The Kremlin Journey: Part Three

The steam in the small, cedar-lined bathroom was a thick, white veil that smelled of pine resin and heat. Boris stepped into the spray beside me without a word, the heavy thrum of the water drowning out the whistling wind outside the cabin walls.

"The water is nice and hot," I murmured, leaning my forehead against the wet wood. "I didn't think the pipes would hold up in this cold."

"The wood-fired boiler is reliable," Boris replied, his voice echoing in the small space. "Simple machines do not fail as often as complex ones."

"Is that your philosophy for everything?" I asked, looking at him through the mist.

He was silent for a moment, the water cascading over his scarred shoulders. "In the woods, yes. Complexity is a luxury we cannot afford until we are back in the city."

When the steam became too heavy to breathe, Boris reached around me and twisted the handle with a sharp, final jerk. We stepped out of the tub, which was still toasted by the cabin’s central hearth and the steam of the hot water. Instead of the rough linens I had expected, the towels were plush, thick, and incredibly soft—a jarring bit of comfort in such a rugged place.

"These are unexpected," I said, burying my face in the warmth of the fabric.

"A gift from a former associate," Boris said, his back to me as he dried off. "He had a taste for French imports. He didn't need them where he was going."

"Should I be worried about where he went?"

Boris paused, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror. "You should worry about getting dressed before the fire dies down."

We dressed with a quiet efficiency. I pulled on a heavy wool sweater, feeling the lingering softness of the towel on my skin and thick leggings. I retreated to the living room, seeking solace by the fireplace. The hearth was the massive, stone heart of the cabin, and the logs within roared with a fierce, orange hunger.

From the kitchen, the peace was shattered. A cacophony of clattering metal and ceramic thuds erupted. It sounded less like cooking and more like a structural collapse. A heavy pot hit the floor with a resonant clang that made me wince.

"Boris?" I called out, staring into the flickering light. "Is everything alright in there?"

"Fine!" he barked back. The sound of a cupboard door slamming followed his voice. "The layout of this kitchen was designed by a man who hated light and logic."

"Wasn't that you?"

"Don't remind me!"

I listened as a drawer was opened and closed with enough force to rattle the silverware. "I’m beginning to doubt your legendary culinary skills," I said, a small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. "It sounds like you're fighting the stove, not using it."

"The stove is a stubborn beast," he muttered. I heard the scrape of a knife against a wooden board—rapid, aggressive strokes. "It requires a firm hand."

I stood up, the warmth of the fire reluctantly letting go of my back. I walked to the threshold of the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. Boris was hunched over the counter, his large shoulders tense. A pile of onions, hacked into uneven chunks, sat beside a rusted skillet.

"Do you want any help?" I asked softly. "I could handle the chopping while you negotiate with the beast?"

Boris didn't look up. He pointed a notched paring knife toward the living room without turning around.

"I do not need help," he said, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly tone that brooked no argument. "I have survived Siberian winters and Leningrad bureaucracies. I can survive a beef stroganoff. Sit. Stay warm. It is handled."

I watched him for a moment longer—the way he handled the spatula like a weapon—before I turned back to the fire. Whatever he was making, it was going to be seasoned with spite and smoke, but in the heart of these woods, I suppose that was as close to a home-cooked meal as I was going to get that wasn’t Vic’s.

“Do you want any wine or vodka, Bo?” I asked.

“No, but you’re welcome to have some,” he said.

We moved around each other in the tight space of his kitchen as I reached for a glass and uncorked a bottle. The glass was heavy, catching the amber light from the living room. I moved back to the hearth with the bottle and glass in hand.

I knew that drinking while possibly being pregnant wasn’t a great thing, but the thought was a distant, cold knot in my stomach. I knew that if I wasn’t pregnant, I would terminate the pregnancy anyway. Right now, the moral weight of it was too heavy for my tired mind to carry. I just wanted to enjoy this time and this meal with an acquaintance who, for all his rough edges, felt like a safe harbor. I was exhausted, the kind of bone-deep fatigue that made my vision swim, but I knew I had to stay awake. I hadn’t eaten in a day or so, and my body was demanding fuel even as it begged for sleep.

About twenty-five minutes later, Boris’s voice cut through the crackle of the fire.

“Marie Alexandrovich?” he called. “It’s time for dinner. Or midnight meal.”

“Thank you, friend,” I mumbled, the words thick as I pushed myself up from the warmth of the rug.

I was swaying slightly as I reached the kitchen. Boris appeared at my side, his large hand steadying my elbow. “Highness, I think you picked a wine that has a higher alcohol content than you’re used to,” he said, his voice unusually gentle as he helped me into the kitchen. He pulled out a heavy wooden chair. “Here, have a seat, woman. I’ll get you some water.”

“Dinner smells great, Bo,” I said.

“Please dig in,” he said, setting a steaming plate in front of me. “It’s been a while since you last ate.”

My manners went out the window. Back home, I would’ve waited, hands folded, for the host to begin. Here, I started eating before he even sat down. I was ravenous. A minute later, Boris returned with a tall glass of water. I chugged it in one go, the cold liquid cutting through the fuzziness in my head, then returned to the food. He watched me for a second before he started on his own portion.

“Boris, both rumors I have heard about you aren’t rumors but are actually facts,” I said, my voice tipsy and light. I felt a giggle bubbling up. “Rumors were you’re well hung and you can cook well. Both are true.”

Boris paused, a forkful of noodles halfway to his mouth. “Rumors, eh?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything,” I said, giggling again before taking another slow sip of wine. "Promise."

He set his fork down and looked at the bottle on the table. “How much wine have you had?”

“Almost the full bottle.”

He didn't lecture me. He simply reached out, took the bottle, and finished the rest himself in a few long gulps. He then reached for the pot and served me a second massive portion of the beef stroganoff, sliding the plate toward me with a silent command to eat. I didn't argue. I ate every bite.

But the hunger was a hole that still hadn't quite filled. I looked at the pot, then at Boris. Without a word, he scooped out a third portion, piling the rich, creamy beef onto my plate. Boy, did I eat! It was the most satisfying meal I could remember, every bite grounding me back into the physical world.

After that third serving and more water, the world finally felt like it was tilting on its axis. I managed to stand and navigated my way toward Boris’s room. I stripped off the heavy wool and the layers beneath, my movements clumsy, and crawled into the bed. The sheets felt cool and crisp. I fell into a dark, dreamless sleep instantly. I never heard him clean the kitchen, and I didn't feel the bed sink as he eventually joined me.

Hours later, the world came back in a rush of cold air and a firm hand on my shoulder. He was waking me up.

“You slept fifteen hours,” he said, his voice a low rumble in the dim morning light. “You're dehydrated. You need to rehydrate, woman.”

I could only nod, my throat feeling as though it had been lined with dust. Boris headed to the pantry and returned with two gallons of water. I didn't sip it; I drank both within minutes, the cool liquid reviving me as it hit my system.

I managed to get up and took a brief, bracing shower to clear the last of the wine-haze from my mind. After a quick meal of leftovers to keep my strength up, I dressed in the heavy layers required for the road.

"Bo," I said as I adjusted my gear. "How far are we from the Kremlin?"

He leaned against the doorframe, his expression unreadable. "We're about 135 miles away."

"How long do you think it will take me to get there?"

He calculated for a moment, looking out toward the snow-choked horizon. "I think that it could take you three to four hours."

I looked at him, seeing the quiet concern he tried so hard to mask. "I need to go. I know you don't want me to go, Boris."

"You're right," he said simply. "I don't. I appreciate you and your company."

"If I could, I would take you with me," I said, reaching out to touch his arm. "But I won't risk you getting arrested. Not for my mess."

He lowered his head slightly. "Thank you."

I pulled out the wad of cash I had been keeping—4,500 rubles in crisp bills—and handed it to him. He looked at the money, then at me.

"When I am out of government work," I told him firmly, "I will find ways to help you and pull you out. I promise."

"Thank you, Highness," he replied, his voice thick.

"I owe you my life," I added, stepping closer. "Because you saved me."

"You returning the favor is when you pull me out," he said, and for the first time, the stone-faced man cracked.

We hugged, a desperate, fierce embrace, and we both cried—two people caught in the machinery of a world that didn't care for them. As we pulled apart, he wiped his eyes with a rough hand.

"Remember," he whispered. "You promised you wouldn't say anything."

I let out a wet laugh, shaking my head. "I won't. I promise."

I turned to put on my final layers of protective gear while Boris went out to the shed. Twenty minutes later, my ATV was packed, refueled, and idling in the crisp air. The engine's growl was the only thing breaking the silence of the woods.

I thanked him one last time for everything and asked if he needed more money.

"No," he said, standing tall. "What you gave me will help me for a long time."

"The serial numbers on the rubles," I said "they're non-sequential."

He nodded. We hugged once more—one last anchor to the safety of the cabin—and then I kicked the ATV into gear, heading off to the Kremlin.

The ride was a blur of biting wind and white-knuckle focus. I pushed the machine harder than I should have, the engine screaming as it tore through the slush and frozen ruts. It took me only two and a half hours to reach the perimeter of the Kremlin, but the cost was high. By the time the red stars of the towers appeared in the grey sky, the machine was smoking, the belt slipping and the chassis rattling. It was busted, beyond repair.

I pulled into a side alley near a service entrance where I saw a group of homeless people huddling for warmth. I recognized a few of them; they were the "helpers," the ones who traded information for kindness in the shadows of the city. I didn't need the fuel anymore, so I siphoned what was left and gave it to them for their heaters. I handed over my remaining food as well. They accepted it with silent, solemn nods, their eyes wide as they recognized the desperation on my face.

I grabbed my bags, the weight of the Romanov name feeling heavier than the luggage itself, and headed inside.

The warmth of the building hit me like a physical blow. I marched up to the receptionist, my hair matted from the helmet and my face raw from the wind.

"I am Marie Alexandrovich Romanov," I said, my voice sounding steadier than I felt.

The woman’s face drained of color. She looked panicked, her eyes darting to the security cameras and then back to me. She didn't ask for ID. She scrambled out of her seat, grabbed my heavy bags, and guided me down a corridor to a small, windowless room.

"Wait here, Deppgrl," she whispered, using the old code-name. As she moved to close the door, her hand trembled. "Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone but me."

I did as I was told, the click of the lock echoing in the small space. Through the thin wood, I heard her retreat to her desk just three feet away. She was on the phone instantly, her tones hushed and frantic. I couldn't make out the words, just the urgent cadence of someone reporting a ghost.

Minutes passed like hours. Then, the sound of rhythmic clicking—shoes on the hard floor—approaching with another set of heavier footsteps. A sharp knock followed.

"Marie? I have an important person with me," the receptionist called out.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself for whatever was coming next, and turned the lock. I swung the door open, and there stood my brother, Bob.

