Empress of Poisons ARC

by Bree Porter

  I gently shook Elena awake. “Lyubimaya, wake up.”

  She blinked sleepily, her features warping into anger. “Fuck off.” She grumbled, burying herself deeper into the pillow.

  “Lyubimaya,” I mused. “The foal is here.”

  Nikolai lifted his head. His blond hair was in disarray and the crease of the pillow bruised his chubby cheeks. “Foal?”

  “Odessa’s baby horse. Do you want to go and see her?”

  He clambered over his mother, almost falling into the blanket. I caught him and helped him off the bed, letting him yawn and wake himself up.

  “Elena,” I stroked her hair. She peered up at me. “Let’s go. Come on.”

  Elena slowly uncurled herself, stretching like an old cat. She wasn’t pleased as she wobbled out of bed, slipped on a sweater and slippers. I led the pair of them out the room, catching them when they fell asleep on their feet. Niko gave such a great big yawn that he almost walked into the wall.

  Both of them seemed to wake up a little more as we slid into the car.

  “Did she have a girl or boy?” Elena asked in between yawns. “Niko, come here. You’ve got sleep in your eyes.”

  “No, Mama.” He was too sleepy to fight back as she cleaned out the crease of his eyes with her fingernail. When she released him, he peered out the window and into the inky night. “Where’s Dessa’s baby?”

  “Put your seatbelt on,” I told him.

  Niko didn’t resist as Elena locked him in, but he did make a show of wiggling halfway out of the restraints and peering out the window. He wasn’t looking for anything this time, just trying to irritate his mother.

  Elena thinned her lips.

  We reached the stable in a matter of minutes. Niko practically flung himself out of the car as I opened his door, bolting inside. I grabbed him quickly.

  “Let’s go together,” I told him. “We don’t want to frighten the foal.”

  Niko scowled at me and looked to his mother. She wrapped her arms around herself and sent him a warning look. “Listen to…him.”

  The awkwardness of my title and what I was to Nikolai hung in the air. There had been no discussion about my relationship with Nikolai, no talks about referring to me as his father or waiting for Niko to make up his own mind on what to call me. It was a pricky subject that neither of us wanted to touch–not yet.

  Night hugged the land, the golden glow of the stables the only light. I could spot the figures of Hilarion and Basil in the paddocks, where they had been placed once Odessa had gone into labour. The last thing she and the foal needed was too nosey horses interrupting their peace.

  Both knew something was going on and looped their heads over the fence as we passed, whining in irritation. Hilarion even kicked the fence, nostrils flaring.

  Elena beelined to them, giving them both a scratch. “All the smells and noises,” she said. “They know something’s happened.”

  The vet had left a few minutes before us but would be back in a few days to check on the foal. A few of my men loitered around the space but disappeared into the shadows once they noticed me. Not out of fear anymore but understanding. I was with my family, and distance by them was required.

  Soft nickering came from Odessa’s stall. Niko ran towards them but stopped when he realised, he couldn’t see into the pen. He looked at the haybales, then to the empty feed buckets, before deciding his best chance was to turn to his mother and I and lift his arms up.

  “Up, please.”

  Elena didn’t step forward. She snapped her eyes to me. “You’re taller.”

  I inclined my head to the hide the strange worry that burst up inside of me. I had held plenty of children before, in fact, when Evva was an infant, I used to spend the mornings with her so Roksana and Artyom could sleep. But Niko was different. He was my son, who had spent almost three years of his life without me.

  He didn’t argue as I bent down and scooped him up, hoisting his little body onto my hip. He was at an age when he preferred to walk instead of being carried, but he didn’t wiggle in my arms, instead using my shoulder as leverage to peer into the stall.

  The three of us lined up, peering at the newest member of our family.

  Odessa was dozing, but standing by her dappled side, on wobbly legs, was her filly. The foal was a brown bay, with very faint spots over her rump. She was more interested in her mother than the onlookers but did eye us a few times.

  Niko’s lips parted in wonderment and excitement. He clapped his hands together, turning and looking at me to make sure I was looking, before turning his head back to the foal. “She’s so tiny.”

