“I am sorry for your loss.”
“Are you?” He studied me with eyes that saw too much. “Or are you just sorry you understand it?”
I looked away. Into the fire. At anything except his face.
“I lost someone too,” I said before I could stop myself. “My sister. I was supposed to protect her. Keep her safe. But I was too late. Always too late.”
“How old was she?”
“Sixteen.”
“God.” He closed his eyes. “Just a child.”
“Old enough to make bad choices. Not old enough to survive them.” The words tasted like ash.
The King was quiet for a long moment. Then, “You blame yourself.”
“I should have seen signs. Should have been there.”
“You can't save people from themselves, Mr. Volkov. No matter how much you love them.”
“I should have tried harder.”
“You would've just delayed the inevitable.” He leaned forward,close enough that I could smell the brandy on his breath. “Some people are drowning long before we realize the water's over their heads.”
His hand settled on my knee. Warm. Heavy. Grounding.
I should've moved it. Should've stood up. Walked away. Maintained the line between us.
But I was so tired. And lonely. And his touch felt like the first human contact I'd had in years that wasn't about violence.
“I'm terrified of losing him,” the King said quietly.
“I will protect him.”
“I know you will.” His hand moved higher. Just slightly. “But who protects you?”
The fire popped, scattering sparks across the grate. I stared at the King's hand where it rested on my thigh, felt the weight of it, the heat bleeding through my trousers. I should have stood, but his eyes—soft, desperate, dark with something like hunger—pinned me in place.
“You don't let anyone close, do you?” he asked, his voice rough, almost hoarse. “Not really. Not ever.”
I didn't answer. Couldn't. My jaw clenched; my pulse hammered, sudden and sharp. The King was staring at me as if searching for the crack in my armor, the softest place, the wound I couldn't hide.
His hand lingered another moment. Then, with the faintest tremor, he withdrew, settling back in his chair, shoulders tense. For a moment I thought the spell was broken.
But then he exhaled—slow, deliberate. His gaze never left mine as his own hand drifted down, almost absentminded, to the loose silk of his pyjamas, fingers pressing over his thigh, then lower. He didn't say a word. Just watched me, eyes glinting in the firelight.
“You ever let anyone see you, Viktor?” he asked, softer now, a confession edged with challenge. “Let them look at you, just as you are? No mask, no armor?”
My breath caught. The room felt suddenly smaller, air thick with unsaid things. The King’s hand flexed, just a little, palm moving slow, measured over the hardening shape beneath the fabric. He didn't rush—he was too old, too practiced in control to be crass about it.
“Not in a long time,” I said, voice like gravel.
He smiled, the curve of his lips both sorrowful and wicked. “I always wondered if desire could survive this much grief. If need just... rots away.”
He was stroking himself now, slow, almost lazy, the silk darkening with heat, his breathing shifting, chest rising deeper with every pass. Not flaunting—no, something more wounded, more honest. Like a man remembering how to feel, even if it hurt.
“You don't have to watch,” he said, voice trembling, “but I wish you would.”
