Rule as Equals (Meant to Be My Balance #2)

Chapter 8

"Out," he said to the Kerch, his voice cold and unforgiving. I let the light around me bend, concealing me from view as a few minutes later, a hand unfailingly clasped around my wrist and pulled me into Aleksander's office.

I yanked my grip away. "You're still cruel for the sake of being cruel."

He scoffed. "I had hoped this child would help you understand sacrifices needed to be made."

"And you made them. You took his voice, Aleksander, and it still wasn't enough!" My blood burned, my eyes caught in my husband's stormy glare. "Because you want to torture him. You like it, don't you?"

He smiled, beautiful and cruel and painful. "Go eat dinner, Alina. I'm not discussing this with you if you're only here to condemn me."

"The whole palace knows what you're doing, don't they? And I'm supposed to play the part of an oblivious, doting wife."

He stood tall and mighty, his features contorted. "You're not supposed to play a part, Alina. You're supposed to be happy and satisfied, and if that means not knowing about my business then so be it!"

"Happy and satisfied? I'm pregnant with a child I don't know how to care for and a crown I don't know how to wear."

He smiled sardonically, his eyebrows lifting fully. "So you admit it then? That you don't know what you're doing, that you're not ready for the responsibilities of rule, the sacrifices we must make, and yes, the torture I partake in to ensure our stability."

I stayed quiet, my eyes burning.

"Come here, my Alina."

My feet stayed on the ground, so Aleksander sighed and came to me. He ran a careful hand through my hair, his touch defeated, but always reverent. "My beautiful wife," he murmured. "When will you understand?"

"Understand what?"

His lips were a phantom against my hair. "Everything I do is to protect you. Your body." The hand trailed down my shoulder, my arm, caressing my hip. "Your mind." It lifted back up to my hair, his thumb stroking my temple. "Your heart." His hand flexed, fingers splayed over my heart as he felt it beat against his fingertips. "That's the most soothing sound to me, Alina. The sound of your heart beating this fast. Racing for me, healthy and strong. I could take this sound to my grave."

He pressed his lips against mine. I didn't know how to reciprocate, frozen in silence and pain and desire as Aleksander let go and walk away.

Barely five minutes had passed before shots rang out across the courtyard and the sound of screams reached my ears.

I was pregnant. I should have stayed in the castle like Aleksander would have wanted. But before I had become anything close to a mother, I had been a sun summoner, a queen, a warrior. The sounds of battle made me run—toward it. And that was what I did.

The sky was black with the beating of nichevo'ya wings. They were usually kept in a large space underground but Aleksander had let them out because the palace was being invaded. Then, all of a sudden, I felt my husband's powers pulse, drawn to his summoning as a wave of black consumed everything around us and the cries of the nichevo'ya went silent. In fact... everything went silent.

I knew better than to summon my light or interfere with Aleksander's plans, but when a hand launched toward me aimlessly, I knocked my elbow into his neck, crippling the soldier. A weak burst of golden light escaped my palms, the pain from summoning making me fall onto the ground right beside the soldier.

"Alina!" The sound was a guttural roar as Aleksander was alerted to my presence outside.

Amidst the black fog, I made out the dark nichevo'ya trailing across the sky, bursts of Inferni fire and the glint of Tidemaker water. But through it all, there was an explosion of black, destroying anything nearby, but fluttering past me as if there was a wall on all sides of me.