That was where the plan formulated.
Iskra had been allowed to grieve. She had been allowed her fury, her demands and her fuck your obligations delivered with that precise enunciation she used against me. I allowed her access to the graveyard.
How dare she reject me?
The fucking Pakhan of Chernograd.
My head thumped as the seething rage festered.
How dare she deny me my heir when she had healed.
Enough.
It was time to remind my so-called wife exactly how privileged her position was.
And how quickly that could change.
??????
Tikhon followed us down. I knew Iskra was in the kitchen before I saw it confirmed—Tau standing in the doorway was confirmation enough.
He turned at the sound of our approach.
Mariya—or Marina, I hadn’t retained which—began to grumble about being hungry. My eye twitched when her hand found my ass. I resisted the urge to remove it with more force than necessary.
Tau’s eyes moved to her briefly. Not long. The kind of assessment that takes less than a second and files everything worth filing. Then his focus came back to me—razor-sharp, unhurried, the focused attention from a man who had already decided what he thought and was simply confirming it.
He had his hair rebraided since I’d last paid attention. Shaved tight on the sides, the thick braids sitting high on top of his head like a crown. A beard coming in along his jaw, fuller than before, hiding most of the scarring.
Pimping himself up for someone, possibly.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
The upper lip that curled—barely, just enough to register—was the only reaction he gave.
It was the one I needed to see.
He stepped out of my path.
There she was. Sitting at the kitchen table sipping her tea like a pampered printsessa, the morning sun finding her hair and pulling the gold out of it. She didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge the sound of us entering. Just sat there in the deliberate stillness of a woman who had decided in advance how this was going to go.
I grabbed the woman’s arm and led her to the table.
“Olya,” I said, pulling a chair out.“Breakfast for me and my companion.”
Olya grunted.
The cupboards began. Doors meeting frames with more force than strictly necessary. Dishes finding countertops in a way that communicated volumes without a single coherent word. A low continuous muttering emanating from somewhere near the stove that I chose not to translate.
I wouldn’t be eating in the dining room this morning.
I reached for the tea and leaned in.
“Do you like your replacement?” I murmured.
Her head lifted.
