Reign: A Royal Military Romance (10 page)

K
ostya stops short
, right in the middle of the willow grove. I press my lips together, wondering if I’ve said something, or whether he’s changing his mind about taking some dumb American to his secret hangout.

Then he looks down at me, and I swear his serious, smoldering gaze burns a hole right through me, even as I’m half-convinced that I’m reading all his signals wrong. Every time that I’m sure that this
tension
between us is real, a moment later he’s Prince Serious again, and I’m wondering if I’m imagining things.

Right now, for instance. I almost can’t tell if he’s about to kiss me or reprimand me. Maybe both at once. It seems like something a Svelorian could do.

My insides start to twist anyway. I don’t break his gaze.

Just kiss me or say something or do something,
I think.

I’m gonna lose my mind if this keeps up for a whole month
.

Kostya slips his arm from my grasp, then slides his hand into mine, warm and rough. He half smiles.

I swallow.

Then he pulls me between the curtain made by two willow trees, their long green branches dragging over my hair as I duck. Behind them is a tall, dense green hedge. Kostya hesitates for a moment, scanning it, and then pushes into the small gap between two plants, still pulling me behind him.

Four feet of shrubbery later, we’re on a paved asphalt road, a green field on the other side of the black ribbon. I look left and right, trying to figure out where exactly we are, because this part of the palace’s grounds doesn’t look familiar at all.

“The back route to the garage,” he says, and we start walking down the road. He doesn’t take his hand away and I don’t either, even though we’re right out in the open now.

You haven’t done anything yet,
I remind myself, over and over again.
Not yet
.
Not really.

“I thought you didn’t have to sneak,” I say.

“I don’t have to sneak to the ramparts,” he says. “If my father caught me out in the gray district, it would be a different story.”

He looks down at me, and we come around a curve, the big stone building coming into view.

“Particularly with the Ambassador’s daughter,” he says.

I swallow and pretend very hard that we’re not holding hands, even though I don’t let his hand go.

“You’re just showing me some Svelorian hospitality,” I say.

That’s why you told me about your nightmares, and why you dared me to burn my shirt, why you gave me a nickname.

And why you still haven’t let go of my hand.

He looks over at me, his eyes dancing, his face serious.

“Yes,” he says.

He unlocks the garage, and once inside, he punches a code into a panel just inside the door.

The inside of the garage is huge, and it smells like grease and brakes, like rubber and new leather. We walk down the center of it, between rows of low-slung cars that gleam even in the dark, their headlights like the eyes of panthers, tracking us in the night. I wonder how fast they go.

Kostya hasn’t let go of my hand yet.

“Do we get to take one of these?” I ask, looking around. The massive space swallows my voice.

I know as much about cars as anyone, which is to say I know about Fords and Hondas, and I drove my friend’s Mercedes once when she got too drunk to drive herself home. But I think these are Porsches and Maseratis and Ferraris and I-don’t-even-know-whats. Cars so nice I’m a little afraid to even touch them.

Kostya laughs, a deep-throated chuckle.

“Not tonight,” he says. “I can’t imagine what would happen to one of those if I took it to the gray district.”

“So you’ll take me and not a fancy car,” I tease.

“I’m not planning on parking you outside and leaving you there,” he says. “
You’re
not leaving my sight.”

His voice suddenly has a hard, almost protective ring to it.

There’s a big part of me that wants to say
I can take care of myself, thanks
, but I press my lips together and swallow the words, because I know there’s a good chance they’re not actually true in a shady part of a foreign country.

“I wouldn’t want to trigger an international incident,” I say.

“
Zloyushka
, I’m not going to take you anywhere that I can’t keep you safe,” he says.

“I’m not worried.”

“Good,” he says, and we stop.

We’re standing near a big black SUV. Even in the near-dark I can tell that the windows are tinted. It looks exactly like something a monarch would be driven in.

“Is that bulletproof?” I ask, letting my eyes slide along it. It’s so well-polished that there aren’t even fingerprints.

Kostya frowns. Then he follows my gaze, looks at the SUV, and snorts.

“
That
is,” he says, nodding at the massive vehicle.

Then he points to an ancient-looking motorcycle, nearly hidden in the shadows next to the gleaming SUV.

