Page 85 of The Bright and Hungry Future of Hawks

And a face he had not recognised had stared back at him from the mirror. He rarely considered his reflection, so it hadn’t surprised him that it seemed slightly unfamiliar, but the cognitive dissonance he’d experienced at that sharp confrontation, by that particular alignment of bone and flesh, went far beyond his everyday desire not to see the flipside of his identity.His twin. That alien face had forced him to make the startling and entirely unsettling confession that he wasn’t doing this for Ben at all. He wasn’t leaving to keep Ben safe. He wasn’t swerving to focus the evil’s interest onhimby his flight and thus leave this perfect world here in this Devon valley safe.

He’d planned that once before, and had been willing to do it.

This was different.

This had nothing to do with keeping Ben safe at all.

For the first time in his life being entirely honest, Aleksey had realised he was doing this entirely forhimself. He hadn’t recognised the face in the mirror because he genuinely hadn’t known who that man was. He wasn’t Aleksey Mikkelsen—that was a small-for-his-age scrawny little boy with windswept blond hair who had thought he could control the world and everyone in it. That child had effectively died, aged ten, on his first night in Russia.

He wasn’t Nikolas Mikkelsen, obviously. Nikolas had died—been murdered—almosttwenty yearsago, his features always frozen in Aleksey’s mind in that last sight he’d had of him. Aleksey knew that in that moment, teetering beyond his ability to right himself, Nika had finally understood him.

But he wasn’t Aleksey Primakov either, despite that being how he still named himself in his mind, in the privateselfhe didn’t share with Ben. He hadn’t really beenGeneralPrimakov since he’d fallen into the promise in a pair of green eyes. That fall into love had been too intense, too entirely consuming to allow room for a creature like Aleksey Primakov. To leave anyneedfor him, he reflected.

He felt the unravelling of his identities, but he could not see what lay beyond. Staring into the mirror at an unknown man, astranger, something Ben had once told him had slithered free from the recess it had tucked itself into in his memory—death, and the great unknown adventure that it represented. He had followed Ben’s reasoning at the time easily enough, actually seen that fragile little ship setting off upon a vast ocean, those who had gone before waiting joyous on an unknown beach for it to arrive. He had been in the mood at the time to make a few allowances for Benjamin’s more romantic nature, given that he had thought he’d lost Ben to a force greater than he, but actually had not.

But unlike Ben who had clearly been willing to take that last voyage, buoyed up on the certainty of love,hehad been thinking fuck, okay for you, Ben—it’ll bemeon that shore waiting foryou. I’ll have gone first and I will pull you to me by the power of my love. But what about me when it’s my fucking time? I’ll just be a pretend man on some inadequately constructed tub with a fake name on a huge fucking ocean with no one guiding my course to anything.

It had not been a reassuring thought at all.

The mirror, obviously, had given him no answers, no reassurance, no insights.

An entirely unknown, untested man, therefore, one called simply Aleksey, had then stepped into the large walk-in wardrobe and fetched out a Spetsnaz bergen. He'd lied about this as well. It wasn't the original one Aleksey Primakov had once owned. Generals don't carry weight in the field. He'd seen it on eBay one day whilst idly amusing himself in his office in Whitehall. A used, genuine Spetsnaz bergen, and he'd bought it. Sure, the kit he kept in it was all his, posted to a grieving brother from a dead man’s colleagues, but as with every other kernel of truth in his life, the thing you actually saw was a deceit.

But hefted on his back, deception had met deceiver, and both had been content.

If he could have, he would have left it all, all owned as it had been by other men.

Only stripped bare and willing to build from new foundations could you trust your structure was sound.

Aleksey had then said a brief, silent farewell to thisNikolasportion of his life and had stepped out into the night.

No small vessel tossed upon the oceans of the world seeking safe harbour on a promise of love, sure.

Not actually dead, come to that, but as terrified and alone as he had once predicted he would be on that unknowable journey.

* * *

Chapter 47

Nine Years Ago

And, of course, he was still juggling the Mountback (some of his nicknames were inspired), whose attempt at blackmailing him into fucking (loving?) him were still ongoing.

He didn’t fear Philipa’s reaction to discovering this liaison at all now, so that was something. He rather suspected she’d find it funny, if not for the delicate situation she was in with the sentient vegetable. Not perhaps surprising, but her campaign of attrition on that blue-blooded bulwark was not going much better than Mountback’s was with him. Both men in the equation were resisting. He shuddered at the very thought of being in a similar position as the parsnip, but smirked when he realised he’d dismissed The Honourable to the feminine side. He was pretty sure no woman would want such a pathetic specimen on their team. Women were devious. He was still a little shocked to find out some of Philipa’s less obvious attractions. But as she’d told him, she hadn’t got where she was with a pretty face.

Neither had The Honourable, of course. Even his mouth was unattractive, despite what it was currently doing, which should have given it at least bonus points for utility, but Aleksey didn’t want or need his cock sucked by this man. He’d had to give the whiny bastard something though, just to shut him up for a few minutes.

He knew what the younger man wanted, of course. Gustav wanted presents and to be loved (should he have put those around the other way? Should love come first? Presents had always come first for Aleksey. Even aged ten he’d learnt the power a small boy could have over rich men with deviant needs). Gustav wanted him to love him and for them to be in a real relationship. Aleksey even allowed that the annoying one believed himself to be in love. Some men apparently thrived on being despised.

But it was getting increasingly awkward to place this man on his chess board where he could do no damage.

For it had occurred to him one night, lying in his newly restored, clean room, that he wouldn’t want Ben to know about Gustav M either. The avoiding Ben because he set fire to his cottage and murdered his boyfriend, and because he thought he might be falling in love with him, had now also become don’t see Ben because he might read betrayal in a pair of amber eyes. Although Aleksey had never told Ben a single thing about his sex life, other than fucking him, obviously, he foresaw a time when Ben might think to ask this. Might think to take just a little bit of interest in him. His life.

Miracles could happen, as they said.

He would lie, of course, even if asked. But he’d want that lie to be about something more heroic than this. He glanced down. This was too squalid to even form a good deceit.

Finished, Mountback withdrew and climbed to his feet.

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