Her Russian Beast

“Hey! Hey! Hey, Beast, look at me! Look at me!”

His vision cleared, and the world came swimming back to him on a drunken wave of adrenaline and anger. He emerged from the Darkness to find himself in a hot concrete basement. The place reeked of blood and sweat, and a circle of yelling men surrounded him.

But in front of him stood a girl. A vision of loveliness with dark tumbling curls, golden brown skin, and eyes the color of champagne.

“Hey, Beast, welcome back,” she said with a teasing smile.

Behind her, the crowd booed, same as they most often did every place he fought. He wasn’t the pretty guy in the underground fighting movie who fought Goliath and won. He was Goliath, the villain everybody wants to see brought down. He was used to hearing his fight name get cursed in every language, but this crowd’s booing seemed especially loud.

Now that the Darkness had receded, he could see four bodies on the floor. One a bloody pulp. The other three knocked out cold. That explained the booing. The three must have tried to pull him off the bloody pulp and gotten K.O.ed for their efforts. Which meant the men who’d bet against him hadn’t just lost money on this fight, but on the next three fights, too.

He knew this not because he was particularly adept at reading underground fight scenes, but because it had happened before. Enough times that he now knew exactly how things had transpired, even though he’d gone Dark.

But there were still other fighters left. He could sense them even if he couldn’t see them in the messy circle of disappointed cowards who’d hoped to win big tonight with their pretty underdogs. Yes, he was back, and he was ready to fight again.

He raised a gloved fist and started to call out for another fighter to approach him.

“Wait, wait! Hold up!”

The girl got in front of him again, and to his shock, she laid her small hands on his arms. As if it was just the two of them in this dark basement and she was pulling him in for an intimate conversation.

“Stay with me here for a little bit, okay?” Her voice compelled him. Made him want to do as she asked. For a second or two.

But then he remembered… she wasn’t a fight. And he needed another fight.

Nose flaring, he swung his gaze away from her, scanning the crowd for someone else to hit. And he spotted him. Tall and wide with a Greek nose and jawline, his next challenger was dressed in fight shorts and sparring gloves, which meant he probably knew a few different fight styles. A worthy opponent, even if he was currently shaking his head at Cyrus, the Greek who ran this basement fight gig, in a way that insinuated he had no wish to be The Russian Beast’s next victim.

As he watched the fighter try to talk his way out of the match, the Darkness compelled him forward, blanking his mind of everything but the need to put his gloves on something. To hear the music of cracking bones beneath his fists. He pulled away from the girl and started toward Cyrus and the reluctant fighter…

Only to find the girl in front of him again.

“Hey, hold up! Hold up!” she said, putting her hands on his chest this time. “What you trying to do? Get me fired?”

Her words confused him, brought his eyes back down to her. She was small, but not small he saw now. Dressed in tiny shorts and a tank top so skimpy, he could see the outline of her push-up bra. She was short and her breasts were most likely small without the extra padding, but everything else on her was big and lush. Lush dark curls tumbling all the way down to her shoulders. Lush curves, barely constrained by her ring girl ensemble. Lush lips, smiling up at him as if they knew each other. And more than that, were already old friends.

Not many women smiled at him like that. Especially the ones who didn’t know his last name, the only real acknowledgment his father had ever given him. Even the women his half brother had sent to “help” with his recovery after Turkey had only barely managed to cover up their terror with simpering smiles. Which was why he’d used them then tossed them out of his hotel room immediately after.

Without his last name, he was too frightening. Mountainous body, hawk nose, knived cheek bones that put girls in mind of long ago Mongolians who would not only burn your poor European village to the ground, but also claim every woman in it as his own. Even the gentle tilt of his mother’s Buryat eyes didn’t help, because his pupils burning black as coal let them too easily see the Siberian beast buried just beneath his surface.

But this woman smiled up at him, her champagne eyes crinkling as she nodded at his forehead. “That cut above your eyebrow. I need to patch it up before you can fight again. I’m not just the ring girl, I’m the nurse, too—and the cleanup crew, but that’s a whole ‘nother job,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

He stared at her. This woman sounded American. But not like the rich ones his brother kept company with. More like the ones on television. But not exactly. Her voice had a husky quality to it that made him think of the girls who sang in the basement bar where his grandmother used to work.

“It is scratch,” he heard himself saying to her, his eyes going back to the next man he would fight, even if that man didn’t want to.

“Cool, then I’ll have you back out here in no time. Just come with me.”

“It is scratch,” he said again. And this time he didn’t wait for her answer, just started toward the Greek fighter again. The Darkness guiding his every step.

But against all odds, she got in front of him a third time.

“I said no!” she yelled, shoving him backwards. “You don’t fight until I look at that cut.”

The boos cut off with an abrupt gasp, and both he and the rest of the men in the room looked at her like she was crazy. Which she would have to be to shove a six-foot-six fighter known in underground fighting circles throughout Europe and Asia as The Russian Beast.

There were grown men who wouldn’t dare do what she’d just done. But her beautiful champagne eyes held his in a defiant stare down as she declared, “Listen, I ain’t afraid of you! I ain’t afraid of nothing. So you can either come with me now or fight me next. It’s up to you.”

His eyes slitted. She could not be serious.

With an annoyed glare, he simply picked her up and set her aside in one easy motion, then started forward again.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…!”

The next thing he knew, her body collided into his. Two arms wrapped around the back of his neck and pulled him down with what must have been all of her strength. At first he thought she was trying to bite him—the classic defense of the weak—but then…

Then she kissed him.

The entire world stopped when her lush mouth found his, lips giving him determined claim as her soft curves pressed into his hard body. She kissed him. Long and tough. She kissed him like she already knew him and was merely waiting for him to know her back.

The beast inside him faltered…

And the formerly pissed off crowd erupted into cheers, egging them on in a confusion of surprise and visceral lust. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the heavily accented voice of Cyrus the Greek saying, “Take him somewhere else, Sirena.”

And then the kiss was over. She slid down his body, the back of her feet landing on the floor.

“C’mon,” she said softly, beckoning him forward with eyes that almost seemed to glow in the barely lit space. “Come with me.”

Sirena. That is good name for her, he thought. Because like a sailor enchanted, he let her take him by the hand and lead him out of the fight circle.

* * *

“Just take a seat right over there,” she said once they got to her room. She let go of his hand and indicated the little wooden chair she used as an informal nursing station.

He gave her a long, dark look before apparently deciding to indulge her and sit down. She couldn’t keep herself from staring as he did. He had a huge tattoo that took up nearly his entire back. What looked like a Siberian tiger, rendered so realistically, it seemed to animate with the bunching of his muscles as he lowered himself into the chair.

“So, I’m guessing you ain’t exactly a fan of ‘your mama’ jokes,” she said, coming to stand a few feet in front of where he was sitting.

The fighter’s black eyes cut up to hers in a glare of confusion.

“The dude you was fighting tried to talk some trash about your mama before the fight.” She decided against repeating, word for word, what the large Albanian fighter had actually said. The promise he’d made in English, the agreed upon common language of the fights. That he would beat the Russian dog and then go find his mother to give her the fucking she deserved for bringing such an ugly beast into the world. The crowd of betting men had eaten it up with a loud cheer.

But a switch had clicked off behind the eyes of the dude everybody was calling The Russian Beast. A deadening like nothing she’d ever seen before.

Now the Albanian was laid out on the concrete floor outside her tiny room, battered and broken, with no guarantee he would survive the night. And it was on her to keep the Beast distracted until Cyrus’s two goons could remove the body.

“Extra hour pay for tonight if you get him to stop,” Cyrus had said, right before he shoved her into the fight circle with the huge muscle-bound fighter. You know, the one who’d just knocked out the last three guys who tried to stop him.

Luckily, she really hadn’t been kidding about not being afraid of anything. But she still couldn’t believe he was here. In her room. Threating to splinter her little wooden chair with the sheer heft of his body. She couldn’t stop herself from stealing several glances at him. He was huge and nothing like the other fighters she’d seen come through this place.

He looked big and Slavic, but the tilt of his eyes told her he might also have some farther East Asian in his background. He had ink black hair tied into a tight knot at the base of his neck—a strong ‘fuck you’ to would-be competitors, because most fighters wouldn’t dare go into a no-holds-barred fight with long hair. Talk about an instant vulnerability! But this dude definitely didn’t have to worry about being taken down in a fight because of his hair. Instead of swagger, he oozed absolute certainty, and she didn’t have a doubt in the world that he could beat down any man who came at him.

She could feel his cold gaze on her as she rooted through her waist pack with deliberate slowness, searching for the mini flashlight she used to see cuts better.

