AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Alexey.” The name, barely a whisper, slipped past my lips before I could stop it.
His head snapped around so hard he must have strained his neck. When his eyes met mine, they tightened with some unidentified emotion. Anger, perhaps? Anger would be reasonable, given what I’d done to him. Betrayal, maybe, or sadness? He stood, never removing his gaze from my face. I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” Izolda muttered. I turned to stop her, but she was already out of reach. When I tried to call her back, my throat didn’t work.
I turned back to Alexey, willing myself to say something. Anything. I opened my mouth again, but no sound came out.
“Why are you here?” he bit out. It was anger, then, that I saw in his eyes. When I didn’t respond, he stalked closer, until we werebarely a foot apart, only the bars of his makeshift prison between us. “Did you come to gloat?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Was any of it real?”
He’d asked me that same question the last time I saw him. Had it only been a day? So much had changed.
Was any of it real? I’d thought it was. He’d helped me heal. I hadn’t planned to, but I’d felt something for him I’d never felt before. Not even with—
“I’m married.”
He flinched. “I see.”
“Alexey, I—” I reached through the bars to touch his face, but he stepped out of reach.
“Don’t.” His voice was flat, emotionless. “Who is he?”
I didn’t want to talk about Han with him. I didn’t want to talk about Han at all. “A commander in the tsar’s army.”
“Not Tsar Miroslav’s, I take it,” he said wryly.
I shook my head. “Miroslav is dead.”
“I know. I was there.”
He’d been in the palace?
“He was a monster,” I whispered.
“And your tsar is so much better.”
He was mocking me, but I answered him anyway. “Borislav doesn’t kill innocents.”
“Doesn’t he? I’m sure Lady Yelena would be happy to hear that. As would Count Andrej and the dowager tsarina.”
Cold shock filled my veins. Were they all imprisoned as well? Had Borislav decided to execute them? “What do they have to do with this?”
“Why don’t you ask your husband?” he sneered. “I’m sure he knows all about the carnage your tsar wreaked in the palace.”
My head spun. What had Borislav done? “Where is Lady Yelena?”
“She’s dead. Along with her husband, Tsar Miroslav, and nearly a dozen other nobles killed at the hand of the man you call tsar. Tell me, Sofia, what crime did the grand duchesses commit to deserve death?”
I couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it. Borislav wouldn’t do that. He championed innocents; he didn’t slaughter them. Miroslav was the one who allowed his men to rape women, kill their children. Borislav wouldn’t, couldn’t have killed all those people. Lady Yelena, the sweet young woman who’d been forced into marriage with that monster Kazimir. The grand duchesses, whose only crime was being born to the wrong father. “No.”
Alexey laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You don’t believe me? No, of course you don’t. I’m the villain here, just another mindless follower of Miroslav the monster.”
“I never thought that!” He had to believe me. He was a good man. I didn’t want to leave him hating me, thinking I hated him.
“No? You didn’t use me? Didn’t take advantage of my position in Lord Kazimir’s household? Didn’t pass on the information I shared with you to your husband and your tsar?” When I didn’t respond, he scoffed. “That’s what I thought.”
