by Shandi Boyes
“AM?”
I shouldn’t smile at her squeaked question, but I do. Her shock reveals why she exudes so much purity. Her father raised her as if she’s a princess, and only now is she discovering what happens when a man’s kingdom topples. She’s being brought back down to earth by the man who was accused of doing exactly that many years ago.
“The chambermaids are first to rise and last to bed, so I expect you to do the same. Do that, and my pardon will remain as cited.”
Hearing the threat in my tone, she thrusts her hands under their opposite arms. “And if I don’t follow your rules?”
I raise my eyes from her folded arms to her face, taking in her thrusting chest, bruised neck, and parted lips on the way. “We’ll renegotiate, but be warned, you won’t come out of that negotiation as unscathed as you did tonight.”
When she takes a step back, I realize she heard something in my voice I didn’t mean to disclose. I’m struggling. Not just with keeping a rational head, but to not break rules I swore I’d never break.
The scent of her cunt makes me not only want to take something not willingly given—but I’d have to kill her when I was done.
Chapter Nine
Zariah
My brain thumps my temples as the annoying beep of a battery-operated clock stirs me from a restless sleep. I’m grateful Lenin could provide something on short notice, but I’ve barely been asleep for an hour, and even pure exhaustion couldn’t take away the uncomfortable lumps in my mattress. My room is smelly, dingy, and cold. I’m wearing layers upon layers of clothes, yet I’m still shaking. I want to pretend all my quivers are because of the horrible Moscow weather, but unfortunately, that would be a lie. I’m tired, upset, and tremendously homesick.
I tore apart my luggage last night when Lenin returned it to me within thirty minutes of Asher leaving, but no amount of searching located the cell phone my father gave me upon my departure. It was removed from my possession along with anything remotely pretty. The dresses I packed purely for vanity were missing from my bag, and any remotely sexy undergarments were either shredded beyond repair or confiscated.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Asher wants me to be as unattractive as possible. He has no cause for concern. A lack of cosmetics to tackle the monstrous bags under my eyes will make any man within a five-mile radius cringe, much less the potato sack clothes he left in my luggage. I usually reserve sweatpants and baggy T’s for the days my uterus is being hacked with tiny knives. Now they’re my only option.
With a sigh, I throw off a lint-covered sheet before swinging my legs over the bed. I’ve been busting to pee the past thirty minutes, but since I didn’t want to risk tiptoeing down an unknown hallway in an undisclosed location to use the washroom, I held it in. I can’t do that for much longer. My bladder is seconds from bursting.
A cringe crosses my features when the door I kept partially cracked open squeaks as I peel it back a few more inches. Although I can’t one hundred percent testify the person I hear breathing heavily is Asher, I’m fairly certain it is. While spitting out rules like a drill sergeant, he disclosed that he doesn’t like anyone in his room, meaning the low moans and occasional grunts I’ve heard coming from his share of our domain the last twenty minutes came from him.
I’m proven wrong when I quietly slip into his room. Asher is in his extremely large bed, but he’s not alone. He also isn’t sleeping. There are two women with him, their bodies more barren of clothes than not.
The sludge in the bottom of my stomach threatens to resurface when the scantily clad women’s attention switches from ravishing Asher’s face, neck, and torso to a lower extremity of his body. They rake their nails over his pecs and drag them down the bumps on his stomach before slipping them beneath the light-colored boxer shorts he is wearing.
I feel sick when Asher’s head flops back with a moan. Since he’s peering at the ceiling, he fails to notice my presence, much less my paling face. I recognize that groan. It was the same one he made in my ear when I buckled beneath him last night.
Seconds from snapping, I pivot on my heels, preparing to leave. The quickest glimpse of a red thread freezes me in my path. One of the lady’s thong-covered backside is balanced precariously on my childhood blanket—the blanket my mother carried me home from the hospital in. It’s my binkie, the only thing capable of settling me down when my world is spiraling out of control, except now it’s being used as a... as a...
