When we reconvene at six, Kostya and Niko aren’t there. The generals, the Americans on the teleconference, and I all look around at each other.

I wonder where the hell they are. They’re both normally punctual to a fault, the first to get annoyed if someone else is three minutes late.

After five minutes of silence, Chief Minister Arkady clears his throat.

“We’ll just begin,” he says, and begins laying out his thoughts on the plan for tomorrow.

It’s another ten minutes before Kostya and Niko come in together and silently take their seats. They don’t offer an explanation, and no one’s going to demand one of them, so we just carry on as though nothing strange just happened.

Slowly, we hammer out the plan. I’ll be driven to the meeting place, an empty lot in the gray district, in a squadron of bulletproof cars, escorted by members of the Royal Guard. There will be snipers on the surrounding rooftops, the whole nine yards.

The leader of the USF Populists, Pavel Vasilovich, will meet me there. We get Yelena first, and once she’s safe, Pavel and I talk. I’ve got a list of what Kostya’s willing to do and a matching list of demands, and it’s safe to assume that Pavel has the same.

We exchange our lists. We shake hands. We both leave, and I come back here, safe and sound.

Sitting in this meeting room in the middle of a fortified castle, it all sounds so reasonable. Just another political discussion, nothing to get worried about. We meet, we exchange, we leave.

I know better. Right now, someone is going through the armory, looking for a kevlar vest that will fit me, but my real protection is believing that the other side isn’t dumb enough to shoot an American.

That’s what we’re banking on. Everyone seems convinced, but even though I try to act like I’m not bothered, I’m nervous.

It doesn’t help that Kostya’s said about two words since he got back, almost like he’s not paying attention. He just nods and agrees to everything everyone says, a total one-eighty from this morning.

Around nine, he excuses himself again, along with Niko, while I run through my script for the thousandth time. I’ll leave at eight in the morning. Arrive eight-thirty. Perimeter cleared, snipers in place, everything checked and double checked.

I’ll get out, talk to Pavel. Niceties, then real discussion, and I’ll be out of there by nine-thirty. By ten in the morning, I’ll be taking a bubble bath back in the palace.

* * *

I don’t get out of the meeting until late that night, and Kostya and Niko are still God knows where. Something is going on with the two of them. I don’t know what it is, but it’s making me uneasy, especially right now.

So instead of going to bed I wander around the palace aimlessly, trying to get lost, trying my best not to think about all the things that could go wrong in the next ten hours.

I’m not exactly afraid. I’ve seen my mother defuse a lot of tense situations. Growing up a diplomat’s kid, in half a dozen different countries, I’ve walked into more than one situation where I didn’t belong. I know that words have real power, and that people would almost always rather talk than shoot.

It doesn’t mean I’m not nervous.

I end up by the drawing room where Kostya told me about murder holes and heads on spikes, and I wander in. I keep the lights off, because I’m not sure I want to be found, and I sit on a high-backed, ornately carved couch with the most uncomfortable upholstery I’ve ever encountered. It’s facing the crazy-eyed portrait of Maksim the Second, and we stare at each other in the dark.

I’ve learned more about him in the past week. He’s remembered as a fierce defender of the homeland, a man who fought off invaders and put their heads on spikes. Turns out that’s just the tip of the Maksim iceberg.

Deranged is probably the right word. When there were no barbarians to decapitate and display, he ordered hands cut off thieves. Army deserters were drawn and quartered, usually while he himself stood there, watching. He suspected his wife of adultery and had her locked in the dungeons of another palace for three years, and she finally died of neglect when he forgot about her.

He wasn’t even sixty when he died suddenly, vomiting blood. Historians agree that he was probably poisoned, but there were so many suspects that we’ll never know who did it.

Now I’m sitting where he sat. Looking out at gardens that were once festooned with heads, and tomorrow I’m going to have a good, peaceful, by-the-book exchange with the people threatening Sveloria. At least I hope it’s peaceful.

Footsteps echo through the hallway. Someone walks to the open door of the drawing room and stops, leaning in the doorway. I can tell it’s Kostya from the way he moves.

“There you are,” I say.

“You’re just sitting here in the dark?” he asks, his voice low and quiet, and it sends an electric shiver through me. Despite everything that’s happened today, I keep thinking about this morning, about his hand on my hip, about how he turns my mind to mush with need. About how right everything feels when we’re together.

I look back at the crazy-eyed portrait on the wall.

“Maksim and I were having a moment,” I say. “He doesn’t really approve of me, but he’s a painting, so he can go fuck himself.”