But she could only pretend for so long. Eventually she had to find the flashlight and come stand in front of him to perform her bullshit exam. The dude was beyond huge. Nearly as tall as her, despite the fact that he was seated and she was standing. She moved between his legs in order to get a good look at his cut. Those glittering black diamonds he called eyes tracked her every movement as she came in closer. It felt like being observed by a straight-up predator.

The weight of his stare did something to her insides. Made that pretty song she’d heard the other day chew on her chest even louder, just begging to get out.

Trying to ignore the song, she took him by the chin and lifted his face further into the light.

“You’re right, this cut ain’t that deep,” she said after a quick inspection. She clicked off the flashlight and returned it to the waist pack before pulling out a small band-aid.

Outside, the sound of the men cheering on a new set of fighters erupted. Which meant they must have successfully removed the body. The Albanian was probably on his way to get unceremoniously dumped somewhere. If the dude was lucky, outside a hospital. If not…

As if reading her thoughts, The Russian Beast asked, “Why are you here with me? Other fighter is much worse.”

“True,” she agreed, smoothing the band-aid over his itty bit cut—the only indicator he’d even been in a fight. “But he’s beyond my nursing skills. Cyrus wanted me to see to you.”

He stared at her for a dead-eyed second before saying. “He doesn’t want me to fight his Greek. Not good for bets. So he sends you to distract me.”

“Wow,” she said, stepping out from between his legs. “Has anyone ever told you you’re real perceptive, Mr. Beast?”

“I do not usually talk enough for people to say this about me,” he answered.

“Really? Why not?” she asked, genuinely curious about the answer, which was way more curious than she’d felt about anything in a real long time.

“Because I scare them. People do not wish to talk to that which scares them.”

“Oh, I get it,” she said with a shrug. “Well, like I said, you don’t scare me, so talk away.”

Another slitted look, like he was trying to figure her out. And then. “No more talk. I need to fight now.”

“But you just said yourself Cyrus doesn’t want you to.”

He came to his feet, already rolling his neck. “What Cyrus wants does not matter.”

She believed him. This hulking beast didn’t look like he gave two fucks about Cyrus or anything else but his next fight.

“How did you get that?” she asked, nodding toward the ugly scar running a diagonal line across his heavily muscled gut.

He glanced down as if just now realizing the scar was there.

“Fight,” he answered with a sneer. “It is just scratch.”

“Looks like more than a scratch to me.”

A dark second ticked between them. And then he said, “I need to fight now.”

“Want to or need to?”

He stared at her, his black diamond eyes blank. And she clarified. “Most guys come in here wanting to fight. But you got something inside you, don’t you? Something that makes you have to do this?”

She must have hit it on the head, because he looked away. Dropping his black stare from her to the dingy linoleum floor.

Was he ashamed? Upset she’d seen through all his hulking insistence to his real motivation? Not his mother’s honor. But that he had a dark rage burning inside him. Her heart went out to him then, like it used to go out to the road dogs her and Trevor made a habit of rescuing.

Dear oldest daughter, you can’t keep bringing these sad animals home, her mother would say when she and Trevor showed up at the door, him carrying yet another dog some cruel person had left on the side of the road.

Their little house lay on the very outskirts of the small Virginia town they’d moved to when she was seventeen. Which made the road right outside their home the perfect place for folks from the surrounding bigger cities to dump aging or hurt pets they no longer wanted. She’d felt compelled to start rescuing those poor dogs, sometimes going as far as to nurse them back to health before taking them on to the local shelter. Her younger brother, Trevor, had been the perfect assistant for her unofficial fostering service. Big and mentally disabled, his kindness continued to know no bounds, even after the age when most boys became cruel with raging hormones.

And now here was a man everyone called The Russian Beast, hurting bad from something—she could tell—and fighting demons only he could see. She stepped closer to him on instinct.

But then he asked, “How much?”

“Excuse me?”

“I have been to these fights before. I know how it works with Cyrus’s ring girls. Especially the ones he lets room here.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, you want to have sex with me.” She threw him an apologetic look. “Yeah, Cyrus told me that’s a good way to make extra money down here, but I’m still…” she searched for the right words to describe her current mental state and could only come up with, “…not quite there yet. Maybe next time.”

His dark eyes flickered with angry confusion. “Next time I can have you? This is what you are saying?”

“Yes, maybe next time,” she answered. “Like I said, I’m still working up to it.”

“You are being serious? You are not like Cyrus’s other ring girls? You do not take fighters into your bed after the fights?” he asked, obviously not believing her.

“So I’m assuming you’ve been in this room before?” she asked, her tone dry. “With all the other ring girls?”

He just continued to stare down at her, his unrelenting gaze heavy as stone. “My brother tells me my English is good. Better than his when he was my age. But I do not understand you.”

She tilted her head up at him. Liking him. Liking the way he made her laugh, even if it wasn’t anywhere near intentional on his part. “I’m saying it sounds like you’ve fucked a few girls before me in this bedroom, Beast. Is that clear enough for you?” she asked.

He actually seemed to consider her question. Then surprised the hell out of her when he quietly confessed. “Sometimes the fighting is not enough. Sometimes I need more.”

“More,” she repeated. “For the demons you mean?”

He nodded, looking wary like he expected her to run or something.

But when she continued to stand there, waiting to hear what he’d say next, he surprised her again by asking. “Sirena. This is your name, da, little ring girl?”

“Yep!” she lied with a pleasant smile. “Sirena Gale. My passport got stolen a few days ago, so I figured that was life telling me to start over. So now I’m Sirena Gale, ring girl-slash-nurse maid. At least until I find the funds to move on.”

He frowned. “Your passport was stolen, but you are not upset.”

She shrugged. “It’s cool. I came over here to be somebody else for a little while. Now I can be.”

“But you are not ready to sell your body?”

“No, not yet,” she answered with another shrug and a smile.

Her answer made his glower go even darker. “I do not like being teased.”

“You should reconsider your position on that, Mr. Beast,” she replied with a grin. “Teasing’s kind of fun under the right circumstances.”

Now he regarded her with a suspicious glare. “Do you know my real last name?”

“It’s not Beast?”

His square jaw gritted back and forward. “You are teasing me again.”

She grinned. “You got me.”

But he didn’t smile back at her. Like at all. “No, I do not have you. Yet.”

The girl standing in front of him, so close but so far away, was not making this easy for him. With her sultry eyes and her teasing voice. But his erection was pounding now inside his shorts, and he was done with her games.

“Tell me this, Sirena,” he said. “You guessed the truth about me having to fight, but do you really understand about me now? What has to happen if you do not get out of my way and let me return to the circle?”

He got a brazen satisfaction out of watching the girl visibly swallow in response to his question, her throat working up and down. And just in case she had any remaining illusions, he told her the hard facts of their situation without any softness whatsoever.

“Fight or fuck, Sirena. That is only choice you will ever have with me.”

Her eyes widened slightly, but she remained where she was. And he had to admire her for not fleeing like a small animal. As most girls would do given a set of similar choices.

Now it was he who stepped closer to her, head dropping so he could get a better look at her as he said, “You lie about your name. Are you lying about other thing?”

“Other thing?”

“When you say you aren’t afraid of me.”

“No, I ain’t lying about that,” she answered. Voice soft but fierce.

“Perhaps,” he said, bringing his large hands up to her waist. “You should be scared of me.”

“Hmm,” she said, tilting her own head to once again meet his gaze square in the eye. “But I’m not.”

“You should be,” he said, even as he tugged her closer, pulling her body flush with his so she had no choice but to feel what was going on behind his fighting shorts. The pulsing erection that had apparently replaced his need to fight.

But… “I’m still not scared,” she informed him.

“You should be.”

“But I’m not.”

And before he could answer, she curled her hand around his neck and kissed him, sipping at his sweat, lust, and rage like a curious cat.

He froze, the Darkness inside of him not quite knowing what to do with this bold girl’s kiss. But then his Darkness exploded into flame.

He kissed her back. Savagely lifting her head higher as he gave her lips rough claim. Kissed her and kissed her until everything around them disappeared: the grimy basement room, the noise of the fight taking place on the other side of the door, the wild sadness that had been dogging him for the past year.

Kissed her until she understood.

She wasn’t a whore, but tonight she would give her body to him. Tonight she would become his possession.

* * *

He woke the next day to the sound of an angel singing. Had he gone to heaven?

Of course not. He didn’t believe in heaven. And even if he did, he doubted such a place would let him in.

Nonetheless, he could clearly hear the angel singing in this room. He sat up and found her by the space’s only window with a white mug in her hand. She seemed to be watching the feet of pedestrians pass by as she sang.

It was a soft song with a strange vernacular. He was only able to catch a few of the English words. Something about summertime and living easy. Although it was not summertime, nor from the looks of her unheated basement room did her living seem easy. But still he recognized the song as opera—beautifully sung, which was surprising since he was fairly certain she couldn’t possibly have any formal training.

