Page 82 of Marrying the Savage

For the next ten minutes, I help General Pepper and Captain Luka defeat a dragon represented by a velvet cushion. The battle is fierce, poorly organized, and ends when the dragon is banished under the table for “being rude to civilians.”

Honestly, I have attended worse negotiations.

I’m placing Captain Luka on a book-fort wall when a man appears in the doorway.

Grigori Volodin.

I remember him from yesterday. Sandy-brown hair, crooked nose, broad shoulders, grin like a man born with a talent for irritating dangerous relatives and surviving through charm. He looks less formal today, jacket open, shirt collar loose, and there is something startlingly ordinary about the way his face softens when he sees the boy.

“Maksim,” he says. “There you are.”

The boy brightens. “Papa.”

Ah. So this is his father.

Grigori steps into the room, gaze moving from his son to me sitting on the rug with a one-armed soldier in my hand. His grin appears slowly. “Well,” he says, “I see you have met the general staff.”

“I have,” I say. “Their leadership structure concerns me.”

Maksim gasps. “It’s good.”

“It’s brave,” I correct. “Not organized.”

Grigori laughs, and the sound is easy enough that I almost forget where I am.

Almost.

“Maksim,” he says, “were you told not to bother Sofia?”

Maksim points at me. “She came in.”

I place one hand over my heart. “Betrayed by a soldier. History repeats.”

Grigori’s mouth twitches. “Go find your nanny. She is probably tearing the house apart looking for you.”

“I was fighting dragons.”

“Tell her that. I’m sure she’ll apologize.”

Maksim gathers General Pepper and Captain Luka with the frantic urgency of a general retreating under fire. Before he leaves, he turns back to me. “You can come tomorrow,” he says.

I blink. Not a question.

A royal decree.

“I’ll check my schedule.”

He frowns.

I soften. “Yes. I can come tomorrow.”

Satisfied, he runs out. A woman’s relieved exclamation sounds from the corridor a second later, followed by Maksim explaining loudly that the dragon cheated.

Grigori leans against the doorframe, still smiling. “He likes you.”

“He has questionable taste. He also liked the armless soldier.”

“Captain Luka has endured much.”