The Kremlin Journey: Part Two

The cold was a physical weight, pressing against my chest with every breath. I had driven the ATV for two days straight, the roar of the engine the only sound in a world made of white silence and biting frost. I didn’t sleep, and I barely ate, forcing myself to swallow dry protein bars as I steered through the treacherous mountain passes. My goal was simple: reclaim the time I had spent with Tom. By the third morning, as the sun began to cast long, pale shadows across the snow, I listened to my internal clock and GPS. I was sixteen hours ahead of schedule.

My body was a map of aches—my pussy was still tender and swollen, and the bite marks on my tits stung whenever my base layers shifted—but the adrenaline of the discovery about my Romanov blood kept me focused.

I pulled the ATV into a small, secluded clearing where a weathered stone cabin stood partially buried in the drifts. As I climbed off the machine to refuel, my movements were stiff and mechanical. I was reaching for the first jerry can when a shadow detached itself from the side of the building.

I reached for the sidearm holstered at my hip, my instincts screaming, until a familiar, deep voice cut through the wind.

“Your Imperial Highness.”

I froze, my hand hovering over the grip of my gun. I looked up and saw a man stepping into the light, his face partially obscured by a heavy tactical scarf. It was Dmitri. We had worked together on a black-ops mission in the Urals three years ago. Back then, the tension between us had been thick enough to cut with a knife, and I had spent more than one restless night wondering what it would be like to have him pin me down.

"Dmitri," I breathed, my voice raspy from the cold. "You’re a long way from the city."

"I was told to expect a traveler, but not that the traveler was royalty," he said, his eyes scanning the perimeter before settling on me with a gaze that felt like heat. "As soon as you fuel up, you need to come inside with me. It isn’t safe out here, and the scouts are active two miles east."

I nodded my head in agreement, my hands trembling slightly as I poured the fuel into the tank. "I'm ahead of schedule. I can spare an hour to thaw out."

"You'll spare more than that if you want to keep your fingers," he grunted.

After the tank was topped off, he stepped forward to help me drag the heavy machine closer to the cabin’s foundation. We hauled my bags onto the porch, and together we threw a heavy, weighted tarp over the ATV, camouflaging it against the encroaching snow.

"Hurry," he urged, ushering me toward the heavy timber door.

In the mudroom, the air was thick with the scent of damp wool and woodsmoke. We worked in a rhythmic, practiced silence, shedding our outer layers. My heavy parka and my boots hit the floor followed by my snow pants. Every movement felt like a luxury now that the wind wasn't clawing at me.

Once inside the main room, the heat from a massive stone fireplace hit me like a physical blow. Dmitri didn't say a word as we both stripped down to our base layers—thin, moisture-wicking fabric that clung to every curve of my body and the hard, sculpted lines of his.

I sat on a low bench near the fire, stretching my hands toward the flames. Dmitri sat beside me, close enough that I could feel the radiation of his body heat. He looked at me, his eyes dropping briefly to the visible bruises peeking above the neckline of my top before returning to my face.

"You look like you've been through a war, Marie Alexandrovich," he murmured, using the name that carried the weight of my true lineage.

"I've been reminded of who I am," I replied, looking into the fire. "And I've been reminded of what I've been missing."

Dmitri leaned closer, his shoulder brushing mine. The silence of the room was heavy, broken only by the snapping of the logs. "The Kremlin is expecting you, Marie. But they aren't the only ones. There are those who would see the Romanov line extinguished once and for all."

"I know," I said, turning to look him in the eye. The cold from the journey was fading, replaced by the familiar, electric pull I had felt years ago. "That's why I'm moving fast. But right now, I'm freezing and I'm exhausted."

His hand moved, fingers tracing the line of my jaw, his touch rough and warm. "I’ve got ways to warm you up, Highness. I have thought of it since we first met in the Ural Mountains."

“Oh?” I asked not so innocently as I stood up and stripped my base layer off.

Dmitri stood with me, his own movements swift and hungry as he stripped his clothes off. He stood before me, his body hard and ready, staring intensely at my naked skin and my bruises.

“Yes, Highness,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.

“You call me Highness one more time, you won’t be allowed to warm me up,” I said. “Mita, I want this as much as you do.”

"Yes, Marie," he said, his eyes darkening. He suddenly shoved the bench we had been sitting on away from us. It skidded across the stone floor and crashed directly in the fireplace with a heavy thud.

The dry wood caught instantly, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney and bathing us in orange light.

"Whoops," he said with a dark, unapologetic grin. He didn't look at the fire; he only looked at me, his hands reaching out to pull me toward him on the floor.

As I spread my legs for him on the warm stone, he didn't rush. He moved with a reverence that surprised me, his lips tracing the bruises on my tits and hips with soft, lingering kisses. He caressed the marks as if he could soothe the ache, his hands steady and warm against my skin.

"You've been through so much, Marie," he whispered against my skin. Then, he moved lower.

He ate my pussy with a focused intensity that left me breathless. His tongue was relentless, finding every sensitive spot. I came on his tongue so many times, my body arching off the floor as wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over me. Each time I thought I was spent, he would find another way to make me cum.

Just when I thought that I couldn't possibly cum again, that my body was entirely drained, he moved up over me. His eyes were burning with three years of repressed need and desire as he guided his massive dick to my pussy. He pushed his thick dick deep into my aching pussy in one smooth, powerful motion, stretching me wide and filling me to the point of a sharp, delicious gasp. The heat from the fire was nothing compared to the fire he was lighting inside me. My gods, he felt so good stretching me out.

He began to move with a savage, rhythmic power that echoed the blizzard outside. Each time he drove into me, I felt the strength of his desire, a hunger that had been simmering for three long years. He took his time, making sure I felt every inch of his dick, his hands pinning my wrists to the floor as he dominated my senses.

"You're not going to the Kremlin alone, Marie," he growled, his voice vibrating through my chest as he hammered into my core, each stroke bottoming out. "I’m seeing this through with you. I won't lose you again."

"Good," I managed to choke out, my legs locking around his waist to pull him even deeper. "Because I don't plan on letting you go again. Fuck me, Mita."

He let out a guttural sound, his pace turning frantic. He flipped me over, pulling my hips up and driving into me from behind. I could feel the bruises on my hips beneath his large hands, but the pain was distant, drowned out by the incredible pressure of him stretching me out. He reached around to squeeze my tits, his thumbs rubbing over the bite marks, his focus entirely on the physical connection between us.

"Three years," he hissed against my ear, the words punctuated by the heavy thud of his body against mine. “I finally get to fuck the one woman that I’ve ever wanted. I could fuck you for days!”

"Yes," I gasped, my head thumping against the floorboards as he found that perfect angle. "Finally. Harder, Mita!"

The hours passed in a blur of shared heat and whispered promises. He came inside me repeatedly, his loads thick and warm, adding to the layers of history between us. We moved from the floor to the rug, his bed, the kitchen, the couch and then back to the warm stone, exploring every inch of each other. Each time we reached to climax, the world outside the cabin ceased to exist.

Eventually, the fire began to dim, the bench having burned down to glowing embers. Dmitri slowly pulled out. As he pulled out, he moaned and came in my pussy one last time. He laid his body heavy with satisfaction. He didn't move far, pulling me into the crook of his arm as we lay on the stone floor, the lingering warmth of the hearth still shielding us from the mountain chill. My pussy was aching in the best way possible, thoroughly used and filled by him.

"We need to move by dawn," he said, his voice returning to its professional, tactical edge. "The scouts I mentioned... they aren't just looking for a traveler. They have your description. Someone leaked the DNA results from the mechanic."

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. "Then we don't wait for dawn. We eat, we pack, and we vanish."

Dmitri looked at me, a smirk playing on his lips. "Spoken like a true bad ass. Let's get to work, Marie Alexandrovich. We have a throne to reclaim—or at least a very big point to prove."

I stood up, my body sore but revitalized. I gathered my discarded base layers, the bruises on my skin a reminder of the strength I had found. The journey was far from over, but for the first time since I left home, I didn't feel like I was running. I was charging.

I took my wet things and hung them by the fire to dry. I showered, dried off and ate enough for four people. I’d just burned so many calories to get here and burnt even more having sex with Dmitry. I dressed in dry clothes and waited until he was ready before dressing in my outer layer.

Dmitri spread a topographical map across the small kitchen table, his finger tracing a jagged line through the northern pass. "The main roads are monitored by local militias in favor of the current administration. They aren't Russian army, but they’re paid by the people who want you in prison. They see you as another pretender. We’re going to take the ridge line. It’s steeper, and the wind will be brutal, but the sensors can't track us through the rock interference."

"How far to the Kremlin?" I asked, checking the action on my sidearm.

"Two hundred and forty-five miles." He looked up, his expression hardening. "Marie, if we get separated, don't look for me. You go straight to the safe house near the Red Square. The contact there knows the signal."

"We aren't getting separated, Mita," I said, my voice low. I reached out and squeezed his hand, my fingers lingering on the callouses. "I didn't survive that trek just to lose my best asset two hundred and forty-five miles from the finish line."

He gave a sharp nod and handed me a suppressed rifle from his locker. "Load up. We move in five to ten minutes."

I gathered my things and loaded up my ATV. I went back in the cabin to get a large drink of water and to also search if I missed packing my things. Thankfully, I didn’t miss anything. When Mita was ready, he joined me by the door.

We stepped out into the biting night air, the cabin door clicking shut behind us. The wind had picked up, a howling beast that threatened to knock us off our feet. We moved like shadows, our white camouflage blending into the swirling snow. Every snap of a branch or rustle of wind felt like a threat. The scouts were out there, and they were hungry. But as I followed Dmitri’s broad shoulders into the dark, I felt a cold, sharp clarity.

The time for hiding was over. The Romanovs were coming back, and we were bringing the storm with us.

The wind was a physical wall, a screaming banshee of ice and grit that threatened to scour the paint from the ATV. I leaned into the handlebars, squinting through goggles that were rapidly frosting over. I had been delayed by two days because of Dmitry and I was woefully behind schedule. I didn’t terribly regret my additional days with him though.

I took the sharp left, the tires of the ATV biting into the deep, fresh powder of the forest shortcut. I knew that I was separating myself from him intentionally but we both got what we wanted – a good fuck.

Between the sheer distance and the white-out conditions of the blizzard, my tracks were being erased almost as soon as they were formed. Dmitry was good—hell, he was better than most—but he wasn't a ghost. By the time he realized I’d slipped the leash, I’d be a memory in the snow.

The encounter with Dmitry had been exactly what I needed—a visceral, grounding distraction—but the Kremlin didn’t wait for sex and a good old fashioned fucking. I pushed the engine to its screaming limit, the vibration rattling my teeth. I needed to reach the capital. I was still three days out, a lifetime in this weather.

When the engine finally sputtered and died, the silence that rushed in was deafening. I worked with frozen fingers, pouring the reserve fuel into the tank, my breath coming in ragged plumes. I knew that I was near Boris and his cabin. Boris was an outlier, a man who lived on the fringes of the internal intelligence circles, known for two things: his cooking skills and a legendary reputation of having an enormous dick among the women of the service that I worked with. The reputation was his dick was larger than most. I knew where I needed to go – not for the food, maybe for the sex but definitely for warmth.

