When We Were Young

Eighty-one:

Eighty-one:

"Are you seriously not talking to him over this?" Mal asked. The two of them were in his room. Alina was wrapped in a blanket sitting on his bed with her knees pulled up to her stomach. Mal sat in his desk chair, throwing a ball in the air absentmindedly. "I mean, where could the harm be in meeting with the prince guy if he's there? I don't like Morozova, but no one is going to mess with him if he's there with you at least."

"He's already been shot once," said Alina, "and that's not the issue. The issue is that he agreed with his mother who has been trying to manipulate me my entire life. I don't know who to trust anymore. He...I mean, the only reason he started obsessing over me was because he was trying to ruin me. How do I know that this isn't part of some elaborate plan to keep up his end of the ruse?"

Mal snorted. "Alina, you don't get a girl pregnant as part of the ruse."

Alina blushed. "I'm a few weeks along, Mal."

"So?" he said. "What does that mean?"

"We've only been together for a few weeks. He um, got me pregnant on the first time."

Mal made a face. "You have got to be kidding me. He must have like super sperm or something. You have no idea how much that hurts me."

"Well, I gave you the chance to be with me. You didn't want me."

He sighed. "That's not true, Lina. I wanted you. I wanted you badly, but I wanted to keep you safe more. The people that are coming after you...they're terrifying."

"Have you met them?" Alina asked. "The Prince?"

He frowned. "I have. Once. That was one of he reasons why I stopped having anything to do with Baghra."

"Is he that terrible?" Alina asked. "Aleksander said he met him once too, and that was why he didn't want anything to do with it either."

Mal opened his mouth, and there was a knock on the door just then.

Alina was surprised when she saw Vasily standing there. "Are you going to be angry at lover boy for much longer? Because he just came by being all sad and puppy dog like."

Alina raised an eyebrow. "Why do you care? I thought you didn't like him."

"I don't, but if he isn't with you, don't you think there's more of a chance that you are going to somehow get forced into marrying the prince prat sooner?" Vasily said. "I've met your grandmother, Alina. She's the kind of woman that gets what she wants. The Queen of Shu Han isn't someone to be messed with."

Alina sighed. "I don't know what's real and what isn't real anymore. Everyone is lied to me. What if he..."

Mal sighed. "He's not going to betray you."

She glanced at her best friend in surprise. "What makes you think that? You're the last person that would be team Morozova."

"I'm not team anything. I'm team you. I've watched you be alone your whole life, and you've got a chance to get your family back. I'm not saying that you've got to do anything with the prince, but I am saying that if you were to meet with your family...you might not be so alone anymore, Lina. You're going to have a kid, and it might be nice if the baby was surrounded by family. I know I got adopted, but we both know there's nothing worse than thinking that there is no one that wants you."

Alina placed her hands on her stomach. "Okay. Maybe if I can figure out what it is that the Fjerdians want, they will leave me alone and back off the engagement."

Vasily raised an eyebrow. "What do mean, what the Fjerdians want?"

"Jarl Brum visited me and Aleks, and he strongly implied that it wasn't so much that the Fjerdians wanted me, but they wanted access to something that my parents were working on."

"Oh!" said Vasily. "I know what that is."

"What do you mean?" Alina asked. "How do you know?"

"Remember, I'm your cousin," he said, "and my family is rich and in media and politics. I've met everyone and I know almost everything. Your parents were both obsessed with old Ravkaan legend. It's one of the reasons why your father came here to study. The thought that The Fold was actually old, trading routes that were filled up during war time. They thought that if they could find the routes again they could open up trade between countries again...or..."

"Or what?" Alina said.

"Or war, depending on who found the routes first. My dads been obsessing over some old maps your mom was supposedly working on for like, ever."

Alina flinched. "Your dad?"

Vasily nodded. "Of course, it doesn't help that my father and your mother hated each other which is one of the reasons that she wouldn't tell him anything related to her work. But my mom knew everything because they told each other everything. Drives him crazy to this day that he still doesn't know what they found before they died."

Alina glanced at Mal. "Okay, I've got to go to Aleksanders."

"Why?" Mal asked. "I was thinking we could, I don't know, throw water balloons at him or something. I had a whole thing on how to cheer you up. I was going to bake for you."

"You can't bake," Alina reminded him, "I was the one that baked to make you happy."

Mal frowned. "Right. I thought that you could bake to make both of us happy."

"Same old Mal," said Alina, "come on. Grab your car and take me home."