by H. A. Kotys
But that rise, had it always been doomed to fail? Was she now merely the phoenix floundering as it raised itself clear of the past’s dark flame? Fate’s furnace had forged a hard shell but was it no longer necessary, no longer needed? Was this an inevitable destiny? Was it destiny to find someone who could first match and then outmatch her, showing her a mirror image of what she had become?
She thrashed again, landing this time squarely on the painful reminder that was her shoulder.
“Fuck him, no fucking way,” she cried out loud, as if trying to convince herself. She wasn’t a victim any more. She would show him, them, everyone, that she was still Raven and always would be. And yet as she slipped back into a fitful half sleep, the image of him strode back into her head, muscular legs sliding down to be by her side, drawing a smile across her parched lips as they arrived.
CHAPTER XXXI – Waking Moments
Her shoulder jolted Raven halfway awake again but when she stretched her leg, the ankle chain pulled her up short. She snapped fully back to reality, her keen mind cartwheeling straight into analysis as it always did after a vivid dream.
God she was messed up. All that surety of self had been called into question during a torturous night. Not the classic conflict of good versus evil, it could never be that fucking simple with her could it? Her dreams on this night were more the battles of risk against reward. Past against future.
Normally her dreams sorted things out in their own circuitous way and gave her a launchpad she could push off from to attack the day. Not today though. Day after day of the same routine had been very precisely dripped onto her, offering some bizarre structure to the chaos of her once carefully-ordered world.
Today already felt somehow fresh, almost like a new start and while that held her sense of adventure, it also pricked at her sense of foreboding at the unknown. The unknown was where threats always came from and ever since she had been assaulted by her mother’s meal ticket all those years ago she had tried to make damn sure she anticipated and controlled as much as she could.
Could it really be a new start? The thoughts and images had segued from her dream and still wrestled with the apprehension in her head. She was the same person, or at least the same person as she was yesterday. But then what exactly had she been yesterday?
He was different now. Still Alexei; brutal, wildly dangerous, as the cold blooded shooting of Tomas had more than amply demonstrated, but she had seen more. There was the kiss - at least she thought there was but maybe that was just part of a dream too? She had been allowed a fleeting peek into what lay beneath, hadn’t she? Damnit.
“Stockholm Syndrome, you stupid bitch,” Raven said out loud, rebuking her own wavering. Even as she did though, another, more softly spoken voice within her suggested that perhaps the order of being a slave to him wouldn’t be quite so bad. She didn’t surface often but sometimes her more conservative self did have a point. Her more adventurous side drooled at the thought of something new.
Elegant hands clutched at the thin sheet in utter frustration, balling the cloth within her fists. “Stupid fucking bitch,” Raven growled again, repeating the one thing she still knew for certain.
== ~ ==
If Alexei concentrated hard, he was sure he could still taste her lips on his. Sleepily, his fingers travelled across his mouth, perhaps to trigger more of the memory, perhaps to seal it as his.
He had kissed her to make absolutely sure she was alive hadn’t he? That was how he had since rationalised it, but as his lips had first touched hers he had wavered, shocked by sensations that had instantly electrified his body, before he had exhaled reviving breath into her.
It shouldn’t be like this; it had never been like this before. She was the very embodiment of all he hated and had been acquired as the lightning rod for the storm that was his vengeance. He had taken other sluts. So eager for his attentions, he had broken them apart and discarded the pieces. She was just another in his steady stream of toys. There would be others, he was Alexei and as much as anything else, it was expected of him.
Others. The others he’d had were nothing but girls though. Hair, tits and smiles. Legs, ass and laughter. They had been fucked and if they were lucky, paid off, sold on if they weren’t. Natalia was always so thorough. This one though, this Raven, this American, this one was something new.
She was his pinnacle. She was the single perfect peak to which his ascent had led and his realisation was already growing that there would be nothing to aspire to beyond her. Sure, he would take his vengeance and vent his wrath but that would be more show than self-indulgence. Natalia expected that. Hadn’t she been the one after all to suggest an American first?
It was no longer about just drenching himself in her for the slaking of a long-held thirst for vengeance. It was no longer the cheap thrill of watching a female body try to cope with all he had to inflict. From this one, he would be rewarded with more, much more. Her body was his bounty. She was his to play with, his to pummel, even his to pamper if the whim took him - he was sure it would. His thoughts and more surged and his imagination flared, but it was the unfamiliarly soft edges to his lust that stopped him dead in his tracks.
== ~ ==
She had never seen him pause before in all her thirty-five years and that scared her. Laying there, scrutinising the expensive cornicing above her bed, Natalia’s concerns stole her sleep.
She idolised her elder brother as any younger sister would. In her eyes, with his imposing stature married to his strong sense of family and purpose, he could do no wrong. She would do anything for him, and had given everything just to be there for him and his ambitions.
