Chapter Text
Is it really so bad, not having a dad?
Her mother had asked her that question once, bone-weary after another late finish at work and wholly unbothered at finding eight-year-old Alina awake and agitated at 4am.
Yes, she had spat. They called you a slut. They said I was an accident.
The question pooling in her eyes was answered with a barely perceptible lift of her mother’s eyebrows. It hurt. Far more than the schoolyard taunts and the sidelong glances from her teachers.
Back in her bed, Alina cocooned herself in her comforter to wage a losing battle against the tears over a truth she hadn’t expected to find at the bottom of her mother’s empty stare. When slumber finally bore down on her eyelids, dawn had already begun to cast its pale shadow.
Then, in the closing fold of her consciousness, the shape of words, felt more than heard:
It’s not true. I wanted you. I love you, Alina.
Of the umbra, pressing against the deepest part of her mind, like a caress.
Him, she had decided.
It soothed that insatiable gnawing in her heart - her birthright, the only thing her father had left her.
Fifteen years supplied Alina with enough experience to come around to her mother’s way of thinking.
It really wasn't so bad, after all.
No-one to question your slutty fashion choices. No-one to hassle your boyfriends. No-one to do unspeakable things to you until you want to die - a confession overheard on a drunken night out that stayed with her still.
But in the darkness, she lapsed.
Sunk into it and let the prickle down her neck, the kiss of the evening breeze, be him. Bared her weakness and shame to something that wasn’t even there, yet gave her more than her mother's increasingly vacant stares.
Let herself believe his promises to protect her, to love her. Let herself whisper into the night:
I love you, dad.
It was usually enough. Unsound, maybe, but cheaper than therapy, at least.
But today, Alina wished - desperately - that he was here. The real him, hewn from flesh, blood, bone, to hold her left hand, as her right unclenched to let the dirt trickle down in a fine line onto her mother’s casket.
A white, long-stemmed rose traced a clean arc through the air, followed by another, and another.
The priest murmured something beside her. Alina felt herself nod, unseeing, taking the umbrella offered to her.
It stayed closed, clasped in her white-knuckled grip as icy rivulets of rain joined the tears streaming down her face. The heavens unleashed a deluge, scattering the meager crowd.
Sodden and numb, Alina watched the black earth rise up around the coffin, to claim the only person in this world who had loved her.
Alina stared in the mirror, satisfied when she barely recognized her face. She was wearing more makeup than usual for a night out, trying to erase all traces of yesterday's funeral with a NARS highlighter Nina had deliberately left in her bathroom, and expired drugstore concealer.
She deserved this. A fucking break from the last six months of watching her mother die while simultaneously free-falling into debt. Its attendant consequences she would deal with tomorrow.
Tonight she would let loose.
She gave a brief pause, checked the ETA of her ride, then hiked up her slinky black minidress and shimmied out of her thong. The scrap of black lace lay forlorn in the hallway as she strode out the front door into the cool autumn night.
Her Uber dropped her off at the center of the business district - the saturation point of the city’s banks, 5-star hotels and Starbucks. Work, fuck, refresh. The universal rhythm of the young professional.
The bar she decided on during the ride over was opulent: dark wooden paneling and Chesterfield sofas that recalled 20's speakeasies, but bereft of their riotous joy. It was spacious enough that Alina could unobtrusively observe - and be observed - from the long bar where she currently sat.
Halfway through her second, very tart margarita, her first contender slid onto the stool beside her.
“Nice dress.”
Alina took inventory: tanned, blonde, with a mouth full of gleaming white teeth. A bit too all-American for her taste but even through his dress shirt, it was clear he was jacked. The empty ring finger swayed it for her.
“Thank you.”
She never asked for their names but that never seemed to stop them. He was no exception. She gave him one of her go-to aliases, sure to be forgotten by the end of the night.
“So,” his eyes roamed greedily over her chest before scanning her face. “Where are you from?”
She chased down a sigh with the last of her margarita, and promptly ordered another.
