Reign: A Royal Military Romance

by Roxie Noir

  I glance at the screen. Still nothing.

  “I’m sorry you’re not there,” I say.

  “It’s that obvious?” he says.

  “Only to people with eyes,” I say.

  He’s quiet for a long time, watching the screen.

  “It’s a stupid thing to miss, but I miss it,” he says. “We all do. The words were hardly out of my mouth before Sergei and Dmitri said yes.”

  I almost say some platitude, like you’re also being helpful here or this is also important, but I keep my mouth shut instead. I’ve learned that’s not the sort of thing Svelorians appreciate.

  “They liked you, you know,” Niko says, his eyes still on the screen. “After they met you at the bar.”

  “They weren’t what I was expecting at all,” I admit. “You guys are fun.”

  “There was beer,” Niko says. “And you could have knocked everyone over with a feather when he came in with you.”

  “Me?”

  He hits a button, and we switch from one camera to another. A clock in the corner is ticking down, my stomach twisting with every minute, and I try to ignore it.

  “With a girl at all,” Niko says. He hits the button again, toggling through cameras. I think he’s getting antsy too. “Let alone one who actually makes him smile.”

  Then he looks at me almost slyly.

  “And who kicked her attacker in the balls twice.”

  “I also clocked him in the face with a motorcycle helmet,” I say. Talking with Niko is finally starting to make me unwind. “He tell you that?”

  “He bragged about that,” Niko says.

  He toggles through the cameras again. It’s nearly six, and for a long moment, the two of us watch. I think Niko’s just as nervous about this as me, even though he’s been through this with Kostya more than once before.

  Suddenly, on a camera, there’s movement where there was nothing before.

  “Go back!” I say, but Niko’s already there, and we both sit forward in our chairs.

  The camera is a hundred feet behind a small wooden table, off to one side. On the other side of the table, probably two hundred feet from the camera, there’s a small knot of people.

  I hold my breath. One of them starts moving, hesitantly, with small steps. After a few more seconds I can see blond hair and a lithe frame.

  “That’s Yelena,” I say, and Niko nods.

  Together, we watch her approach the table, pass it, walk toward the camera and finally disappear. A few seconds later, a radio beeps in front of Niko, and he talks quietly in Russian for a few moments, then nods at me.

  “She’s safe,” he says, and I swallow.

  36

  Kostya

  Once Yelena passes the table, the knot in my stomach unwinds a little. I’m still strung like a piano wire, every nerve pinging, but at least it looks like Yelena’s going to be safe.

  She’s twenty feet away, then ten, and then she’s between two of the Humvees and staring around, bewildered, before she looks at me.

  “Kostya,” she says, like she’s confused.

  I take her gently by the shoulders.

  “Did they hurt you?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, looking into her bloodshot blue eyes.

  “I’m okay,” she says.

  Someone else comes, takes her hands, and pushes her into a vehicle.

  There. I’ve done one thing right, at least.

  I look back at the table, and realize that Pavel is already there, standing behind his wooden chair. The whole setup is strangely formal — a table and chairs on a concrete slab? — But I wonder if they just want this to look as legitimate as possible.

  We checked the table for a bomb five times, maybe six, even though I wouldn’t tell anyone why. I’m not superstitious as a rule, but that dream was hard to shake.

  Dmitri hands me a small, sealed bottle of vodka and a glass. I take a deep breath, my kevlar vest tight against my chest, and I walk to the table.

  Pavel straightens as I get closer, then holds out his right hand. I place my bottle on the table then take his hand in mine.

  “Pavel Vasilovich,” I greet him.

  “Your Majesty, Konstantin Grigorovich,” he says, very formally.

  I gesture at the vodka. We’ve both brought bottles and glasses. It’s customary.

  “A drink?” I ask.

  “Please, you first,” he says.

  This is all politeness. No one’s poisoned anyone with vodka for a long time now, but allowing me to pour first is a show of trust on his part, that I haven’t poisoned my bottle.

