one has the small squares of glass. It’s not an exit. This room is only half the size of Dante’s and there’s no attached bathroom. Nowhere to hide.
On the nightstand is a small lamp, a cheap, plastic thing. It won’t do me any good if whoever is tearing up the place out there comes in here. And they will. It’s just a matter of time.
I open the first of two drawers. Inside is a book, worn like it’s been well read. That won’t help me either, so I close it and open the next one. Here I find balled up socks, and when I rummage through, I close my hand over the cool, bumpy surface of a Swiss army knife.
I sit on the edge of the bed and look at my prize.
Helga used to have one similar to it. I took it from her when she died but Petrov took it from me before we even got into his SUV that same night.
This one, though, is better. It’s a pocketknife. The bright orange handle is solid. It fits perfectly in my palm. And the blade is sharp. Deadly.
I close it as I hear footsteps come nearer my room.
“Maaaaraaaaa,” someone calls out, drawing out my name. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” he sings.
My heart races. The blood inside my veins turns to ice.
No. No way.
It can’t be him.
I know that voice though. Know his taunts. I know the man it belongs to. I haven’t seen him in five years. I’ll never forget him because he terrifies me.
I get to my feet, walk around the bed and back away from the door as the handle jiggles.
“Empty,” another man says I guess of another room.
Someone pounds their fists against the door, and I jump with the violence of it. That pounding of fists will always make me jump. I feel my shoulders hunch, my body curling around itself.
I’m scared.
God. Will I ever not be scared?
And then it happens. The crash against the door, the wood creaking. It comes again, a kick making the door rattle, splintering the wood. The third kick sends his boot right through. I hear him curse then yank his leg out.
I don’t scream when he bends to put his face in the hole. I don’t scream when I see his eyes. His leering grin.
“There you are, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.It makes me sick when he says it. Makes me want to vomit.
He reaches his arm through, feels for the lock. It seems like a silly thing, that little lock. He could more easily kick the door in altogether. But he turns that lock and pushes the door open. I grip the knife hard, keeping it hidden in the palm of my hand.
He’s tall. Not as tall as Dante but taller than me. And I know how solidly he’s built. There’s no getting around him.
He stops when he’s a few feet from me, his fatigues dirty, a splatter of bright red on his chest. Some of it on his face.
“Well, aren’t you all grown up,” he says after looking me over.
Sweat slides down the back of my neck. I press myself against the cold, rough brick wall. He takes a step toward me, grinning all the while. I remember his breath. How stale it always smelled. Remember his yellowing teeth.
He cocks his head to the side. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
I swallow hard, see the two men move into the room behind him. Felix’s men. I know because Miguel, the one in front of me, is one of Felix’s most trusted soldiers.
“Well, we’ve got time to get reacquainted,” he says, checking his watch as he steps toward me and takes me roughly by the arm.
I don’t even think then. I can’t. If he gets me out of this place, he’ll take me back to Felix. Or back to another man like Petrov. And I can’t do that again. I’d rather die than do that again.
So when he tugs, I let him, and I propel myself into him hard opening the blade and positioning it as I slam into his chest.
He’s surprised. Confused. I can’t tell. Maybe both.
And then comes a loud bang from inside. A door crashing open, boots of what sounds like a dozen men. Miguel’s soldiers turn to look behind them, but I don’t care about them. I push the small blade of the Swiss Army knife harder into Miguel’s soft belly.
He looks down between us, puts his hand over mine, pulls the knife out and squeezes my wrist. The knife clatters to the floor. When he opens his palm, it’s bloody. And when he looks back up at me it’s with a rage in his eyes that I recognize.
But he’s still got me, and I can’t run.
“You stupid little bitch.”
He shoves me backward, but he’s injured, and he stumbles into me. My scream is muffled by the sound of gun shots. I fall to the floor taking Miguel with me, his grip still a vise around my arm.
I can see the knife with its bright orange grip. I reach for it but can’t quite reach it. Miguel kneels up over me, trapping me between his thighs and I scream when he makes a fist to punch me. I scream and close my eyes, covering my face, remembering how much his fists hurt.
But the blow doesn’t come.
It doesn’t come and a moment later, his weight is gone, and I open my eyes to find Dante standing over me. The look on his face fierce and furious. An avenging angel. He throws Miguel backward against the wall hard and advances on him as I scramble away. Dante draws his arm back and punches Miguel in the face with a ferocity that makes me scream. Miguel’s head snaps back. Dante doesn’t look at me when I scream. And he doesn’t stop. He does it again and again and again until both men are on the floor. Miguel is on his back, arms at his sides, legs unmoving. His head at an unnatural angle. I wonder if the first hit didn’t break his neck.
Dante keeps beating him, though, pummeling him. And I realize he’s saying something as he punches him. Curses muttered under his breath, as blood from the dead man splatters up onto his face, as he slows down, worn out. Miguel is unrecognizable when Matthaeus finally comes into the room and forces Dante off.
Matthaeus looks at me, at the blood on my hand. At the dead man.
I watch Dante as he leans against the bed, knuckles red and raw, blood and sweat steaking his face.
I watch him as his gaze moves from the dead man, to the discarded knife, to me. And I can’t read him. Can’t read what I see on his face. But I do see how fury darkens the green of his visible eye.
Matthaeus moves toward Miguel’s body. Dante never looks away from me, his gaze growing more intense, more charged. More angry.