“You sing like angel,” he told her when she was done.

“Oh, I didn’t know you was up,” she said, startling at the window. A sultry smile lifted her lips, and to him it sounded like she was still singing when she said, “Thank you for the nice compliment, Beast.”

He sneered as he looked around the cold room. She was the only pretty thing in the small, gray place with a solitary mattress, a cheap dresser drawer, and a sink for washing up. It reminded him of home. The one he’d shared with his grandmother in Siberia. And he hated it.

“It is fact not compliment,” he told her, tone harsh as the gray winter morning outside the window.

“Oh, even better then,” she answered, laughing. “A fact from you feels exactly like a present come early on Christmas Eve.”

And he once again found himself squinting hard at her. She was still not scared of him.

Even after last night.

“The last ring girl must have had a real steady clientele,” Sirena had joked, pointing to the basket of condoms on top of the dresser drawer as he carried her to the bed.

He didn’t laugh as he plucked one foil package out of the basket. Couldn’t laugh at the thought of Sirena eventually becoming like the last girl and pointing other men to the basket.

The Darkness threatened and he had to blank his mind in order to deal with this silly girl who didn’t know any better than to be scared of him in her tiny room.

He’d taken her hard the first few times. Brutal, his desire for her not allowing for any of the prettiness women liked. But she’d received him each time. Her lush curves pillowing his heavy body, making him think of that place in which he didn’t believe as he spilled into one condom after another.

But it was never enough. He kept pulling out, only to immediately rise again. Wanting her. Needing her back beneath him…

They’d spent nearly the entire night fucking. Him unable to stop rising for her. Her murmuring English words in his ears as he pushed his big body into hers.

“Yes, baby. Fuck yes. Just like that. So good…I ain’t never…oh…make me feel…make me feel.”

“How old are you?” he’d asked her at one point, beginning to wonder if her many “I ain’t nevers” were a joke.

“Nineteen. No, wait…twenty,” she answered with a smile. “My birthday was in August, but I don’t like that month so I keep on forgetting.”

Twenty. Not even old enough to drink in her home country. That explained her eagerness and wonder with him, if not his own desire at the relatively hardened age of twenty-one to keep possessing her again and again. Never sated. Satisfied for long, pleasure-strung moments, but never full.

He’d fallen asleep inside her, cock still jerking for more.

He hadn’t understood then in the dark of night, and he still didn’t understand now in the dim gray light of day. He never stayed overnight. Especially with whores. The Fight or The Fuck—those were his two options when the Darkness was riding him. And he was always out the door as soon as either was done.

But here he was waking up in this strange American woman’s bedroom. And here she was, smiling down at him, like he’d pleased her beyond belief just by opening his eyes.

“Want some Greek coffee?” she asked. “I can get you some. I also waitress at the restaurant upstairs.”

Four jobs. Four fucking jobs, yet she lived like a dog.

He came to his feet, not knowing what to do with the emotions riling inside of him, feeling the need to fight even though there was nothing in this room to punch. Not even a pillow.

This wasn’t the usual Darkness, he realized. But some other unnamable thing. It made him want to say things to her, do things to her. Do things for her.

“I will go now,” he told her, rejecting the weird compulsions inside of him. “Good-bye.”

“Okay, kinda abrupt,” she said with a soft laugh. “But you’ve got to go. I get it.”

Good. She got it. At least one of them did, he thought. He looked around. Where was his bag?

“Your gym bag’s right there.” She pointed to the wooden chair. “I went out and got it from Cyrus after you fell asleep. I had to get up early to clean the basement anyway.”

He stalked over to the chair and snatched up the bag. He didn’t even bother to go through it to make sure his wallet was still there. Cyrus knew his last name. He wouldn’t dare.

Shouldering the bag, he started toward the door, refusing to look at her. He didn’t trust himself not to take her back to bed if he did.

But she once more got in front of him, splaying her hands against his chest. “Wait, before you go…”

She curved a hand around the back of his neck and brought him down for another kiss. This one chaste, just a tender press of her lips to his as she rose up on her tiptoes.

Yet it made his heart roar the same as if she’d used her tongue.

“Thank you,” she said against his lips. Swaying with the effort to stay on her toes.

“For what?” he asked with the strange feeling that he should be the one thanking her.

“I heard that song out on a walk a few weeks ago, just spilling out of somebody’s open window. It’s been stuck inside my chest this whole time. Chewing on me. But I couldn’t…I couldn’t figure out how to sing it. And then this morning it was just there. Cuz of you, I think. So thank you for that, Beast. I do appreciate it.”

She pressed her lips to his once more, then she stepped back, grinning. He didn’t know her, but he felt like he did in that moment. She was that girl, he realized. Pretty, popular, so utterly confident in her every move. Back in Siberia he’d seen girls like her, but never spoken to them and they, in turn, hadn’t so much as attempted to speak to the wild half-Russian boy who even the teachers treated like a feral animal.

But this girl continued to grin up at him, her sparkly champagne eyes twinkling. “See you later maybe?”

This time he didn’t answer. Just left with the answer ringing firm inside his dark mind.

No. She’d unsettled him so much, he knew even before the door closed behind him that he’d never let himself see this girl again. The one who’d named herself after a creature who lured men to their deaths.

* * *

Her mama Marian had been telling her for as long as she could remember that her daddy—the guy who’d knocked Marian up less than three months after her arrival at college in North Carolina—was the son of a siren.

“You see, dear oldest daughter, he’d been sent by his mother to repopulate the world with siren singers. This is why so many of the true singers come from single parent homes,” Marian told her a few days after she got her first period. “But anyroad, three things are guaranteed for you in this life, my dear. You’ll always be able to swim, sing, and seduce. Do with that what you will.”

This had been her mother’s idea of the “you’re a woman now” speech. But okay, whatever. Everybody back in her small town knew Marian was crazy, and now she herself was becoming pretty sure her mother had overstated the power of her mythological DNA.

Yes, she could swim like a fish, even though she never recalled learning how. And yes, she could sing pretty good—copying any song she heard, note for note, no matter the language, and often doing the singer one better. Though that usually felt less like a blessing than a curse. For as long as she could remember, if she went more than five days without singing, it began to feel like something was chewing on her, inside her chest. That’s one thing the books never tell you about having singing talent. The songs can be brutal, threatening to eat a girl alive if she didn’t let them out.

Which was one of the reasons she’d taken the ring girl-waitress-nurse-maid job in the first place. Sure it was a lot of work, but she got to sing the Greek national anthem on fight nights. Her father’s song, as she’d come to think of it. So it meant all the songs she hadn’t wanted to sing since Trevor died didn’t hurt quite so bad inside her chest.

However, it looked like Marian had grossly miscalculated her powers of seduction. Boys had come easy in high school. Doing most anything for as little as a kiss, even though she was other, in more ways than one—her sister Willa and her being the only two brown kids at Greenlee High School.

The only reason she didn’t have boys swarming all over her now in Greece was because after what happened with Trevor, she’d stopped wanting anything to do with them. So she’d flipped off her siren switch. Learned how to talk and act in ways that didn’t make men want to do things for her.

In fact, it had been so long now since she’d flirted, she’d been halfway wondering if she was doing it right with The Russian Beast. But then he’d pulled her to him. Practically told her she either needed to let him fuck her or let him fight.

She’d surprised herself by opting for the former, but she certainly hadn’t regretted it. In fact, she’d spent all day happily tired and sore, but looking forward to the next time with him. Had put her ring girl outfit on over what felt like a new body and strode into the basement crowd to sing her anthem along with a cheery Greek Christmas song she’d heard in a department store.

You’d think the fact that it was literally the night before Christmas would have thinned out the crowd, but there seemed to be even more men than usual gathered in the basement that night. Cheering for the blood of the fighters on the eve of their savior’s birth.

But he wasn’t there. She scanned the crowd for him throughout the night, but never saw him. And when Cyrus finally told her to announce that the last fight was coming up, she released a disappointed breath.

“That’s how that one goes,” Cyrus said as if reading her sigh. Or her body, which felt like an open outlet, just waiting for her new lover to plug himself back in. “He comes in for one night, then we don’t see him again for a while. Weeks…last time, months.”

So he was gone and most likely wouldn’t be coming back for some time. So much for the power of her siren grandmother, she thought to herself. The one time she’d truly wanted a boy, her supposed power had completely failed her. He’d given her all the feelings she’d been missing over the past year and then disappeared back into the ether.

Maybe he was descended from some sort of mythological creature, too, she thought with a grimace. Like an incubus. If the delicious soreness between her thighs from last night was anything to go by, that really might be it.

