“Be strong.” Pytor kissed Lara’s forehead before bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it hard.
He loved his wife, and he knew there was every possibility she would not survive this trial. God, keep my wife and child safe.
Lara watched him, resigned, and let go of his hand. She turned her face away from his and bit her lip. Pytor paused, seeing the tears leak from her eyes.
“Go,” she said, her voice hoarse.
He took her limp hand to kiss one more time before she pulled away. The domaćica closed the door behind him and followed him down the stairs where his footman waited.
“Ser,” he said. “I have had your horse saddled.”
Pytor nodded and left the house for the stables. The air smelled like hay and grass, but it moved around him. It didn’t molder the way it did in the capital.
A stable boy held the reins of Pytor’s horse. He glanced back at the house, wondering if he should stay. A cry echoed over the lawn, and his decision was made. He jumped on the horse, nudged its ribs and galloped away.
The horse’s hooves danced across the cobblestone drive and then faded away. It wasn’t fair that Lara had to go through this alone. And at the end of it, she wouldn’t even have a baby. She bit her lip, catching her sob.
“My dear,” the doctor said. “This is a trial all women face. All you can do is endure.”
Endure. This man was a fool. All men were fools, even her beloved Pytor.
Though God knew she wished for Pytor to be right. If only Father Stepan was a charlatan, but Lara knew better.
Before Father Stepan, her mirror reflected a different face. All of her choices had been for Pytor, for her beautiful, golden-haired husband who made her heart pound and ache just at the thought of him.
Even now, with the ring on her finger and the memory of her wedding still fresh in her mind, she couldn’t believe Pytor was hers, or that Pytor’s baby grew in her belly.
Her prince would never have noticed her before Father Stepan. How Father Stepan had even known about her, and had known about her feelings for Pytor, was part of his magic.
A tightening slammed Lara back to reality, her entire focus going inward. Her muscles clenched, released, moved down her body, clenched, released, moved to her back, clenched, released.
Never had Lara felt so animal, so primal, before. Each contraction made her cry out, made her lose a little bit more of her humanity. Then her muscles relaxed and the pain faded away. She let her mind wander again.
She wanted to keep this baby. She didn’t want it to die. Would she have made the same agreement with the priest now? Now that she was going through all this pain and at the end of it her arms would be empty?
Not empty, a whisper in her ear. Pytor will be there.
When Lara had first seen Pytor whirling around the ballroom, holding a beautiful woman in his arms, she had truly known what it meant to need. In all her life, she never needed anyone more than him. One glance, and she knew he had been made for her.
But then she’d caught a glimpse of her reflection. Her hair was styled as well as it could be, but still, wisps of hair escaped pins and gave her a disheveled look.
And then there was her skin.
Lara had had smallpox as a child, and her face was a pock-mocked map of her illness. She had never lost the ruddiness that the fever had induced, and along with her reddish hair, the impression she left with others was red: red, red, red. Red hair, red cheeks, red skin, darker red pits along her neck and jaw.
Pytor had waltzed past her, and Lara had pulled back a little more into the shadows. It didn’t matter if her family was wealthy. It didn’t matter if they possessed some power and position; she would never marry. She was too ugly, too wounded. And even if she did, it would never be to someone who burned as brightly as Pytor.
Lara knew what it was like to want something. Her entire life was wanting. She wanted freedom, she wanted beauty, but she yearned for Pytor. If her soul was a physical object, then it had poured out of her body, arms reaching toward him, grasping desperately, fingers clawing, mouth open, begging.
Then the very next day, as she exited the church confessional after baring her soul to the priest, Father Stepan had found her. He offered to walk her to her home. Lara had paused, not sure if she wanted to be seen with him, and Father Stepan had waited, like he knew what she was thinking.
Immediately, Lara realized that Father Stepan lowered himself to be seen with her. She was the embarrassment; she was the freak.
