Girl from Jussara (9 page)

It seemed too unfair that I should awaken now—to the surreal shock of my own imminent demise.

For the hundredth time I berated myself for not peeing on the plane when I’d had the chance. I’d been searching out the nearest airport bathroom when three men had grabbed me and pulled me down a narrow hallway out of sight from the main airport foot traffic.

Exhausted though I was from my long, sleepless journey, I’d fought them wildly. Blind with panic and outrage, I’d felt some primal self-preservation instinct kick in, prompting me to thrash and claw at them with every ounce of my strength. I’d tried to scream for help, but I’d been swiftly silenced, and severely punished for my resistance.

I was too numb with fear now to surmise the full extent of physical damage done in those first seconds of the worst terror of my life. But judging by how painful it was merely to breathe, how excruciating to get back up from the floor of the van and to turn at the waist, I suspected my ribs were worse than bruised.

My head pounded where it’d been knocked against a brick wall. My throat burned and pulsed with agony where rough hands had strangled me into silence and submission. My left eye seemed to be swollen almost halfway shut from where I’d been backhanded.

And to my ultimate horror and humiliation, my nipples chafed and burned against the fabric of my thin bra and tank top in reminder of where that one smelly, disgusting animal had disgraced me further into compliance with the promise of far worse violation to my person as he’d mashed my small breasts and twisted my nipples through the fabric of my top.

I’d cried then. Cried and begged and promised them I’d go and without further incident.

With a screech of rubber, the van turned sharply and my head slammed against the metal wall when we came to an abrupt stop. My heart raced when a moment later I heard voices arguing outside the vehicle. I assumed they were speaking Portuguese. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the native language.

I’d been such an idiot to come here
.
I was in a strange country. I had no idea where I was, or how to contact my brother, and no chance of communicating with the locals in their language, should I somehow manage to escape my current predicament. Prayer suddenly appeared a reasonable option.
My only option
.

The arguing escalated as voices rose in anger. My heart dropped to the floor when I caught my brother’s name spoken repeatedly during the heated exchange.

These horrible men knew Raul? While my mind attempted to process this new information, the van pitched forward. It moved only a short distance, however, before stopping once more.

The engine cut. My stomach lurched.

As I was dragged from the corner of the van where I had huddled, the animal squeezed my neck again for good measure. He warned me to keep silent and behave as he bound my wrists behind my back. He was the only one of the three who spoke English. Or rather, he was the only one who had spoken in English thus far.

As I was pulled from the darkness of the van, the harsh glare of a floodlight blinded me. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away as best I could while my captors swore at my side.

The English-speaking bastard dragged me by my upper arm along what felt like gravel beneath my thinly soled sneakers. I couldn’t see a thing, but from the way the light seared through my closed eyelids and my face warmed beneath the glare, I was sure he’d just walked us straight into the spotlight.

“What the fuck is this, Felix?” a male voice demanded. The sound came from the direction of the light. The speaker had no accent I could readily discern. Perhaps he was American? Foolish hope bloomed in my constricted chest.

“I want to see Alex,” my asshole captor, whom I presumed was Felix, responded. “Ugh! Cut that damned light already.”

“Alex is hosting a dinner party,” the male voice wielding the light said. “And you’re not welcome here. You know that.”

“I’ve brought him a gift. Raul’s sister! He will want to see me,” Felix insisted.

The other man huffed. He sounded closer now. I caught the soft sound of feet shuffling along gravel in our direction. The harsh glare of the light burning into my eyelids refused to wane.

“Alex doesn’t sully his hands with petty kidnapping. You’ve got hella nerve showing up here.”

“He will see me! I demand a trade for the girl.”

“Not
interested,” the light source declined. The footsteps halted. “Get the fuck going before Alex finds out you were here.”

I broke then. I wasn’t sure why, but the thought that I might be traded from these pigs, who I feared were sure to abuse me further before the night was through, to a man civilized enough to host a dinner party and who employed a guard or other of some sort who was possibly an American, somehow seemed like a far better prospect at the moment in this tenuous game of my survival.
And I didn’t have any other options.
So when I was summarily dismissed by the unseen light-bearer—my very life casually disregarded … deemed worthless as a trade token—I became hysterical.

