Page 29 of Captive Vows
I’m not a dog.
I’m not athingto order to heel, goddammit!
Yet, I stood. All I could do was let him feel my ire in the intensity of my stare.
“I’ve explained to Allen that you have permission to be in my personal wing.” Leading me up the stairs from the vast dining room and open floor plan of the first floor, he carried on. “I’ve already asked the staff to relocate your things.”
What?
Wait.
What?
Personal wing? Like, your bedroom? You expect me to sleep with you now?Keeping all these questions unspoken burned me. I was itching to blurt them out. More clarification was necessary, but I refused to ask. He could design any damn game he wanted with me, but I wouldn’t play along.
“You will reside in the room next to mine.”
Oh, thank God.I exhaled in relief, letting my shoulders sag. He must have noticed from the hand he held. Glancing back at me, he raised his brows.
Even though he was changing things up by having me be closer to him, he didn’t make any other move to suggest he wanted to own me in any other way. He was still gone for hours. Sometimes, I wouldn’t see him at all during the day. Only late at night.
And still, I refused to speak to him.
I’d dance in my room, then wait for a sign that I could be free of this.
When he wasn’t near, I’d overhear the staff. Emil was often around. He hadn’t warmed up to me. Nor had Ivan, the man who’d first pulled a gun on me here. He was Luka’s nephew. Another nephew, Alexsei, seemed familiar, and I realized he’d also been in on my capture.
Guards and soldiers always talked in code or riddles. But one night when I was dancing in my room, a guard burst in.
I jumped back, nearly tripping over my own feet as the bloodied man staggered inside. He grunted, holding his head like he was lost and confused. With the clarity of a memory to guide me, I knew instantly that he was high. Drugged. Not with it.
As he latched his gaze on me, he squinted and lifted his bloody arm to aim a gun at me.
“No!” I backed up, hiding behind a chair as he sluggishly advanced toward me. Holding my hands up, as if that would magically ward him back, I retreated until I was cornered by the windows. All locked. Everything was locked. There was no escape for me—ever. Even now, as this dazed and drugged man pursued me, talking in Russian gibberish.
“Get back!” I ordered, terrified that he would be so out of it as to shoot me.
“Get down!”
Luka’s voice roared. He was there, rushing in after the man. More shouts spewed from him, then another, but I couldn’t tell who was in my room now. I dropped to the floor as instructed. Crouching low and ducking to cover my head, I tried to make myself as small as I could, into as tight of a ball as I could.
The sounds of a struggle reached me, nonetheless. Grunts. Thuds of flesh against flesh. Moans. And growls. I couldn’t tell who was where and what was going on. All I knew for a fact was that like this, here, I was powerless. Iwashopeless, and it was with that sobering fact that I hugged myself and prayed this wasn’t the end.
“It can’t be the end,” I muttered to myself just as strong arms wrapped around me.
I squeaked, shaking my head and keeping my eyes closed as I was lifted off the floor. Carried up and walked backward, I refused to open my eyes and see that I would be taken. Or killed. Or hurt.
“Can’t be the end,” I muttered again, shaking my head. “Not done. My dream… Not the end yet…”
Fingers bit into my upper arms, then I was shaken. “Stop.”
Luka.
I blinked, gazing at him as he walked me further into my room. Behind him, the sounds of a struggle continued, but it wasn’t any episode of danger toward me. Emil and another guard dragged the drugged man away. They were handling the situation. They were taking the intruder away.
“Gabriella.”
Luka’s smoky voice barely reached me. He sat on my bed, keeping me on his lap as he watched me. “Gabriella.” Again, he shook me.
