Chapter 1
They say spies don’t break; they adapt, vanish, improvise. Whoever said that never got trapped behind enemy lines with half a syndicate at their back and no exit plan. My name’s Sofia Kane—Special Forces, seconded to Intelligence Command two years ago. Codename: Wraith. I was supposed to be invisible.
I’ve been undercover in Moscow for months, watching, listening, and pretending to be someone forgettable. I’d mapped every connection the Petrov Syndicate had to military smuggling. I traced shipments, photographed ledgers, and sent enough intel home to cripple their network.
Until last night. One mistake, and someone recognized me. Now my safe house is gone, my contact’s dead, and the mission’s blown. Extraction was scheduled for 0400. It’s past that now, and no one’s coming.
So, I’m running through the woods, the cold, and the ghosts of every failed op I’ve ever survived. I’m running because the alternative is a bullet in the snow and my name buried in a classified file labeled ‘missing in action’. If I stop, they’ll find me. If I keep going, I might still have a chance. But I’m exhausted, and the Russian winter doesn’t care how elite your training is.
Cold bites deeper than pain. It feels like a living thing, crawling under my clothes, gnawing at the edges of thought until all that’s left is movement. One leg in front of the other.
I don’t know how long I’ve been running. Hours. Maybe days. My body’s running on the last fumes of adrenaline and spite. The snow’s thinner here, patchy and dirty under the trees, but the cold seeps through everything. By ‘everything’ I mean my boots, the hole in my side where a bullet grazed me, and the part of me that still believes I’ll make it out of this alive.
Branches whip across my face. Russia feels endless when you’re hunted. Every instinct tells me not to stop, but my legs tremble with each step. My throat’s dry, my mouth is sticky, and my lips are chapped. I try to remember when I last drank water, but the thought dissolves under the roar of wind and my own heartbeat.
A loud crunch of snow beneath boots that aren’t mine breaks the fragile silence, and I freeze. My pulse spikes. Another confident, unhurried crunch follows, making it clear that whoever is following me isn’t afraid of being heard.
Oh shit! They found me. I duck behind a pine and draw my knife, trying hard not to make noise. My fingers are stiff with cold, and my vision starts to blur, but training cuts through the fog. Observe. Wait. Move only when you must.
The sound comes closer. A shape breaks through the mist, revealing a tall man moving with the calm rhythm of someone who doesn’t expect to be attacked. Which means he’s confident. Or suicidal.
When he steps into the light, my stomach knots. He’s not one of theirs because I don’t see an insignia or rifle slung across his shoulder. His fluffy hood covers the top part of his face, leaving the bearded half exposed, but I can tell he’s handsome. Should I be noticing these details? Absolutely not. But I do anyway.
“Stay back,” I warn, but my voice comes out in a raspy whisper. I forgot that the biting cold can mess up someone’s body in many ways. My vision blurs for a second, spots swimming across the trees. “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” he says, “except to keep you from freezing where you stand.”
I want to tell him I don’t need help. That I’ve survived worse. That I don’t trust strangers, especially the kind who find me in the middle of nowhere at perfect timing. He reaches into his coat, pulls out a canteen, and tosses it to me underhanded. I catch it clumsily, the metal burning against my palms. I could use some warm food and water right now.
I hesitate. My instincts scream that it’s too easy, but hypothermia is starting to kick in, and I might die anyway in a few hours. This is a risk I have to take.
The first swallow hurts. I drink again, slower. The water tastes clean, maybe too clean, and I can’t tell if that’s relief or danger sliding down my throat. When I look up, he’s closer. Close enough that I can smell the faint trace of smoke and pine on his coat.
“Better?” he asks.
“I didn’t say you could come closer.”
“If I wanted to hurt you, you wouldn’t still be standing.”
It’s a fact, not a threat, and that somehow feels worse. My knees buckle before I can form a response, and the knife slips from my hand, sinking into the snow. He moves fast, catching me before I hit the ground. His hands are strong and steady. My body tenses against his, instinct fighting the pull of unconsciousness.
“Let go,” I whisper, though my voice barely exists.
“You’re safe now,” he whispers, and that’s the last thing I hear as everything fades into black.
***
I don’t know how long I was out for, but warmth on my skin makes me moan in contentment. This is the best feeling I’ve had in weeks, or maybe longer. I don’t know. My eyes flutter open as an involuntary smile tugs the corner of my lips. But what greets me has me completely believing it is a dream. A dream I don’t want to let go of yet.
After being in the cold for so long, the warmth that caresses my skin right now feels like the gentle touch of a caring lover. The air smells faintly of pine smoke and something masculine, which makes me believe this is a man’s place. I’m in a cabin. The wooden paneling has been done so well that the heat is conserved in here. It is cozy, like one of those cabins straight out of Pinterest. I can hear the gentle crackle of fire somewhere, and I assume that’s where all this warmth is coming from. Oh my god! Have I been kidnapped by one of those Prince Charmings from romance stories? I giggle at that absurd thought, but I can’t help thinking about it.