  I pour into our glasses.

  “To the light on the mountains,” I say. It’s traditional. We drink.

  Then, at last, we sit. He pours two more shots.

  “To the fish in the sea,” he says, his voice quieter now. Everything before now has been for show, but now it’s just the two of us talking.

  “You came instead of the American,” he says.

  “It’s a pretty bad king that lets defenseless Americans do his dirty work for him,” I say.

  He just nods. I wonder if that was a test.

  “I apologize about the kidnapping,” he says. “It isn’t what I wanted.”

  “It’s a brutish way to make a point,” I say.

  He nods once.

  “Yes,” Pavel says.

  We sit there for a long time, or at least it feels long. Slowly, Pavel reveals more and more of what his faction wants, and at the same time he tells me about the politics of the USF, the in-fighting. Everyone at each other’s throats, and the volki happy to come in and tear everything apart.

  Without exactly telling me, he’s saying that there doesn’t have to be violence. He’s saying that most people don’t want things to change too much.

  Pavel lists reforms. I’ve already uncensored the press and lifted the ban on meeting places, and we volley back and forth over taxes, elections, representation. He seems surprised that I’m willing to consider those things at all, and I tell him I’m not my father.

  He considers this, and in the distance, I hear a rattle.

  There’s something familiar about it, something that alerts the fight-or-flight, instinctual part of my brain, and I look around.

  Nothing. I try to ignore it.

  Pavel moves on to export tariffs, but the sound is getting louder and I can’t ignore it. I watch the open space to my right, desperately searching. I know something is there. I know something is going to happen.

  “Konstantin,” Pavel says, trying to get my attention, but then it comes into sight.

  It’s an old Soviet truck, and it comes out from between two factories and the driver guns the engine at top speed. Everyone is shouting. There’s gun fire, and the truck rocks from side to side, its thick steel body denting with pockmarks.

  The driver just ducks and keeps coming, and Pavel is staring, open-mouthed.

  I don’t think. I don’t plan. I just grab him by the shirt, pull him around the table, and we both run.

  37

  Hazel

  This is boring. Thank God, this is boring, and we’re just watching two men occasionally drink vodka and sit at a table. Every so often, Pavel will wave his hands around a little, but that’s about it.

  Niko and I just watch. Every few minutes, we toggle through the cameras, but they all show the same thing: two men talking.

  After about ten minutes, we hear an outer door slam open. Niko and I both jump, and then look at each other. I think he was hoping to have this finished with before anyone else found out what was going on, but he doesn’t exactly look surprised.

  “Damn,” he says, sounding resigned.

  Footsteps stomp toward our meeting room, and the door flies open. Chief Minister Arkady is already shouting in Russian as he comes through it, a long string of guttural sounds and sibilants that sure sound angry.

  Niko watches him, politely, as if waiting for him to finish. I realize he
was expecting this.

  Finally, the Chief Minister stops shouting at Niko. Niko responds with one sentence, then looks back at the screen, and the Chief Minister looks at me.

  “And you,” he says. His face is bright red from all the shouting. “You Americans, you tell us one thing and then you do another, like a pack of lying weasel-snakes—”

  Just take it, I tell myself. You can’t say anything to make him less angry right now, so just deal.

  “—You go back on promises and then we’re left here to sweep up—”

  Niko leans forward in his chair, suddenly going tense.

  “What?” I ask him, ignoring Arkady.

  He doesn’t say anything, just toggles through the cameras.

  “—Leave a country in ruins—”

  “I don’t know,” Niko says, but his voice is strained.

  On the screen, Kostya’s stopped listening to Pavel, and he’s just watching the open space to his right. Something about it makes my blood run cold, my stomach clench. Niko speaks quietly into the radio, and Arkady stops shouting mid-sentence, then turns and looks at the screen.

  He’s just in time to see Kostya grab Pavel by the collar of his shirt and drag him around the table.

