by Anna Zaires
I think my captor was just testing my language skills with that proposal, but I can’t be sure.
“Mina?” the man prompts, and I realize I zoned out instead of answering his question. Now that some of the adrenaline is fading, the extreme exhaustion is back, muddling my thoughts and slowing my reactions. I want nothing more than to stretch out on this couch and fall asleep, but I might not wake up if I do.
The Russians might decide that what I heard merits killing me rather than just keeping me captive overnight.
“I’ve worked there for a couple of years,” I answer, my voice shaking. It’s easy to sound terrified… because I am.
I’m with two men who may want to kill me, and I’m in no state to defend myself.
The only thing that gives me hope is that they haven’t already done so. They could’ve easily murdered me in the alley; they didn’t need to bring me here for that. Of course, there’s another possibility, one that every woman must consider.
They might be planning to rape me before killing me, in which case bringing me here makes perfect sense.
The thought makes my stomach churn, the old memories threatening to crowd in, but underneath the fear and disgust is something darker, infinitely more fucked up. The brief sizzle of arousal I’d experienced at the bar was nothing compared to how it had felt when the dangerous stranger caged me against the wall, caressing my face with that cruel gentleness. My body—the weak, ruined body I’ve spent the past year hating—had come to life with such force, it was as if fireworks had ignited under my skin, liquifying my core and burning away my inhibitions.
Was he able to sense it?
Did he know how badly I wanted him to keep touching me?
I think he did. And more than that, I think he wanted to. His eyes—a hard, gem-like green—had watched me with the dark intensity of a predator, taking in every twitch of my lashes, every hitch of my breath. If we’d been alone, he might’ve kissed me… or killed me on the spot.
It’s hard to tell with him.
“Do you like it? Working at the bar, I mean?” the tattooed man asks, bringing my attention back to him. Now he is easy to read. There’s unmistakable male interest in the way he looks at me, an obvious gleam in his green eyes.
Wait a sec. Green eyes?
“Are you two brothers?” I blurt out, then silently curse myself. I’m so tired I’m not thinking straight. The last thing I need is for these two to imagine I’m gathering information on them, or—
“We are.” A smile lights up his broad face, softening his harsh features. “Twins, in fact.”
Shit. I did not need to know that. The next thing I know, he’ll be telling me his—
“I’m Ilya, by the way,” he says, extending one big paw toward me. “And my brother’s name is Yan.”
Oh, fuck. I’m so screwed. They are going to kill me. “Nice to meet you,” I say weakly, shaking his hand on autopilot. My grip is as limp as my voice, but that’s okay. I’m playing a damsel in distress, and the more convincing I am, the better.
Too bad the act is mostly real these days.
Ilya squeezes my hand gingerly, as if afraid of inadvertently crushing my bones, and hope nibbles at me. He wouldn’t be so careful with me if they were planning to brutally rape and kill me, would he?
As if reading my thoughts, he gives me another smile, an even kinder one this time, and says gruffly, “I’m sorry about my brother. He’s used to seeing enemies around every corner. You will walk away from this unharmed, I promise you, malyshka. We need to keep you overnight as a precaution, that’s all.”
Strangely, I believe him. Or at least I believe that he intends me no harm. The jury is still out on his brother—who chooses that exact moment to walk in, carrying a cup of tea in one hand and two beers in the other.
My breath catches in my throat as he—Yan—sets the drinks on the coffee table in front of us and sits down between me and Ilya, unapologetically wedging himself into the too-small space. Instinctively, I scoot to the side, as far as the couch allows, but that’s only about six centimeters, and my leg ends up pressed against his, the heat of his body burning me even through the layers of our clothing.
He’s shed the suede winter jacket he was wearing earlier, and is now dressed like he was in the bar, in the stylish dress pants and button-up shirt. Except his sleeves are rolled up, exposing muscular forearms lightly dusted with dark hair.
He’s strong, this ruthless captor of mine. Strong and superbly fit, his body a deadly weapon under those perfectly tailored clothes.
“Tea,” he says in that smooth, deep voice of his, so different from his brother’s rougher tones. “As per the princess’s request.”
“Thank you,” I mumble, reaching for the cup. My hands are visibly shaking, my breathing is shallow, and I’m sweating—and none of it is an act. I can smell the clean, masculine scent of his cologne—something sensual and airy, like pepper and sandalwood—and his nearness unsettles me, making my insides riot with a confusing mixture of fear and desire. Even if he wasn’t danger personified, I’d be drawn to his magnetic good looks, but knowing what I know about him—about what he does and what he might do to me—I can’t control my helpless response to him.
Even my tiredness recedes, leaving me jittery and high, as if I’d downed two liters of espresso.
I’m acutely aware of his gaze on me as I bring the cup to my lips and take a sip, suppressing a hiss at the scalding temperature of the water. I’m trying not to look at him, to just focus on my tea, but I can’t help staring at his hands as he reaches over and grabs a beer, then twists off the cap with a practiced motion. His fingers are long and masculine, and though his nails are neatly groomed, the calluses on the edges of his thumbs belie the elegance of his appearance.
This is a man used to doing things with his hands.
