Page 61 of Lost with a Scot
“Have a servant bring me food and water.”
At this, the guard snorted. “You do not give orders anymore, princess.”
“You are mistaken. As I understand matters, I am to be the wife of Captain Fain, your commander. Starving his future bride will likely earn you a nasty punishment,” Anna bluffed.
The man’s eyes narrowed as he considered her threat. “You can eat after your uncle speaks to you.”
“Then take me to him,” she snapped.
“You are hardly dressed for an audience,” he sneered back at her, his gaze far too familiar for her liking.
Anna stared him down, acting as if she didn’t care that she wore a nightgown and robe as her only armor.
“Take me to him,now. Or you will regret disobeying me.”
“There’s no need for that.” A voice carried from down the hall. The second guard returned, and behind him was her uncle Yuri and Captain Fain.
Her uncle waved a hand at the guard, and he stepped back. Having nowhere else to go, Anna retreated into her bedchamber. Her uncle gripped her uninjured arm and dragged her deeper into the room. Rage flared inside her, and she jerked free, stumbling a little and catching one of the bedposts to support herself. That was how she faced the two men responsible for the loss of her parents, her home, and her country, clutching at a bedpost, her body weak with pain, exhaustion, and fear.
“Yuri,” she said with cold fury.
“My dear niece, you have beenmosttroublesome.” His tone was full of boredom.
Captain Fain watched with a gaze that made her skin crawl. She recognized him as one of the captain of her father’s royal guards, but she’d had very little contact with him before now. So this was who she was to be married to. It made her shiver to think he’d been watching her all this time, coveting her the way a dragon coveted gold.
Anna focused on her uncle. “What are your intentions toward me?”
Yuri was a tall man, like her father, but he shared little else with his half brother. He was fair-haired with a touch of silver at the temples, and he had cold gray eyes. He was fit, and she knew he was good with a blade, bow, and pistol. Once she had thought him a posturing fool, but he was dangerous, hadalwaysbeen dangerous. Only now did she realize how much.
My family was so blind,she thought with quiet despair. Alexei’s last words came back to her.“The devils were inside the walls.”Her father had been too moved by compassion for shared blood to see the viper in the grass.
“You will be sent for execution tomorrow morning at dawn. That, of course, will draw Alexei out. Once I have him, you will be granted a reprieve and will marry my captain of the guard.” Yuri gestured at Fain, who stared at her with a cold, almost reptilian look.
Such a simple plan he had, yet it would destroy what was left of her country with one death and one marriage. Anna’s mind played out a thousand scenarios, but feigning compliance was the only way she could possibly win. But they would not believe it unless it seemed she had been convinced of their position.
“You expect me to cooperate when you tell me to my face you intend to kill my brother?”
“You don’t exactly have a choice, Anna,” said her uncle. “Your brother is dead, whether it happens tomorrow at an execution or a month from now, hunted down and shot in the forests. But the longer he stays free, the more he will hurt Ruritania and its people. The more people will die fighting for a hopeless cause. Already so many have suffered in this pointless struggle. If you truly care for the people of this country, it would be best to allow me to do what must be done and end this conflict so that this nation can heal.”
She wanted to slap him, saying such words as if he was speaking reason, as if he was not the cause of all the suffering he claimed to want to end.
She looked down at her feet, as if in meek acceptance. She could not endorse his words, for he would not believe it, but she could not oppose him either. He had to see the fight had been taken out of her. The more she convinced them she was not a threat, the more lax they would be in her treatment. But that laxity would take time to build, and she had only a day to find a way to avoid her brother’s capture.
“You see? She understands now. There is no point in resisting what must be. See to her needs,” Yuri told the captain before he left the two of them alone.
Being alone with Fain afforded Anna a new opportunity—to test where she stood with him and what she could get away with. “If I am to marry you tomorrow, then you had better have a proper gown made. I will not become a bride in rags, nor will I do it on an empty stomach.”
The captain of the guard walked over to her and reached out, brushing a lock of hair back from her face. It took every ounce of Anna’s willpower not to flinch at his touch.
“When we are married, you will not order me about like that. You will do as I say, and only then will you be treated well. Remember,Anna,” he said, caressing her name, “I could have claimed any woman in the world when your uncle asked for my allegiance, and I chose you.”
Fain left and closed her bedroom door. Anna stared at the door a long while, then crept to the window of her chamber, which overlooked the courtyard below. She pushed back the curtains and saw the scaffolding where a chopping block awaited her. Whatever came next, she had only one thought that gave her a sliver of peace. Aiden was not here to die. Her visions from the fairy pools would not come to pass.
* * *
Alexei and Williamsnuck out of their hidden camp a few hours before dawn and rode south toward the Winter Palace. Word had reached him the previous evening that his sister was Yuri’s prisoner and was to be executed at dawn, along with the terms that would spare her life.
He and William had almost come to blows that night, but in the end, Alexei knew what he must do. He must surrender to Yuri. William pointed out the futility of it, that there was every chance that Anna would still be executed alongside him, but he had to take the chance of saving her.
