Archive of Our Own

“I have an official inquiry, if I may,” Nikolai says from the other side of Zoya’s desk.

Zoya doesn’t bother to look up. “Is it interesting?”

“Moderately.”

“All right.”

Nikolai holds up a letter between his first two fingers. He isn’t wearing gloves—he’s stopped doing that, by and large—and it looks like the ink has bled onto his skin. He asks, “Are we especially concerned with new and extravagant forms of libel?”

“Against whom?”

“Me.”

“You’ve been widely libelled for years,” Zoya says. “And slandered, for that matter. What difference does it make?”

“None at all, I dare say.”

“Then, no.”

“That does save us some time,” Nikolai says. He crumples the letter and pitches it elegantly into the fire.

It’s early afternoon, and the fire has been going all day. So has the work. It’s not so different from when Zoya was a general, except now she’s sitting on the other side of the desk. She still wears a kefta most of the time, so that no one forgets who she is.

Zoya reads the next note in the pile. To Nikolai, she says, “Do you know much about lung fever?”

“As much as any soldier. I have fortunately never had it.”

“Your health is suspiciously good for an otkazat’sya.”

“That will be the outbreeding,” Nikolai says.

Zoya can’t argue with that. She continues, “There’s a particularly bad outbreak in Zheniseysk. I suppose we’ll send a few extra Healers out there and hope they come back.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Nikolai.

They read more letters. Zoya gives Nikolai the job of sorting through the less formal correspondence, in part because it entertains him, and he is accordingly less likely to bother her. This is how it’s been in the weeks since she was crowned; they’re at meetings or dinners, or they’re here in this same sitting room, at this same desk. She’s glad it’s winter, because her garden needs less attention. She barely gets to train. After that, all she can do is sleep, and even then not enough. It’s almost worse than when they were actively at war.

Half an hour later, Zoya puts down her pen to rest her head in her hand, just for a minute.

Nikolai says, “You do look tired, my love.” He knows better than to say it too gently, because Zoya would throttle him for it.

“I will remind you that that is your fault,” Zoya says, blinking at the tall sideboard across the room until her eyes focus properly again.

“You did agree. I was there.”

Zoya sighs.

“I have an idea,” Nikolai says.

“A good one?”

Nikolai smiles. Zoya wishes he wouldn’t.

“Go and rest for a while,” he says.

“I have all of this to do.”

“And it will still be there in an hour. Unless I happen to look at it for you.”

Zoya says, “No.”

“Half an hour, then, and I will give it merely a sidelong glance. Perhaps just from the corner of my eye as I pass by.”

“No,” Zoya repeats. She pushes her chair back and stands. “You can come with me.”

Nikolai’s brows lift, and so does his chin, as he watches Zoya walk around the desk. “Shall I ask for what purpose?”

“Company.”

“I will be honoured to provide.”

“You did promise we’d nap together one day.”

“I’m glad you remember,” Nikolai says as he follows Zoya to her bedroom, as if she could forget anything he said to her in that hold.

Nikolai closes the door behind him. They’ve barely been alone in here since these rooms became Zoya’s. Nikolai moved to chambers along the next corridor, and will take the consort’s rooms once they’re married. They decided they’d better maintain what little propriety they have left. Half the palace believes they were lovers long before now, and if they had their way, they would be—but the truth is that they haven’t come close. How does anyone have the time?

Incidentally, Zoya feels less tired than before. She hangs up her kefta and takes off her boots, then settles on top of the covers. She does like the bed. It’s comfortable.

Nikolai, also undressed to shirtsleeves and trousers, lies down beside Zoya and offers her his arm. It’s purely on instinct that she lays her head on it and tucks her face into his shoulder as she comes to rest against him. They’re both long past being shy about bodies. Nikolai’s is warm and solid under his clothes, which makes him acceptable company.

“Your Highness, I don’t wish to embarrass you,” Nikolai says as he wraps his other arm around her back, “but I’m beginning to wonder if you might be harbouring some feelings for me.”

“I’m harbouring the feeling of wanting to shove you onto the floor.”

“I’ve had a perfectly nice time in worse places.”

Zoya breathes out and lets her body relax. Once she thinks Nikolai is used to this idea, she lifts her head up and kisses his neck above his collar, which he has helpfully opened.

“Well,” he says. “I thought you were resting.”

“You don’t know how I like to rest,” Zoya says, and does it again.

“I ought to have suspected you of plotting against my virtue.”

“As if you have any left.”

“Then you’d best hope I’ve learned something,” Nikolai says. He shifts them to bring Zoya’s face closer to his. His knee slips between hers in the process. “I really meant it, by the way, when I said I wanted you. I haven’t stopped. I might finally have found something I’m not capable of.”

“You’d better not change your mind after you’ve had me.”

“I’m not that sort of man.”

“What sort are you?”

“I’ll show you.”

Nikolai takes her hand. Slowly, he lifts it to his mouth and kisses her palm, then the meat of her thumb, down to her wrist above the scales. Zoya lets herself shiver. It’s been forever since she’s had a lover at all, let alone one she wanted this much. She can almost forget about the work.

“Don’t tease,” she says.

“I’m only taking my time.” Nikolai draws her arm over his side and pulls her to him. It’s pleasant enough just to be this close.

Zoya runs her hand along Nikolai’s flank, to his hipbone and back up. “Make it worthwhile.”

“I did say I’ll show you,” Nikolai murmurs against her forehead. Zoya nudges his jaw up and kisses his neck again while he splays his fingers at the small of her back. It’s warm. Comfortable. She’d stay like this for hours if she could.

Then Nikolai’s hand is between her shoulder blades, drawing slow circles over her spine.

“Zoyushka,” he says.

Zoya blinks. Her face is pressed into Nikolai’s shoulder, and feels like it has been for some time. She leans back to look at him. It’s strangely difficult to keep her eyes open.

“I’m sorry to have to wake you,” Nikolai says.

Zoya says, “You must be joking.”

“I wish I were,” says Nikolai. It’s unfair that Zoya has to see him with his hair rumpled when she didn’t get to do it herself. “But it’s my unfortunate duty to inform you that we fell asleep in each other’s arms well before we meant to, and it is now, regrettably, time to be awake.”

If Zoya could slump any further into the mattress, she would. “How long did I sleep for?”

“About an hour.”

“You should have woken me earlier.”

“I strenuously disagree.”

Zoya considers her options. She could just roll Nikolai under her right now, but there really isn’t time before their next set of meetings, and she needs some water anyway.

It seems best to sit up before anything gets too tempting, or indeed likely. As Zoya rearranges her hair, she asks, “Did you say we fell asleep?”

“Yes.” Nikolai sits up next to her to fix his collar. “Once you did, I thought I might as well. I was less likely to disturb you that way.”