  “Chto on del—” Arkady starts.

  Kostya and Pavel run toward the camera, which means toward the vehicles. Niko and I are both standing, and I don’t think either of us are breathing.

  An ancient, gray-green armored truck with a faded red star on one side rolls into view and comes to a hard stop. There’s something strangely casual about it, like there’s a red light that we can’t see, and for one second, it sits there as Kostya and Pavel run hell-for-leather toward the Humvees.

  Then the truck explodes. There’s no sound on the dashboard cameras, so it’s totally silent, orange blooming out, the truck bursting, flames turning to thick black smoke.

  I’m frozen. There’s a layer of surreality over everything, like I’m watching an action movie and not real life, but then something heavy hits the windshield in front of the camera and a spider web splinters across it from one corner, and that’s what shakes me back.

  Niko’s already shouting into the radio in Russian. Someone’s shouting back, and I grab the camera toggle and switch views, but there’s nothing that shows what’s happening behind the trucks.

  Where’s Kostya, I think. Where the fuck is Kostya?

  Arkady starts yelling, and then another older man comes in, takes one look, and starts yelling. It’s all in Russian, and it’s all directed at Niko, who turns his back with one hand over an ear.

  I toggle the cameras again. One of them is shaking, like the truck it’s in is being rocked from side to side. I toggle. When I come back, that camera is suddenly moving backwards and then it sweeps across a long vista of gray slabs and buildings.

  No Kostya.

  Please, I think. My heart’s in a vice. Please. Please.

  “Niko,” I say, leaning forward and touching his shoulder. Arkady keeps shouting. The other man keeps shouting. I can’t fucking believe them, and I don’t know if Kostya’s okay, and I think I’m about to tear something apart.

  Niko holds up one finger. Arkady switches to shouting in English, the other man still shouting in Russian.

  “—Come here and ruin everything—”

  “SHUT UP!” I shout.

  No one shuts up.

  “How dare you—”

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP OR GET THE FUCK OUT!”

  They both stop for a second. A voice on Niko’s radio says something. I hope it says Kostya’s fine as I slam both hands on the table.

  “You can stay here and fucking help or you can get the fuck out of here, because I swear to Christ if I see any more of your goddamn dick-waving right now I will fucking lose my shit,” I shout.

  They both stare at me. Sweat rolls down the back of my neck. I’m shaking, and I already regret my outburst because I don’t have shit to back it up besides fury and sheer terror.

  A voice in Russian comes through the radio. I try to listen for Kostya’s name but I don’t catch it. The camera is still moving, the car going somewhere, and I touch Niko’s shoulder again and point at it.

  I want to shake Niko until he tells me that Kostya’s okay, but I don’t. He knows what he’s doing.

  Arkady sits, slowly. The other man turns on his heel and leaves.

  “Da, Hazel,” Niko says into the radio, then looks at me. “Pavel was badly hurt. That truck is taking him to the hospital and bringing Yelena here. Kostya’s going to have a nasty bruise but he’s fine.”

  I exhale and sit again. My t-shirt sticks to my back. All the cameras show is a burning truck in the middle of a concrete slab.

  Just leave, I think at the camera. My insides feels like lead.

  Leave, just fucking leave.

  38

  Kostya

  I lean against the back of the Humvee. I’m breathing hard, adrenaline is surging through my veins, and my side hurts like hell where the explosion threw me into the truck about thirty seconds ago, but I’m okay. Bruised, but fine.

  I’m better than Pavel. I watch the other truck drive away, thumping over concrete and then dirt. He’s in the back, a piece of steel the size of my hand sticking out of his leg. His blood is still pooled and dripped across the concrete in front of me, but if they drive fast enough, he might make it.

  And Yelena’s fine. She’ll be at the palace in an hour. At least one good thing happened.

  Everything goes still. The truck in the center is still burning, but since it’s in the middle of a concrete slab, I’m not particularly worried that anything else will catch fire.

