Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

H ours later, Tatyana made it back to the hotel and stumbled into her room. She was exhausted and keyed up with numbers and spreadsheets dancing in her mind, but she dragged her pillows and blankets to the bay windows and curled in front of them, eager for sunlight even though the morning light would make it harder to sleep.

She dreamed about Oleg, and in her dream, fire danced over his naked flesh. He held her against a wall, licking down her body as her back arched in pleasure.

He was whispering things in a language she didn’t understand, and when he knelt in front of her and looked up, blood was dripping from his lips. Instead of making her afraid, it only aroused her more.

When Tatyana woke, she was sweaty and her hair was tangled.

What was happening to her?

“Vampire glamour,” she muttered.

Not for a second did she believe that Oleg wasn’t using his influence over her mind to seduce her.

She grabbed her phone from the charger and quickly navigated to the internet.

She searched “vampire glamour” and got various links to websites for popular shows, book series, and online games. She even got an ad for something called a “vampire glamour facial” and really didn’t want to know what that was.

Tatyana sighed. The problem with finding information about vampires was that they were fiction.

Except that they weren’t.

What was the other word Oleg had used?

Amnis .

She searched for “vampire amnis” and got absolutely nothing but random fan art, pop-culture wikis, and a few miscellaneous blog posts.

Whoever was doing online scrubbing for the vampire world, they were earning their money. There was very little information about any of it online, not even on conspiracy sites.

She searched “Wallace Conglomerate” and only got listings for a few Scottish tourism companies and one events company in New York. SMO’s listings she was intimately aware of because she’d searched it out when she was trying to get paid and there was nothing suspicious about it.

Fascinating.

So vampires like Oleg couldn’t use technology because they would short it out, but they clearly had people who knew how technology worked.

Yes, Tanya, like you.

What was she except an extension of Oleg now? She was finding his money for him and dangling herself as bait for him to catch his vampire daughter.

“What is my life now?” Tatyana stared out the window at the deep blue waters of the Black Sea.

The sea had always brought her comfort.

When she was a child, it was the place where she was happiest. She would run down the hill to the seaside every morning at her grandparents’ farm, spend all day with the kids from town, and hike back home when the sun went down, exhausted and grubby from a full day of sunshine and salty water.

In Sevastopol, her only comfort in leaving her old life was being back near the water after the urban sprawl of Kyiv. She loved the ocean and was always happier when it was in her sight.

But now when she looked at the depths spreading out before her, she wondered what was below the surface. The glistening waves danced in the sunlight, but beneath that light were vast depths she had never seen.

Water vampires.

Wind vampires.

Earth vampires.

And of course fire.

She thought she’d known about the world around her just like she’d known about the sea. But what she had known was only a thin skin along the surface of a depth so vast and dark she was beginning to think there was no way not to drown.

I have no plans to let Zara get her hands on you, Miss Vorona. You belong to me now, and I’m a very possessive vampire.

She was losing it, because a week ago, those words would have set off every alarm in her mind. Now? They seemed reassuring.

There was a friendly knock at her door, and she threw on a robe before she went to answer it, unsurprised to see a uniformed waiter rolling a breakfast cart into the room.

“Good morning, Miss Vorona,” the waiter said in English. “I’ve brought your usual breakfast, but is there anything else you’d like this morning?”

He set out trays of steaming eggs and sausages, a basket of French-style pastries, and a bowl of fruit.

She looked at the small mountain of food on the table, all of it for one person. “Does everyone eat in their room here?”

“Not at all, miss.” He glanced up. “There are two eating establishments at the Admiral—a restaurant on the mezzanine and a steak house on the fourteenth floor. And there is an excellent and exclusive nightclub on the roof. As a guest at the Admiral, your name will be on the list every night you stay here.”

“Huh.” She watched him clear the table and organize everything on the rolling cart. “And everyone here knows about vampires, right?”

The server blinked. “I… Well, it’s not something we speak about openly. We’re welcoming to all guests, Miss Vorona.”

“Right.” That was a yes, but keep your mouth shut, thank you. “I think I’ll take my meals at the restaurant starting tomorrow. Can you let Marina know?”

“Of course, Miss Vorona.” He looked slightly uncomfortable. “I will pass that along.”

“Thank you.” With that small step into independence—such as it was—Tatyana felt good enough to get up and face the day.

Elene was standing over her shoulder, looking at the computer screen where Tatyana and Grimace were typing. “And you trust this person named after a blue cartoon character?”

Tatyana pressed her lips together. “He’s actually named after a purple hamburger mascot, but yes.”

“Why is your online name Pigeon?”

“Because no one would guess it.” She really hated that Elene was standing over her, but she understood that she was going outside the secure and background-checked employee pool at SMO and Elene had reservations. “I promise he doesn’t know where I’m working or who I’m working with, but he’s the best at getting into secure servers, and that’s what we need to do. We need to access the account information and reset the access codes and passwords so we can?—”

“None of that will make any sense to me.” Elene cut her off. “I simply need to know that this purple person is not going to be able to get into our servers while he’s working on this project.”

“He won’t.” Tatyana couldn’t say he wouldn’t be able to. Grimace could get nearly anywhere, but she trusted that if she threw enough red meat at the boy, he wouldn’t be interested in a boring shipping conglomerate like SMO. “I’m giving him something far more fun with this project.”

