by Vivian Wood
She’s not smart, but she’s a genuinely nice, good-hearted person. Especially after the week we’ve had, I think maybe that’s better. Being smart hasn’t gotten me much of anywhere.
The only upside is I’m alone in my rooms again, which I’d been sharing with Yelena, two of the women who do the laundry, and the chef. Not that I spend much time there; I spend half the day in briefings and meetings as the unofficial American presence in the palace, and the other half taking care of odds and ends that someone has to do.
I see Kostya constantly. He’s in nearly every meeting, every briefing, every meal. We pass each other in the halls, exchange looks, and don’t talk. He’s always surrounded by people and I don’t know what the fuck to say, or where to start, or whether I even should. I know he’s got more things to worry about than me.
At least I sleep like the dead. Two nights in a row I fall asleep with a laptop next to me, trying to finish one last thing or go through one last briefing. Despite growing up with a diplomat, I don’t know shit about any of this, and I’m desperately trying to learn.
The third night, I jolt awake and don’t know why. The room is perfectly quiet and still, mostly dark, but I know something woke me up and got my adrenaline pumping.
Then I hear it: a soft but insistent knock on the door.
Something happened, I think. Anxiety squeezes my chest and my mind starts racing as I grab the black robe and pull it on.
There was another bombing. The USF is pushing back and coming for Velinsk, and we have to leave right now.
Kostya’s dead.
That last thought makes my fingers and toes go cold. The knock sounds again, and I knot the robe around my waist, half-run to the door through the dark, and pull it open.
It’s Kostya. He looks like hell.
He’s still in the clothes he was wearing that day, dress pants and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and it’s rumpled and creased, like he fell asleep in it at some point. His eyes have dark circles around them, they’re bloodshot, and he hasn’t shaved in a day or two.
I’m sure I don’t look much better.
“What happened?” I ask, the only question I can think of. Something has to be wrong.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
I step back and he enters, closing the door behind him. We’re in the living room in my little apartment. I’m very aware that I’m naked except this flimsy robe and he’s still dressed like he’s going to an office, and my arms are crossed over my chest like that will somehow make me more clothed.
I try not to think about the last time he was in this apartment. That was a week and a world ago.
“We should have the airport again within two days,” he says.
I just nod.
“So you can go back to the U.S.,” he goes on.
I almost say yes, I understood the implication there but I don’t.
“But what happened?” I ask.
“I got a report from the seventh division that they’re making good progress,” he says.
“Is that it?” I ask.
His eyes flick to the windows behind me, the bedroom door, taking everything in.
“Yes,” he says.
We pause for a long moment and look at each other, and then he looks away and runs one hand through his hair, the cords in his neck popping.
“It’s two-thirty in the morning,” I say. “And you came to tell me something might happen in two days?”
“I thought you’d want to know,” he says.
I swallow hard and look at the floor. He didn’t come to tell me that, and he’s not still standing there because he came here to tell me that, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what he wants and I don’t know what I want and I don’t know how any of this should be working, right now, in the middle of all this shit.
He’s here because it’s your room, not to tell you that, I think.
I take a deep breath, then hold out my hand.
He looks at it, then at me. He takes it, his fingers warm and rough just like always.
I lead him to the couch. I sit and then pull him down until we’re half-sitting, half-lying, propped up on one arm, his head on my chest. My robe’s come partly open, and after a minute he puts both arms around me, his rough stubble on my bare skin.
I drape one arm across his shoulders and stroke his hair with the other hand, and he lets me. For the first time in days I feel like I’m doing the right thing at last, even though I couldn’t put it into words.
I just know, deep down, that this is why he’s here. This is what he needs. Gradually, he relaxes into me, his shoulders losing tension, his breathing getting slower and evening out.
“I met my father for the first time in this palace,” he suddenly says, and I jump.
“I thought you were asleep,” I say.
“Not quite,” he says.
“You remember meeting your father?” I ask.
“I do,” he says. “I didn’t know that was strange until years later, when I was a teenager. I guess for most people, their fathers are always... there.”
“I don’t remember meeting mine,” I say.
“It wasn’t really the first time,” Kostya says, shifting a little. “He was around when I was very young, but I don’t remember that at all. I didn’t recognize him when I met him here.”
I can’t imagine meeting my father. He’s just there, a fixture in my earliest memories.
“I was two when the Soviet Union fell, and my father left to lead the monarchist forces against the communists,” he goes on, his voice half dreamy. “He sent my mother and me to safety. The last few years of the civil war, we were here, back before it was restored, and it was filthy and dilapidated, but it was beautiful in the way old, dilapidated things can be.”
I keep stroking his hair and let him talk.
“I used to find things,” he says. “Cufflinks, a hair comb, an old iron wedding ring. A silver spoon. A carving of a bear. All these little treasures that would be nothing to anyone but a five-year-old, but I used to keep them safe in a box I found and I never told anyone.”
“Do you still have them?” I ask.