Kostya closes the door behind him with a long, loud creak.

“My father wanted him there,” he says, glancing at the portrait. “Probably to remind people that heads on spikes were never too far from his mind.”

“You disappeared,” I say. “I was looking for you.”

“I had to take care of some things,” he says.

I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says, walking over to me.

“You know I don’t believe you, right?” I ask.

He holds out one hand, his face nearly expressionless, his eyes burning.

I stare back, and I feel like a pinned bug again for the first time in weeks. There’s something suddenly different about his mannerisms, a total one-eighty from last night.

Kostya’s not asking me to take his hand. He’s telling me. I take it.

He pulls me to standing, then takes my face in his hands, our bodies pressed together.

“Hazel, nothing’s gonna happen to you,” he says, his voice low and gravelly, those eyes boring into me.

I swallow.

“You mean tomorrow?” I ask.

“I promise you’ll be okay,” he says, not exactly answering my question. “I swear.”

“Kostya,” I say, because I don’t actually know what he’s talking about.

“There’s no fucking point to being king if I can’t protect you,” he says, putting the pad of one thumb on my lips. “It’s nothing but castles and cars and bureaucracy and bullshit if I can’t keep the people I love safe.”

My heart does a tiny flip in my chest, but I take a deep breath.

“What are you talking about?” I ask through his thumb.

“I’m talking about you,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, but I feel like I missed a couple sentences of this conversation or something.

“Start over,” I say. “What’s happening?”

His eyes just barely crinkle around the corners.

“I’m being the fucking King,” he says, nearly smiling.

“But—”

He shuts me up by kissing me hard and despite myself, I kiss him back, my hands around the back of his neck as he presses the small of my back so my hips lean into him, pressing along his delicious, hard length.

Then I put both hands on his chest and push, just hard enough that he stops kissing me.

“Wait,” I say, a little breathless. “No. You have to tell me what’s going on, Kostya. Pull your ‘I’m the King’ shit with other people.”

His eyes crinkle again in his almost-smile.

“You know the English poem, ‘You carry my heart in both hands,’ or something?” he asks.

“Maybe?” I say.

He puts his hand over mine and presses it to his chest. There it is, the steady thump-thump of his heart.

“I may as well tear it out of my ribcage and hand it to you,” he says. “I already feel like I have, like it’s raw and beating and at any second you could squeeze it or drop it and I’d be finished.”

Thump-thump.

“I won’t,” I whisper.

“I need you to trust me this once,” he says. “You can have this—” he squeezes my hand over his heart— “as collateral, and if I’m lying to you, step on it or throw it in a fire. Do whatever you want. Just trust me.”

Now I’m afraid, because that’s not what someone says when they’re going to follow the plan you’ve laid out together.

“No,” I say. “I don’t want collateral, I want—”

“Please,” he murmurs.

I close my eyes, feeling the thump-thump under my palm. I take a deep breath and remind myself that there’s a good chance he knows what he’s doing.

Not that it changes how afraid for him I am, or how desperately I want him to be okay.

“I trust you,” I whisper.

“Thank you,” he says, and kisses me again.

My mind’s a maelstrom. I wish he’d tell me what’s going on, and I have a bone-deep bad feeling that it’s dangerous. I wish tomorrow were over already. I wish we were waking up in my bed again, tangled up together, sunlight streaming in through the window.

But then Kostya deepens the kiss, and he presses his rough fingers to my spine, under my shirt, and slides them up notch by notch, and I force myself to let all that go. I focus on his tongue winding around mine, his heartbeat under my hand.

Suddenly, there are voices speaking Russian right outside the door, and I freeze. Kostya pulls his head back but his hands are still on me as the door opens and the lights flip on.

Two young men step inside and stop mid-sentence, staring.

Kostya growls in Russian, glaring hard enough to melt steel.

The men duck their heads, muttering apologies in Russian, and flee, the door closing behind them. He kisses me once more, briefly, and then strides to the window and yanks the shades shut with one quick, forceful motion.

He looks around for a moment, like he’s trying to find something in the dark, then goes to one corner, bends, and comes up carrying a long, thick wooden beam. His forearms bulge as he fits it to the notches in the back of the door, barring it completely.

“There,” he says, and pulls me to him again. “Anyone who wants to interrupt now had better have siege equipment, because they can knock until their knuckles bleed.”

We kiss again, hard, his lips nearly crushing mine. I bite his lip as he pulls away, his hands already unbuttoning my shirt, and he growls at me.