She tapped out a message in the online shorthand that she suspected was completely foreign to Elene. “I’ve got the account numbers for three different banks where Zara moved money, backtracked from the mortgage payments for the London and New York properties. Now all Grimace has to do is hack in and reset those passwords and we’ll have access.”

“Good.” Elene patted the top of Tatyana’s chair. “But don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t answer the question.”

She looked up, her eyes wide and innocent. “What question?”

“Can this man get into our servers?”

Tatyana opened her mouth and hummed a little bit. “He can. I can’t think of a server he wouldn’t be able to access with enough time and attention. If he wanted to, but he won’t. It’s not enough of a challenge for him.”

“We have excellent firewalls.” Elene crossed her arms. “Are you saying?—”

“Every server has vulnerabilities,” Tatyana said. “Even the Pentagon has been compromised. What you don’t have is a sexy image, right?”

Elene narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Unless a hacker became obsessed with logistics in the Black Sea, SMO is not going to be a target. Maybe for finances, but that would be taking on the bank servers, and we don’t have access to them. The information that you deal in is simply” —she shrugged— “not very sexy for a hacker. Who cares about a Ukrainian shipping company?”

Elene smiled. “Excellent. We are safe by being boring. Don’t tell Oleg and Mika, but that’s perfect.”

“Okay, great.” She pinched her lips. “I won’t mention it to your boss.”

“He wouldn’t understand half of what you told me anyway. He’s a dinosaur when it comes to technology.”

“Aren’t all vampires?” She was typing with Grimace again, and he sent her a cat gif that made her smile. “They can’t even touch a phone.”

“There are devices now that they can use. They’re clumsy and slow, but they are available.”

“Why doesn’t Oleg have one?”

“He’s not interested.” Elene sat down in Tatyana’s other chair and stretched her arms over her head. “The last thing he wants is to be more available. Years ago he’d take me away to the citadel and we wouldn’t see a screen or hear a radio for a month. Sometimes more.”

Tatyana looked up. “What’s the citadel?”

“His castle. I thought he’d mentioned it. It’s his main residence for most of the year.”

“And you and he would go for work? What if you needed to call the office or…?” Tatyana looked up and saw Elene’s amused expression. “Or… not for work.”

Elene raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

Tatyana’s cheeks felt hot. “So work relationships are not foreign to him, I see.”

“They’re not particularly common either. When we were together, I was working for a rival organization.” Elene smiled. “You might say he seduced me away for his own purposes.”

“I see.”

Elene smiled. “He’s an excellent lover and an even better former lover. We’re good friends now. Oleg doesn’t have serious relationships with humans.”

Tatyana dropped her voice. “Can I ask a question?”

“You can ask.” Elene sat up straight. “I’ll decide if I want to answer after I hear it.”

“Oleg’s attitude toward Zara… Were they ever involved? Is that why she hates him so much?”

“Oh God no.” Elene wiped a hand over her face. “This is important to know, so it’s good you asked. Vampire sires and their blood children are never romantically involved. It’s as taboo as it is in human society. A relationship like that would be considered monstrously perverse.”

“I didn’t know,” Tatyana said. “I didn’t want to imply?—”

“If Oleg had ever turned me, his feelings would have immediately gone paternal. It’s a complicated bond, just like with mates, but it is intensely paternal.”

“Mates?” Tatyana frowned. “What are…? Someone mentioned a mate, but is that like a marriage? Kind of?”

“Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Mate relationships are different for everyone. Oleg’s was…” She fell silent. “It’s not my place to say.”

Wait, Oleg had a mate? Did that mean that her sexy and terrifying boss was the vampire equivalent of a widower?

Elena continued, “Vampire matings—hypothetically—can be formed for as many reasons as human marriages. And some are very much like a human marriage. Oksana and her mate Ludmila, for instance.”

“Oksana?” Tatyana thought the name sounded familiar, but Oleg wasn’t exactly introducing her to his friends and family.

“Oksana and Ludmila both work with Mika. If you see two very tall women who look like soldiers hanging around Mika, that’s probably them.”

“Okay.” Tatyana avoided Mika. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but the man felt dangerous.

“Some mates are affectionate and highly possessive. Many are political or business based. Some are friendly. Others are antagonistic even though the blood bond is there.”

Tatyana’s mind was whirling. “I guess relationships get complicated when people live for hundreds of years.”

Elene rolled her eyes. “Can you imagine? I adore my husband, but we’ve been together for over thirty years. I couldn’t put up with anyone for two hundred.”

A door slammed somewhere in the office, and someone shouted, “Elene!”

Stalking footsteps and Marta’s squeaked directions had Tatyana’s door flying open and Oleg storming in. He glanced at her, looked her up and down in a cold, raking stare, then turned to Elene.

“I need to take care of some business in Saint Petersburg,” he said, “and then I’ll be going to the citadel.”

“Understood.” She nodded. “Anything I need to know about?”

He glanced at Tatyana, then back at Elene. “I’ll call you with details when I know more.”

“Okay.” Elene shrugged. “Is Mika going with you?”

“Of course.” Oleg turned to Tatyana. “I will be calling you too.”

“Why?” She looked at Elene. “You don’t need to.”

“I will if I want to.” Oleg scowled. “If you don’t want to talk to me, don’t answer your phone.”

“Okay.” Tatyana didn’t know how to respond to that, and by the time she wrapped her brain around what Oleg was saying, he was gone, leaving the faint scent of smoky cedar in his wake.

“He seems fond of you.” Elene had that amused expression again. “This might be interesting.”