Chapter Text
It was right then that she saw him. Aleksander. When she was at the height of agony, with beads of sweat running like rivulets down her forehead and her knees propped up in the most undignified manner.
He was the first to register his shock. “Alina,” he murmured.
Another wave of pain seared through her body as her uterine muscles contracted sharply out of its own volition. She was sure that some part of her had torn; she was less sure if she was still alive.
“Get out!” Alina screamed in response, hysterical and hateful. She desperately wanted to use the Cut on him, but her hands were busy gripping onto fistfuls of bunched up bed linen.
“The baby’s almost here, Katrina,” the midwife told her gently. She had probably assumed that Alina was unhelpfully yelling at the soon-to-be newborn to come out.
“Deep breath in,” instructed the midwife. “Now, push!”
Alina bit her lower lip as she held her breath and gave one final push. She felt the infant vacate her body and with it, her determination to stay awake. She flopped her head back and waited with bated breath.
“Get out,” this time she whispered to the man hovering next to her in his black kefta.
The sweetest sounds of newborn cries filled the room.
He must have worked out the conception date by then when he whispered back, “I didn't know.” That was the most dumbstruck she had ever seen him.
The midwife carefully placed the swaddled baby- all pink, wrinkled and sweet-smelling- onto Alina’s chest. The woman then went on to clean up the mess and coax her placenta out.
The precious baby began rooting and Alina placed her child to her breast. The strong, clever little thing immediately latched on and proceeded to suckle.
“Get out, Aleksander,” she whispered again drowsily, almost to herself.
Though still slightly dazed, Aleksander vanished.
-
Alina was nursing the baby when Aleksander visited her through the tether two days later. He finally had a first proper look at the tiny infant. The child had pale skin in stark contrast to its tuft of downy black hair. The babe’s hand was curled into a tight fist and its fluttering rosebud lips were firmly latched onto its mother.
“Is that child mine?” he asked in a low voice.
Alina narrowed her eyes. “What do you think?” she shot back.
She covered herself in haste as soon as her child unlatched and propped the newborn on her shoulder. Cooing softly, she gently rubbed the little one’s back.
The infant let out a burp and Alina murmured, “You’re so clever, aren’t you, lapushychka?”
The only chair in the room was already occupied by her so Aleksander sat down on the edge of her bed. “Where are you?” he queried.
She ignored him and started humming a long forgotten lullaby. She continued to ignore him even after she had settled her youngling into the cradle. She paid him no heed as she settled into bed and pulled her blanket up to her chin. To her relief, he was no longer on her bed in the morning.
-
He guessed that the child was in the wicker bassinet this time around judging by the way Alina was gazing into it. After denying him for so long, he was surprised that she was now allowing him to see her through the tether.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“That’s not for you to know, ” she replied quietly, still staring into the cradle.
“That child is mine as much as yours,” came his irascible response.
She scowled. “Yours? Yours ?” she spat, incredulous. “Just like my powers? Just like every single Grisha in this saints-forsaken country? Just like the throne?”
Her questions must be purely rhetorical. He already knew that the answer to all of them was yes.
Aleksander could practically feel the molten anger that rolled through her as she jabbed her finger at him warningly, her face seething with red. “This child of mine is not yours to take, Darkling.” The venom with which she said his title made him flinch. Just a little.
He looked away and was momentarily silent. When he spoke again, his voice was cold. “I will find you eventually. So you may as well come willingly,” he laced his offer with the unspoken threat of ‘or else’.
“Stay away from me- from us ,” she hissed. “If you come anywhere near us I swear to saints I will smother the child to sleep.”
He gave Alina a hard stare. “You wouldn’t dare,” he murmured cautiously.
“I love him more than enough to protect him from you.” Though her chin tilted up indignantly, her voice quavered.
Aleksander blinked. “A son?” he whispered with a glint in his eyes.
Alina’s eyes widened upon realising that she had said too much. With a slash of her hand, she sent the Cut flying towards Aleksander. He vanished.
The baby startled awake and cried.
“Shh, I didn't mean it,” she whispered with tears in her eyes as she picked him up and cuddled him. “I would never do that to you.”
-
Alina suddenly felt his warm hand resting on her shoulder. She had almost fallen asleep in the chair with her son still suckling her breast, languidly feasting on his third dinner with his eyes shut. It reminded her of how parched her mouth she was.