I tear my half-unbuttoned shirt off, and before it even hits the floor Kostya’s already shoved my bra over my breasts, then over my head. He pushes me against the wall next to the door, the plaster cool against my back as he kisses my neck, his teeth just barely brushing my skin as he works his way down.

I make a noise through my teeth, and then he does bite me.

“Yahoo sea’s tibia,” it sounds like he says, chuckling softly.

My fingers are fumbling at the top button of his shirt, and it finally pops open.

“What?” I ask, moving on to the next one.

“I want to devour you,” he says. His mouth is on my collarbone and he’s unbuttoning my professional black pants, pushing them over my hips, and I kick them off as he pinches one nipple between his fingers and flicks his tongue over the other.

I moan, my eyes sliding shut. He bites my nipple, and I gasp, then hold my breath as he bites just a little harder, teasing it between his teeth.

Holy fuck it feels good, like light exploding through my body, just hard enough to set every nerve blissfully on edge.

I grab a handful of his hair and he sucks slowly, then finally pulls away.

“That good?” he asks.

“Yes,” I gasp.

He bites my other nipple and I think I growl but then he’s standing, kissing me on the mouth again and I’m finally pulling his shirt over his head. I put the palm of my hand on the base of his cock, through his pants, and drag it up his length slowly as he throbs beneath me.

“God, you do things to me,” he whispers in my ear.

I get his pants off and kiss him again as he lifts me into the air and I wrap my legs around him, pressing the length of his cock against myself as he pushes me back against the wall. I’m pinned but I move my hips slowly, just barely rubbing him against myself, the delicious friction making me sigh.

“Fuck, I like that,” he says, and moves me again. I reach down and wrap my hand around the head of his cock, surprised to find it already slick as I rub it.

“You still haven’t made my hair curl,” I say. “And you promised.”

“I was so tired I don’t remember exactly what I said,” he murmurs. “You’re gonna have to remind me, zloyushka.”

He fucking remembers, he just wants me to say it.

“You said you’d fuck me slow until my hair curled,” I whisper, squeezing the tip of his cock.

He kisses me, then pulls me away from the wall and carries me to the couch. It creaks when I hit it, and for a second I wonder if we’re about to break a piece of furniture that’s a hundred years old.

Then he’s kneeling between my legs, and he grabs the back of my head and pulls my face to his.

“I think I said slow and hard,” he says, his hand drifting up my thigh until his fingers brush my lips, sending a tingle through my whole body. I lean back on the couch and grab the carved wooden headrest behind me so hard that the couch creaks again, and he slides one fingertip up my slit, in a loop around my clit, and then back down.

“Don’t tease me,” I gasp. “Come on, Kostya.”

“Why not?” he asks, doing it again.

I swallow hard.

“Because it’s already been too long and I fucking want you,” I gasp. “I nearly murdered Niko this morning.”

He slides his fingers inside me and I arch my back and groan, hanging onto the back of the couch like it’s keeping me afloat. Kostya hoists my legs onto his shoulders and then he’s licking me, hard and fast, in time with his fingers moving inside me.

I think I whimper, it feels so good and I’m so tightly wound. It’s taking all my self control not to grab Kostya’s hair in my hands or clamp his head between my thighs, and as it is I’m panting for breath and slowly sliding off this couch, but he just keeps going.

It doesn’t take much to get me to the edge, a sudden shiver slicing down my body.

“Stop,” I gasp.

He gives me one more long, slow lick that makes my body jolt.

“What for?” he asks.

“I’m gonna come,” I say, trying to sit up.

“And?” he says, his eyes crinkling. “I like making you come.”

I let go of the headrest, but I slide off the ugly velvet couch and tumble to the floor, practically on top of Kostya instead.

“Sorry,” I say, but his mouth is already on mine, and it tastes like me and it’s dirty and sexy and just makes me want him more.

He pulls back and licks my wetness off one finger. Then he kisses me again.

“You’re fucking filthy,” I whisper, reaching down to take his cock in my hand.

“I told you, I’m just honest,” he says, and licks another finger. “I like licking you until you come. I like the way you taste. I like you being naked in front of me. I like being inside you.”

We kiss again, and I stroke his cock slowly so he groans into my mouth. He throbs in my hand, and I swallow hard, suddenly nervous about what I’m about to ask.

“Can I still fuck you bare?” I whisper. “It’s safe.”

Kostya just chuckles.

“Please?” I ask, my voice sounding husky to my own ears. “I want to feel you, not something else.”

“It’s not safe,” he says as he runs a hand down my body.

