Page 44 of Savage Warrior

“Well, Arina? Do I need to take my belt off again?” He smiles, but there’s no warmth in it.

“You’re an animal. A brute. A bully.”

“I’m sorry you see it that way. I’m also the man who will get you safe back to your family if you’ll let me. But you need to do as you’re told.” He rolls from the bed and saunters across the cabin to tower over me. “I told you before, when you asked. You only need to be scared of me if you piss me off. You did, and now you have a sore bottom to show for it. I suggest you don’t do it again, and we’ll get along fine.”

“But you hit me,” I complain. “With your belt. It hurt.”

“It was meant to. You should know I’m seriously considering doing it again.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Are you ready to obey me? To do as I say and stop fucking arguing? Because that’s the only way this is going to work. That’s how it is, or you’re on your own.”

I open my mouth to tell him to go to hell. I’ve been on my own since the day my papa died, I can manage.

Except, I can’t. I’m penniless, in a strange country, with evil, violent men chasing me. ?tefan Romanescu may be just as bad in his own way, but at least he’s offering to help me. Protection. Safety. A passport and a flight home. Those are things not to be sneezed at.

“Well, Arina? Which is it to be?” He raises one uncompromising eyebrow.

There’s no longer any trace of the seductive stranger who beguiled me into bed and made my body sing. The man before me now is stern and fierce, and he means what he says. This man terrifies me.

But, I trust him. Despite everything, I believe what he says.

This man can and will do what he promised to do. This is man is hope.

“I accept,” I blurt before I have time to complicate things all over again. “We’ll do it your way.”

His lip curls in a satisfied smirk. “Wise girl.”

Ten minutes later, we’re plodding through two feet of melting snow. Or rather, ?tefan is. I’m perched on his back keeping my feet out of the snow. My ratty, cheap trainers were never meant for this sort of weather, and they’ve had enough punishment already. ?tefan offered me the chance to keep my feet dry, and I took it.

He deposits me in the passenger seat of a top-of-the-range Land Rover parked in a copse of Scots pines about a quarter of a mile from the cabin.

“This is as close as I could get,” he explains once he’s in the driver’s side.

He starts the engine, and after a few coughs the vehicle inches forward. Despite the powerful four-wheel drive, the terrain is still treacherous. We skid and slide several times and narrowly avoid colliding with a rather startled-looking Highland cow as soon as we clear the shelter of the trees.

?tefan mutters an apology, whether to me or the cow, I am uncertain. We plough on across snow-covered heather for another couple of precarious miles until the road comes into sight. ?tefan heads across country on a direct course for what passes for civilisation in this wintry wilderness.

The so-called road isn’t much better than the open moorland, but there are tyre tracks already snaking into the distance, so it’s obviously passable. More or less. We have a few near-encounters with the ditches on either side, but ?tefan manages to keep us moving. By the time we’ve been on the road for an hour or so, we reach a junction, and I spot a sign indicating that Inverness is a mere fifty miles away.

“How long will it take us to get there?” I ask.

“About two of hours from here,” he replies, “assuming we’ve passed the worst of the snow.” He drags his phone from his pocket. “If you’re bored, take a look at these.” He hands me the phone with the pictures app open. “Scroll through those and tell me if you recognise anyone.”

“Who are they?” I flick through several head shots of ferocious-looking individuals, typically sporting tattoos and shaved scalps. “What am I searching for?”

“Anyone you’ve seen before whether in Lida or after you were abducted.”

“Oh. How did you get these?”

“Never mind that. Do you recognise anyone?”

“No,” I reply. “I’d remember, I’m sure.” A couple of dozen menacing glares scowl up at me from the tiny screen. They all give the impression they wouldn’t think twice about cutting my throat.

“Look again.”

I do, and suddenly I stop scrolling. “That one. He seems… familiar.”

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