Thirty-five minutes later, the silhouette of the cabin appeared like a jagged tooth against the grey sky. I cut the engine, dragged the ATV behind a dense thicket of pines, grabbed my bags and stumbled toward the door. My boots felt like lead.

I knocked. The door creaked open, and the heat from within hit me like a blow.

Boris stood there utterly and unashamedly naked. The rumors hadn't been exaggerations; he was built like a siege engine, and the rumors of his dick were now fact….he hung almost to his knees. He didn't look surprised to see a frozen, desperate woman at his doorstep.

"May I come in?" I rasped, my voice cracking from the cold.

He stepped back, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his face. "Of course, Your Imperial Highness."

I didn't waste time. I dragged my bags inside, the door thudding shut against the howling gale, and began stripping. The wet, freezing layers hit the floor in a heap. I hung them near the roaring fireplace, the steam rising from the wool as the feeling began to return to my skin in painful stabs.

I turned back to him, the firelight dancing off his massive frame. "I need to get some sleep," I said, my eyes tracking the heavy sway of him as he moved. “But I also need to warm up and eventually eat.”

"I could join you," Boris offered, his voice a low rumble. "You’re still shivering. I could warm you up."

I looked him up and down, my pulse beginning to override the exhaustion. "Does that offer include that monster dick of yours?"

His grin widened. "It does."

"Good," I said. "Rearrange my guts, Boris. Make me forget the snow."

He laughed, a deep, hearty sound, and led me into the bedroom. There was no hesitation. He reached for a jar of lube on the nightstand, coating his dick. At his request, I leaned over the heavy oak desk, my palms flat against the wood, spreading my legs to welcome the intrusion.

"Highness," he said, the word a gravelly vibration.

“You call me that one more time, Bo, neither one of us will be getting lucky nor getting fucked tonight,” I warned, my fingers digging into the edge of the desk.

"Understood, Marie," he rumbled.

The first thrust was a total takeover. He rammed into me with a singular, violent force that bypassed pleasure and went stone to a primal shock. I gasped, certain I could feel the crown of his dick pressing against my lungs. He held there for a moment, letting me stretch, letting me feel every inch of the displacement.

"God," I choked out, my eyes rolling back. "You're a monster."

"You asked for it," he whispered, his breath hot on my neck.

Then, he began to move.

It was slow at first—methodical, agonizingly deep grinds that made my head light. But as my body adjusted, Boris increased the tempo. He began to pound, his hips hitting mine with the sound of a hammer on an anvil. The women were right; he was a stallion.

The harder he drove into me, the more the world outside—the Kremlin, Dmitry, Tom, Doc, Vic and the frozen wastes—faded into nothing. I screamed, the sound echoing off the log walls, and the noise only seemed to fuel him. He was relentless, a force of nature that rivaled the storm outside. We moved in a frantic rhythm, his climaxes hitting me in waves as I came repeatedly against his dick. He gripped my hips with hands like iron vices, plowing into me with everything he had, leaving me senseless and shattered in the best possible way.

“Fuck, Marie,” he screamed as his grip tightened on my hips as he continued to pound his dick in me.

“You can fuck me harder and faster than this, Bo,” I moaned. “I’m not fragile!”

Three thrusts later, Boris screamed my name and unloaded his last load of cum in me and I came on his dick. He nibbled on my neck as I asked if he was up for another round.

“Are you really up for another round?” he asked. “Most women can’t handle what we just did!”

“I’m not most women, Bo,” I said. “I’ve had a very stressful two weeks and the only thing that seems to help is getting fucked.”

“Yeah?” he asked as he started thrusting in and out of my beyond swollen pussy. “I get how this helps!”

Boris and I spent the next few hours fucking in his bedroom; on his bed, the couch, the floor, on his computer chair and his bean bag chair – a relic from the 1990s. when he finally pulled out of my pussy, he screamed my name and came in me once more.

“Shower?” I asked as I got up from the bean bag chair and started heading to the bathroom.

“How are you able to stand right now?” he asked.

“It’s damn near impossible because I spent three days before arriving here getting fucked as well as for a few hours straight before I arrived at that place,” I said. “But I need the exercise.”

“Hey, Marie?” he whispered.

“What’s up?”

“You’re on birth control right? And up to date on it?”

“I am and I believe so. Why?”

“Your tits look twice the size than I’ve seen in the past.”

“Oh,” I said as I continued to the bathroom.

I did the math as I was showering….I was a week and a half late in taking the Depo injection. I had the IUD just in case but it should still be good as it’s about a year old at this point. I then realized that I’m only this horny and craving dick 24/7 when I’m ovulating. Then I realized that I was ovulating. Fuck!!

I knew that abortions here are legal but I don’t know how long I’d be here or how much more sex I would have. At this point, I knew I was going to wind up pregnant or I was already pregnant.

The Kremlin Journey: Part One

The engine of the ATV roared to life, vibrating through the handlebars as I secured the last of the supply crates. Doc’s mechanic, a man whose face was a roadmap of grease and old scars, wiped his hands on a rag and gave the rack a final, testing tug.

"She’s loaded," the mechanic grunted, his voice barely audible over the howling wind outside the garage. "Doc says your first helper is prepped and waiting. Says it’s an old friend of yours."

I felt a spark of curiosity cut through the exhaustion. "An old friend? Who?"

The mechanic just offered a cryptic smirk. "You'll know him when you see him. Now get moving before the pass freezes over completely."

"Thanks for the help," I shouted back, kicking the vehicle into gear. I squeezed the throttle, and the ATV lurched forward, biting into the fresh powder as I began the long, treacherous trek toward the Kremlin.

The hours bled together into a blur of white and grey. The blizzard was relentless, a wall of stinging ice that reduced my world to the few feet illuminated by my headlights. By the time the fuel needle dipped dangerously toward the red, my bones felt brittle with cold. I spotted a dense line of timber—a natural break in the storm—and steered toward the shelter of the woods.

I was reaching for the spare fuel canisters when a massive figure emerged from the gloom. My heart hammered against my ribs until the light caught his face.

"Tom?" I gasped, my breath hitching in the frozen air.

"You look like a half-frozen human popsicle," Tom rumbled, his voice a warm anchor in the chaos. He didn't waste time with a long reunion; he grabbed the front winch of the ATV and began hauling it toward a small, sturdy cabin tucked behind an outcrop of rock. "Follow me. Hurry before the frost takes your toes."

Inside, the transition from the screaming wind to the crackling warmth of a wood stove was almost dizzying. The air smelled of cedar and dried tobacco. Tom didn't hesitate; he began shedding his heavy, frozen gear, his movements efficient and certain.

"I didn't think I'd make it to the next mile," I admitted, my teeth chattering as the heat hit my skin.

Tom looked at me, a glimmer of concern in his eyes. "You're lucky the woods were here. Get those wet things off before the chill settles in your bones."

The adrenaline of the journey was being replaced by a different kind of heat. I watched him, my old friend, his silhouette cast long against the log walls by the firelight. As he stripped down, I followed suit, my wet clothes hitting the floor in a heap. The mission was urgent, yes, but in this moment, the only thing that mattered was the ache in my body that the stove couldn't touch.

Tom paused, glancing back at me as I stood there, trembling not from the cold, but from a desperate, sudden need.

"What are you doing, woman?" he asked, his eyes darkening as they swept over me.

"I need to be fucked, Tom," I said, my voice steady despite the pounding of my heart. "I've been out there in the dark for so long. I need to feel something other than that fucking blizzard."

A slow, predatory grin spread across his face. "If that's what the Highness requires," he murmured, his voice thick with a sudden, heavy gravity. "Yes, Your Imperial Highness."

He crossed the room in two strides, lifting me as if I weighed nothing. He carried me to the heavy oak bed in the corner and tossed me onto the thick furs. When he finally stepped out of his boxers, I caught my breath. He was built like the mountains he lived in—his dick being larger, more imposing than even Doc’s.

The moment he joined me on the mattress, there was no more talking. He mounted me instantly, his weight a welcome pressure, and as he pushed inside of my waiting pussy, a sharp cry of pleasurable pain escaped my throat.

"Fuck me," I moaned, my fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back. "Don't stop, Tom. Don't you dare stop."

"I've got you," he growled against my ear, his pace already relentless. "I've got all the time in the world."

And he didn't stop. For the next thirty-six hours, the storm outside was forgotten. Tom moved with a tireless, rhythmic intensity that seemed to defy the limits of the human body. Every time I thought he was finished, every time I thought he had spent every drop of cum he possessed, he proved me wrong. He filled me again and again, driving me back into a state of screaming ecstasy.

Finally, Tom slowly withdrew, his eyes heavy with a bone-deep fatigue. He stumbled over to his old wooden rocking chair, sat down with a heavy sigh, and was asleep before the chair had even finished its first back-and-forth swing.

I stayed on the floor by the fireplace for a few moments, letting my breathing return to normal, before finally standing up. My body was sore but alive. I headed toward the bathroom to take a shower, but doubled back to where I had left my clothes by the door. I found my vest and reached into the inner pocket, feeling the crisp edges of the documents Doc’s mechanic had handed me.

I took them with me as I headed back to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. Under the dim light of a single bulb, I spread the papers out. My heart skipped a beat as I read. The DNA results were undeniable—I was a Romanov, a direct descendant of Tsar Alexander III. Another page displayed my Russian ID alongside my home country identification. I was more than a homeless traveler right now; I was a Grand Duchess.

I knew I couldn't risk carrying these papers into the Kremlin. Someone was already trying to stop me, and if I were caught with these, I’d be dead before I could prove anything. I had to get this information to Sera’s contact inside the walls.

I rushed to Tom's small office and found an ancient, yellowed fax machine. In this weather, a transmission could take over an hour. I organized the pages, typed in the secure number, and hit 'send'. As the machine began its mechanical groaning, I retreated back to the bathroom to shower.

I kept the shower quick, mindful of the small hot water heater and knowing Tom would likely want a shower the moment he woke up. After drying off, I wrapped a towel around myself and went to the kitchen to find something to eat.

In the fridge, I found a container of meat stew. As soon as I opened it, the smell hit me—it was familiar. It was the same stew Tom had left for me a few days ago at the lean-to. I realized then that he had been looking out for me even before this blizzard. I didn't want to wake him by heating it up, so I ate it cold, the calories fueling my depleted system.

Once full, I found my bags, applied some deodorant, and got dressed. I hung my used towel and went back to Tom’s office. The machine had finished. A confirmation page sat in the tray, along with a brief, chilling reply: “Burn these immediately. Burn everything immediately.”

I gathered the documentation, the confirmation, and the response. I went to the living room, opened the fireplace grate, and tossed the papers into the dying embers. Within seconds, the papers were burned. I hung my wet traveling clothes near the fireplace and replaced the grate.

I knew I couldn't rest or sleep here. Someone was out there trying to prevent me from going to the Kremlin and proving who I just found out I was. I slipped outside into the biting cold to fuel up the ATV and refill the empty jerry cans. By the time I returned inside and washed my hands, Tom was finally stirring.

