Inside I’m screaming in agony as my head is forced up.
“Do you know how much I’ve worried about you?”
Someone’s cool breath hits my face.
“Do you know how much I’ve suffered not knowing what those pizdas were doing to you?”
I don’t care. I don’t care. It’s nothing to me.
The voice grows sharper, angrier, as if it’s in tune with my pain, finding it’s beat. “You’re mine… mine to break and tame and mold as I please.”
Fighting the grip on my hair only causes a spike of intense agony to slam into my brain.
“Tell me… Answer me honestly and I’ll give you something for the pain. Did he fuck you? Did he use what belongs to me?”
A tightness wraps around my throat, but the discomfort is insignificant compared to what I’m already experiencing.
“This is your one and only chance to be honest with me.”
Even in my nearly delirious state, I understand the significance of the question and fear answering it.
A fleeting thought whispers beneath the pain.
I’m not the only one in danger here.
Suddenly the tugging on my scalp eases, but the constriction around my neck increases.
As the seconds tick by, it becomes harder and harder to breathe.
True darkness rises up inside me, cold and black and ready to swallow me.
This darkness isn’t like the other, though, and it frightens me.
“Tell me!” the voice demands.
I’m shaken, and pure, sheer agony courses through me.
“Tell me!”
Seeking only to get the voice to stop so I can be left in peace, I manage to push out a choked whisper. “Yes.”
The grip around my throat goes slack for a moment, long enough for me to pull in some much-needed air, and then it suddenly tightens until it’s crushing the life out of me.
Pressure. There’s so much pressure.
My eyes pop open from the power of it.
Alexei’s snarling face stares down at me.
“I’ll fucking kill him.”
His face begins to blur, that darkness creeping back in until it completely swallows me up.
“I’ll kill them all!”
* * *
Something hard and cold slides inside of me.
Unlike earlier, the feeling is so jarring, so disturbing and violating, I immediately stir to full consciousness.
What the hell is going on?
It felt like it does when I go to the…
Oh god.
Immediately, I take stock of my body. Strangely, I’m no longer in any pain, but I can’t seem to move my limbs.
And there’s this a pressure… an uncomfortable pressure below my waist.
“Ah, yes…” a foreign, unfamiliar voice says from somewhere below me. “She was used.”
I begin to open my eyes only to stop when I hear Alexei’s voice.
“Used?” he clenches out.
I don’t know why, but instead of trying to fight, I stiffen, petrified of moving. It’s as if I’ve suddenly turned to stone.
“Yes, most definitely used,” the unfamiliar voice says in a detached way. “And from the micro-tearing I’m observing, she was used roughly.”
Alexei mutters a bunch of Russian words I don’t understand, and I nearly jump out of my skin when there’s a loud thud.
The terror holding me hostage tightens its grip.
“Remember, I’m Armenian, not Russian. Speak English,” the stranger grumbles.
Alexei mutters some more in Russian before taking a deep, calming breath. Then he asks, “Was she forced?”
There’s a pause.
Then the stranger answers, “You’ll have to ask her.”
Alexei’s voice is instantly cold, all the heat evaporating from his voice as he snaps, “I’m asking you, Dr. Petrosyan.”
The doctor hums under his breath and then says reluctantly, “It’s possible.”
Alexei returns to growling in Russian again.
As if suppressing a laugh, the doctor says, “If it makes you feel better, know that she is not permanently damaged, and I doubt it’s causing her any discomfort. She should be, as they say, as good as new in a few days.”
“That’s reassuring, for her sake,” Alexei says with so much malice all the little hairs all over my body stand on end.
A chuckle slips out of the doctor. “Indeed. However, we’ll need to take a few steps to ensure there’s not an unwanted pregnancy.”
Wait… what? There’s no way I’m pregnant…
“Unwanted pregnancy?” Alexei hisses.
“Yes. There’s evidence that whoever used her didn’t use protection. Given that it’s been a few days since we’ve removed her contraceptive device, there is a slim, very slim, chance she could be pregnant.”
My knee-jerk reaction is disbelief.
The doctor must be confused, because I still have an IUD…
A strange numbness suddenly tingles across my flesh.
He said they removed my contraceptive device a few days ago…
Oh god… Oh fuck.
That sick fucker must have done it when they sedated me before the wedding.
As all the implications hit me and my mind struggles to come to grips with the sick revelation, Alexei is ominously silent.
At first, I’m not even aware of it, but as time passes, it becomes more obvious, and an overwhelming sense of dread forms in the pit of my stomach.
I could be pregnant… There might be a child inside me. Gabriel’s child. And I’m stuck in this place, completely at Alexei’s mercy.