“
This
isn’t,” he says.

“Does that run?” I ask.

He finally lets go of my hand and walks toward it, running one hand almost tenderly over the handlebars.

“It
purrs
,” he says, and then half-laughs. “Like an old, asthmatic tiger with a bad cough.”

It’s big and bulky, anything but sleek. The paint’s a little rusted, the headlight is so big it looks like it’s from a locomotive, and it’s got a sidecar that might have been riveted together from scrap metal.

“Soviet?” I ask.

He reaches into the sidecar, pulls two helmets, and hands me one. This, at least, looks new and not like it’s older than I am.

“Of course,” he says. “I found it in the back of an outbuilding when I was seventeen. My father wanted to scrap it, but I convinced him to let me fix it up instead.”

He uses a thumb to rub some dirt off of a dial on the handlebars.

“He hates this thing,” he muses.

“I didn’t know you fixed bikes,” I say.

“Even a prince needs a few practical skills,” he says. “And I can’t cook or clean for shit.”

He puts the helmet on, and I follow suit, then look down at the sidecar.

It’s not very big, and it might be the only thing in this garage that looks
more
beat up than the bike itself. I’m pretty sure that if we hit something, it’ll crumple like aluminum foil.

“I’ve never ridden in a sidecar,” I say, my voice sounding dubious even to me.

“I won’t make you start now,” Kostya says. “As long as you promise you can hold on tight.”

I think of the night before, trying not to stare at him as he handed me his shirt, and I’m glad I’ve got this helmet on in the dark because I feel my face flush just at the thought.

“Of course,” I say.

Kostya uncouples the sidecar, wheels the bike forward, and then gets on. He’s wearing jeans, motorcycle boots, and a black leather jacket that fits
exactly
the way a black leather jacket ought to fit a man.

Watching him straddle a motorcycle, even with the helmet hiding his face, all I can think is:
it’s completely unfair how hot he is.

“Come on,
zloyushka
,” he says. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“Not for a second,” I say, sounding slightly braver than I feel.

I’m not nervous about going out with him, but I’m a little nervous about riding something that looks like it belongs in a museum.

Also, I can’t figure out how to get on the back. The second seat is just high enough that I don’t know if I can get a leg over it, so I stand there for a moment while Kostya holds the bike still, and I shuffle from foot to foot.

“Step there and hold onto my shoulder,” he finally says, pointing at a bar sticking out of the back.

“It won’t fall off?” I ask, poking at it gingerly.

“It’s a foot rest,” he says. “This is what it’s for.”

I put my weight on it and grab his thick shoulder, swinging my leg over the seat.

Kostya turns his head, and for just a second, his hand drifts to my knee and holds it, warm and comforting. I take a deep breath and then reach my arms around his waist, very determinedly
not
thinking about him shirtless.

He says something, but I can’t hear him.

“What?” I say.

He turns his head and reaches back, sliding one finger along the underside of my helmet. There’s a faint click, and then I hear Kostya’s voice right in my ears.

“Tighter,” he says.

I tighten my arms, and the bike roars to life, the noise echoing inside the big garage. We take off toward a big garage door, slowly opening.

I fight the urge to duck as we go under it, and Kostya points a remote back over his shoulder.

Royals
, I think.
They use garage door openers just like we do!

Then the bike’s engine cuts out.

“Shit,” I say into my helmet’s intercom. “Did it break already?”

“I told you, this thing is indestructible,” Kostya’s voice says back. “The engine is too loud.”

We coast through the palace grounds, past hedges and trees and old stone buildings until we’re at the service entrance. Unlike the front gate, this is a simple iron affair, and it opens as we approach, then closes behind us.

Once we’re outside the palace grounds, the bike roars to life again, and I tighten my arms around Kostya as we pick up speed. Soon, we’re flashing past the dark windows of shops and restaurants, the warm summer breeze blowing my hair back.

Then we’re past the Old Town, riding inland from the sea, and I can see the shadow quarter — or the gray district, whatever, I like my way better — looming in front of us.