He sat up in his chair, looking at me with a strange, heavy expression. He looked almost embarrassed.

"What's wrong, Tom?" I asked, leaning against the doorframe.

"I lost control," he muttered, rubbing his face. "I allowed myself to take advantage of a Grand Duchess. I should have shown more restraint."

"You did no such thing," I told him firmly. "I was more than a willing participant, Tom."

"Do you have to leave soon?" he asked, his eyes searching mine.

"I do," I said softly.

"Do you have time to fuck again?"

I didn't hesitate. I undressed right there in front of him. "I do. In which room would you like to fuck me?"

"My room," he said, his voice dropping an octave as he stood up.

He led the way back to the heavy oak bed. In no time, I was back on the furs, laying on my back with my legs spread wide. Tom mounted my pussy once more, his weight bearing down on me with a renewed, primal hunger.

We didn't stop for another thirty-six hours. Every chance he had—which was often—he came deep inside me. His balls felt heavy and full, and it seemed to take the entire day and a half for him to finally drain himself into my sore and swollen pussy. He was rougher this time, his hands and teeth roaming over me without restraint. He bit, pinched, and squeezed my tits during those long hours, his obsession with my body leaving and him leaving his mark. By the end of the session, my tits were completely covered in bruises and bite marks, a map of his desperate need for me.

As we were finally winding down, I told Tom that I didn't have the time to eat; I needed to get dressed and make my way to where I needed to go. But as I moved, I saw his dick get hard again, and his balls were filling visibly.

"I have a few loads of cum for you again," he rumbled, his voice like grinding stone.

I didn't argue. I got on all fours and he mounted my swollen pussy from behind. He rode me harder and faster than before, his every thrust vibrating through my entire frame. His loads of cum were thicker and heavier, flooding me until I felt completely filled. He grabbed my hips with bruising strength and utterly destroyed my pussy.

When I thought he was finally done, he pulled out, but instead of stopping, he pushed his dick into my ass. I screamed in pleasure, the new sensation overwhelming my senses.

"Oh god, Tom," I gasped, clutching the sheets. "Yes... right there."

"You want this, Highness?" he growled, his breath hot against my neck. "You want me to fill you up one last time?"

"I want it all," I choked out, bucking back against him.

He didn't need to be told twice. He fucked my ass as hard as he had just destroyed my pussy, his powerful thrusts driving deep into me. I took every one of them, relishing the way he dominated my body. He came in my ass often, and I relished the feeling of his warmth inside me, thick and heavy.

When his balls were finally empty, he pulled out and collapsed on the bed. "I love you," he whispered before immediately falling back into a deep sleep.

I got up, my body trembling and aching, and took another shower. I stood under the water and allowed his cum to pour out of me. Once clean, I dried my hair, braided it, and tied it into a neat bun at the base of my neck. I got dressed, gathered my things, and packed up the last of my gear.

I headed out to the ATV and hopped on. I pushed the machine as hard as I could, knowing I was already two days behind schedule. Being fucked the way I was by Tom was worth it, but the mission remained. I needed to reach the Kremlin safely—and I needed to ensure that once this was over, I could return home and never have to work for any government again.

The frozen threshold

The air in the bedroom felt thick and charged, a heavy weight that seemed to vibrate between us as Doc moved closer. His presence was commanding, an inescapable force that made the rest of the world—the blizzard, the ruin of my engine, the ghosts of the tundra—feel like a distant, half-forgotten dream. When he finally claimed me, the sheer scale of him felt like a revelation. I gasped as he pushed his dick in me, my body stretching to its absolute limit to accommodate the weight and width of his dick. I’d forgotten that he was significantly larger than Vic.

"Fuck. I’ve missed you and this," he rasped against my ear. His voice was a low, vibrating growl that sent a violent shiver down my spine, triggering a primal reaction I couldn't suppress. He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye, his gaze dark with a possessive fever. "Marry me."

He didn't wait for an answer, nor did he hold back. He drove into my wet pussy with a relentless, rhythmic power that stole the air from my lungs. It felt like an eternity of friction and heat, a blurred cycle of breathlessness and mounting pressure. Every thrust was deep and deliberate, a masterclass in the sexual connection we had once built our lives around. I found myself clinging to the heavy oak headboard for stability, my knuckles white as he pushed me further and further toward the edge. Finally, with a sharp intake of breath, he surged forward one last time. I felt the hot, heavy flood of his cum filling me completely, a searing mark of his return to my life.

“No, Doc,” I moaned, my voice trembling with the aftershocks of the climax. “I love you, but I can’t.”

He didn't let the momentum fade or the rejection settle. Before I could even catch my breath, he pulled out and firmly rolled me onto my stomach. I felt the overwhelming weight of him settle over my back, pressing me into the mattress as he guided his dick back inside my pussy while I lay prone bone. The new angle was sharper, more intense, reaching depths that made my vision swim.

"Again," he demanded, his hands gripping my hips like iron vices to anchor me against the force of his movement.

He rode me fast and hard, the rhythmic sound of skin meeting skin echoing through the quiet room. We were caught in a loop of constant climaxes; every time I thought my body couldn't handle more, he would cum inside me again, adding to the thick heat he’d already left behind.

Just as the world started to spin, he withdrew and pulled me to my feet, guiding my shaky legs toward the heavy oak dresser. He bent me over the cool, polished wood, the sudden chill against my stomach a stark contrast to the heat between my thighs. My reflection stared back at me from the mirror—wide, blown-out pupils and flushed skin.

"Look at what you do to me," he moaned, his breath hot against the back of my neck.

With a single, powerful motion, Doc shoved his dick back into my pussy, claiming me in a way that felt entirely different—stretching, invasive, and overwhelming. As he worked me over the dresser, his large hands reached around to find my tits. He didn't just hold them; he squeezed with a possessive strength, his fingers digging in and pinching my nipples with a sharp intensity that grounded me in the moment.

He stayed there for a long time, relentless and unyielding, coming in waves that seemed never-ending. By the time he finally finished, I was breathless and trembling, completely undone by the sheer force of him. We finally came for the last time, a simultaneous collapse of willpower and physical endurance.

Doc pulled out and, seeing my legs could no longer support me, carried me to the shower. The steam filled the room as he turned the water on and joined me. We didn't talk much; the intimacy of the last hour had said enough. The only words exchanged were a quiet, "Please pass the soap."

After a long time under the hot spray, he turned the water off and we toweled each other dry. I dressed in some of the clothes he had held onto for years—soft, familiar fabrics that still smelled faintly of his home. I was quietly thankful he hadn't thrown them away. When we finished dressing, we headed downstairs.

My bags were already in the foyer. He called his housekeeper, Mona, over and asked her to wash my belongings. She barely looked at me, her face a mask of practiced indifference as she nodded her head.

“Stay inside, my love,” Doc said as he bundled up in his heavy winter gear. “I’m going to check in with the mechanic to see the damage on the ATV, and then I’ll be right back.”

He bent down to press a firm kiss to my lips before stepping out into the cold. The door clicked shut, and I immediately went to find Mona.

“Miss Mona?” I called out as I entered the sterile, white-tiled laundry area. “I’m sorry to bother you. I was wondering if you have a minute.”

She was sorting through my gear with unnecessary force. “Anything for Doc’s ex-wife,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her lips. She finally looked up, her eyes hard. “What do you need?”

“I’m going to let that slide, Miss Mona,” I said, my voice dropping to a cold, level tone. “I’ve been respectful toward you, and I’d like the same courtesy in return, whether you respect me or not.”

She stood up, realizing I wasn't in the mood for games. “Fine,” she said, her voice tight. “What can I help you with?”

“I’m looking for Doc’s office,” I explained. “I know he has a particular charging cable for the type of phone I have, but I don’t want to go through his house unless he’s inside. Could you please direct me?”

“It’s next to his bedroom, but it’s behind a hidden panel,” she said, her eyes narrowing as if weighing whether to tell me more. “Would you like assistance in opening the panel?”

“I’m okay, but thanks,” I replied. “Thank you, Miss Mona.”

She nodded once and returned to my laundry. It was clear she wasn't just protective; she was in love with him. I couldn't fault her—I knew the pull of the man better than anyone—but I had work to do.

I headed upstairs. I checked the right-hand side of the door, moving my hand along the wall at about six feet. Just as I was about to give up, I felt the texture of the paint change—a slight, nearly imperceptible seam. I tapped the panel three times, and the mechanism clicked, swinging open to reveal the dark, tech-heavy office.

I grabbed my phone and plugged it into my old laptop. Doc had kept it charged and updated, a detail that didn't surprise me. I quickly ran a trace on the satellite calls I'd exchanged with Sera. The data bloomed on the screen: she had left Sancho’s twenty minutes ago. She was heading for the mountain pass where the bridge had been burned. She was close, but I didn't want her too close to me. The proximity was a liability I couldn't afford right now.

I sent an encrypted email to my brother, Bob. I'm alive. If you don't hear from me by spring, don't believe the lies of my death. I then checked my computer bag and found the drug test kit I’d stashed. I needed to know the truth about the food from the lean-to. I grabbed the kit and headed back to the bedroom, setting it up on the vanity. I processed the samples of the meat stew, testing for hallucinogenics. The kit was older, the chemical strips taking an agonizing amount of time to change color.

While I waited, I darted back to the office. No messages from Sera. No reply from Bob yet. I sighed, the tension in my chest tightening. I ran back to the bedroom just as the final strip stabilized.

Negative. No hallucinogenics in the food.

A wave of relief washed over me, but it was short-lived. If the food wasn't drugged, the dreams of Rasputin were either real or a result of my own deteriorating psyche. I gathered the kit and the remaining food and threw them into the fireplace in his room. I lit a match, watching the evidence curl into ash. I added several logs to the fire to mask the chemical smell of the burning kit.

I hurried back to the office one last time. Still nothing from Sera, but a new message from Bob had just hit the inbox. Before I could click it, the heavy sound of the front door opening echoed through the house. I heard Doc’s voice calling out for me.

I grabbed my phone, shut down the laptop, and closed the hidden panel. I moved as quickly as I could, reaching the top of the stairs just as he looked up.

“Doc, how’s the ATV?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from sounding as breathless as I felt.

He began unpeeling his outer layers, his face red from the biting wind outside. "You truly destroyed that engine, Deppgrl," he said with a half-smile, shaking the snow from his coat. "It’s beyond repair. However, my mechanic is the best in the sector. He told me he could build you a newer one—one with a renewed block that you could push as hard as you could without it smoking out on you."

I felt a small prickle of hope at the prospect of reliable transportation. "Thank you, Doc," I said. "And please, send my thanks to your mechanic. I really appreciate him doing that."

"I will," he promised, stepping toward me. He reached out, his hand warm as it rested on the small of my back. "But right now, I need to defrost. The cold is still in my bones, and more than that, I want to catch up with you."