Too angry to form sentences, I charge across the room at the speed of a rocket. With a grunt, I grip the satin swath and yank it with all my might. Although my endeavor to free it from its desecration is rough, my tug won’t damage the gorgeous material my mother chose especially for me. It’s tough—as tough as my mother when she went against a man as determined to break her as Asher is me.
"Get off!" I grunt when the blonde rolls onto the section I'm laboring to set free, horrifyingly awarding me an uninterrupted view of her silicone breasts.
My unforgiving shove to her shoulder sends her toppling off the bed with a bang. I still, paralyzed with fear when her pained cry breaks through the nasty activity taking place on my beloved binkie. Nauseating slurps quickly silence as my heart rate climbs into dangerous territory.
Asher’s eyes pop open at the same time the uninjured topless woman leans over his body to discover the cause of the wounded grunt. She gasps in horror when she spots her friend cowering on the floor, peering up at me in shock.
When she scampers off the bed to aid her friend, she leaves Asher without company but with an angry, merciless scowl. His blazing eyes bore into mine as his jaw muscle spasms, but that’s not the cause of my panic. His pupils are so massive, I can see my reflection in them. I can’t tell if they’re dilated from chemical enhancement or desire. It could be one or both. And although the scent of hard liquor is filtering through my nose, I don’t believe intoxication is the only cause for his glassy gaze. He’s medicated with something more than alcohol; I just have no clue if it is natural or not.
“There’s no need to be jealous, Little Mouse.” Asher’s tone is as mocking as his wolfish grin. “There’s plenty of Asher to share.” He licks his lips as his heavy-lidded gaze scans my body. “Just don’t ask me to share you, as there’s no chance I’ll abide. I’ll kill them all just for looking.”
Although shocked he called me the nickname I use for my brother, nothing can harness my anger. His family forced me out of my home; he assaulted me twice within a matter of hours, then enslaved me in a room worse than a cell all for a crime I did not commit. I’m beyond ropeable, and no longer in fear of my life.
Snarling, I shove Asher in the shoulder as forcefully as I did the blonde. He barely budges an inch, but I don’t need much more than that to remove the blanket wedged under his boxer-covered backside. Although my anger is unbridled, I get a small skerrick of relief that he isn’t naked. I don’t care about him and his floozies; I’m just glad my much-loved family heirloom hasn’t been tainted by his bare backside.
Yeah, right.
My gratitude doesn’t last long. Even with her ego harboring a brand-new bruise, the blonde isn’t willing to let it interrupt her fun. She scurries back to Asher’s side, her eagerness to relight their flame unmistakable. While nibbling on his ear, she claws at his shirtless torso, either completely oblivious his attention isn’t rapt on her, or not caring.
It’s proven to be the later when Asher murmurs, “Why don’t you join us, Little Mouse?” He pushes aside the brunette making her way to his crotch so he can grab it. “There’s room for you right here.” He outlines the erection I felt hot and heavy on my back only hours ago.
His pupils swamp his corneas when I step closer to him, like I’m seriously considering his offer. I’m not, but since I’m no longer scared, I’m happy to give as good as I’m getting. “I’d rather die than slum it with you.”
I kick his boot with my bare feet before spinning on my heels and hightailing it out of my room, slamming the doo
r behind me. I don’t know where I’m going, and I have no idea what I’ll find when I reach it, but anywhere has to be better than where I am now.
Chapter Ten
Asher
A door slamming shut adds to the pounding of my temples. I’m spaced the fuck out, as high as a fucking kite, and seconds from getting my dick sucked by a whore whose name is slipping my mind. Is it Martha? Mischa? Mable? Whatever the fuck it is, she has a body more dangerous than dynamite, yet, all I can see are the furious eyes of the woman I should be itching to kill instead of bedding. I want Zariah to bleed. It just isn’t her veins I want to siphon.
