Reign: A Royal Military Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

each time, and it isn’t as if I can correct a guest’s manners at this formal dinner.
    I eat my first course and make small talk with Yelena, who is telling me a charming story about a time when she went fishing with her father as a child. I’ve heard it before, more than once, but I don’t tell her that.
    That course is cleared and the next laid down. Our vodka glasses are refilled. Hazel watches hers like she’s concentrating very, very hard, then thanks the waiter for doing his job. Americans.
    My father holds up his glass.
    “To the sunset over the sea,” he says, a traditional Svelorian toast.
    I try to make Hazel look at me, as if I can tell her just take a sip . She doesn’t, her eyes just skipping past me like I’m not even there.
    “ Nah zdrovya, ” everyone says again, and then we drink, Hazel tossing hers back just like a man.
    “The American girl is getting drunk,” Yelena says to me, quietly, in Russian.
    “She doesn’t know better,” I murmur.
    “She should learn,” Yelena says.
    Hazel flushes a brighter pink and continues avoiding my eyes.

5
    Hazel
    T he table is starting to wobble in front of me as we begin the next course. This one is grape leaves stuffed with some sort of spiced rice. It’s very good, or at least it would be if I weren’t quickly getting hammered just to be polite.
    Is this going to be what my whole month is like? I wonder, very carefully cutting a slice and lifting it to my mouth.
    I make it. Success!
    It’s not like I’m a teetotaler. Fuck no. I went through a bottle of whiskey in a week after the shit hit the fan and I dropped out of school, but I’m a total lightweight.
    Sveloria might be the death of me , I think. I successfully get another forkful into my mouth, and I just hope that I don’t look like a barbarian eating. I don’t want my head to end up on a spike.
    The way Kostya keeps glaring at me, it’s starting to feel like that might be my fate. I’m not even doing anything, just trying my hardest to fit in here, be polite and demure, and not fuck anything up.
    Partway through the course, my father leans over to me and speaks in a low voice.
    “Your mother wants me to tell you it’s perfectly polite to sip the vodka, particularly for women,” he says.
    I look at my empty glass, then glance at the queen’s glass. Mostly full. Yelena’s glass is also mostly full, as are all the other women’s glasses at the table.
    Fuck , I think. How was I supposed to know this was gendered?
    I nod once.
    “Thank you,” I say.
    “Hang in there,” he says, then leans away again. His face is beginning to flush pink.
    I take a deep breath and keep eating. I make as much polite conversation as I can with the middle-aged man on my other side, but he’s much more interested in the other people, and that’s fine. I’m just trying to keep my shit together over here.
    They clear plates. They fill glasses, and this time I watch the clear liquid fill the little glass triumphantly.
    Not today, motherfucker , I think at the vodka. Not today.
    The king raises his glass.
    “To the grass in the fields,” I think he says. I mutter nah, froyo , and take the tiniest possible sip of vodka, then put the glass down.
    Across the table, Kostya is still staring at me. Glaring at me. Stare-glaring.
    There’s probably a word for that in Russian , I think. Or they don’t have a word for “looking,” only “stare-glaring .”
    I look away first, because I know I’m not handling myself well, and I know he disapproves of me. Plus, I can feel my Asian glow out in full force, so I’m bright pink.
    But I’ve cracked the secret to not getting super drunk at this formal dinner, and it’s gonna be fine. From here on out I can only get less drunk.
    The waiter puts a very small bowl of soup in front of me. The second the steam hits my nose, I know it’s got kidney in it.
    I cannot stand the smell of kidney, even sober, and my stomach lurches.
    I take a deep breath through my mouth and