Zoya has already had the relative misfortune of seeing Nikolai asleep. A few times, even before the strongest sedatives, he was so exhausted that he slept through Zoya opening his door and then the curtains; she had to sit on the bed and nudge his shoulder to wake him, and she couldn’t forget it later no matter how she tried.

“You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” she asks.

“I had a suspicion.”

Zoya makes a noise of disgust and gets up from the bed. With her kefta on, no one will be able to tell that she slept in these clothes, but it’s a matter of principle. “I’m evicting you,” she says. “I want to brace myself for the next few hours in peace.” She wishes she had time to brace herself properly. She’d be in a much better mood that way.

“Of course,” says Nikolai, pulling on his boots. Zoya watches from the corner of her eye while he buttons his waistcoat. “I’d better get a fresh shirt, anyway.”

“Don’t bother turning up otherwise.”

Nikolai gives her a graceful bow.

“Go away,” Zoya says.

“At your service,” Nikolai says, and stops to wink at her on his way out.

It would be dishonest of Zoya to say that she only dislikes one governmental committee. She certainly dislikes many of the meetings. But there’s one she dreads above them all, and that, to the surprise of no one, is the Treasury. Even hours after their meetings she barely manages to shake off the unease. The unfortunate part for them is that it’s mostly not their fault.

“I would like to know,” she says to Nikolai in her sitting room one day, “why you couldn’t come up with a succession plan that also involved Ravka very quickly amassing a large amount of money.”

Nikolai is lounging on the sofa as an innocent man might. Zoya has settled in an armchair to sew a loose button back onto a shirt. She doesn’t have to do it herself these days, but she needs something that doesn’t require any decisions other than which needle to use.

“You often say this to me,” Nikolai says mildly.

“And for another eighty million vlachki a month, I will stop.”

“Then it’ll just be everyone else saying it.”

“Not my concern,” says Zoya.

Nikolai shrugs. “Fortunately, people recognise me for my other talents. I spoke to Sinyavsky about the reservoirs. His opinion was that we can convince the landowners of nearly anything and that I would know how to do it. He also said that another lifetime of buttering up the nobles would be suitable atonement for my single act of decency, which struck me as generous.”

Zoya bites off a piece of thread. “If it were more difficult for you, it might be.”

In the back of her mind, a low, sneering voice says: Make him start earning his way.

Zoya can’t help but bristle. She knows Nikolai sees it. Explain to me what this has to do with you, she thinks, and gets no reply. She threads her needle and stabs it through the fabric harder than she needs to.

“Shall I assume he just wants to cause trouble?” Nikolai asks.

“Same as always.”

“Unfortunate,” says Nikolai. “But I know the feeling. I served for years as a professional inconvenience.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing now?”

“I think it suits me.”

“So long as you inconvenience someone else.”

Nikolai says, “Opinions do vary. To many of the nobles I am little more than an expensive joke.”

“To me, as well,” Zoya says, holding the shirt away from her to make sure the button is lined up straight.

Nikolai stretches out his legs and crosses them at the ankle. “So much the worse for me that I couldn’t claim any of the Lantsov fortune before it went to the Treasury.”

“Your friend Sturmhond can lend you some money,” says Zoya. If you ask her, a few pounds of gold is the least the Lantsovs owe Nikolai, but he wouldn’t accept it anyway. And what would anyone owe her?

Zoya wishes she could have taken a holiday. She’s spent this long dreaming about it. She might even bring Nikolai; the idea of holing up somewhere to have him all for herself is a yawning ache inside her. A year alone with him wouldn’t be enough, and she hasn’t even had a night.

“Never mind my friends,” says Nikolai. “Yours are much closer.”

“I’m thinking of things to say that he won’t want to hear.”

“I enjoy renown as a rich source of those sorts of things. I can think of twenty without even trying.”

Renown among whom, Zoya isn’t quite sure. She wonders what he can think of when he does try. It seems best not to ask.

She continues, “I could say—I saw a Healer. Because the last thing this dynasty needs is an illegitimate heir.” She looks up and meets Nikolai’s eye. “And I don’t want to be careful.”

Nikolai blinks at her. She knows better than to think it might make him blush.

“Did you really?”

“Yes.”

“This comforts me not at all,” Nikolai says. “I’m going to have my imagination removed.”

Zoya gives him a long look over and goes back to her sewing. It’s difficult to stop looking, once she starts.

“How cruel,” Nikolai says, crossing his ankles over the other way. Zoya keeps her eyes on her work. “And us young and in love. Won’t you come here, Zoya, and kiss me to get me through?”

“I’ll consider it,” Zoya says. She does. If it weren’t the middle of the day, and likely that someone will arrive at the door at any moment, she’d have him in her bed already. She dreamed about it last night, again, and it gave her no satisfaction at all. But she’s going to finish this damned button.

By the time Zoya ties off her thread, Nikolai has produced a coil of wire from his pocket and is shaping it into who-knows-what. She spends a long moment just watching his fingers work.

The low voice says, What use is there in being a queen if you don’t take whatever you desire?

What use is there, thinks Zoya, in being an odious worm?

She feels the taunting laugh again. Make it soon, before you really embarrass yourself.

Then it’s silent. Zoya sniffs to herself and puts away her needle and thread.

Nikolai looks up as she moves. “Continued regard from your audience, I take it.”

“I don’t have an audience,” Zoya says.

Nikolai says, “Ah.”

Zoya surveys him with as level a gaze as she can summon. His eyes are bright with amusement, as if he knows she’s about to look at his mouth.

She asks, “Shall I kiss you, or not?”

“If it pleases you.”

“I suppose it would.” Zoya crosses to the sofa and sinks down next to Nikolai. She gets about halfway before he pulls her right into his lap.

He kisses her slowly at first, as she settles over him, and in the next second so deeply her head spins. He doesn’t hesitate once. He knows perfectly well that Zoya doesn’t have time for a fumbling boy. No dream could be as potent as his hands on her hips, or the firm muscle of his thighs when she rests her weight on them. Zoya scrapes her teeth over his lip and rakes her fingers through his hair, to see if he likes it.

Nikolai draws in a breath. Zoya tightens her fingers in the longer hair over his forehead, lets go, does it again.

“Now everyone will know,” Nikolai says against her lips.

Zoya flattens her hand on his head and shoves it sideways. “Shut up.”

The slow grin on Nikolai’s face is too irritating to look at. “I fear you will have to kiss me again,” he says.

It wouldn’t be reasonable for Zoya to decline. His mouth invites kissing. His jaw invites grabbing, so she does, turning his face up to make him forget he ever knew how to talk. It doesn’t seem impossible.

