twenty-four

Alexei

"Promise me that you'll stay alive," were his last words to Nikolaos as they parted at the entrance of the cave.

Alexei had gotten on a small boat and rowed with Nikolaos all the way to the cave's awning, so that they could say their goodbyes there.

"I will if you will." Nikolaos chuckled and, impulsively reached out and grasped Alexei's hand so strongly he nearly broke bones. Alexei grasped it just as strongly, not feeling an ounce of revulsion at the prince's touch.

Nikolaos brought Alexei's hand to his lips and kissed its back with reverence. The barge was already moving, manned by two sailors, taking him away, to freedom, to safety.

Hopefully.

"Godspeed," Alexei told him, once his hand was returned to him. "I know these are only idle words, but I do believe you shall be safe now."

He would be safe, or he could be possibly going to his death.

"If you ever plan on praying, Alexei, start now," Nikolaos said. "I need it."

Alexei peered into the prince's eyes.

They were big and scared, but Nikolaos' jaw was set in iron, and he had a determined expression on his pale face. Determined not to let the fear overwhelm him. Sudden emotion gripped Alexei and he found himself close to tears. All these months, the prince had stayed in those two rooms, practically buried underneath London, just to stay alive.

And now, all of a sudden, he would be exposed to the perils of travel, and the danger of being hunted down. He looked thin and exhausted. He had been fighting against death for so long. And for what? To fight a war for his people, people who barely knew him or were able to give him anything back, if he ever succeeded in his endeavors.

"I will," Alexei promised. He would have promised him anything that moment. "I will, Nicky."

Another smile flashed across the prince's handsome, slender face, and just like that, he was gone. The small opening of the underground cave swallowed him and his boat, and Alexei was left there, standing alone in the middle of the deep, black water, watching the empty space Nikolaos had left behind.

Oh, to be doing something significant with one's miserable life, he thought.

Oh, to matter.

Alexei shuddered. His skin crawled from the proximity of the water, but he did not regret rowing out here one whit.

I would give my life for this man, he thought, and I barely know him.

He started rowing back to the shore. It would take him barely fifteen minutes to reach it, but he was impatient to get out of the water, so he rowed mightily, covering the distance in almost half the time.

He was almost there, when he saw them. Someone screamed his name—it sounded like Poppy, for some demented reason—and he whipped around just in time to see two thugs climb aboard his narrow barge.

They had crept quietly into the water like reptiles, knifes clasped in their teeth.

Alexei was immediately alert, but his brain went blank.

This was it. It was finally time to die.

All he could think was: Thank God Nikolaos is gone. Thank God he is already far away by now, and safe.

And then the two assassins came at him with their knives, pushing him to the edge of the boat, reaching for his heart.

Thank God it's only me who will die.

And that was his first prayer.

"You missed him, gentlemen," Alexei murmured, but was interrupted by the swish of a knife by his ear. It missed his skin by a thread, but proceeded to press against the vein pulsing on his larynx.

He stopped talking.

Having immobilized him with a knife at his throat, the men set to work, tying his legs. Alexei got out his knives, anyway, ready to fight, even with his legs tied. Not that it would do him any good. They were two and he was one, not to mention tied up, but still the odds wouldn't be so terrible, if he wasn't surrounded by water. But he was, and they could swim and he could not, so he had little, if any, chance of survival. He could not attack them first. He let them tie him up, knowing he could cut off his ropes whenever he wanted, if only he could get rid of them.

How did they get past Wilder and all his other guards to find him all the way down here? It didn't matter; they had. He cast about his brains for a sliver of a hope of survival.

He found none.

"Tell us where the prince is and we'll let you live," the assassins said.

Ah. He had killed the last ones right after he had educated them on the futility of threatening to kill him; he would have to elucidate these new morons as well. It was so dull explaining himself to these butchers over and over again, but someone had to do it.

"How much will you give me for betraying him?" he said.

The cat-and-mouse game began, but in this instance, Alexei was more mouse than cat. His knives were useless in his hands, for the assassins now had their blades pressed both to his neck and chest. He stood there, unmoving, as they spoke, not daring to breathe lest he find himself in the water.

"If you do not deliver the prince to us," one of the thugs hissed, "you will not survive."

"Might as well throw me in the lake now," Hades murmured back.

All it took was a push and he found himself in the lake.

I've gone and done it now.

God help me.

He had barely time to gulp in a big breath of air before the waters closed over his head.

