Page 43 of Seduced

“Mikailoff, yes,” Alexei said.

And turned around, expecting her to follow. To her utter disgust, Poppy’s legs, much soothed by Dante and Rania’s ministrations, started to follow, trained into obedience.

“Dante!” she whispered in terror. “Do something!”

“Oh, Dante can’t help you now,” Hades said, still facing the door, waiting for her to follow like an obedient puppy. “No one can.”

And he threw back his head and laughed.

She had never heard him laugh before. She had, however, spent one or two foolish seconds wondering how it would sound if he ever did; how it would look. Maybe more thantwo seconds. Maybe she had lain sleepless and in pain for a large part of last night, thinking about him.

She regretted knowing what his laughter sounded like now.

Alexei

Now that she was rested, the girl looked so beautiful that Alexei had to remind himself to breathe.

Her cheeks were rosy, her lips puffy with sleep, her eyes clear and sparkling. Her small body was clad in a simple gray dress that hugged her tiny waist in a manner meant to give a grown man an apoplexy, and she wore her soft, brown hair in a long braid down her back, little wisps of curls escaping at her forehead to frame that heart-shaped face. As if one could look anywhere else.

Rania was a magician.

“Thank you,” Alexei took her aside and told her. “I know you are responsible for putting Miss Wyatt in clothes, and I am grateful. She looks more put together than I have yet seen her.”

“I gave her one of my old dresses,” Rania said, her lovely eyes examining his face, and looking severely displeased by what they saw.

She was young, younger than most dancers, only a couple of years older than him.

Still, she was more talented and skilled than any dancer he had seen perform in his life.

She had been shipped from India to an English orphanage when she was but a child, and Alexei had happened upon her years later, in a filthy establishment for desperate men,where she was working in abysmal conditions and was nearly beaten to death nightly. He had offered her a position as a dancer in his club, and she had immediately accepted; it had probably saved her life.

Most of his dancers were rescued women like her.

But she, on top of being as beautiful as the Indian princess of a fairytale, with her flawless brown skin, dove-like black eyes and full lips, was exceptionally smart as well. Alexei had turned to her for advice on many an occasion, and she, as a show of her gratitude, had done her best to try to mother him and the men in his employ. So far, she had been mostly unsuccessful in her endeavors, but this was the thing about Rania: she never gave up.

“Is she a whore, my lord?” she asked now in her frank, business-like manner.

Alexei bristled. No matter what Rania did, had done, or was about to do, he hated listening to her speak in such a way.

“Are you?” he asked her sharply.

“No,” Rania replied.

“No what?” Alexei pressed her. They had talked about this.

“No, I am not,” she said.

“Good girl,” he nodded, then his voice dropped to a gentler tone. “And neither is she. It is just important that she stays here, safe, while I am gone about my business.”

“I thought she couldn’t be,” Rania agreed. “She looks to be of different ilk than us,” Rania said, tearing his heart into a million pieces.

“I had not considered the possibility, when I brought her here, that you would start thinking things,” he said.

“Alas, it is my cross to bear,” Rania said, but she was smiling. “At any rate, not knowing her rank, I didn’t knowhow much color to dress her in. I thought I might put her in something green to bring out the color of her eyes, but…”

God, please, no.

“But my green dress is an evening gown, meant for a formal occasion, and also meant to draw all eyes on her, if you know what I mean, Your Lordship. It is tight around the bust. But no matter,” she went on blithely, “I am sure I shall have reason enough to put her in it someday soon.”

---