“You given any more thought to my offer?” Cyrus asked. “It’s almost Christmas, and the men are happy but lonely tonight. They will line up at your door to have you. Sixty percent for me, forty for you. I give you good deal. Could be very profitable night if you say yes.”

She shook her head. This again. Cyrus had been asking her this question every night since she started working here. And every time, she’d just looked away and told him she needed to think about it.

Up until last night, she’d thought all she’d needed was more time. More time to go deader inside, until she truly no longer cared who fucked her.

It’s just a body, she’d told herself. One that belonged to someone she could barely stand after Trevor’s death. Why shouldn’t she use it to make some more money?

But then he had happened. A night of pleasure so intense, she’d found herself doing something she hadn’t done in the year since she ran away from home. Feel. Feel something other than numbness or when she let that numbness slip even a little, the wild grief that made her know she either had to stop feeling or jump off the Acropolis’s high rocky outcrop. For what she did. For what she let happen. Sometimes it felt like the only thing keeping her alive was the numbness and knowing Trevor wouldn’t want her story to end that way.

The weeks she’d been working here, she’d truly thought it would be just a matter of time before she took Cyrus up on his offer. But after last night…

“No,” she answered the small Greek man with a firm shake of her head. “I don’t want to do that.”

Cyrus, who was usually such an affable guy, actually looked surprised. “Why not? Because of The Russian Beast? Was he too much for you? He hurt you?”

She shook her head. No, it’d been quite the opposite. He’d made her feel. Made her want things for herself. Which was why she couldn’t imagine sleeping with another man tonight, much less several, and then passing on the majority of the cut to Cyrus.

“How about 50/50 then? You are friend. I give you this deal.”

“Seriously, that side hustle’s not for me,” she answered, letting her voice go hard. “Find somebody else, because it ain’t going to be me, Cyrus.”

Cyrus didn’t answer, but a terrible look came over his face, red and furious… She could tell he wasn’t pleased, and she welcomed the roar of the crowd that came with the latest knockout.

Using the downed fighter as an excuse to rush away, she decided she needed to gather her things and get out of here. Not at some future date when she’d saved up enough money for a down payment on an apartment. But first thing in the morning.

Luckily she didn’t have much stuff to take with her. After her bags were stolen last month, she’d been left with just the clothes on her back. So she had some toiletries and a few outfits—one of which she was wearing and technically belonged to Cyrus.

Whatever. She was more than happy to leave that one here, she thought as she rushed to her bedroom door. She’d just finished mopping down the venue and putting everything in the basement back in pre-fight condition. So, you know, still grimy but not so bloody and cluttered.

But just as she put her hand on the knob of the door, a voice behind her said, “So you think you can take advantage of my hospitality, American girl?”

She turned to see Cyrus, which wouldn’t have been so bad. He was slimy but small. She maybe could have taken him. But he had the large men she privately referred to as Goon 1 and Goon 2 flanking his back. Two former fighters who exclusively wore turtlenecks overlaid with thick silver chains. They were too old to participate in the fights anymore, but still tough enough to handle anyone Cyrus felt was getting out of hand.

And apparently, Cyrus felt she’d gotten out of hand. They stood behind Cyrus, hands to fists, as if daring her to run.

Fuck.

She clamped her lips and pasted on a conciliatory look. The kind she used with women who couldn’t be swayed by her siren. And she already knew she couldn’t use the siren here. It would only make an already volatile situation worse.

“Cyrus, you’re mad. I get it. I tell you what. I’m going to pack a bag and get out of here right now. If you don’t want me in your room no more, that’s fine. I’m gone.”

“You think you can leave here without paying me what you owe?”

She blinked because, “What do you think I owe you, Cyrus? Last I checked, I’ve been working my fingers to the bone here for not a lot of money.”

Cyrus’s lips twisted in a contemptuous smirk. “It would have been even less if I’d known you weren’t going to come through.”

Her brain boggled at the thought of anyone getting paid less than she did to do what essentially amounted to four jobs. And for a moment she considered fighting back. The old version of her—the girl she’d been before Trevor died would not only have cussed Cyrus out, but also would have launched herself at him with fists flying. Back in her hometown she’d built up a reputation as a girl to not ever be fucked with, but here…

Here she had nothing but the little ring girl outfit on her back and he had two goons at his.

“Okay, how much do you think I owe you? We’ll work out a deal.”

He moved so fast, she didn’t have a chance to defend herself. The next thing she knew, a fist was coming at her. Then a burning hot pain radiated across her face. Cyrus had just punched her, she realized as she fell to the ground. Straight punched her like she’d been watching men punch each other in the ring for weeks now.

But they weren’t in the ring. And Cyrus wasn’t backing off like a fighter was supposed to after he’d knocked his opponent to the ground.

Instead he stood over her, wheezing hard, looking like he was pissed because she’d made him exert even that much energy.

“Give me the needle…” he said, holding out his hand.

Goon 2 passed him a syringe, already filled. Like he was a nurse and this was Cyrus’s version of the E.R.

Drugs, she realized through the ringing in her ears. He was going to drug her. “No…” she mumbled, trying to get up. Trying to fend him off. “No…”

“Shut up, bitch!” Cyrus answered, fisting the syringe. “You brought this on yourself.”

He bent down, and she started to crawl backwards, frantic to get away from him. But then she didn’t have to, because Cyrus suddenly disappeared from her line of sight, taken out by a large blur dressed in black.

“Ohhee! Ohhee! Ohhee!” she heard one of the goons call out. Greek for “no.”

Then came two muffled popping sounds. She jumped when both of Cyrus’s goons landed in front of her. Wide-eyed, with small holes in the middle of each forehead.

What the…?

She sat up fully. Just in time to see Cyrus on his knees, a huge shadow looming over him. Though it was hard to see anything in the dimly lit room, she immediately knew the shadowed figure was The Russian Beast. By his hulking form, by the stillness of his body, by the absolute cold front coming off of him as he stared down at the man sobbing on his knees. The Beast was pointing something at Cyrus. A gun, she realized with an inner gasp.

“Please! Please! I didn’t know she was yours! I’ll make it right. Whatever you want. I’ll give her to you. Promise! I’ll make it ri—”

An orange spark lit up the room along with the sound of a muffled pop.

Cyrus’s body flew back with the force of the bullet hitting his forehead, then The Russian Beast came to stand over him.

She could see his face clearly now, cast in partial light. Hard as a statue’s as he squeezed three more orange sparks out of his gun. Three more bullets found their way into Cyrus’s chest, making his dead body jerk with the violence of their impact.

The next thing she knew, The Russian Beast was standing in front of her, his huge chest heaving. He was breathing hard. But not with exertion.

No, he looked nothing but angry. Nostrils flaring in and out as he held out his hand and said to her, “Come.”

* * *

“Come,” he said to her.

And she found herself taking his hand and letting him pull her to her feet. In a daze, the siren followed the beast out to the street and into the back of a cab.

Inside the car, she clung to his large hand with both of hers. But his face remained unreadable, no emotion to be found about what had just happened or what he had done. She watched him watch nothing but the passing scenery as the cab took them through the congested streets of Athens, into the historical neighborhood of Plaka. Above them, the Acropolis was lit up like a shining beacon to tourists everywhere. A sure sign, even more than the streets’ strictly engineered switch to neoclassical design, that they were now in a neighborhood she couldn’t possibly afford.

That had been one of the first things she’d learned when she’d finally used the passport she’d gotten after graduating from high school. When she’d finally followed through with her plans to get out of Greenlee County, spurred on by her brother’s tragic death. Anything too close to a tourist site or with a decent view was out of her price range.

But apparently that wasn’t the case for The Russian Beast. Her mouth dropped open when the cab deposited them outside a hotel that looked like an ancient Greek palace made new. This definitely wasn’t any kind of student hostel situation. In fact, the hotel boasted columns so high, she could barely see their tops, even when she bent her head all the way back.

No, this place was definitely out of her price range. But she followed him through the middle set of columns anyway.

Inside she could feel the stares of the other hotel guests, and couldn’t help but feel self-conscious in her skimpy ring girl outfit. She also became keenly aware of her face, which had to be sporting a black eye if the pulsing pain coming off of it was any indication.

However the hotel employees were nothing but deferential to The Russian Beast, inclining their heads as they said, “Kalispéra, Mr. Rustanov.” Good evening, Mr. Rustanov. So she guessed Rustanov was his last name, not Beast. Though why he’d asked if she knew it, she had no idea. Was she supposed to know that name? Was he famous?

She didn’t understand. Any of it.

