How to rule a king

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Alexei:

I was cowering on top of a snow-covered hill hidden behind a few trees, as I overlooked an abandoned street, waiting for the colony of Japanese cars to arrive as the harsh cold creeped up my back and legs. The road was old and hardly well maintained, as the long cold winters had taken a toll on it. Being completely closed off from any civilization with snow covered hills and the cold, wintery Siberian woods surrounding us, it was the perfect spot for our planned attack. I more than approved of Piotr's choice of our attack point, knowing that even if things would get a little bit out of hand, there would still be nowhere to run. Any possible fleeing survivors would gruesomely die due to starvation and hypothermia if they ever made it into the woods. Still, I hadn't planned on letting even one of these bastards escape our assault. Not after what they did to my wife.

Clenching the sniper rifle harder in my by now nearly deaf hands, I remembered tracing the raised, angry red, bumpy line on the inside of her thigh while she had been soundly asleep on top of me only two nights ago. Maybe actually feeling what they did to her had been the last straw. When Piotr first told me about her rather broken past, I had tried to come to terms with it. Back then, being half drunk as I had enjoyed the dancing females the rather crepuscule night club had to offer, I had thought it wouldn't be so hard to come to terms with her past since I had hardly known a thing about the girl I would marry. But now, being a love-sick puppy waking up to his wife suffering through a nightmare she wouldn't remember having the next morning, things were different. They had scarred her for life in so many more ways than just leaving marks on her body. Ronja couldn't even be alone for very long without feeling the ceiling crashing down on her, leaving her completely crushed as a shivering heap of misery on the floor.

She had hidden it quite well, busying herself with various exercises, but when we had first returned to the den, she had nearly lost her mind being all alone for days. If I hadn't been trained to watch people closely for my whole life, I might not have realized it. She still tried so hard to hide her fear behind the need for me to be around her, always claiming it would simply be her wish to be close to me since I made "her feel safe and at home as no one else ever could". Of course, I had felt flattered by her need for my omni-present protection at first. Yet, when I had noticed she would rather spend her days joining me in my office while I had to work through file after file, only ever leaving my side when I left the den for missions or when I went to the basement's interrogation cells for answers than running around the den or travel to various cities on her own, I had understood how deep her fear of her past and her need for my presence truly ran. And it scared the shit out of me. Knowing that she didn't even feel safe in her own home, a military base full of high tech weapons and my most trusted followers ready to defend her with their own lives. Even when she would join me in the gym, watching me fight a few of the soldiers, she would never truly allow herself to relax as she would always keep her guard up, flinching every time someone would step a little too close to her. The only time she ever allowed herself to be comfortable was when we were alone in the apartment. Then she would play hide and seek with our son, chasing him through the oversized rooms. I would watch the two of them building forts with LEGO bricks or having Ronja read a goodnight story to our son as they cuddled in our bed. She then would feel free to dance around on our private, secluded balcony, as snowflakes found their way into her flaming mane. She would grow bolder around me, demanding all my affection once our son was in bed. Even when watching a simple sports match on the TV set located in our living room or reading through a stack of files, she would simply place herself in my lap, nestling my chest as I rubbed her back. Sometimes she would fall asleep on top of me, having me carrying her to our bedroom where I would hold her close during the cold night.