A Throne for the Taking by Kate Walker

known her father was an arch manipulator—but Alexei? She’d gone to him with such hope, but now it seemed that she was trapped even more than before. And her own impulsive declaration of just moments before had just entangled her further in this dark spider’s web.
    ‘Marriage.’ It was dull and flat, the death knell to the hopes she had only just allowed to creep into her mind. ‘The terms of that agreement were marriage.’
    He didn’t respond; didn’t even incline his head in any indication of agreement. Just blinked hard, once, and then those black, black eyes were fixed on her face, as unmoving and unyielding as the rest of him.
    ‘You want me to marry you?’ The words tasted like poison on her tongue. ‘Just like that? I won’t—I can’t!’
    ‘Not what you’d hoped for?’ he enquired sardonically, the corners of his mouth curling into a cynical trace of a smile. ‘The prospect doesn’t appeal as much as being married to Ivan?’
    ‘It doesn’t appeal at all.’
    The truth was that it was far worse.
    She had never had any feeling except of fear and dislike for Ivan. Hadn’t once loved him. Had never dreamed of the prospect of a future with him. Hadn’t let herself imagine the possibility of loving and being loved by him as she had once dreamed of happening with Alexei.
    So now to be proposed to... No, not proposed to— propositioned— so coldly, so heartlessly by him tore at her heart until she thought it must be bleeding to death inside.
    She didn’t want to look at him, couldn’t bear to look into his face, and yet she found that she could look nowhere else. Those deep, dark eyes seemed to draw her in; the sculpted beauty of his mouth was a sensual temptation that she fought to resist. Once she’d dreamed of being kissed by those lips. Lying awake in her adolescent bed, she had imagined how it would feel, longed for it to be reality. Last night that dream had come true. She knew now how that mouth kissed, knew how it tasted, and the reality had been as sensually wonderful as she had hoped. It had left her with a hunger to feel those sensual lips on all the other, more intimate parts of her body. But all the time it had been tainted with a poison that threatened to destroy her emotionally.
    And once she had dreamed of a marriage proposal from those lips too. But not like this.
    ‘You can’t really believe this is possible.’
    ‘Why not? You’ve already admitted that neither of us wants Ivan on the throne—but if we made a pact to work together we could ensure that never happens, ensure peace for Mecjoria. You say I am the rightful king—you would make a good queen. After all, that was what your father trained you for.’
    ‘I brought you that document because you are the rightful king!’
    ‘And because you didn’t want to marry Ivan.’
    How could she deny that when it was nothing but the truth?
    ‘My father had delusions of grandeur.’ She tried to focus on his face but his powerful features blurred before her eyes. ‘That’s not the same as tying myself to someone I barely know.’
    ‘You would have agreed to just this with Ivan.’ Alexei pushed the point home. ‘You said yourself that the royal family doesn’t expect to marry for love.’
    No, but they could dream of it—and she had dreamed... Dreams that were now crashing in pieces around her.
    ‘You’d simply be exchanging one political marriage for another. What if I promise your father’s freedom too?’
    ‘You’d do that?’ It was something she’d thought she’d have to give up on, no matter how much her mother had begged her to plead for Gregor’s release.
    ‘For you as my queen—yes, I’d do it. Oh, I don’t expect a wedding right here and now—or even one as soon as we land. I have the proclamation—the accession—to deal with first.’
    He actually sounded as if he thought that he was making some huge concession. The truth was that in his mind, he was making that concession, obviously. He would