Chapter 17 Anya
The blue room was a gilded cage.
It was beautiful and lavish. Silk curtains, a carpet so thick it swallowed my feet. A bathroom with gold fixtures. It was everything my little servant’s room was not.
And I hated it.
Because it was a declaration. Nikolai was telling the whole household, and maybe the whole city, what I was. His mistress. His plaything. The word Mikhail had used burned in my mind.
This was his decision. Reducing me to his mistress. When Mikhail told me, I was angry. But what can a slave do?
Vera had helped me move. Her face was unreadable. “This is a different kind of danger, child,” she had said quietly as she hung my meager dresses in the giant wardrobe. “Be careful.”
I knew what she meant. Before, I was a hidden secret. Now, I was a target on display.
A fierce, hot anger bubbled in my chest. He was using me. Not just for sleep, but for his story. He was making me the villainess, the seductress, to hide his own weakness. My anger felt good. It was better than being scared.
I spent the day in my new prison, staring out the window at the walled garden I couldn’t enter. I missed my simple room. I missed the quiet anonymity.
Night came. I got into the huge, cold bed. It felt absurd. I was a tiny island in the middle of a sea of silk. I missed the wall near my shoulder in the old room. It made me feel secure. Here, there was only empty space.
I didn’t know if he would come tonight. A part of me hoped he wouldn’t. Let him suffer in his big, dark bedroom. It served him right.
But another part, a traitorous, stupid part of me, waited for him. And listened for his footsteps.
It was very late when the door opened. He didn't knock. He just the turned the handle. Amd there was a soft click of the latch. I pretended to be asleep. I heard him moving in the dark, felt the bed dip due to his weight as he lay on the far edge of the bed.
Tension radiated from him. I could feel it filling the spacious room. It was different here. The magic of the small room was gone. This was just a man and a woman in a bed, and a world of complications between them.
My anger softened, just a little. Because I heard the change in his breathing. The short, sharp inhales. He was fighting the panic, right here next to me.
A strange feeling took over. It wasn't pity. It was recognition. He was as trapped as I was. By his past. By his reputation. By this thing between us that neither of us understood.
“Nikolai?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer. But his silence was loud.
So I moved. I didn’t think about it. I just slid across the cool sheets until I was in the middle of the bed. I got closer to him. I didn’t touch him. I just offered my presence.
I could smell the soap on my skin, and I hoped he could too. I hoped it reminded him of the other room, of the peace we found there.
He moved so suddenly it made me gasp. In one fluid motion, he turned and pulled me against him, his arm locking around my waist like an iron band. He held me so tightly it almost hurt. He was trembling, just a little.
And just like that, the strange peace settled over us again. His breathing slowed against my hair. His body relaxed, molding to mine.
This big, lonely bed didn’t feel so big anymore.
In the safe, warm darkness, with his heart beating against my back, my guard came down. The words slipped out, soft and true.
“You can’t hide what this is by moving my bedroom.”
The second I said it, I knew it was a mistake.
His whole body turned to stone. The arm around me became a rigid bar. The peaceful feeling shattered. I had pulled back the curtain. I had pointed at the scared little boy hiding behind the scary Pakhan.
He didn’t speak. He just held me tighter, so tight I could barely breathe. It wasn’t a hug. It was a threat. A warning. Don’t look. Don’t speak.
I stayed still, my own heart pounding. What had I done?
After a long, terrifying minute, his grip eased slightly. His breathing deepened again. He was falling asleep, or pretending to.
But the damage was done. I had seen the raw truth in his reaction. He was terrified, not of the dark, but of me seeing his fear.
I lay awake for hours, long after his sleep became deep and even. My mind was racing. This power was more dangerous than any gun. I knew his secret and I had said it to his face.
The most powerful man in Moscow was afraid, and I was his only comfort.
It was a weapon. A deadly one.
As the first birds began to sing outside, a resolve hardened inside me. The anger was gone, replaced by something colder. Clearer.
He wanted to use me to sell his story? Fine.
But I could use his secret to write my own.
A slow, careful plan began to form in my mind. It started with a simple, dangerous step.
When the morning light finally brightened the room, I carefully lifted his heavy arm from my waist. He stirred, and a frown formed on his sleeping face. I slipped out of bed.
I didn’t go to the bathroom. I didn’t ring for breakfast.
I walked quietly to the door of his bedroom, the one connecting to mine. My hand hovered over the knob.
Then I turned it.
It was locked.
Of course it was. He might need me, but he would never trust me.
I stood there, my forehead resting against the cool wood. A smile, thin and sharp, touched my lips. A lock could be picked. A secret could be leveraged.
The game had just changed. He thought moving my room was a power play.
But little did he know he had just moved his greatest weakness right next door.
And I knew how to pick a lock.