She watched as long fingers stretched out, seemingly to stroke the two-week-old’s cheek. But instead of touching peachy soft baby skin, the phantom fingers went through the baby and brushed against her bare breast.
She felt shock ripple through the tether. And arousal. Definitely from him, not her. How could it possibly be her when she was feeling like a dairy cow?
She glared at Aleksander accusingly. “If you wanted to cop a feel, you could have at least waited for him to finish feeding.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. Now that I have your permission,” he said with a smirk.
Shit. Did she give him that? The lactation hormones must have made her dopey. She stuck the tip of her little finger into her son's mouth to get him to unlatch and pulled the neck of her nightgown up. The baby stayed asleep as she lay him down in the cradle and placed a lightweight muslin blanket over him.
“The boy has jaundice. You need to let the Healers see to him,” declared Aleksander, back in his aloof dictator mode.
“A midwife has already seen him. He’ll be fine,” Alina nonchalantly dismissed him. She had been nursing her son more frequently like the midwife had advised her to. Apparently, that should help clear the jaundice quicker.
His shadow loomed over her as he stood by her bed. “I understand that you want to maintain this false notion of… independence,” he began. Then his lips curled in amusement as he said, “Freedom.” That word sounded so foreign on his tongue. He dropped the smile off his face when he continued, “But it would be foolish to keep this up to the detriment of the child.”
“Why do you keep coming here?” she inquired without acknowledging whatever he had just said. She has had to wake up every few hours for the past two weeks so she really, really needed her precious sleep. She arranged her rough spun blanket over her legs.
“Because you let me. And believe it or not, I am concerned,” he answered, looking down at Alina as she lay in her small bed.
Alina stifled a yawn and then said with a roll of her eyes, “Concerned for your escaped prisoner? How magnanimous of you, moi tsar.”
“The boy would be welcomed back as a prince. And the tsaritsa’s throne is most befitting if you choose to have it.”
Alina closed her eyes, silent and still.
“Just… think about it,” Aleksander added wistfully just before he left.
-
Standing over the wicker basket, he watched the blurry image of the infant. He couldn’t clearly see his child, or anything else in that room for that matter, unless Alina was touching it.
The familiar silhouette of a tall man walked in. “This should last the week,” he heard him say. Aleksander recognised that loathsome voice and the peasant accent. It was the otkazat’sya tracker.
“He has your eyes,” Mal said as he stroked the baby’s cheek with his finger, utterly oblivious to Aleksander’s presence.
Aleksander seethed and turned to Alina. “Tell him to take his hands off my son,” he ordered. “Does the tracker know that the child is mine?”
Alina sighed. “Thanks Mal. I think the little one needs an early night.” She sounded apologetic.
Upon closing the door, Aleksander queried her again, “Does he, Alina?”
“Of course he does. I wouldn’t keep that from him,” she murmured.
He stared at the gurgling baby, still a fuzzy kicking image of porcelain white and midnight black under a blue blanket. Aleksander realised he had never seen his son‘s eyes.
“What’s his name?”
Though she knew he was referring to the child, Alina coldly replied, “Malyen.” To her, the truth was none of his business.
-
Aleksander stopped visiting her through the tether.
-
“Alina,” he said without looking up from the paper in his hand, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“It’s been a while,” she replied evenly. Two and a half months to be exact. She was staring at the map on the table, an ebony black miniature of the Shadow Fold had been carefully laid out across its middle.
“You wanted to be left alone. And now you…” With his eyes still trained on his paperwork, he made a gesture with his hand, prompting her to complete his sentence.
Alina leaned over the war table, and moved some of the pieces, much to his annoyance. “I’m curious,” she simply said.
Aleksander put the paper down and pointedly jerked his head towards the stack of papers, letters and notes strewn across his desk. “As you can see, I’m just going through the motions, Alina. Taking responsibility,” he said. There was a hint of condescension in his voice.
“A responsibility that you plotted and murdered for,” she stated.
He held her gaze. “After centuries upon centuries of bowing and scraping in front of the former kings.”
“Why does it have to be you?”
He stood up from his chair and slowly approached her like a predator closing in on its prey. “I have centuries of experience and knowledge. Power. Who else would you have to do this? The Lantsov pup?” He arched an eyebrow in amusement. “You?”
“The fate of this country is a burden I cannot bear,” she said. Aleksander could see the faint flush creeping up to her cheeks.
“Why are you here?” He was standing behind her, his tall frame towering over her.
