Page 44 of Tarnished Queen

I drag a hand down my face and turn to her. Her pale red hair is still damp from her shower, the ends curling against her nightshirt. Without her blush and eyeliner on, Elise looks even younger than she is. She looks like she did when I first moved out and had to leave her behind.

The urge to wrap my arms around her is strong, and I can’t resist. I pull her against my chest, ignoring the way she grumbles in complaint.

When I let go, she settles back into her pile of blankets and pulls one up around her shoulders. “Do you have to marry him?”

“What?” I heard her, but I don’t know how to answer. I’m not sure of the answer myself.

“Is it because you’re pregnant?” she continues. “Is that why he’s making you marry him?”

“Nikolai isn’t making me do anything.”

Elise frowns, unconvinced. “He said you didn’t have a choice. And you were arguing with him.”

“That was just… arguing.” I shrug. “I’m annoyed with him, so I was pressing his buttons.”

“Then you must always be annoyed with him.”

I laugh bitterly. “You could say that.”

She gives me a small smile and then it slowly slips away. “You can tell me the truth, B. If he’s forcing you to marry him, then maybe we could run away again. Maybe we could actually get out of here and start over.”

The sight of Elise wrapped in a fuzzy blanket is juxtaposed with the reality that she was going to sleep on a public park bench tonight. And if we run away again, that’s the most I can promise her.

I don’t have a plan. I don’t have an escape route. I don’t have options.

I can’t put Elise through that. Nikolai can offer her the security she’s never had. Can I really rip her away from it?

“He isn’t forcing me to marry him,” I tell her, laying my hand over hers and squeezing. “I’m marrying Nikolai because… because I love him.”

I expect the words to taste nasty on my tongue. Lying to Elise always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but I try to reserve it for when it’s absolutely necessary. For when the truth would cause her unnecessary pain.

This is one of those times.

She stares at me. Her green eyes are way too observant for her own good. “No, you don’t.”

“Elise,” I breathe, “of course I do. I mean, we hopped on a jet and went to Iceland with him with zero warning. Would I do that for anyone else?”

“You told me that was for work.”

“I lied,” I say. “I didn’t want to scare you. But I went because I wanted to spend time with Nikolai. I didn’t realize how much I already liked him at the time. But I should have. I was just scared to admit it because he was—”

“A Bratva boss.”

I wince and chuckle at the same time. “Yeah. Basically. It was scary. I probably shouldn’t have gone. I should have taken you back home and carried on with our normal lives, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk away from him. I didn’t want to.”

The words tumble out of me easily, and even now, I want to believe I’ve become an amazing liar overnight. I’d rather believe anything but the truth.

Which is that I’m not lying at all.

Elise has her nose wrinkled up as she thinks through everything I’m saying. “Did you know the truth about him when we went to Iceland?”

“More or less, yeah,” I admit. “It still felt far away, though. I didn’t know about his enemies or Xena or any of that. It was just… Nikolai. And he seemed larger than life. Untouchable. He had a private jet and the ability to whisk us both away to what felt like another world. After everything we’ve been through, I wanted that for us. A fairytale. Does that sound stupid?”

She shakes her head softly in the gloom. “We’ve never had anything like that before,” she murmurs.

“Exactly. It felt like a dream come true. And it was.”

“Until Xena showed up at that party.”

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