But that is as far as the dream goes because my neck is stiff and I’m not lying down. I’m strapped to a chair, naked, with my legs apart. I’m straddling the chair, and my hands are tied above my head in the most sensual position I’ve ever been in. How did I even end up here?
A quick memory reboot reminds me of my reckless choices. Despite my training, I still accepted food and water from an unknown source within the enemy territory. Those bastards tricked me good.
I assess myself to ascertain the extent of damage. Did they take advantage of me? My stomach drops at the thought. I’m in enemy territory, and in my line of work, nothing is impossible. I clench my pelvic floor muscles and concentrate on the sensations. Thankfully, nothing is sore, broken, or damaged. Aside from my unusual position and my lack of clothing, everything else is even better than it was. For example, I’m warm and well-fed.
The relief doesn’t last long because the door swings open, and a man enters. He looks like trouble dressed in quiet. Broad shoulders under a dark shirt, sleeves pushed to his forearms, and veins tracing the length of his hands like faint shadows. His posture is relaxed, but the tension underneath ignites something in me.
His face isn’t the perfect kind that belongs on screens. It is one of a kind, meant to seduce people like me: A jaw made for secrets, a mouth that looks like it forgets to smile, lips that look like they can kiss the sense out of me, and hair that is a good length to tug on when he gives pleasure. I bite my lip to restrain a moan that almost escapes me as I feel my body stir.
His eyes pin me in place. They’re dark, unreadable, but catch the light in a way that makes me look twice, not because I want to, but because I can’t help it. This should feel dangerous, and I should be figuring out how to get myself out, but the danger makes it even more alluring and tempting.
“Hello there, princess,” he starts, and his deep, slightly husky voice sends tingles down to my toes. “It’s good to see you alive and awake.”
“Kind sir, nice position you’ve got me here,” I say, throwing in some sarcasm. I can’t let him see my weakness. “Is this how you welcome all your visitors?”
“No, ma’am, we have a lot more other ways to welcome our guests.” He looks at me and smirks. “This position is only reserved for special guests, like yourself.”
Special? How? Something about this doesn’t sound right. “An introduction would be nice, you know.”
“Of course,” he smiles, but a smile feels more dangerous than warm. “I am the person you’ve been investigating, Wraith, or should I address you as Sofia Kane?”
Color drains out of my face. This is bad news. No, terrible news. The earlier coziness is just a setup. There’s more torture coming up, and there’s a very slim chance I’ll survive. No one who fell on the wrong side of this guy’s books ever made it out alive.
A laugh of defeat escapes me. After all that struggle and escape, I still walked right into his trap. I know my fate is sealed, but I’m not ready to give up yet. “To what do I owe the pleasure of being your special guest? Wouldn’t it make more sense to kill me?”
“Wrong,” he says as his eyes sweep all over my body at an excruciatingly slow speed, mainly on my perky bust, drop down between my spread legs, and back to my face again. “You are more useful to me alive than dead.”
“How?” I probe, hating that my body gets excited at this thrill of it. Does he find me attractive, or is this a strategy to make me talk? It is not so uncommon for these dark lords to have peculiar tastes. It should be terrifying, but with his physique, I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to be under him.
“I want information about your secret training grounds. Everything.” He wraps his hand around my chin and tilts my head back so my eyes meet his. He leans forward until I can feel his fresh minty breath on my cheeks. My heart rate picks up despite my efforts to remain calm, and I inch closer, wanting to have a taste of his perfect lips, but to my disappointment, he pulls back. “Tell me everything, and I’ll let you walk free, unharmed.”
“Hell no!” That is not information I can divulge, no matter how much they torture me. If he thinks he’ll get anything from me, he’s in for a surprise. No one has ever managed to get anything from me, and he’s not about to be the first.
“No worries,” he shrugs, unbothered. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Which one do you prefer?”
I don’t answer. I watch the way his fingers brush over his chin like he’s mapping my reactions. He’s testing me, and that proves he’s good. Too good. But no matter how good he is, he’s not getting a breath of what I’ve risked everything to protect.
The tension in the room curls around me, and I let it. Let him think he has the upper hand for a second. Let him wait. What can he really do? Torture? I’ve survived worse. I’ve walked through worse fires and still made it out alive. I’m the toughest agent there is, and I’ve trained my body and mind to be a closed vault.
“The hard way it is!” he says, turning around and pressing an intercom at the table before speaking some gibberish. Is he calling for reinforcement? A chill runs down my spine. Things are about to get real here. I brace myself for what’s to come.
The door opens, and a man of similar build walks in holding something that looks like a toolbox, and my jaw drops. The walking Thirst Trap is shirtless, and my eyes are glued to his toned upper body, focusing on the way his muscles ripple as he closes the door. My gaze drops to his lower body. He’s in thin grey sweatpants with nothing underneath, and I can see the outline of his cock resting on the side of his upper thigh. It bobs a little from side to side as he walks forward and sets his box on the table. I graze my tongue on my lower lip, imagining how that would feel on my tongue.
