MadetoBeBroken by Lyra Byrnes

fuck me, Alexi?”
    He let out a short, barking laugh. “Is that your question?”
    She had forgotten about the questions.
    “No.”
    “Good, better not to waste.” He pulled the robe over her
shoulders, although the sun had fully risen and was soaking the trees, grass
and the water of the lake with its warmth. “Did you see the birds take flight?”
    “Yes.”
    “Nature has instinct, just like you and me. Is true that
what happened last night was ‘normal physical reaction’, but also true that
your body responds to me, little red bird. In my hands, you take flight.” He
shrugged. “Nature.”
    It was so weirdly close to what she had thought earlier—that
their sexual union was as much a part of the landscape as the trees and
grass—she briefly wondered whether he had some sort of power to see into her
mind. Silly, she thought, shaking the idea away. She was still piecing herself
back together after the shattering power of her orgasm. One thing certainly was
true—her body responded to his.
    And she would use this to her advantage.
    “I want something to eat,” he said. “So ask.”
    Coco took a deep breath of the cleansing air. “How did you
get your scar?”
    Gain trust.

Chapter Nine
     
    “Eggs, bread, fruit, even tomatoes—this place is fully
stocked.” Coco opened and shut one cupboard door after another. “Someone
readied the safe house, and recently.”
    “Your operation, no doubt.” Alexi put a pile of white
clothes on the wooden kitchen table. “These were in chest of drawers.”
    She held up a sleeveless T-shirt and grimaced. “You can have
any color you like, so long as it’s white,” she quipped. “Tags on everything.
Even the panties are new—Marks and Spencer. I wonder who made the trip up from
London.”
    “Go change. I will make us something to eat.”
    “A ruthless killer and he cooks too.”
    Alexi ignored this. “We learn long time ago to do without—no
gas, no power, no running water in my village. But we have fields with rabbits
and birds, and potatoes are hard to die, even after grenades. With fire, I can
cook a nice rat on the hood from Russian military vehicle.”
    She shuddered. “Rat?”
    “Innocent girl. Yes, rat and more. Is nature as well, the
need to eat, to get drunk, to fuck. Only two kinds of medical care were left
after the Russians bombed our hospital—maternity and grave injury.”
    “The potatoes made the vodka, I guess.”
    “No, no. Is more important for food. For alcohol, they drink
antifreeze.”
    She emerged from the bathroom in a tiny T-shirt and panties,
her eyes wide. “Like, from a car radiator?”
    “We took raiding parties into nearby villages to find more
soldiers. Every month, two months, to replace the bodies. I told my men if they
brought in a man with blue lips, I would kill them both.” There was something
feral about the grin he wore. “Now you see why I do not drink much.”
    “Don’t think I’m gonna forget for a second what I’m here
for, despite our bargain.”
    “Sure,” he said, turning his back to her. “Is only
business.”
    The smell of eggs and sausage filled the room as he busied
himself at the stove. Coco reheated the tea, marveling at the bizarre
situation. It seemed so cozy and domestic—mind-blowing sex in a lush valley,
hot tea and pleasant conversation about drinking poison and eating rats while
your average scarred rebel warlord whips up some lunch. Would he make a run for
it today, force her to fly back to Washington with her tail between her legs
and beg for backup? Or worse, would he kill her in her sleep? He had tried to kill
her already. And then there was the closet full of torture implements,
restraints, clamps and whips. She would not have to use them if he kept his
part of the bargain. If…
    She could see the fresh bandage through the thin white
cotton of his trousers. The wound no longer seeped and Alexi was not slowed by
his injury. He was still strong and still remorseless. It would not