by Tia Wylder
He was incredible, so precise and consistent. The pleasure was overwhelming, I felt a new and exciting feeling pouring through me. I lost control of my body and screamed out as a powerful climax crashed into me. Constantin’s hands came up and gently pulled the blindfold off of my eyes. I saw his face for the first time. Chiseled jaw, warm brown eyes, and short silvery hair. He was an incredible looking man. My head was spinning from blood loss. He looked down at me and smiled.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Incredible,” I whispered.
I sat up as he laid down on the bed. He had a perfectly toned body, perfect from top to bottom. I climbed onto him and looked down at his deep and mysterious eyes. I positioned myself and let him slide into me. He lacked warmth, like a living person. I didn’t mind, though, I still felt his passion. I leaned forward and grinded myself against him. I pressed my hands on his chest and braced myself as his hands reached up and cupped my breasts. He gently massaged them as I rocked back and forth.
“It’s been so long,” he said.
“Since you’ve made love?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Since I’ve felt something.”
I leaned down and kissed him softly on the lips. His hands traveled down my back until he gripped my backside and thrusted upward into me. My whole body shook as a wave of pleasure shot through me like lightning. Our hips found a common rhythm. I threw my head back and let him flow through me as he came inside me. I collapsed onto the bed beside him.
I couldn’t move. I felt myself fading, but I didn’t want this moment to end.
“It’s alright, Natalia, rest. I’ll be here to protect you.”
He made me feel safe. That was perhaps the best gift he could give me.
Chapter Five
That night, I had a different dream. I wasn’t in the mansion, nor was I in the time I knew. I was in the past, lying on the ground amidst rubble and dust. Around me, several prisoners laid crushed by rubble or impaled on spikes that were spread out across the floor. I had managed to avoid the trap, but only by a few inches. I had been hit with an arrow while the other prisoners and myself tried to flee into the depths of the enemy tombs.
The floor gave way and we fell. I still lived, but just barely. The arrow pierced my side. I was bleeding profusely. I didn’t have much time. My thoughts were only on Rayna and what had happened to her. Surely they would have killed her for conspiring with me, but if I made it out, I would find her.
Death was coming, though, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I knew this memory all too well, but for some strange reason or twist of fate, that night as I slept by Natalia’s side, the missing pieces revealed themselves.
A gaunt and emaciated man emerged from the darkness in the back of the chamber.
“You’re dying by the looks of it,” he whispered.
He sounded like he was in pain himself. He hid his mouth from me with his hand as he spoke.
“Please, help me,” I whispered.
“Aye, I can help you, but it is not a fate I would wish upon any man, even my enemies.”
“I must find her, I must save her,” I said.
“You would do this, at any cost?”
I coughed. Blood splattered across the sand covered ground in front of me.
“At any cost.”
“Very well, I will take you to her.”
The man dragged me across the ground by my arm. The pain was overwhelming. My screams echoed through the chamber, but no one responded, not even him.
“I will give you life eternal, but it will come with a cost. You will have the chance to save your beloved, if indeed she still lives, but you will live long after she is dust. Do you wish to take this burden from me?”
I was delirious. I shouldn’t have said yes, I should have died there!
“Yes.”
“Very well.”
The man lifted me onto his shoulders and I saw the statue of the goddess that now sat in the vault of my home. He lifted my arm into the statue’s mouth and its stone fangs dug into my skin. I had a brief moment of clarity as it drained everything from me. I looked over and saw the man’s vitality return to him. He took his hand away from his mouth and I saw a pair of fangs. They fell out like children’s teeth and landed on the ground in front of him. Joy filled his face as my vision went black.
***
I awoke to the sound of yelling. The lights in the bedroom illuminated and I saw a portly fellow stroll into the room. He swayed as if drunk and waved a pistol around that he had clutched in his hand.
“How dare you! How dare you steal my property!” the man screamed.
“I climbed out of the bed and pulled on my robe. Richard stood in the doorway behind the drunken man.
“I’m sorry sir, he threatened to kill me!”
I waved Richard off. “Go, I’ll handle this.’
“Did you sleep with her? Huh? Did you?”
I nodded.
The man pulled back the hammer on his revolver and growled.
“I had people lined up, people who paid good money for her first time! Now you took that from me!”
“I assure you, I can offer you something far more valuable than her in exchange. It’s just inside that vault there,” I said.
The man looked to the vault and then back to me. “In there? Unless you got another virgin woman in there, I’m not interested!”
“Constantin, don’t do this for me. I’ll go with him,” Natalia said.
The man spit on the ground. “I don’t want you back, whore! I want what’s owed to me!”
I looked back at Natalia. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this.”
I typed in the code and opened the vault. The man followed me inside and looked at the statue with contempt.
“This is it? Seriously? How is this supposed to help me?” he asked.
“It’s not the statue that’s priceless. It’s what it does. Go ahead, give it your arm,” I said.
“What’s it going to do?” the man asked.
