Wild Heir

by Andrew, Nikolai

  “Alright,” I said, stepping aside to make room for the doctor. “Thank you,” I added softly as he passed by me on his way to my father’s beside.

  “Of course, Your Grace.” He bowed politely and then looked me in the eye. But rather than go straight to my father, he looked at me with concern. Looking from one of my eyes to the other, he asked, “Are you feeling well yourself, Your Grace?”

  I tried to wave him off, lifting my hands and shaking my head. The truth was that I felt awful, but that hadn’t seemed like any surprise. I was deliriously tired and felt shaky all over.

  “It’s nothing. It’s just been a terrible day.”

  The doctor seemed unconvinced. “May I?” he asked, reaching out for my wrist.

  Caught off guard by this sudden attention, I nodded and allowed him to take my pulse. His fingertips on my wrist felt surprisingly cold against my skin. His concerned expression grew even more so as he removed his stopwatch from his pocket. Releasing my wrist, he looked carefully into my eyes, gently pulling down my lower lids with the pad of his thumb.

  Finally, he placed the back of his hand to my forehead. His eyes flashed with concern, though he did a valiant job trying to hide it.

  “When was the last time you ate or drank anything?”

  I had no idea. Before my father was mortally wounded, before I lost the love of my life. Before, before, before…

  “I can’t remember,” I said.

  “Hmmm. It’s probably nothing, but best to be safe.” The doctor glanced away from me at my mother’s handmaid. “Could you please make sure she eats something?” he said to the maid. “Anything at all. And water. She needs plenty of water. I’ll be along as soon as I’ve finished here and I’ll run some more tests. If her condition turns, please come find me immediately.”

  With a curt nod, my mother’s attendant then looped her arm through mine. I returned the gesture, feeling grateful for her solid, confident presence.

  “Please, Your Grace. Leave your father and mother to me. They are in good hands. And you go rest. I’ll come check on you shortly.”

  The thought of leaving that room made me freeze. Would this be the last time I ever saw my father again? Would he survive the night? And my mother? Could she bear that loss without me by her side?

  “I don’t want to leave them,” I told the doctor.

  “I know,” he said, taking my hand in a warm, firm grip. “But please. I promise I will do all I can for them both.”

  I hesitated, then drew a deep breath and let myself be led away. My mother’s nurse led me to my room, taking me all the way to my bed and helping me to sit down. From the pitcher at my bedside, she poured me a glass of water and watched me drink it down. The water tasted strange, metallic and salty on my tongue, but I realized my throat was indeed parched as I lay down on my pillows. Every bone in my body ached with exhaustion.

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” she said. “I’ll bring a tray for you to eat a little something.”

  As she departed, she left me alone in my room. It was the first time since everything had fallen apart that I had been completely alone.

  When the door latched shut, I sat there, stunned, almost frozen. In the stillness and quiet, all the emotions that I had kept at bay seized me. Grief and terror, and heartbreak seized me, pulling me in every direction.

  My heart ached and burned, as if Petre’s knife had stabbed me there. If only it had been me that had taken that blade; if only I had been able to protect my dad. If only everything had been different. But it wasn’t. And so, burying my face in my pillows, I finally let my emotions spill out in wracking, painful sobs.

  * * *

  I didn’t want him in my dreams, but I couldn’t escape him. Everywhere I turned, Vasile was there. His voice, his eyes, his caresses. But I was always losing him, always. I slid over a rocky mountain cliff, my hand slipping from his. I fell overboard from a skiff in a storm, reaching helplessly out for him as I drowned.

  I felt myself sobbing even as I slept, but I was powerless to wake up. Inconsolable in that desolate dusk-dawn dream place, where nothing was right and everything kept going wrong.

  Even as I slept, I knew I wasn’t well.

  Morning light broke through my dreams long enough for me to see the new doctor standing over me. His name was lost to me, his face melting like wax. I tried to blink myself into awareness, but it was useless, and I kept slipping back down into sleep. His words sounded heavy; they felt like blocks of granite. Nothing made sense and yet it all made sense.