“I do,” he says. “It’s so strange, sometimes, to walk around this place like it is now and think about what it looked like the first time I saw it. That’s what it looked like when I met my father. We were in that ballroom where the masquerade was, and it was morning, so the sun was coming in through those big windows.”
His hand moves against my back, stroking me absentmindedly. I fight to keep my eyes from filling with tears, because for a moment, this feels normal.
“Actually, most of the windows were broken and there was a breeze,” he says. “My father was up on the dais, and he was wearing his military uniform, surrounded by other men in military uniforms. I entered with my mother, through those big doors, and I remember her saying, ‘Kostya, go say hello to your father,’ and I wasn’t quite sure which one he was.”
I can’t even imagine that.
“How old were you?” I ask.
“Six,” Kostya says. “I’m not sure he ever quite forgave me.”
“Of course he did,” I say.
“I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” Kostya says. “It’s bad luck.”
“I won’t tell,” I say.
“I owe everything to him,” Kostya says. “I’m here and not herding cows in the mountains because of what he did. He used to tell me all the time, ‘blood isn’t enough,’ that just having a lineage didn’t mean shit unless you could back it up. And he could back it up.”
He pauses and swallows, his fingers still moving against my back.
“I don’t know if I can back it up, Hazel,” he whispers. “I’m afraid everything he fought for is slipping through my fingers, and if I don’t stop it, we’ll have five more years of civil war. He brought Sveloria from a backwater to a first world country, and I don’t know if I can keep it that way.”
I have no idea what to say. Anyt
hing I can think of sounds like a kindergarten teacher’s encouragement, so we’re quiet for a long time.
“I don’t think I ever loved my father,” Kostya finally says, his voice low and quiet. “He’d lecture me about continuing the bloodline and having children, and I’d think, I’d rather not be a father than be a father like you.”
He’s silent a moment.
“I didn’t want him to die like this, Hazel,” Kostya finally says.
“I know,” I say, and kiss the top of his head.
We’re quiet again.
“Can I sleep here?” he asks, his fingers on my back. “I don’t dream when I sleep with you.”
I push both of us up, and he looks at me like he’s still waiting for an answer. His eyes are even more bloodshot now. I stand and hold out one hand again, and he takes it.
“Come on,” I say.
In the bedroom I move the laptop off the bed and Kostya just looks around tiredly, like he doesn’t understand what a bed is any more. I walk to him and start undoing the buttons on his shirt, and as I do he takes both my hands in his and leans his forehead down to touch mine.
For long moment he just rubs his thumbs over my knuckles, like he’s trying to think of how to say something.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice close to a whisper.
“Kostya, don’t be,” I say.
He laces his fingers through mine, his palms against the backs of my hands.
“Zloyushka, I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says. “I don’t know how to be the king, and I don’t know how to keep my country from disintegrating, and I thought if I could ignore you I’d stop thinking about you all the time and I’d get better at what I’m supposed to be doing, but I couldn’t. And I didn’t.”
This time I can’t stop my eyes from filling with tears.
“I wanted to protect you, and I couldn’t,” he says. “Not even from the Tobov Post.”
“Kostya, you have bigger things to worry about than me,” I say. “I’m fine. The Post can go fuck itself.”
He half-smiles and squeezes my hands in his. A very, very distant bell tolls three times.
“I’m glad you slept with your married professor,” he says.
“I’m not,” I say.
“You wouldn’t have come here otherwise,” he says.
I sigh and let my eyes close, our foreheads still together.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”
“You’re the American and I’m finding the silver lining,” he says. “Something must have gone wrong.”
He wobbles a little on his feet, and I tug at his shirt.
“Come on,” I say, softly. “Go to bed.”
I get the last button undone, push it over his shoulders, and ignore the heat pooling inside me. Once his shirt is off, he slides one hand down my back, along my still-open robe, and then pulls me toward him, swaying on his feet as he does.
He kisses me and I kiss him back briefly, my hand on his neck, and then pull away. I stroke his stubble with one thumb.
“Come on, zloyushka,” he says, sounding half-drunk.
“No,” I say firmly. “You’re falling asleep on your feet.”
“I’ll make it fast,” he murmurs.
“Not sexy,” I murmur back.
Kostya sighs, his fingers circling on my back.
“You’re right,” he finally says. “You’re naked and I’m so tired I’m barely hard.”
“Your dirty talk is also pretty lacking,” I tease, shrugging my robe the rest of the way off, and climb into bed.
He gets in after me, and his eyes are shut before his head’s on the pillow.
“Let me get six hours of sleep, and then we’ll fuck slow and hard until you come so hard your hair curls,” he says.
My insides twist around themselves. Kostya barely opens one eye and looks at me.
“Was that better?” he says, his voice slurring.
“You’re filthy for a king,” I say.
He smiles, sleepily.
“I’m just honest,” he says, and rolls over until his face is in my neck. “Sometimes in important meetings the only thing I can think about is what it feels like when you come with me inside you.”
“Kostya, go the fuck to sleep,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around him.
