Page 39 of Kings of Cruelty

Well, I guess I can understand one sentence. Two, to be precise.

It’s a start.

“My name is Sierra,” I say. “I am from…” I try to pronounce the letters for the USA, but the look he gives me tells me I didn’t do it successfully. “Wonderland,” I finish dryly in English.

“You could say New Bristol,” Yuri suggests. His fingers tap on the lesson’s vocabulary list. “Zayameans ‘little rabbit.’ In case Nikolai didn’t tell you. So now you know more words.”

I nod. “I can add that to my growing arsenal of Russian words. Okay. Hit me with something more interesting,” I tell him earnestly.

Yuri pretends to think. Hmm. What about…” He sounds out a word. “To fuck.” He winks at me. If you want to say, ‘please fuck me,’ you’d say—” and he says the words slowly.

With a quiet laugh, I say, “Should I be saying that in public? Won’t someone overhear?”

“You said nobody was listening!” he argues back, smiling widely.

“Okay, repeat it,” I say.

He does, and I say the words as painstakingly as I can. He makes me repeat them until my pronunciation apparently satisfies him, and we go back to the book.

This is going to be a long, long two years—assuming I can learn it even that fast without being completely immersed in it.

When true exasperation sets in, I finally close the book. “I’m not used to being downright bad at learning things,” I tell him. It sounds arrogant, and maybe it is, but I’ve always been a quick study. Even with tech, the understanding has come fairly easily. I offer a rueful smile. “I don’t think I like it.”

“You learned two sentences,” Yuri points out. “I don’t think that counts asbadafter what, forty minutes of practicing?”

I eye him, unable to tell whether he’s being serious. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Why would I be making fun of you?” Yuri asks, “You’ve barely started. You have to practice the letters too. It took me a long time to memorize the English alphabet and I still sometimes mess the letters up at first glance.”

I relax into my seat. “You have to have all sorts of practical skills, though. You know motorcycles, right?”

And he knows how to murder people. I wonder how oldhehad been when he’d had to kill someone for the first time, but this doesn’t feel like the time or place to indulge my curiosity.

My thoughts darken.

I want to ask Kyran how old he’d been, too. Did my father take him out specifically to kill somebody? Would my father have told me to murder a man, if I’d been born male? Would I have been able to do it?

“I know bikes,” Yuri agrees. “And how to make you squirm.” He smiles and leans in to kiss my cheek.

I turn my head at the last second so his kiss brushes my lips instead, but before I can start to tease him right back, a throat clearing catches my attention.

Fuck. One of the librarians must’ve come this way to?—

My thoughts cut off as I see James standing in front of us.

“Oh, hey, Sierra,” he says, like he hadn’t interrupted anything. “I thought that was you.”

He looks Yuri up and down, not looking like he’s too impressed by what he sees.

“New boyfriend?” I can practically hear the sneer in his voice.

“One of them,” I tell him as deadpan as possible. “I guess after you, one man isn’t enough for me.”

James stares at me, like he can’t decide if my obvious sarcasm is an insult or not.

Yuri swivels his chair around to better face James, and I can see when he tenses up. “You’re the cheater?”

“The one and only,” I confirm.

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