He looked at me with an earnestness that made my skin crawl with the weight of my secrets. I knew he was looking for a connection, for the woman who used to be his wife, not the ghost running through the snow. I tilted my head and smiled at him—a soft, believable expression that reached my eyes but never touched my heart. It was a fake smile, honed by years of survival, but I made it look so real that he didn't even blink.

"I'd like that," I lied, the believable curve of my lips masking the frantic ticking of the clock in my head.

He led me back upstairs. When we reached the hallway, he walked straight to the wall next to his bedroom and pressed the hidden panel. I acted surprised, widening my eyes as the door clicked open. I knew Mona wouldn't say anything to him about our conversation; she was too smart for that, and too invested in appearing as the perfect, invisible helpmate.

We entered the office, and Doc closed the door behind us, sealing us in the dark, wood-scented sanctuary. He turned to me immediately, bending down to catch my lips in a slow, lingering kiss.

"Mona is jealous of you," he whispered, his hands resting on my shoulders. "She’s been in her own head for a long time. I wanted to get you out of her negative circle for a bit."

"I noticed," I said softly, leaning into him for just a second. "Thank you for the heads-up. And for this."

He pulled back, his expression softening. "I brought you in here so you could have some privacy. I know you’ve been through hell. Reach out to whomever you want, let them know you’re okay. I’ll be right outside if you need anything."

He squeezed my hand and stepped out, giving me exactly what I had been praying for: the room to work. I waited until the door was fully shut before moving. I went over to my laptop and entered the passcode. The screen flickered to life, showing the encrypted mail client I had left open. My heart hammered against my ribs as I saw the notification. I opened Bob’s email, my eyes scanning the text for the news I both feared and needed.

The subject line was blank, but the body of the email was a blunt, terrifying reality check.

“I don’t want to know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Bob wrote. “You can’t stay with Doc for more than twenty-four hours. He’s being watched. If you see the mark of the black sun, run.”

I stared at the screen, the blue light reflecting in my wide pupils. The relief I had felt minutes ago evaporated, knowing that with my message to Bob he automatically knew where I was. I appreciated his warning about the black mark on the sun; it was his warning that Doc was a descendant of Grigori Rasputin and I needed to tread carefully.

I closed the laptop and took a deep breath, forcing my heart to steady. I left the office, moving quietly back into the bedroom where Doc was sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked up as I entered, his gaze questioning but gentle.

"Doc," I started, my voice tight. "I have a really difficult question to ask you. I don't even know how to ask it gently."

He stood up, walking toward me with that calm, steady authority. "You can ask me anything, my love. You know that."

I looked him dead in the eye. "Are you related to Rasputin?"

The silence that followed was heavy, but only for a second. His expression didn't shift into surprise; it shifted into a somber realization. "Yes," he admitted, his voice low. "I am."

The confirmation hit me like a physical blow. Without a word, I turned to the bags I had only just begun to settle. I started shoving my clothes back into my packs with frantic, jerky motions.

"What's wrong? Why are you packing?" He reached for my hand, but I pulled away.

"I am not safe here," I said. "Your admission to being a descendant of such a holy man... it puts me at a risk I can't even quantify. I have to go. Now."

"It's just history, Deppgrl," he argued, but I wasn't listening. I grabbed my meds, checking the vials and packing them securely. I didn't care about the blizzard or the broken ATV. I just knew that the twenty-four-hour clock Bob had set was already ticking too fast.

I shouldered my packs and hurried downstairs. I practically ran into Mona in the foyer. She was standing there, watching the stairs as if she’d been waiting for the inevitable.

"You're going to be one happy woman, Mona," I snapped, my breath coming in short bursts. "I have to leave. I'm not safe here."

To my shock, the sarcasm was gone. Her eyes went wide, and she immediately moved into action. "Hurry, then," she whispered, her hands already moving. She grabbed my freshly laundered clothes from the basket and began expertly stuffing them into my side pockets. "Don't just stand there, move!" She darted into the kitchen and returned with heavy sacks of dried food—beans, rice, grains—packing them into the remaining space in my gear. "You'll need these. The tundra eats the unprepared."

"I wanted to warn you," she whispered. "I thought that you already knew because of your marriage to him."

"I didn't know," I said, stunned by her sudden helpfulness. "I had no idea."

She reached out and, for the first time, her touch wasn't cold. She hugged me tightly, a brief, fierce squeeze. "I'll help you leave," she promised. "I'll make sure he doesn't see which way you go."

I pulled back slightly, raising an eyebrow and letting a smirk touch my lips despite the terror. "So you can have him all for yourself?"

Mona let out a short, unexpected laugh, a sound devoid of the bitterness I’d heard earlier. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I just want you to survive."

"Thank you, Mona," I said, the sincerity surprising even myself.

She didn't waste time on sentiment. She helped me bundle into my Tek gear, the high-tech fabric sealing out the drafty foyer air. "The mechanic is out back, behind the shed on the property," she instructed, pointing toward the rear exit. "Go through the mudroom. Doc is still in the hallway; he won't see you cross the back lot."

I bolted out the door before my resolve could waver. The cold hit me like a wall of iron, but the adrenaline kept my muscles moving. I hurried across the yard, the wind whipping around the corners of the main house. I reached the mechanic's shop—a low-slung, industrial building tucked away behind the large equipment shed.

I burst through the door, the warmth of the garage and the smell of oil a sudden contrast to the gale.

"Your Imperial Highness," the mechanic greeted me, wiping grease from his hands with a rag.

I just rolled my eyes, leaning against a workbench to catch my breath. "Cut the crap. Is the ATV set?"

"It is," he said, nodding toward the machine. It looked like a beast now, the engine block reinforced and—to my relief—he'd added a significantly larger fuel tank. "I fueled it to the brim and topped off the jerry cans in the back. You've got enough range to clear the mountain pass twice over."

"Thank you," I said, checking the straps on the extra fuel cans. I looked him in the eye, the isolation of the tundra making me paranoid. "Is there anyone else around? Within miles?"

He shook his head slowly. "No one. Just the wind and the ghosts."

I paused, the title he'd used seconds ago itching at my brain. "Why did you call me that? 'Your Imperial Highness'?"

He stopped what he was doing, his expression turning solemn. "Because you are a descendant of the last Tsar. The bloodline didn't end in that cellar, no matter what the history books claim."

I stared at him, my exhaustion making it hard to process the words. "I don't believe you."

He didn't get angry. He just sighed and turned away, heading toward a cluttered corner of his shop. "I knew you wouldn't believe me," he said over his shoulder as he began digging through a heavy iron crate. "But my family... we have been Tsarists for as long as I can remember. We were sworn to protect the line, even when the line didn't know it existed."

He turned around, holding a sleek, silver device that looked out of place among the rusted tools and oil drums—a recent model of a DNA comparison kit. He carried it over to a high-tech computer terminal shielded by thick plexiglass and attached it with a series of clicks.

I looked at him with a mixture of awe and growing concern. The technical sophistication of his setup was staggering for a man living on the edge of the Frozen Threshold. "What are you doing?"

"Verification," he muttered, his eyes fixed on the booting screen. He looked up and asked for my arm.

I hesitated, then slowly offered him my hand. He took my glove off with surprising gentleness, cleaned the tip of my index finger with a stinging antiseptic swab, and used a sterile lancet to take half a vial of blood. He removed the needle quickly, applying a small bandaid before I could even wince.

"Give me a few minutes to process the sample," he said, his voice dropping into a professional hum as he inserted the vial into the kit.

He turned back to the terminal, his fingers flying across the keys as a progress bar began to crawl across the display. I stood there, the silence of the shop broken only by the whirring of the cooling fans and the distant howl of the blizzard outside.

Fifteen minutes later, the machine let out a soft chime. He spent another few moments scrolling through data I couldn't see, his face unreadable in the blue glow of the monitor. Finally, he straightened up and came back out toward the center of the shop with a few printed documents in his hand.

"What's going on?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. My hands were shaking inside my gloves.

He handed me the papers, his gaze intense. "Take these documents and head back to the Kremlin as soon as you can. Your presence is no longer just a matter of survival—it’s a matter of state."

I looked at the documents, the Cyrillic text blurring before my eyes. "The Kremlin? That’s impossible. It could take me twelve days to get there, even with this ATV. The blizzard is getting worse, and the amount of snow on the pass is insane. I’ll run out of food, or freeze, or simply get lost in the white-out."

"You don't understand," he said, stepping closer. The smell of grease and cold metal was thick around him. "Time is a luxury you don't have. The Kremlin isn't just a destination; it’s your fortress. The Romanov blood in your veins... it carries more weight than you can imagine in the halls of power today."

"How am I supposed to get there?" I demanded, gesturing toward the door where the storm was screaming. "I'm one woman on a machine in the middle of a frozen wasteland."

"I have people keeping an eye on you," he said calmly, as if he were discussing a grocery list. "They are positioned along the route. From here to the capital, there are eyes in the trees and ears in the wind. You need to trust them."

I let out a harsh, dry laugh, my chest tightening with a mix of fear and absurdity. "Trust them? I don't even know who 'they' are. I don't know who you are, really. How can I possibly trust strangers in a place like this?"

The mechanic looked at me with a profound, ancient loyalty, a devotion that felt like it belonged to a different century. "You will know them because they will know you. They have been waiting for this day for generations. When they approach, they won't call you by the name on your passport."

"Then what will they call me?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"They'd call you Marie Alexandrova," he answered, his voice ringing with a strange authority. "And you will answer to it, because it is who you are. Now, go. The path is clear for the next hour, but after that, even I cannot guarantee the visibility."

I looked from the documents to the monster of an ATV, my mind spinning. Marie Alexandrova. A name that felt like a death sentence and a birthright all at once. I tucked the papers into my internal pocket, checked my gear one last time, and mounted the machine.

"Don't stop for anything," the mechanic called out as I keyed the ignition. "The wolves aren't the only ones hunting tonight."

The last sanctuary

The air inside the fourth safe house was thin, tasting of stagnant cedar and the metallic tang of old dust. It wasn't the sanctuary I had envisioned; it was a carcass, picked clean by whoever had found it first. I didn't let my eyes linger on the splintered cabinet hinges or the hollowed-out pantry. In this climate, despair was a luxury that led to a quiet, frozen death, and I wasn't ready to stop breathing just yet.

I moved with a mechanical, shivering efficiency. My fingers were stiff, but I knew exactly where to look. I pried up the loose floorboard near the hearth, revealing the fuel cache I’d buried years ago. The two steel jerrycans were heavy, their contents still liquid and lethal. I lugged them out to Sancho’s beast of an ATV. The engine block was a block of ice, the fuel cap biting into my palms as I twisted it off. The glug-glug of the gasoline was the only sound in the dead clearing—a foul-smelling, chemical promise of escape.

"One less hole to fall into," I rasped, my breath a thick, ragged shroud.

I scanned the perimeter. I needed more than just a full tank; I needed to haul the weight of my survival. Near the collapsed woodpile, half-submerged in a drift of grey snow, I found the rusted skeleton of a heavy-duty utility wagon. I’d kept it here for a day just like this. I waded through the waist-deep powder and kicked the tires. They were solid rubber, cracked by the years but still holding.