Nikolai’s hands sweep along her thighs, then up to her waist, then to her back. Zoya knows the texture of the scars on his fingers. She’d feel them if he were touching her skin. She’s thought about it too many times to count, and even once would be too many times to admit, but this is close enough. There’s too much terror in wanting. Bodies are easier. Zoya braces herself on Nikolai’s shoulders and rolls her hips down, feels him sigh as he pushes up to meet her. It takes no thinking at all for them to move in time. She takes his bottom lip between hers and presses into his mouth until she can’t breathe, and when he gasps under her she lets all her weight sink down on him. He’s kissing her again before she can think about it. His fingers are spread wide on her back, his thumbs sliding round to just reach her breasts where they join her sides. Her pulse hammers so hard he can probably feel it.

They hear the footsteps in the hallway a second before the knock.

In the Grand Palace’s tunnels, day and night look the same. Zoya can almost forget that it’s well past the hour at which she usually starts wishing she were in bed. Her mouth is dry from talking, and her jaw is sore from the effort not to clench it, and these things together are coalescing into a headache.

She could shut herself in her bedroom, once she reaches it, and sleep. But the late hour and endless conversation have muddled her brain. She leaves her quarters and makes for Nikolai’s.

His sitting room is empty, the heavy curtains drawn. He hasn’t bothered changing any of the furnishings; these rooms are the green of the forest, and not hideous. His only observation was that, from the middle of a forest, you can’t see the stars.

Nikolai is clearly not expecting visitors. The fire is banked, the only light coming through the half-open bedroom door.

Zoya’s steps are muffled by the carpets. “It’s me,” she says. She keeps her voice low, in case he’s fallen asleep with the lamps lit.

There’s a rustle of movement from the bedroom. “Zoya?”

She can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed by the surging thrill. She’s waited long enough; it’s been weeks. Nearly months. It’s not right.

Zoya stops in the doorway and blinks.

Nikolai looks like he meant to lie down to sleep, got halfway, and forgot what he was doing. He’s in a nightshirt, lying diagonally on top of his bed with one long leg hanging over the side. His head isn’t even on the pillows.

Zoya asks, “What are you doing?”

“Pursuing new heights of comfort,” Nikolai says to the ceiling. His voice is slow, drowsy. Zoya thinks at first that he’s half asleep, but then she smells the liquor.

“Comfort,” she repeats.

“Yes. Only I think I forgot to turn down the lights.”

For a moment, Zoya has nothing to say. She’s too busy cursing whoever got it into their wretched head to invent brewing. From here, she has a very clear view of Nikolai’s left thigh, where the hem of his nightshirt has ridden up. He has a good, strong body; she knows this. She’s seen plenty of it. But she’s never properly looked at his legs. She pictures the muscle taut. Remembers how it felt, with her weight on it.

Zoya hears Nikolai lift his head almost before she sees it. She blinks again and forces her eyes to meet his. He looks enormously confused, and his cheeks are pink.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at some dreadful dinner?” he asks, completely unselfconscious. Zoya expects it’d be much the same if he were sober.

“I was. It’s finished now.”

Nikolai lets his head flop back down, sighing as he goes. “Zoya, I fear my luck is on the turn. I may need saintly intercession.”

Personally, intercession is not what Zoya would choose. She’s resigning herself to another night alone. Another month, at this rate.

“Where did you go, anyway?” she asks. The last time she saw Nikolai this drunk, he’d been out somewhere with Tamar, who is not even in the country this week.

Nikolai says, “Maintaining camaraderie with the First Army.” Zoya finds herself watching his jaw move. She could put her weight on that, too. “You know—the former king is one of us, he actually fought, he understands what we deal with…”

“And he’s drunk,” Zoya says.

“Quite so.”

“And stupid.”

“More than ever.”

“And no good for anything.”

Nikolai says, “How very low of you to suggest taking advantage of me.”

“In this state? You’d only disappoint me.”

“It’s important to have standards,” Nikolai says. “And you’re unfortunately right. I don’t think I could perform if—” He actually stops and laughs to himself. “If the queen of Ravka asked me to.”

Zoya says, “I’m enacting a new law so I can divorce you before we get married.”

“It would be an honour.”

“Wait till I include a year-long deferral period after that.” The chair by the bed is empty apart from some clothes thrown over its back; Zoya ignores them and sits. Then she gets up again to fetch the nearest bottle of vodka and a glass.

“I find I am being a very poor host,” Nikolai says as Zoya settles back in the chair and pours herself a drink. He makes no attempt to make himself any more decent, and she’s closer now. Either way, she has too much dignity to be this distracted by just his leg, even if it looks like that. Maybe she ought to have dimmed the lamps.

Nikolai continues, “Tell me about Zadorov and his friends.”

“They think as much of you as before. Now you’re just a common soldier whose ideas they can openly say are nonsense. They want allotments to compensate for the reforms. None of them know the first thing about actually living in Ravka.”

As much as the fact pains Zoya, she needs as many of the nobility on her side as she can get. She knows it will take time. It’s just easier when it’s the nobles who will sit at the same table as Nikolai, so he can do some of the talking.

Nikolai has assumed what he probably means to be a thoughtful expression. “I take it you didn’t entertain allotments.”

“Of course not. I didn’t even tell them how stupid they were for that. Though I just about did when they tried to suggest that I should listen to them over you, whose policies they don’t seem to have noticed I supported. They seem to think I’m green enough that I can be swayed.”

“Too bad for them. Did Stretesky go on about winter wheat again?”

“Yes. He wants the taxes back how they were. He’ll have to be disappointed.”

Everyone wants something to do with taxes. Everyone wants roads and bridges. Everyone wants schools, infirmaries, or town halls that aren’t falling down around them. For these things, at least, Zoya has some sympathy. She, personally, wants to get married, which she now cannot do without a great deal of expense. They can make it modest by royal standards, but it will still be royal. She had to give Nikolai some new titles to make it acceptable for her to marry him in the first place. No one uses them.

Nikolai says, “The unfortunate fact is that someone will always find something to be disappointed about. I, personally, disappointed any number of people simply by being born.”

“If you’ve decided to be a sad drunk, you can do that on your own,” Zoya says.

“Not at all.”

The vodka is good. Nikolai’s tastes are respectable some of the time. Zoya should finish the glass and go to bed.

“Zoechka,” Nikolai says. His eyes are closed now. “Come and lie down with me.”

Zoya wants to. She could shove him to one side and slip under his covers, fall asleep with his warm body next to hers. Lay her head on his chest and forget about everything. It might be better to have his arms around her when she wakes shivering and sick with grief.

She says, “No. You smell like a tavern.”

“What’s worse, that or a ship?”

“It depends.”

“Will you sleep at all?” Nikolai asks, turning his head to look at her again. The covers on his bed are a rich green that suits him well enough. “It must be late.”