“Did you enjoy the ball?” he had asked as they walked down the steps of the church.
“Yes,” she answered politely.
“Prince Pytor is very handsome, no?”
Lara tripped, and he grasped her arm. “Careful, dear.”
Linked now, they continued.
“He has his pick of ladies. But his father will allow him to choose his own wife.”
Lara’s heart thumped in her chest. How she wanted to be his wife. For him to look at her with adoration and pleasure, not with the shock and pity most young men viewed her
“You could not hope for such a husband as you are now.
“I know.” Lara caught the eye of a young girl walking with her governess. The girl immediately began whispering.
“What do you wish for?” Father Stepan asked.
She stopped.
Her mind alighted on the woman she’d seen in Pytor’s arms. The electric lights had shown brilliantly, and there were few shadows in the room. Lara always found the shadows, standing with her face in darkness. But last night, with every bulb reflected and spotlighted, mirrored and brightened, there had been no place to hide.
The waltzing girl needed no shadows. The light had shone directly on her skin, and all Lara saw was smooth, poreless perfection. Rosy cheeks. Pink lips. She would never have that. No matter how much she yearned for Pytor, and yearned for beauty.
If Lara had been less high-born, if she had grandmothers and aunts who knew more about the spirit than which fork to use, they could have warned her against wanting so desperately. They could have told her that wanting and aching beckoned darker things.
Things like Father Stepan.
Beauty. Pytor, she thought in response to his question. “Of course,” he said, patting her on the hand wrapped around his elbow. His answer didn’t surprise her. He was blessed, chosen by God to hear His voice. Why should he not hear Lara’s just as easily?
“It is only fair. You are as smart and as talented as any of those ladies waltzing last night. The only thing you lack is their beauty. You would have been beautiful, you know.”
Lara nodded. She would have been. Without the fever, without the pockmarks, without the hair made coarse by an illness she didn’t deserve, she would have been beautiful.
“You deserve beauty,” Father Stepan assured her. “But there is a sacrifice for all things.”
“There always is,” Lara said, thinking of the fairytales her governess had read to her.
“If you were to have a prince and the beauty to which you were born, you would not have a child. Would that be a suitable sacrifice?”
For her, it would be. A child she had never known weighed against the beauty that should have been hers, and above all that: Pytor.
The thought had barely passed through her mind when she felt the absence of Father Stepan. Her hand fell to her side, and she looked around, confused. He had left her in the middle of the walkway in front of her home. Lara hadn’t heard him say goodbye, though she was sure he had.
He must have.
The butler opened the door as she climbed the steps.
“Gospoda?” the butler asked. “Miss?”
Lara was surprised, the butler never addressed her directly. He stared at her in wonderment.
“I must—” He stopped. “Your mother…”
“My mother?” she asked. Had something happened to her?
“She is in the library.”
Lara left him standing open mouth
ed and wide eyed and hurried into the library.
“Mama!” she cried out.
Her mother wrote at her desk and started when Lara entered. “Moja draga?” She stood, then approached Lara tentatively. Her eyes filled with tears. “Lara…”
Lara froze, waiting for whatever bad news her mother needed to impart.
“It’s a miracle.” Her mother clapped her hands together before grasping Lara’s hands and pulling her to the window. She held her face, turning her into the light. “My darling, it is a miracle.”
Lara touched her face, her fingertips ghosting over her forehead and chin. Instead of the puckered roughness she was used to, her fingers encountered firm, soft skin. The mirror over the desk reflected a face she didn’t recognize. She pulled out of her mother’s hands and tore open the curtains, flooding the room with light. Her mother moved, too, yanking the mirror off the wall and holding it close to her face.
“Do you see?” her mother asked quickly. “Do you?”
Lara saw. She saw the face she should have had. It was her face now. Her fingers trailed over her lips, her cheekbones, her chin, along her jaw. She was pale as cream with peach colored cheeks and lips. It was better than she hoped. She was more beautiful than the waltzing princess held in Pytor’s arms.