I dragged the iron frame to the back of the ATV. My hands were clumsy, raw from the wind, but I forced the hitch into place. The metal clanged with a definitive, bone-deep thud as the pin dropped home.

"Now for the fire," I whispered.

I started with the outdoor woodpile, grabbing every split log that wasn't mush. When that was gone, I turned back to the house. I wasn sentiment. I tore the broken dining chairs apart, kicked the legs off the shattered coffee table, and ripped the splintered cabinet doors from their frames.

The wood groaned as I harvested the house for parts. "You're not a home anymore," I told the empty, freezing rooms. "You're just BTU."

I piled the jagged remains of my former life into the wagon and threw an oil-stained tarp over the heap. I threaded a length of frayed nylon rope through the eyelets, cinching it down until my knuckles bled. I pulled until the load was a single, immobile mass.

Inside, the silence was louder now that the furniture was gone. My stomach cramped—a sharp, acidic reminder of the hours since I'd last eaten. I sat on the floor, the cold of the wood seeping through my layers, and pulled my one remaining bag toward me.

I pulled out a tin of SPAM. The metal was so cold it felt like it would tear the skin off my fingers. I pryed the lid back, and the smell hit me—salty, greasy, and cloyingly preserved. I didn't bother with a fork. I used my hunting knife to carve out a cold, gelatinous slab and shoved it into my mouth.

It was vile. The fat coated my tongue like wax, and the salt burned the cracks in my lips. I swallowed, fighting the urge to gag.

"Fucking disgusting," I muttered, staring at the pink, shimmering block.

I regretted it instantly, the processed meat sitting like a stone in my gut. But I knew the math. My body was a machine, and this was the oil. I finished the tin, wiped the blade on my thigh, and stood up. The salt made me thirsty, but it also made me feel solid.

I looked at the door. Just the engine, the wood, and the long, white road to nowhere.

I stepped onto the porch and uncapped the last flask of high-proof grain alcohol Sancho had handed me at the bridge. I didn't hesitate. I walked the perimeter, splashing the volatile liquid against the dry logs of the exterior. I struck a match—a tiny, defiant spark—and dropped it.

I did it three more times until the fire hold, the blue flames licking hungrily at the wood. I stood there until the heat began to singe my eyebrows, watching my last tie to this country turn into a pillar of orange light.

Once I was satisfied the safe house would burn to the ground, I climbed onto the ATV and throttled into the dark. I had no clear destination, but my mind was already sorting through the geography of the sector. I remembered a string of abandoned lean-tos scattered along the northern ridge—remnants of an old surveying project from decades back. They were nearby, primitive, and hidden well enough that even Vic nor Val would be able to find me. I headed away from the heat, steering toward the memory of those skeletons in the woods.

After a few hours of navigating the blinding white, the terrain finally shifted. The grade steepened, the engine of the ATV growling as it clawed up the ridge. Then, I saw it—a jagged, grey silhouette against the shifting snow. I had found one of the lean-tos.

It was barely standing, a skeletal tilt of rotted timber and frozen moss, but it was nestled against the deep edge of the forest. The ancient pines acted as a natural break, blunting the worst of the blizzard’s fury. I parked the machine and stumbled off, my legs feeling like lead.

I was bone-tired and my throat was like sandpaper. I moved to the edge of the forest, where the wind couldn't immediately snatch the heat away, and began to scrape together a small fire. I used the driest twigs I could find beneath the heavy boughs of the spruce trees. As the first orange sparks took hold, I placed a tiny metal pot over the flame, packing it with clean snow. I needed the hydration more than anything else.

While the snow began its slow melt, I turned my attention to the shelter. I dragged a large, heavy-duty tarp from my supplies and draped it over the open face of the lean-to. I staked it down with heavy stones and cord, creating a small, claustrophobic pocket of dead air. I hoped to God it would hold onto enough of my body heat to keep me from freezing during the night.

Once the tarp was secured, I crawled back to the small fire to check on the pot. It was then that I noticed it—laying right there by the flames. It was a bag of food and a few bottles of water. I grabbed a bottle, half-expecting it to be a solid block of ice, but by some miracle, the water hadn't frozen yet.

I emptied the bag and found a container of some kind of meat stew. I didn't care what was in it—venison, beef, or something more local—my hunger was an animal. I ate until I was stuffed and there was still a large amount left. I packed the rest up and brought everything into the lean-to with me.

I cleaned off snow from the few logs in there that one would consider a bed. I grabbed the two wool blankets from my pack and changed into a dry base level. I laid down on the uncomfortable wood, covered myself with the blankets and fell fast asleep.

In the depths of that sleep, a face emerged from the darkness. Grigori Rasputin. He didn't look like the history books; he looked like a man made of shadow and ancient earth. His eyes were wide, burning with a feverish intensity as he stood over me in the dream. He spoke in a low, gravelly hum that vibrated in my chest.

"You have the scent of the old world on you, little ghost," he rumbled.

"I’m just trying to stay warm," I heard myself say, my voice echoing in the void.

"Warmth is for the living. You are walking the path of the dead," he said, leaning closer. "But you are not alone. There are shadows that still owe the bloodline. I have placed helpers along your path to ensure you reach the end of your journey."

We talked for what felt like hours, a surreal conversation about bloodlines and shadows, before the dream finally dissolved into the grey light of dawn.

I jolted awake, the taste of the meat stew still coating my mouth. My first thought was immediate and certain.

"Hallucinogenics," I muttered. Whoever had provided the food laced it.

I got up, dressed, and packed up my stuff, heading further away into the white. As I traveled, the sat phone buzzed. It was Sera.

"I found Sancho," she said. "I brought him back to his cabin safely. But Deppgrl... I had a dream. Grigori Rasputin came to me. He said he had helpers along the way for you."

The cold deepened. "I had the same dream, Sera."

"Did you find food near where you slept?" she asked.

"I did."

"So did I," she said. "I stopped halfway between Sancho's and where I'm staying. I’m going to test my food for hallucinogenics."

"Be safe, Sera," I told her, and then I hung up.

I pushed the ATV as hard as I could, the engine screaming against the rising gale. The heavy vibrations of the machine pulsed through the seat and up my spine, a rhythmic throb that began to play cruel tricks on my mind. It felt too much like a presence, too much like touch. In the biting cold and the absolute isolation, the movement of the ATV made me miss Vic—the memory of his dick, the way he would fuck my pussy until the world went silent. Despite the rage, despite the fire I’d left behind, I began to miss him.

The feeling was overwhelming, a biological scream for the very thing that had destroyed me. In my mind, I didn't call for help or safety; I called out to Grigori Rasputin. I pleaded into the void, telling him I needed to find a man I knew well close by—not for comfort, not for words, but because I needed to be fucked. I needed to drown out the freezing silence with the only heat I knew how to navigate.

I changed my path, veering slightly more toward the east. I continued until the ATV sputtered to a stop. The fuel tank was empty. I got off, found a backup jerry can, filled the tank, and put the jerry can back in the compartment. I continued on my trek, pushing the engine to its absolute limit.

Two hours later, the machine stopped again. This time, thick grey smoke was pouring from the engine. I scrambled off and lifted the hood, the heat and the stench of burnt oil hitting me all at once.

"Oh fuck!" I told myself, staring at the ruined machinery. "I destroyed the engine!"

The smoke swirled into the blizzard, a signal of total failure. I stood there, trembling with cold and frustration, when I heard it—a familiar voice cutting through the roar of the wind, calling my name.

"Deppgrl?"

I spun around. Emerging from the whiteout was Doc, my ex-husband. The shock was a physical jolt. I didn't think, didn't hesitate; I ran to him, and we collided in a desperate, bone-crushing hug.

"You need to get in, immediately," he said, his voice urgent against my ear. He gestured toward a house I hadn't even seen through the storm. "My mechanic will bring the ATV inside the garage."

"I need my bags," I managed to rasp, pulling back slightly. "My food, my water, and my meds. Everything is on there."

He nodded, his face tight with concern, and helped me haul my supplies off the ruined machine. "Tell your mechanic to be careful," I warned him, my teeth chattering. "There's both an empty and a full jerry can of fuel in the compartment. Don't let him spark anything."

Doc nodded to a figure already moving toward the ATV and ushered me inside the house. The transition from the sub-zero gale to the interior heat was almost painful. He called out to his mechanic to finalize the intake, then led me straight to his bedroom.

The air was heavy with the scent of cedar and him. He didn't waste time with questions. He helped me strip off the cold, sodden layers of wool and Gore-Tex. I stood there in the center of the room, shivering and completely naked in front of him.

Doc stopped, his hands still holding the discarded jacket. He looked over my body, his gaze slow and deliberate, the familiar lust burning in his eyes.

"You're beautiful," he whispered. "Still the most beautiful person I've ever seen."

I looked back at him, the memory of our shared history rushing back. "I always appreciated our sexual connection," I told him, the honesty of the moment stripped bare. "More than almost anything else."

He stepped closer, the heat radiating from him. "Do you need to warm up first?" he asked, his voice dropping to a low rumble. "Or do you want me to warm me up?"

I didn't have to think about it. The cold was still in my marrow, but the fire Rasputin had promised was right in front of me.

"I'd rather you warm me up," I told him. "I miss those days."

Doc didn't say another word. He crossed the small distance between us, reached out, and picked me up effortlessly. He carried me over to the bed and gently laid me down on my back, the cool sheets a sharp contrast to his touch. He stripped as quickly as he could, throwing his clothes aside with a frantic, focused energy. In seconds, he was over me, and the glans of his dick was in my pussy.

He paused for a heartbeat, his eyes searching mine. "Do we need condoms?" he asked, his voice thick.

"We don’t,”  I told him, my breath hitching as I arched toward him.

He didn't hesitate again. He pushed his giant dick in me hard and fast. I screamed in pleasure, my fingers digging into his shoulders as the world outside the room—the blizzard, the betrayal, and the ghosts—finally went silent.

The burning bridge

The three-hour trek to the pass was a slow-motion descent into a white purgatory. The blizzard wasn't just a weather event; it was a physical wall, pulsing with a heartbeat of gale-force winds that threatened to pitch the ATVs into the unseen ravines flanking the trail. Every few feet felt like a battle for territory against an invisible giant trying to shove us off the mountain.

Visibility was a fleeting luxury. Every twenty minutes, the world dissolved into absolute zero—a white-out so suffocatingly dense that I couldn't even see the taillights of Val’s machine ten feet ahead. When that happened, Sancho would kill his engine, and I would do the same. The silence that followed was never truly quiet; we’d huddle in the lee of a rock face or beneath a heavy outcropping of ice, the roar of the engines replaced by the rhythmic, mournful screaming of the atmosphere.

During one of these forced breaks, as we crouched behind a granite shelf, I checked the straps on his large ATV. My hands were shaking, and it wasn't just the cold—it was the adrenaline of the looming finality that truly shook me.

"Sancho," I shouted over the wind, "tell me exactly how this goes down once we hit the ridge. I need the mechanics of it."