“Once I finish this.”

“I will, if you don’t want to. Saints know it won’t make a difference.”

Zoya sips the vodka. “If you weren’t so drunk, I’d be on top of you already.” Her eyes keep drifting back to the exposed stretch of Nikolai’s thigh. She wants to dig her fingers into it, or maybe her teeth.

“I am not at all drunk enough to forget you saying that.”

“Good,” Zoya says. “You can suffer.”

“And what will you do?”

“Everything myself, like always.”

Nikolai stares up at the ceiling. “Sometimes, Zoya, I do wish you’d make good on your promises to kill me.”

“You’d be even less use to me then.”

The sigh Nikolai gives is immensely tragic. “Shall I prepare myself for an early meeting?”

“No,” Zoya says, only because she doesn’t want early meetings either. “But I hope you have a headache all the same.”

“You have such a romantic soul. I don’t know how I can ever match it.”

It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t see Zoya roll her eyes. She would have told him yes and let him wander about for nothing, except he’d show up in her sitting room.

She finishes her drink while Nikolai lies there in silence. Zoya almost wants to brush the hair back from his face and kiss him goodnight, but she’s feeling spiteful. He’ll catch a chill from sleeping without any blankets and she won’t care. The glass has been empty for several minutes before she realises that he actually has fallen asleep.

Innumerable days later, at least in the sense that Zoya hasn’t bothered to count them because it would only infuriate her, she finds Nikolai at one of the training grounds, where Tolya is throwing sandbags at him.

“Five seconds,” Tamar announces from next to them, eyes on her watch.

“You said that—fifteen seconds ago,” Nikolai pants as he throws a bag back to Tolya. The day isn’t warm, but his sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and his hairline and collar are soaked with sweat.

Zoya says, “Twenty, by royal decree,” so she can enjoy Nikolai’s look of betrayal.

It can’t be said that the army service or sailing never did Nikolai Lantsov any good. Zoya suspects the sandbags have extra weight in them, from the effort it’s taking him, and he still does a perfectly good job for his last twenty seconds; he only spends a few moments afterwards with his hands braced on his knees.

Zoya has given up on telling the twins not to bow to her, and in any case she thinks they often do it just to make fun of Nikolai. She nods at them and says to Nikolai, “I have work for you.”

Nikolai falls into a distinctly military stance as he straightens. That, combined with the training uniform, almost makes Zoya want to address him as whatever his rank is.

“Your Highness,” he says, and he hasn’t quite caught his breath, “I can only thank you for rescuing me from these unscrupulous mutineers.”

“The Kaelish trade ambassadors are early,” Zoya explains. “I thought we might as well move the schedule forward.”

“Hoping you’re more prepared than they are?” asks Tamar.

“And that someone here remembers what he said to them last time.”

Nikolai turns and bows to the twins. His shirt is plastered to his back. “Forgive me, but I have made myself too important.”

“Go on,” Tamar says with her roguish little grin, tossing him his jacket. “Be useful for once.”

“Nikolasha, you owe me ten more minutes next time,” says Tolya.

“I most certainly do not,” Nikolai replies as he falls into step with Zoya. “Good day, sir.”

Zoya is almost sorry to leave. The twins have always been good for Nikolai’s ego, in the sense that they excel at tempering it. She can do it perfectly well herself, but she likes it when he’s outnumbered.

“The meetings will be in the eastern state rooms as planned,” Zoya says. They cross a footbridge and start up one of the palace grounds’ many statue-lined paths. The gardens still have the dull bareness of winter. “I need you presentable in an hour.”

“Did you see what those lunatics were doing to me? I feel like a newborn lamb. I will sleep excellently for the course of this meeting.”

“I don’t care what you do for the rest of the hour.”

Nikolai says, “You know, now that I’m not a king any more, people think they can say whatever they like to me.” He waves amiably at someone as they pass by. “I don’t mean you or Tamar and Tolya, you did that anyway.”

“And Genya.”

“Genya most of all.”

“Did Artemyev actually lecture you earlier?”

“Oh, yes. He gave me a proper bollocking for not actually going back to the First Army. Said I was better there than swashing around the palace, his words. I told him some respectable nonsense which ought to appease him for now, and I shall be avoiding him studiously.”

If Nikolai wanted to go back to the First Army, he could. The palace may well suffocate him sooner or later. But he made her a promise, and he’s about to make her a bigger one. Zoya doesn’t think he’ll need very much reminding of it.

“I can make allowances for swashing around, so long as we don’t finish these meetings worse off than when we start them.”

“That’s the natural order of these things, I’m afraid,” Nikolai says. “It takes all the work you can do just to stay in the same place. If you want to get anywhere else, you have to work at least twice as hard as that.”

“I’m not bringing you as decoration,” Zoya says, and regrets it immediately. She doesn’t need to look at Nikolai to see his quick, easy grin.

Nikolai lifts one hand, maybe to run it through his hair. Zoya can’t quite tell because she’s paying attention to where she’s going.

“I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“Yes, you would. If you tried not to talk you’d be steaming like a teakettle in five minutes.”

“And I’d do so as decoratively as anyone’s ever seen.”

Zoya rolls her eyes. He’ll know she’s doing it.

They make it up the palace steps without anyone bothering them. The further along the corridors they get, the more scarce the servants become; they’re quite alone by the time they approach Nikolai’s rooms. Zoya double-checks that there’s no one behind them, and then she backs Nikolai into the wall.

“Speaking of you steaming like a teakettle,” she says, resting her hands either side of him and turning her face up to his.

Nikolai leans down just enough for his nose to brush against hers. His eyes immediately go heavy-lidded, his lips curved towards a smile. If it’s a performance, it’s good enough that Zoya doesn’t care.

“Well, there’s never been steam before, but I shouldn’t rule anything out.”

His hands settle on her waist. This close, Zoya can smell the warmth of his body, the sourness of sweat. He’s left his stance wide so she can fit between his thighs. She breathes in and her chest just touches his.

Zoya says, “It’s less than an hour now.”

“Duly noted.” Nikolai drags his thumbs up and down her sides, so slowly it makes her want to scream. He lowers his head almost enough to kiss her, then only just draws back, and she considers standing on his foot.

“Let the record state,” he murmurs above her lips, “that an hour wouldn’t nearly be enough.”

Zoya can’t bear to move away. If she shifted forward even a little, she could press her hips right into his. She wants to. “You’d better be good for it.”

This time, she sees it when Nikolai’s eyes light. He says, “What do you think?”

Zoya pretends to consider. She takes in the warmth and the smell of his body, his hands on her.

She says, “I think you need a bath.”

“I have to agree,” Nikolai says, pulling up straight as she moves away, in tones that say he happened to notice that she didn’t mind very much.

