She had finally managed to prick his calm exterior. "Are you implying my family conducted itself in an unfair manner, when your family began this vendetta?"

"Your uncle Yuri started it, by turning out to be a murderer. My father merely dispensed justice as it was deserved. But then your whole family turned out to be just like Yuri, didn't they?"

He didn't answer. With narrowed eyes he pulled out his dagger and stuck the gun in his belt. And Tanya finally felt her heart lodge in her throat as he started toward her. He was going to fight her fairly, she'd goaded him into that, but he was a man; and she might know how to wield a knife when it was in her hand, but she'd never had to use it on a man equally armed. Suddenly she knew how Alicia had felt just moments ago, and the feeling wasn't pleasant. To hell with being fair about this when her life was at stake.

She opened her mouth to scream, but never got it out. The door flew open first, and Stefan stood there, again entering without knocking, obviously, and already in a rage before he even noticed Ivan. But he couldn't help but notice him and, when Ivan whirled about, see plainly the knife in his fist.

What happened then was incredibly fast. Stefan hit Ivan in the face with what he was carrying, a pair of trousers, a trick he likely had learned from Tanya herself. The guards at his back came in next, but Stefan wasn't waiting for them to take care of the problem. He also had recognized Ivan, and while the man was reaching up to unblock his vision, Stefan lifted the gun from Ivan's belt and, without even hesitating, shot him.

Tanya merely watched as the guards toted Ivan out of there, but then she began to tremble, not because she had just witnessed the death of a man she had been having a conversation with — there had been at least seven deaths in The Seraglio that she had witnessed — but because the worry was over, and she had been much more frightened than she had realized.

"Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

She looked up at Stefan, surprised to find him holding her. "I'm fine — really." But a shudder passed through her, making him tighten his arms around her.

"How the devil did he get in here?" he wanted to know.

"The window."

"Tanya, it's over. You have no more enemies, and if you did have, I would kill them for you. I'll never let anything hurt you."

"I know that." She started to relax the tiniest bit, but she badly needed a distraction. "Why did you come in here?"

She felt him stiffen. She was going to get a distraction in a big way, she was afraid. And in fact, he let go of her to fetch the trousers he had hit Ivan with. She couldn't help but notice that his eyes were glowing when he came back with them.

"I go to dress for my wedding, and what does Sasha lay out for me to wear? These!"

"The wrong color, perhaps?" she asked, bemused.

"They are stained, Tanya."

"Oh, well, I can see why that might displease you, but—"

The trousers almost got shoved in her face as he growled, "With blood!"

She make a ticking sound with her tongue. "Sasha must be slipping. How could he have missed that?"

"He didn't miss it. He was making sure I didn't miss it." And then he said pointedly, and much more quietly, which should have given her clear warning, "You haven't asked whose blood it is, Tanya."

"Yours?"

"No."

"When you fought with Pavel—?"

"No. I haven't worn these trousers since we arrived in Danzig."

"Oh." And then her eyes rounded in perfect understanding, and she said, "Oh — well,

what are you so upset about? You said it didn't matter anymore."

"It didn't matter that you were not a virgin when I met you, but it damn well does matter that you were!"

Since his voice was going up again, Tanya thought it prudent to take a step back. "Now, you'll really have to explain that one to me, Stefan. I was under the impression, back then, that you objected to my not being a virtuous woman."

"You know exactly what I thought! And you never once tried to correct that mistake!"

"I beg to differ. I believe I told you, the morning we arrived in New Orleans, that I hadn't had any experience of men other than with you."

"And you laced that statement with enough sarcasm that I couldn't possibly believe it!"

She frowned then. This was their wedding day. Were they going to march down the aisle snapping at each other?

"Stefan, what are you really angry about? That I was a virgin, or that you didn't know it?"

"Neither... both..." He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair, and continued in a low grumble. "I am furious with myself."

She grinned. "Will wonders never cease."

"And you."

"I'd already guessed that."

"Every time you responded to me, Tanya, I thought it was because you were a whore and a long time without a man. And every single time it infuriated me, because I was so damn jealous of all those men you had known before me. But you let me, let me, slander you with the vilest of accusations, and you never said a word to defend yourself — that is, not one word that I could believe. Instead you admitted that what I thought was true. This you did at every opportunity—"

"No, only when you were particularly insulting." She shook her head at him. "You recognized the sarcasm when I said I was innocent. Couldn't you recognize it when I said I was not?"

"I was always angry enough to believe you at those times. But when I think of how easily you could have put my mind at ease—"

"How is that? How was I supposed to prove my innocence, except by giving myself to you? And when I did, it didn't prove anything, did it?"

He flushed at the reminder. "I have to ask your forgiveness for that, and for doubting you even last night, when you were finally sincere."

"No, you don't," she said gently and felt it was safe now to approach him. This she did, laying a hand on his scarred cheek. "What you said last night made up for everything, Stefan. You said my past no longer mattered, and that told me that you love me. You do love me, don't you?"

"More than I thought it possible to love anyone," he said with feeling. But there was still the slightest uncertainty lurking in his sherry-gold eyes, and she knew why when he added, "My scars really don't bother you?"

"Of course they do," she said flippantly just before she leaned upward and kissed each one of them. "They are so grossly grotesque, after all."

He grinned and wrapped his arms around her. "I suppose I will get used to that sarcastic wit of yours."

"You'd better. It will probably be around as long as I am, and you're stuck with me."

"If you can bear my ugly face, do you think you could also love me, even with my horrid temper and—"

"I just happen to like your horrid temper. It lands me in the nicest places. " He laughed, but she wasn't through. "Stefan, I swore I would never marry any man, that I would never put myself willingly in a position where a man could have so much control of my life. That I am very willing to marry you ought to tell you something."

"That you already love me?"

"Yes, you foolish man."

The joy in the smile that came to his lips made him so handsome just then, it nearly dazzled her. "I think we should get married, Tanya mine — if you are over your upset."

"What upset? You just try and keep me away from that church today, my Majesty."

"That's your Majesty," he corrected her.

Tanya just grinned. "I know. From now on, you're all mine."


The End