Somewhere between his offhand remark about their "soy boy” bartender and his lament on the “gender Taliban”, Alina realized she was drunk. Drunk enough to miss Blondie’s damp hand tracking up her thigh, pawing the hem of her dress.
She stopped him, shaking her head. Remembered, belatedly, to smile.
He frowned, hand still gripping her.
“What’s wrong?”
Alina’s hesitation earned her a painful squeeze to her inner thigh. She yelped, realizing that he had understood - long before she did - that she would not be fucking him tonight.
He crushed both her wrists together then with his left hand.
“You fucking tease,” he spat. “Fucking slut not even wearing any panties. You think you can close your legs after I’ve paid the entire night. Cunt.”
She choked on her own panic, hot and overwhelming in the face of her own assault; his thick fingers prying apart the soft flesh of her thighs.
But her gasping cries at his bruising grip on her wrists were swallowed up by the raucous laughter of a nearby group of finance bros.
“Is there a problem here?” The voice behind her was a blade of ice, cutting off Blondie’s violation.
“There will be if you don’t fuck off,” he snarled.
“I will as soon as you let the girl go.”
Blondie stood, a full head shorter than her rescuer. He glared up at him, meaty hands balled into fists, designer muscles raring to go.
But the other man only leaned in - close - to murmur into his ear. Something that made Blondie jerk backwards, apprehension replacing his aggression. A final fearful glance at the stranger sent him scrambling for the exit.
Alina dropped down from the stool, legs shaky. Felt herself being steadied by a thick forearm. Strong. Her reptilian brain hummed in approval.
“Are you okay?”
Even in the dim of the bar, Alina knew she was staring into the darkest pair of eyes she had ever seen. Black eyes, she noted absently. Good-looking.
He leaned in to ask her again, allowing Alina a whiff of a scent that almost brought her to her knees.
“Yeah,” she exhaled, dizzied. “Yeah. I just - need air. Too hot in here.”
He guided her through the crowd, his arm never straying from her upper back. A gentleman.
Outside, she gulped in the frigid air like water, wiping the perspiration from her brow with the back of her hand.
“Do you want me to get you a cab?”
She hadn’t budgeted for one to take her home. Had been confident that she wouldn’t end the night alone.
She shook her head, the motion pitching the ground violently from side to side.
“Oh, fuck,” she whimpered, arms shooting out for balance. They found the hard planes of his chest, and stayed there.
“Hey,” the stranger’s voice pierced through the thickening haze around her.
“Hey, stay with me. Is there someone I can call? Your parents maybe?”
“No, they’re dead.”
It struck her as funny, all of a sudden, that she should be an orphan at her age.
“What about a friend?” More urgent now. “Or your school?”
At this, she actually giggled. “I’m twenty-three.”
Her last words before blackness blanketed her.
It was the aroma that told her she had spent the night in a stranger’s bed. Freshly-brewed coffee and fried bacon. Breakfast was an anomalous concept in her household.
She sat up, brain throbbing as it cobbled together a recollection of last night.
“You’re awake.”
Her head snapped to the figure leaning against the door jamb.
Oh, God. She had been wrong - egregiously wrong. He wasn’t good-looking.
He was devastating.
Handsome, at first glance, in the humdrum way - symmetrical features, defined jaw, straight nose - but his five o’clock shadow lacked the precision of someone who really cared, his mouth was too stern to be inviting - save for the slight plumpness of his upper lip, an invitation in itself. Her blood warmed at the silver peppering his temples - early forties at least - a crucial detail she had missed last night.
But it was the scar that made her drop all pretence at subtlety. Time had faded it, but not the visceral anger that had made it; a cut that marred him from hairline to cheekbone, miraculously sparing his left eye.
She gawked at him, until he straightened, and gained the three extra inches that moved the needle from attractive to intimidating. Her eyes dropped to her pale gray coverlet - velvet, unmistakably costly. She prayed she hadn’t smeared makeup on it.
“How are you feeling?”
The mattress dipped as he took a seat beside her at the edge of the bed. A bottle of Evian, cap twisted open, proffered gently, made her look up.
“Fine.” She took the water with a timid thank you. “How - where am I?”
