Page 15 of Capturing Victory

“I was not!” she protested, frowning. “I would remember being sedated.”

He studied her dispassionately. “It was done under my orders.”

Jaya squeezed her eyes shut and thought back to that horrific day. She’d been shoved around and grabbed so many times, it was actually quite likely someone had managed to drug her without her knowledge; poked her in the arm with a needle while hustling her from vehicle to vehicle. And that would explain how she’d managed to lose several hours of flying time. But the thought of being alone and incapacitated in the company of so many immoral, rough men was utterly horrifying. She simply couldn’t go there. Instead she opened her eyes again, took several deep, calming breaths and concentrated on the sea air.

There was a reason she’d chosen Portugal for her home, beyond her need for privacy. She usually chose small out of the way places in seaside towns to settle for a few months to a few years at a time before moving on. She was trapped by her own insecurities and thus used the ocean for escape. It always felt so wild and free to her. When her small home and internet community became stifling she would wander down to the beach and breathe the air into her lungs, feel the sand between her toes and think about how small she really was in comparison to mother nature.

“Can I please go outside, Ivan?” she asked tentatively, hopefully. “Just for a few minutes.”

He watched her intently, devouring the hope on her face and sucking the need for freedom from her. Gradually she watched the cold calculating Ivan that she’d spent weeks battling with take hold. She knew what his answer would be.

Still, she had to try. “Please, Ivan,” she begged, curling her legs underneath her so she would look as defenceless as possible. “I’ll be good, I just want to smell and feel the fresh air on my skin.”

His lip curled up in a cruel semi-smile and he stared coldly down at her for a moment then shook his head. “A slave doesn’t need fresh air.”

She clenched her fists in the bedding and glared at him thrusting her chin out. “The moment my cage door is open, I’m out of here.” They both knew she meant figuratively, as in, as soon as the opportunity arose she would attempt escape, since she was let out of her cage a few times per day. Her guards were always present though, never allowing her the opportunity to escape.

He nodded, his eyes flicking back to his book. He reached for it and settled back on the bed. “I’ve no doubt you will try.”

Jaya lay back on her bed and fumed until he finished reading and begin his bedtime ritual. She tried really hard not to peek when he rolled off the bed and strode toward a walk-in closet. She sighed in defeat and allowed herself to linger on the deeply tanned skin of his back, stretched taut over sculpted muscles and moving in beautiful concert as he yanked his T-shirt over his head. She bit her lip as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his sweatpants and started sliding them down just before disappearing into the other room. She got to see a tiny bit of ass and then he was gone.

Jaya realized that she’d pushed herself up on an elbow to get a better look. She fell back with a groan and covered her face. “Pull yourself together. Don’t drool over the criminal warlord.”

“You need something?”

Jaya pulled her hand away and looked guiltily up at Ivan who was standing right next to her bed on the outside of her cage. Her eyes widened when she realized he was wearing nothing more than a pair of tight men’s boxer briefs. And they leftnothingto the imagination.

Without thinking she blurted out, “Why on earth do you need to resort to kidnapping women? Look at you! Holy hell, Ivan, you are built! You should be dating Scarlett Johansen or some other super hottie, not locking someone like me up in a cage.” Then her brain caught up with her mouth and she felt her face begin to flame. She was thankful then for her darker skin tone.

Ivan merely raised an eyebrow, looked down at her for a moment and then turned away giving her a stunning view of his backside. He turned the light off, saving her further embarrassment at her inability to tear her eyes from all that spectacular male flesh. She’d been in the same room with him the evening before but had been so freaked out and upset by her new prison that she’d buried herself under the blanket and ignored him.

Now it felt like every move he made, every breath he took was a shock right through her system. Like she was somehow attached to him. To her captor. How had this happened? Was it Stockholm? Because she was dependent on him for her survival? She thought about it and then decided there was no way she had that particular syndrome because she still intended to leave first chance she got, and she was going to knife the asshole too if she got a chance.

Feeling better, Jaya yanked her blanket up and made herself comfortable by tucking it between her legs and under her chin. She was about to drift off to sleep, Haty snuggled warmly against her stomach when Ivan’s deep voice reached out to her through the darkness of their shared bedroom.

“I think you’re very beautiful, Jaya,” he said, his voice sounding oddly husky. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you in Athens and the feeling has only grown stronger. I’ve fought it and I’ve failed.”

She held her breath, squeezing the blanket hard against herself and staring into the night. She sensed he had more to say, but he hesitated. It was so unlike Ivan. He always seemed to know what he wanted and where he was going. Ivan was ruthless and deliberate. But navigating his actions seemed to be a slippery slope into the unknown.

“I don’t know what to say to you, Ivan,” she whispered honestly.

“Don’t bother,” he said gruffly.

Because anything she said wouldn’t change the outcome. Wouldn’t change his mind. He was still going to keep her locked up in a cage, possibly forever. The unspoken words hung heavy in the room, separating them with more than metal bars. She clung to the blanket as though it were a lifeline, feeling the weight of Haty against her. She forced her mind away from the bleakness of her imprisonment toward thoughts of freedom. She knew her world was narrowing around her, mentally and physically. Ivan’s patience was running out and she had nowhere to run. The only thing keeping her going, keeping her from giving in to compete despair was the knowledge that she could and would escape the moment fate gifted her the opportunity.

“Go to sleep, Jaya, there’s nothing you can do,” Ivan’s deep voice touched her through the blackness, sending a chill through her despite the warmth of the evening.

Chapter Eleven

“Ivan, wake up!” Jaya shouted, her voice breaking.

It didn’t matter. She’d called to him at least a dozen times, he didn’t acknowledge her. At first, when she realized he was deep in the grips of a terrible nightmare she’d said his name softly, thinking to jar him out of it without fully waking him. But as the dream progressed and she’d been forced to watch him thrash and twist on his bed in the clutches of one of the most frightening night terrors she could imagine, she began pacing her cage and calling to him with increasing volume.

Jaya gripped the bars of her cage and stared around trying to figure out what to do. She could barely make him out in the shadowy room, his tall form lit by only the dim moonlight filtering through the curtained windows. She squinted at the corner she’d seen Haty run toward. The kitten had slipped through the bars and gone for cover when Ivan’s nightmare began.

Jaya’s gaze snapped back to the bed when Ivan shouted something in a language foreign to her and then thrashed so hard she thought he was having a seizure. A pillow hit the floor between the bed and her cage. His arms came down viciously on the bed, bouncing the whole frame against the floor. His voice was urgent as he shouted what sounded like a name and then he seemed to become desperate, almost screaming at the phantom person. It was clear he was fighting some invisible enemy and was losing the battle. She couldn’t watch anymore. She’d never seen anyone self-destruct like this while they were asleep, it was heart-breaking.

“Please, Ivan!” she yelled.

---