When We Were Young

Eighty: Present Day

Eighty:

Present Day

They had fallen into bed together. Aleksander felt exactly the same as he rocked into her. Wonderful, and rough, and lovely all at once. It made Alina cry out as she gripped his shoulders tightly. It had been so long since Alina had done that. She liked the idea of her nails leaving marks on her. As the two of them climaxed together, they eventually pulled apart, panting, and sweating in a delicious way. "Oh!" Aleksander exclaimed. "Saints, that felt good. That felt really, really fucking good."

Alina let out a breathless laugh. "We've still got it."

"Yes," he said, "we do."

"Aleks," said Alina softly, "when Mal found me, he said he told you that he had saved me. That he said that everything was okay. I know why I didn't come for you. I was too upset about everything that had happened, and I didn't think that you would want me but...why didn't you ever come after me?"

"I did," he said, "I went to Mal's place, and I was going to take you home. But then..."

"Then what?" Alina asked.

"Someone followed me. I could see them. We never figured out who it was that paid me to ruin you, and I think they're still out there. Every once and a while, I would get pictures of you mailed to me to let me know that they were still watching you. You might have escaped, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still out there."

"Then why'd you come, Aleks?" Alina said. "You and me both know that they're still out there, that it isn't safe for us to be together. But you're here."

He sighed. "I thought you were getting married, remember? I was desperate and out of my mind."

She bit her lip. "Zoya told me you'd been using."

"You talk with Zoya?" Aleksander asked.

"Well, we were friends. Not exchanging friendship necklaces type of friends but we were friends. She told me that the two of you meet up sometimes. Which is surprising, because she is dating Nikolai, and Nikolai doesn't really like you."

Aleksander made a face. "Nikolai and I are what you and Zoya are to each other."

"Frenemies?" Alina said with a smile.

"Yeah," he said, "frenemies."

"Aleks, are you worried that if we try again, they might come after us again?" Alina asked.

Aleksander shook his head. "This time, I'm more afraid of losing you. Besides, I've been looking into it, and I think I have some idea of who it was. But I just need to have some time. I thought...well...you don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"Don't have to do what?" Alina asked.

"I thought we could lure whoever they were out together."

Alina raised an eyebrow. "When did you think of this?"

"Just after I asked you to be with me," he said, "not before. I told you, I thought that you were getting married and I just...I couldn't have you getting married to Mal. I think it would have killed me."

She smiled up at him. "Mal stopped being who I wanted a long time ago, like the minute you..."

"Fucked you?" he said with a smirk.

"Yeah," she said with a whisper, "but we couldn't even find them before. What makes you think that we'll be able to find them this time?"

"This time, they'll slip up," said Aleksander, "this time they won't be expecting us to be together. My guess is that it's someone coming to the wedding."

"What makes you think that?" Alina asked.

"Because Mal's some ambassador now, right? He's important. There's always important people at these types of things. It's one of those events where you have to invite everyone, or else it makes things difficult at work."

"Mal took a job working for my grandmother," Alina admitted, "he's the ambassador to Shu Han. It was the only way she could think to thank him for rescuing me. Especially because she couldn't publicly thank him for rescuing me, because that would mean admitting that I needed rescued in the first place. Which wouldn't be good since she was the one that was pushing for me to be engaged in the first place."

"You're speaking to your grandmother?" Aleksander said.

Alina snorted. "We've met twice. Once, when she let the Fjerda dignitaries take me from Shu Han, and then again, when Mal saved me because they had to take me back there since they were the ones that hired the rescue party to come get me. Tamar was the one that was concerned and organized the whole thing. She ended up being my security guard when...."

"When everything went wrong?"

"Yes," Alina said, "I hope we do find the person that's been behind this. I hope..."

"What do you hope, sweetheart?"

"I hope that they rot and burn," Alina said, "they took you from me. They took time from us. They ruined our lives. They might not have ruined me like they wanted me to be ruined, but my life still didn't turn out the way that I wanted to. Yours certainly didn't."

"No," he said sadly, "it didn't. I wanted you, always."

"I did too. I still do. I want to be with you, and have a family, and get the life that I thought that we were going to have."

"Maybe we were too young. Maybe it was the Saints telling us that."

Alina laughed bitterly. "I never did care for saints."

"Neither did I," he said.