But a cursory scan of her surroundings answered her question. Even in the muted morning light, she knew she was in his bedroom - master, not guest.
It was as lived-in as a hotel suite, a pristine canvas of beige and gray interrupted only by some clothes draped neatly over a chair, a pile of books on the nightstand, and a small black suitcase by the door. Permeating it all was his scent - a freshly struck match among snow-topped evergreens.
Her mouth watered.
“You’re at my place,” he ran a hand through his dark hair. “You’ve been out for almost 12 hours.”
Alina blinked. She had been in this stranger's bed, unconscious, for 12 hours - with no panties and no clue who he was.
He smiled wryly. “Nothing happened, don’t worry.”
From the pocket of his sweatpants, he pulled out her dead phone and handed it to her. “But I did take the liberty of checking your phone for your medical ID.”
She eyed him warily. “That’s the only liberty you took?”
His voice dripped with condescension. “This from the girl who goes to bars commando?”
So much blood rushed to her face, Alina was convinced she had burst a vessel.
“Ok. Well, um, I should go.” She discreetly tugged the hem of her dress down before pushing the coverlet away. “Thanks, I guess, for - everything.”
She avoided looking at his face, not wishing to see the mockery - or worse, the disdain - she knew she would find there.
His large hand on her thigh, still covered by the blanket, stopped her. An inadvertent brush of his thumb found bare skin and Alina’s entire existence contracted to the spot under its calloused pad.
“Have something to eat first.” An entreaty; in lieu of an apology, he added: “please.”
She nodded. His hand lingered a beat longer than necessary then, abruptly, he stood and led her out of his bedroom. Alina emerged in the airy volumes of a glass-walled penthouse. She was eye-to-eye with the clouds, the city a diminutive mass of life below.
“How do you take your coffee?” his voice called from the kitchen, an oasis of gleaming slate marble amid the bland expanse of soft taupe and cream.
“Just black is fine, thanks.” She took a seat at the breakfast bar. “Your place is incredible.”
“Company housing,” he said, cutting off her next question by setting down a steaming mug of coffee and a spinach omelet festooned with rashers of crispy bacon.
She looked at the plate in front of her, trying to recall the last time anyone had cooked for her.
“I’m Alina, by the way,” she blurted out.
“I know,” came his reply from behind the refrigerator door. Even without seeing his face she knew he was amused.
Resolve broken, she finally said: “what’s your name?”
He closed the door, bottle of orange juice in his hand, and looked at her for a second before answering.
“Aleksander.” He poured himself a glass. “I was wondering when you’d ask.”
She took a bite of egg, suppressing a moan at the salty, buttery delectableness of it. “I don’t usually ask for names. Just a rule I have.”
A smirk tugged at his lips. “Well, I’m honoured you’re breaking it for me.”
“Wait,” she narrowed her eyes. “Is Aleksander your real name?”
“Is Alina your real name?” His face split into a grin.
She felt the warmth of it everywhere in her body. “Yes. And since we’re being real here, I didn’t appreciate you slut-shaming me earlier.”
“I wasn’t slut-shaming you,” he said, a tad defensive. “I was trying to make you realize how much danger you put yourself in for the sake of a quick fuck.”
Fuck.
Her ears perked up at the slightest drag of an accent on the word. It sounded so deliciously dirty from his mouth. She let it echo in her ears - groaned as she sucked him; panted as she rode him; roared as he came inside her. Wetting her lips, her eyes darted from his face to her fidgeting digits.
“Aleksander,” she said, savouring his name in her mouth. “Why did you intervene? I mean, you could have just - let it play out.”
He cocked his head to the side, studying her.
“Let it play out? You mean, let him fuck you while you were barely conscious? Is that what you wanted, Alina?”
The ice in his tone made her straighten in her seat.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I thought you were in trouble,” then, to himself, “I didn’t realize you were trouble.”
He made to stand up when she said, sharply, “well, I didn’t ask for a white savior to swoop in and cockblock me. A quick fuck was the plan.”
He leaned forward, palms flat on the counter, a mean smile that dialled up the heat between her thighs.
