Anastasia hardly touched her breakfast that day.
The mansion's dining hall hummed, a soft buzz of staff moving about. Her eyes, though, stayed glued to her phone. An anonymous email received moments before captured all her attention.
> "Your bodyguard knows secrets. You are not safe. Watch him closely."
No sender name. No address to trace.
Her fingers shook as she locked her phone. She glanced across the hall.
Aleksandr stood near the entrance. He had his arms crossed, clad in a black shirt stretched tight across his chest. A storm brewed in his eyes, scanning every corner of the room, watchful of her surrounding.
He hadn't seen the message, but her expression alerted him.
"You're pale," he stated when they had some privacy in the hall. "What is it?"
Anastasia lifted her chin a bit. "Do you always grill me before noon hits?"
He didn't even twitch. "Only when you're hiding something important."
"Maybe I am hiding things."
He took one step closer. "Maybe someone's messing with your head too."
She paused. "Wouldn't be a first."
Aleksandr's voice dropped low. "You're not alone these days, Princess."
---
It was supposed to be a quiet hour to catch up. Anastasia went to the university library. But she couldn't concentrate.
Not with his presence so close.
Aleksandr didn't walk in with her. He stood right outside the arched entrance. Vigilant. Professional.
But his presence felt like a dark flame. It licked at her skin from across the glass.
Someone else was watching too.
She felt it in her bones.
A slow burn on the back of her neck.
She turned her head. A man in a gray hoodie quickly hid behind a shelf.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She rose to her feet. Moved softly to the aisle end.
Aleksandr moved as well. Sliding inside like a shadow. His eyes swept across the area.
In moments, the hooded man was trapped.
"What are you doing here?" Aleksandr bit out, hand gripping the guy's shirt.
"I-I was grabbing a book-!"
"You were following her," Aleksandr accused.
The man's eyes went wide. He darted a look at Anastasia, then Aleksandr's cold face.
"Look," he stammered out. "I didn't mean any harm-"
Aleksandr tightened his grip. "You're done now, understand?"
He shoved the guy out of the building, barking into his comms device.
Anastasia stood frozen still. Her heart hammered in her chest.
Aleksandr turned to her. His voice now softer. "Never let them see fear in you."
She crossed her arms across her chest. "So I play pretend nothing's happening at all?"
"No," he replied. "You trust me always. That's what you do from now on."
---
Later that night, she found him in the weapons room. He carefully cleaned a silenced handgun.
"You know," she said, leaning against the doorway, "for a man who says he's here to protect me, you sure seem to enjoy this violence stuff."
Aleksandr didn't glance up at her. "Violence is a language I understand. I just happen to speak it fluently."
"That's pretty dark."
He set the gun down on the table. "You don't grow up in Volgograd without some darkness in you."
She hesitated, surprised by this share. "Is that home to you?"
He finally looked up from his work. "It's where I was forged."
Silence lingered in the air.
She walked into the room.
Carefully. Slowly.
"Have you loved before?" she blurted out.
His jaw tightened at the question. "No, I haven't."
"Why ever not?"
"Because love is weakness."
"Can you not allow weakness?"
He stood from his place. He moved across the room. They stood face to face.
"No," he said lowly. "Not when you're my charge."
The air crackled. Like electricity.
She whispered softly, "You keep saying it's protection always…"
"It is protection, yes."
"Why the look then? Like you want to ruin me completely?"
Aleksandr exhaled, sounding ragged.
Before either could move-
His phone rang suddenly.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: She has been marked. The Russians are not alone.
He stared down at the screen.
Slowly, coldly, his eyes went back to her.
"Your enemy list has grown longer."
Night arrived like a dark curtain across the estate.
Anastasia was on her bedroom balcony. Cold air kissed her shoulders as stars flickered beyond the walls.
She felt him near.
Aleksandr.
He appeared when she grew too silent.
She didn't look at him. "What aren't you saying?"
A pause lingered.
Then his low, resigned voice. "Word got around this morning. Your name, with a price."
Her eyes shut. "Who's after me now?"
"I'm still digging. But they're pros. They've been watching longer than we knew."
She gripped the railing tightly. "Do you think my message… that it came from them?"
"A warning was issued," he said. "But I doubt its intent was to keep you safe. They want you paranoid. Isolated."
She turned to him. "So, why push me to distrust you?"
He neared, the air charged.
"Because if you lose faith in me, Princess," he said darkly, "you won't last a week."
Their eyes locked.
A thin, sharp edge between what they feared and what they craved.
"I do trust you," she said, her voice breaking.
"Don't."
He moved to leave, as he always did. She grabbed his wrist.
"I don't want this. I need to."
Aleksandr watched her hand on him.
She didn't pull back.
She did not care.
"Do you crave me?" she whispered, her voice shaking with a mix of courage and dread.
His eyes burned into her. "You know the answer."
"Then why aren't you-"
"I'd shatter you," he growled.
"Maybe that's what I desire," she breathed.
In an instant, he yanked her close, his lips a breath from hers, his hands at her waist.
"You're playing a dangerous game," he warned.
"And you are the spark."
Their lips brushed, so lightly.
A touch that said everything.
The destruction waiting in a single kiss.
He let her go, like fire burned him.
She gasped, stumbling.
His voice, like rough stone. "Don't tempt me again unless you're ready for everything to go up in flames."
He vanished into the night.
---
Anastasia sat in on a mandatory security briefing next morning with her father, alongside the family's head of private security. A former MI6 operative named Miles Thatcher.
Her father barely noticed her. As usual.
Thatcher, on the other hand…
He stared. A smile too slick. Too many questions about her day.
Aleksandr loomed behind her chair, arms crossed.
He watched.
Every move she made.
After the meeting, he grabbed her wrist in the hall, pulling her into a side room.
"Don't go to those meetings alone again," he snapped.
"He's family-"
"No. He's interested. Wrongly."
She lifted a brow. "Jealous?"
His eyes flashed. "Observing."
A smirk tugged at her lips, trying to hide the thrill under her skin. "Always watching."
"If I look away," he murmured, close, "someone will take what's mine."
Her breath caught in her throat. "You think I belong to you?"
Aleksandr didn't say it.
His actions had no need to.
The way his hand traced her arm said it all.
Again, he left.
His steps tearing at her.
---
Anastasia got another email that night.
> "The man watching over you isn't just a soldier. He's a ghost of the past. Ask him what happened to the girl he last protected. Ask him why she is dead."
She stared at the words.
A knock at the door.
It was him.
Aleksandr.
"Something amiss?" he asked, searching her face.
She showed him the message on her phone.
A flicker crossed his face for a moment. Guilt? Anger? Pain?
He hid it fast.
"None of your concern," he said, rough.
"The girl? Did you love her?" she asked softly.
He winced. Looked away.
"I failed her," he finally said. "I vowed it'd never happen again."
Anastasia moved closer, placing her hand on his chest.
His heart beat faster.
"So, you guard me out of guilt?"
He met her eyes. "No. I guard you because I have no choice."
Their lips crashed together that time.
Not a mistake.
A storm.
A taste of what they shouldn't crave. A promise of what they couldn't resist.
He pulled back, breathless, at war with himself, then whispered,
"This will destroy us."
She whispered back, "Then let it be."