  “She is tiny.” I agreed.

  “You were tiny, too.” Elena ruffled his hair. He darted away.

  “Noo, I was big.”

  She smiled. “Nope. Tiny.” To me, she asked, “What’s her name?”

  “Grand Duchess Olga. But she’s already been nicknamed Duchess.” I said.

  Niko mumbled out the name before saying more clearly, “Duchess.” He grinned. “Hi, Duchess!”

  “Quiet voices, baby. We don’t want to frighten her.”

  Elena watched the mare and foal with a strange look on her face. Nostalgia and understanding seemed to hold her captive.

  I leaned down to her ear. “Are you okay?”

  She smiled, eyes faraway. Instead of answering, she laid her head on my shoulder.

  I had my son in my arms, the woman I loved by my side. I felt a sudden tide of overwhelming emotion that I couldn’t name. I just knew that I wanted to reach back in time and say to my fifteen-year-old self: Don’t worry, boy. You’ll be blessed with treasures greater than anything you could imagine.

  We watched the pair as they went about their night. Eventually, Duchess grew more comfortable with us, and came to satisfy her curiosity. I felt Niko practically shaking with excitement in my arms as she got closer.

  She sniffed, went back to her mother, before returning for another look.

  “Hi Duchess,” Niko whispered. “I’m Niko.”

  Duchess got a little closer.

  “Can I pet?” He asked Elena.

  She glanced at me. I shook my head. “When she’s a little older.”

  Niko tucked his hands against his chest like he was trying to remove the temptation. He was surprisingly calm and patient, not the chaotic little boy he usually was. When she got closer, he would look at Elena and I with excitement but did a good job at staying quiet and respecting Duchess’s space.

  Eventually, she curled up beneath her mother and went to sleep.

  “Let’s go home, now, baby. We can visit her again the morning.”

  Niko shook his head. “Noo. I wanna stay.”

  “How about we give Baz and Hilarion some carrots? They’re feeling a little left out.” He shot up at my offer. “Then straight to bed.”

  He was happy with the compromise and shot out of my arms as soon as his feet met the ground. He already knew where the treats were, grabbing a handful of carrots and passing them to his mother to hold. Elena took them but handed a few to me.

  The horses had grown used to Niko and him to them. When he approached with carrots, both of them hurried closer and waited patiently as he held out two carrots, one in each hand for each horse.

  Elena laughed. “He’s got a system.”

  I stood by her side, close enough to grab Niko if the horses suddenly got rough. They were animals after all, and Niko was not even three. “Where was your mind before?” I asked. “You looked like you had left Planet Earth.”

  Her smile was ironic. “Maybe I did.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  Delighted glittered in her eyes but she sobered quickly. “I was thinking about the past.”

  My curiosity had spiked. “Any particular part?”

  “When Niko was born.” She sounded briefly amused. “I was looking at Odessa and realized that I understood exactly how she was feeling. It brou
ght me back to Niko’s birth.”

  Elena had shared a few brief mentions of Niko’s birth. I knew she had a caesarean and that he had been born in the early hours of the morning. Other than that, how my son came into the world was a mystery to me.

  I was silent, urging her to go on.

  “Don’t be so interested,” she told me. “It wasn’t as mysterious as you think.” Despite her words, affection clung to every pore on her face as she watched Nikolai. “I went through most my labour at home. It was…hell. It was horrible. Once I got the hospital, I was induced immediately. A few hours later, I started pushing…but there was complication. His heartrate dropped so they delivered him via emergency c-section.”

  Elena spoke about the birth efficiently and quickly, like she was reading off a list instead of explaining her son’s birthday. She might be able to detach herself from the event, but I knew how frightened she would’ve been in that moment, how alone and afraid. There had been no one to comfort her, except a stranger.

  Anger rose up in me, cruel and twisted.

  “Don’t get angry,” she said before I said anything.

  I rubbed my jaw, trying to restrain myself. I wasn’t afraid of Elena seeing my temper, but Niko deserved a few more years of innocence. “You were alone.”

