Lada looked past him at the door’s viewing hole. Matthias stared back at her, aghast. “If you would stop behaving like a rabid beast, I could help you,” he said.
It had been years since Lada had killed a man without weapons. Her head swam from the blows, and she spat. She did not like the taste in her mouth. And she did not like the bodies on the floor. Why had they made her do this? “I have already had your version of help. I do not need any more. But he does. Open the door.”
Matthias turned his head. “Get me more men!” he barked.
“They will not come soon enough.” Lada spat blood again. The man next to the door had begun weeping. Matthias did not follow her order to open the door. She could show no weakness. She went far into herself, past the animal instincts that had propelled her to kill the other men. This one was more of a choice.
But there was no choice. She would do what must be done, as she always had.
Matthias, coward that he was, did not even watch as Lada broke his soldier’s other knee, and then his neck.
Lada knew what Mara would have advised her. What Radu would have. What Nicolae would have. What even Daciana would have.
Play the part. Do as she was told. Survive.
But she was a prince. She had other methods of survival. She had cut through years and lives to get there. There were those in Europe who still believed in her, and those in Wallachia who would never give up on her.
She was prince. She did not have it in her to be anything else. And she would never give Matthias the satisfaction of thinking he had beaten her.
An hour later, the next attempt to dress her involved ten men. Lada did not stand a chance, and she knew it. But she did as much damage as she could in the meantime. After they had stripped her of her chain mail, leaving only her underclothes on, they kicked her and threw her in the corner. Then they grabbed the three bodies and hurried from her cell. That, at least, was gratifying.
Standing as carefully as she could to avoid showing how much she had been hurt over the course of the two attacks, Lada stalked to the door.
“At least now you look like a woman,” Matthias said.
“And yet you still look nothing like a king.” She smiled, her teeth bloody, her face covered in gore, until he turned with a poorly suppressed shudder and left.
Only when night had fallen and it was dark did she finally collapse onto the cot, curling around herself and feeling everything she had lost.
36
Tirgoviste
NAZIRA, TRUE TO her word, had not only set herself and Fatima up in a room but had also secured the one next to it, for Radu. Radu was curled around Cyprian in the dark. He had thought he would never be happy in this castle.
He had been wrong.
He pressed his forehead against Cyprian’s, relishing the tickle of the other man’s breath on his face. It meant this was real. Radu would take all the evidence he could get.
They lay on top of Radu’s bed, limbs tangled. Their discarded boots and turbans lay on the floor. Radu wrapped his fist in Cyprian’s shirt, pulling him closer. “I cannot believe you are actually here.”
Cyprian laughed, the sound as soft and intimate as the darkness around them. “You have no idea how long I have wanted this.”
“You could … tell me?”
Radu felt the laughter in Cyprian’s chest. He put his palm flat against it, relishing the beat of the other man’s heart. His heart now, too.
“You know I wanted to know you from the first moment we met.”
“I remember that, too. You made an impression when I thought I could not see anyone but …” Radu drifted off. There were still so many tender edges of their history that they would have to be careful around. It had been filled with terrible things. Which only made this miracle of connection feel even more precious and sacred.
“It was my smile, right?” Cyprian nuzzled his face against Radu’s cheek, and Radu felt the smile there.
“No, that caught me our second meeting. The first, it was your eyes.”
“Hmm,” Cyprian said. “It was not your eyes that attracted me.”
“What was it?”
“I do not know if anyone has ever told you, but you are quite a beautiful person.”
This time it was Radu’s turn to laugh, though his was sheepish. “I have heard that on occasion. Though the term more preferred is ‘Radu the Handsome.’”
“Radu cel Frumos,” Cyprian murmured, using the Wallachian words. His own language had never sounded so lovely to Radu. Even the name that had been used as a taunt sounded new and clean when Cyprian used it. It gave him hope that his past would not haunt him forever. He had not done or experienced anything he could not recover from—not with Cyprian at his side.
“It is such a relief to be able to touch you,” Cyprian said, brushing his lips across Radu’s throat. Radu’s pulse strained with the effort of keeping up with his emotions. He had imagined how these things would feel, but he had never come close. Every part of his body was alive in a way he had felt only in battle. But instead of feeling disconnected and merely reacting to things around him, he felt completely and utterly connected to himself. Every touch, every move was deliberate.
“It was not easy in Constantinople,” Radu said, “trying to hide how you affected me. And trying desperately not to be affected.”
Cyprian laughed. “I am glad you suffered, too! Do you know how often I tried teasing some sort of reaction out of you?”
“That night in the forge …”
Cyprian slid his hand along Radu’s waist, letting it rest where Radu’s hip bone jutted out. “I would have leapt over the table at the slightest indication from you.”
“There is a reason I kept the table between us! I was trying so hard not to love you.”
Cyprian nodded, his face still against Radu’s neck. “It was an impossible situation.” Someday they would talk more about it; they had time. Right now what they needed was closeness.
“I always feared that this,” Radu said, kissing Cyprian’s forehead, “was an impossible situation.”
Cyprian scooted back, taking Radu’s face in his hands and peering at him in the dark. Radu could just make out the details of his expression. Cyprian looked worried. “Is it? For you? Orthodoxy is my religion the same way my father is my father. Distantly, and only because I was born to it. In Constantinople I saw too much damage done by people wielding the will of God like a weapon. But in Islam, can we … can you …”
Radu smiled. He had agonized over these things enough. “I believe that God is merciful and great and beyond our comprehension. And Nazira always told me she feels closest to God when she feels love. I think she is right. In a way, love is the highest expression of faith—in ourselves, in others, in the world. I can expand my faith to allow myself happiness in this life, and trust in God’s love and mercy after this life.” He paused. “Though … I would like to follow as many rules as I can. The structure of Islam is important to me. It has been a scaffold of protection and comfort.”
Teasingly, Cyprian lowered his hand, tracing his way down Radu’s abdomen but stopping just shy of … where Radu would have liked him to continue toward.
“So what you are saying is that we need to be married very soon,” Cyprian said, his lips right against Radu’s ear.
“Yes,” Radu gasped. “Very, very soon.” His marriage to Nazira was legal. Her marriage to Fatima was spiritual, but even more binding. Radu would do the same with Cyprian.
Cyprian moved his hand back up, resting it over Radu’s heart. It was both a relief and a disappointment. But as Cyprian moved closer and they breathed together, drifting toward sleep, Radu knew they had time to explore desire. There was no fear or desperation here. Only happiness and the incredible grace of loving and being loved.
All his life, it was the only thing he had ever truly wanted. He had found it in Islam. He had found it in his connection with Nazira. And now he had found the fullest form of it here. He rested his head on Cyprian’s chest, falling asleep to the music of the heart that beat with everything Radu needed in this life.
37
Hunedoara