There’s no way to describe it except to say it’s Soviet as hell, pure communist-bloc brutalist architecture. The buildings are huge, uniformly gray cubes. Some are perched on concrete legs, some have rows of windows looking out at the night glassy-eyed, but there’s no mistaking any of it.

I’m not surprised that tour guides won’t take tourists here. Besides apparently being dangerous, it’s
ugly
.

Kostya drives us down a street that dips below, and suddenly we’re next to a channel full of water. There’s no guardrail or anything between us and the canal, and I turn my head so I don’t have to look at it. The buildings here all have loading docks right on this street, at the level of the canal. Each had a streetlight at one time, but most of them are smashed or burned out now.

He lets off the gas and the motorcycle starts slowing. I haven’t seen another person since we entered the gray district, and it’s making me feel uneasy. Finally Kostya brakes, then puts his feet down and walks the bike into a dark, narrow alley between two huge industrial buildings.

When he cuts the engine, there’s near-total silence. Not even the concrete-lined canal behind us makes noise.

“This is where the bars are?” I ask into my intercom.

“Illegal bars have a way of being quiet,” he says.

Slowly, I release Kostya, find the foot rest, get off the bike, and get my helmet off, shaking out my hair and running my fingers through it, wishing I had a hairbrush. Kostya gets his off and runs his hand through his hair once.

“Why’d we park in an alley?” I ask, my voice low, glancing into the pitch blackness beyond us.

“How would it look to have a hundred cars parked outside an abandoned building?” he asks.

Good point.

“Like there was something going on inside,” I say, glancing again at the dark.

“This way,” he says, and puts one hand on my lower back, leading me out of the alley. Between the motorcycle ride, Kostya’s hand on me, and the bad part of town that’s
way
too quiet, my whole body is on high alert, tense like a tightrope.

Something crunches under my foot, and I look down. It’s a syringe, needle sticking out, and I thank my lucky stars that I wore closed-toe shoes. Not that I haven’t been plenty of places with syringes on the ground.

Kostya’s hand lingers on my back as we walk along the canal on the dark, ugly cement path between the loading docks and the black water. I keep my back straight and walk my best don’t-fuck-with-me walk, but I know full well that if something happens, it’s not going to be me kicking anyone’s ass.

We walk past a few buildings, and then Kostya walks up to one. He reaches up, knocks on a high window, then crosses to a door on the opposite end of the wall and waits.

I look up at him.

“Secret code?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says. “Every good illegal bar needs one.”

After a few more moments, the heavy metal door swings open a few inches and a very suspicious man with a thick beard and long, dark hair peers out and glares at Kostya.

L
ooks
like Viktor’s on the door tonight. We’re not great friends, but I’ve never punched him in the face, so at least he’ll let me in.

Before he does, he takes a good, long look at Hazel. So long I start to tense up, my fist tightening on my helmet in my hand.

“She with you?” he finally asks in Russian.

I just nod.

“What is she?” he asks, still looking at her.

Hazel’s looking at him, her gaze slowly becoming a glare.

“A human woman,” I say, pushing on the door just enough that he notices. “You’re familiar with the species?”

Viktor scowls, but he steps back and lets us in. I keep my hand on Hazel’s back.

The inside is a massive industrial space, filled with thirty-year-old machinery around the outer walls. The makeshift bar is in front of a massive chimney, concrete and metal, that stretches up to a high ceiling. Pipes and catwalks run across it, and under our feet, there’s sawdust on the concrete floor.

Hazel’s taking it all in quickly, her dark eyes narrowing as she looks around.

“Was this really a cannery?” she asks.

“Is that what they told you?” I ask.

Hazel just nods, her eyes up toward the ceiling.

“Not at all,” I say, and then I hear someone shout my name.

I turn, and Niko’s waving at me from a long, beat up metal table.

“That looks like your father’s aide Nikolai,” Hazel says, sounding confused.

“That’s because it is,” I say.

“Someone who works for your father is here?” she asks, sounding suspicious.

I chuckle and lead her over. Niko’s already half-drunk, grinning at me, his arm around his girlfriend Marina. He’s at the table with a few other friends, and they all wave as we walk over.

“You
did
bring the American girl,” Niko says in Russian. “I thought so.”

Hazel’s eyebrows go up at
Amerikanskaya
.

