The Pomegranate Society

Forty-eight: Professor Aleksander Morozova

Forty-eight:

Professor Aleksander Morozova

Alina slept through most of the day. Nikolai was out with the family, by the beach, and the King kept him away. There were some important dignitaries with their families that had also been invited and were staying in other chateaus nearby. In the afternoon, the family barbecued. He could see them from the balcony of the chateau as he drank tea. "Aleksander!" he heard Alina calling him from her room.

Aleksander put his cup down on the balcony table and then he ran to her room. "Alina!" he called. "Is everything alright?"

She was sitting up.

"I'm fine," she said, "but I woke, and you weren't here, and I didn't see you and---"

He smiled at her and slipped into the room, closing the door behind him. "I'm sorry," he said, "I thought you might want some privacy while you slept. That, and I wanted to check outside to see what the others were doing."

"You don't have to stay, you know," she said, "there's an entire staff here."

"And I wouldn't trust a single one of them," he said, "they might act like I'm part of the family, but at the end I am a bastard. The servants in particular have never been really fond of me."

"Aleks," she said, "if your father doesn't make the announcement, if you aren't going to be made King.... what are we going to do?"

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I don't want to raise a child alone," she said, "and if I'm going to----"

"You are not going to be alone," he said, "I have hopes for us. Dreams for us. But if they don't work out, that does nothing about my feelings for you, Alina. I want to raise this child with you. I want to marry you. Do you really think that I would let you----"?

There was the sound of the door creaking. "Oh, but you are," a voice said from the door, "well, isn't this quaint."

Nikolai was standing in the doorway with a glass of water and a tray of food for Alina. Alina froze, and Aleksander looked over at his brother, his face completely neutral.

"Nikki," he said, "what are you doing back so soon? Father said that you were supposed to be out on the beach all day."

"I came up to check on my fiancé," he said, "what a surprise to find her here, with her teacher, talking about getting married and having a baby."

"This isn't what it looks like," Alina said, "there's been nothing untoward----"

"But there has," said Nikolai, "do you think father doesn't know about your little society, Aleksander? He's the one that started it, for fucks sake. I thought that maybe you would have me join and we'd finally be real brothers, but no. You've never seen me as your brother. You've only seen me as a means to an end. And you fucked my girlfriend----my fiancé."

"Nikolai, I...." she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you, but I also never expected that we would get engaged."

"Then why are you marrying me?" he demanded.

She hesitated, glancing at Aleksander.

Aleksander smiled. "Because I am the villain that you think that I am. I found her weakness and I exploited it for the society. She never really wanted to be with me, but I had something no one else could give her."

"Which is----"

"Money," he said, "for her little comatose soldier boy. A million kruge for each year that she's with me. And, of course, it wouldn't be good for her to be seen taking money from the palace. It would look like you were paying her to marry you. Can't have that now, can we?"

Nikolai frowned. "You know."

Aleksander stiffened. "Know what?"

"Don't pretend, Aleksander. Naïve is not a good look on you. You know that father is planning on changing the rules about bastards. Well, it's a good thing that this family is good at fooling themselves," he said, "here's what's going to happen. Alina is going to marry me. I am going to claim the child----"

"We have a contract," said Aleksander, "any child she has during her time with me is supposed to be mine."

He laughed. "What do you thinks going to happen? That you're going to tell father, and he's going to make you King?"

Aleksander stood from his chair. "That does seem to be fathers plan."

Nikolai laughed. "The thing is, we've known about you. About your little arrangement. You don't think I wouldn't thoroughly vet my fiancé? Nina told me everything about your little visits to The Pomegranate Society weeks ago."

Alina looked up and glared at him. "You've known?" she said. "You.... you knew what I was doing to help Mal, and you didn't think to do anything? I'm an orphan, Nikolai. I don't....I didn't have a choice."

"I thought...."

"Shut up!" Alina snapped. "Shut up. I'm not.... someone's getting me out of here, right now."

Nikolai shook his head. "Alina, you'd have to take a plane back to the mainland and they would---"

"Get me out of here, now," she insisted, "Solstice is about family, and neither of you is my family. You are forgetting that I have my own options."

"What do you mean, own options?" Nikolai said. "Alina, you're engaged to me. Everyone knows that you have my ring and that we're supposed to make my announcement soon."

"If either of you ever wants to see me again, you are going to get me out of here, now."

"What do we tell people?" Aleksander said.

"I don't care," she said, "tell them that I'm sick. Of you, of him, of all of this too."

Nikolai sighed. "Fine....I'll....figure something out."

"You do that," she said, and then she got up and started packing her things.