“And don’t be too long at dinner,” Zoya says, already walking away. She hears Nikolai lock his door behind him. It occurs to her halfway down the corridor that he’d probably let her watch.

***

The formalities are supposed to be over by nine bells. They last nearly until midnight. By the time Zoya makes it to the royal wing, her stomach hurts from exhaustion and she’s ready to banish just about anyone to the permafrost for the crime of speaking to her.

When Nikolai appears in the corridor, even he looks tired. He showed up to the meetings exquisitely dressed, and his clothes could still be fresh from the press, but Zoya can tell. Never mind that she spent half the evening thinking about taking all those beautiful clothes off.

“The thrill is quite gone, isn’t it?” he says.

Zoya looks him over. She thinks he’d come to her bed if she asked him to. But better not to ask than for him to say no.

She says, “Another time.”

“I find myself succumbing to practicality quite often these days,” Nikolai says. “I fear you’re a corrupting influence.”

Zoya can’t help it. She makes a face at him.

If Nikolai is handsome by default, laughing turns him into something beyond that. He’s still smiling like an idiot when he asks, “May I kiss you?”

“If you’re quick,” Zoya says.

Nikolai kisses her slowly, the way he might have earlier, if he’d decided to. If she’d just done it herself.

“Don’t make me change my mind,” Zoya says after he pulls away.

She hates that ironic little smile. She really does.

“I assure you I am a perfect gentleman.”

Zoya says, “I hope not,” and leaves Nikolai standing in the empty hallway.

“I can contrive to lock you in a room together, if you’d like,” Genya says to Zoya the following week. She reaches over and pours more tea. “You do also need more sleep, and I assume that would help.”

For one mortifying second, Zoya finds herself considering it. Genya would cover for them like an expert.

“We’re not teenagers sneaking around.”

There’s a wretched, arch glint in Genya’s eye. “The teenagers may be more successful.”

“Completely irrelevant,” Zoya says, and drinks her tea. It’s still slightly too hot.

The unfairness of it has struck Zoya more than once. It’s not just teenagers. She saw it a few years ago, too; after a war, people find all kinds of ways to celebrate still being alive, and most of them are the usual way. In her opinion, the people who actively helped end the war ought to have their turn first. She should just be glad she’s still alive to complain about it.

“Well, I tried,” says Genya.

It doesn’t occur to Zoya until much later, when she’s changing for dinner, to ask how Genya knew for sure that she and Nikolai haven’t been to bed yet. Zoya never actually told her.

The days march on. There’s either time or energy, but never both. Zoya supposes she should appreciate the quiet moments she and Nikolai do manage, and that does not help her one bit. Is it too much to ask to be kissed senseless and not have to stop? To lie down together without immediately falling asleep? To be pressed into a mattress and pleasured until she can’t think? Surely it isn’t, and yet.

One cold, bright day, they walk back from a meeting in peace, if sharing theories about the whispers from Os Kervo counts as peace. Nikolai likes to say that it’s relative.

“If they don’t think about who’s going to cover the administrative functions,” he says, “well—hmm.” He slows halfway up a flight of stairs.

“It can’t be that dramatic,” Zoya says.

“No. But I think…”

Nikolai trails off in a way he almost never does. Zoya turns to look at him as they walk. He’s gone completely white.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asks.

“I’m not sure.” Nikolai blinks several times. “I feel oddly weak. I’ll go to the kitchens to beg for sweets and coffee.”

Zoya says, “What do you mean, weak?”

“It may be worse than I thought,” Nikolai says, quite haltingly. He at least reaches the landing before he faints.

***

The Healer pronounces Nikolai mildly concussed, after Zoya tells her that she’s fairly sure he hit his head as he fell. She also pronounces him severely fevered.

It’s to be expected with the season, Zoya is told. The port cities had it a fortnight ago. It was bound to reach the capital before the month was out. Every year is the same: men, women, and children take to their beds, one town after another along the major roads. No one can prevent it; a Healer can only lessen the pains. And usually the young and strong recover.

Nikolai spends four days shivering in a nest of blankets, and most of that asleep. When he’s awake, he complains of terrible aches in his whole body as well as his head; he coughs and wheezes and says that that hurts too. He barely has the strength to walk across the room. Zoya sits by his bed late into the night, when she should be sleeping herself, with her hand laid over his as some version of comfort.

“I’ve never seen him this unwell,” say Tolya and Tamar, independently.

“It’s the sickness’s typical course,” says the Healer.

As long as the cough doesn’t get worse, thinks Zoya.

When Nikolai said Zoya was perfectly capable of all this, he was mostly right. The mechanisms of government do not stop for one adviser. The fact that Zoya hates it is largely immaterial. By the end of the week, nearly all of the committees are down at least one member for the same reason; some compensate better than others. Times like these, it’s easy to tell who’s never been a soldier.

Even after Nikolai’s fever breaks, the fatigue keeps him on a very short leash. Getting up to wash or eat sends him right back to bed to recover. The one mercy Zoya can see is that he doesn’t have the energy to be bored.

On the seventh day after Nikolai takes ill, Zoya finds his bedroom empty and the door to his balcony ajar. Someone—hopefully not him—has moved the sofa from his sitting room out there, and that’s where Zoya finds him, wrapped in a heavy wool blanket, watching the gardens.

“I can recommend you some better plants to look at next time,” Zoya says from the doorway.

Nikolai turns his head, already smiling. He’s managed to tidy his hair and shave, which has made him look both much healthier and much less identical to his father.

“Don’t tell the other gardeners,” Nikolai says as Zoya sits next to him, “but you’re my favourite.”

He offers Zoya half of the blanket. She shakes her head. It’s overcast and not warm, but they’re sheltered from the wind, and he needs it more; he’s only in a fresh nightshirt with a dressing gown over it. Zoya does sit quite close to him.

“It would be a lot easier to just be a gardener.”

“Is it very terrible?”

Zoya lets Nikolai insinuate himself against her side. He feels solid, at least. “I think it’s worse for you, if you’re deliberately looking at the gardens at this time of year.”

“Variety,” Nikolai says. “To the east, winter. To the south, winter. To the west, winter. To the north, nothing but ice and some people from Fjerda. But, Saints, the fresh air.”

“How long have you been out here?”

“About an hour. Nearly long enough to prepare myself for going inside again.”

Zoya doesn’t think he’d say that to many other people than her. He’s recovering, she tells herself. He’ll be perfectly fine. At least he seems to think so.

All of this is making her sentimental. She tucks her arm behind Nikolai so he can slouch on the sofa and rest his head on her shoulder. Her hand finds its way to his hair; it’s grown out a little and is starting to properly curl. It makes her want to murder him.

“I’ll ask Tolya to cut it,” Nikolai says.

