He waited, and she tried to understand what he meant. “Do you mean you wouldn’t have met me?”
He nodded.
She shifted, sitting back and wrapping her skirt around her knees. Even after everything they’d been through, her life was better for meeting Anatoliy. She imagined her life without knowing he existed. But there was only before Anatoliy and after Anatoliy.
And she preferred after.
Even if she died.
She loved him. As the thought struck her, she stared quickly at the ground, afraid he’d see it in her face.
But why shouldn’t he? If ever there was a time to tell him, now was that time. Her heart pounded at the thought. She cleared her throat and moved to her knees.
“Anatoliy…” she began. She choked.
He placed his head on his paws and looked up at her through his eyebrows, waiting for her to speak. She struggled and he sat up, sensing the seriousness of whatever it was she was trying to say.
“Princess!” a voice shouted. Anatoliy lifted his head, peering around her, seeking the source of the voice and began to stand.
“Wait.” She commanded. “Anatoliy, wait.”
He did.
“I…”
“Princess!”
She shook her head.
“Princess!”
Someone else called out, “Search the camp. The Hunt is beginning. Find them.”
“Anatoliy, I love you.”
He stumbled backward, sat down hard, and stared at her. He shook his head.
“You don’t have to love me back.” She took a breath. “It’s fine if you don’t love me, too. I just want you to know.” She forced herself to slow down.
He continued to shake his head, gazing down at the ground then back up at her. She could see when his eyes met hers. He loved her.
He loved her.
He nudged her with his head, not to move her, but to press into her body. He held himself there, and she wrapped her arms around him, standing on her tiptoes and whispered into his ear, “I love you.”
He sighed, his breath washing over her. His chin pressed against her shoulder and pulled her into his body, holding her there.
“Princess.”
They had found them.
“It’s time. You must come with me. The bear will meet us there.”
Polya pulled away from him, and stared into eyes that were bright with hope. She shook her head. “No. We stay together.”
Anatoliy’s head dipped, yes.
“I’m sorry, Princess. That’s not possible.”
She glared at the speaker, leveling him with her most princessed gaze. “We stay together.”
The man glanced over her shoulder. Before she knew what was happening, hands were all over her, pulling her away. Something covered her head before her arms and legs were tied together. She kicked, hit, clawed, but she was held fast.
Anatoliy roared, but she was dragged away. His growls grew fainter and fainter. She didn’t want to believe they would be separated now.
She screamed, hissing, crying out for him.
Tossed through the air, she landed on something hard. She was unable to brace herself, and the air whooshed out of her.
Horses whinnied with excitement and unease, but she couldn’t hear Anatoliy. It was like he disappeared. Polya rolled to her side. Just as she started to sit up, she lost her balance and slammed the back of her head into the floor.
Her tears soaked the cover on her face. She waited, counting the seconds as whatever carried her brought her back to Anatoliy.
The Hunt
The soldiers held their guns on Polya, the hammers back, ready to fire. The one in charge had halted him with one word. “Stop.”
Anatoliy had lowered himself, watching in disbelief as they pulled her away from him. He didn’t fight, one step toward her could end her. Maybe they were bluffing. It would be less entertaining if they hunted only him, but he couldn’t take the risk. He wouldn’t.
New soldiers surrounded them, double the number hauling Polya farther and farther away.
“Move.”
They angled their bayonets to prod him, herding him somewhere. He saw the iron carriage a moment later. It was the carriage that brought him to all the missions he completed with his men, who were also waiting for him. He was glad to be a bear, so that no one, except Dara, would know he was surprised. He assumed his men would be in the woods, scouting or hunting, not waiting for him. Even more alarming were Aleksandr and the priest, both excited and twitchy, hovering near the ramp.
Anatoliy snarled, and Dara shook his head minutely, warningly. He swallowed the snarl, and placed a huge paw on the ramp, hefting himself up, into the carriage. Bars slid into place, lowered from the top, squeezing Anatoliy’s sides, giving him only enough room to breathe, but not to move side to side or back to front. The king climbed the bars, smiling.