  I worried about Natasha, about what had happened to her. She’d been so different the last time I saw her. Was she sick as well? Where is she now? I wondered, the thought slipping through my head barely noticed as it flitted by the baseboards, like a field mouse or garter snake.

  The word poison floated in the air, and I could see it there, hovering in my half-consciousness, the calligraphic letters floating over me in bed. As if someone had painted a portrait of me, laying there, and written the word above me.

  Poison and danger and worry, such worry. My aunt was there, I was sure of it. I smelled her smell, lavender and rose. But the rose was sickly sweet. Like funerals, like death. “Will she survive?” someone said, someone with my mother’s voice, but very far away.

  Poison. Poison. Poison. The word kept dancing around me, taking real shape. First made of lead. Then made of glass. Then drawn in molten gold on the ceiling. In the place of the dancing fever, I was in a room filled with feathers, wallpapered with lizard scales. Filled with terrors.

  I felt myself thrashing against my sheets. Trying to escape. Trying to flee. Something. Anything. Everything.

  “I’m here,” a voice said. A deep voice. A musky scent. It smelled like passion, like screams of pleasure. The pain of ecstasy. Vasile. It was Vasile again; Vasile was back in my dreams. His words were softer than the doctor’s. Warmer. Steadier. A voice asked him to leave. He said, “Never. Never fucking ever.” His rough hand on my forehead and cheek. The sound of him sobbing, a long kiss made wet with his tears.

  Then the feeling that he had fallen asleep. His head was resting beside me on the mattress, the close-cropped hair at the base of his neck tickling the soft flesh of my inner forearm. Wake up, wake up, I whispered, but the delirium ate my words before I could move my mouth to say them right.

  Then, a moment later—or was it a year?—he was holding my hand, actually holding it; I was not slipping from his grasp. But now I was getting wiser—I had seen this dream before. I knew what was about to happen.

  The loss. The death. The absence. The plunge over the cliff.

  The dream place would wrench me away, as always. I couldn’t bear for my heart to die like that, once more. And so from deep down in the quicksilver depths of my soul, I found the strength to let go first.

  Rolling away, I tucked myself into a ball, and slipped once more into the saltwater pool of my sweat on the sheets.

  Chapter 24

  Valeria

  When next I opened my eyes, warm, lazy afternoon light filled my bedroom. The sound of geese migrating made me look outside, and I saw their V-shaped formation pass over the bare trees of the forest.

  Somehow, I could feel that quite a bit of time had passed; the hard frosts of winter seemed to have lightened. So I had been in bed long enough for winter to give way ever-so-slightly to the brief, but glorious Praquean spring.

  I drew a breath, deep, feeling as though it was the first time in what felt like ages my lungs had been so full. My mother’s old nurse, Vanke, startled herself awake with a snort as she sat in a wooden chair beside my bed.

  “Good heavens,” she said, beaming at me as she roused herself from her nap. “There you are, my dear. And thank God for that. You scared us all half to death!”

  I tried to sit up in bed, but found I was so weak that all I could do was lift my head. My brain felt swollen and was throbbing, my throat was dry, and I felt desperate for a long soak in the bath.

  “Wha
t was wrong with me?”

  “Some dreadful attempt on your life. Petre admitted to it, some sort of backup plan if you wouldn’t go through with the wedding. There was a man planted among the guests with strict instructions to prick you with a poison laced pin if anything went wrong,” she said, huffing to herself. “What a piece of work that man is. If he couldn’t have you, he would make sure no one would. Especially his brother.”

  Guests? Wedding? What… All at once, it came rushing back to me. The stabbing. My father. My heart plummeted in my chest; he had been so unwell, I felt certain there was no way that he had survived.

  “How is my dad?”

  Much to my absolute surprise, Vanke perked up happily.

  “Quite well! I won’t let him leave his bed, but he’s very much on the mend.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness.