“Don’t rush.”

Nikolai makes an indecipherable noise and closes his eyes. Zoya traces one fingertip to his temple, across his brow, and down the not-quite-perfect line of his nose.

“Are you telling me I should get that fixed, too?”

“You were snoring.”

“How badly?”

“Not very,” Zoya has to admit.

Nikolai seems thoughtful, but he might just be sleepy. “Probably someone can see to that, but I’m really quite fond of the look. I think it lends me charm.”

“How long has it been like that?”

“Since my First Army days. It wasn’t a bad one, it just didn’t set exactly right.”

“You could also stop sleeping on your back.”

“I got used to sleeping on my back,” Nikolai says, “when you were chaining me up that way.”

“So, now you can get used to not doing it. For variety. Like you just said.”

“Hmm,” Nikolai says, and then coughs for several seconds. Zoya passes him the water canteen he had next to him. As far as she can tell, his lungs are no worse than yesterday.

Nikolai slumps back against the sofa. “You know, I’m getting quite tired of this.” He sounds it.

“Go back to bed,” Zoya tells him.

“I want to go and be a nuisance somewhere.”

“Kolenka,” she says, “if you make yourself sicker, I will have no more sympathy for you at all.”

“Zoya Nazyalenskaya? Sympathy? I fear my fever might be coming back.”

Zoya pulls some folded pages from her pocket. “I brought these to amuse you, but I don’t think you’ve shown me enough respect.”

It’s worth it to watch Nikolai’s eyes light up. “Oh, please,” he says. “I’ll compensate you fairly for my actions.”

“No, you won’t,” says Zoya. She hands over the pages anyway and watches him unfold them. Voices carry from the gardens below.

“I’m certainly not showing you much respect in these,” Nikolai says.

The latest trend in Ravkan literature, if anyone can call it that, is lurid pamphlets illustrating the rumoured means of Zoya’s rise to power. The gossip has been predictable. According to the prevailing theories, there’s only one way a woman can become a general in the first place, and it’s not by being good at it.

“It would depend whose idea they think it was.”

“Mine, here, I would guess.”

This one depicts the demon and Zoya as the dragon, as well. They have not been drawn from eyewitness accounts.

“My secondary complaint about these things,” Nikolai says once he’s finished reading, “is that I’m actually much better proportioned than this. And my principal complaint is that they’re just not very interesting. If they’re going to be untrue, they might as well be creatively untrue. They have no real ambition.”

“Like you would?”

Nikolai winks at her. “You will find I’m very good at it.”

Zoya can ignore the insults to herself. Other people’s opinions aren’t her problem. But it piques her when people bring the demon into it. No one else will ever know what it costs Nikolai to drag that thing around by the scruff of its neck, and no one will ever know what the alternative would have been.

She often thinks of Nikolai after that seething darkness, remembers him trembling in her arms. She should have had him then, and she thinks he might have let her—Saints know fear needs somewhere to go. And she couldn’t have blamed him if he’d just wanted to forget.

There’s never any point in dwelling on it. Zoya bumps her knee against Nikolai’s. She ignores the shiver of awareness. In this condition, he’d probably pass out on top of her. “Are you going to stare at empty branches all morning?”

“Someone occasionally walks by them. It’s very thrilling.”

“The fever has dissolved your brain,” Zoya says. She stays out there with him anyway.

“Where is he?”

The young Corporalnik blinks, and then hurriedly bows. She does a good job of it. “May I ask who you mean, Your Highness?”

Zoya wants to roll her eyes, but it only makes sense that in the Little Palace there’d be more than one person she might want to see. Everywhere she goes, someone wants to see her. She didn’t appreciate it enough when she could walk from one room to another uninterrupted.

“I mean Nikolai Lantsov,” Zoya says.

“Of course, Your Highness. I believe he’s in the Fabrikator workshops,” says the Corporalnik.

Zoya thanks her and leaves her mid-bow. At least Nikolai isn’t at Lazlayon; then he’d really be in trouble.

It took two weeks for Nikolai to be back to his usual self. Zoya hesitates to use the word normal. Either way, he doesn’t cough any more and can do a full day’s work; Zoya is so glad of it that she barely minds when he becomes irritating. What she does mind is that the amount of catching up he’s had to do—which, to be fair, she doesn’t envy him—has left them barely any time together at all.

The thought occurred to her, as she was eating dinner alone, that she is in fact the queen and can take an extraordinary number of liberties, if she so chooses. It also occurred to her that she has had enough.

So she simply came here. She finds Nikolai right where she expects to, hunched over some elaborate plans that might build a giant pipe organ for all Zoya can tell.

There are a lot more people in the workshop than Zoya expected, and not just Fabrikators, either; Adrik and a couple of other Etherealki are here too. It’s not ideal, but Zoya is past caring.

“What is going on in here?” she asks.

Nikolai sits up straight and stretches his arms above his head. He’s left his jacket somewhere, and Zoya is bizarrely compelled to tug on the cinch at the back of his waistcoat.

“Complications,” he says. “We really thought we had this one, but no one can get it to work, and we can’t figure out why.”

In these early days of peacetime, the Fabrikators have needed to make sure there are still some usable weapons, just in case; no one could argue with that. Now, with much of that work done, they’re turning to other innovations, to machines that will assist rather than destroy. No one else is better placed to do it than Ravka. Anything that can bolster their reputation—and the Treasury—is a start.

Zoya suspects that some part of Nikolai misses working on things that explode. She says, “Will it be doomed forever if you leave it for a while?”

“Humbled as I am to say it, probably not.” Nikolai tips his head to one side, then the other. The joints in his neck crunch like gravel. “For what is my expert advice required?”

“Nothing in here,” Zoya says.

At a safe distance outside the door, she turns to Nikolai. “Follow me.”

“Shall I ask where we’re going?” Nikolai says as he does. He just sounds curious.

Zoya says, “We’re going to the nearest storage room that nobody will come into.”

She meant to take him back to her bedroom. Once this thought occurred to her, it became the only reasonable choice. He’ll understand. And it’s not like he’s going to look dishevelled after, not so that anyone else would notice, because it’s him. One day—and ideally soon—she’ll undo him completely, but only she is going to see it.

“But of course,” says Nikolai.

It’s insanity, Zoya thinks as they walk. She doesn’t care any more. Many people have said, though never to her face, that a proper lay would put her right. She doubts any of them would have been able to give her one, but that’s beside the point. She hates to think that it might be true.

Because Nikolai is not stupid, he doesn’t ask how Zoya knows where she’s going. Nor would she ask the same thing of him, because she’s not stupid either.

The storage room is in a dull, windowless section of the palace. Zoya barely notices any of it. The door is never locked, but it wouldn’t matter. Zoya is fairly sure Nikolai knows how to pick them.

