Blood Ties and Hidden Lies

Unknown to me, until my seventeenth year, I was someone I never thought I could be. History lied, and said I couldn't exist. But being the ancestor of the ridiculed, hidden bastard child of Russian Royalty throws off everything that you ever planned for your life.

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, a supposedly childless duchess, was a very wanted woman.

Power, money, title, and a beauty which surpassed most attracted many suitors, and yes, she succumbed to one with sweet words and a reputation. A Russian soldier. Child before marriage, dead love in the war, for she lived in the time of World War 1, husbandless and childbearing, she hid her shame and sent the child away. Unfettered. She was later held in captivity and killed by a secret revolution organization, which still exist today.

Line after line of healthy boys carried the name, hunted and stalked, but never found. One of the boys, to escape, fled to America. The family name was "Americanized" and Nikolaevna became Lavena. The variation was kept until then.

Until me.

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St. Xenia's School for the Orthodox; 7:55 a.m. New York, New York

"I'm screwed!"

Alexander Lavena, idiot extraordinaire, was late to his first day of school. For the eleventh year in a row. Only this time it was high school. "Damn alarm clock. Damn summer party. Damn..." He hated everything in sight. Cursing, muttering, running as fast as he could, he reached the school gates with about a half minute to spare. Sprinting now, the former captain of a middle school track team, made it into the room and into the open desk next to his best friends as the bell rang. Relived to have made it on time, he calms down and turns to his friends.

"Sasha, Mika, how the hell are you guys never late?"

Unanimously, the duo reply, "Dude, we don't stay out until three."

"It wasn't three!"

"Four?"

"No!"

"Did you even fall asleep"

"Uh... for, um, about thirty minutes..."

"And there is your answer, genius."

Alexander grimaced."Okay, so, I'm not exactly the most responsible person... but I set my alarm! Doesn't it count for something?"

His friends start snickering.

"Guess not."

The teacher enters, class starts, and Alexander thinks it will be a normal day.

Hardly.