“I think your plan can still be salvaged.”
Yesyesyes.
“Now?” she breathed.
He raised his eyebrows, mock-offended.
“Right after being sexually assaulted, probably drugged? Not this white savior, solnyshka.”
The urge to suppress a smile warred with the sting of rejection.
“Solnyshka? Bit early in the relationship for pet names, isn’t it?”
She preened at his look of surprise.
“You speak Russian?”
“Just a few words. My mother taught me a bit but she didn’t really like to speak it.”
Alina fell silent then. She picked at her eggs.
“Look, I’m sorry about - what I said before. I know you getting involved was the best thing that could have happened to me last night. You probably saved my life - at the very least my dignity.”
“You don’t need to apologize. It’s not the first time I’ve been accused of cockblocking,” he smirked. “It’s actually one of my better qualities.”
Alina chuckled, trying to ignore her mental inventory of him: handsome, decent, cooks, funny.
“What did you say to that douche last night to make him leave so quickly?”
Aleksander hummed, eyes roaming somewhere above her head. “I told him I knew his boss, and that I could get him fired if he didn’t immediately fuck off.”
“Do you know his boss?”
“Probably. That bar was right next to the Grisha building. I figured he worked there.”
Alina froze. “You work for Grisha Corp?”
“Just a lowly contractor.” His voice was clipped, cool. Before she could press him for more, he asked: “And you? If I had to guess, I’d say Ravka U arts major.”
She took the bait. Eagerly. She liked the way he held her gaze as she talked. Liked his surprise when she told him she studied cartography. Liked the gleam of interest in his eyes when she deep dived into her masters research on the East African Rift System. Liked the space he gave her to say her piece before interjecting with his own shrewd observations.
It was only when she was telling him about her plan to apply for a research fellowship there that she snapped back to herself. Not even Nina and Inej knew. But then, it was always easier to open up to a complete stranger.
One she would probably never see again.
The thought deflated the rest of her conversation. She looked up from her empty plate to catch him staring.
“What?”
“You know, there are armed groups that target foreigners in that region."
She shrugged, flashing him her best devil-may-care grin. “Well, who wants to live forever, right?”
He didn’t return it. Instead he got up, took their empty dishes to the dishwasher then deftly wiped the counter until it was spotless. And he cleans. Alina shook her head. Definitely too good to be true. Not fucking him is a bullet dodged.
As far as rejections went, this one left her feeling worse than usual. His kindness had affected her more than she cared to admit. Rescuing her, taking her in, feeding her - like a stray animal. She shook her head at herself. It was time to go back into the wild, fend for herself.
She hopped off the stool, retrieved her phone from where it had been charging next to the fridge - signalling the end of their non one-night stand. She opened Lyft and Uber to compare how much a trip home would set her back.
“I'll get you something to wear. Can’t send you back out looking like that.”
She caught it on the polished surface of the stainless steel fridge: the slip that spanned a blink; the want that flashed so bright in his eyes that it stole her breath.
Made her bold.
She trailed behind him as he entered the bedroom. Watched him disappear into his walk-in before letting her dress pool in a silken puddle at her feet.
“I found -”
Aleksander’s faded navy Ravka U sweatshirt joined her dress on the floor. His lips parted as he took in her naked body. The black of his eyes cavernous, watching as Alina sauntered slowly towards him.
“Well, as long as we’re playing to stereotypes.”
She dropped to her knees, plush carpet cushioning her as she reached for the waistband of his sweatpants, lightly grazing his rapidly-swelling cock. Aleksander’s hand wrapped around her wrist to stop her, gentle but firm.
“Get on the bed, Alina,” he growled. He walked her backwards towards the mattress, each step peeling away his self-restraint.
The thick forearms that had guided her to safety now shoved her onto the bed. The voice that had offered to help her - so concerned - now commanded her: “spread your legs.”
Alina widened her knees, watching him stare and stare at her glistening cunt. His face emptied of expression until all that was left was a dark, gaping hunger.
“That shit last night was right about one thing - you are a fucking tease.”