“This is Hazel,” I say to the table in English. I know they all speak it perfectly. Niko just wants to rag me about this.

Hazel takes a deep breath, then nods.

“Hello again, Nikolai,” she says.

Niko laughs.

“You can call me Niko when we’re not in the palace,” he says.

Hazel relaxes visibly.

“Thank God,” she says. “I think Svelorian introductions are gonna kill me one of these days.”

I go around the table and everyone introduces themselves: Marina, Niko’s girlfriend, Sergei and Dmitri, who were in the Guard with me, and Dmitri’s girlfriend Sofia.

We sit, putting the motorcycle helmets on the floor behind us. Two dark beers appear in front of us. Niko shouts a toast to pretty girls and dark nights or some nonsense, and we all drink.

“Did Kostya bring you around so we’d impress you with his war stories?” Sergei asks. He’s flushed, his curly brown hair sticking up in every direction.

Hazel laughs.

“
Is
that why Kostya brought me?” she asks, leaning her chin on her hand and turning toward me, laughter in her eyes.

“If I wanted to impress you with war stories I’d tell them myself,” I say. “These assholes will only tell you about all the times I made everyone get out of bed and into defensive positions in the middle of the night because I heard a squirrel.”

“You know us too well,” says Dmitri.

“True,” I say, and everyone laughs.

I sneak another glance at Hazel. She looks a little confused, still, but she’s laughing along with the group.

“The palace is stuffy and formal,” I say, shrugging. “I thought you might want to escape for a while and go somewhere that you didn’t have to remember your manners.”

“Oh, come
on
,” she says. “I’m not that bad.”

“She met the king and queen in a sweatshirt and spandex pants,” I tell the group.

Marina just puts her face in her hands, and Niko pats her back.

“I’d just gotten off a thirteen-hour train ride, and I didn’t
know
I’d be meeting them,” she says, but she’s laughing. “And I never even told you what happened on the train.”

“It can’t be worse,” Marina says, peeking through her fingers.

Hazel just takes a sip of her beer, then looks around. Everyone’s waiting for the story, and she laughs awkwardly.

“You have to tell us now,” Sergei points out.

“Shit,” she says.

She exhales, blowing a strand of hair out of her face and looking into her beer.

“I’m visiting because my mom’s the American ambassador,” she starts. “She can be kind of intense, so before I visited, she sent me a full dossier on Sveloria, Velinsk, the Summer Palace, the royal family, everything.”

She tells the whole story: almost losing her passport, finding the joint, Svelorian customs wondering if she was a terrorist, and then getting off the train to find out that she was going to meet the royal family wearing spandex.

My memory of her spandex pants is
excellent
.

By the time the story ends, everyone is laughing along with her.

“And they didn’t kick you out?” Dmitri asks, his eyes dancing.

“Only because they don’t want to start an international incident,” Hazel says. “It’s probably better to put up with someone who can’t behave herself than piss off the American ambassador.”

“What happened to the joint?” asks Sofia.

“I flushed it,” Hazel says, twisting her beer glass between her fingers. “I figured it caused me enough excitement already.”

I glance over at her, but she doesn’t look at me. I force myself not to smile at the secret we’re still keeping.

“I can’t believe you didn’t share,” I say.

Now
she looks at her, her eyes sparking.

“I thought you might toss me into the dungeons,” she said.

“We haven’t used those in a hundred years,” I say.

“Only a hundred years?” she asks.

Niko and Sergei are grinning like idiots, watching Hazel tease me.

“She’s got a point,” Sergei says. “A hundred years isn’t that long ago.”

I lean back in my chair and give them all a good long look.

“Keep it up and you’re going in there,” I say.

“Everyone better shape up,” Niko says. “His majesty has spoken.”

“Can I have a cell with a window?” asks Marina.

“I think not,” I say. “Rats, bread, and gruel for the next person who says something about the dungeon.”

“But no heads on spikes,” Hazel says, leaning back in her chair as well and looking over at me.

“You can’t lock
her
up,” Niko points out. “Hazel, ask him
how
big the rats are.”

I roll my eyes, and Hazel laughs.

“Are there really dungeons in the palace?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“You skipped those when you were telling me about the murder holes and heads on spikes,” she says.