“Beast.” He sighed, then corrected himself. “Anatoliy. Your help has been”—he stopped, seeking the word—“most beneficial, and at times, entertaining.” He gripped the bars and put his head between them. “But I am finished with you now.”
The king nodded at something over Anatoliy’s shoulder. Steel rubbed against steel before he felt it, sliding between his ribs, piercing organs.
Dara gasped.
He had no breath to roar, but he snapped, his teeth grazing Aleksandr’s face before he could pull back. Blood rolled from his forehead, and his ruined cheek which lay open in jagged tears. Aleksandr fell back, crying out. “You stupid animal! How dare you! How dare you!”
Anatoliy’s feet buckled under him as his blood poured from his body, sapping away his strength. He saw Aleksandr through dimmed eyes. “She’s going to be mine,” he spat at Anatoliy. “I’ll make sure she survives, and I will use her until you’d no longer recognize her, had you lived.”
The carriage began to move, and Anatoliy focused on staying alive. He exhaled pained breaths and inhaled unsatisfying ones. He shouldn’t have been surprised that it ended this way, but it saddened him.
Polya loved him. He was given a gift, and it was stolen from him, but his goal hadn’t changed. Help Polya survive. Kill the king.
There were no soldiers now. Only the wagon driver and Anatoliy. He listened hard but would lose the thread of his purpose, distracted by the pain and the suffocating heaviness that was spreading through his body.
The carriage stopped. The bars slid away, and then the carriage drove again. In the distance, he heard Polya’s maddened snarls. He roared in response, but it was quieter, more subdued.
Her snarl cut off, and her voice carried through the forest, calling his name. “Anatoliy?”
One after another came a volley of gunshots then the braying bark of hounds.
Anatoliy leapt out of the carriage and tumbled over his legs to end up sprawled on the snow. The howls and frenzied barks got louder. Paws scrambled across the ground, and he smelled the musk and adrenaline of dogs.
He got to his feet, moving as carefully and quickly as he could in Polya’s direction. There came a shot again, and a cry.
Anxiety flooded his system, giving him strength and numbing his pain. He roared. His brain screamed at him to find her. Teeth nipped his legs, and the dogs followed him, surrounded him. They tried to run him into exhaustion, but they were not the manic dogs of the arena. These dogs had a job, and that was their focus. Their tails wagged, not knowing enough to be afraid of him.
He smelled the horses before he saw them, and he felt the bullet travel the length of his side. The pain barely registered. He saw then, the rider.
An uncle.
He lifted his gun again, sighting down the barrel. The first shot was practice, this was the kill shot.
Anatoliy waited, but the shot never came.
Instead, Polya’s scent smacked him in the face. She leapt over the horse, wrapped her arms around her uncle and pulled him to the ground. She snarled and hissed. He attempted to get to his feet, pulling a dagger from hi
s side, but Polya was faster. She lifted her boot and struck him in the head. He fell unconscious at her feet.
Polya met his eyes. “Run or fight?”
He was dead. He knew he was. But Polya had a chance if she could hide from the king and her father. She could escape.
He signaled to her another direction, and she nodded her understanding. Run.
There was the sound of air being displaced and then the heaving thump of metal piercing wood, a vibration: a spear stuck in a tree.
Anatoliy almost smiled. When bears were baited, if they survived dogs, and fatigue, they were speared to death. The king had chosen to end him the traditional way.
Polya turned her head, and a horse leapt over them as easily as clearing a stone wall. She skidded to a stop, reversing directions. Through his dying haze, Anatoliy heard the approaching horses.
They would soon be surrounded.
Evgeny was on this horse. He looked sad, but committed. He hefted a gun to his shoulder, this one looking like a harpoon gun.
“Shoot him.”
The other horses were closer now, and Anatoliy could feel himself getting weaker.
“Wait!”