After a short elevator ride, they finally arrived at a door made of a rich, dark wood. She braced herself, but was still overcome with the opulence of the hotel room, which made her fully understand the term “presidential suite” for the first time. The room—which was more like a full-on apartment, in her opinion—had a front room fit for a statesman, with luxurious leather furniture, heavy carpets, and a dining table that could easily seat six. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, she could see a balcony with a hot tub and…

Her eyes widened. Was that a private swimming pool? Yes, it was. And in the distance, the Acropolis shone like a nighttime portrait. Forget price range. This place was out of her imagination’s range.

A low growl interrupted her blatant gaping. She looked across the huge room to see an insanely large dog with white and black fur standing outside a closed set of sliding doors like a canine sentry. It stared at her with demonic blue eyes, as if it were trying to decide whether or not to kill her.

“That is Sascha. Siberian husky, wolf mix. Do not try to pet. Not safe.”

The Russian said something to the huge hound in a strange language. She’d never heard it before, and was almost sure it wasn’t Russian. Whatever it was, it did the trick, because the growling stopped almost immediately. And it didn’t start up again when The Russian disappeared through the sliding doors, which apparently led into a bedroom.

Still, Sascha continued to give her the evil eye until The Beast re-emerged a few moments later with a gray t-shirt bunched in his large fist.

“Put this on,” he commanded, thrusting it at her. And to her surprise, he turned around to give her privacy.

She did as instructed, and found that the t-shirt came all the way down to her knees without clinging to anything whatsoever. The night before, he’d all but ripped the ring girl outfit off of her, but tonight it seemed like he could barely look at her and wanted her completely covered.

“I’m done,” she said.

“What do you need to fix your face?” he asked, turning back around.

Her face. She could feel it throbbing with the heat of damage done, and she wasn’t going to forget the way the other hotel guests had stared at her anytime soon. They’d probably thought he was the one who gave it to her.

“I apologize if I embarrassed you down there,” she said, cringing at that thought.

Something ticked in his jaw. “What do you need to fix your face?”

“Um…just some ice and a towel,” she answered, pressing her fingertips into the large bruise. “Nothing feels broken.”

He left the room without another word. Leaving her alone in the suite with a dog she wasn’t supposed to pet.

“Are you really that dangerous?” she asked it.

Sascha stared back at her. Eyes inscrutable.

But she had a feeling about this one, so she sang to it. “Yellow,” by Coldplay. One of the songs she used to sing to Trevor to lull him to sleep. Sascha seemed like a Coldplay fan.

As it turned out, she was right. By the time The Russian came back with the ice, she was sitting with her back to the sliding doors with Sascha’s head in her lap.

However, both she and the dog stood up somewhat guiltily when he came back into the suite.

“Hey,” she said.

He just grunted and pushed the ice bucket into her hands. He pointed at the sliding door, “You can sleep in there. I am going out.”

“Okay, thank you—”

He headed back to the door before the words were even out of her mouth. And this time he slammed it behind him.

So apparently he wasn’t completely unaffected by what had happened that night, she thought in the wake of his departure. He’d come to the basement, probably looking for another hook up, and had found her in need of saving instead. Total mood killer. And now not only did he not want a repeat of last night, he was also plainly struggling with the decision to let her stay here in his beyond-grand hotel room. She totally got that.

But she must have had a little more pride left than originally thought, because for a moment she considered leaving. Disappearing back into one of the poorer parts of the city and getting out of his obviously annoyed hair.

But it was four in the morning. All she had in the world now was the waist pack with the little money she’d made working for Cyrus. And her head was swimming—she could only hope not with a concussion. Sure there was her pride, but she was also the daughter of a nurse. She knew she needed to ice her face. And sleep.

Deciding to at least do that for herself, she opened the sliding doors and entered a sophisticated bedroom done up in deep browns and fine white linens. Another entry in the “this is how you do rich-ass hotel rooms” catalog, and her heart nearly cried out a happy gospel song when she saw what looked like the softest bed ever. When she woke up, she’d figure out a new plan, she promised herself. Or just start wandering the streets of Greece again until she found another place to land.

She found a hand towel in the small alcove that sat between the bedroom and the bathroom, and made herself a decent enough ice pack. Then, pressing it to her face, she climbed into the huge bed and let herself sink into it with a sigh. Only to find she couldn’t sleep.

Funny that unlike her reluctant host, she wasn’t remotely bothered that he’d so ruthlessly shot Cyrus and his goons. But the fact that he wasn’t sleeping beside her, making her feel the things he’d made her feel last night when he’d taken her again and again like he couldn’t get enough…that bothered her.

And though this was the most comfortable bed she’d lain in like, ever, it took her a long while to fall asleep.

Which was why she was shocked to wake up to the sight of The Russian Beast. But not so beast-like anymore. He was clean-shaven now, and had replaced last night’s black track suit with a pair of gray wool trousers and a black sweater, which made his eyes appear even darker. And instead of a knot, his long hair fell in a silken, jet-black waterfall past his shoulders.

“Hi,” she said, sitting up on her forearm. She could only wonder what she looked liked. Dressed in his bulky t-shirt, likely black eye, wild curls in a frizzy tumble on top of her head—since she hadn’t tied it up last night.

“What’s up?” she asked, trying not to feel self-conscious.

“I come back to room last night. No Sascha. I look for him on balcony, in other bathroom, and then I find him in here. My guard dog curled up beside your bed.”

Oh, so Sascha was a boy. She hadn’t bothered to check last night.

“Sorry,” she said with a chagrined smile. “I kind of have a way with animals—especially if they’re male. My mom says my grandma on my father’s side was a siren.”

He stared at her for a long black-eyed second and then said, “Or maybe he recognizes kin. He is dog. You live like dog. He comes in here with you.”

She tilted her head. Okay, this guy… he had a way of insulting her so brazenly, it was hard for her to actually feel insulted. Just bewildered. “So you came in here to compare me to your dog?”

Another dark look, and despite the much more sophisticated clothes, he put her in mind of a frustrated beast. Nostrils flaring in and out as he glared at her.

“You are quarter siren, but you live like dog in that basement.” He sat forward, thick forearms settling on his thighs. “Tell me, do you know about men like Cyrus? What they do to siren girls like you?”

She shook her head with the feeling she didn’t really want to know the answer to that question. As it turned out she was right.

“They give you drugs,” he informed her. “Then they give you to somebody who breaks girls like you as job. Rape you over and over and keep you on drugs until you are addicted and will do whatever they say for next hit. What did you think happened to girls who came before you?”

“They quit because of the obviously shitty working conditions?” she answered, truthfully.

“No, they do not quit,” he answered, tone scathing as acid. “They were broken. Cyrus lets men use them after fighting is done. That way all money comes back to him, even if house loses on fights. He lets men use them until they are too old or too far gone. Then he gets new girl. You were new girl.”

She expelled a breath, strangely more upset for the women who’d come before her than herself. “Those poor girls. Is there any way to help them?” she asked him.

He flinched. Almost like her question had taken him by complete surprise. “No, there is no way to help them.”

“Oh,” her shoulders sank. More souls to add to the list of people she couldn’t help.

The memory of Trevor’s broken body lying in the road came back to her in a flash then. Along with the image of her sobbing. Begging him and anybody else who would listen not to go, to stay here with her, not to die—

She broke out of the memory, clinging to her numbness like a lifeline.

“Okay, well, thank you for the advice,” she said to the intense man sitting in front of her.

She swung her feet around so she could get out of the bed. “No more taking jobs at underground fighting rings. Message received. Thank you. Seriously, thank you for all you did. I’ll be getting out of your hair now.”

But as soon as she stood, so did he, effectively blocking her exit with one move of his giant body.

“You are scared of me now,” he said, bending his head to look down at her. “After you saw real me. Who I really am.”

It was a statement not a question, but her answer would have been the same either way. “No, I’m not scared,” she told him. “Just grateful. And sad for those other girls. And I don’t want to overstay my welcome here, so I’ll just be going.”

But instead of stepping out of the way to allow her to leave, he stepped even closer. Towering over her as he said, “You should be.”

“Sad?” she asked.

“Scared. You should be scared of me. After last night.”

She smiled then, broken and wry. Yeah, she supposed she should be. But…

“I’m not,” she said, looking up to meet his gaze. Bold as she used to be. Before Trevor. “I don’t care how many dudes you kill. I ain’t going to be scared of you.”

A few dangerous seconds ticked by, and then he sneered, “You are stupid girl. But you make my dick hard.”

Her eyes widened. “Okay, well, I guess that’s supposed to be some kind of compliment.”

“I will make you offer,” he continued, still sneering. “Instead of dying like dog in some Greek’s basement, you will become my pet.”

“Your pet?” she repeated, looking down at Sascha.

“No, Sascha is guard dog. Not pet. The men in my family…” He sliced his eyes to the side as if trying to figure how to explain this to her, even though English wasn’t his first language. “The men in my family. We are known for keeping a certain type of woman. A woman we take care of, who in return takes care of the needs every man has. We give this woman many things, and she gives us whatever we want from her, anytime we want it. Do you understand my meaning, Siren?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I think I do. You all have a whore on the side,” she summarized, voice blunt. “It’s like a family tradition, and you want me to be your whore.”