Terrible, violent things.
A normal woman would be repulsed by the thought, but my heart hammers faster, and an aching pulse starts between my legs, my underwear dampening with liquid heat. The darkness in him calls to me, making me feel alive in a way I’ve never experienced before.
It’s as if like recognizes like, the wrongness in me craving the same in him.
Ilya picks up the remaining bottle, his hands thick and rough, with a few tattoos on the back. There’s no pretense in him, no attempt to hide what he is behind an elegant mask. “To new friends,” he says, clinking his bottle against his brother’s and then, more gently, against my cup of tea. I risk a glance at him, but catch Yan’s hard green gaze instead.
I quickly look away, but not before a betraying flush crawls up my neck and covers my face. “To new friends,” I repeat, staring into my cup as if I might see my fate written in the tea leaves. I’m not sure I want Yan to know about the effect he has on me—though he probably already does.
I’m not exactly at the top of my game tonight.
“Yes, to new friends,” Yan murmurs, his large hand landing on my knee and squeezing it lightly.
Startled, I look over at him and see him tipping back the beer, his strong throat working as he swallows. It’s a strangely sensual sight, and my insides clench as he lowers the bottle and meets my gaze, his eyes darkly intent as the hand on my knee moves a couple of inches up my thigh, closer to where I’m wet and aching.
Oh God.
He knows.
He definitely knows.
“Ilya,” he says quietly, still holding my gaze. “Make us a couple of sandwiches, will you? I think Mina here is hungry.”
“She is?” Ilya sounds confused as he stands up, and I look up to find him frowning at us—specifically, at my thigh, where Yan’s hand is resting so possessively. Slowly, tension permeates his big body, his hands flexing at his sides as his gaze swings to his brother’s face.
“I don’t think she’s hungry,” he bites out, his voice low and hard. His eyes cut to me. “Are you, Mina?”
I swallow thickly, unsure of what the right answer is. If I’m reading this r
ight, Yan has just staked some sort of an exclusive claim on me, one that I would reinforce if I admitted to this made-up hunger.
Is that what I want?
To send away the brother who’s been nice to me, so I could be alone with the man who proposed dumping my body in the river?
“A… a sandwich would be nice.” The words don’t seem to belong to me, yet it’s my voice saying them, even as my brain scrambles to figure out the implications. “That is, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
Ilya’s mouth thins. “Fine. I’ll see what we have in the fridge.”
And turning around, he stalks off, leaving me on the couch with his brother.
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Excerpt from The Girl Who Sees by Dima Zales
I’m an illusionist, not a psychic.
* * *
Going on TV is supposed to advance my career, but things go wrong.
* * *
Like vampires and zombies kind of wrong.
* * *
My name is Sasha Urban, and this is how I learned what I am.
“I’m not a psychic,” I say to the makeup girl. “What I’m about to do is mentalism.”
“Like that dreamy guy on the TV show?” The makeup girl adds another dash of foundation to my cheekbones. “I always wanted to do his makeup. Can you also hypnotize and read people?”
I take a deep, calming breath. It doesn’t help much. The tiny dressing room smells like hairspray went to war with nail polish remover, won, and took some fumes prisoner.
“Not exactly,” I say when I have my anxiety and subsequent irritation under control. Even with Valium in my blood, the knowledge of what’s about to come keeps me on the edge of sanity. “A mentalist is a type of stage magician whose illusions deal with the mind. If it were up to me, I’d just go by ‘mental illusionist.’”
“That’s not a very good name.” She blinds me with her lamp and carefully examines my eyebrows.
I mentally cringe; the last time she looked at me this way, I ended up getting tortured with tweezers.
She must like what she sees now, though, because she turns the light away from my face. “‘Mental illusionist’ sounds like a psychotic magician,” she continues.
“That’s why I simply call myself an illusionist.” I smile and prepare for the makeup to fall off, like a mask, but it stays put. “Are you almost done?”
“Let’s see,” she says, waving over a camera guy.
The guy makes me stand up, and the lights on his camera come on.
“This is it.” The makeup girl points at the nearby LCD screen, where I have avoided looking until now because it’s playing the ongoing show—the source of my panic.
The camera guy does whatever he needs to do, and the anxiety-inducing show is gone from the screen, replaced by an image of our tiny room.
The girl on the screen vaguely resembles me. The heels make my usual five feet, six inches seem much taller, as does the dark leather outfit I’m wearing. Without heavy makeup, my face is symmetric enough, but my sharp cheekbones put me closer to handsome than pretty—an effect my strong chin enhances. The makeup, however, softens my features, bringing out the blue color of my eyes and highlighting the contrast with my black hair.
The makeup girl went overboard with it—you’d think I’m about to step into a shampoo commercial. I’m not a big fan of long hair, but I keep it that way because when I had it short, people used to mistake me for a teenage boy.
That’s a mistake no one would make tonight.
“I like it,” I say. “Let’s be done. Please.”
The TV guy switches the screen back to the live feed of the show. I can’t help but glance there, and my already high blood pressure spikes.
The makeup girl looks me up and down and wrinkles her nose minutely. “You insist on that outfit, right?”