  “I could do it alone.”

  “You shouldn't have had to. I should've driven you to your appointments, held your hair back during your morning sickness and held your hand in the delivery room. Roksana should've taken you shopping for baby clothes and Roman should've thrown you a widely inappropriate baby shower.”

  Elena’s eyes assessed me. I could see sadness in the mossy depths.

  “When he was first born, he was so small. So delicate, so breakable. He was your twin from day one–except for his eyes, which turned green within the first few months. Those moments after his birth…when I was holding him to my chest, thinking of his name and future, I was thinking of you. The entire time I was thinking of you.” She didn’t tear her gaze away from mine. “I’m sorry I took those moments from you. Next time, I’ll let Roman throw me a baby shower and it’ll be so horrifying none of us will ever recover.”

  I tried to stop my smile from cracking, but Elena had won. I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and she wrapped her arms around me. We held each other in the cold night, watching our son discover the large and exciting world. There would be others, siblings for Nikolai to play and grow up with.

  “Next time will be different.” I heard Elena say. I don’t think she meant for me to hear. They were words meant only for herself, a reassurance and a promise.

  Niko ran out of carrots and went to grab some more.

  “It’s time for bed, young man. It’s 3 am and you have a big day tomorrow.”

  His head snapped to me, a tantrum waiting behind his expression. He looked to Elena for an opposing opinion. “Mama, I don’t wanna go to bed. Baz is still hungry.”

  “Basil is full, baby.”

  Niko looked at me like I was the last person in the world he wanted to be taking directions from. I would be more offended if that wasn’t how my son looked at every authority figure. “I don’t wanna go to bed.”

  “You can see the horses tomorrow.”

  He looked to Elena.

  “Listen to your father.”

  The statement sat in the air before Niko sighed dramatically and stomped over to us. I was more surprised by Elena’s words than my son. Instead, he made a show of saying goodbye to the horses and making it very clear he wasn’t happy to be leaving.

  I took them home, the car filled with Niko’s jubilant voice. He insisted he wasn’t tired until his head hit the pillow and he was asleep within a few seconds. Babushka had left Anton’s side and was asleep on Elena’s vanity, almost like she knew we had left and had been waiting for our return.

  Elena surprised me by crawling into my bed during the night.

  “You didn’t want to sleep with Niko?” I mumbled into her shoulder.

  She stretched out beside me. “He’s a big boy.” Then she added, “Babushka took my spot. There’s no room for me.”

  Laughter rumbled through us both.

  I pressed another kiss to her bare skin. “Well, you’re always welcome here.”

  “I’m sure I am,” she murmured, arching her neck as my kisses moved higher and higher. “You’re enjoying me being kicked out of my bed by a cat a little too much.”

  “On the contrary, Elena.” She gasped when I took a piece of her neck in my mouth, sucking gently on the skin. “I think I’m enjoying it just enough.”

  We made slow luxurious love over my silken sheets. Each breath was euphoric, each touch was addictive. Our cries were swallowed, and groans bitten down as we tried to remain discreet with the thin walls. We finished together as an entanglement of limbs, high on lust and satiated by each other.

  I slept peacefully with Elena in my arms. For the first time in my entire life, my dreams were forgettable and my rest deep.

  It amazed me that this was the first of many nights. There would be decades of falling asleep with my Elena in my arms and waking up to her voice in the morning. Though the dark raincloud of Tatiana still hung over us, there was only happiness and love between us, only the beginning of our future.

  I could hear Elena and Roman bickering in the kitchen from down the hall.

  “Mama’s angry?” Niko asked. He was dressed in his underwear and dinosaur shirt, having straight up refused to wear pants to breakfast. However, he had wanted to bring his favourite sticks (that he had been collecting from outside and bringing into the house) to breakfast and had made me carry the ones that were too heavy.

  “Uncle Roman likes to stir up your mother.”

  “Stir? With a spoon?”

  I laughed. “No, stir her up to irritate her.”

  Nikolai nodded.