“No, Siren, let me make this clear. Not my whore. My pet. If you are to sell yourself, I would have you sell yourself to me. But I do not pay for sex. I pay for ownership.”

* * *

“Wow. Just…wow.” He watched the siren girl blink in surprise, his own body tight with tension, as he waited for her answer.

It scared him how much he wanted her to say yes. How much he wanted to own her, to take this woman into his bed, and know he could keep her there as long as he wanted.

But she didn’t answer. Just kept shaking her head and saying, “Wow” on long expulsions of breath.

His brother was the negotiator, not him. The only two options for the deals he ever entered into were “agree” or “fight.” But with this girl he found himself as close to negotiating as he had ever come.

“I know I am not easy to look at. Especially to pretty girl like you. But you have seen what I can do in dark. It does not have to be bad between us, Sirena.”

She stopped shaking her head and squinted up at him. “What?”

“I said it does not have to be bad—”

“No, not that part. Go back to the part where you claim not to be easy to look at.”

Now he squinted, once again confused by her response. “I know I am ugly, but in the dark it will not matter.”

She looked at him for a beat. And then she burst out laughing.

His stomach dropped. She was laughing at him. Like the boys in the Siberian coal town where he grew up used to laugh at him—well, at least they laughed until he became big enough to stop their laughter with his fists.

“I will not be laughed at,” he told her, voice low and dangerous.

“I’m sorry,” she answered, still laughing. “But what do you expect when you say crazy shit like that? If you tell a joke, I’m going to laugh. Okay, sure whatever. You’re ugly. And I’m like a blonde Barbie doll. Fine, whatever. I get it. Just stop. I can’t breathe!”

It took several mystified moments of watching her laugh so hard there were tears in her eyes before he realized, “You are being serious. You do not think I am ugly.”

“What? No! You’re like…the most beautiful. I can’t stop myself from looking at you. Are you kidding me?”

“No, I do not kid,” he answered quite seriously. “I am not…like you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Like me how? You mean you don’t have small tits and a really nice ass? Well, no you don’t have the small tits. But man, you do have that banging body, them cheekbones, and those eyes.”

“But…but…I am only half.”

She shook her head. “What does that mean?”

“I am half my Buryat mother, and half my Russian father.”

Her eyebrows shot to the top of her head. “Wait, wait, wait! Are you trying to tell me you don’t think you’re fine because you’re bi-racial? Because as a half-and-half myself, I think you might have finally managed to insult me.”

“That is different. You know this. You are very beautiful girl and I am…” He didn’t know the right word in English. Could barely believe he was having to explain this to her. “…not.”

Another burst of laughter exploded out of her, her shoulders shaking with it. “Boy, if you stopped glaring at everybody like you was fixing to pull a gun on them, you’d have plenty of girls dropping their panties when you came around. No need for me!”

That supposition hardened his gaze. “It is not other girls panties I want.”

That finally brought her laughter to a stop. And he said into her silence. “You are maybe little serious about thinking me handsome, but I am more serious about wanting you as pet. How will you answer my offer, Siren?”

“How will I…?” She shook her head as if coming out of a daze. “Okay, this has gone all the way from a one night stand to what the hell? But let’s just say you’re serious about this mistress stuff—”

“Pet.”

“Pet stuff, whatever. What’s the deal exactly? How does this work? I come home with you for however long? Back to Russia?”

“No, not back to Russia,” he answered quickly. “My brother wants to me to go to school. Get degree. He has found place for me in a German program. If you agree to this, you will live with me there. You will want for nothing. And if you like, we can send you to the Berlin Arts University for opera degree.”

Her eyes widened. “Me? Singing opera like them ladies on TV?”

The look of wonder in her champagne eyes made an unfamiliar warmness tug on his heart.

“Da,” he answered. “You can be even better than those ladies, I think. With right training. If you want.”

“If I want.” She tilted her head, like he’d introduced a foreign concept into her life. “I never thought I’d get any kind of higher education. My grades weren’t that good in high school. All I’ve ever really been good at is singing and cheerleading. But learning to sing opera, that sounds—”

She broke off and looked back up at him. “That sounds like a dream come true. Seriously? You could just…make that happen? Because usually dudes who show up for fights in Greek basements don’t know how to get little nobodies like me into colleges with opera programs.”

“No, usually they do not,” he agreed. “But I can do this for you.”

“Okay,” she said with a slight grimace. “I think now’s the time for me to ask about that big ol’ tiger tattoo I saw on your back the night before last. Is that some kind of mafia tag?”

“No, even if my family was still that kind of family, I wouldn’t have been allowed to get that kind of tattoo, because I am only half.”

“So your family is mafia, but you’re not?”

“No, my family—the Rustanovs—they used to be a crime family, but my brother has decided we should be another kind of family. He wants me to stop using my fists. Get a degree like him in business—learn how to fight in boardroom. But this is not easy for me. Like you said, there is darkness in me. Fight or fuck. Sometimes the fight calls to me. Like siren—maybe you understand.”

Another of her smiles. “Yeah, I get that.”

“And do you understand I can answer siren call here in Greece in dirty basement where my brother cannot see, but not in Germany where everybody can see? So if I go to Germany and do not have fight, I must have fuck.”

She winced a little, but eventually said, “Yeah, I guess I get that, too.”

“Good, then become my pet.”

And again she made him wait, her bruised but still lovely face furrowed in thought.

The need to ride her had become nearly overwhelming. Demanding that he cover her and make her say yes to his proposition while fucking her into the bed.

The Russian Beast was just a nickname. Given to him by a small time criminal in China to promote one of his fights. But in that moment, he could feel a beast inside him panting with the want of her.

“What about my passport?” she eventually asked. “I can’t go to Germany without a passport, and mine was stolen.”

He had an easy answer for that. “This is no problem. My family still has ties to our old world, no matter so many of us have covered our tattoos with suits. We can get you new passport, easy. With whatever name you want.”

“Seriously? You could make me Sirena Gale for real?”

The prospect of changing her name seemed to delight her more than anything else he’d offered her thus far, he noted. And for a moment, he wondered about the life she was obviously running away from.

“The men in my family do not joke, Siren. Especially when it comes to our pets. But I am done with questions and answers. Da or nyet. Give me your answer now.”

However, she only continued to peer up at him with a bemused smile. “You know what?” she asked instead of answering.

“What?” he asked, not bothering to hide his irritation that she still hadn’t given him an answer.

“I don’t even know your name.”

“It is Rustanov.”

“Your first name.”

“Bair.” His jaw clenched over the name. His real first name, not Boris, his Russian one. He had no idea why he gave her that one. No one called him by this name anymore now that his Buryat grandmother was dead. But when the siren girl asked him for his first name, he’d found himself giving the real one to her without conscious thought.

“Bair…” She repeated the name with a smile on her lush lips. “I like that. You know what else, Bair? I never thanked you for saving me from Cyrus and them.”

He grunted at just the memory of it. Coming into that basement after standing outside the venue all night, trying to convince himself not to go in. Because he knew he wasn’t there for the fight this time, but for the fuck. To have her again. Finally giving up and ripping open the door to the underground venue, only to find…

He shook his head. If he’d been even a moment later…it made the Darkness roil within him. Made him want to grab his gun, go back to that basement, and shoot Cyrus and his thugs all over again.

But they’d already been cleaned up. His brother had made sure of that. Their bodies disposed of by “old friends of the family,” who were more than happy to handle one small time pimp and fight promoter as a favor to the Rustanovs.

There was nothing left to kill. No one left to fight.

Only this girl thanking him for something he would have done again and again if it meant protecting what was his. Even if she wasn’t quite his yet.

“I don’t want your thank you, I want—”

“I know what you want, Beast,” she answered, in that sultry siren way of hers. “But my mama raised me to say thank you. Hey, would you look at that…”

Something else had caught her attention, and her champagne eyes swung away from him as she moved around him. He watched her walk over to the bedroom’s glass balcony doors where snowflakes were now fluttering down on the other side, covering the city and the Acropolis in a thin white blanket.

“It’s snowing!” she whispered, her voice filled with awe. She grinned over her shoulder at him. “Just in time for Christmas.”

Yes, it was Christmas, wasn’t it? In all the turmoil that had led up to this negotiation, he’d forgotten about the holiday all together.

The truth was, he didn’t care for Christmas much. His grandmother had been a strict Buddhist, and during his time away at school, holidays hadn’t been something so much celebrated as waited out.

Other boys went home to their families, while he remained behind. So nyet, he couldn’t relate to the wonder in this girl’s eyes.