“Please don’t make me leave with them!” I bleated in desperation to the faceless stranger behind the light.
“P
-
please,”
I begged, not sounding remotely like myself. A hiccupping sob escaped me, and the fat, hot tears I’d been withholding in the van tumbled forth.

My right cheek scraped against dark gravel a moment later. I was sure it’d been Felix who’d knocked me to the ground, as I heard him above me, cursing in multiple languages, demanding again to speak with Alex and sneering in disgust about how I was too dumb to recognize the true bad guy in the scenario.

The pain in my ribs was unbearable now that I was pressed face down to the ground, my hands bound behind me. And the more I gasped panicked gulps of air into my lungs, the more pain stabbed through my rib cage.

“Fine,” the light-bearer acceded. His voice startled me, as it sounded as if he now leaned directly over me. My eyes struggled to adjust, now that the light wasn’t shining on them. “But it’s going to be your funeral, Felix.”

“Thank you, Remy,” Felix said, exhaling his relief. “I swear he’ll want to see me when he knows I have Raul’s sister.”

“Uh-huh … sure.” The man named Remy sounded unconvinced. I jumped reflexively when I felt warm, gentle fingers brush the matted, dirty, long dark hair from my face where I lay in the gravel trying to rein in my hysteria. “Shh—it’s okay. Let’s get you upright, sweetheart.”

An irrational sense of calm washed over me at the timbre of just those few softly spoken words and unexpected term of endearment. I was caught off guard, wading through a sea of internal confusion at Remy’s unanticipated gentleness and sudden kindness toward me, when rougher hands seized onto my upper arms where they lay twisted behind my back, and I heard Felix order, “Up! Quickly!”

A wild growling resounded just above me. Felix’s hands were torn from my biceps. There was obviously some kind of dog with Remy that I’d not noted before.

“Touch her again,” Remy warned stonily to my handlers, “and I’ll kill all three of you myself before we even reach the house.” His deep baritone, which a moment earlier had been so soothing, now resonated with an authority and dark menace that made my blood run cold.

***

I realized I must have blacked out as I regained consciousness amid the sound of more arguing in Portuguese. The voices echoed. So much so that it sounded like we were in a tunnel—or perhaps a chapel with high-beamed ceilings? Conversely, it might’ve just been the pounding inside my hapless head.

The last thing I remembered was being lifted from the gravel and the faceless, dark shadow of Remy holding me upright, asking me if I could stand as my head swam and I attempted to regain my vision as well as control of my own wobbly legs to no avail. But when he steadied me with an arm around my midsection, pain sharp enough to make me see stars stabbed through my sorely abused rib cage.

“Alex won’t like this,” a self-assured female voice said. “Get rid of them, Remy.”

“Just get him.” Remy’s words reverberated against my left ear. Comprehension dawned that I was being held bridal-style, nestled securely against a warm, hard body—
apparently Remy’s
. I registered the pulse of his heart beating into my palm pressed flat to his chest and was relieved to note my wrists were no longer bound.

Felix began whining about something in the background, and the same female voice shot back at him to stay on his knees and shut the fuck up if he wanted to live. I fought to surface through the haze of my swimming head, willing my eyelids to work as I blinked again and again until they responded and fluttered open.

As my vision focused, I found myself gazing up at one of the most beautifully composed male faces I’d ever beheld. I think my mouth may have even gaped open as his green eyes twinkled down at me and an alluring smile curved his lips.

I sent up a quick prayer that he’d prove to be the good guy I’d allowed myself to hope he was when I’d been face down in the gravel outside.

“Sorry,” I croaked inaudibly. I tried again.
“Sorry
.
”

I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. If Remy’s furrowed brow was any indication, he didn’t know either. His eyes roamed over my face until they came to rest on my lips.

And I blushed.