  When we reached the kitchen, Elena and Roman were on either side of the table, two armies facing in battle. Dmitri sat between them, looking extremely uncomfortable.

  “–stop acting like a dipshit for five minutes.” Elena was saying. “I’ve had more intelligent conversations with Babushka and she’s a cat.”

  Roman huffed angrily. “If you weren’t such a nosey–”

  “Oh! I’m nosey? Me? That’s ironic.” She slammed the plate of syrup down onto the table. “You’re the one who brought it up–”

  “Don’t try me right now, Elena. I’m really not in the mood.”

  There was enough of a threat in his voice that I cut in smoothly. “I don’t recall breakfast coming with a show. Care to share why you’re fighting before I’ve had my coffee?”

  Dmitri had never looked so happy to see me.

  Elena snapped her head to me. Her expression softened as soon as she spotted Niko. “Good morning, baby. Did you bring your sticks down?”

  “Mmhmm.” Niko held them up. “All of them, Mama.”

  “Even the one with spots?”

  “Yup.” Niko held a stick up to me that did look like it had spots. “Can you see?”

  “I can. It looks very cool.”

  He grinned, pleased.

  Elena turned back to Roman, softness disappearing. “Pull your act together.”

  “Believe it or not, you’re not the first person to ever say that to me,” he grumbled.

  “I believe it,” she sniped. To Nikolai, she said sweetly, “Come and have some fruit, my wild boy. There’s lots of pears–your favourite.”

  Soon the room was filled with our family, even Anton joining. We squeezed around the table, hands reaching over one another and shoulders bumping together. Yet no one complained at the lack of space–it was proof that our family was growing larger.

  I leaned back and assessed the room quietly as the meal progressed. A pain formed in my chest as my family went about their breakfast, sharing and laughing, bickering and eating. My son giggled with his cousins about their funny uncle Roman,
the woman I loved listened to the rambling of Danika and catch whatever Danika almost dropped. Even Dmitri was involved in a conversation with Roksana and Artyom, the three of them talking excitedly about the new foal.

  Growing up, there had been no warm meals surrounded by the ones I loved. Each bite of food had been in between watchful glances and perfectly spoken sentences. Mother and Father would hold us hostage as they sniped at each other, and my brothers would make a game of stabbing me with forks and knives beneath the table.

  When I had left with Artyom, it had been meals I had been most strict about. Breakfast was together, every single day. Even if someone couldn’t make it, or life was too horrendous to even contemplate sitting down, we ate a meal together. Sometimes dinner or lunch, but mostly breakfast. We used to eat stolen bread on the tops of buildings, watching the sun rise over the frost-covered city as we spoke about our plans and ambitions.

  When Tatiana had joined, and eventually Roksana and the others, we had needed a table and warmer place to eat. But sometimes I missed those mornings with Artyom when we were boys–after all, they had been the first meals I hadn’t been stabbed with a knife or manipulated into madness by my mother.

  Elena met my eyes over everyone’s heads, brows arching.

  I just sent her a smile.

  Both our attentions shifted as Danika wiggled in her seat, discomfort clear on her face. She was recovering and well-enough to walk around, but I knew the pain of the bullet still ailed her–as did the trauma of who had done it.

  I hadn’t let myself contemplate it for too long. Thinking of what Tatiana had done to Danika was enough to send me into a vicious frenzy.

  She will pay, I soothed the beast inside of me. We will have our revenge.

  “Are you okay, Dani?” Elena asked, eyes narrowed.

  Danika forced a smile. To the untrained eye, the little interrogator’s smile would’ve been perfect, but I knew she had painted it on her face to hide the emotions storming inside. “Fine.” Her eyes darted to Roman. He was entertaining the kids. “Just a little tired.”

  I knew what Elena and Roman had been fighting about in an instant.

  The moment Danika had woken up, Roman had left her side. He hadn’t discussed or mentioned his reaction to see Danika hurt, instead choosing to ignore all his problems. She was confused–I knew she was confused. The two usually fought like cat and dog, but Roman had been strangely distant. He hadn’t spoken to her in days.