In fact, his voice grew even harder as he said, “I would have your answer.”

“So you’re not a big fan of snow, huh?” She came back over to stand in front of him, her eyes crinkled with amusement.

“I am from Siberia,” he answered. “Snow…it is not so much big deal as you Americans say.”

She let out a throaty laugh, seemingly endlessly amused by him though he’d yet to make any actual joke.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, it’s Christmas. And it’s snowing, and I like you...”

Once again she reached up. But this time instead of cupping the back of his neck, she took his face in her hands and brought it down, pressing his mouth to the mottled greenish-brown bruise on her beautiful face.

Her eyes fluttered closed and she held him there for a few moments, as if receiving a blessing. Then she brought his face square with hers, and once again pressed her mouth to his. She kissed like she sang her summertime aria. Slow and sure, drawing him deeper and deeper into the song.

He didn’t realize both his arms had snaked around her, pulling her in close. Not until she leaned back to look up at him from inside his embrace. “Yeah, I really like you, Beast,” she said on a whisper.

An impish look came over her expression then. “But look here, I don’t have a Christmas gift for you. How rude.” Her shoulders lifted up and down in faux exasperation with herself. And then that teasing smile of hers, the one he was actually beginning to like, spread across her face, “I guess I better let you keep me.”

It was just a handful of words, and delivered saucily at that. But something changed in the air between them when she spoke them. As if a binding contract had been signed with signatures.

“Take off that shirt, Sirena. Let me see you.”

The command made her feel a little breathless, but she did as he asked. And this time wasn’t like last time. He didn’t turn his back. No, this time he watched her remove the shirt, never taking his eyes off her, not even once.

He watched her and then she watched him remove his clothes. He only looked away when he stopped to pulled a condom out of his back pocket.

Once naked, he stood there for a few seconds, as if he were letting her get used to the sight of him: his huge body, mountainous with muscle, and the thick flesh between his legs…: wide and thick and very, very hard.

“Lie back on the bed,” he said after letting her look her fill.

She once again did as commanded, and was rewarded for her acquiescence when thick fingers found her wet core and began making what had been merely damp, completely wet.

“No, don’t close your eyes, Sirena,” he said when her lids began to flutter closed. “Watch. Watch what I’m doing to you.”

So she kept her eyes open and helplessly watched his fingers pump into her wet core. Slow, then faster, then slow again. Coaxing the orgasm out of her. She came with one long moan, her hips involuntarily arching into his hand as her hands clawed the bed. It felt like her body was melting around his fingers, because of what he’d done to her. What he wasn’t done doing to her yet.

He climbed on top of her, but kept his huge body braced over hers, only letting her feel the full weight of him against her core.

“Mmm, Beast,” she said. Numb no more and loving how he felt between her legs. She rubbed her pussy against his thick erection, the sensation sending sharp thrills through her core. Not quite dry humping, more like wet humping. She could feel herself getting slicker and slicker the more she ground her sensitive clit against his hardened manhood.

He let her enjoy herself like this for a few moments, but then he reared up and lifted her right leg, placing it over his shoulder. She moaned, feeling every inch of him as he slowly drove himself into her.

“Keep watching,” he commanded when her eyes threatened to close again.

So she did. They watched together. Watched his thick, hard cock start to claim her swollen pussy with long, deep strokes.

She sucked in a shuddering breath. So good. So good. He made her ache, made her feel like the least numb thing in the entire world.

“Sirena, look at me.”

She did, her eyes lifting to find his gaze sharp on her face. “You understand what is happening, da? You are mine now. You belong to me.”

She nodded. Silently. Helplessly. Yes, she was truly Sirena now, and this man was claiming her as no other ever had.

Her hand wrapped around his neck and she pulled him down for a kiss, entwining his tongue in hers as his hips rolled within her. Yes, his, his, his...

Her kiss seemed to enflame him. The cool commander disappeared and he groaned her new name into her mouth, long and pained.

His strokes went harder then. Faster and wilder. A beast undone.

But she wasn’t scared. She held onto him, her only port in this storm. And when they came, they did so together, shouting to the universe that had made them and miraculously brought them together on this Christmas day.

No, she didn’t regret this decision, she thought as she came down from the heavens. She’d given herself to him as a Christmas gift, but afterwards, as she fell asleep wrapped in his huge arms, she couldn’t help but feel it was she who’d gotten the best gift of all.

One Russian Beast to amuse her, to protect her, to make her feel things she’d never felt before.

Years later Bair would still remember the feeling he had falling asleep with Sirena in his arms on Christmas morning. The sudden notion that he finally understood what Christmas was all about, all because Sirena, the ring girl-nurse-waitress-maid had agreed to be his pet. It was as if a light had been turned on inside his dark heart, and in those moments, her agreeing to belong to him had felt like the best gift he’d ever received.

Yes, years later he’d still remember exactly how taking possession of her on Christmas morning had felt….

And then he’d curse himself for falling for her siren song.

“I guess I better let you keep me.”

Five years after uttering those words, she wondered if she’d ever forgive herself for saying them. She understood why she’d done it. Why she’d agreed to not only sleep with, but be kept by, The Russian Beast.

But understanding why you did a thing and not hating yourself for doing it were two separate things entirely.

And she hated herself as she waited in the narrow hallway for her sister. Hugging the package she’d found outside Willa’s apartment door to her chest, like it could protect her if he found her. Like anything could protect her if he found her.

She remembered with a shiver the story he and his brother had “discussed” in front of her a few years ago at a Berlin nightclub Alexei had recently acquired.

She hadn’t liked Alexei from the start. Mainly because he’d shown up to his first visit at the ridiculous large apartment he’d bought for them in Berlin with two hookers as a housewarming gift.

“So you are not a very good pet,” he’d observed with a sneer when she’d refused to let the scantily clad women into the apartment with him.

He’d told the girls to wait for him in the car, but after they left, he told Bair, “I would think you would want better pet, Boris,” as if she weren’t standing right there. “She is not very grateful. All you do for her, and she won’t do such nice thing for you?”

Alexei hadn’t been any more respectful that night. He had Bair halfway into a third bottle of vodka of which she hadn’t been allowed even a sip, and they’d been talking in Russian the entire evening, while she sat beside Bair, sober and bored. Thinking about an Italian aria she needed to have completely ready for class the next day, only to be jerked out of her zone by a male waiter asking in English if she wanted anything to drink.

His eyes had lingered on her, even after she answered “No” with the siren switch completely set to off. And she could tell by the squeeze of Bair’s large hand on her thigh that he wasn’t happy about the exchange.

There’d been a moment of tense silence, and then Alexei had said in his aggressively perfect English, “You remind me a bit of our cousin Nikolai’s mother, Sirena. She was like you. So pretty.”

Technically it was a compliment, but it certainly didn’t feel like one accompanied as it was by a dark sneer. The Rustanov sneer, she’d started calling it, after finding out it was a trait he and Bair had in common.

“Remember that story, Boris?”

Another squeeze of her thigh, then Bair had answered, also in English, “Yes, I do.”

They went on to “discuss” in her native language what had happened to their cousin’s Nikolai’s mother, after she’d gotten pregnant with another man’s baby. She’d tried to get rid of it but ended up dying in the attempt.

Bair had finished the recount with a shrug. “If she had not died that way, she would have died when Uncle found out. And he would have found out.”

“Remember what happened to the first man he caught her cheating with?”

“Not officially,” Bair had answered, “but I hear the fish could tell me the whole story.”

Alexei had burst out laughing at Bair’s answer.

And Bair was always insisting he didn’t know how to joke, she’d thought to herself. But she got the message loud and clear: Rustanovs weren’t the kind of men you left. The only way a pet could get out of a relationship with one of them was if she they got tired of her and let her go. And Bair had made it apparent on more than one occasion that he was nowhere near ready to let her go.

Yet here she was, hundreds of miles from Berlin, alone for the first time since Bair had decided to start keeping her under 24/7 guard. For her own protection, he claimed.

But it wasn’t her protection she was worried about, but getting caught by her Russian protector. Her eyes traveled to the hallway window once more, searching the street below. No dark cars. No hulking men in suits with obvious pieces tucked inside, standing on the sidewalk, waiting for her to come out. Sembach was six hours by train but only one by plane. And if they knew where she was, they would have followed her here by now.

If she hadn’t truly given her guard the slip, he’d already be outside her sister’s apartment building—no inside. Making some not so veiled threat. Letting her know just how few choices she had left when it came to him.

No, it was hard to believe, but she’d really done it. A last-second decision to run out the back door of the university doctor’s office. To hail a cab and pay with cash for it to take her to a small town outside of Berlin. Then pay another cab to take her to a bus station in an even smaller town. Then to take that bus to the closest town with a Bahnhoff. And from there, catch a train to Sembach. It had actually worked.

