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Most fiancées might be expected to be furious with the girl for bedding her husband-to-be, but not only did I care little for who Prince Galen chose as the object of his affections, but it was also pretty clear that Nicolette was taken against her will. And she was so young.
He truly is a monster.
As soon as I saw her face, my resolve was made iron. There was no way, in this world or the next, that I was going to marry Prince Galen.
Absolutely no way.
I gripped Maria’s hand hard in mine and led her across the grounds to the stone wall that marked the boundary of the old wood, which was Maksim’s own private hunting grounds and land.
“I have to find a way out of this,” I said, staring almost blankly, emptily, at the magnificent branches of the great oak in the distance.
Maria nodded silently beside me.
“I have to.”
“You have to. You have to,” she agreed.
I took a deep breath, trying to clear my thoughts. “But how?”
Maria nibbled on her lip, and eyed me without turning her head.
“Tell Maksim. Tell him how you feel about him. He’s a prince in his own right. He’s got power and resources that we can’t even imagine.”
I scoffed. “How I feel about him? He knows how I feel about him.”
“Stop that. The time has passed for pretending you hate him.” She wasn’t going to tolerate any more nonsense from me about this, I could tell right away. “I know how you feel, I see how you act. If there’s anybody in the world that can help you now, it’s him.”
I let go of Maria’s hand and wrapped my arms around myself, pacing to and fro for a moment, thinking it over. I wanted him. Desperately. With every fiber of my being. But even still… I stopped my pacing beside Maria, with my shoe scraping the gravel.
“Even if I do tell him, he hates me. You know that. He’s awful. And yesterday…” I began, unsure of how much to tell Maria about what happened between us in the wood. Better to err on the side of not enough than too much. “Yesterday he made it absolutely clear that no matter how I might feel, he’s got no interest in me at all.”
Even as I said it, I knew I was only telling part of the truth. His reaction to the kiss was one of disgust. But his body had given him away long before that. His hard cock pressing against me. That lust in his eyes.
“Tell him,” Maria said, now with even more impatience. “Love and hate are near enemies, Anika. They seem far away, opposites even. But they aren’t. It’s like…” She searched the air, looking for the words. “Like jealousy and admiration.” She raised her hand, unpinching two fingers just a hair. “They’re so very, very close.”
Near enemies. It was something I had never heard before but it made all the sense in the world.
But even as logical as it was, I wasn’t sure that my own near enemy could help me out of this mess. Time was ticking for me and ticking fast, I thought, as I watched a big leaf fall from the great oak, and twirl down onto the forest floor. I had to do something. And quick.
CHAPTER 12
Maksim
I waited until Anika turned away from the boundary wall and went back inside the castle before dropping down out of the great oak. I was still so fucking angry from the night before that I could barely think straight. The idea of that useless piece of shit even thinking about marrying my sister made me want to…
I grabbed my knife and launched it at a faraway elm, sending it spiraling through the air. It met the bark with a satisfying thwack.
Once I’d pried it from the tree, I stormed back toward the castle. As I approached, I spotted that same guard who had walked in on my meeting yesterday. Aidan, I remembered.
Since speaking to him yesterday, I’d looked into him and liked what I found. Insubordinate, his commanding officer had said. When pressed for more, he told me Aidan had punched out his training officer for picking on one of the smaller recruits. Good men who were willing to stand up to authority were hard to come by. He was also, by all accounts, hooked up with Maria, Anika’s maid, though I didn’t think my sister knew about it. A decent, good-natured guy. But now, he looked as angry as I felt. His eyes were dark with rage, and he was pacing back and forth with his hand on his dagger.
“What the fuck is wrong?”
He looked up, startled at first, and I thought he might bow and scrape or some other such sniveling behavior. Instead, he sucked in a steadying breath, trying to find the words through his rage. I knew that feeling all too fucking well.
