Peter

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As the heated days of summer transition into fall, with the forest bursting into shades of red and yellow, I become increasingly convinced that I did the right thing by taking Sara. Despite our initial rocky start, she’s starting to settle in, and I feel certain that one day, she’ll adjust completely, accepting and embracing her new life with me.

I love her so much it’s like a constant ache in my chest, and though I know she doesn’t feel the same, I sometimes catch a glimmer of softness in her gaze, a warmth that spears through my heart and gives me hope. As her anger over the abduction lessens, our arguments grow less frequent, and though neither of us can forget how our relationship began, the past begins to feel more distant, its grip on our present less painful and sharp.

I still think about Pasha and Tamila, and wake up in a cold sweat when I dream about their gruesome deaths. But the nightmares don’t come nearly as often, and when they do, Sara is always there. I can reach for her and hold her, hear her steady breathing until the memory of the horror fades.

I can also fuck her. It’s the one thing that never fails to soothe me, the single best way to relieve the darkness tormenting me from within.

“Why do you like to hurt me sometimes?” she murmurs one night after I wake her up and take her roughly, fucking her so hard we both end up sore. “Do you have some sadistic inclinations?”

I consider it, then shake my head, though she probably can’t see the gesture with the lights off. “Not in the sexual sense—at least not until I met you.” I have derived pleasure from killing and torturing my enemies, but it was mostly cerebral, a way to feel that violent rush of power and satisfy my sense of justice. At least that’s how it was with the guard who boiled Andrey in the showers and, to a lesser extent, with the terrorists I caught for work. I felt no pity for them; their suffering gave me vicious joy. But my dick never got hard from inflicting pain, and during sex, I was always careful and gentle with women, using my knowledge of the human body to pleasure, not to hurt.

It wasn’t until Sara that those conflicting impulses—punishment and pleasure, violence and tenderness—somehow merged. I treasure her, love her so much I ache with it, yet sometimes when I touch her, I can’t control myself, can’t fight the urge to punish her for being what she is.

For belonging to my enemy before she stole my heart.

“So with her… you never?”

The poorly concealed curiosity in Sara’s whisper makes me smile, even as a familiar ache constricts my heart. “You mean Tamila?”

“Yes.” Her hand splays over my chest, as if sensing the pain within. “You were never rough with her like this?”

“No.” I cover that slender hand with my palm, pressing it tighter against my skin. “It wasn’t like this with her.”

What I felt for Tamila was nothing like the intense, almost violent connection I have with Sara. With my wife, it was a pleasant mix of physical attraction and liking, even a friendship of sorts. I admired her for being brave, in the context of her upbringing, and for being a good mother to Pasha. It didn’t hurt that she was beautiful, either, and though we didn’t have much in common, I grew to care for her… maybe even love her, I thought. Now, however, I see that I was fooling myself.

My affection for Tamila was just that, a mere echo of the raw emotions Sara evokes in me.

Her hand twitches under my palm, and I hear her swallow. “I see.” There’s a strange note in Sara’s voice, something almost like hurt. “You must’ve loved her very much,” she continues in the same tone, and I smile again as I realize what the issue is.

“Are you jealous?” I ask softly, reaching over to turn on the bedside lamp. Sara blinks at the sudden light, and from the tight set of her pretty mouth, I see that I was right.

She misunderstood my admission, thinking that my gentle treatment of Tamila meant I cared for my wife more than I do for her.

Sara doesn’t answer me, just pulls her hand away, and I laugh, feeling peculiarly light despite the dark memories dancing on the fringes of my mind. My ptichka is jealous—of a dead woman, no less—and I couldn’t be more pleased.

At the sound of my amusement, Sara’s expression darkens further, her delicate brows drawing together into a full-fledged scowl. With a barely audible huff, she turns off the light and turns away, giving me a quite literal cold shoulder.

My amusement fades, replaced by the complex tangle of emotions she always elicits in me. Lust and tenderness, anger and possessiveness—it’s all part of the madness that is my love for Sara, of this obsession I know I’ll never shake.

“Come here, my love.” Ignoring her stiff posture, I pull her against me, curving my body around hers from the back. Burying my face in her hair, I breathe in her sweet scent—my favorite fragrance ever—and tighten my embrace, holding her in place as she struggles to move away.

“I do want to hurt you sometimes,” I murmur when she stills, her breathing ragged from exertion. “I want to do things to you I’ve never dreamed of doing to my wife. There are nights when I want to devour you, ptichka, to consume you until there’s nothing left… until this addiction fades and I can take a breath without wanting you, without feeling like I need you more than life itself.”

Her breathing catches. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I love you, ptichka… and that I hate you. Because it hurts, you see, knowing you still love him, still think about him when you’re with me.” My voice roughens, my grip tightening as she again tries to scoot away. “Your husband’s killer—that’s how you see me, that’s all you sometimes see. If I could wipe him from your mind, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d erase every record of his existence, make him into the nothing that he is. In a different world, you’d have been born mine, but in this one, I had to fight for you… kill for you.”

Her entire body stiffens. “For me? What are you talking about? It was all about your vengeance, the list that you—”

“Yes, it was… until I met you. Then it became about something else.” It’s a truth I hadn’t admitted to myself until this moment, hadn’t known except within the most savage reaches of my soul.

When I stood over George Cobakis’s bedside, I hesitated when I thought of Sara, but it wasn’t because I wanted to spare him for her. It was because the murder was so pointless, his vegetative state as good as living death.

I ended up pulling the trigger not despite my attraction to Sara but because of it.

Because I wanted her forever free of him.

Because even then, I knew I had to make her mine.

“No.” Sara’s voice takes on an audible tremor. “You’re just saying this. You couldn’t have killed George because of some sick interest in me—that’s beyond insane.”

“Maybe.” I’m willing to concede that much. “But in some cultures, what I did makes you mine—my prize of war, my spoils of battle.”

“Battle? He was in a coma! You killed a defenseless man. He was no match for you—”

I laugh darkly. “Do you think I’m some kind of noble hero? Do you think I care about a fair fight?”

She freezes, her skin growing clammy where our naked bodies touch as I continue. “I don’t, Sara,” I tell her. “I don’t give a fuck about fairness, because no one else does. The world is inherently unfair. If you want something, you fight for it… you take it. And I wanted you, ptichka. I wanted you from the first moment I held you, when you cried so sweetly in my arms. And you wanted me too—you still want me—because no matter what you say, this is real… far more real than your mirage of a marriage. It wasn’t a fairy tale you were living, and Cobakis wasn’t your Prince Charming. He was a liar, a weakling who turned to drinking because he couldn’t cope with the guilt over the massacre he caused. Even if he hadn’t been on my list, I would’ve killed him if I met you—because I would’ve wanted you. If ever our paths crossed, I would’ve made you mine.”

She’s shivering now, and I know I’ve been too honest, revealed too much of the beast within. Yet if there’s one thing I won’t do, it’s lie to her.

With me, Sara will always know what she’s getting, no matter how ugly it may be.

Pulling the blanket over us, I stroke her arm, hip, and thigh until her trembling stops, and when I hear her breathing slow and deepen, I close my eyes, holding her tight.

This may be wrong in others’ eyes, but I have Sara and I’m happy—and I’ll do whatever it takes to make her happy too.