Lost with a Scot by Lauren Smith

Author:Lauren Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781956227222
Publisher: Lauren Smith

CHAPTER 11

Alexei and William stood in the center of the village of Vasler. Charred remains of homes and the slain bodies of village men filled the center of the square. There was no doubt that Yuri and the men he’d rallied to join him in his coup had done this. Alexei’s men moved from building to building, seeking any survivors. The acrid scent of smoke brought back all too vivid memories of finding his parents dead in their bed as their room was engulfed in flames.

Alexei pressed his palm to his chest, suddenly unable to breathe. William put a hand on his shoulder, holding him steady when he might have wavered.

“Is there no end to my uncle’s madness?” Alexei asked his friend. He knew that his uncle had always wanted to sit upon the throne, but had no claim, not as the son of the queen and her second husband. Yuri was half brother to Alexei’s father, they shared the same mother, the dowager queen but the royal blood ran down Alexei’s father’s side, leaving only Alexei and Anna with the right to the throne. The only relief Alexei had had since this nightmare began was his certainty that his sister was safe. He could feel it in his bones that she was not in danger. It was something they’d always shared since they’d been born. That connection between them, that sense of knowing the other’s feelings even when thousands of miles away. Thank God Anna wasn’t here to see the results of Yuri’s destruction.

Yuri had pressured Alexei’s father time and again to push Ruritania into the future, to industrialize and to build armed forces. He’d even spoken of hiring Prussian mercenaries until a proper Ruritanian army could be formed. Alexei’s father had always maintained good political relations with the neighboring nations and had never needed to arm the country’s citizens against an outside threat. No one could have foreseen that the threat would come from within.

Alexei would never understand what made a man think he could do such terrible things to innocent people—it could only be a madness of the mind and a blackness of the heart.

“It seems not,” William said, and then his voice pitched low with worry. “Alexei, I don’t see any women or children among the dead.”

“None?” Alexei stared at the ruins around them. “Do you think they were taken prisoner?”

William’s eyes were deeply shadowed. “We would have seen footprints leading them away. We’ve seen only the boots of soldiers and shoes of horses.”

“Then they have to be here. They . . .” Alexei didn’t finish. If they were here, they couldn’t be alive, or they would have been found by now.

“Search everywhere. Find them,” Alexei ordered with a desperation and fatalism that tore his heart from his chest.

No survivors were found.

“Alexei, you must see this,” one of Alexei’s men called to him. Alexei headed in the man’s direction and slowed to a stop before the ruins of a small church, where the man stood and pointed at the ruins.

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