9. Sasha #2
She jerks around so violently that she nearly slams back into the window.
Her eyes are wide. Even in the dark, I can tell her pupils are blown, leaving almost no color.
For a split second, she doesn’t see me at all.
She looks through me like I’m not standing in front of her but hovering somewhere far away.
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please don’t…”
“Don’t what?” I ask carefully, every edge of my voice sanded down. “Alina.”
She doesn’t respond.
Her arms wrap around herself as if she’s trying to hold her own body from coming apart.
Then her knees give out and she sinks down into the carpet, folding in on herself with a broken sound that scrapes against a raw part of me.
She presses her back against the wall, her gaze darting frantically to the window, the floor, the shadows dancing on her ceiling from the fire.
Over and over again.
She’s mumbling words that come too fast to discern, too quietly to understand. The fragments are stitched together by panic. I catch nothing concrete, only the rhythm of fear. Her fingers twist together, knuckles whitening, nails digging into her own skin.
She isn’t here.
Whatever part of her is conscious is trapped somewhere else, reliving something I can’t see but can feel radiating off her in waves. This isn’t anger. This isn’t even grief in the way people expect it to look.
This is a mind drowning in utter sorrow and fear.
I cross the room in two strides and drop down beside her without thinking, my knee hitting the carpet hard. When my hand closes around her shoulder, she flinches violently, recoiling like she expects pain.
“Alina,” I say again, softer this time. “It’s me.”
She sucks in a breath that sounds like it hurts, her body rigid beneath my touch. I don’t tighten my grip and I don’t pull her toward me. I let my hand rest there, solid and unmoving, giving her something real and present to hold onto.
Her eyes flick to mine at last. For a moment, there is nothing in them but terror. But then, slowly, something shifts. Recognition doesn’t come all at once. It creeps in, tentative and unsure, like an animal testing whether the ground beneath it is safe before coming out from hiding.
“S… Sasha?” she breathes.
I keep my voice steady even as something in my chest tightens painfully. “Yes. You’re in your room. You’re safe, Alina.”
She shakes her head weakly, a denial born from instinct rather than reason. Her breath stutters. “I—I can’t. I keep seeing…”
“I know.” I don’t, not fully, but I know enough to recognize she needs someone to keep her grounded before she spirals completely. “Look at me.”
Her gaze wavers then locks onto mine again. Tears cling to her lashes, threatening to spill but not falling yet.
“Breathe,” I murmur.
I hesitate.
The pause is so brief it barely exists, a single hitch in motion that would go unnoticed by anyone else, but to me, it is deafening.
Hesitation is not something I indulge in.
It has never kept anyone I’ve ever cared about alive.
It has never improved an outcome. In my world, it is the space where mistakes are born.
And yet, before the thought fully forms, I close the distance and pull her toward me, wrapping my arms around her with deliberate care, guiding her closer until her weight rests against my chest. My hold is firm but not trapping, solid without being possessive. At least that’s what I tell myself.
She fights me at first.
Not violently. It isn’t intentional. It’s instinct.
Her hands push weakly against my chest, her breaths turning into short, panicked gasps as if the closeness itself frightens her. Her body is wound as tightly as wire, every muscle braced for something worse to follow.
“Easy,” I murmur, lowering my voice further, keeping it close to her ear. “I’ve got you.”
Slowly, almost imperceptibly so, something begins to change.
Bit by bit, she gives in to the exhaustion dragging at her.
Her resistance falters. Her fists unclench, fingers uncurling as if they’ve forgotten what they were gripping so tightly for.
Her shoulders sag, the tension bleeding out of them in a long, shuddering release.
And then her forehead presses against my shoulder.
Her tears soak through my shirt, hot and relentless, her body trembling as the sobs finally break free. They tear out of her in quiet, devastating waves. The kind that comes from somewhere deep and buried, ones no one is ever supposed to witness.
“I can’t stop seeing it,” she whispers against my chest. “Her face… She was good. She didn’t deserve it.”
The words slice straight through me.
Truth rises up instinctively inside me, ugly, honest, and unfiltered, before I can swallow it back down.
“Most of them never do,” I say.
The moment the words leave my mouth, I know I shouldn’t have said them. They are not comforting. They are not kind. They are the kind of truth that corrodes hope rather than mends it, but they are real. For reasons I do not want to examine too closely, I refuse to lie to her now.
Especially when it comes to this subject.
She trembles harder at that, another sob tearing through her frame. Her fingers curl into my shirt, clinging to me like I’m the only thing solid left in the world.
She’s small in my arms.
The thought comes unbidden and I shove it away immediately.
I don’t let myself linger on how easily she fits against me, how naturally her weight settles like she belongs in my arms. I don’t let myself consider how right it feels, how instinctive it was to pull her close instead of stepping back and letting her deal with her grief on her own.
Eventually, after she quiets, I lift her into my arms.
She barely reacts. Only a soft sound leaves her throat as her body shifts against mine, instinctively curling closer rather than away. The weight of her is light and it settles against my chest with an intimacy that tightens something painful and unnamable beneath my ribs.
I slowly carry her the few steps to the bed. I lower her onto the mattress with care, easing her down until her head meets the pillow. She stirs once, a faint crease appearing between her brows as her lashes flutter. My hand stills automatically, but she doesn’t open her eyes.
Instead, she turns slightly onto her side, the tension in her body loosening just enough to tell me she’s anchored in sleep.
I pull the covers up around her, tucking them carefully beneath her chin and smoothing them over her shoulders. The gesture is absurdly gentle, too gentle for a man like me, and the awareness of that fact makes my jaw tighten.
For a long moment, I don’t move.
I stand there in the quiet of her room, the storm still raging somewhere beyond the thick glass, watching her breathe.
The fire has burned low, embers casting a soft, wavering light across her face.
Shadows play over her features, but even half-lit, she looks impossibly young, stripped of the sharp edges she wears so instinctively when she’s awake.
Something dangerous coils low in my chest.
It feels too much like longing. Too much like guilt.
I tell myself it’s responsibility. That this is the natural consequence of involvement with agreeing to this arrangement with her father.
Of proximity and the damage done by telling her the truth about her mother.
I tell myself I’m only standing here to ensure she’s settled and that she won’t wake alone and frightened, giving her an excuse to go wandering around the estate and get into trouble again.
Her face is calmer now, the lines of distress softened into an expression that’s vulnerable and unguarded. I have seen countless people sleep—soldiers, enemies, lovers I never bothered to remember after the fun is over—but this feels different.
Watching her like this feels… more intimate in a way that unsettles me. As though I’m witnessing something I have no right to see.
Slowly, without fully deciding to do it, I reach out.
My fingers brush a loose strand of hair away from her face, the contact barely there, a whisper of touch rather than a full claim. Her skin is warm and soft. She exhales, shifting closer into the pillow, and my hand stills immediately, hovering there as if caught mid-crime.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
Every rule I’ve ever lived by warns me away from moments like this. From tenderness, from attachment, from allowing another person to matter enough to alter my choices. This is how men lose wars. This is how empires crumble.
And yet…
I let my hand fall back to my side instead. I stand there and commit the rise and fall of her chest to memory.
When I finally force myself away from her bedside and turn toward the door, I move quietly. I don’t indulge myself by sparing another look over my shoulder before opening the door and slipping out into the hallway, closing it behind me with care.
The sound is soft, but the weight I carry with me out of the room is anything but.
Goddamn it…