She whimpered, relieved as his warm weight settled on top of her. It felt right; like the natural order of things. She was designed - destined - to surrender to the big, animal strength of him. Beneath his bulk, Alina learned anew how small, how weak she really was. How inevitable that, willing or not, his will would be done; her body would submit.
Aleksander’s hand encircled her entire neck, a spike of panic shot up her spine. But he only cupped her nape, holding her still to kiss her. A deep, bruising kiss that demanded everything. Every swipe of his tongue sated and stoked the heat consuming them both.
She moaned into his mouth as his other hand found her breast, gently fondling, then squeezing, featherlight flicks of his thumbnail on her nipple. His knees parted her thighs further, the hardness tenting his sweatpants probing, teasing her folds.
“Please,” she whimpered, desperate for him to fill her. She tried to push herself onto his cock, slot him inside her. It only earned her a smirk. He began to stroke himself, slowly, insolently, enjoying her desperation.
“Do you know how it felt, to watch you prance around in that tiny dress all night like a cock-hungry little slut?” The edge of torment in his voice, an admission in itself.
“Show me. Please, Aleksander. Please.” She spread her legs even wider, coaxing him.
“Fuck,” he breathed, hand reaching into his sweatpants at last.
Her mouth went dry as he unveiled inch after inch of his cock. The monstrous stretch of flesh, long and fat, promising pain and ecstasy. He guided the swollen purple head to her wet, pulsating cunt. His low moan of pleasure, as he pressed into her, graved itself into her memory.
“Wait,” her palms found his chest. “You didn’t-”
She gave a thin cry; so full that she felt the bulk of him bruise her gut, end as a hitch in her throat.
“Fuck.” His groan in her ear fulfilling a minutes-old fantasy that made her clench around him.
He reared back, then stabbed his cock back in, more force this time, wrenching another cry from her - then another, another, another - until her weeping cunt eased the way for him.
“Aleksander.” His name, a litany panted in broken gasps to the rapid tempo of his pistoning hips. Alina’s tight, tender flesh was being pounded into a sopping, squelching mess; the sound setting off a string of expletives that skittered, electric, along the skin of her neck.
“Fuck. Your cunt feels so fucking good. This perfect, fucking pussy - this is - mine -”
Her heels dug into his backside, urging him to speed up. His thrusts turned short and brutal; breath quickening as his cock aimed to hurt. Pleasure chased pain chased pleasure; her moans grew desperate, mouthing but unable to voice the one word that would stop it all.
“Please,” she whimpered instead. “Please slow down. Please, it hurts. I don’t - I can’t -”
But her pleas only drove him into her harder, faster, while he heaped her with praise: “you can, solnyshka. You take me so fucking well. Just - just a little more. Fuck.”
Alina wailed, entire body constricting like she’d touched a live wire. Boundless ecstasy contracted into a single, unbearable point until it flooded through her, the walls of her cunt rippling around him.
She went limp, let him turn her on all fours until she was crouched before him, forehead on the mattress as he lifted her hips to him. There was a pause, as Aleksander rubbed himself against her folds, smearing his length with her juices. He murmured something she couldn’t hear. Then he was pummelling into her, his cock a battering ram, masterful and merciless.
Long, thick fingers assisted, found their way onto her clit, rubbing and stroking in time with his thrusts. The salt of her tears mixed with the salt of their sweat and the tang of their spit. He lowered himself onto her, and she closed her eyes at the press of his strong, hard body - a body maiming her core as she careened towards the brink once more, guided by his precise, relentless digits.
She wanted to sink into the firm planes of his body until they were melded together in the liquid heat of this violent, ravaging desire.
“I’m going to come. I’m going to come inside you, Alina -”
The sound of his release reverberated in her ears. Made her squeeze around him, earning her a choked gasp and a final thrust into her tender flesh.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he murmured, dropping a soft, chaste peck behind her earlobe, like he hadn’t just pounded her bareback into oblivion seconds ago.
Aleksander unfolded her limbs, welcoming the slump of her body against him. He wrapped her in his arms, his warmth, his scent. Only stroked her hair when her tears dampened his chest.