Swallowing down his repulsion of the cold water that surrounded him, he bent down and cut off the ropes at his ankles. The water was so freezing that his left hand let go of the knife involuntarily, but he still had one knife left, and he made quick work of the ropes with that. Then he kicked madly for the surface, knowing that even if he reached it, he had little hope of staying above water afterwards.

He rose from the water with a gasp, coughing and spitting out water.

His vision was blurry, but he looked around until he saw his barge disappear into the narrow opening, the assassins making their escape with it. Both the barge and the killers were gone by the time it took to fight his way to a breath.

He was left all alone in the water.

And he was already sinking again.

"Take my hand, quick!"

Someone was screaming above his head and Alexei made a herculean effort to kick again for the surface. His head whipped around for the source of the voice, water streaming down his face, long hair plastered to his forehead and cheeks.

"Alexei!" the voice screamed.

His name.

He knew that voice. It was her voice.

"What on earth—?" Water was in his mouth and he choked on it, nearly going under again.

But he thought he saw a small, battered boat approach him shakily on the water, and he kicked some more, desperate to stay afloat. The boat came closer: it was real. On it, was Poppy, eyes wide, face white, hair flying every which way. She held an oar in one hand and was reaching out to him with the other.

The oar barely touched the surface of the water, but her hand was closer. Close enough to grab and be saved.

"Wyatt," Alexei gasped, spitting water.

He spit blood with it as well. The assassin who threw him in the water had managed to also punch him on the mouth at the same time, possibly breaking his nose for the second time in less than two days. The pain was splitting his skull in two.

Water was in his eyes again and he lifted his chin to take a breath, but he had gone under. Something grabbed at his collar and dragged him to the surface. He gasped in air, floundered about.

"Take my hand," Poppy said, sounding out of breath. It was her hand on his collar, keeping him alive.

"No," he coughed out water, but there was still more in his lungs. He was getting weaker; it wouldn't be long now.

"What?" Poppy's little boat started to drift away from him, and she fought to row back to him again. He saw that she used her good hand to row, as the other one lay on her lap. She extended her weak arm to him once more.

"Come on!" she yelled.

"Give me your other hand," Alexei yelled back.

"I can't, it's holding on to the oar! Come on, Alexei." Her voice was close to tears now, pleading, begging.

Alexei.

She said ‘Alexei'.

"No," he murmured, his mouth half underwater.

"Give me your bloody hand!"

Alexei choked and tried to take a breath.

"Don't swear," he spat with a lungful of water.

"I shall swear as much as I like!" Poppy was screaming again.

That sounded about right. Abruptly, he slipped under once more.

Water covered his nostrils and he fought to rise above it, spluttering and spitting weakly. The next time he went under, he wouldn't surface again, he knew it.

He struggled for the surface, and Poppy's hand was there, waiting for him, and she was still screaming at him to take it, and not be a fool.

"I d—don't want to hurt you," he choked.

He sank. She grabbed him again, but it was too late; he was choking, drowning, but somehow, she managed to snatch his hand from the water and hold on to it. Her grasp on him was too weak to be able to pull him, but with a desperate groan, he grabbed it and pulled himself up, into her arms, into the boat.

He thought he heard her gasp in pain, but he was beyond thinking at this point. He turned his face away just in time to vomit the entire contents of the lake at her feet.

Poppy swore.

"You idiot," she said, and he felt her cool little hand on his brow, pushing back his soaked, dripping hair.

"Wyatt," he tried to say, but was seized with a fit of coughing. He couldn't take a deep enough breath, and he couldn't stop the water pouring out of his mouth like a river. "Have I…" Have I hurt you?

He couldn't get enough air in his chest.

Then the darkness mercifully pulled him under and the pain stopped.

Everything stopped.

Poppy

Alexei was utterly still and white on her lap. His lips were turning blue and his every breath came out with a struggling, rattling sound that frightened her.

Then Wilder was there, pulling her little boat to the shore and grabbing her in his arms to carry her ashore, then Alexei.

Alexei woke up as Wilder hit him forcefully in the back, and he bent over at the waist, water pouring out of his mouth.

"That's it," Wilder said, his arm firmly around Alexei's waist. "Get it all out, that's it. You'll feel better."

"Is there no limit to your charm, Persephone?" Alexei turned and said to her, only half-conscious. "DeVere is completely in love with you, hasn't shut up about it. I am as well. And now I see that Wilder is about to succumb too."

"Shut up, my lord," Wilder said, and hit his back again, looking somewhat red-faced. "Are you all right, miss?"

Poppy had suddenly sat down on the wet stones, her legs giving out beneath her.

