Page 54 of Born in Depravity

Though he wasn’t as cold as Damien or as temperamental as Nikolay, there was something hard about his eyes that told me I wouldn’t like it if I made him angry.

“Don’t make me ask again,kotyonok. I don’t like to repeat myself.”

Silently, I moved over and sat between his legs facing away from him, my back stiff as a board, trying hard to keep from touching him.

I jumped when he let out a small sigh, then he wrapped his arm around my middle and pulled me toward him until my back was plastered on his hard front, not leaving even an inch of space between us. Heat worked its way up my body, and I closed my eyes when I felt his thumb at the bottom of my breast.

“Relax,” he muttered.

I didn’t know whether to laugh at that or cry. He told me to relax like it was easy.

“You look good in Damien’s clothes,” he said, and I could hear a tinge of amusement in his voice. The weight of the clothes on my slender frame felt unbearable then, but the only other option was to go around naked, since Damien had cut off my clothes last night. I had found the remainders of the tattered fabric in the trash can in the bathroom this morning.

I watched as he grabbed the tray from the bedside table and set it on my lap. I looked down, confused. Did he want me to eat while sitting between his legs?

But no, he reached around me and started to cut the steak up in tiny little bite-size pieces, like one would for a child, and then he speared the meat and brought a juicy morsel to my mouth.

I knew better than to refuse him.

I ate the food.

He fed me in silence, and after the first three bites, when I realized he would do nothing more than feed me—at least for now—I was able to relax marginally.

I barely tasted the food, but I knew I needed my energy. Once they slacked off, and I found the opportunity, I would run away from here and I wouldn’t fucking look back.

I was not a captured bird.

But for now, all I could do was survive.

I looked down at the hand Mikhail had placed in my middle when he had finished expertly cutting up the meat. He was feeding me with one hand and holding me close with the other. I couldn’t have moved to leave some space between us even if I wanted to.

Indecision fought a war inside of me. I should try to fight him. I shouldn’t let him touch me this way. There was no way I could overpower a man like him, but I should at least try to fight him off.

But fuck, I didn’t want him to hurt me.

Did it make me a coward for being so complacent in his arms right now?

He was the enemy. Him, Damien, and Nikolay.

But last night and this morning, I had come apart in Damien’s arms, and now I was being fed in Mikhail’s. I wondered when they would send in Nikolay, what other things I would be doing.

I was a mass of confusing emotions.

Sometimes, I wished they would be cruel and hurt me already. All this waiting around, keeping watch for the same hand that fed me to strike me, was exhausting.

I was so exhausted.

I turned my face away when he got to the last of the mashed potatoes. I was full, and luckily, it didn’t appear Mikhail would force me to finish. He put the fork down and moved the tray back to the nightstand.

And then silence ensued.

I realized too late that I should have dragged out the meal, because now that we’d finished and he made no move to leave, I wasn’t sure what he was planning. Was it his night to stay with me?

What did they want with me?

I didn’t know, and I didn’t know how to ask. Even if I could find the words, would they have answered me? Or, like my father, did they see me as nothing more than a pawn in these sick games they played, something only to be kept around until my usefulness for them ran out, or until they got bored?

“Why are you so tense,kotyonok?” he asked me. He still had that one hand on my middle. I looked down at it, noting the difference in his skin tone compared to mine. He was a shade or two darker than me, and his big hands nearly covered my whole stomach. He was also hard, and incredibly handsome.

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