Page 1 of Seduced

one

Alexei

Stars again. Nature could be so insufferable.

The night was bitterly cold, which was just as well. Dante would say the frost on the trees matched Alexei’s stone-cold heart exactly, but what did Dante know? He was still practically a child.

Alexei thought about the note he had received this morning:

‘Do not suffer the prince to live, if you value your life.

Surrender him, and you might be allowed to survive.’

One more threatening note to add to his collection.

The ‘prince’ the vile note referred to was Prince Nikolaos of Moldovia, more commonly known as ‘the Greek prince’, and he happened to be Alexei’s friend, a fugitive, and a future corpse.

If his enemies found him, that is.

And since Alexei wasn’t about to divulge the Greek prince’s location to anyone, no matter how many threats on his life he received, that was not about to happen today. As long as Prince Nikolaos was hiding under Alexei’s roof, he was safe. Tomorrow, his murderers were welcome to try again.

Alexei buried his chin in the folds of his coat and lowered his head, avoiding the snowflakes that were beginning to drift from the black skies. Still, the stars found a way to shine on his head. What next? The moon?

God forbid.

It was the cat he was following, he told himself, not the boy.

He had taken off, after the limping little figure, his eyes following its every movement in the darkness, darting after it around corners, wondering why on earth he was doing this, he who rarely went outside anymore.

For the cat. He was definitely doing it for the cat.

The spying boy had not made him curious in the least. Nor furious.

Alexei gritted his teeth and buried his hands further into his coat’s pockets. Damn. He had forgotten his gloves, he who never forgot anything. But the boy had slipped out so quickly, he had barely had time to follow, let alone gather his wits.

Where the devil is he going?

The boy, limping on, was following a narrow path down the quay. The Thames was snaking next to the boy’s rapidly receding footsteps, and Alexei hurried after the thin silhouette, hating the feel of the water so near, slithering and shining under the sliver of a moon.

“I should have asked Wilder to do this,” Alexei muttered under his breath, thinking of his manservant and guard, now safe in the warm club, with envy. “Just as well. He would probably be annoying about it.”

The smell of the river-water met his nostrils, and Alexei fought the urge to vomit. This was why he hated going outside. There were memories everywhere, looking to devour him. He was only ever safe in the Hell Club; he had built every inch of it with the sole purpose of protecting himself from all memories.

And thoughts.

Case in point, he was now thinking of ruin. How many things he had ruined. How ruined he himself was. The thought seized him, the bloody thought, that unless he didsomething desperate, and possibly despicable, he wouldn’t be able to stay alive. To endure living for one more second.

Damn you, you absolutely useless, useless bastard, he said to himself, although it wasn’t his own voice that said it. It was an echo from the past: he had grown up hearing those words. They would not allow themselves to be forgotten.

He had hoped to walk out under the cover of a pitch-black night, which would have been little change from his usual lighting indoors; he liked to have very little light around him, and was used to sitting alone in a dark room, a pale beam of moonlight filtering through a window, the room lit with barely enough candlelight to read his book or see his glass of whiskey. Or else he would be in his rooms, two stories underground, safe from the light.

He slept during the daylight hours, and his club slept with him.

Once the sun went down, the club opened, and he woke to start business. He loved the cold and damp; he hated the light. Maybe it was the Slav in him that delighted in adverse circumstances, or, more probably, the darkness and cold matched his dark and cold heart.

Either way, tonight there was too much starlight.

His Highness Prince Alexei Vasili Anatol Igor Mikailoff Perlin made his way down the quay slowly, bored out of his mind. Why did these things always happen to him?

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