He wiped a glaze of frost from his goggles, his eyes steady and dark. "There’s an old logging bridge about a mile ahead. It’s narrow, made of cedar and pine that’s been desiccating under the ice for half a century. Under this much snow, it’s invisible, but it’s there."

I just looked at him.

He leaned closer so I could hear him over the gale. "We’re going to clear the deck enough to get you across and her ATV in the middle. I’ve got four liters of high-proof grain alcohol in the side pods of her machine here. Before you head over the bridge, I’ll pass some to you so you can pour as you go. We’ll soak the timber, position the ATV and dummy, and split."

I looked at the lifelike figure strapped to his back rack. In the dim light, its frozen, synthetic stare was hauntingly accurate. "And then?"

"We split," he said firmly. "On my signal, we light our respective ends of the bridge."

I nodded, the image of the fire forming in my mind. "The alcohol will take to the dry wood instantly."

"Exactly," Sancho said. "By the time the fuel tank on Val’s ATV catches and blows, the middle of the bridge will already have collapsed into the gorge. When they find the wreckage, they’ll see a charred frame, a collapsed crossing, and remains that the fire and the fall made unrecognizable. In this weather, no one is going to abseil down a three-hundred-foot drop to check dental records. You'll be a ghost, Deppgrl."

"A ghost," I whispered, the word lost to the wind.

The wind died down just enough for the world to turn a bruised grey instead of blinding white. Sancho stood up, kicking the crusty snow off his boots. "Let's move," he commanded. "The longer we wait, the more likely Val's 'senses' catch the scent of a lie."

We remounted. The final mile was a grueling crawl. The incline steepened, and the air grew thin and biting, making every breath a chore. Finally, the terrain flattened into a narrow neck of land. Ahead, the bridge appeared—a skeletal structure of dark wood peeking through the drifts like the ribs of a buried giant.

It was terrifying to cross. As I steered the heavy ATV onto the planks, the timber groaned in protest. It was incredibly uncomfortable to go over it with such a massive machine; every creak sounded like the snap of a bone before a terminal fall into the abyss. I held my breath, the wheels vibrating against the uneven timber until, thankfully, the tires found solid ground on the far side.

Once on the other side, I went to work as he was already working. The physical labor was a welcome distraction from the weight of what I was about to do. We used collapsible shovels to clear a path across the bridge, the wood screaming beneath our weight. Sancho moved with a grim, practiced efficiency, dousing the supports and the railing with the high-proof alcohol – the areas I missed as I was pouring the alcohol while heading over. The sharp, medicinal scent cut through the frozen air, a pungent, chemical promise of the coming blaze.

Sancho positioned Val's ATV in the center of the span, the dummy slumped over the handlebars in a terrifyingly natural posture of exhaustion. He checked the fuel lines one last time, ensuring the explosion would be inevitable.

He looked across the span at me. I had already moved to the far side, his heavy ATV idling behind me, its exhaust a faint plume in the cold. I was ready for my escape.

"This is it," he called out, his voice carrying over the ravine. "Once the fire starts, you don't look back. You drive until you hit the tree line of the fourth sector. Do you hear me, Puffin's savior?"

"I hear you, Puffin."

"On three," he shouted. I fumbled with the matchbook, my fingers numb and clumsy inside my gloves. "One. Two..."

Before he could even get to three, the weight of the moment took over. I struck the match against the strip—a small, defiant spark in the dark—and dropped it onto the alcohol-soaked wood. We both lit the bridge on our respective sides simultaneously, the blue flames racing across the timber toward the center.

The fire didn't just burn; it hissed, fueled by the grain alcohol and the decades of dry rot in the cedar and pine. The bridge burned hot and fast. In no time, the structure's integrity surrendered to the blaze. I watched for a split second as the supports gave way, and the center of the bridge vanished. I heard the ATV crash against the jagged rocks below, followed immediately by a deafening roar as the fuel tank blew up, sending a fireball blooming through the white-out.

I didn't wait to see the embers die. I hopped onto Sancho's heavy machine and throttled toward the fourth sector.

I took several detours, weaving through dense tree lines and frozen creek beds to mask my trail. Vic knew I was heading for my safe house, which meant I couldn't stay there long. It was only a stop for the essentials: food, clothing, and every drop of fuel I could carry. My body was screaming for rest, but I knew it would be a long time before I could afford to sleep.

During one of my pitstops on the outskirts of the sector, I pulled out my burner phone and reached out to Sera.

"Get eyes on Sancho," I told her as soon as she picked up. "I have his ATV, and he's on foot in a storm. He has hours and miles of rough ground before he hits his cabin."

"Where did you leave him?" she asked, her voice tight with professional concern.

"The old pass," I said. "The one that used to be hidden about an hour north north west of his cabin. It’s been burned down."

"I'll get there as soon as I can," Sera replied. "I'll bring him back to his cabin as fast as possible."

"Be careful," I warned her. "Val might be on the warpath. I left without saying a word, and she doesn't handle silence well."

Sera knew exactly what that meant; she knew that Val had seduced Vic using her inherited skills of her great-great-grandfather, but she didn't offer any platitudes. Sera just thanked me for the heads-up. We hung up, and I steered the ATV back into the storm, heading toward a life that no longer officially existed.

By the time I reached the fourth safe house, the structure felt cold, even from the outside. I pushed the door open, expecting the sterile, prepared silence of a sanctuary. Instead, I found chaos. The place had been partially ransacked. The kitchen cabinets swung on broken hinges, and the floor was littered with torn packaging. The food was all gone—every tin, every bag of grain.

I stood in the center of the room, my breath hitching in the freezing air. I did a quick sweep, desperation driving my movements. Some wood for the stove and fire place had been left behind, and a cache of fuel that I could use for the ATV was still tucked beneath a floorboard, overlooked or ignored. Most importantly, I found my medicine hidden in the hollowed-out leg of the heavy dining table.

I slumped against the wall, clutching the small vials to my chest. This was it. This was my last safe house, and I had nowhere else to go. I had used up every favor I had in Russia, burned every bridge – figuratively and literally, and played every card. I was deep in the heart of a country that wanted me gone, with a storm outside and no one left to help me get out.

Trust and wine

The condensation on the third bottle of Pinot Noir was starting to pool on the mahogany table, a dark ring marking the passage of hours we could never get back. Outside, the wind rattled the windowpanes of the cabin, but inside, the air was stifling, thick with the scent of fermented grapes and the things we weren't saying.

Val leaned back, her cheeks flushed a deep rose. She laughed at something Vic said—a sharp, melodic sound that used to make me feel safe. Now, it just felt like a distraction.

"Come on, Deppgrl," Val said, sliding the bottle toward me. Her eyes were soft, brimming with that old, practiced empathy. "You’ve been nursing that same half-inch of wine since the pasta was cleared. We’re safe here. Let your hair down."

I looked at the glass. The liquid was a dark, bruised purple. "I’m fine, Val. Just a bit of a headache."

It was a lie. My head was perfectly clear—frighteningly so. I needed to keep my wits about me. I needed to be the one who noticed if a word tripped up, if a story didn't quite align with the one told three hours ago.

Vic reached over and squeezed my hand. His palm was warm, a grounding wire in a room full of static. He looked at Val, his expression unreadable. "She’s had a long week, Val. We both have."

"I know you have," Val sighed, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. She reached across the table, her fingers brushing the edge of my sleeve. "And you know I’m here. Like always. Whatever you need to dump, whatever you’re afraid of... it stays at this table. You trust me, don't you?"

Once, that question would have been an insult. Of course I trusted her. We had a decade of secrets buried in the floorboards of our friendship. But as I looked at her—really looked at her—I realized that trust wasn't a permanent state of being. It was a currency, and I had spent my last dime weeks ago.

"I know you've always been there," I said, my voice steady despite the hammering in my chest. "It’s just... the world looks different lately. For me, the shadows are longer."

Val’s smile didn’t falter, but her eyes sharpened. "Different doesn't mean me, Deppgrl. I’m the constant. Remember?"

"I'm trying to," I replied.

I looked at Vic. He knew. He was the only one who saw the ledger in my mind, the way I was cross-referencing every movement Val made against the evidence we’d found. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to sink into the wine and the warmth and the sisterhood she was offering.

But as much as I knew that I should trust Val, I knew that I’d run out of the capacity to do it. The vault was empty. In this room, in this world, there was only Vic, and there was me, and there was the cold, hard silence of everything I was forced to keep hidden.

"Another glass, then?" Val asked, already reaching for the corkscrew.

"No," I said, finally setting my glass down with a definitive clack. "I think I've had enough for one night."

I pushed my chair back, the screech of wood against the floor sounding like a frantic warning. As I stood, I caught the look they exchanged—a shared flicker of genuine hurt that, for a split second, almost made me regret my coldness. But then I remembered why I was sober, and the regret vanished.

"I'm going to turn in," I muttered, not meeting their eyes.

I walked away from the glow of the dining room and into the dim, narrow hallway that led to the room where I usually slept. The floorboards groaned under my weight. Behind me, I heard the heavy thud of Vic’s chair as he started to excuse himself, his footsteps quickening as if to follow me.

"Vic, wait," Val’s voice rang out, sharp and authoritative.

I paused in the shadows of the hallway, out of sight but still within earshot. I heard the rustle of fabric—Val must have caught his arm.

"Let her go," Val said softly, though there was an edge to it that hadn't been there before. "She needs a little bit of space, Vic. She needs time to figure things out on her own right now. If you go in there, you're just going to crowd her."

There was a long silence. I waited for Vic to protest, to tell her that he was the only one I actually wanted near me, but the only sound was the wind outside and the distant clink of a wine glass being refilled.

Val was still managing the room. She was still controlling the narrative, even when I wasn't at the table to hear it. I retreated into my room and shut the door, the click of the lock feeling like the only honest thing left in the house.

I didn't turn on the lights. I kicked off my shoes and collapsed onto the bed, still in my clothes. My mind was a carousel of suspicions, but the exhaustion of the past week finally dragged me under. I fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep that felt more like a blackout than a rest.

Hours later, I was jolted awake.

The room was pitch black, but the silence had been shattered. At first, I thought it was the wind or the old house settling, but then I heard it again—a low, guttural moan that vibrated through the thin walls. My heart hammered against my ribs, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead.

It wasn't just the house.

From the guest room right across the hall, I heard the rhythmic creak of a bed frame and a sharp, breathless intake of air. It was Val’s voice—unmistakable, stripped of its polished veneer, sounding raw and urgent.

"God, Vic... right there," she gasped, her voice thick with a heat that made my stomach churn. "Don't stop... I’ve wanted this all night."

Then came Vic’s voice, a low, ragged rumble. "I know," he breathed, his voice strained and heavy. 

A wet, rhythmic sound followed, punctuated by Val’s sharp cries. "Do you think Deppgrl has any idea?" she whispered between frantic breaths, a cruel lilt to her voice even now. "Do you think she knows how much you want me?"

