Queen of the Damned

VII

There were at least six inches of snow on the ground.

The wind and favorable weather conditions enabled Ashton and me to parachute to a forest just ten miles outside of St. Petersburg. Both of our years of intense military training had aided us greatly in our jump, our expertise becoming very prevalent around mile forty in the air. Most recreational jumpers went around fourteen thousand feet and waited longer to pull their parachute. Instead, we were at thirty thousand and pulled the parachute up high to prolong distance over descent time.

Now, I was officially on Russian soil with two guns, my fake identification papers, seven thousand rubles and an extremely encrypted hard drive I'd give my life for.

"Help me take his clothes off," I ordered Ashton when he was done removing his pack, letting the black bag fall to the snow next to mine.

"Necrophilia; I knew I married the right woman." Even in the freezing snow, Ashton's dark humor came through. He didn't hesitate to undo Thomas' black belt and start to pull his pants and shoes off, while I took the shirt and jacket.

Thomas Martins was a hedge-funder on a business trip who had screwed the wrong Russian gang and now he had to pay the price. What that price was, I didn't know, but it was most likely a slow and painful death. Our job was just to deliver him to the St. Petersburg Bravata and then start our new undercover lives in Moscow.

When I stood up from the now completely naked body, I handed Ashton the suit jacket for some warmth but he shook his head, refusing to take it. "You're in a skirt. Put it on," his voice was commanding. I could have fought him but I was selfish so I did as I was told and slipped the warm fabric over my shivering body despite the fact that he was the one that ordered me to do it. I looked like a fool in combat boots, a flight attendants uniform, and a grey suit jacket that didn't match my navy scheme, but I didn't have it in me to care.

"So what do you say? Can I do the honors?" I asked, referencing his words in the plane.

"Sure thing, Sweetheart. I love it when you take charge of foreplay." Ashton's sexual nature never seemed to fail him, a quick retort always on the tip of his tongue. What was this 'fun reward' and 'foreplay' we had been eluding to all day?

Shooting Thomas.

I swiftly pulled the freezing cold weapon from my waistband and shot the medium-sized man in the thigh. His light brown eyes shot open as his lips parted automatically and a shrill noise left his throat. Ashton kneeled down in the snow and pressed his large hand to the pale man's throat, choking him with his powerful grip. "Shut up or she'll shoot you again," he spat in French, his faint accent becoming much more pronounced and aggressive.

Thomas's brown eyes were still as wide as saucers when he nodded speedily and Ashton let go of his neck, revealing how badly his body was trembling, not that that was a surprise. It was bloody cold out here. "We're going to take you to Ivan Sokolov and you're going to cooperate, understand?" I asked the fearful thirty-five-year-old, also speaking in his native language.

"No! You can't! He'll kill me!" He gasped while trying to scramble away from us in the snow weakly with his elbows. Ashton put his heavy combat boot-clad foot on Thomas' chest and pushed him down firmly. I removed my leather glove and crouched down to Thomas' wound. "I have children! Please!"

"Maybe if their daddy wasn't a sleazeball they'd see him again," I hissed before sticking my pointer finger into his bullet wound with a squelch, blood oozing onto the pristine snow at an even faster rate as the man screamed out in pain, his muscles tensing even further.

"Here's how this is going to work," I spoke over his wails. "You're going to be cooperative and walk ten measly miles to St. Petersburg silently or we'll leave you here, starving and naked in sub-zero temperatures, bleeding out and ready to become eaten alive by wolves tonight, which I guarantee will be much worse than the bullet to the head Sokolov will give you."