He sighs, but he doesn’t say anything else. I stay awake for a few more minutes and listen to him breathe, then fall asleep myself.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kostya
When I wake up, there’s a moment when I forget everything that’s happened. Hazel’s curled into me, her back against my chest, my arms around her, and my father’s murder, the insurgency, the fighting, everything seems like a long bad dream.
Then I wake up a little more and remember that it wasn’t, that it did happen and I’m probably late for something.
Two more minutes, I think, and bury my nose in Hazel’s hair.
“You awake?” she says, softly.
“Yes,” I say. “What time is it?”
“Eight-thirty,” she says.
“I should go,” I murmur in her ear, but I run one hand down her side from her ribcage to her hip, her skin perfect and soft beneath my hand.
My cock is working again. I was already hard when I woke up, but as I stroke her side Hazel just barely arches her back, pressing herself against me, and my erection throbs.
I need her, so much it’s visceral, like there’s a raging tornado twisting deep inside me and this is the only thing I can do to keep it from destroying me.
I close my fingers around her hip and pull back. She arches again, harder now, and reaches her hand around to pull my head to hers, twisting her torso. I raise myself on my other elbow and we kiss hard, tongues in each others’ mouths, as she rocks against me.
I groan into her mouth and she tightens her hand in my hair. I’m nearly dizzy with lust and want and the pure, primal sensation of need, and I touch the backs of her thighs and then push my hands between them until my fingers are on her slit, already slippery and wet.
She wraps a fist around my cock and I slide my fingers past her clit and relish the way her body gives a tiny jolt, like my touch is electric. Hazel moans as I rub her, and before I know it, she’s guided the tip of my cock to her entrance.
“Condom,” I gasp. “Nightstand.”
“Are you clean?” she whispers.
“Yes,” I say. She’s warm and practically throbbing against me, and my mind is slowly blinking out.
“Then it’s fine,” she says. “I have an IUD.”
I’m not exactly sure what that is. If I were smarter I’d find out, but right now, all I know is that it means I’m about to fuck Hazel skin to skin. I kiss the back of her neck slowly and she sighs.
There’s a goddamn knock on the goddamn door.
We both stop, holding our breaths, as if the knock could have possibly been an accident.
The knock sounds again, louder this time. I roll onto my back.
“Otvali mudak blyad,” I growl.
“Fucking motherfucker,” Hazel fumes, and rolls off the bed. She finds the robe and pulls it on as I get up, putting on pants and at least getting my arms through my shirt.
There’s yet another knock as Hazel heads for the door, and I stay back, just out of sight as she pulls it open.
“Niko,” she says, sounding surprised.
“Good morning,” he says. “Sorry to bother you, but we can’t seem to find the King.”
She pushes one hand through her hair.
“Come in,” she says, sounding like she’s admitting to stealing candy.
I’m buttoning the last button on my shirt as Niko comes in, but if he’s surprised to find me getting dressed in Hazel’s room, he doesn’t show it.
“There’s a problem,” he says, crossing his arms.
I stand. Hazel perches on the arm of a chair, holding her robe closed tightly.
“The populist faction of the USF has taken Yelena Pavlovnova host
age,” Niko says quietly.
Hazel gasps. I stop, one cuff half-buttoned.
“Yelena?” I ask.
“What happened?” asks Hazel at the same time.
Niko looks from me to her and back.
“Yes, Yelena,” he says. “She disappeared from her father’s villa sometime yesterday. No one is exactly sure when, but we received a photo of her with today’s paper about thirty minutes ago.”
“Is she okay?” says Hazel.
“Relatively speaking,” Niko says carefully. “She didn’t look visibly harmed.”
“Why did they take her?” I ask.
Now I’m pacing the floor. I had just let myself think that things were starting to look up for us, and now a canyon has cracked open beneath my feet, threatening to swallow my whole country.
What the hell could they possibly want with Yelena? She can’t tell them anything, and she certainly doesn’t know anything.
“They’re willing to release her in exchange for a meeting,” Niko says. “They set the terms, but they want to do it on neutral ground.”
Neutral ground is a fucking joke. Right now, there’s no such thing, because everywhere within reach of the USF is dangerous.
I shouldn’t even be considering this. If this is their negotiation strategy, their next step will be worse.
But they’ve got Yelena. Of all people, she doesn’t deserve this.
“I’d be a sitting duck,” I say.
“They don’t want to talk to you,” Niko says, and pauses.
I turn and look at him, and he looks at Hazel.
“They want to talk to you,” he tells her.
“No,” I say.
“Me?” Hazel says.
“No,” I say again, getting closer to Niko.
Like fuck is Hazel going out there, risking capture and possibly her life. Yelena’s a nice girl, but the hell I’m trading Hazel for her.
“Why me?” Hazel asks Niko quietly.
“It doesn’t matter, because you’re not going,” I say.
“Kostya, shut the hell up and let Niko tell me what’s going on,” she says, shooting me a glare.
“I’m not risking your life for hers,” I say.