Page 55 of Savage Bratva King

Marvel is all over me, licking my face and my arms and covering me with slobber. I try to sit up, but he must think me lying on the mossy ground is part of the game because he straddles my torso and sits on my lower body, preventing me from going anywhere.

“Marvel, stop,” I manage between slobbery kisses and the hysterical giggles threatening to erupt from somewhere deep inside me.

But the game is irresistible, and how do you push a fifty-kilo dog off you when you can’t even draw a breath?

Then I hear voices, and the implications of being discovered in the woods with Leonid Ivanov’s dog hits me like a wrecking ball.

“Marvel, enough.” I manage to inject enough authority into my voice for the dog to back off and sit smartly by my side, panting, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.

But before I can haul myself back onto my feet, the voices come closer, and I hear the low hum of a drone hovering above the dense canopy of trees.

“Marvel, run.”

I don’t need to repeat myself. The dog runs with me, his panting providing the backdrop to my heavy breathing and the blood gushing in my ears. But I’ve lost my bearings, and I don’t know if I’m heading away from the house or towards it. Did Tamara raise the alert to catch me out or were we followed?

Then a bullet whistles past us and blows a hole in a tree trunk up ahead, sending splinters flying in all directions.

Marvel yelps, and my heart almost leaps out of my rib cage as I kneel beside him. “Are you hurt?” Tears streak my face as I check him all over for a bullet wound and blood, sobbing with relief when my fingers come away dry. His tail is between his legs, and he is quivering with fear, but unharmed.

I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my face against his thick silky fur, letting him know that I won’t let anyone hurt him.

We’re still in the same position when heavy footsteps come crashing through the trees. Marvel tries to pull away from me, but I hold on tightly to his leash, murmuring to him, “It’s okay, boy. I’m here. You’re safe with me.”

“Marvel. Come here, boy.”

The voice as cold and hard as granite slices straight through my chest and leaves me trembling more than the Belgian Shepherd wrapped up in my arms. It’s Leonid. And he isn’t happy.

Marvel whimpers but doesn’t move.

“Good boy,” I whisper before standing slowly and turning around to face my captor.

His eyes are dark and stormy, his lips set into a grim line as he watches me draw myself to my full height and wrap Marvel’s leash around my wrist.

This isn’t the man who guided my hand to my pussy and watched me touch myself. This isn’t the same man who lifted my skirt inside the maze and made me come all over his tongue, or the man who carried me, shivering, from the dungeon to his guest room and shared his body heat with me to help me heal.

Nonetheless, the butterflies which, until now, have been dormant all my adult life, wake up and start beating those fragile wings against my ribs.

I can’t tell what Leonid is thinking, but I can sense the anger emanating in red-hot waves from him. So can Marvel who shuffles closer to my side and places a paw protectively on my foot as if warning me to stay where I am and let him do the negotiating.

Before either of us can speak, Tamara appears beside Leonid. Her cheek is swollen and bloody, the purple bruising already leaking into her eye giving her the macabre appearance of a Halloween mask.

“That’s my dog,” Leonid growls.

“I wasn’t going to take him.” My voice sounds pathetic and weak, and I think of Hope and the other women at the refuge, and how they stood up to their abusers. I refuse to let them down. “He followed me.”

I slide my eyes across to Tamara whose expression is neutral. She is looking out for herself, and if that means throwing me under the bus, that’s exactly what she’ll do.

Sure enough, my stomach twists when she says, “She refused to hand over the dog.”

A tic appears on Leonid’s temple, and his hands ball into fists.

I lift my chin and look him squarely in the eye. “Marvel followed me. He was trying to protect me, and I… I thought I could use all the protection I could get.”

He keeps his eyes on me but addresses Tamara. “Tell me what happened.”

“We were out walking the dog. You left no orders to keep her inside so?—”

“I want to know what happened,” Leonid cuts her off.

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