“Stop.” I tug the brunette’s head away from my crotch with enough force a sob pops from her lips.
“Net?”
She’s confused by my request. I can understand her bewilderment. She has my throbbing cock in her hand, and her tongue is at the ready to lap up the pool of precum beading on the crest, but I’m stopping her.
I must be insane.
“No.”
When I push her away from me, she lands on the floor with the same thud the blonde made when Zariah’s anger got the best of her. I thought I was dreaming when I saw her standing before me with a heaving chest and cheeks as flushed as they were when she came. It’s not the first time I’ve faced illusions that included her when high. My crew distributes the best quality drugs. If it doesn’t get you shit-faced enough you can forget your fucked-up existence, you’re already dead. Plain and fucking simple.
While standing to my feet, I yank up the boxer shorts ... Martha? removed within a second of Zariah fleeing my room before spinning around to face the two high-priced whores. “Tell Diak to add your services to my tab.”
Two pairs of wide eyes stare at me in shock. Once again, I understand their surprise. Except for having their tits thrust into my face, and them slobbering on my chest and neck while their hands worked on getting my cock on board with the program, I didn’t get any of the “services” I paid for, so I have no reason to hand over my hard-earned money. But it’s not just my head fucked-up right now, my entire game plan has gone down the toilet. My cock wasn’t interested in anything the whores were offering until Zariah stepped into the frame. Then I was so fucking hard, I nearly came in the brunette’s hand mid-stroke.
That’s fucked, and it pisses me off more than it pleases me, which means I take my anger out on the wrong people. “Or don’t tell him. I don’t fucking care what you do; I just want you out of my room.”
I add to my request by gripping the whores’ arms and tossing them into the hallway. They’re barely clothed, but I don’t give a fuck. The less clothing they wear while walking the halls of my compound, the more money they’ll make me. My men like to see the goods before sampling them, nearly as much as I like sampling the goods before distributing them. I’m not solely referring to whores, either.
With the early hour, I don’t expect an audience, so you can imagine my shock when my hazy eyes lock in on a figure halfway down the nearly black corridor. Even with Zariah’s back flattened into an alcove, she’s bumped by the whores when they scurry to their feet and race down the hall.
The manic tick my jaw has held since our first exchange returns stronger than ever when my vision clears enough I can decipher what Zariah is wearing. She has a towel wrapped around her body—a teeny tiny towel that scarcely covers the curves I was imagining when picking my entertainment for the night.
When I couldn’t find a perfect match, I went for two. Marsha? Mischa? Whatever the fuck her name is had the right eye and hair color, but she was too thin. That’s where the blonde came in. She had tits and ass, and didn’t speak a word of Russian. She would have been the perfect pick if her eyes were the color of the dark storm brewing in my gut.
“What were my rules?” My angry roar echoes down the hallway. If it doesn’t wake every dweller on my floor, my stomps sure will.
The knot holding Zariah’s towel close to her body nearly comes undone when her chest mimics the clomps of my boots. She knows she’s in trouble, but she has no clue how severe her punishment will be. I also don’t think she knows whether to be excited or scared. She’s giving off both vibes at the moment.
She goes for frustration when she scolds, “I didn’t realize the shower curtain didn’t reach the bottom of the stall until it was too late. My clothes were too wet to put on. That’s the only reason I’m wearing a towel.”
When I reach her side, she slips past me with skills too nimble for my drug-woozy head to keep up with. She did the same thing when we were kids and I was ‘it,’ but I don’t find it amusing today. She’s not giggling like I remember, and I’m too fucking high to realize that error lies on my shoulders.
My boots lose their grip on the puddle of water her drenched clothes left on the floor when I attempt to take off after her. I skid down the hall like a newborn foal, my language nowhere near as innocent.
Zariah uses my imbalance to her advantage. She charges into my room, slams the door shut, then secures the lock into place with the key I left dangling in the latch. I stop in front of my door, my anger boiling my blood.
