Chapter 30

Katya threw herself into his arms, weeping. She did not bother hiding her fears or how much she thought they would be harmed. She kissed his face- eyes, nose and pressed herself to his chest to remind her fearful heart that he was still breathing.

“Hey, I’m here. I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I’m safe.”

She clung to him harder, and only when someone coughed loudly did she let go of him. There were men in the house, some of them bloodied with broken limbs and the others with minor injuries.

“Can you make room for the wounded? I can’t let them go to the hospital and I can’t send them home either.”





Without asking questions, Katya scurried along, opening doors of rooms they never used, going to the laundry room to get fresh sheets, instructing the helps they had to replace the dusty sheets with softer ones. She did not bother to tell them that only darker sheets should be used- there was no time to be picky.

Then she came back and assisted the men to the rooms, and when the beds were filled, she improvised makeshift cots on the floor for the men with minor injuries, adding her room to the list of places the men rested.

“Thank you,” Michal kissed her forehead when she came to tell him that all of them were settled already
Semion had gone ahead with his pregnant wife, to put her at ease.

“Are you injured?” She could not see any, but there could be Internal bleeding and she told him so.

“I’m not. They took us by surprise, but we had the larger number and overpowering them wasn’t an issue,” Michal assured her, leading her to a chair where he sat and pulled her onto his lap.

Katya basked in the silence, in the warmth and assurety his arms provided, trying to silence the questions in her head. It wasn’t the time to ask them yet, not when the casualties were many and Michal looked weary.
Still…

“If you want to ask, you can, you know. You should ask me what happened,” Michal said, his voice a deep rumble against her ear.

“What happened to your father?”
Did her father treat him the way he treated young Michal? She still had not wrapped her head around the revelation Freya gave, and the more she thought about it, the less pity she had for the man who fathered her.

“A few bruises,” Michal responded, “he was in a cage, hair shaved to the root, but they had not done anything to him more than a few public beatings.”

Her tears fell to his hands of their own accord.

“Hey,” he framed her face in his hands, “why are you crying? We won. There were casualties on both sides, but there was no doubt that we won.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry my father did that to him, to you. Freya told me what happened when he kept you in the cage.” Katya’s body shook with racking sobs. “And I am his daughter. When you were away, I kept hoping that you wouldn’t kill him, so I would see him one last time.

I doubted your words, Michal. I, for a moment, believed you lied to me. But you didn’t! And I doubted you. I’m sorry it had to be me off all people.”

She did not deserve to be in his arms, and how could he treat the daughter of the man who treated him like an animal.

“Katya. Look at me.”

She shook her head.

“Katya. Look at me.” It was an order this time.

She sniffed, lifted her head and he kissed her. God- she wanted him. Katya gave him everything- her parted lips, her body and her heart. Her arms drew him closer in a rough, demanding, devouring, searing kiss. Michal told her how much he wanted her when his hands bunched up the fabric of her shirt and dragged it over her head in haste.

His fingers found her nipples and he flicked them until they were hardened buds, pinched until the pain rolled into pleasure and then he cupped them in one hand, his tongue flicking and licking both nipples at once.

“Is your room empty?” Michal's voice was hoarse and thick with lust.

Katya shook her head.
“There weren't enough rooms, so I had to put some of the men there.”

Michal took a quick look around and saw that no one was in sight.
“Here will have to do.”

His fingers went lower until it found the opening of sleep pants and dragged it down until his thumb could slip in.
His eager thumb found her clit and stroked, his knuckle rubbing against entrance till Katya was wet and moaning in his arms, her hips urging him on-buckling when he added a finger and began to fuck her with it.

“Did you miss me?”

Katya nodded, unable to speak as his finger thrust harder and his thumb did wonderful things to her clit.

“Did you miss me?” Michal asked again.

Katya could only nod.

“Look at me.”
His tone forced her head upwards and he reclaimed her lips, biting and nibbling on her bottom lip and Katya could not stop herself from rubbing her aching center against his fingers…the sigh leaving her lips when he sucked on her tongue begging him to go on.

“I need you,” Michal drew his suit pants down and lifted her just enough for her sleep pants to slip from her legs and fall to the floor. “I kept thinking about you, if you were safe. If you were doing okay.”

“I was worried too,” Katya confessed. Wanting him the same way he wanted her, she took his erect length in her hand, rubbed it on her wetness and sank down on him, eliciting a groan that seemed to come from Michal’s curled toes.

They did not make love, like the last time. It was pure, untethered need that drove her as she rode him fast and his hips buckled to meet her, driving his manhood into her with hard thrusts that took the breath from her lungs and drove her over the edge.

He came a second after her release, his heavy breath pelting against her neck.
“You are home, Katya. *Doma.“

And he was, home to her too.