I climb onto the middle of the bed. I don’t know where my future master is, but I can’t handle the vastness of this room, the freedom that makes me feel like I’m falling headfirst into a deep ravine.
I’m drowning. I’m being pulled under, unable to stop the way my chest constricts and air whooshes out of my lungs. I fall forward onto the bed, grasping at the silky sheets, but they’re foreign and luxurious. Nausea swirls in my stomach. I’m gasping for breath, my eyes closed, when strong arms come around me from behind.
“Stop moving.” The voice is deep and commanding and so beautifully familiar my skin prickles with instant awareness.
I freeze.
“Breathe,” the voice says. My eyes are closed, and I’m not here. I’m in another place and time, burrowed into the chest of someone strong and powerful, but the touch is only a memory. His hands are on my arms. Then why do I remember being held?
I’m so confused I begin to cry.
A door swings open and more voices speak over my head. I don’t know what they’re saying or why they’re here, but strong arms are lifting me and placing me back on the bed. I fall on my back, and as soon as I can, I bring my knees to my chest, hoping to still the incessant trembling. My eyes are closed as I rock back and forth, tears still sliding down my cheeks.
One voice commands the rest, and the other two fall silent. Footsteps fall, but I don’t open my eyes to see. Here, with my eyes closed and my knees pulled to my chest, no one can hurt me. No one can touch me.Chapter 12Nicolai
I will find the people who did this to her.
I will find the ones responsible for reducing her to tears and devastation when given freedom, and I will kill them.
They’ve hurt her. Abused her. She isn’t the woman they tore from my arms. The Marissa I know doesn’t cower in fear.
Yakov and Erik retreat to their adjoining rooms, but I barely register their absence. I lock the door behind them and pull the shades that look out onto the water, securing us as much as I can before I return to her.
The only person in my world, the only sun that shines, is Marissa. Every instinct I own screams at me to throw her over my shoulder and run.
But logic prevails, and I know that isn’t an option. Not yet.
My initial elation at finding her is tempered with the knowledge that the path to finding her has only just begun. Finding her physically is only the first step. I stare at the woman on the bed, her eyes closed and knees tucked up to her chest. She rocks back and forth, mumbling incoherently.
I reach over and touch her shoulder. Just a gentle touch, a reminder that I’m here and she isn’t alone, but she shrieks, her voice catching on a sob. My heart twists in my chest, a stab of pain slicing through me.
She won’t know who I am, not yet.
Does she even remember me, though?
“You’re okay,” I begin, but she only shakes and trembles.
“It’s alright,” I say in an even softer voice. Still, her anxiety seems to only increase.
I decide to take another tact altogether. One she’s familiar with.
“Stop that,” I order harshly. She stills.
“Open your eyes.” With a sharp intake of breath, she obeys. She looks at me, and the world stops spinning in that one brief second. Does she recognize me? But the eyes that meet mine are distant and clouded. I realize she’s holding her breath, waiting for the next instruction. She’s become unaccustomed to conversation, her instinctive desire trained to obey.
My hands clench into fists.
I can’t risk even the most basic discussion about who I am or where we are. This room could be tapped. Literally anyone could be a spy. And I need the brotherhood to believe that I’m one of them.
“Get off the bed,” I tell her.
This isn’t the way I imagined our reunion. In my mind, I would gather her to me, hold her to my chest until our hearts beat as one. I would kiss her cheeks and run my fingers through her hair, reassuring myself that she was alive. I would hold her on my lap and kiss her, and tell her all the things I never said out loud. How much she means to me. How I’ll never let her be harmed again. How I love her.
She pushes herself out of bed and eyes me curiously, then casts her eyes to the floor, cringing as if expecting a blow from me.
I will kill them, painfully.
I sit on the edge of the bed and part my knees, crooking a finger silently for her to come to me. If I can get her near enough, I can whisper in her ear. We can begin the slow task of unearthing the identities that form us and forging new ones.