“Open the door!” I bang the wood so hard it wobbles. “Zariah! You have two fucking seconds to open this door before I kick it down!”
Ignoring Lenin’s snicker from behind my shoulder, I rear back my leg and kick at my door. I could ask Lenin to open it for me since he has a spare key, but I’ve got too much testosterone thickening my blood to hold back, and I refuse to be subjected to his I told you so look for the second time in under twelve hours. He knew I wouldn’t kill Zariah, just like he knew bunking her in the room next to mine was a bad idea. What can I say? I’m a stubborn fuck who doesn’t conform—ever!
It takes my boot slamming into the lock three times before my door finally buckles. I had my door reinforced to stop this exact thing from happening, yet here I am, kicking it down at four in the fucking morning.
Just as I am about to enter my room with my chest heaving and imaginary guns blazing, Zariah slips out of it. She’s wearing a lot more clothing than she was seconds ago. The wonky neckline of her shirt and the fact she’s wearing her sweatpants inside-out proves she got dressed in a hurry.
“It’s nearly time to serve breakfast; I better hurry.”
The long braid hanging halfway down her back swings in beat to her feet when she races down the corridor. She’s too fast for me to catch, and I’m too tired to chase her. I did it for years when we were younger, and look where it got me?
Zariah has barely entered the hallway at the end of mine when Lenin’s laugh barrels into my chest. “I like her. Your mother picked well. She’s got spunk.”
I give him a stern finger point. “Shut up.”
There are a million more words in my head, but I went for the two my hazy brain could deliver without too much effort.
The removal of two little words creates room for many more. These are more complicated than any I’ve asked the past six months. Taking a step back, I line up my eyesight with Lenin’s. “My mother arranged... this?”
Fuck—I need to cut back on the drugs. They’re fucking with my smarts. I give it a second shot, trying not to sound like a moron. “Is my mother the reason Zariah is here?”
Lenin considers my question for a few seconds before notching up his shoulder. “It’s not my place to say.”
“It’s not your place to say?! You say and do anything I tell you to do!”
He takes my arrogance in stride, knowing not all of it is solely for him. It’s not even for Zariah. I’m the only person I’m pissed at. My plans were simple: come home, take down the people responsible for Dominique’s demise, then step into the leadership role of my kingdom without the bloodshed Nikolai endured. I had the opportunity to knock off two tasks within an hour of landing in Russia, yet I let them slip from my grasp. And for what? An untouched cunt and drugs that fuck with my head more than they soothe it.
This isn’t who I am. I’m Asher Yury, the most feared m
an in Russia. I don’t bow for anyone.
“Schedule a meeting with my mother for first thing this morning. I want to get this shit sorted out ASAP.”
“This?” Lenin asks, stepping forward.
I nudge my head in the direction Zariah just fled. “I want to know the real reason she is here, and I won’t stop asking questions until they’re answered—truthfully.”
My mother is a brilliant woman, but no one lasts in our industry as long as she has without some sort of scheming. If that is what this is, there will be hell to pay. You can’t puppeteer the master when he’s controlling the strings.
Chapter Eleven
Zariah
I’ve fumbled my way around the kitchen the past sixteen hours. I have no idea what I am doing. My childhood bedroom may not have been an ivory tower, but it may as well have been. Excluding family meetings, most of my time was spent in my room. I was schooled there, ate there, and had the deepest and darkest secrets confided there. An industrial-sized kitchen pumping out over a hundred meals three times a day is not an environment I am used to.
I’ll adjust though, because if forced to pick between this and handling Asher on a drug-fueled bender, I’ll pick the former every time. He’s always been temperamental, but not once in our childhood did I see him as I did this morning. I should have been grateful the erection I saw throbbing in his boxer shorts as he stormed toward me wasn’t used on the women occupying his time, but all I felt was fright. He wasn’t looking at me as he was earlier. He was mad, the most manic I’ve ever seen him, and all his attention was devoted to me.