Stupid, stupid!
I’d no idea yet if he was the good guy or bad guy in all of this, and yet I was blushing like the lame schoolgirl I was. His mouth split into a wide grin, revealing perfect, movie-star white teeth, making him look even more attractive.

“Oh, good God,” the same female voice mocked in exasperation outside my periphery. “Don’t you have enough pets already, Remy?”

He chuckled, his eyes still unabashedly canvassing my features as I fought to keep my eyelids open—and struggled to comprehend what the woman had meant by
pets
.

“You’re jealous,” he said with a laugh. His tousled, chestnut-colored hair was slightly longer than chin-length. It gave him a carefree, boyish, mischievous quality, whereas the firm set of his jaw and the penetrating eminence exuding from those deep-set emerald eyes gave the impression he’d seen and experienced much of the world, and suggested he was not a man to be underestimated.

“Of
her?”
the woman spat with disdain. “She’s hideous! And
human.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Remy countered, smiling down at me. “Just needs to be cleaned and healed up a bit.” The tip of his forefinger skated across my bottom lip in a bold caress, and I felt myself turn an even deeper shade of crimson.

Somewhere in the back of my befuddled brain it occurred to me that he had to be holding me with just one arm in order to be able to use his other hand so freely.

“And she smells positively heavenly.”

Lowering his nose to my temple, he inhaled audibly along the side of my face to the crook of my neck. His soft, shaggy hair tickled my jawline. I shuddered. I was beginning to feel even more lightheaded and short of breath.

“Beneath the surface scent of fear and the stench of those plebeians’ grubby hands, her fragrance is beyond intoxicating, in fact.”

He appeared bemused as he lifted his head, studying me as if I were some rare enigma. “There’s an underlying scent to her I’ve not encountered before.”

“Idiot!” the female scolded. “Do you think Alex will just let you add Raul’s sister to your ever-growing kennel? Neither Raul nor his family are welcome in this house,” she reminded him in a haughty, know-it-all manner.

The smile slid from his lips, and Remy’s eyes darkened as they abandoned my face to scowl across the room. “Shut up and get Alex.
Now
. Before I compel you to do something you’ll regret, Jussara.”

I tried to turn my head enough to lay eyes on the woman he’d commanded.
Jussara
, he’d called her. But my head felt so heavy against his chest. It refused to budge. And my eyes seemed to be glued to his as I heard what I assumed to be her heeled feet stomping away.

What on earth had she meant by
kennel?
She’d called me “human” as if it were an insult. What had he meant by
compel?
I wondered what my brother could have possibly ever done to anger the man of this house—the one they referred to as Alex.
Could Remy really smell my fear?

“Don’t think so hard, angel,” Remy murmured, his fingers stroking across my brow. “Just focus on me, and all will be well.”

It was an easy request to oblige, as I found myself incapable of holding onto whatever it was I’d been worrying about previously. His broadening smile of approval was its own reward. I could’ve sworn I felt it radiating through my entire being, filling me with a delightful sense of warmth, safety, and affection that I wasn’t sure I could ever get enough of.

“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Relax your mind and let me in.”

As he spoke the words, they became all I wanted. All of my goals, grandiose dreams, and life purposes were swiftly vanishing, fading away into insignificance as my desires narrowed into just one: doing whatever it was the man gazing adoringly down at me now wanted me to do.

In the back of my mind, I realized this line of thinking was far from normal. But the warmth in my belly felt so good. And I felt safe for the first time since my arrival in Brazil, as all of my fears had fallen away as well. It didn’t make sense, though. And I knew it couldn’t be real.

It occurred to me that Remy was doing something to me that was entirely unnatural and that I should utilize whatever self-preservation skills I had left to snap out of this trance I seemed to be falling under, even before his gorgeous features drew closer, shushing and cooing at me to relax further and not fight him as his lips grazed my forehead.

Even before I felt the sharp, stabbing pain of what I could only describe as akin to an invisible knife attempting to pierce its way through the surface of my brain, causing me to gasp aloud. Even before I heard Felix shouting at me from somewhere to my right—

“Resist him, Milena! He has empathic powers of enthrallment. Don’t let him any further inside your mind!”