The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(43)

It was none of the fool woman’s business if Alexander was ravishing his beloved in the sunshine. He and Meagan were betrothed, and they could enjoy each other’s bodies as they pleased.

Meagan stunned him. She’d looked at him with understanding when he’d confessed how much he missed Nvengaria and then she told him not to worry, no doubt Damien would let him come home when he wanted.

No woman in Alexander’s life had ever tried to reassure him, to comfort him. They’d been too much in awe of him, even Sephronia. She had listened to his depiction of the struggles he allowed himself to tell her and suggested solutions, but never stroked his hair and held him in silence, knowing that was what he needed.

Alexander had spent the rest of the day in wonder at what he’d found in Meagan. He’d had to master himself when the spell had encouraged him to carry her off to his carriage and make love to her all the way back to London. His blood had boiled hot all day, Alexander angry at himself for trying to follow the damned English rules. The day he finally was able to play by Nvengarian rules, he would let nothing stop him.

“Where is Nikolai?” he growled at Myn now. “What happened to him?”

“He has not taken much hurt. He will recover.”

Alexander stared into Myn’s unmoving face. “I attacked him?”

Myn gave a brief nod. “When you changed.”

Alexander stopped, his shirt falling from frozen fingers. “When I changed?”

Myn regarded him with unblinking blue eyes. He could look so human, and then he did not. “It has begun.”

“You said that before.” Alexander kicked the shirt aside and strode across the room to Myn, barely feeling the chill air licking his hot skin. “What the hell do you mean—what has begun? Why did you come with me to England? You disappear for days at a time, and I have no control over you.”

Myn simply watched him. “You like control.”

“It is how I have survived.”

“You are like her.”

Alexander halted in front of Myn, balling his fists. “Like who? Your cryptic conversation would make me insane, if I weren’t I already going insane.”

“You are like the one you call Anastasia,” Myn answered slowly. “She likes control, and when she does not have it, she does not know what to do.”

Alexander had no desire to talk about Anastasia. She’d been avoiding him, missing appointments, and that never boded well. She’d walked with him at the garden party today, but her purpose had been to antagonize the Duchess of Gower and lead him to Meagan. Anastasia was quite pleased Alexander would marry Meagan—she was almost giddy with it. But he hadn’t spoken to her privately in days.

“Anastasia is nothing like me,” Alexander said. “She is driven by vengeance.”

“As are you. When your father died, you wished to kill the men who murdered him.”

Memories assailed him, as vivid as the day Alexander had stood in the courtyard with the firing squad and watched his father be shot. The old Imperial Prince had grabbed a musket from one of his soldiers and shot Alexander’s father, formerly his best friend, in the chest, laughing while he did it.

“Of course I wanted to kill them,” Alexander answered tightly. “I wanted every one of them to die that day. I knew the soldiers were following orders, but I still wanted them to pay.”

Myn nodded. “But you were young and too weak. You knew you had to bide your time until you were strong. You had to wait much time for your vengeance, but you had it.”

“In the end, yes I did.” Alexander had tasted triumph when the old prince, half-insane, had placed his hands in Alexander’s and said, I will do whatever you say, whatever you want. The people think I am Imperial Prince, but I am your slave.

The revenge had not tasted as sweet as Alexander could have wished because the Imperial Prince by that time had no idea what he did for more than an hour at a time. But Alexander himself had helped the insanity take hold of Damien’s father. He had guaranteed it.

“And now you live for Nvengaria,” Myn said.

“Yes,” Alexander snapped. “Why do you question that?”

Myn went silent, his eyes enigmatic.

Alexander moved to the window and looked out at the moonlit garden below. He had the strange desire to be out under the moonlight but not in the garden. In the open, running—for some strange reason hunting.

“Yes,” Myn said in a low voice, right behind him. “Let it take you.”

“Let what take me?”

Alexander did not turn, though he quivered with rage and uncertainty. The bloody love spell kept turning in his brain, making him picture Meagan lying asleep in her bedroom on the other side of Mayfair. Her flushed face would repose on her pillow, her glorious hair a riot against her white sheets. Two more weeks. He would never wait two more weeks.

“The love spell is calling the change,” Myn said. “It has opened you to it.”

Alexander turned around, slowly and carefully. “If you do not tell me what you mean, I swear to you I will put you in chains and throw you into the deepest dungeon. I will find a dungeon, no matter how hard I have to look. In fact I will build one especially for you.”

Myn smiled slightly. “You are right to be angry. Your father, he never told you. You are like her.”