The priest glided through the forest, holding up a hand to Evgeny. “Hold, My Son.”
Evgeny released the trigger, but held the gun at the ready. Polya shifted her body to stay between Anatoliy and whatever threat she thought was the most dire.
“He is dying,” Father Stepan said sadly.
Polya looked at him quickly, her gaze falling to the snow that was red with blood.
“No,” she choked.
“He doesn’t have long.”
Anatoliy knew what he was doing. He was backing Polya into a corner. All this time, she’d resisted him. She’d been innocent and hopeful, full of love and honesty. Her wants were simple, but now… here was the priest’s opportunity. Anatoliy didn’t know what he planned to do once he had Polya under his thumb, but he suspected he’d been angling for this since the beginning.
“Anatoliy,” she whispered, looking up from the ground into his eyes. He saw the resignation there. The recognition that there was no saving him.
“Tell me, Princess,” the priest began. “What do you w…”
Anatoliy leapt, paws extending, knocking Polya aside and sunk his teeth into the priest’s throat, tearing and gnawing. The other men cried out, but his focus was only on the priest.
He shook loose the priest’s body, the taste of rancid meat in his mouth, and watched the priest laugh and cough, his blood spraying the air and falling around his body like an angel’s wings before he was silent, eyes staring at Anatoliy’s, chest rising and falling jerkily.
Anatoliy's legs gave out, and he fell, rolling onto his side. His eye looked up to the sky, and then Polya was there, sobbing, words falling from her lips. “I want him, only him. I want him.”
No. The blackness that had been hovering around the edges of his vision tunneled to a pinprick. He heard her voice. “Stay with me. Please.”
He wanted to grant her that, but he wasn’t strong enough. He wanted to protect her, but he’d failed. He was leaving her here, among his enemies.
“Anatoliy, please.” He heard her whisper like a breeze across a meadow. It rolled over his face, offering him solace. He closed his eyes, his thoughts going inward, his mind on Polya—her body, her hands, her tail, her face, her hair, her eyes, and then, nothing.
Polya Alone
Anatoliy’s eyes closed, his chest stopped lifting, but she didn’t relinquish her grasp on him. She thought if she held him tight enough, she could keep him with her.
“Niece.” From the fog of her devastation came her uncle’s voice. “Niece,” he reiterated. “We need to leave here.”
He grasped her and lifted her. She kicked and hissed and swiped at her uncle, but he held her fast. “Trust me,” he said. “Please trust me.”
He kicked the horse into action. Polya turned her body away from him, leaning, reaching, arching toward Anatoliy.
“Let me go. Let me go. Let me go.”
“Stop.” His voice like a whip. “He wanted you alive. You dishonor him if you let yourself be killed.”
Wanted. Killed. Past.
Anatoliy was dead.
He was dead.
Her soul curled up inside her body, and she let her uncle carry her away. It didn’t matter where. He could deliver her into the king’s arms, but it didn’t matter because Anatoliy was dead.
Evgeny pulled up on the reins, and Anatoliy’s soldiers melted out of the forest. Quickly, he dropped her over the side of the horse into Dara’s arms. “Get her away from here. The king was wounded, but he’s still hunting. The priest is dead. I must return to Pytor so we can kill Aleksandr.”
Dara nodded. “We’ll keep her safe.”
Her uncle nodded and stared down at her, sympathy etched in his features. “She needs to live. The revolution has begun.”
“I know,” Dara said tensely. And then, “Is there no hope?”
“He’s dead,” her uncle told Dara.
Polya closed her eyes against the pain that pierced her heart.
No. He can’t be dead. He’s all I want. He’s all I’ll ever want.
Dara turned away, passing Polya’s limp body to another soldier. “We’ll return for his body once she’s safe.”
“Fine,” her uncle agreed, his voice getting farther and farther away as the soldier took her.
The horse galloped away, and then there was only the near-silent footfalls of Anatoliy’s soldiers.
