9. Elena #2
His eyes meet mine, that steady, reassuring gaze I’ve seen a hundred times… but never with so much weight.
The leaders nod and exit just as Zoe, Braydon, and Hannah slip into the room.
The door closes.
The air shifts.
“Why are you agreeing to this?” I demand.
“I don’t have a choice,” Alexei counters softly. “We stand for fairness and justice. We can’t expect special treatment because of our titles.”
My eyes fall to the floor, chest tight. “…You’re right.”
“From an optics standpoint,” Fletcher adds, “it’s better if you cooperate. I’ll work with Abby and Reid to release a statement. Make it clear this is an attempt to undermine leadership.”
But something cold settles inside me.
This is Wendell. It has his stench all over it. This is the beginning.
I feel Alexei’s gaze before I meet his glance, piercing, knowing. And behind it… a flicker I don’t like. The same one I’ve seen before, right before everything went wrong.
“No,” I say aloud.
Alexei answers heavily, “Elena…”
Hannah steps closer. “No, what?”
My chin rests over my shoulder, giving her my attention. “He’s about to tell me it would be in my best interest to stay away from him.”
Alexei’s face gives nothing away. “I know what you’re thinking?—”
“The answer is no,” I cut in sharply, pressing a hand to my forehead. “We said together.”
“We did,” he agrees. “But that was before they dealt their hand.”
I turn to him fully now, my spine straight, my voice like steel. “I don’t care. I’m not leaving.”
Fletcher clears his throat. “Normally I’d agree, but… I can’t shake this feeling that this is part of Wendell’s plan somehow.”
I face him. “What do you mean?”
Fletcher sighs. “If I were Wendell, it would be easier to separate the two of you. He’s after Alexei because he’s the greater physical threat.
” A slight, unsure smile crosses his lips.
“Not that you aren’t a threat in your own right.
You are. But Alexei’s abilities, his training… his priority is to neutralize.”
A soft voice breaks the tension.
“The missing piece,” Zoe whispers.
We all turn toward her.
“What missing piece?” Fletcher asks.
Alexei and I exchange a glance, fear slipping in around the edges. Zoe’s words land too perfectly, too truthfully.
One will fall.
Inanna’s words echo through my head, my ribcage squeezing painfully in my chest.
Alexei steps closer and takes my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “I’m not going anywhere. You know that.”
“You don’t know that,” I whisper, my face falling. “Don’t ask me to leave.”
“Elena,” he says softly, his fingers lifting my chin to meet his gaze. “This may take days. Possibly weeks. They will sequester me. I won’t be able to protect you.”
I scoff. “I have plenty of protection. Lance, Braydon, Blake, Travis?—”
Alexei cups my face between both hands. “Our enemy knows our security protocols. Knows this palace as well as we do. Mitchell has reinforced everything, but I will never gamble your life.”
“I don’t want our people to think I’m abandoning you,” I protest. “That my leaving means they should see you as guilty.” The words scrape out of me harsher than intended, fear sharpening every syllable.
“The people know Wendell has escaped,” Fletcher reminds the group. “I'll work closely with Abby and Reid when we address them. They’ll understand these precautions are for your safety.”
“That’s good,” Alexei adds, his tone of assent firm but quiet.
I exhale in a long, reluctant breath. No matter how much I don’t want this to be the answer, everyone else certainly seems to believe it is. And maybe they’re right. Maybe. If ever there was a moment for a vision, some sign from the ancients to tell me which path leads us forward, it’s now.
I bite my bottom lip hard. “What if we’re wrong? What if I go, and they come after you?”
Alexei smiles softly. “I can handle myself.”
“I’ll remain with him.” The protective note in Fletcher’s voice matches my own. “He won’t be alone.”
I squeeze Alexei’s hand. “I don’t like this.”
He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I don’t either. But knowing you’re hidden, safe, helps.”
I breathe out shakily, the knot in my stomach twisting tighter.
“I’ll go along with her,” Hannah says, stepping forward with a hopeful smile.
But her words bring back my earlier conversation with Zoe, and a heavy realization settles.
Wendell won’t only go after Alexei, but everyone I love.
He could target Hannah, too.
No one is really safe. Not until he is recaptured and whoever helped him escape is dealt with too.
Perhaps keeping Hannah with me is the only way to protect her.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
Zoe meets my gaze and nods, the right call.
“Can I have a moment alone with him?” I ask the others.
They file out, Fletcher, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder, a passing glance at his son, before he is the last to leave the room.
The door closes, and I turn to Alexei. “Where would I even go?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “You had a scheduled visit with Queen Lizzie from Petrova. You could move it up.”
My throat tightens. Logistically, it makes sense, even if kept in secret, but the knot coiling in my throat isn’t helping. This isn’t goodbye, and yet the emotion creeping in feels achingly familiar, like my own shadow.
He steps closer. I rest my hands on his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall beneath my palms.
“This isn’t forever,” he murmurs.
“No,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to his. “Just… a little while.”
“We’ll keep our guards up,” he says.
“Tell me they won’t win. They won’t get away with it,” I whisper, my voice breaking as I reach for him-not for reassurance but for him.
His hands rise to hold my face, as gentle as he is certain, as if through touching me, he can steady the whole world. “They won’t,” he murmurs, his forehead brushing mine. “I will never let them take you from me.”
The promise settles into me, warm and devastating.
Another fissure opens in my chest, the aftershock of visions that have hunted me-ancients’ warnings of trials so harsh that one of us may not survive.
The thought claws its way forward, and I push it back, refuse to let it coalesce into shape.
Not when his breath is mingling with mine, not when his love feels strong enough to defy the course of fate itself.
“And we won’t do anything reckless,” I add, even though we both know that might be a promise neither of us keeps easily.
“Elena, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do when it comes to you. I’d storm the gates of hell if that were what it takes to keep you safe and happy,” he says.
I pull back a little, raising my brow. “Really? The gates of hell?”
He yanks me closer again, and I just melt into him, taken by the warmth of his body, the keen heat. “Yes,” he affirms hoarsely. “I swore to God, to our family, our people, that I would love, protect, honor, and cherish you. Not even death could stop me from that.”
A smile creeps onto my lips despite the tension in my chest. “And here I was just going to tell you that I love you.”
“It’s the only words I ever care to hear from you.” His fingers lift my chin, making me meet his gaze. “Tell me.”
“I love you,” I breathe back, fierce, aching, terrified all at once.
He kisses me softly, a touch as light as a prayer.
When he draws back, something flickers across his eyes, a shadow, a warning of what’s to come.
A beginning.
A fracture before the storm.
He crushes my hand, the fingers tightening around mine. “They’re waiting for me.”
I want to tell him I don’t care, that they can wait forever. But we both know that isn’t true.
He exhales slowly, giving my hand one last gentle squeeze before pressing a kiss to the top of it and letting go. “See you soon,” he whispers.
“See you soon.”
Even as it feels like the world is already shifting beneath our feet.