Her eyes drifted down the wall to the exquisite, pink doll’s house that was perfectly placed on a white table near her bed. Focussing on it, Natalia inspected the precisely fashioned guttering and trailed her eyes down the downspout before wandering across a ground floor window to the porch-guarded front door.
How many times had she played with that house? How many fantasies had she enacted in there, fantasies she had sacrificed in real life to follow her brother’s ambitions instead?
She had never been with a man because that may risk diluting or deflecting her dedication. In her small house though she had been with many, or rather with one many times. Somehow, she still felt the comfort from the sanctuary of playing with it and looking at it now through reddened eyes, the intricate furnishings she could make out inside reached out to her and gave her solace again.
Stretching out, Natalia ran a finger lovingly over the apex of the whitewashed porch, noticing as she did how bitten down her fingernails were. ‘Not like hers,’ she sneered, ‘hers are perfect. Or at least they had been.’ Natalia smiled with smug satisfaction at how her carefully thought-out program had slowly eroded their captive.
The other one, the one with a cheap tattoo and plastic tits, had been barely looked at. Alexei had a penchant for that look but she was already completely ignored. The black-haired woman represented a danger though, a threat to the order that was her intimately structured world. She had even made her brother pause with that womanly body and feline grace, which still managed to sashay right through Natalia’s meticulously choreographed unravelling.
Natalia could feel bile rise in her throat. She had always been by his side. She had sourced the women for him, prepared his sluts and tended to them after he spat them out the other side. She swept up the mess he left and ensured he continued to soar without having to look back.
It had been her idea to give him a strong American woman on which to feast and inflict the poison of his vengeance, fearing it would otherwise fester and eventually hold him back. And so she had hunted, contacting people in dark places, in low places and ultimately in the right places. Following a suggestion, that was how she had found the middleman known simply as ‘The Algerian’.
They say a person can link to anyone else in the world via six degrees of separation but to get to The Algerian, Natalia had only needed four. Contact h
ad been made and later a negotiation concluded. That had been necessary or so she thought, after all, Alexei’s interest in the auctioned woman would only last for so long.
The auctioned woman. Raven. How wrong she had been. With the election coming up, Natalia couldn’t risk providing her brother with local girls anymore – too close to home, too likely to be found out. It had been obvious what needed to be done and, with gentle persuasion and sordid suggestions of what could be enjoyed, Natalia had made sure her dearest brother had secured the woman in an auction that had threatened to spiral the cost toward insanity. He hadn’t paused though, Natalia’s suggestions had made sure he had been thinking with his dick.
Within twenty-four hours, the woman that would lance the unsightly boil of his septic need for vengeance and sate his carnal greed was en route. Two birds with one stone. Tidy. Efficient. Perfect. He would need more though. A pipeline of bitches. How ironic.
With the woman secure, the trusted Tomas had been despatched to search for the Algerian – he was always the hand where Natalia was the head, clinically carrying out her bidding with diligent discretion.
Natalia paused, fingering the minute door of the doll’s house that was her bedrock, while pushing a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. He was dead now and that in itself was just wrong. She had once even thought that Tomas was someone she could be with, eventually of course, once her brother had achieved everything he desired. He did bear a passing resemblance to Alexei after all.
She had tried to flirt with him once but it felt awkward and clumsy. The heels she had worn just for the occasion meant that she spent more time worrying about standing than seducing. At least they had made her brother laugh.
She never tried to repeat that mistake. Tomas had been killed by Alexei but it was the woman’s fault, not his. She had confused her brother with that body and that way of hers. She had caused it as sure as if she had pulled the trigger herself.
Natalia had always been by her brother’s side and there was no way she would allow him to be steered off course by anyone, let alone her. Yes, the American woman would have to be watched, possibly warned, and certainly dealt with as necessary when the time came. Drawing one of the tiny dolls to her chest, Natalia closed her eyes - Alexei was still hers, and would remain so.
CHAPTER XXXII – A World Away
The uncomfortable heat of yet another steamy evening kissed the bare skin of the two bodies that lay entwined. Clothes were scattered around the room; a bra swayed gently in the breeze from an open window as it hung from a chair back, a silk blouse billowed beside it, hooked on a handle of a dresser. Shoes sat where they had spun to after being hurriedly kicked off.
A lamp lay on its side, flex partly torn out, while its former shade peeked from under the bed. A net curtain reached for it as it rose and fell in the breeze, catching occasionally on the open drawer of a bedside cabinet.
All was quiet and otherwise still, the calm after the storm that had been a tumult barely contained within the small room.
An aroma of expensive perfume hung in the air, but it was the pungent smell of sex that piqued the interest of a small black and white cat that lurked just outside, compelling it to jump through the window to follow her feline curiosity. Bobbing her head, she sniffed, her small pink nose twitching to sample the scent again. She moved cautiously, she always did when entering somewhere, needing to know whether any threats were foretold in the air.
An exploratory paw snaked out, testing the distance of the leap from sill to seat. Now more confident, the little cat sprang forward, displacing the designer blouse when she landed deftly on the chair.