“It’s going to make you immortal. Would you like that?”
“You’re shitting me!”
“Even if I am lying, what do you have to lose?” I asked.
The man raised his arm and placed it into the statue’s grasp. It grabbed him and lifted him off the ground. He screamed and dropped his gun as it bit into him. I picked up the gun and watched as it drained him entirely until he looked like nothing more than a fleshy sack of blood. I backed away from the scene and looked down as the fangs fell out of my mouth.
I felt a rush of adrenaline as I ran to the vault entrance. I pushed the door closed and it locked. I stepped back and fired the gun into the control panel, sealing him inside.
Natalia was dressed and standing beside the bed.
“What happened?” she asked.
I laughed as a smile swept over my face.
“Constantin, you have to go, the sun is coming up!” she said.
I shook my head. “No, I want to see it.”
I turned and ran down the hall. Natalia chased after me, begging me not to do it, but I had to know, I had to know if it was truly over.
Just like my dream, I approached the doors and grabbed the knobs with shaking hands. I pulled the door open and ran outside as the first rays of sunlight illuminated the world. I closed my eyes and felt it wash over me. I felt warmth, live giving warmth. Tears slid down my face, but when I touched them they weren’t crimson, they were real.
I looked over as Natalia stood in the doorway with a shocked expression on her face.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
I ran over and wrapped my arms around her. I felt her warm skin against mine.
“It’s over, the curse is broken!”
The nightmare had finally ended. I was awake. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding in my chest.
I was alive.
Wanted By My Boss
Chapter One
I remember the day I died
. It was raining, hard. Lightning temporarily added illumination to an otherwise overwhelming darkness. Thunder growled all around me like the inner demons that tormented my mind. I stood atop a stone tower in the concrete jungle of Hong Kong and looked out into a night illuminated by lights just as artificial as the people who made them. This was a world that would smile in your face while it stabbed you in the back.
I was once a part of this, an empire of deceit built on a foundation of lies and paved with the bones of the poor. Businesses in this world was nothing more than dirty warfare covered in a fancy pressed suit and tie. Careers and lives were made and broken as often as the tides changed. It made me sick thinking about all of it, but more than that, it made me feel like there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was once one of them, a shark preying on the weak and sleeping like a baby while families bled out watching their financial futures fall to ash.
In a world where no one cared about anyone but themselves, and anything could be bought for the right price, no one would be left standing when it all burned.
The suit I was wearing cost me over six-thousand dollars. That was the kind of money that could feed a family for a year, and I spent it on a piece of clothing that was currently being ruined by a torrential downpour of rain. We all have our masks that we wear: masks for the world to see, and masks to convince ourselves we're still human, deep down in our souls. My mask was broken, and I was forced to look in the mirror at what laid beneath. There was nothing, just an empty shell of a man.
The smartphone in my hand started vibrating. I swiped to the right and placed it to my ear.
“I’m here, are you on your way?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be there soon. Just stay out of sight.”
I hung up and placed the phone in my coat pocket.
“Zhang Wu! Stay where you are!”
I knew the voice, just not the face. It didn’t matter; he was death coming to finish me off. It was time I paid for my sins.
I heard his footsteps approaching, and I felt myself deeply conflicted. There was a part of me that thought I deserved this, all of it. I told myself I wouldn’t run anymore, that I would face the consequences with honor. Then I saw her face, perhaps the last angels left in a world filled with demons.
You made her a promise.
Death was knocking at my door, howling my name.
Sorry, I can’t answer today, I won’t leave her alone in this world.
I turned and ran as gunshots roared through the night. The bullets passed by my ears, screeching like banshees. I approached the edge of the rooftop and looked down on the building adjacent to it.
Remember your training. Jump!
I leapt off the side of the building and passed over the city below. I tucked my legs into my chest and rolled as I hit the coarse surface of the neighboring building. The assassin behind me wasted no time in doing the same. He hit the ground as I climbed to my feet and ran to the edge of the rooftop.
The next building was too far. I couldn’t make it. I stood on the edge and looked down. There was nothing but darkness until the bottom.
“There’s nowhere else to run Zhang! Stand there and accept your fate!” the voice said.
I slowly turned around and looked my assassin in the eye. His face was all too familiar.
“You?”
He nodded. “They’re not stupid Zhang, they knew from the beginning.”
“I should have known. You’ve made a living out of stabbing people in the back,” I said.
He chuckled. “Don’t put this on me, Zhang, you’re the one who dug your own grave.”
“Better me than the rest of the world, don’t you think?”
He checked his gun and cocked it. His finger curled around the trigger.
“One last question for you, old friend: where’s the drive?”
I smiled and closed my eyes. “If you have to ask, you’ll never find it.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, you’ll never know. Goodbye Zhang.”
He pulled the trigger.
Chapter Two
I hate my job. Most people aren’t very fond of their chosen careers or the ones they’ve settled for, but I hate mine. I get treated like a servant and tossed around like yesterday’s garbage. The last time I heard a “thank you” seemed like an eternity ago. I thought taking a job as a secretary for a major corporation would open doors for me, but it mostly just slammed them in my face on a daily basis.
