Just like this.

Pulling her legs even farther apart, I thrust faster and faster, until a pressure built in my thighs. The female’s breathing labored, her skin scalding to the touch. Unable to resist, I turned my head toward hers until my cheek lay across her forehead. Her skin was damp. I pressed my lips to her face. Her head pulled back, and wide shocked brown eyes slammed into mine. I was locked in. Couldn’t look away as my dick pushed against her harder.

Then the female’s eyes fluttered. She choked in a breath as her body stilled. A deep red flush ambushed her cheeks and chest. A loud cry ripped from her throat. As I felt the entrance of her pussy clenching, searching for my dick, a rush of heat took me captive until I roared out in release. Light burst behind my eyes as I came harder than I’d ever come under Mistress’s commands. I fought for breath as, darting my gaze down between the little Georgian’s legs, I saw my release coating her inner thighs. I stared and stared at the sight. A wave of possession rippled through my body.

I stayed still, unsure if I could ever move again, when I felt a hand stroke along the long scar on my right cheek. I threw back my head. Even with this sharp movement the female’s hand never moved. I swallowed and watched as her finger began to move again, down my face, following the path of the scar to its end point, on my chest.

I loosened the grip on her thighs, grunting when she sat on my softening dick. My heart beat faster than ever as she reached down to cover my hand with her own. My eyebrows pulled down in confusion when, taking her small hand, she lifted my hand and brought it to the center of her chest. Her eyes never left mine as she took control of my index finger and ran it over her skin until it stopped on her shoulder.

The female blinked, and blinked again, until she pressed the pad of my finger farther down her skin and silently began to move my finger in circles. My breathing paused when I knew I was feeling the rough skin of the scar on her shoulder. I exhaled deeply and she moved my finger across to her other shoulder, repeating the action.

She watched me like she wanted to speak, but her mouth stayed closed, her lips unmoving. Finally, she journeyed our joined hands to the third scar I knew she had on her hip.

This time, as my finger ran over the skin, she whispered, “We both have scars.”

My skin pricked at the understanding in her voice. She’d spoken to me. She hadn’t talked at me or through me or commanded me. She’d talked to me. Like I was someone worth talking to.

Like I was human. Not a killer beast.

She waited for my answer, her skin gradually returning to its olive tone from the flushed red. Unsure what to say, I nodded my head.

A flicker of a smile hooked on her upper lip, and the coil that was wound tight in my chest began to loosen.

Ducking her eyes, she peered up at me through long black lashes to say, “We are both damaged.” My nostrils flared and my pulse raced when she added, “I think we are not so dissimilar, you and I.”

My lips parted as she uttered those words and a rush of air escaped my mouth. Her finger moved again, tracing back up the scar, when it suddenly took a detour, to move across my identity tattoo.

Her black eyebrows pulled together as she traced every number. When she reached the end of number “4,” she looked up at me, sadness in her expression. Then she asked, “What is your name?” Only this time, she hadn’t spoken in Georgian. Instead she had spoken in perfect Russian.

Questions circled my head as she spoke to me in my native Russian. Mistress and the Gvardii never spoke to me anymore in my mother tongue. Without my sister, I had no other to speak to in my language.

Kotyonok was Georgian, yet she spoke to me in my language and as if she saw me as a human.

I had no idea what to do next. Her red lips rolled together and I saw the pulse beating fast in her neck. She was nervous. As I remained silent and unmoving, she asked, still in Russian, “Where you are from, do they call you by this number?”

I could hear the sound of my teeth grinding together echoing in my ears, but I found myself nodding my head. The female’s eyes filled with sadness, and she whispered, “One, nine, four.”

As my number was read aloud in Russian, something inside of me snapped. Lurching forward, I gripped at the female’s arms and flipped her until her back hit the mattress and my body hovered over hers. Shifting my grip until I held her wrists, I pulled her arms above her head and straddled her waist.

My face lowered until it was merely an inch above hers. “Pozhaluysta,” she whispered, begging “please” in Russian.

My heart missed a beat at the fear in my throat, and I hissed, “Don’t ever call me by that number again, Georgian bitch.”

Her eyes widened, then filled with water, and she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I—” I increased the grip I had on her wrists, but she asked, “What is your name? Please, tell me your name?”

Inching closer, until my forehead pressed against hers, I replied, “What is yours, little kotyonok? And don’t lie. I’m getting tired of your lies.”

Swallowing, she opened her mouth, then with sagging shoulders whispered, “Zoya. My name is Zoya.”

The pads of my thumbs pressed on the pulse of her wrist to detect the lie. But her pulse never changed—she was telling me the truth. Loosening my hands around her wrists, I pulled back and questioned, “You tell the truth?”

Face paling, she whispered, “Yes.”

“Why?” I snapped. My muscles bunched at why this little kotyonok, this little warrior who had resisted that question for days, gave it up so freely.

Inhaling, she slipped her hand through my loose grip and laid the shaking hand on my right cheek. Her thumb gently ran over the bump of my scars. She said, “When you took me, when you brought me to this hell, I believed you to be a monster.” Her eyes lowered, but she blinked away her fear and stared once again at her thumb on my scars. “When you hurt me, when you asked me questions, I did not want to give you the victory of breaking me. But now…,” she trailed off.

“But now what?” I pushed, my voice rough and low.

Skin flushing once more, the female dropped her thumb to run along my lips and added, “But now I see you are just like me.” She ran her fingers under my eyes, only to drop them and run them over the collar around my neck, and said, “You are in pain. Your life has not been your own, is still not your own.” She sighed sadly. “Just like mine.”

Ice-cold chills ran through my body as I stared at this little soldier beneath me, slight but with a heart of steel. Lifting her head, she pressed her forehead to mine and said, “We are different. Me weak and you strong. Me a Georgian and you Russian, but our broken hearts are tired and old. Our spirits are low, though not broken. But our souls, though thoroughly tested and hardened through pain, are resilient.” Her lips twitched, and she added, “They are the same.”

Her head fell back to the mattress. “That is why I give you my truth. It is why I give you my real name.”

The female wrapped herself around my heart like a warm blanket. It beat with the hope, with the surreal feeling, that she knew what it felt like to be me. She knew loss and grief.

She too harbored a scarred soul.

My hand lifted, and I lowered myself farther against her body. I groaned as my naked flesh met hers. I ran the back of my hand down her cheek and murmured, “Zoya.”

Zoya’s cheek flushed and she smiled. Catching my hand in hers, she asked, “Can I know your name? Do you … do you know your name?”

I frowned. I hadn’t been asked my name since I was twelve. But I remembered it. I remembered everything; my mind never forgot even when the drugs made everything hazy. I had seen many men brought in and out of Mistress’s prisons throughout the years. But where they had fallen prey to the drug Mistress forced us to take, I had fought it with every ounce of my being. I had pretended. I’d played my part, but I kept hold of my memories. My name was locked in my heart.

“Valentin,” I found myself admitting in a quiet, raspy voice. “I am Valentin.” I rolled my tongue in my mouth, the name so unfamiliar on my lips.

“Valentin,” Zoya whispered, her voice like a balm to my inner rage, and whether I wanted to or not, I failed to control myself.