The brilliance had been in the lack of planning. There’d been no chance to let fear override her, or flake out. Just the driving need to run away. Not tomorrow, not in a few years when he finally tired of her. But that very day.

Thank goodness she’d heeded the advice Natascha—one of Alexei’s pets—had given her five years ago, the first and only time the woman had come on one of Alexei’s visits to Germany.

“Sirena, that is a good name for an opera singer,” she’d said at the expensive restaurant Alexei had invited them to. A fairly new hot spot that, like all the places Bair’s brother had ever invited them to, he owned. Supposedly Alexei had taken over the backroom of the restaurant to celebrate Bair finishing his first Wintersemester at Berlin University. But judging by the number of business contacts who’d also been invited to this “little celebration,” it also served as a good excuse for Alexei to show off to his German associates.

Because she and Natascha were two of the only people in the room who didn’t speak German, they had naturally gravitated toward each other over the course of the evening.

“I hope it turns out to be a good name for an opera singer, but it’s not my real one,” she had confessed to Nastascha. She’d been so young and naïve back then. Following The Russian Beast to Germany had still felt like it was the best decision she’d ever made. Even if her brain was still reeling from being thrown into an opera program back in January, halfway through the first of the two semesters that make up the typical German school year. Despite their late starts, both she and Bair were thriving in their individual programs and opera felt like nothing less than the music of her true soul. The kind of music she’d always been meant to sing, not the dramatic R&B and gospel standards she’d messed around with back in high school.

Back when she’d met Natascha, everything with Bair had still felt like a honeymoon. And she only barely acknowledged the small town girl she used to be, before Bair found her and swept her up and away into a new life and name.

“Even better that this is not your real name,” Natascha said with a twist of her perfectly painted lips. Not quite smiling as she asked, “Does Boris know your real name?”

Boris. That was what everyone called him. His family, his classmates, everyone. She’d yet to meet one other person aside from herself who called him Bair.

“No, I guess he doesn’t,” she answered. “But it’s not a secret. I just don’t like it.”

She would never forget the sudden bitterness that overtook Natascha’s expression at that point. Or the shadow in her voice as she said, “Take my advice, Sirena. Do not ever tell him anything you don’t have to. These Rustanovs are, how you say, ‘generous but not kind.’ Anything you give them, they will use against you. Especially your heart.”

Natascha was in love with Alexei. Anyone could tell by the way her eyes softened as they followed the large Russian businessman around the restaurant’s back room. Which made her words all the more confusing for a young and stupid girl from Virginia.

But the next time she’d seen Alexei at a similar intimate (but not really) get together at an even hotter restaurant to celebrate the end of Bair’s Sommersemester, he’d had a new pet on his arm. This one much more uptight, without any of Natascha’s inner warmth to offset her frosty Russian looks.

“This is Alexei’s way. When he is done with a pet, she is gone,” Bair had answered with an indifferent shrug, when she brought up his half brother’s lack of fidelity as the town car ferried them back to their apartment later that night.

“But she was in love with him.”

Another shrug. “Her feelings do not matter.”

Wow. That was cold. But still she couldn’t resist asking, “So if I fell in love with you, what would you say?”

The car was too dark to see his face, but his body went rigid beside hers. “I would say do not give me something I cannot give you. Love. It is not the Rustanov way. Not my way. I will give you flowers and jewelry if you wish it, but there can be no love between us. Do you understand?”

She’d nodded, not knowing how else to respond. And later, she’d put in extra effort with her performance in bed, reminding herself that she was here to do a job with Bair. Not make love, but provide the fuck part of the equation that had allowed him to thrive so well in his German Economics program.

Back then, the conversation had felt like a blip in an otherwise good first year of being Bair Rustanov’s pet. But it wasn’t a blip. Rather a harbinger of things to come. Things that would eventually bring her to the door of her sister’s apartment in Sembach.

But if her sister could get her to someone with government connections, she could finally get a new passport. One issued under her own name. If this crazy non-plan worked out, she could finally go home.

She looked out the window again. Still no dark cars. No goons in suits. No Bair Rustanov. She was safe here in Sembach, she assured herself. She was.

But she couldn’t relax. The Carmina Burana finale was chewing up the inside of her chest, and the heavy wedding ring he’d given her felt like it was burning a hole in the pocket of her Marc Jacobs dress.

She still didn’t know why he’d done it. Called her into his office a few weeks ago, just a couple of days after the worst visit yet from the brother she’d come to privately refer to as “Alexei the Awful.” But nonetheless, she’d found him there with two men, and the papers all drawn up. One of the men who announced himself as a lawyer presented the papers and told her where to sign.

The other turned out to be a judge. Which was how she came to find out that this was a marriage ceremony.

“We will get married now, so there is no misunderstanding,” was the only explanation The Beast gave her.

The wedding had been conducted like a business meeting with not even a kiss exchanged at the end. Of course no kiss. He never kissed her unless she kissed him first, and she’d been too stunned to initiate one even if she wanted to. Their wedding was the first time “O Fortuna,” Carmina Burana’s opening and closing song, had popped off like a flare gun’s warning shot inside her chest.

Just words, she’d told herself even as the beginning lines of Germany’s most famous cantata began its slow rise. Just words, she told herself. Not the real her. She’d never given him any piece of her real self or let that broken Virginia girl make him any promises—

A door slammed on the floor below and her body seized, her eyes flying back to the hallway window. But the street was clear.

No dark cars. No hulking men. No sign of him anywhere. Still her stomach remained tight as she listened to the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the stairs.

But then she saw the most beautiful thing on earth. Willa, the younger sister she hadn’t seen in years. Dark and tall as Nefertiti, her mouth dropped open in shock when she found her long lost sister standing in front of the apartment door.

“You got a package,” she told her sister, the med student, not knowing what else to say.

“Thel?” Willa blinked rapidly.

And Thelxiope—or Thel as she used to be called (because who could pronounce that crazy name?)—knew Willa was still trying to process the presence of the sister who hadn’t so much as emailed her in the last five years. The Thel she’d known had been a much different girl. A sharp-tongued cheerleader who’d barely managed to stay on the squad, because she was constantly catching suspensions for getting in fights. The Thel she’d known had run away from home dressed in shorts and a tank top. No doubt Willa hadn’t been expecting for the trashy sister, who used to save up money for push-up bras, to show up at her door five years later in a Marc Jacobs dress. The C- sister Willa had known, hadn’t even known how to spell Marc Jacobs.

As it was it took a few times working her mouth before the girl who used to be Thel could answer, “Yeah, it’s me, Willa. Though nobody’s called me Thel in years.”

Her little sister gave her a knowing smile. “So I guess you changed your name.” Thel had always said she would as soon as she turned eighteen.

“Yeah, yeah I did,” Thel admitted with a tremulous smile of her own. “But I’m ready to change it back now.”

“Why?” Willa asked, voice curious and frank.

“Because I’m sick,” Thel answered, not knowing how else to explain what took place in the doctor’s office that day. How instead of getting her tubes tied like she was supposed to at Bair’s command, she’d asked the university hospital’s OB/Gyn in broken German about the lump she’d felt in the shower. Even after five years, she still hadn’t managed to pick up this country’s language as well as Bair.

She could still remember the doctor’s cold hands as she checked Thel’s small breasts herself. The feeling of certain dread even before the doctor switched to English to tell her this was something they would definitely need to have checked out before they went through with the “other” procedure. And the wind tunnel that had appeared inside her head as she nodded and asked if there was another door she could leave out of. Already knowing without needing any test results what was happening inside her body.

But in Sembach, she told her sister the simplest version of her truth: “I got cancer, really bad. And I’m ready to be done pretending to be somebody I ain’t.”

“Okay,” Willa said. Just like that. “What can I do to help?”

And Thel broke down sobbing.

“I ain’t used to being nurtured no more,” she tearfully explained as her much taller little sister held her. “Or having somebody say they’ll help me without a devil’s deal being involved.”

“I’m not ‘somebody.’ I’m your sister, Thel,” Willa admonished, holding her even tighter. “And whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. I promise.”

Thel believed her. And moreover, she was grateful. For the first time in a very long time, she was grateful to be Thelxiope Okeanos. The strangely-named girl with the crazy family who loved her. After Bair Rustanov, after this terrible pre-diagnosis, which made it immediately clear she had to get out of this fucked up version of a life she shared with The Beast, she knew she wouldn’t ever take her remaining family for granted again.

But even as she cried with gratitude in her sister’s arms, she knew this wasn’t the end. Knew she wouldn’t get away from The Russian Beast that easily. She’d escaped for now. But even back then, safe inside her sister’s arms, she knew she’d never truly be free.