“I’ve got an—”

He grabs my hips and flips me around, and I yelp. Suddenly I’m facing away from him, my forearms braced against the ugly couch.

“Not that,” he says, his voice growling in my ear. “I don’t feel safe about you. I feel like I’d walk through a burning building to be inside you, and that’s hardly safe.”

I reach behind myself, blindly, and rest my hand on the back of his neck. He slides the thick head of his cock along me and I arch my back until he’s at the right spot and he sinks inside me, just barely.

Then he stops and runs his hands up my back, like he’s hesitant, and I don’t need him to fucking hesitate, I need him now.

“You’re not gonna hurt me,” I say, pushing back against him.

“Let me be careful with you,” he whispers into my hair.

I reach back further behind me and try to grab onto his shoulder, something that will push him further into me, because I need this so bad it hurts.

“Kostya, for fuck’s sake,” I whisper, and he sucks air through his teeth. I dig my fingers into him and then he finally slides all the way inside me, his cock hitting every damn pleasure spot I’ve got.

“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, one fist tight on the ugly couch. I press myself against him because Jesus Christ, it feels good to have him buried inside me again at last.

“I promised you slow,” he says, kissing my shoulder.

“You promised me hard,” I whisper.

We start fucking, and he goes slow and hard just like he promised, and it makes me feel like every inch of my body is also getting fucked, like I’m lost in a haze of pleasure and there’s nearly no way out. I think I’m melting into this terrible couch, both fists probably ripping the ugly fabric, my face buried in it, and with every thrust I moan a little louder as he pushes me closer to the edge.

Then he stops. He drives himself into me so hard I shout and my fingers finally rip through the fabric, and then he stops.

“Don’t stop,” I gasp.

We’re both panting for breath, and I know I’m close to coming, pleasure already whispering through my body like ripples in a pond. He doesn’t move.

I look over my shoulder at him, leaning my head on one arm, and I reach the other hand back and stroke his hip, then flex my hips against him so his cock moves inside me, and god that feels good.

He pulls me up by the shoulder, then reaches in front of me and drags the couch forward until it’s right in front of me and we’re both kneeling upright, still on the floor.

“Do that again,” he growls, so I flex my hips against him and this time he moves too, fucking me shallow but hard, grinding our hips together.

“This feels so fucking good,” I whisper. I’ve got one hand clutching the couch and the other on his neck again, the only part I can really grab.

“There’s a spot inside you that makes your fingers curl,” he says, and thrusts, just a little.

My fingers curl on the couch and his neck, and Kostya growls, then does it again and again until I’m writhing and bucking against him. We’re still going slow and he’s got one arm across my chest, his hand on my shoulder as he buries his cock in me over and over and I feel like I’m a keg of gunpowder about to explode.

“Kostya, I’m gonna come,” I gasp. “Jesus, I’m gonna come.”

“Good,” he whispers. “You’re so fucking sexy when you do.”

I think I’m unraveling, and I turn my head into his shoulder and he grips me even tighter and he thrusts again, hard and deep.

“Fuck, Kostya,” I whisper, and then I think my body flies apart.

He holds me and we rock together and I’m exploding in slow motion and it feels so good I swear I’m floating. I can hear myself saying god fucking yes Kostya Jesus yes oh fuck Kostya even as my body floats away.

“I love it when you come on my cock,” he whispers into my ear.

I swallow, trying to remember words.

“You’re fucking dirty,” I say, still panting for breath.

He’s still fucking me, and it still feels good.

“Only for you,” he whispers. “You make me dirty, zloyushka.”

“Come inside me,” I say. “Let me feel you.”

His arm tightens. I kiss his shoulder. He growls something in Russian, and I grab him by the hair.

“Fucking come for me,” I whisper.

He does. He pushes me against the couch, his arm tightening across me and I can feel his cock explode deep inside me as he groans in my ear. The only word I can make out is my name but he keeps saying it, rocking back and forth until he finally stops coming.

Then he leans his head against mine and wraps his other arm around me.

“Yeah bluetube,” I think he says.

I put my hands over his and turn my head to kiss his shoulder. He nuzzles my neck, and after a moment, he finally stands, only to collapse back onto the couch where he pulls me up after him and then wraps his arms around me. I let myself feel safe and warm and happy, despite everything.

On the wall, Maksim is still staring at us, his crazy eyes almost the only thing visible in his face.

“I think the beheader gets off on watching,” I say.

There’s a moment of silence.

“What?” Kostya asks, sounding totally puzzled, so I point at Maksim.

“He saw everything,” I say.

“Pervert,” says Kostya.