As they reach the door, Zoya is half expecting Nikolai to suggest a last-minute change of venue. He must be as frantic as she is, and Zoya would be insulted if he weren’t.

Zoya reaches for the door handle. Inside the room, someone moans.

Her hand freezes. Her heart skips a furious beat. Nikolai heard it, too; she can tell from his face. They wait a few agonising seconds, and there it is again: high, feminine, and unmistakable. Zoya can only stand there in disbelief.

“I think,” Nikolai says under his breath, “that that must be where Nadia went.”

Zoya grabs his wrist and drags him around the corner. They end up in a dead-end section of corridor. What matters is that they’re away from that storeroom.

“This is some kind of joke,” Zoya says.

“I’m glad you didn’t open the door. I accidentally interrupted them once before, and Tamar used her powers very discreditably against me.”

“I would have interrupted anyone else.”

“I might have, too.”

“I don’t understand why this keeps happening,” Zoya says, leaning on the wall and sighing. There must be someone who can be punished for it.

Nikolai pinches the bridge of his nose with his long, black-veined fingers. “I’ve never been so close to being a monk.”

“We could elope,” Zoya says desperately, and startles a laugh out of him. “No one will bother a couple on their honeymoon.”

“Zoyushka,” Nikolai says, “I would agree in a heartbeat, except then Genya would use her powers very discreditably against me, and also against you. And I do hate to miss a party. It’s been so long since I got to sabre a bottle of champagne.”

It seems like such a long way off. Maybe they really will have to wait until then. It’s absurd.

Zoya says, “Surely you were closer to being a monk when I was chaining up your hands every night.”

“I’m glad you’ve appropriately considered my sufferings.”

Zoya does not really want to consider them. She has too many images of Nikolai haunting her as it is. She can’t stop wondering what he meant about his proportions.

“What do you want?” she snaps. “Restitution?”

Nikolai winks at her so saucily that she could jump on him right there.

“You are an absolute rake,” she says instead.

“More of a garden fork, if you please,” says Nikolai. “The rake was my father.”

It doesn’t make Zoya feel much better to roll her eyes. Then she hears someone on the stairs nearby and every last shred of desire leaves her body.

Nikolai says, “Actually, maybe this is a sign that I should not act in ways that might remind anyone of him.”

“This is nothing like that.”

“Isn’t it?”

“As evidenced by the fact that you were conceived.”

“I take your point.”

“Let’s go,” Zoya says. “I’m not going to be here when they leave.”

“Where to?”

“Whatever you were doing.” Zoya says it harshly and she doesn’t care. Her mood has turned too dark to be helped. If they meet anyone on the way back, she might maim them. “I don’t even want to, now.”

Nikolai, wisely, says nothing.

There was a time, and not even very long ago, when all Zoya wanted was some peace and quiet. She used to dream of evenings spent in only her own company. She would have committed violent murder just to be left alone. And now, of course, she keeps getting what she asked for.

It would be beneath her to feel sorry for herself. But she’d rather Nikolai were here instead of consulting for the navy on whatever it is they want him to consult on. He wasn’t even in the navy.

Zoya sits down to work and almost immediately changes her mind. None of it is anything she wants to think about, and she needs advice on half of it besides; it can wait for the morning, when, if she’s lucky, her attitude will be better. She’s not holding out hope. She changes into a nightdress—cream-coloured silk that reaches just to mid-thigh, with the seams split nearly to the hip—and gets comfortable on her sofa, as a queen ought.

One hour and part of a novel later, someone knocks on her door. Because Zoya can’t incinerate them from here, at least not without some effort, she snatches a dressing gown and gets up to open it.

“You’ll have to forgive me for the disturbance,” says Nikolai.

Zoya stares at him. He’s in his officer’s uniform, worn perfectly, with all his medals on. She steps sideways and lets him in.

“What are you doing here?” she asks as she closes the door again.

Nikolai stays just inside the room, facing her. He at least has not brought her paperwork. His eyes linger on the bare skin above the crossed hem of her dressing gown. “I was fairly sure I could get out of that meeting. Which I have.”

“You neglected to mention that earlier.”

“Not exactly.” Nikolai catches Zoya’s hand. She lets him lift it so he can kiss her knuckles, and that alone sets her heart racing. “I elected not to, in case I couldn’t deliver.”

Zoya reaches out with her other hand and turns the key in the lock.

They move at the same time. Nikolai’s head is still bent down, so Zoya doesn’t have to tilt her chin up quite so much to look at him. His fingers trail along her forearm and come to rest on her waist. If he’s planning to be this delicate, she thinks, he’s chosen the wrong woman’s rooms to come to.

“It isn’t like you to be concerned that you can’t deliver,” she says, stepping forward until there’s no space between them, pressed together from chest to thighs. She could weep for it, for the pleasure of being held against his hard soldier’s body, or sailor’s body, or whatever he is. She doesn’t care as long as she can have him.

Nikolai smiles as he ducks his head the rest of the way. “Just that once,” he whispers, and lowers his mouth to hers.

He kisses Zoya more slowly than she expected, but deeply enough, and for long enough, to make up for it. Zoya drags her thumbs over the stubble coming in on his jaw, splays her fingers at the base of his skull while he wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her in.

When they pause to breathe, Zoya can’t help but say, “If someone comes looking for you…”

Nikolai kisses the bridge of her nose, her cheekbone, then her mouth again. His chest rises and falls as fast as hers does, solid against her breasts. “According to the nearest guards, I’m not here.”

“You did not bribe them to lie for this.”

Nikolai winks. “I didn’t have to.”

Zoya grabs his hair and pulls him back to her. She slides her hands down his neck to the buttons of his jacket; he doesn’t complain when she pushes it off his shoulders and drops it on the floor, because he does the same thing with her dressing gown. Then his hands, hot through the silk, are on her breasts, then her waist again, slipping round to the small of her back. She rocks forward and he sighs into her mouth. She stays far away from the dragon’s eye; she’s dizzy enough with her own desire, and this way she can pretend they’re normal people, just for once.

“Saints, Zoya, I want you.” Nikolai’s hands are tight on her back as he rolls his hips into hers. Zoya knows. She can feel it. She has to be equally wet, and probably more. Everything between her thighs is liquid and heavy.

She reaches for the buttons on his trousers, untucks his shirt and unbuttons that too, and drags her open palms down his chest and abdomen, over the muscles and the fine, fair hair. His body is so beautiful and strong and elegant that it makes her insane to look at it. She’s going to feel all of it. Put her hands on him and watch the tendons as they strain.

“Then hurry up,” she says, and pulls him with her as she steps backwards. She doesn’t even know where she’s going until she’s backed into the sideboard, which is not the direction she meant. She might have got it right if Nikolai weren’t kissing her like this.