The really cool (in my opinion) borderline-dominatrix getup I’ve donned today is a means to add mystique to my onstage persona. Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, the famous nineteenth-century French conjuror who inspired Houdini’s stage name, once said, “A magician is an actor playing the part of a magician.” When I saw Criss Angel on TV, back in elementary school, my opinion of what a magician should look like was formed, and I’m not too proud to admit that I see influences of his goth rock star look in my own outfit, especially the leather jacket.
“How marvelous,” says a familiar voice with a sexy British accent. “You didn’t look like this at the restaurant.”
Pivoting on my high heels, I come face to face with Darian, the man I met two weeks ago at the restaurant where I do table-to-table magic—and where I’d impressed him enough to make this unimaginable opportunity a reality.
A senior producer on the popular Evening with Kacie show, Darian Rutledge is a lean, sharply dressed man who reminds me of a hybrid between a butler and James Bond. Despite his senior role at the studio and the frown lines that crisscross his forehead, I’d estimate his age to be late twenties—though that could be wishful thinking, given that I’m only twenty-four. Not that he’s traditionally handsome or anything, but he does have a certain appeal. For one thing, with his strong nose, he’s the rare guy who can pull off a goatee.
“I wear Doc Martens at the restaurant,” I tell him. The extra inches of my footwear lift me to his eye level, and I can’t help but get lost in those green depths. “The makeup was forced on me,” I finish awkwardly.
He smiles and hands me a glass he’s been holding. “And the result is lovely. Cheers.” He then looks at the makeup girl and the camera guy. “I’d like to speak with Sasha in private.” His tone is polite, yet it carries an unmistakable air of imperiousness.
The staff bolt out of the room. Darian must be an even bigger shot than I thought.
On autopilot, I take a gulp of the drink he handed to me and wince at the bitterness.
“That’s a Sea Breeze.” He gives me a megaton smile. “The barman must’ve gone heavy on the grapefruit juice.”
I take a polite second sip and put the drink on the vanity behind me, worried that the combination of vodka and Valium might make me woozier than I already am. I have no idea why Darian wants to speak to me alone; anxiety has already turned my brain to mush.
Darian regards me in silence for a moment, then pulls out a phone from his tight jeans’ pocket. “There’s a bit of unpleasantness we must discuss,” he says, swiping across the screen of the phone before handing it to me.
I take the phone from him, gripping it tight so it doesn’t slip out of my sweaty palms.
On the phone is a video.
I watch it in stunned silence, a wave of dread washing over me despite the medication.
The video reveals my secret—the hidden method behind the impossible feat I’m about to perform on Evening with Kacie.
I’m so screwed.
“Why are you showing me this?” I manage to say after I regain control of my paralyzed vocal cords.
Darian gently takes the phone back from my shaking hands. “You know that thing you went on about at the restaurant? How you’re just pretending to be a psychic and that it’s all tricks?”
“Right.” I frown in confusion. “I never said I do anything for real. If this is about exposing me as a fraud—”
“You misunderstand.” Darian grabs my discarded drink and takes a long, yet somehow elegant sip. “I have no intention of showing that video to anyone. Quite the contrary.”
I blink at him, my brain clearly overheated from the adrenaline and lack of sleep.
“I know that as a magician, you don’t like your methods known.” His smile turns oddly predatory.
“Right,” I say, wondering if he’s about to make a blackmail-style indecent proposal. If he did, I would reject it, of course—but on principle, not because doing something indecent with a guy like Darian is unthinkable.
When you haven’t gotten any for as long as I haven’t, all sorts of crazy scenarios swirl through your h
ead on a regular basis.
Darian’s green gaze turns distant, as though he’s trying to look through the nearby wall all the way into the horizon. “I know what you’re planning on saying after the big reveal,” he says, focusing back on me. In an eerie parody of my voice, he enunciates, “‘I’m not a prophet. I use my five senses, principles of deception, and showmanship to create the illusion of being one.’”
My eyebrows rise so high my heavy makeup is in danger of chipping. He didn’t approximate what I was about to say—he nailed it word for word, even copying the intonation I’ve practiced.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised.” He places the now-empty glass back on the vanity dresser. “You said that exact thing at the restaurant.”
I nod, still in shock. Did I actually tell him this before? I don’t remember, but I must have. Otherwise, how would he know?
“I paraphrased something another mentalist says,” I blurt out. “Is this about giving him credit?”
“Not at all,” Darian says. “I simply want you to omit that nonsense.”
“Oh.” I stare at him. “Why?”
Darian leans against the vanity and crosses his legs at the ankles. “What fun is it to have a fake psychic on the show? Nobody wants to see a fake.”
“So you want me to act like a fraud? Pretend to be for real?” Between the stage fright, the video, and now this unreasonable demand, I’m just about ready to turn tail and run, even if I end up regretting it for the rest of my life.
He must sense that I’m about to lose it, because the predatory edge leaves his smile. “No, Sasha.” His tone is exaggeratedly patient, as though he’s talking to a small child. “I just want you to not say anything. Don’t claim to be a psychic, but don’t deny it either. Just avoid that topic altogether. Surely you can be comfortable with that.”
