Page 90 of Seduced

And then, out of the blue, the floodgates opened, and he started crying, huge, gulping sobs of pain, sorrow and relief, all the tears he should have cried when he was a child, but couldn’t. He felt Valentine move and then a hand on his shoulder. He shook it off, and brought a fist to his mouth, gulping down nausea.

Valentine swore.

“I forgot, sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to show you that I’m here. I’m here, Mikailoff, I have you.”

“I know,” Alexei gasped, tears pouring down his face unashamedly.

“Shall I go?” Valentine asked softly, after a few more minutes of weeping. “D’ you want me to leave?”

“Stay,” Alexei said.

So Valentine stayed. And Alexei cried.

twenty-three

Poppy

Poppy didn’t see Hades for an entire day after the pugilism incident. She knew that he purposefully stayed out of her way, but he was also a very busy man, so it was no surprise that he was absent for such a prolonged period of time.

Poppy tried not to think of him, which was to say that all she did was think of him.

But thankfully soon enough, Rania whisked her off to introduce her to more of the dancers. Poppy stayed as the women started their dance rehearsals for the evening. And every other thought fled from her mind.

Then they invited her to join them, and Poppy turned crimson.

“Do not be ashamed of your body, Poppy,” Rania said, gathering her long, silky curtain of hair at the top of her head. “Do not fear it, either. Dance helps us get better acquainted with its shape and movements, and one must love one’s own body, don’t you think?”

“I have been accustomed to regard it as the root of all evil,” Poppy replied. “A potential temptation to men, a tool for seduction. And little else.”

“Well, that is not true,” Rania replied simply. “Nothing tempts a man other than his own desire.”

Poppy gaped.

“What?” Rania raised her eyebrows at her.

“That…that is Scripture,” Poppy said slowly, “it’s a verse.”

“Indeed it is,” Rania replied matter-of-factly. “Did you not think I read the Bible, or believed in it? Well, I do, which is why I can discern between the lies religious people say in order to control the poor and the weak, and what is actually God’s honest truth. Quite literally, as it were.”

Poppy, too shocked for words, gaped.

“Is there something about me that makes you think I might not be a person of faith?” Rania was laughing, regarding her. She was not laughing at her, not per se, but she obviously found her surprise amusing.

A lesser woman might have been insulted.

“I think I might need to rethink everything I thought I knew about God,” Poppy said carefully. “And the kind of people who are true believers.”

“It looks like you might,” Rania said gently.

It all was beginning to make sense, in a strange, senseless kind of way. Rania’s kindness, her openness, her wisdom…Poppy knew better than to question Rania’s way of life and choices—it was not her business to weigh her friend against any of society’s so-called standards. It was not her business to decide what another person’s sin was or wasn’t. But it stood to reason that there was more depth to Rania than met the eye.

Rania was not a perfect person; she was a good person.

It was much more important to be the latter, especially since the first was impossible.

Poppy felt that she had been swimming in cruelty, hypocrisy and lies for all her life, and that for the first time, things were beginning to make a tiny bit of sense. If the Almighty was the personification of all that was good and bright in this world, then that description fit Rania better than it ever had Poppy’s brother, whom everyone hailed as a saint, but she herself had known to be evil beyond words.

“I can see the cogs turning inside your head,” Rania was saying in low, patient tones.

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