Even with a pay bump, I was still struggling to pay my rent and bills. Brand new stressors like increased taxes and health insurance continued to cut into my paycheck like a psychopath on a war streak. I wanted to quit and walk out. After all, there was nothing left for me here in this city. The closest thing I had ever felt to love walked out on me the second things started to get hard, and my mother drifted off one night while I was asleep without saying goodbye.
It was just me now, me and this empty city filled with hollow people. Today was the day. Yes, today I would finally tell my chauvinistic boss off and walk out those doors forever. I just had to wait for the right moment.
“Tanya, are you alive in there?” Anderson asked.
I looked up from my keyboard and saw my boss, Anderson Grey, leaning over my desk and ruining the organized piles of memos, business cards, and other assorted junk. He had beady little grey eyes and a fancy haircut, but his scrawny frame and thin jaw did nothing to make him look as intimidating as he thought he was.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Grey?” I asked.
“You can start by getting those spreadsheets done; I needed them an hour ago!”
I clenched my jaw. Not yet.
“Mr. Grey, you asked me to do them an hour ago,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah, I know. Get them done!”
He stormed off and left me staring at a screen full of empty boxes. My heart was pounding and my palms were sweating. I wanted to follow him down the hall, corner him in his office, and tear him a new one. Not yet.
I went to work on the spreadsheet, mindlessly filling in box after box. Another hour went by as workers came in and out. Some had the common courtesy to say hello as they passed my desk and scanned their I.D. badges, but most of them just walked by like I didn’t exist.
As I typed in the last of the numbers on the spreadsheet, Anderson reappeared with a terrified look on his face.
“Tanya, stop what you’re doing immediately!”
“I thought you said you needed these spreadsheets done?”
“Yeah, I do, but not now. Something more important came up. You’re familiar with Zhang Wu, yes?”
I shook my head.
Anderson growled. “Zhang Wu, one of our biggest clients? He’s the C.E.O of a major Chinese corporation? Did you even read the memo I sent out about his visit?”
“Actually I sent the memo and I typed it. What’s the big deal, his visit isn’t for another two weeks.”
Anderson shook his head so hard I thought his glasses would fly right off his head. “He pushed it up, he’s coming in today!”
Now I felt nervous. I couldn’t make a scene on a day like today. Word would spread like wildfire and my reputation would be ruined. I’d have to tell Anderson off another day, when a C.E.O wasn’t visiting.
“Okay, so what do you need me to do?” I asked.
“He’s going to want reports, and I haven’t done them yet. I need you to stall for me,” He said.
“Stall for you? What do you expect me to do?”
“I don’t know, give him a tour, show him around the city, use your womanly ways on him or something!”
I sat back in my chair and shot Anderson a glare. “My womanly what now? I’m a secretary, not an escort service.”
“I know I’m sorry. Just do me this favor and I promise I’ll get off your back about everything.”
That did sound nice.
“Alright fine, I’ll keep him busy.”
“Yes! Thank you, Tanya!”
“You’re wel
come.”
Anderson scurried off like a frightened mouse and left me to my ways. I decided to do a little research on this guy so I wouldn’t look like a total idiot when he arrived. I jumped online and searched his name, “Zhang Wu.”
His picture popped up at the top of the list. He was a clean cut Asian man with a sharp jawline, warm brown eyes, and perfectly cropped jet black hair. In his photos he had a piercing gaze that seemed to leap out of the screen. I delved deeper into his biography and I was shocked at how little information was available.
They had his birthday, two years before mine, and where he was born: Hong Kong, China. I already knew he was C.E.O of some fancy corporation, but beyond that the man was an enigma. Either he wasn’t important enough to write web articles on, or more likely he had something he didn’t want public.
It took a lot of money and power to remain anonymous in the modern era. I had learned that the hard way when my ex started stalking me after I moved. Anything I did, from Facebook to checking my email, all of it left a digital footprint that he could use with the right tools to follow me.
“Hello, I’m here to see Anderson Grey,” a voice said.
I looked up from my screen and stifled a gasp. Zhang Wu was standing in front of me, in the flesh, as if he had leapt out of my computer screen. He couldn’t see it, but I fumbled with the mouse to close the window and feigned typing.
“Hello Mr. Wu.”
“You can call me Zhang. Only my butler calls me Mr. Wu,” he said.
I looked up at him. He face was perfectly still and stoic. After a long moment he cracked a smile.
“It’s a joke. I do have a butler, but he calls me Zhang as well. And you are?”
“Tanya, Tanya Bates. It’s a pleasure to meet you Zhang,” I said.
He shook my hand with a firm grip and continued to hold a perfect smile. Another long moment of silence passed as I found myself speechless in his overwhelming presence.
“Is Anderson ready for me?” he asked.
I fell back to reality and shook my head.