  But in my relief, all manner of other things came rushing into my mind. Especially the feverish, terrible dreams. And Vasile, all those endless thoughts and dreams of Vasile that were so real that I could have sworn he was actually there.

  Ridiculous. I groaned and battled with myself to find the strength to sit up. However long I’d been laying there, it was much too long.

  Vanke tried to help me, but I shook my head.

  “I can manage,” I said, and wriggled upward to sitting. I was surprised to see that my arms looked thinner than I expected. I felt much weaker in my own skin.

  Vanke helped me drink a glass of water, and then sat by me patiently as I ate a few slices of an apple. Even though it was hardly a feast, it made me feel so much better that I could hardly believe it. I greedily gulped down another glass of water, then wiped my dripping chin with the back of my arm.

  “I need to see my dad.”

  She tossed her head back in frustration. “You Valentines! Stubborn as mules! One second you’re on death’s doorstep and then you’re rushing to try to hop out of bed. So I’ll tell you what I told your father: you’re staying in bed until Dr. Lucian says you’re alright to get up and move around.”

  It didn’t make a damn bit of difference to me if Dr. Lucian or Lucifer himself tried to stop me; I was going to see my father, one way or another.

  I reached out for Vanke’s plump hand, which looked as soft and warm as a cinnamon bun. She automatically reached out to help me, and I thrust my legs out from the covers. Before she could stop me, we were on the move, with her huffing and puffing, pretending to be oh-so-very annoyed. But clearly just as pleased as I was that I was strong enough to be up and about.

  At my father’s door, I knocked once and let myself inside.

  He lay in bed with a tray on his lap. He was so surprised to see me that he nearly flung his soup onto the quilt.

  “My girl!” he exclaimed, with a sheen of joyful tears springing into his eyes.

  “Don’t get yourself all excited!” I told him, wagging my finger as I hobbled across the room, and joined him on his bed.

  “You scared the stuffing out of me,” he said, shaking his head like it was all my fault.

  “Look who’s talking,” I said, and helped myself to a ripe pear that was sitting on his tray.

  He watched me eat my pear with pride, and once I had finished and set the core on the tray, he reached out for my hand.

  “I really am just so sorry. Truly. For putting you through that hellish engagement, that horrible wedding. That I almost lost you…” He pursed his lips and shut his eyes. “Unspeakable. It was a terrible position and I hope, with all my heart, that you will forgive me.”

  Little did he know, of course, that I had understood and forgiven him even as it was all unfolding. Even as I’d cursed him and his addiction, I understood he’d had no other choice. But this was an important moment—a real apology. No excuses, no schemes. And weak though I was feeling, I was strong enough to stand my ground and hold it.

  “I’ll accept your apology if you promise me one thing. No more gambling.”

  He shook his head in agreement. “I nearly met my maker, my girl. I made the same promise to myself long since. No more. I swear it.”

  In his eyes, I could see that he really did mean it. Whether or not I could keep him away from the cards for good would be a matter for another day, but at least it was a start. And that was a victory that I could be proud of.

  I blew out a relieved breath and then scooted up beside him in bed, sitting next to him, both of us with our heads propped up against the pillows. He smelled fresh and clean, like aftershave and soap, and it made me enjoy the simple pleasure of being alive and well.

  “Do you remember anything that happened?” my father asked, staring up at his intricately painted ceiling beside me, as if we were gazing at stars.

  “You mean, after I got sick?” I asked.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said, sounding slightly mischievous.

  “Nothing. Just the strangest dreams.”

  “Well,” he said, sounding rather tickled. “Your fellow Vasile is very devoted, let me tell you.”

  I froze for an instant, with my eyes stuck open. “You mean, I didn’t dream that part?”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw my father shake his head.

  “I’ll tell you. It was enough to make an old man’s heart melt. He stayed by your side every single day. As soon as he learned you were sick, he barged in here like something out of a Shakespearean love story. Would not leave. Vanke tried to swat him away with a dishtowel. ‘Brute!’ she said. ‘Leave the poor girl alone!’ But he wouldn’t go. He would not. Even your mother tried to get him out, and you know how angry she can get, what with the pointing and glaring. But it didn’t matter. Your Vasile wouldn’t budge.”

