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Vasili smiled briefly in agreement.
Alina smiled as well, eyes on Dmitri. She couldn’t stop herself from finally admiring the curve of his shoulders, how his muscular shoulder blades hinted underneath the fabric when he turned to speak to one of his brothers, how the shirt hugged him just so around the waist. Her eyes reached his ass and she wished they could be alone. Even with the promise of freedom on the horizon, she didn’t care if freedom meant leaving him here to fight the rest of the battle alone.
Okay, technically not alone, but without her.
She forced herself to look away, gaze catching in the knowing expression on Eva’s face. The woman smiled, making Alina blush.
“How long have you known?” Eva asked.
That he has a nice ass?Alina thought, immediately blinking the blasphemy away. She couldn’t speak such things to his mother.
“Known what?” she asked back instead.
“That you’re true mates,” Eva clarified.
“How could you tell?” Alina wondered, actually surprised, though she shouldn’t be. Her mother and Anna’s mother had known that her brother and Anna would make a perfect match, why shouldn’t Dmitri’s mother be able to do the same for him?
“The way he moves around you,” Eva said. “I’ve never seen him so unguarded before. Especially not with someone he’s only just met.”
This statement made a rush of quiet joy move through Alina, feeling as though it wasn’t all in her head. What had settled between them as of its own accord was real. She felt so very ready for it to be. She’d never set out to be mated. Gregor had sort of happened and she’d thought perhaps it would be a way for her father to see that she was grown and ready for more responsibility. Or all else failing, she might have given birth to a son to shoulder the mantle. She would have tried her best to rule beside him. Now, here she had found her true mate and he wanted her to rule her family next to him.
Could she rule?
Was he right? Were the steel bars a necessary trait? Did she possess it?
The other two sisters had been escorted out. It seemed the men were moving in three different teams and soon the first team—headed by Misha—came back through the door to grab both of the younger brothers. Timo was joining those keeping the watch in the hallway, giving his father’s shoulder a squeeze before he left the room. Vasili watched him go, pride in his eyes. He had raised strong sons.
Alina felt the sting of that pride. Her father felt nothing of the sort toward her. He’d made that perfectly clear.
“All right,” Dmitri said when Misha returned to the room with his team. “Father, mother—time to go.”
Vasili and Eva got to their feet, joining the team by the door. Alina rose as well, Dmitri holding a hand out to her.
“Are you coming?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his waist instead of slipping her hand in his.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he assured.
“I don’t want to leave without you,” she said, knowing it was unfair but unable not to make her feelings clear.
“I know,” he nodded, kissing her on the cheek before hugging her to him. “I’ll be safe, I promise.”
“This whole benign thing of someone paying off their debt kind of turned hostile without you having much say in it, huh?” she asked.
“I think I handled it wrong from the beginning,” Dmitri admitted. “Gregor, the way he’s turned my men against me… This is all my fault.”
“No,” she shook her head. “No, it isn’t.”
“It is a bit,” he disagreed.
She couldn’t keep the smile down.
“You’re not responsible for other people’s choices,” she said firmly.
“Hey,” Misha said.
“Sorry,” Dmitri replied, letting his hold on her go.
Eva was smiling as knowingly as before while Vasili was staring at his phone. Alina couldn’t tell if it was because he was self-conscious or because he was genuinely preoccupied with whatever was going on there. When they got closer, she realized he was playing Solitaire. Her father liked that game too.