"I am, thank you," she replied, her voice trembling.

She could scream from the pain in her arm, but she bit her lip and swallowed it down.

"Are you sure?" Wilder persisted. "You…you look quite green."

Alexei was unconscious again, but Wilder was holding him up, looking as if it required no effort at all to him to bear the weight of a fully grown man in his arms. He laid Alexei down gently on his side.

"Mikailoff would prefer me to tend to you instead of him," Wilder said, looking down at her, his brow furrowed in concern.

"And I would prefer that he not die," Poppy replied.

The next second, she found herself gripped in Wilder's embrace, the man's entire body shuddering as he pressed her to his chest.

"Are…are you embracing me, Mr. Wilder?" Poppy dared to ask.

Wilder took a moment to reply. He appeared to be sobbing into her shoulder.

"I am embracing you," he replied, slowly letting her go. His chest heaved, his eyes were red.

"Because…?"

"Because you saved him," Wilder said, wiping his nose.

"Not yet," Poppy said gently. "You must do the rest of the saving, it seems."

"Oh, good God."

Wilder turned to look at Alexei and his expression changed. Hades did look as if he were about to die, it was true. With a grunt, Wilder pulled him up by the arms, gathered him to his chest, and turned to carry him up the stairs.

"Stay where you are," Wilder called at her, over his shoulder. "I shall call for help."

"Oh, I am running away, no doubt about it," Poppy said, then bent her head over her knees to keep herself from fainting.

Wilder swore—a new word, she would have to add it to her vocabulary—and was gone.

…

It took his servants nearly two hours to bring Alexei round, but as soon as he was properly awake and warmed up, Wilder had her called to his rooms. Poppy was in considerable pain, but with Rania's help, she managed to change into dry clothes and put up her hair in a semblance of decency.

"God, your color is off," Rania said, looking at her with a worried look on her face.

"What did you expect," Poppy replied, "I watched him nearly drown. I thought he would drown."

"But you saved him," Rania stroked the curls that had escaped Poppy's chignon to fall across her forehead. "You saved him," she repeated, her voice low and reverent.

"He nearly did not allow himself to be saved."

"He wouldn't, would he?" Rania said, matter-of-factly.

But Poppy was more disturbed by what had passed between her and Alexei at the lake than she could express. The moment a servant appeared to say that his lordship was presentable and able to receive visitors, she got up and limped to his room.

He was on that huge bed, his skin lily-white, his eyes empty. He almost looked the same as when he had been half-dead. Seeing him like that sent a knife to her heart.

She inhaled sharply and almost whimpered in pain.

His eyes shot up at her, and he was immediately alert.

"Don't be in pain," he said in a voice hoarse from coughing.

She had meant to give him a look that fell somewhere between indignation and dignity, but seeing him like that scared her so much that she forgot about both. She rushed to his bed, limping in a most graceless manner, and practically shouted:

"You fool!"

Some life flowed back into his cheeks and his eyes lit up. He sat up, smoothing his mane of wild black hair back and coughed wetly.

"I'm sure you are right," he said, "but why am I a fool this time? No, don't—don't—I don't want you to be hurt any more. You've been hurt enough."

He nearly got out of his bed, reaching out to her, his face a mask of pain.

She pushed him back in and smoothed the covers over his chest. He was shaking.

"Why did you almost let yourself drown?" Poppy asked in a hushed voice, the words almost too horrible to pronounce out loud. "You didn't even call for help. I…I saw you sink quietly."

Alexei was looking at her, his eyes full of emotion. But he did not speak.

"You," she told him, "would rather die than take my hand."

Alexei lay back on the pillows and took a rattling breath.

"I told you." He shut his eyes, the color of his cheeks resembling that of the sheets. "I'd sooner drown than hurt you."

"It would hurt a little, yes, but you wouldn't be dead!"

"What should I stay alive for?" he snapped.

Poppy felt the blood drain from her face.

"What did you say?" she breathed. "Did you just ask me for reasons not to die?"

Alexei looked tired; resigned. "Why wouldn't I? I deserve to die."

"You…"

"I have known it's what I deserve since I was born," he went on, looking idly at the ceiling, "but now…After what I have become now…I deserve it even more. I'm just polluting the world. I know that's all I am."

"What you are is precious."

He chuckled without mirth and reached out a long, tapered hand to lightly grasp the bent fingers of her left hand in his. He studied them, his lips turning white. Her fingers still hurt, but not while he held them.

"Please, Wyatt," he said, "do not insult my intelligence."