When Zoya goes to turn them, Nikolai picks her up and hefts her onto the sideboard.

Zoya’s breath huffs out all at once. “Really?”

“I can’t wait any more,” Nikolai breathes, crowding in between her legs. Of course he knew this would be the right height, and sturdy besides. He slides his hand along the inside of her thigh and drags her hem up over her hip.

“Good,” Zoya says. Usually she’d make a man work for it, have him satisfy her first. But she can’t wait either. She pushes the last of the fabric away and then he’s inside her. She tilts her hips and Nikolai curses, grabs behind her thigh and pulls her knee all the way up, and Zoya can’t help the sound that comes out of her mouth.

Nikolai kisses her again, barely moving, holding her jaw with his free hand. His fingertips leave smears of her own wetness on her face.

Zoya lifts her chin so she can look up and meet his eyes. She feels him everywhere. She’s not here to be taken slowly, not this time. She says, “Do you know what to do with it, or not?”

“With what?” Nikolai asks, and thrusts so hard and deep that Zoya chokes on her own breath. Then again, and again. Zoya can’t think for the pressure, for the hot stretch of it, for the pounding thrill. She finds the rhythm after another few breaths, braces herself on one hand and brings up the other to hold Nikolai by the back of his neck. She could just about slap that expression off his face.

“I will ignore you being so insufferable,” she says against his lips, “if you don’t stop.”

Nikolai just grins and kisses her again, and thank the Saints he can listen. He’s an idiot for deciding to fuck her here, but he makes up for it with effort; he’s strong as well as tall and he puts all his weight behind it. It’s not elegant. It’s too good to care. Zoya starts to moan before she knows she’s going to.

“Yes,” gasps Nikolai. He would like that, wouldn’t he, to know how good he’s making it, or otherwise he just wants to please her. Likely both. Zoya won’t go out of her way to flatter him, and he knows that too.

Zoya kisses him over and over, shares his breath, sucks on his lips and tongue and feels the edges of his teeth—his own teeth, blunt and human. She wouldn’t much care to be bitten, but she wonders if he would mind it. His thigh was asking for it. Then there’s his arms, his shoulders, his back. Anywhere. She’s spent too long just watching him.

Just as Zoya goes to slide Nikolai’s shirt off him, he hitches her knee up, tilting her further back, and his cock drags over the soft, sensitive place that turns everything hot and breathless. The sound Zoya makes is too embarrassing to consider. She grabs at Nikolai’s shoulder under his shirt, digs her fingers into a scar and makes him groan into her mouth. Everything in her tightens on him.

The groan turns into a low, pained laugh. “Zoya, don’t torture me.”

“It sounds more like you’re torturing yourself.”

Nikolai draws back and then pushes all the way in, very slowly. “Aren’t I just doing what you told me?”

Zoya could throttle him for that. She can’t stand it. She only just resists the urge to writhe on him when he does it a second time. He’s not fooling her; he is so shockingly hard. “You were doing it right.”

“Well, you ought to have said.” Nikolai kisses her again. Neither of them can seem to stop. “Do correct me if I misunderstand.”

When Nikolai readjusts and starts to move, Zoya’s brain catches up and she clenches down hard. The resulting string of curses is like nothing she’s ever heard from him. She does it again.

“Blessed Saints,” Nikolai says, dropping his face to her neck and grinding deep. She thinks for a second it might be too late. “I’m too young and beautiful to die.”

It’s good. It’s too good to be real. But Zoya wants what he was doing before. She scrapes her nails through the short hair at his temple. “Are you like this with everyone you fuck?”

Nikolai lifts his head again, his stupid teasing grin on his face. Here’s the tousled hair, the clothes askew, the bruised, red lips. “No, just you.”

“Make it worthwhile.” Zoya can’t keep from rolling her hips on him. “I said you were doing it right.”

“I’ll have that in writing later,” Nikolai says, and obliges her. He’s hanging on by his fingernails, she thinks. But he finds the right angle after a couple of attempts and then does not stop. Even as frantic as this, he’s so good at keeping time, which is another thing that should irritate her, but she doesn’t care. She’s probably making a mess of the sideboard and she doesn’t care about that either.

Zoya doesn’t want to think any more. Every jolt of pleasure makes her less and less capable of it. She holds on to Nikolai, tilts her face up to his and pants along with him. She chokes out, “Like that,” and if she’s ever been close to begging a man for anything, this is it. She’s never been so desperate in her life. She reaches down and her whole body shakes.

“Oh, Saints,” Nikolai says. He pushes her knee right up to her chest. The pressure makes her want to scream.

The nails of Zoya’s other hand scratch on the wood. “Yes,” she gasps. She tries to say it again, but she doesn’t get that far. Her body tightens and tightens, and when she thinks it can’t tighten any more it does, and she’s about to lose her mind completely when her cunt throbs hard and she’s coming. Even in the seizing throes of it she feels when Nikolai loses control—she did that—she made him come inside her and he couldn’t help it. He moans against her mouth as his hips jerk and his fingers dig into her thigh.

Zoya is glad she never gave in, all that time ago when she couldn’t truly have him. She wouldn’t have been able to stop. She ought to be grateful that he thought she didn’t want him.

Nikolai laughs softly, almost to himself, easing her leg down over his hip while he keeps moving slowly inside her. Zoya’s body is still pulsing around him, her breath coming in soft sighs, and she presses her lips back to his instead of speaking. They’re barely co-ordinated enough for it, but it’s good all the same. For one very stupid second, it occurs to Zoya that he’s perfect. She does not consider saying it.

By the time he slips out of her, Zoya can only just think. The sideboard is not comfortable, now that she’s not too distracted to notice, but she feels so warm and heavy she could fall asleep.

“Excuse me,” Nikolai says politely, and turns and slides down to sit on the floor, slumped back on the sideboard with his head resting against her calf. For long moments they just stay there, listening to each other breathe. Zoya can give him a minute, and then she’s going to get him out of that uniform, take him to her bed, and have him as many more times as he’s good for, every way they can think of. She might just keep them locked in here for the rest of the year.

Zoya nudges him with her foot. “Are you usually this tragic?”

“Certainly not.” Nikolai catches her ankle and kisses the side of it, over the bone. It’s more sensitive than Zoya would have thought; the shiver runs all the way up. “I had intended not to disappoint you.”

“I’m pronouncing you adequate.”

Nikolai laughs again. Zoya suspects it’s reflexive—she’s heard of people doing it after they’ve come—and it strikes her as unspeakably endearing.

“I need a drink,” Nikolai says, slumping back even more.

“So go and get one.”

Nikolai looks up at her. “I suppose I’ll meet you here in another few months.”

Zoya kicks him in the head.