The Pomegranate Society

Thirty-one: Alina Starkov

Thirty-one:

Alina Starkov

She didn't sleep with Nikolai. No matter how cruel Aleksander was, she wasn't. She had to remind herself of that. Mal might wake up one day, and when he did...she still had to be Alina. But that didn't mean she couldn't make him think that she had. Or let Nikolai do just about everything but actually fuck her. She kissed him, and tasted him, and let him taste her too. The Prince hadn't had her yet. But she gave him enough. The whole time, it wasn't Nikolai she thought about. It was Aleks, taking her in the bathroom, putting his fingers inside of her when she didn't want....

She imagined him in Nikolai's bedroom, standing in the corner, watching her. She liked to think of him being jealous as Nikolai's tongue was on her cunt. Alina wondered what would happen if she flipped Aleks off while she let the Crown Prince go down on her. Perhaps he would beat Nikolai to a pulp, or perhaps she would beg her to stop, so that he could touch her instead.

It didn't matter. It was all a fantasy.

Alina stayed the night in Nikolai's room, sleeping in his bed. And yet, it was nothing like the morning when she had woken up with Aleksander around her arms and they'd had waffles for breakfast. She woke to Nikolai already up, in his bathroom with the door open, brushing his teeth.

"Damn," he muttered as he finished, "I was trying to be clever."

She laughed as she sat up on her elbows. "Clever? What for?"

"I thought I could get up early, brush my teeth, and kiss you again. With really good morning breath."

Alina smiled at him, then got up out of bed. She was half-dressed wearing only her bra and underwear, her clothes from the other day tossed on the floor. She walked over to him and kissed him. "You don't have to do anything special for me, you know," she said, "the whole point of this is for me to get to know the real you. Not who you think you have to be for other people."

He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, running his hands through his hair. "That's the problem. I don't know who that is, really. Who I am now isn't even who I'm supposed to be."

Alina frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Alina...." He said with a knowing head tilt. "It's no secret that I'm not supposed to be here. The whole country knows that. My brother Vasily was supposed to be the crown Prince, not me. And then he caught that fever and died....and of course, there's everyone's favorite rumor."

She hesitated. She didn't listen to royal gossip, or any gossip. But sometimes there were things it was hard to get away from. "You mean...."

"The rumors about me being a bastard," he said, "yes. I turn twenty-one this year, and I thought I could delay my father's decision if I was still in University. Maybe prove to him that I was serious enough to be King, and he wouldn't change things...."

"What's he changing?"

"The rules for heirs," he said, "he's already called several meetings at Parliament about it. Specifically, he's talking about making it so that my line doesn't inherit."

"What does that mean?"

"I'll be King, but any of my children won't be. The heirs have to have Lantsov blood. The rumor is that he's even going to let this apply to bastards to ensure that the title stays in the family name."

"That's so...unnecessarily cruel," said Alina, "why would he do that?"

"He thinks that if there is truth to my being a bastard, I might seek an alliance with my 'real father' and tear his empire down."