Dmitri snorts, then reaches for the pitcher of beer. He refills Hazel’s half-empty glass, then goes around the table, topping everyone off, ending with himself.

“Kostya really knows how to talk to women,” Sergei says as Dmitri is pouring.

“His majesty doesn’t have to talk to women,” says Niko. “He’s a prince, they present themselves at his feet.”

“Is this because I haven’t come by in a couple weeks?” I ask. “Is this how you tell me you miss me?”

They all laugh, and I can’t help but smile as I drink more of my beer. I sure as hell missed
them
. Being royalty gets old after a while.

“It must be hard to have every eligible woman in the country make eyes at you,” Niko teases me.

“Niko, have you
seen
the Summer Palace? I’d leave you if Kostya said the word,” Marina says, laughing.

He makes a face.

“It’s not that great,” he says.

I steal a glance at Hazel, because I kind of wish the conversation hadn’t taken this turn. It’s true that being the crown prince has gotten me lots of female attention, but I could take it or leave it. I’ve got more important things to do than bed some rich man’s daughter.

She glances at me quickly, then takes a very small sip of her beer. At least she’s figured out that if she keeps emptying her glass, it’ll keep getting refilled.

“Has your father bred you to Yelena yet?” Dmitri asks, totally oblivious.

Hazel makes a face. Dmitri laughs.

“Jesus, Dmitri,” I say. “I’m not a show pony.”

“
She
is,” he says. “How many strong Svelorian children did her grandmother produce, again? Was it twelve?”

“I don’t know,” I mutter.

Hazel lifts her eyebrows.

“She was the woman you were with at that dinner, right?” she says, and there’s something cool in her tone, suddenly a little standoffish.

I glare at Dmitri, who pretends not to notice.

“Poor Yelena,” says Sergei. “She just wants to make you good meals and strong babies.”

“Be nice,” I say. “Yelena’s a very sweet, genuine girl.”

I trail off before I say anything mean.

“She genuinely wants your royal dick,” Sergei says, and next to me Hazel nearly spits out her beer, laughing.

She closes her eyes and buries her face in her arm, still half-laughing and half-coughing. I grab her beer and put it on the table so she doesn’t spill it, then rub her back until she’s finally stopped coughing, her long black hair tickling my hand as I do.

Sergei looks
incredibly
pleased with himself. I glare.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” Hazel says. “That wasn’t even that funny.”

“You laughed pretty hard,” Sergei says.

“I was just surprised,” she says.

Everyone’s watching my hand still on Hazel’s back. I pull it away and put it back around my beer. Hazel clears her throat.

“She seemed nice,” she says, her voice cool again.

For a moment, I want to murder everyone at this table.

“Yelena is very nice,” I say, making myself sound reasonable. “She’s also the latest in a long line of rich, boring, empty-headed women that my father keeps pushing on me, in the hopes that sooner or later I’ll break down and make myself an heir.”

“You poor thing,” Marina says, leaning her chin on her hand on leaning forward. “All those pretty, willing girls.”

“They just want the title,” I say. “I could bathe once a month, pick my nose at the dinner table, fart in public, and as long as I was next in line for the crown they’d still line up.”

“Have you tried it?” Hazel asks. “I bet not bathing for a month might deter
some
of them.”

“You think I should?” I tease her. “You’re still here for three more weeks, aren’t you?”

“You could start after I leave,” she says.

Her eyes are laughing again, and something warm and happy winds through my chest.

“It was your idea,” I say. “I think I start tonight.”

I set my one-third-full beer on the table with a loud
clunk
. Hazel wrinkles her nose, and the rest of the table chuckles.

“How long until your father has his guards take you outside, strip you, and hose you down?” Sergei asks.

“Two weeks,” Niko says. “Less if I tell him what you’re doing.”

To my right, I swear Hazel turns faintly pink.

It’s the beer
, I tell myself, even though she’s hardly had half a glass.

“Careful,” I say. “I know where all the murder holes are.”

“No showers, murder holes,” Marina teases. “Line up, ladies.”

“I didn’t
make
the murder holes,” I say. “I’m just descended from the crazy-eyed bastard who did.”