“No ID. Nothing,” Matthaeus says.
I’m the first to break the lock of our eyes. I look at Matthaeus. “He’s one of Felix’s soldiers. Miguel Alvarez.” I shift my gaze to the dead man. “He’s the one who killed Lizzie.” God. To say it out loud.
The room somehow grows colder.
Dante gets to his feet, uses the back of his hand to wipe his face. It just smears blood and sweat though. He comes to stand in front of me and I’m reminded again that he’s not the boy I knew, but a man. This man. This hardened killing machine.
I shudder.
He crouches down, puts his hands on my jaw and turns my face a little. He looks at something then brushes my cheek, I guess wiping away blood, before tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. He takes both of my hands inside his, looks at the back of them, then at my palms. With his thumb he smears Miguel’s blood across one.
“Okay?” he asks.
I nod.
“We need to wash your hands.”
I nod again and he helps me stand.
“We should move,” Matthaeus says. “I don’t know how they found us, but we need to go.”
“A minute,” Dante says, walking me toward the bedroom door.
“Wait!” I call out.
He stops and I slip my hand from his and go back to pick up the bloody Swiss army knife.
I feel Dante’s gaze on me when I wipe it on Miguel’s pant leg. When I straighten, I look down at his dead body once more. And I kick it. Kick him hard in the shins, then his thighs and finally between his legs. I kick and I kick and I kick. And it feels good. It feels so fucking good to hurt him.
I don’t realize I’m screaming until powerful arms wrap around me. I’m lifted off the floor, legs kicking at air as Dante carries me out of the room and into his bedroom, to the bathroom.
My heart pounds when he sets me down in front of the sink and stands behind me. His arms locked around me. When I squirm, he only tightens his hold on me.
“Shh.”
He’s so close we’re touching. His big, hard body at my back.
“Be still.”
I can’t though.
He leans his mouth to my ear. “Be still,” he commands. “I have you.”
I nod. Quiet as I take a deep, shuddering breath.
He runs the tap and checks the temperature before taking the knife from my hand and letting it fall into the sink. He picks up the bar of soap and washes my hands. I can only watch as he does it. His hands calloused and rough, mine small and soft, disappearing inside his. He scrubs away the blood and I watch the pink water run over the knife and down the drain.
I look up at our reflection. At us together. I’m surprised to find him not looking at our hands, at the task he’s performing, but watching me. The line between his eyebrows deepens and I see the gray hairs at his temples. He’s too young for gray, isn’t he?
He has blood on his face, too. I wonder if he’s seen it. I don’t think so because he’s not looking at anything but me. His gaze is so intensely locked on mine that it makes goosebumps rise along my flesh.
He blinks, finally looks down and he switches the water off. He sets his hands on the counter on either side of me, arms like steel bars. Not that I’d run. There’s nowhere I want to be but here. He switches his gaze back to mine and I feel it in the pit of my stomach. That fluttering, like butterflies inside me. He still hasn’t cleaned the blood off his face.
I turn inside the cage of his arms and reach up to wipe away the splatters of red with my fingers. His skin is rough with several days’ worth of stubble. There’s gray here, too, sprinkled through the dark. I like it. I look at his lips and remember them on mine. Remember how he tasted. And when he swallows, I watch his Adam’s apple bob. I think again how beautiful he is. My broken avenging angel. The man who has saved me twice. The one slaying my dragons.
“Dante,” comes Matthaeus’s voice from inside breaking the spell. “We need to move.”
“One minute,” Dante calls out, not moving, not shifting his gaze.
I want him to kiss me again. I want to feel his lips on mine. Taste his taste. Smell his smell. I put my hands against his chest, move over solid muscle as I take them over his arms and wrap them around his shoulders. I feel his strength. And even when he winces as I touch what I realize is the bullet wound, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull back.
I climb up on tip toe and I touch my lips to his.
All I can think is how right this is. How this is exactly where I want to stay. Right here. In this moment in time. And when I move my lips, opening them to him, I feel his open too. Feel his body shudder as he draws me into him, kissing me.
My body melts against his and I feel myself relax. Then, in the next instant, everything changes. His lips tighten and he stiffens. His hands close around my arms, drawing me away.
“No,” he says. Just that one word and it makes my world go dark again.
I look up at him, confused. I try to kiss him again, but he stops me.
“No, Mara.”
Heat flushes my neck and face. I drop my gaze to the floor, to his booted feet, to my bare ones.
He keeps hold of one arm as his other hand creeps up my spine to cup the base of my skull. His fingers weave into my hair and tug, making me look up at him.
“I shouldn’t have done what I did. I shouldn’t have touched you.”
I can’t look at him. I’m embarrassed and hurt. How could I think he’d want me? After all that’s happened, all they’ve done to me. It’s stupid, really. Who would want me after that?
I feel my lip quiver and I bite back the pain, swallow down the hurt.
“It won’t happen again,” he continues. “I wouldn’t be any better than the rest of them if I allowed it. Do you understand?”
I turn misty eyes up to study him, see how the green of his eye is darker as if with the weight of his words, the feeling inside them. But I don’t care about that. I don’t want to hear this. I harden myself. Lock away any emotion.
“No,” I tell him. And I grab my Swiss army knife, turn, and walk away, out of the room, needing to be away from him. Needing to figure out these strange new feelings. To manage my disappointment at his rejection.