"Just shut up and hope she doesn't hear," Vic groaned, the bed hitting the wall with a dull, steady thud that echoed in my skull. "This is only happening once."

I laid there, paralyzed, the darkness of the room pressing down on me. The one person I thought was on my side, the one person I had let into my ledger of secrets, was just on the other side of that door with the woman I was trying to protect him from.

The trust hadn't just run out. It had been set on fire.

I waited until the sounds faded into the heavy, post fuck silence of the house. Adrenaline, cold and sharp, replaced the paralysis. I moved like a ghost. I found a large duffel bag in the back of the closet and began stuffing my clothes into it, even the ones I stored here. I didn't fold them; I just cleared the dresser drawers and the hangers, leaving nothing of myself behind. I slipped into the bathroom, swept my toiletries into a side pocket, and then dressed in my heaviest gear—layers of wool and Gore-Tex.

Moving silently, I let myself into the kitchen. The moonlight reflecting off the snow outside provided just enough light to see. I bypassed the luxury items and went straight for the pantry. I found a heavy canvas bag and filled it with the essentials: bags of rice, dried beans, canned meat, and pouches of dried fruit. It was a scavenger's haul, but it was survival.

I saw the key to the ATV—the one Val had generously offered for our stay—sitting on the counter. I pocketed it, my jaw tight.

I moved to the alarm panel by the back door. I punched in the code, felt the system go dormant, and stepped out into the biting roar of the blizzard. I paused only to re-set the alarm from the exterior keypad, sealing them inside their own betrayal.

The snow was a white wall, stinging my eyes and stealing my breath. By feel alone, I ran my hands over the chassis of the ATV, checking the wheel wells and the undercarriage for any trackers. Nothing. I didn't want to give her the chance to find me.

I didn't start the engine. Instead, I grabbed the handlebars and pulled the machine through the deepening drifts. I labored for nearly half a mile, the physical exertion keeping the tears from freezing on my face. Only when the house was a faint, dark speck in the white did I climb on.

I turned the key. The engine roared to life, a defiant sound against the storm. As I sped toward my nearby safe house, my mind finally began to process the "why."

I knew Vic. I knew he was flawed. I’d always known he would eventually stray, finding some woman who wasn't his wife and wasn't me. But I never expected it to be Val. I had trusted her with my life, and she knew that.

But Val was more than just a friend; she was the legacy of a bloodline that held ancient, seductive power. Her great-great-grandfather’s "skills" weren't just legend. She had used that allure—that pull that transcended simple attraction—to weave a spell around him. Vic wasn't innocent, though. Val was stunning, yes, but he wouldn't have just broken like this if he hadn't leaned into the magic. He had fallen under her spell willingly, trade-off for a night of something he thought I couldn't give him.

I reached the third safe house, the small cabin appearing out of the snow like a ghost. I tried to close my eyes, but sleep wouldn't come. Every time I drifted, I heard the creak of that guest room floor.

I gave up on rest. I moved through the house, gathering everything I could find. I grabbed a small, portable cooking stove, a stack of full fuel cans, and as much bottled water and extra fuel as I could carry. I went back to the ATV and refilled the tank, then meticulously packed the new supplies into the machine's compartments, balancing the weight for the rough miles ahead.

One last trip inside. I found my medications in the cabinet—the things I couldn't afford to be without. I shoved them deep into my bag, took one final look at the cold, empty room, and left.

I drove for hours. The wind was a constant scream against my helmet, and the cold seeped into my bones despite the gear. My vision began to blur at the edges, the white landscape turning into a dizzying smear.

I was halfway to my fourth safe house when I realized I couldn't make it the rest of the way without stopping. I veered off the main trail toward a small, secluded house belonging to an old acquaintance. I needed to get out of the wind before I froze to the seat.

I parked the ATV in a drift and stumbled to the porch. My hands were so numb I could barely ball them into a fist. I knocked on the door, a weak, desperate sound.

The door swung open almost immediately. Sancho stood there, silhouetted against the warm, golden light of the interior. He didn't ask questions. He didn't demand to know why I was out in a blizzard at this hour. He just saw the state I was in, his eyes widening slightly behind the familiar frames of his glasses, and pulled me inside.

I don’t know how long I was asleep.

The first thing I registered was the crackle of a fire. It was a sharp, rhythmic sound that cut through the haze of my mind. Then came the weight—the heavy, suffocating comfort of what felt like a hundred wool blankets piled on top of me. I tried to move, but my body felt sluggish, anchored to the cot I was lying on.

My skin felt sensitized, the air in the room warm and dry. As the fog cleared, I realized I was naked beneath the blankets. Sancho must have stripped the frozen, wet gear off me to keep hypothermia from setting in while I was out.

I blinked, the firelight dancing against the ceiling. I shifted slightly, and that’s when I saw him. He was sitting in a chair nearby, a book in his lap, the orange glow of the embers highlighting the lines of his face.

"Welcome back," Sancho said. His voice was quiet, respectful of the silence, but there was a flicker of relief in his eyes. He set the book aside and leaned forward. "You were out for a long time. I was starting to think I’d have to check your pulse again."

I tried to sit up, clutching the blankets to my chest. "Thank you, Sancho. Truly. For everything." My voice was raspy, but the warmth in the room was slowly mending the damage the cold had done.

He waved off the thanks with a slight shake of his head. "Don't mention it. But we have things to discuss. While you were out—for eighteen hours, by the way—Val called. On the sat phone."

I felt my heart skip. "What did she say?"

"She was looking for you," Sancho said, his expression hardening. "Said you’d left without a note. I told her I hadn't seen a soul. I purposely lied to her, Deppgrl. I even went out and hid her ATV under a tarp and some brush behind the shed. She doesn't need to know you're here or within a hundred miles of this place."

I thanked him again, the weight of the betrayal back at the house feeling even heavier now that I was safe.

"Eighteen hours," I repeated, rubbing my temples.

"Time enough for me to get to work," he said, standing up. He moved to the corner of the room where a shadow seemed deeper than the rest. He pulled back a sheet, revealing something that made my breath catch.

It was a dummy. But calling it a dummy didn't do it justice. It was a surreal, lifelike recreation of me—my height, the shape of my jaw, the way my hair fell. In the dim light of a blizzard, or through the lens of a scope, it would be indistinguishable from the real thing.

"I need your permission first," Sancho said, his voice turning professional, the tone of a man who dealt in disappearances. "The plan is this: I empty your supplies out of Val's ATV and load them onto mine. You take my machine and head for your fourth safe house. I follow you on Val’s ATV with this... version of you sitting behind me. Once we reach the ridge near the old pass, I’ll get off and send the ATV over the side. I’ll make sure it looks like a nasty, unavoidable accident."

I looked at him and unable to say anything to him. I felt gratitude for him

He looked me dead in the eye. "Your death would be faked. Val—and unfortunately, Vic—would think you were dead. So would everyone else who’s been sniffing around your trail."

The thought of Vic thinking I was dead sent a cold shiver through me that had nothing to do with the blizzard. I wanted to be on board with the safety of it, the absolute clean break, but the idea of Vic grieving for a lie felt like a different kind of betrayal.

As if reading my mind, Sancho leaned in closer. "Vic has to believe it, Deppgrl. For this to work, there can't be a single doubt in that house. I know more than I should. While she was on that phone, I could hear them - both of them. They told me everything. She doesn't regret a damn thing. He does, but that doesn't change what happened."

He paused, watching the conflict play out on my face. He didn't need me to speak. With one look, Sancho saw the shift in my eyes. He knew that for me to survive, I needed Vic to believe that I was gone forever.

"Do it," I whispered.

"I'll start working," Sancho nodded, his gaze sweeping over my pale face. "But I need you to eat and drink first. You burned a ton of calories fighting that wind and the snow to get here, and you burned more just shivering in your sleep. You’re going to burn even more heading to the next house. I won't have you fainting halfway there."

I nodded as I threw the blankets back and got up. I didn't care that I was naked in front of him; at this point, modesty felt like a luxury for people who weren't running for their lives. "Make Val's ATV burn," I told him, my voice cold. "I want it to look like a wreck and I want it to be final."

"I'll take care of it," he promised, his face unreadable.

As he headed out to the shed to begin the logistics, I pulled my bag close. I took out fresh, dry clothes—heavy wool socks, thermal layers, and thick pants—and dressed quickly. I looked at my old gear hanging by the fire, still damp and smelling of woodsmoke and snow. I wanted to throw them into the flames, to erase every trace of the night I’d just survived, but I knew Sancho needed them for the dummy. They were the essential props for my funeral.

I headed into the kitchen and ate with a desperate, animalistic hunger. I shoveled down canned stew, bread, and dried fruit, washing it all down with nearly a liter of water and two cups of bitter, black coffee. My body felt like a machine being refueled.

Before I left the kitchen, I pulled a roll of money from my hidden pocket and placed a few thousand rubles on the counter next to his coffee machine. It wasn't enough to pay for a life, but it was all the gratitude I could afford right now.

I grabbed two of Sancho's heaviest spare wool blankets from the linen chest and hauled my bag toward the door. The cold air hit me as soon as I cracked it, but I felt different now. Fed, rested, and officially dead. I stepped out into the white.

"Ready?" I asked him.

Sancho nodded. We worked in a focused silence, loading my belongings into his largest ATV. It was a beast of a machine, wider and faster than Val's, built for the kind of terrain that killed less cautious riders. Once the gear was secure, he showed me two secret compartments built into the frame. Both were packed with sealed containers of fuel.

"In case the house is compromised and you have to keep moving," he explained.

I reached out and hugged him, the wool of his coat scratching my cheek. "I owe you big time, Sancho. Once things settle... once I'm safe... I'll return the favor."

He pulled back, his expression grim. "Once your dummy dies out there, Deppgrl, you’re dead. You won’t be able to help anyone, and you certainly won’t be helping me. Don't talk about favors."

I started to argue, to tell him that death was just a technicality for people like us, but he stopped me with a heavy hand on my shoulder.

"Do you remember the tribe down south?" he asked suddenly. "The one that used to castrate their young boys for their choir? When the invasion came, and the territory was terrorized?"

I froze. The memory was a jagged piece of glass in my mind—a mission from a lifetime ago. A village reduced to ash and a child I’d found hiding in the hollow of a tree.

"I was the last castrati alive," Sancho said softly. "You stitched me up. You fed me. You dressed me up so I’d pass for something other than a target and you put me with a family that kept me hidden until I was old enough to save myself. I am the one that owes you their life."

I stared at him, my heart hammering against my ribs. The glasses, the beard, the years—they all fell away. "Puffin?" I whispered, using the name I’d given the boy who refused to stop chirping until he was safe. "Is it really you? Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't want your pity," he said simply. "I wanted to be the man who could save you in return."

We hugged again—this time, it wasn't just a goodbye. It was a recognition of a circle closing.

"Follow me," he said, climbing onto Val's ATV, the dummy of me secured behind him like a silent passenger. "We keep a steady pace until the pass. Then, we make you a ghost."

I nodded then followed my dear friend to the pass.