New King
Aleksandr’s horse reared up in surprised as his brother, Evgeny, charged through the forest. He reined him in tightly, giving his brother a narrow-lipped smile since his face still burned from Anatoliy’s teeth.
“Did you find them?”
Evgeny nodded. “Let them go, Alek.”
Aleksandr glanced over his shoulder at Pytor, who didn’t meet his gaze.
“No,” he decreed, sitting up straight in the saddle, the new leather of his boots squeaking in the stirrups. “The bear dies. The tiger comes with me.”
Now Pytor looked at him. That was what he was waiting for, but there was no fear in the look, no trepidation, or plea for mercy.
“What do you think, Pytor?” he asked, realizing suddenly that the priest had gone, probably riding ahead or distracted by a snowflake. “Do you think your daughter deserves my mercy?”
There was a flash in his brother’s eyes. It was the anger Aleksandr had been wanting. His body clenched in delight, but he hissed when it pulled at the stitches in his face.
“I have it all planned, Pytor,” he dreamed aloud. “Your daughter on my arm. With my wife unwell, and unlikely to live another winter, I marry her in the spring. More tigers are born. An army of tiger princes and tiger princesses with me at their head. Like the empires of old, Pytor. Konstantin’s borders will expand in all directions. What do you think, Brother?” He added the final word like a curse and a taunt.
Pytor’s face flushed with color.
Honestly, the idea hadn’t occurred to Aleksandr until a moment ago as well, but now that it had, he embraced it with all the zeal he’d felt when Father Stepan had suggested this Hunt.
Pytor’s horse pawed at the ground in agitation as Pytor sat upon it like a statue. Tension radiated off him, upsetting the animal and giving Aleksandr a disconcerted moment of unease that he immediately swatted away.
He was the king.
“No, Aleksandr,” Pytor finally ground out. “No, that will not happen.”
Aleksandr trembled with rage. Though it was the sentiment he wanted, it was not the response he expected.
“Enough, Alek,” Evgeny quietly uttered. “You are ruining this country.”
Aleksandr tugged the horse’s head, pulling it around so he could face his younger brother. His horse approached Evgeny’s aggressively, wanting to rear up like it did in battle and paw at the rider with sharpened iron hooves.
“This is my country, Evgeny,” he reminded. “It is mine to do with what I wish. You are all my subjects. You bend to my will.”
Evgeny shook his head. “You’ve sown the seeds of your own destruction, Aleksandr. You’ve brought about your own end.”
Aleksandr threw his head back and laughed merrily. This day was going even better than he’d hoped. He initiated the death of the bear, who’d become more trouble than he was worth. He would give the order for his doctors to end the pitiful existence of his pale wife.
And he would marry the tiger.
Then he would execute his treacherous brothers. He thought of his mother’s face when he gave the order. He made a note to make sure she was required to attend.
Behind was a soft click, and he turned in his saddle; eyes widening when he stared into the black barrel of Pytor’s pistol.
He chuckled. “You’re a fool, Pytor.”
The gun shook before Pytor pulled the trigger.
In that instant, Aleksandr saw what he’d never allowed himself to see before: his mortality. The spark of metal ignited gunpowder, and the brass of the bullet turned and flared like a shooting star.
Aleksandr cried out, not because he was frightened, but because he never believed he would die.
The bullet entered his brain, sending messages, and firing memories long forgotten before everything went black.
Black.
And then orange.
He saw the fire before he felt it. It reached out and embraced him, the tongues grasping his soul and wrenching it into pools of eternal pain.
He understood then what had happened, and if it hadn’t been happening to him, he would have laughed.
Too Late
The Devil regarded his borrowed body with distaste, but a little bit of nostalgia. It had served him well. What fun he’d had in that form.
He’d left chaos and pain. He’d started a revolution.
And the tiger girl. He closed his eyes, ecstasy running over his skin. He heard her high light voice in his mind, he’s all I want. He’s all I’ll ever want.
Wrath and Ruin Page 22
