Page 90 of Rise of the Queen

“Solid life choice,” Andrei said, still completely astonished.

“But how? Do your eyes change the same way hers do now too?” Misha asked.

“I think that’s going to remain true for her only. But the reason hers turn black is because her demon is stepping forward when it happens. Same for me and Ivan,” I said.

“But I don’t feel nauseous when it happens. I’ve never felt nauseous when her eyes have gone black. It usually makes me happy because I know there’s about to be some fuckery afoot,” Misha said, grinning at Sephie.

“You wouldn’t feel nauseous with us, my adorable Russian guardian,” she said, sliding her arm around his waist. “Our demons work for us.”

Misha’s eyes went wide as he looked between me and Sephie. “You just unlocked a new life goal for me,” he said quietly.

“Me too,” Andrei said.

As always, Stephen offered the comic relief in the most serious way possible. “Okay, so we all agree to learn how to do this now. Vlad is going to be ecstatic when he hears about this, but we’re going to need to step up the training. Mehmed’s janissaries are no joke, and when they see our black eyes, they’re going to be scared, which will make them fight harder. We might need to increase the number of impalings happening, just to keep the fear working for us, rather than against us.”

Sephie laughed, walking to Stephen. “I love you, Yoden. Please never stop being you.”

“Can’t stop, won’t stop,” he said, hugging her tightly, an uncharacteristic smile across his face.

“Who wants cookies?” she asked. She had a wide smile on her face, but I could still feel the heavy sadness from earlier surrounding her. It was starting to worry me that she couldn’t get rid of it, even though she was doing what she does best and smiling through it.

Ivan and Viktor stayed at the house for the rest of the week and through the weekend. Viktor’s youngest brother, Ilya, was supposed to arrive Monday evening, so they came back late Monday morning. Sephie and I had talked to Ivan periodically over the weekend, but it seemed like Viktor still wasn’t completely ready to fully accept everything happening.

Sephie was wary about being around Viktor now too. She was worried she was going to make something worse for him. Ivan had said Viktor had talked some over the weekend, but he was mostly staying quiet. When Ivan told us they were on their way back, Sephie took the Wonder Twins upstairs to the penthouse.

“I have an idea for an experiment anyway,” she said, her sweet smile on her face. She was using it as an excuse to not be around when Viktor got back. The heavy sadness that was from Viktor was still with her. She’d been quieter than usual most of the weekend. The guys all tried their best to cheer her up, but they could feel her struggling against it as well. None of us knew how to get rid of it.

“What experiment now, love?” I asked her, curious.

“You’ll see,” she said, grinning at me. For a brief moment, the sadness lifted. Her eyes had stayed amber for almost the entire weekend. They would change briefly now and then, but even her eyes weren’t changing like normal. Her emotions were constantly changing, which meant her eyes were constantly changing. But right now, it felt like the overwhelming sadness was the dominant emotion and was overriding all other emotions. It was starting to worry me.

I stuck my head out of my office door, motioning for Andrei and Misha to come to the office, instead of her having to go to them. Since I’d learned she was self-conscious about people looking at her, I tried to make sure I was with her as often as possible or that she didn’t have to walk across the floor very often. I’d started paying attention to the people in the office as they watched her as well. Most were fascinated by her, but she was still dealing with everything from being taken so it still felt negative to her.

“Take her upstairs,” I said as they walked in. I watched as they looked at each other, seemingly having a silent conversationbetween the two of them. Misha clearly won whatever contest they were having. He walked to Sephie, squatting down in front of her while Andrei walked behind her and picked her up so she could wrap her arms and legs around Misha.

She giggled as Misha bounced her higher. “I know I can jump again, but not gonna lie, I prefer to be picked up like the princess I am,” she said, hugging Misha’s neck a little tighter.

“It’s easy when you’re still too skinny,” Andrei said, grinning at her.

She glanced back at me, a devious grin on her face. “Bubba said I can eat more cookies, so I’m going upstairs to eat more cookies.”

I just laughed as they walked out of the office as Stephen walked in with my next meeting. While she hadn’t been in my life for an entire year yet, I almost couldn’t remember my life before her.

I could feel her have moments of happiness, as I’m sure she was laughing and joking with Misha and Andrei during my meeting. Once that meeting left, I had a few minutes before the next meeting arrived, which I was planning on using to catch up on some paperwork. As I got started, I figured out her experiment.

She was at her piano, but I could hear her just as well as if I was in the same room as her.“This makes paperwork so much more enjoyable, solnishko.”

“It works?”

“It does. I can hear you just as well as if I were in the same room.”I could hear her soft laugh as she continued to play while I continued to look through boring reports.

Ivan walked in my office without Viktor. “He’ll be down in a minute. Aleksander called when we got here. I guess he talkedto Ilya before he left to come here. It might be worse than we thought from what it sounded like,” he said.

“That doesn’t sound good. When does he get here?” I asked.

Ivan looked at his watch. “Not for a few more hours. Viktor still has to leave stupid early to make it to the airport since he’s flying commercial. I hate that airport,” he said, a clear look of disgust on his face.

“It is very peopley there,” I said in agreement.