09-03-2023, 01:09 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-03-2023, 01:31 AM by Ascendancy.)
He studied the pictures for the art they were, but he saw it was not technique that he appreciated most. It was the story behind each frame and the elegant words that accompanied them. When she finished, he shifted a little beneath her weight, settling, and peered through the shadows up at her. “I’m glad you had someone to love,” but did not say more. It wasn’t the topic of mortality that tied his tongue. It was loneliness from one who had nothing to love but power, accomplishment, and the faceless mass. Such an admission was far from gaining the acknowledgment of voice, however. Nikolai knew his fate as he knew her mortal one, and the sacrifice was the price demanded by the turn of his destiny. It was a cold existence, but it was one he had made before, and one he would make again, every time.
It was with a slim smile that considered her then. She was calm and collected, but he knew beneath the cool exterior stirred a beguiling passion that called to him, sure as every time she spoke his name. And he decided he was not quite ready to release it.
When he shifted this time it was while offering a hand to help her up. One that he held all the way back to the comfort of a mattress and blanket. The robe spilled from his shoulders, discarded, before sliding into a place he might court the spell of sleep, and he held his arm open that she might rest in his embrace.
As he lay there, he listened to her breathing, and felt the subtle rise and fall of her body until he could no longer fight it, and despite everything, fell asleep.
The next morning, he was gone before she awoke, but the evidence of his presence was felt in the outline on the pillow and lay of the blankets. She would have access to anything she needed upon stirring: food, toiletries, and the like. As well as discretion.
Later, a Baccarat Crystal rosebud was delivered to her. An invitation to a social event accompanied the gift, along with an open expense account to GUM.
“While we have them.” The words were her mother’s, shared in a moment of vulnerability the previous night, printed upon the card. There was an addition on the back of the invitation, written in Nikolai’s script.
“Donne-moi à nouveau mon péché.”
They couldn’t go together, nor would they be able to steal more than a few passing words, if that, under the scrutiny that was Moscow’s aristocracy, but he desired to see her and know she was nearby.
It was with a slim smile that considered her then. She was calm and collected, but he knew beneath the cool exterior stirred a beguiling passion that called to him, sure as every time she spoke his name. And he decided he was not quite ready to release it.
When he shifted this time it was while offering a hand to help her up. One that he held all the way back to the comfort of a mattress and blanket. The robe spilled from his shoulders, discarded, before sliding into a place he might court the spell of sleep, and he held his arm open that she might rest in his embrace.
As he lay there, he listened to her breathing, and felt the subtle rise and fall of her body until he could no longer fight it, and despite everything, fell asleep.
The next morning, he was gone before she awoke, but the evidence of his presence was felt in the outline on the pillow and lay of the blankets. She would have access to anything she needed upon stirring: food, toiletries, and the like. As well as discretion.
Later, a Baccarat Crystal rosebud was delivered to her. An invitation to a social event accompanied the gift, along with an open expense account to GUM.
“While we have them.” The words were her mother’s, shared in a moment of vulnerability the previous night, printed upon the card. There was an addition on the back of the invitation, written in Nikolai’s script.
“Donne-moi à nouveau mon péché.”
They couldn’t go together, nor would they be able to steal more than a few passing words, if that, under the scrutiny that was Moscow’s aristocracy, but he desired to see her and know she was nearby.