Page 94 of The Harbinger
Theleftoversensationofripped skin, pulled hair, and heated wax, washed over me in a throbbing mess of tears and threats. Threats from Sacha and threats from myself.
If I had known his little outing required me bent over naked, my knees to my chest with my ass in the air with a strange woman examining every orifice, I would have fought like hell to stay home. Whoever chose to wax their body of their own volition enjoyed the masochism.
But Sacha worked me like putty in his hands, promising me a visit to the park if I behaved. It’d brought light to my day, and I complied with his demand. He’d even stayed out of the room while the woman plucked, shaped, and ripped every bit she thought didn’t belong. And right when I couldn’t handle anymore, the woman walked me over to a table where I received a full body massage and a facial.
I no longer wanted that walk.
“Can we just go home?” My whine had me sounding like a domesticated housewife with social anxiety. My skin reeked of fabricated floral oils and perfumes.
Dmitri’s gaze caught my focus in the rear-view mirror as he pulled up to the curb and parked.
Sacha glanced around and pocketed his phone. “Nyet.”
“Sacha,” I said, lowering my voice so Ivan and Dmitri couldn’t hear me, as if they didn’t know what I’d gone through. “I hurt and my skin is on fire.” Fire in the literal sense, no. But fire like I might develop a rash, most definitely. He sighed and stepped out before Dmitri could open his door.
“What if I try to escape?” I blurted, then mentally chastised myself. “You do these things to me that I don’t want, then bring me out in public. What makes you think I won’t go to the police?”
Ivan caught my attention as he stepped out of the vehicle when Sacha turned around and buttoned his navy suit jacket.
He held out his hand. “Come, Mia.”
“Aren’t you going to answer me?”
He leaned in, and the leather seat groaned under the strain from his two palms pressing into it. “Actions speak louder than words,milaya. Isn’t that your American saying?”
Hisactions spoke loud and clear to me. But what about all these innocent people standing around?
“What is that supposed to mean?” I mumbled as I watched an older man sitting on the stone edge of an elongated fountain with a young child. “You think I won’t do it?”
“Take my hand, and I’ll show you why you won’t.” He placed his palm up, and this time, I took it.
Hesitation rippled through me as my heels clinked against the cement, my palms slicked with nerves. His security detail followed us as he moved slowly to the center of the park—Dmitri on his side, Ivan flanking me, and the rest dispersed in a circle, giving me a sense of safety. But if I were realistic, he’d only brought me into a bigger cage, condemning me with falsities.
Large crowds gathered around the fountains, and others took pictures of the large gold-domed building to the side. The conversational murmurs hummed in the air, along with the water crashing against the hard granite surface. Sparse white fluffy clouds danced with the crystal blue skies, allowing the sun to shine through and warm the ever-cooling days.
It was a peaceful cacophony that shredded my nervousness and soothed my ache for normalcy.
“In the winter,” Sacha started as I eyed the obelisk with heralding angels at the top and a man astride a horse driving a sword through a beast’s head at the bottom. “They ice skate and have a decorated tree as wide as it is tall.”
“Wow.” I swiped my hand over my pant leg. “I’d like to see that.”
When Sacha had mentioned this place, I pictured people sitting on grassy hillsides enjoying a picnic lunch with their families and a duck pond, not a memorial.
An older gentleman walking towards us, a little taller than Dmitri with graying hair and a salty beard, stared at me with his warm brown eyes. His brows furrowed the closer he’d come, and the wrinkles on his forehead deepened into wells of worry as if he implored me with some unknown request.
My gaze followed his, and my unease returned when he shouldered by through a gathering horde. I turned to follow the older man. Shivers raced up my spine as he disappeared into the crowd of fixated eyes, attentive to both Sacha and me.
“Um…” I tugged on Sacha’s pristine suit sleeve and leaned into him, their bizarre behavior churning my stomach. “Why are people looking at us?”
“Not us…“ Sacha gripped my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Me.”
Him?
He’d had such notoriety among the laymen that they followed him like catatonic love fiends? What exactly made him so popular?
Sacha squeezed my hand again, and I glanced down at our union. He’d held my hand for a fraction of a moment when I’d called out for my mother. Just long enough for me to realize who touched me and then shake him off. But now? My stomach turned sour from the comfort it brought me.
His tongue on my clit.