Page 171 of Night's Fall
“Yes.”Myword was breathless, because a good deal of heavy stuff was just occurring to me.
“I had no interest.Andit’d been so long since the lastHeir, people forgot,”Alekseiexplained.
“Are you saying…did you…just become king?”
“No.Iassumed the role of patriarch of my family.”
In these chambers.
Even ifIwas seated, and the path of theJetPantherwas smooth,Ifelt shaky.
“Aleksei?”
“Yes, darling?”
“TheTrueBride…”Icouldn’t finish.
He glanced at me. “Laura,Ialready told you that you outrank my mother.TheTrueHeir’smate, the minute he finds her, is known as theTrueBride.”
“Is that my title?”
“It is, and will always be, though on marriage, you’ll earn another one, and on the sad day of my father’s passing, you’ll have another.”
“I hadn’t…remembered that,”Isaid haltingly. “AbouttheTrueBride, that is.”
“History hasn’t focused on females.Theydidn’t tend to start wars or order people guillotined, the juicy parts of history that are rabidly remembered.”
True, indeed.
“Aleksei,”Icalled again.
“I’m right here,bissi,” he said quietly.
“Do we…there has always been…”Icleared my throat. “Throughouthistory, there’s always been a need for aTrueHeir.War.Upheaval.Politicalstrife.Tyrannicalkings.”
He said nothing.
I tore my gaze from the skyscreen to look at him. “Doyou think you’reTrueHeirbecause your father is a pushover, or he was, and your brothers are problematic?”
“We can hope so,” he murmured.
He hoped so.
I hoped so.
But someone had gone to the trouble and expense of finding a witch to track me down.They’dtried to take my beast.
And then they’d tried to take his.
“Aleksei,”Isaid again, shakily.
“Engage auto,” he told the craft and turned to me.
Taking my hand, he held it firm, caught my gaze, andIsaw in his what was now occurring to me had already occurred to him.
In fact, maybe he’d lived with it from the minute his eyes changed from his mother’s melting brown to the color of the skies.
“We live our lives,Laura, and if there’s something to know, we will know, we will face it and we will best it.Butuntil then, we’ll just live our lives and be happy.Wehave no other choice.”