Snapping her head round, the cat eyeballed the potential threat of the blouse flowing to the floor. Thinking better of trying to snatch at it with her paw, she rocked back instead to nibble at an itch now demanding urgent attention.
Another itch successfully despatched to her little tongue’s graveyard for them, she dropped to the floor. The landing dislodged fur caught in her throat and she coughed, furiously shaking her head before sneezing twice. There would be a fur ball later – she hated those but at least there was carpet and carpet was her favourite place to leave them.
Looking up to the foot that hung motionless over the edge of the bed, a dilemma struck as a solitary fly spiralled above it. Tilting her head as primal instincts kicked in, the small black and white cat gathered in her back legs, coiling herself ready for attack.
Dissatisfied with the fly’s audacity of intrusion, she twitched her tail but not quite satisfied she was ready, gathered herself again. Now she was. Poised and primed, here would be the first kill of the day. Wait though - kill the fly or nuzzle the foot? It looked so damn appealing and was at just the right height so as not to be too much of an effort. Decisions, decisions.
As quickly as it burst upon her, the dilemma of what to do passed as the fly veered and zigzagged out the window, watched by the little cat’s twisting head.
Focussing back on the foot, she strained up, whiskers twitching as she sniffed, gathering clues to what lay beyond it until turning her head slightly to the left, she smoothed her cheek against the toe. Her territory, make no mistake. Snaking out her rough tongue, the little cat licked the toe she had made twitch.
Meanwhile, a world away a new day crept into being and started to beckon Kazakhstan to wake.
CHAPTER XXXIII – Corridors of Power
Raven padded barefoot behind the burly guard, naked except for the seven metal bands that depicted her position, and the decorative white gold hoops that adorned piercings in both her ears and nipples. Moving along the corridor, she glided in that naturally easy way of hers, hips rolling to propel her forward, stepping quietly on the high arches of her feet. At least there were two things she had cause to thank her mother for.
Just a day earlier, Raven would have noticed the reduction in the degree of her bondage as she was led loosely by a chain attached to the metal band that collared her – Alexei having expressly ordered that her arms were not to be bound to help her shoulder to recover. Noticing it, she would have seen a chance, a carelessness which would have had her leaping onto the guard’s back and throttling him with the chain until he staggered and fell beneath her. Her mind now though was otherwise occupied, sifting through new thoughts, new feelings and new and unexpected options that sprawled before her.
There was no need to pull but Yuri pulled anyway, intermittently yanking on the thick chain coiled around his large hand, just because he could, jerking the naked woman forward. He wasn’t allowed to bind her and that took away an opportunity to enjoy her body, so he would take out his frustration instead. With the fourth such jag on her neck, Raven stumbled and her bare breasts brushed his broad back.
In an instant she was pinned to the wall by his vice-like grip on her slender neck. With his Neanderthal face millimetres from her own, his acrid breath seemed to singe her nose as he snarled down at her. Raven snapped her head away in revulsion.
She had been close to him before but this close he looked huge with his bull neck, wide shoulders and extra eight inches in height above hers. As his hand dug into her neck, she knew that her very life lay in that vice-like grasp.
Fighting all her normal instincts of self-preservation, Raven froze and looked down, heart pounding, a porcelain doll at the whim of an ogre. She shook slightly with the battle that raged within her at such an act of contriteness, faked or otherwise.
The smile that slithered across his lips told her that he had noticed her trembling, misconstruing it as her growing weakness. But had he misread what he saw? Or was that actually the woman she now was?
How could it have happened? How could her guard have been so eroded, so shattered? Questions tumbled inside, turning and twisting into knots of self-doubt. They debased and destabilised her. Raven could do nothing but endure, nothing than be pinned immobile in his strong hand until at last an image of Alexei once again invaded her mind and drew her focus inward.
“You. Much pai
n. Today.” The grunted words from Yuri stretched his English to its limit. Seemingly unsure of his accuracy, his free hand shot to her right breast by way of a physical demonstration, pushing it up and out as thick fingers clutched and bit into delicate flesh.
A moan of satisfaction escaped his lips, feeling her soft skin and the way her natural breasts felt in his hand, not the whore’s implants he was more used to handling. His fingers rolled, pushing Raven’s pained breast up higher even as she forced out a moan of her own just to create the self-preserving lie that she was enjoying his touch.
His grunt told her that her contrivance had worked and when he released his grip and slapped his ham of a hand down hard on her breast, the gasp she gave was as much in relief as in anguish.
Raven’s eyes screwed tightly closed as she coped with the impact of the blow and she barely noticed the release of the constricting grip on her throat until the snap of the chain around her neck spurred her forward.
So, on they moved, brute and slave, each understanding their place in their immediate world. One leading, the other following, a red handprint burning her breast. Both focussed on obedience, one to prevent another assault, the other to fight one back.
