~Anastasia
~
Sitting on a horse-drawn sled with Trotsky, I could feel the freezing wind riffle through the layers of my coat. I took a gulp of whiskey from a flask handed over to me by the General. The heat from the drink burned away the coldness in my empty stomach. Lyra didn't come with me since they had a protocol for outsiders. I guessed they figured that it was for safety reason.
Beside us were a dozen hunters riding on their high horses and sleds pulled by Siberian Huskies. Several motor-skis led the way. We got out of the mountain castle and back towards the Cossack camp. Trotsky wanted to familiarize me with the lives of his army—to get both the hunters and the Cossacks to trust me, I had to be a part of them.
A few feet ahead of us were the Alpha and the Beta. I had been stari