“Why should it matter? This isn’t real,” she said and then closed her eyes.
“No, it isn't,” he replied, stepping closer to her until the front of his pants were pressed against her ass. Alina gasped from the heat of his breath when he whispered into her ear, “Is it?”
But Aleksander did not wait for her answer. In one swift motion, he spun her around and pressed his lips onto hers in a desperate fashion. Despite the nagging doubt that urged her not to, she kissed him back hungrily, letting him tilt her head back as they explored each other’s mouths. Her hands carded through his silky hair, stroked the prickly short beard on his jaw, roved over his muscular shoulders and chest. Before finally finding their way to the buckles at the front of his kefta. Alina undid them, one by one.
Aleksander shrugged his kefta off with a grin, all smug and triumphant. As if he were unwrapping a present, he slowly, deliberately pulled on the ties of her worn out dressing gown, and pushed it off her shoulders, leaving her in a sheer, flimsy shift. He dropped his head, and then mouthed at her jaw, her collarbone, her shoulders and her neck.
“Take this off,” she whispered as she tugged at his black linen shirt. And so he did. He pulled his shirt off.
In return, she slid the straps down her shoulders and dropped her shift onto the polished floor. Aleksander took a step back and his eyes swept over her from head to toe. It had been about a year since he’d seen her in such a state, when she was a blushing little slip of a virgin, unused to the admiring male gaze. Now her hips were slightly rounder, the colour of her areolas were slightly darker, and her milk-engorged breasts looked obscenely huge on her petite frame. His erection twitched from just imagining how his cock would feel nestled and rubbing between them, how her tits would move when he...
He got distracted by her smile and come-hither eyes. Though her cheeks were charmingly flushed, she looked a lot more self-assured than she did back then in this very same war room. He easily lifted her onto his desk and resumed his assault on her soft skin. He trailed kisses down her neck, biting, sucking and marking her intermittently as his large callused hands roamed all over her body. His hand cupped the underside of her breast and he felt its heavy weight in his hand. She squeaked when he gave them a good squeeze before he placed his warm mouth over one while thumbing the other. He sloppily laved and swirled his tongue over her hard nipple, causing her to squirm, mewl and breathlessly evoke the saints he didn’t believe in.
“Mmm,” he said as he sucked hard and was rewarded with a squirt of warm, sweet liquid in his mouth. He thought he heard her exhale in relief. He went on to savour her other delicious breast just to be fair.
He slid in a finger, and then another into her very wet core and pumped them as he licked the valley between her plump tits. She whimpered and pawed at the front of his trousers, fumbling with the buttons on his fly. And when he moved his hips back, she begged with a whiny “Please please please”.
“So impatient. What’s the hurry?” Aleksander teased despite his throbbing, weeping cock.
“I don’t have much time left. The baby will wake up soon,” Alina explained breathlessly.
It was a good enough reason so Aleksander removed his glistening, slick-coated fingers and replaced them with his thick, hard member, slowly stretching her, going in inch by inch, until he couldn’t go in any further. He made her lick his fingers as he marvelled at how tight she still was and began pounding into her. In, out. In, out. She leaned back onto his paper-strewn desk as his vigorous rutting made her lose her grip on the edge of the table. Using her hands, Alina tried to cover her heavy breasts that were lewdly bouncing away but Aleksander leaned over, panting heavily, and pinned her wrists to the table above her head. So now all she could do was uselessly flex her hands, moan and squirm until she bucked wildly, and her body clenched and convulsed with pleasure around him. Alina quietly screamed his name.
She came around him at least twice before her eyes suddenly widened and she said, “I have to go.”
“We’re not done yet,” Aleksander hissed through gritted teeth as he continued pumping into her.
Minuscule droplets of white appeared on her nipples as they began leaking milk and she bit down on her lower lip, looking a little guilty. Aleksander’s movements sped up and became a little erratic as he chased his own release.
Alina looked to her left and made a shushing noise. Then, she murmured lovingly, “Mamochka is here, Pasha.”
A few more hurried thrusts and Aleksander grunted, “Alina.” His whole body shuddered, having finally reached his climax.
And at that most inopportune time, she disappeared. The hand that was holding her down dropped to his desk and his warm, sticky spend went all over his responsibility, his papers. It would be quite a hassle to clean that up, he figured, but his lips curled into a smile. She had given something else away.
His child was called Pavel. Pasha.
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