Privateer ~ Nikolai Lantsov

Chapter 17

I was running through the grand palace playing hide and seek with Nikolai. I found a small place by his room. I hid trying to quiet my breathing.

"Oh, Mia! Come out wherever you are." I heard Nikolai say tiptoeing, "not there. hmm."

I laugh quietly to myself.

"Boo!"

"AH!" I scream falling into him, "that wasn't funny!" I playfully hit his chest. Thirteen was a difficult time for me. Vasily had been chasing me around trying to get me to hang out with him, but I never let him.  So I always felt better when Nikolai was around.

"It was hilarious!" He smiled still laughing.

"Stop!" I laughed shoving him.

"Never," he put his arm around me as we walked around the castle.

"People might start to think we're dating if you do that, Nikolai."

"What's so bad about that?" he winked. I rolled my eyes laughing, "stop flirting. It's bad because your father would not allow it."

"My father is a grumpy old man he doesn't allow anything."

"Exactly. So why don't we walk around normally?"

"No."

"Nik."

"We aren't dating so why would my father have a problem?" he asked waiting for an answer but when he didn't get one he questioned the nickname I gave him, "Nik?"

"Mhm"

"You're going to call me Nik now?" He said a smile forming on his face.

"Or should I call you Nikolai the spider squealer like Dominik does?" I joke. His face went from happy to mad.

"That's not a cool nickname! I'll curse Dominik for putting the name into your head."

"Oh but it's so cool! You, the prince of Ravka, squeal at spiders!" I laugh.

"Shut up." He said embarrassed. We walked around a little more until he spoke, "oh! I just remembered I wanted to give you something."

"Nikolai what-"

"Here," he gave me a necklace. It was gorgeous it had a green jewel in the middle of the circle that was outlined with tiny white diamonds that was hanging on the necklace.

"It matches with your eyes. I saw my mom throwing it out and I asked her if I could have it" He laughed, "she said it was a piece of trash and that I could do whatever I wanted with it." The Queen was about to throw out something this beautiful. The necklace was so gorgeous I don't even know why she would throw it away.

"So you gave it to me?" I smile.

"Yeah. May I?" He asked motioning to my necklace to put it on me. I nodded and I turned around so he could put it on me.

He gently moved my hair out of the way so that it was on one side of my shoulders.

"There you go."

"Thank you, Nik. It's beautiful."

"It's even better when it's put on a beautiful girl," he flirted. I laugh at his attempt to flirt and ignore that he called me beautiful. Because I knew he didn't like me like that and I didn't want to be too attached to the boy that I couldn't be with.

That happened a while ago. My necklace was taken from Vasily. I knew that my necklace hung in Vasily's room at this moment and that irritated me but I had to forget about it. So I got back to what I was doing in the first place.

Searching Sturmhond's room.

I opened drawers looking for something that would explain his vagueness. He was constantly acting weird.

When I was done there was just a bunch of clothes on the floor that's when I spotted something on the floor covered by clothes. It looked like a corner of a picture but I couldn't quite see it. I got down on my knees slowly reaching for it when I heard the doorknob rattling. I forget about the picture and stand up quickly stuffing as many clothes back into the drawers.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Sturmhond questioned tapping the side table walking closer to me.

"I-"

"Ah, ah no talking. I know you think something's up with me sweetheart but I'm here to remind you. I'm here to work for the Darkling because he needed a ship. I helped him out. I'm not here to hurt you or steal the 'Sun Summoner.' So would you calm down and stop searching my room? You think you could do that?" He asked coming closer.

I nodded backing away from him because he was standing too close. He noticed I was uncomfortable and immediately backed away.

"I only came to check on you, but it looks like you're more than fine." He took something out of the room and left. I let out a breath and sit down on the bed.

Not even 2 minutes later I hear a knock at the door.

"Come in!" It was Genya. She looked like she had been crying but she brought my food. Handing it to me she sat next to me.

"What's wrong?" I ask her.

"N-nothing. Why would anything be wrong?" Such lies, her face was puffy and her eyes were red. She thought she could hide that from me?

"Genya don't lie to me."

"It's just that Alina is telling me that the Darkling is bad and all that. I don't want to believe her. I don't." she tried to hold back tears.

"It's true Gen."

"No. He saved me. He saved us. He took me away from the grand palace gave me a color worth something. He took me away from the King. He took you away from Vasily!"

"Genya- look past tha-"

"I won't! I won't," she said more weakly her voice breaking a bit, "enjoy your food." She got up and left the room leaving me to myself.

"Another day of fish," I whisper to myself, "I think I'm going to gag."

A/n: Sorry for the short chapter!! but thank you for reading, voting, and commenting!!! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and getting to see a little bit of her and Nikolai's past relationship.

Have you read the Percy Jackson books? if so who's your favorite character?