  Everyone’s still talking through my earpiece, and everything from the palace is coming through a blur of shouting, but it’s all status updates. They’re checking in that they’re okay, that by some miracle they all got behind cover in time.

  Then I hear a woman’s voice over the radio. It’s in the background, but it shouts SHUT UP over the yelling.

  I look over my shoulder and around the side of the vehicle, but I can’t help but smile at Hazel, even as the shouting continues.

  Then I hear her again. We all hear her again, a long, curse-and-threat-filled tirade that would probably make my mother feel faint if she heard it, because in Sveloria, women do not curse.

  It’s followed by silence. Crouched behind the vehicles, no one says anything.

  “Was that Hazel?” Dmitri asks Niko through his radio.

  “Yeah, that was Hazel,” Niko says. Everyone looks at me, and I start to shrug, but then I hear the rattle again.

  Everyone freezes. I feel another jolt of adrenaline race through me, and my brain kicks over into instinct mode, the fight part of fight-or-flight.

  “Down!” Captain Ovechkin shouts as another truck rolls into the square.

  I brace for an explosion, but there isn’t one. I wait and wait, forcing myself not to look around the truck, because I know the moment I do my face could get blown off.

  Just explode, I think. Just fucking explode.

  The only thing worse than a bomb is an unexploded bomb, because once an explosive fails it could go off at any time.

  “Niko,” the captain says into his radio. “Eyes?”

  “It’s a truck, the same kind of Soviet truck,” Niko says.

  Silence.

  “Bullet holes through the driver’s side window,” Niko finally says.

  Shit, I think. We don’t know how the last bomber set off the bomb. We don’t know if the person inside this one is dead or alive. We’ve got no idea whether this bomb will go off or not, whether jostling the truck will hit a trigger.

  We wait. I hold my breath until I can’t any more, and then let it out in a long sigh. Captain Ovechkin and I look at each other.

  “There might be people on the other side,” I say. “I’m going to go check.”

  “No,” he barks, and signals to two other men.

  They nod, stand into a crouch, and b
egin making their way around the big concrete slab.

  “Let someone else do something for once,” the captain growls at me.

  I hear a faraway noise, and for a moment my gut tightens.

  How many fucking times is this going to happen? I think.

  Then I see a helicopter fly into view over a faraway gray cube.

  I relax a little. The cavalry’s here.

  Ovechkin stands.

  “Get in,” he says, gesturing at the Humvee. “We’re heading out.”

  39

  Hazel

  One by one, the cameras in the Humvees swing around, showing the full vista of the gray district, then drive away. For a long, long time I’m still convinced that the truck behind them is going to explode, that somehow the explosion is going to obliterate everyone even when they’re half a mile away.

  It doesn’t. They just drive, and my terror slowly eases.

  I put my head in my arms, on the table, and take a long, deep breath. I’m still shaking, still roiling inside, on edge, like the unexploded bomb is behind me and I don’t know it.

  Niko’s still talking in Russian. Always talking in Russian, and this whole time he’s somehow managed to do it without sweating or getting a single hair out of place.

  This probably isn’t the most stressful thing he’s ever done, but still.

  He stands. I look up. Arkady’s gone, God knows where. Niko puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “I’m going to field command,” he says.

  I stand.

  “No,” he says. “You’re not trained and I don’t need American fighter jets up my ass.”

  I close my mouth, because as much as I hate the thought of sitting in the palace doing goddamn nothing, I know he’s right.

  “But you could run our tracking software,” he goes on. “I don’t think any of these old men even know how to turn a computer on.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Please, God, give me something to do.”

  Thirty minutes later I’m in a different room with an array of screens and two twenty-year-old Svelorian aides who seem equal parts annoyed with and afraid of me. There’s a map on every monitor: radar, infrared, GPS, even a few satellite. Every military vehicle is marked, and I can watch them all move around.