But it would be if the situation in Mecjoria wasn’t resolved soon; if Ivan took over. The late King Felix might have been petty and mean but he was as nothing when compared to the tyrant who might inherit the throne from him. With a violent effort, Ria controlled the shiver of reaction that threatened her composure. She hadn’t seen Alexei for ten years, but she had had close contact with his distant cousin Ivan in that time. And hadn’t enjoyed a moment of it. She’d watched Ivan grow from the sort of small boy who pulled wings off butterflies and kicked cats into a man whose volatile, mean-minded temper was usually only barely under control. He was aggressive, greedy, dangerous for the country—and now, she had learned to her horror, a danger to her personally as a result of her father’s machinations. And the only man between them and that possibility was Alexei. But she knew how much she was asking of him. Especially now, when she knew how he still felt about Mecjoria.