Her blue eyes filled with tears, and the tip of her nose got red. She was beautiful even as the tears ran down her face.
“Father Stepan,” she whispered.
“The priest?” her mother asked. “The mystic?”
Lara nodded, unable to look away from her reflection.
Her mother lowered the mirror to the floor and took Lara’s shoulders in her hands, “What did you do?” she asked.
She began to tremble. “He asked me what I wanted.”
“What did you tell him?”
Lara widened her eyes before gesturing to her face with both hands.
“Of course.” Her mother sighed, but then her breath hitched. “But what did he want?”
Lara didn’t want to tell her. “I’ll never…” She stopped.
Her mother waited, her hands clasped in front of her like she was praying.
“I’ll never have a child,” she answered.
The pain of birthing bore down on Lara, and the words she told her mother repeated over and over inside her brain. She heard the doctor’s deep, calm voice. But her body knew what to do.
She had no control over anything that was happening. Her pain reached a pinnacle, her body lifted and suspended over a precipice, and just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, that she would split in two, it reached new heights.
And then it was gone.
Like it had never happened. Like she hadn’t just been bathed in fire.
Lara closed her eyes, waiting for the doctor to tell her, for the words that would signify a done deal, a contract met, a chapter closed.
But the words didn’t come, instead there was a strange mewling cry. Lara lifted her head and met the doctor’s shocked and frightened eyes.
No, no, no, no. This was worse. Was she to hold her baby and then it would die? She would nurse it and love it and become attached and it would be torn from her?
She waited.
The doctor turned his back on her. She saw him reach for his bag with trembling hands, removing a stethoscope. The baby’s cry got louder, stronger, and more demanding. It was not the first cry of an infant; it was a roar.
“She is healthy,” he began, and Lara saw his hands move as if he was cleaning the baby.
“A girl?” she asked, staring at the ceiling, watching the lights dance across it. It was still day.
“Yes,” he said and turned, holding a bundle in his arms.
“She will live?” Lara asked.
“Most assuredly,” the doctor answered. “However…”
He extended the bundle, and Lara held out her hands. She pulled the baby to her chest, sat up against the pillows and stared down at her child.
She was perfect. Rosebud mouth that opened in a delightful yawn, coal-black eyelashes, brows the same color as Lara’s. Lara adjusted her hold, feeling movement along the baby’s back.
The movement continued, and Lara expected to see an arm, or a leg, sneak out of the blankets. The baby’s hands opened and closed as if they were grasping for something. A moment later, a small, black and orange striped tail poked out of the blanket. Lara gasped and nearly dropped the bundle.
She placed the baby on the bed and quickly unwrapped her. Two arms, perfect fingers. Two legs, adorable toes.
Lara turned the baby over. There, right above her buttocks and at the base of her spine was a soft, furred tail. It was no doubt a tiger’s tail. The baby cried angrily and the tail whipped back and forth, punctuating her discomfort.
“She is a healthy child,” the doctor reiterated. “She just has a tail.”
Lara turned her over, and began to cover her in blankets. The baby grasped the tail again, and quieted.
“I don’t have a child,” Lara whispered.
When a Prince Meets a Tiger Princess
Pytor led his horse to the stream that trickled into the nearby lake. He could see Bishmyza. The sun turned the yellow brick to orange, as if the house was on fire.
He listened hard, his guilt weighing heavily on his shoulders. But no sound came from the house. He heard nothing except the slow movement of the water along the rocks and through fallen branches.
Lara rarely asked for anything. She was very different from his brothers’ wives. When they’d danced at his brother’s wedding, she’d stared at him as if he’d set the sun on the horizon. He’d held her in his arms, and waited for her to speak, to overwhelm him with her sparkling personality, but she hadn’t. She’d been quiet and shy and so very sweet that he’d been moved to ask her to dance again, and again. He left the wedding knowing he had met the woman he was to marry. He couldn’t even remember what she looked like, all he could picture was her voice, her eyes, the soft skin of her shoulders, and the way her eyelashes rested against her cheeks as she’d gazed down in embarrassment.
