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With uncanny dexterity, he vaults into the space beside me and tugs my arm, righting my balance. His shoulders ripple as he manipulates the remains of his shirt. Twisting the fabric like a makeshift rope, he secures it around a higher branch and draws both ends taut. It holds just enough to help him climb to a higher ledge, and then another. He reaches down for me each way.
We’re maybe twenty feet off the ground when he finally settles into a crook between two sturdy branches and pulls me up into the space beside him. It’s precariously narrow. I straddle the thicker end of the branch, facing him, while he ties one end of his shirt around a higher branch and then twists the rest around his shoulder, securing himself to the tree.
“You’ll fall from that end,” he warns, flicking his gaze over my awkwardly splayed limbs. “Come here.”
I make a show of scanning the ledge for a safer spot—but there’s nowhere else to run. Below, footsteps crash through the forest and more shouts rise up. Something tells me they don’t all belong to Mischa’s men.
Yet, apart from panting with exertion, he doesn’t seem too alarmed by our predicament.
“Unless you’ve slept in a tree before, I suggest you listen,” he says as casually as if he were referring to the weather. “Come. Here.”
Left with no other choice, I brace my hands along the branch for balance and inch my way toward him. I freeze when I’m close enough to sense the heat wafting from him like a furnace.
“Do you really think you can support yourself all night?” he asks.
A part of me wants to refuse and take my chances. But there’s a dare lurking behind those dark eyes. One I know better than to ignore.How far will you go for survival, Little Rose?
“You went there unarmed?” I pose the question as I peel my good hand from the branch and brace it over his waist instead. A shiver runs through me at the contact. Gritting my teeth, I fight to disguise any reaction he could interpret as weakness and shift an inch closer. “Do you enjoy tempting fate?”
“Maybe I enjoy temptingyou,” he counters.
Up this close, there’s no escape from his scent. It floods my head in dizzying waves: sweat, fresh air, blood. Most maddening of all, his pulse is racing beneath the calm exterior. Without being able to touch him, I might have been fooled. Rather than alarmed by the danger, he’sexcited.
“How?” I rasp, raising my voice as loud as I dare. “By nearly getting me killed—”
“I took a gamble,” he explains, shifting to fully face me.
I look away, staring beyond his shoulder. From this angle, I have a direct view of the ground looming below. Fear is what makes my stomach clench—nothing else. Especially not him.
“Anders was a greedy little prick,” Mischa continues near my ear. “One of the many men who underestimated me. Like your husband, he acted exactly how I predicted he would. And now…when the dust settles, I’ll have his guns and no one will be able to do a damn thing about it.”
A gamble?
“You knew he’d attack you,” I deduce. “And yet you went there anyway.”
“I knew that the benefits vastly outweighed the risks, Little One,” he says. “That’s your first lesson. Never risk what you aren’t willing to lose.”
Like his life? And mine.
“What about Sergei?” I ask. Anders mentioned him. Is this why Mischa did something so insane as meeting an arms dealer who wanted him dead? All to keep something from Sergei?
“Sergei…” Mischa sighs thoughtfully, his chest rising and lowering beneath my chin. “Sergei has his own goals in mind. They tend not to overlap with mine.” His finger strokes my throat and I’m painfully aware of the necklace hanging from it. I can’t stop myself from brushing the lump where the charm lurks beneath my collar. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that. Would you?”
I grit my teeth. It’s nearly impossible to tell if he’s joking or if he knows.
And he’s just toying with me.
“Don’t think too much of yourself, Little Rose,” he scolds, letting his hand fall. “Look at it this way: You are just a little pawn I’m not done playing with. But at least I’m honest in my intentions. In case you forget that, I suggest you remember that Sergei wants you only as a trophy—”
“Don’t.” I close my eyes as if to fend off the dark direction he seems determined to lead me down. Not again. “You’ve made your point.”
“Have I?” Mischa wonders. He takes his unsecured hand from the bark of the tree and captures my chin with it, forcing me to meet his eyes directly. “You think I’m a monster,” he says as if reading the word etched into my gaze. “Iam. But I have always given you one thing that not even Sergei or your fucking husband ever would.”
“Oh?” I somehow manage to copy his rasping tone, surprising myself with the ferocity. “And what is that?”
“Achoice,” he says. “Between being locked in a fucking cage or glimpsing what waits beyond it.”
What a vicious, cruel lie. And he believes it. Thoughmaybe it’s true.