"You deserve to live." Poppy was crying now, but she didn't care. "Alexei, you deserve the world. You are a prince in name and in deed. And if you are blind to all the people you have saved, all the people who depend on you and love you, then I…I need you."

"I know that." His face turned dark and closed and he let go of her hand gently.

"You do?" Heat rushed into her cheeks.

"Well, you seem…attached to me, God knows why. I don't…I can't stand knowing that you need me. I don't know how it is possible for you to need me; I am not anything anyone needs. I told you not to care, Wyatt, but you didn't listen, did you?"

"It was too late by then," Poppy said, shivering at the memory of the boxing room and how he had turned into an icicle after she had melted in his arms. How he had fled from her, put her aside.

"So you do care?" he whispered.

"Care?" Poppy snorted. "Are you daft? I love you."

Alexei inhaled sharply and promptly started coughing again. It sounded as though his chest was being torn to shreds.

Abruptly, he sat up in the bed, his long hair falling about his shoulders. Poppy moved to support him, because his face went extremely pale at the movement, but he pushed her away and raised himself up until he was on his knees. He was wearing a clean shirt and a light pair of cotton breeches underneath, as if he were ready to leap up and start working again at any minute, in spite of the doctor's orders.

He pushed the covers aside, sweeping his long hair around his neck, his knees pressing into the feathered mattress, his back straight as a rod.

He fixed her with those eyes—they were on the same level as hers as he knelt on the bed—and her breath stopped at the hope she saw in them.

"Marry me," he said.

"I beg your pardon?"

She must surely have misheard.

"Marry me," he repeated. His lips were shaking; he pressed them together to make them stop and just stayed where he was, on his knees, watching her, naked emotion leaping from his face.

"Well, if you're going to mock me," Poppy started the painstaking process of standing up on her aching legs, but he leapt at her as soon as he saw what she was going to do, and took her elbow to stop her.

"No!" He shouted it, almost savage in his desperation. "I am more serious than I have ever been in my life. Marry me, Wyatt."

"You…you're serious?"

"I am."

"You can marry anyone you want."

He laughed incredulously. "That is news to me," he said. "But even if it were true in the slightest, it's you I want."

"You should marry a Slavic princess, and then your father and all the other princes who chased your mother out of her home will come crawling back to you. You'll get back the power they stripped from you, my lord."

"Is this the first time you are thinking of this?" Alexei asked, eyebrow flying up. He nearly smiled.

Poppy shook her head. "I've thought it through; it's perfect. The perfect solution, the perfect revenge. You would…"

He lifted a hand to stop her.

"Let me tell you something, and I need to be extremely clear: I do not mean to marry anyone that isn't you." He spoke in a tone she hadn't quite heard him use before: firm and determined, but extremely quiet and gentle. Intentional, that was the word to describe it. His eyes were still on hers, peering into her very soul. "Understood?"

Poppy licked her lips. "No."

He opened his mouth but no sound came out.

"Why not?" he said finally.

"Because you are out of your mind," Poppy said frankly.

He smiled wolfishly. "Always," he said. "Why? Tell me."

"Because…I'm too broken."

And you are too, she thought, but did not say it. By the look on his face, he thought it. The light went away at once.

"I won't marry," she added more softly. "I don't know if you are still half-drowning or in jest, but I am telling you the truth. I do not intend to marry. Ever."

Alexei looked at her, still without speaking.

"I am completely in earnest," he said at length. "And I was not half-drowning as I said it," he added slowly. "I am now."

"I'm—I'm sorry."

Poppy did not know what to say, but before she could cast about for something, some excuse, anything to stop the pain she saw shining out of those eyes of his, her legs seemed to make the decision for her, already standing up, putting space between her and his bed.

He leapt again to catch her from where he knelt on the bed, but he was too slow.

"No, don't leave!" he called with such intensity, he might have been weeping. But he wasn't; he appeared to be seething in anger, nostrils flaring, eyes spitting fire.

But Poppy already was leaving.

He cursed, using the same word Wilder had used two hours ago.

"Don't leave me, Wyatt, for God's sake!" He tried to jump from the bed, but a cough sent him bending at the waist, gasping for breath. "Poppy, I'm begging you! You are tearing my soul apart, dammit."

But his voice was a choked cry, fading. She was already outside his rooms, limping down the hall as fast as her legs could carry her.

Who is leaving whom this time?

Poppy thought, barely seeing where she went.

Her vision was blinded as tears poured down her face.

It felt powerful to leave him like that; powerful and wrong, completely wrong.

And it hurt like all hell.

But she did it anyway.