No one looked at him the way Lara did. He was not the fifth son of a king. He was a man with a woman who believed in him and thought him the most brilliant and talented person alive.
It was the first time in his life anyone believed in him.
The early days of their marriage were magic—lingering kisses, lazy days, gifts given and received, meals taken at all hours. He wanted it to last forever.
But then Lara had learned she was having a child, and she’d changed. She’d distanced herself from him, from everything. Pytor would find her sitting at her vanity, staring at her face, her fingers trailing over the skin, as close as possible to the mirror without being absorbed by it. At night, she didn’t sleep, and many times he would awaken to find her watching him. Always, she would smile at him, kiss him gently, and then turn over.
She moved into her own room under the auspices of sleeping poorly, but Pytor feared she had changed her mind about him. He doubted himself at every turn. Yet every sharp word was followed by an apology. Every step away from him was followed by a step forward and an embrace. His head spun and his stomach churned with confusion.
The gurgling stream caught his attention, and he crouched there. He pulled out his handkerchief and dipped it in the water before rubbing it across the back of his neck. Overheated, he pulled off his boots and stuck his feet in the water.
Time passed, but he was oblivious. The sun began to set, backlighting the house until it looked like the sun itself. He got on his horse and returned home, his heart in his throat, hoping both the trial had passed and that he had a wife to return to.
At the end of the drive, the stable boy ran to greet him. Pytor pulled on the horse’s reins, and the animal pawed at the stones.
“Ser,” he greeted, holding out his hand.
Pytor was unable to form the words to command the boy take the horse. Dismounting, he flung the reins at the boy, and strode toward the
house.
A footman opened the door, but refused to look at him. The acid in his stomach threatened his throat, but he swallowed hard. Put one foot in front of the other. With a white-knuckled grip, he held onto the bannister, lifting his eyes to the stairs where the domaćica waited at the top. She gave him a sad smile that made him fall backward until he was sitting on the marble floor of the foyer.
“Both the child and your wife are alive, Ser.”
Pytor realized he was staring at his hands and looked up in confusion. The doctor stared down at him. “They live and are healthy.”
“They live?” Pytor asked.
“Yes,” the doctor said. “But your daughter…”
Too elated, Pytor didn’t hear the rest of the doctor’s words. He moved up the stairs and into Lara’s room without realizing how he’d gotten there.
Lara slept. Next to her, wrapped tightly in blankets, was his daughter.
Pytor walked quickly to the bed. Dark circles shadowed Lara’s eyes, her pale skin was drawn tight against the bones of her face, but her chest rose and fell. Pytor’s eyes fell on the bundle next to his wife. He could only see the tip of a small nose. He moved closer until he could edge one hip onto the bed.
His daughter opened sleepy eyes and yawned hugely. Her tiny pink tongue cupped like a spoon. He reached for her, pulling her carefully into his arms.
And blinked.
There, clutched in tiny fists that clenched and unclenched, was a black and orange striped tail. Pytor stared at her in confusion, placed her back on the bed and unwrapped the blanket, stripping away the clothes until he could see his daughter fully. Her body was made of beautiful pale rolls of skin, tiny flailing limbs, curling toes, and a perfectly formed and furred tail. She grasped it tightly in her hands as she blinked at him with ageless eyes.
He held her aloft carefully, turning her around so he could see the base of the tail. It escaped her hands and swayed back and forth gently.
Pytor laughed, loud and joyously.
It was a beautiful thing. The way it moved with grace, fanning gently, touching his wrists before wrapping around her tiny body. It was a perfect extension of his daughter. It didn’t disgust him. It didn’t confuse him.
Wrath and Ruin Page 2
