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“What if I try for something with Hayk and it doesn’t work out?” I whispered, bowled over by the wave of emotion coursing through me. “I like him, Ludvig. We’ve already fucked and everything. I like him more than I’ve ever liked anyone. But what if it’s all an illusion? What if he turns around tomorrow and decides I’m not worth it, or if I lose this feeling I have.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “What if I risk everything and I fail?”
“My boy,” Ludvig said, deep emotion filling his eyes to the point where I thought he might cry.
He reached for me. I did more than offer him my hand. I slipped to my knees beside his chair and let him pull me into an embrace.
“Love is always a risk,” he said as I pressed my head to his heart. “Any one of those things could happen. But you won’t know unless you take that risk. If this young man of yours is as wonderful as you seem to think he is, then you must give him a chance. You must believe him when he says he likes you—which it is clear to me that he does from the way I caught him watching you down there in the garden. And if it doesn’t work out, if you take a chance and only have him for a year or two before feeling it is time to move on?”
He shrugged, which also made me kneel straighter so that I could look at him.
He cupped his hands on either side of my face and said, “If that is how things go, then at least you’ll be able to say that you had two of the happiest, richest, most satisfying years of your life. You’ll have memories to take you through the rest of your life, experience to make you wiser, and above all else, you will have a friend who loves you and who you love for the rest of your life.”
It was too much. I knew he was talking about what the two of us had shared. I burst into a sob before I could stop myself and slumped against his chest again.
“I’m sorry, Ludvig,” I said, a mess of tears and slobber as he stroked my head. “I tried so hard to love you the way you deserved to be loved. You were so good to me. I feel like an ungrateful wretch for not loving you, and now I feel so guilty—”
“Shh, shh, Anton. None of this.” Ludvig continued to stroke my head. “You gave me so much. I have no regrets at all. And you might not understand it, but it makes me happier than you can know to see you falling in love with someone more suitable for you.”
“I haven’t even known him one day,” I wailed, glancing up at him.
“I said enough of that,” Ludvig laughed, then winced with pain. He cupped the side of my face and said, “Allow yourself to believe in fairy tales, even if it seems illogical to you. Let yourself be silly and randy. Who cares if you fall out of love tomorrow? Live your life and enjoy every second of it. You have my complete permission to be a fool for love.”
I blinked and jerked straighter. “Your permission?”
“Yes,” Ludvig laughed. “Obviously, you need someone to give you that extra kick in the ass. You’re young, you’re pretty, and you need to let yourself have fun.”
“But what if—”
Ludvig clapped his hand over my mouth. “No,” he said. “I’m too tired to listen to you argue against yourself anymore. I want to take one more nap before supper. You go find Dmitri and get him out of the estate so we’re all rid of him. And once you’re done with that, take your friend back to your room and fuck until the two of you are sore. Then wake up in the morning and fuck some more. Don’t let yourself think past tomorrow, and for God’s sake, stop miring yourself down in your past or what that wretched family of yours did to hurt you. Live for the moment, just for now.”
I stared at Ludvig for a long moment, then let out a breath and rested my head on his chest again. “I am glad we had our time together,” I said, closing my eyes and just feeling the beat of his heart for a moment before lifting to look at him again. “And I am so, so glad that you survived everything in Seymchan. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d died.”
Ludvig laughed, though the sound wasn’t as strong as it could have been. He really did need to rest. “You were the one who saved me, Anton. Don’t ever forget that.” He patted the side of my face. “If you had not insisted on getting me out of the palace, even though Dmitri was against it, even though I was wounded, I would not be here now.”
“I would never leave you behind,” I told him, standing but taking his hand. I hesitated for a moment, writhed with awkwardness over what I knew I had to say, then blurted it out anyhow. “You’re a father to me, Ludvig. And you’re a much better father than the one I was born to.”
Ludvig laughed out loud, even though it caused another sharp bout of pain. “The full meaning of that statement is not lost on me, boy,” he said, laughing and grimacing at the same time. “Only you would consider the man who was your lover for nearly two years to be the best father you’ve ever had.”
I lowered my head sheepishly, blushing. But I also smiled. I could see the humor in the situation…now.
“Thank God I never thought to call you Father while we were fucking,” I mumbled.
Ludvig laughed again, nearly doubling in pain as he did. “You’d better be on your way, my boy,” he said, his fondness shining through his pain. “At this rate, you’re more likely to kill me than those soldiers were.”
“Probably,” I said. I leaned over and kissed Ludvig’s forehead, resting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it. “Thank you, Ludvig. Thank you for everything.”
“Stop,” Ludvig said, smiling. “You’re making it sound as though this is the last we’ll ever see of each other, and that is most definitely not the case.”
“No, it’s not,” I agreed, straightening. “I might not have the first idea what to do with myself once this mission is over, but I am now and will always be a subject of the Wolf River Kingdom, and I fully intend to go home.”
But as I made my way out of Ludvig’s room and downstairs so that I could seek out my friends again, a sliver of doubt about that cut through me. Could I go back to the Wolf River Kingdom without Hayk? In order for me to take a chance on him, like Ludvig had successfully inspired me to do, we would have to be in the same place for a length of time. Hayk still had two years on his contract with Master Daron and—
Oh, God. I nearly tripped as I stepped down the last few stairs and into the grand foyer of Lord Vikhrov’s house. Hayk had two years left on his contract with a brothel. He was a whore. That meant he would fuck and be fucked by other men. Every day. For two years. Whether I was in love with him or not.
I let out a shaky breath and continued down the stairs with wobbly steps. I’d fallen in love at first sight with a man who gave his body away to strangers on a daily basis.
Well, it was no wonder that Hayk hadn’t felt any qualms about fucking me within hours of meeting me. He did the same thing every day, and with people he didn’t even care about.
And of course that brought on the inevitable thought, did he truly care about me?
