“It’s great to meet you.” Erik shook my hand and smiled.
“It’s an honor, Your Majesty.” Sweet Jesus, he was even better looking in person than on television and his eyes were as green as emeralds. I wanted to stare at them but managed to keep my face neutral.
“The honor is mine,” he said. “Though I’m sorry for what your family has gone through, I’m glad it brought some of the issues plaguing your area to my attention and afforded me the opportunity to meet your family and neighbors.”
“I’m grateful Axel was able to come and save us last night. I don’t think we would be here now if he hadn’t.”
“I plan to eliminate that threat,” he said firmly.
“Thank you.”
“I’ve contacted a distributor in Hiskale and will have a shipment of everything you lost to the Brat delivered next week. I’ve also arranged to have new windows installed, the door replaced, and then Axel is going to put in a top-of-the-line security system.”
“That’s very generous,” I told him. “But a security system is only useful if someone comes when you call. The police here are more afraid of the Brat than we are.”
“Sandor is going to pay them a visit in the morning, before he heads back to Hiskale. But we’re going to take care of this. I give you my word.”
I wanted to believe him, but in my experience, nothing was ever that easy. More than likely, things were going to get worse and I was going to be smack in the middle of it.
6
Axel
“Axel, you can sleep in Kostya’s room again,” Nadia said once everyone else had left. Sandor was sleeping in Kostya’s hospital room and Xander hadn’t come back from Braksa, so I was the only one who needed a place to stay.
“Thank you,” I told Nadia. “I appreciate it.”
“Well, good night.” Nadia and Samuel made their way to the stairs and I watched Solange puttering around, wiping down counters that had already been cleaned.
“You okay?” I asked her. “Those counters are pretty clean.”
“I’m not even a little bit tired, so there’s no way I could sleep.”
“You want to go for a walk? Burn off a little energy?”
“Sure.” She wiped her hands and grabbed her purse, slinging it over her shoulder.
“What do you guys do here at night? Are there any bars? Nightclubs? Anything to do?”
“There’s nothing like that. We have to travel to Ferdinbrag if we want any kind of entertainment like a bar or club or movies.”
“That’s what? An hour?”
She nodded. “Mama and I usually go twice a year. Once in spring and once in fall, before the weather gets too bad. We stock up on things we need that we can’t get here, things that might help us get through the winter.”
We walked down the dark, quiet main street and I noted how deserted it was.
“Life here is pretty hard, huh?” I said, walking along beside her.
“Life here is…difficult,” she whispered, staring down the street at nothing.
“So what do young people do?”
“They drink and have sex.”
Well, that sounded like a lot of small U.S. towns too. “All of them?”
“Some finish school and join the military or move to bigger cities.”
“Has the population been dwindling?”
“Not really. Everyone who stays has a lot of children and many come back with wives from the cities, because this is a nice, safe place to raise a family. Or it used to be. The Brat has only been a threat the last few years. Before that, it was boring, but safe and quiet.”
“What would you have done if you’d had options?” I asked curiously.
“Gone to university,” she said with a faint smile. “Backpacked through Europe. Lost my virginity in Paris, preferably beneath the Eiffel Tower.” She giggled and it was the sweetest sound I’d heard in a long time.
“You haven’t been saving your virginity for that, have you?” I asked with a laugh.
She turned to me with an impish smile. “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t.”
I nearly stumbled in surprise; she had to be fucking with me. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.” She gave me a little grin. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-five.”
“Still holding on to your virginity?”
I snorted out a laugh. “Not hardly, no.”
“But have you had sex in Paris?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Not under the Eiffel Tower, but yes, I have. What made you ask that?”
“When I was so upset last night, you whispered to me in French. Are you French?”
“I’m American, Texas-born, but my mother was French.”
“Was?”
“She passed away about five years ago. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” I hadn’t talked about my mother in a long time. Hell, I didn’t even remember speaking French to Solange.
“Is your father American?”
“Yes. He was military and stationed in Germany. He met my mom while she was there on vacation. They got married a week later and were together for thirty-five years before she died.”
“That’s lovely. Is your father remarried?”
“He is. It’s been about a year and I’ve only met her once, at the wedding. He’s lonely. I get it. My sister says she’s not bad, and I’m too far away to worry about it.”
“You don’t see your family often?”
“I talk to my sister every week or so. My niece and nephew are five and seven, and they’re pretty cute. My sister and her husband and the kids might come for a visit in August.”
“What’s her name?”
“My sister? Alicia.”
“That’s pretty.” She paused. “So you’re close.”
“We are. I mean, we’re both busy, and the time difference is a bitch, but I do my best to catch up with her on Sunday nights.”
“Kostya and I are close as well. He’s younger than me, three years, but we share a lot. He had a girlfriend for four years and her family moved to Hiskale last year. He’s been angry at the world ever since. He wanted to go. Her father said he could, that he would give him a job, but my parents guilted him into staying. Without us, the café would go under.”
“That’s a hell of a burden for parents to put on their kids.”
“It is, but I understand. The café has been in our family for a hundred years. That’s one of many reason my parents are reluctant to start over in a bigger city, so what choices are there?”
“But that’s their choice, not yours.”
“In theory, that’s correct, but in practice, do you abandon your parents to what would be almost certain death? They’d never survive the winter without us, especially now that they’re older.”
“So that’s it? You give up your life so they can live out the rest of theirs the way they want?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But for now, this is the situation.”