  Your Vasile.

  I wished so much he’d stop saying it that way. Vasile was nothing of the sort. I was grateful that he’d sent the doctor to help us, but I felt that I had grieved for him so much and so hard that I could hardly find the strength to feel anything more. And anyway, it was all over. He was gone, that much was clear. His guilt had been absolved, it seemed.

  “Apparently the devotion didn’t last for long. I don’t see him anywhere now.”

  “That was the last act of the tragedy, my girl,” my father turned to face me a new sadness in his eyes. “Once it was clear you’d survive, he packed up his things. Came in here and told me himself. ‘She wants me gone from her life,’ he said. ‘I won’t dishonor her by disobeying her wishes. I won’t make mine be the first face she sees when she wakes up. I will always protect her. I will always protect you all.’” My father frowned and pressed his hand to his own heart.

  My heart ached at the thought of Vasile even thinking that, let alone saying it. It sounded just like him, too. I could hear him saying the words as surely as if he’d just said them to me himself.

  I closed my eyes tight, trying to will away the ache in my chest. But instead, I saw very vivid flashes of what I thought had been nothing but crazed dreams. Dreams that I hadn’t dared let myself think were actually real.

  “Did he… did he even sleep there, by my beside?” I asked, turning to face my dad.

  “Oh yes,” my father said, with a sigh, as he smiled at me. “For days and days. If it wasn’t for the doctor he had sent to care for me, you would surely have been dead.”

  I blinked away a sudden rush of tears, trying to sweep them aside before my father noticed. But there was no point in trying to hide how I felt. Death and I had faced one another, but I had emerged victorious. It was foolish to try to kid myself about the way things were and how I really felt.

  I loved him, with my whole heart, and I desperately did not want to let him go.

  Chapter 25

  Vasile

  It had been a week since I’d left her bedside, but it felt like a fucking lifetime. Now I sat in my father’s study, as he paced around, talking business. But I was only halfway listening.

  My mind was on Valeria—worrying about her, thinking about her, hoping to hell that she was getting stronger and stronge
r every day. Since the second I’d left her, my mind had been with her. Always was; always would be.

  Our family doctor I’d paid to attend them all kept me up to date, letting me know that she was doing much better. Knowing that wasn’t enough. I couldn’t love her from afar. And I wasn’t afraid to take her again, if I had to. But for the time being, she needed to have the time to heal without me. I wouldn’t let my own selfish needs threaten her recovery.

  “Christ almighty, son,” my father said, crossing his arms heavily as he stared at me. “She’s alright. You know that. And if she’s not, we’ll be the first to know it. In the meantime, we have business to attend to. Are you with me or aren’t you?”

  I ran my hand down my jaw and leaned back in the chair in front of the fire. “Alright, alright. Sorry,” I muttered.

  But it was a halfhearted bullshit apology and we both knew it. I might be sorry for pissing him off, but I’d never apologize for loving her. Never.

  Still though, he kept on pacing and talking, walking me through the details now that I was officially and totally taking charge. In the years since I’d been gone, my dad had already begun to move out of the worst parts of our business and made it clear he was behind me in making sure we continued to move in that direction. I let my eyes drift over the stacks of papers scattered over the floor. Petre’s signature caught my eye on a few of the documents. Even his goddamned signature was sinister—so neat and small that it looked dishonest.

  But as for Petre himself, he was no longer much of a threat. After his arrest for attempted murder that day at the cathedral, he’d been locked up in jail, an experience so fucking awful that even he was rattled by it.

  Exactly what he fucking deserved—to have the tables flipped on his cowardly, vicious ass for once. But I did make him a deal—we would provide him with our family’s best legal counsel, or if he chose to not cooperate with us, we’d leave him to rot. But he had to disclose everything.