Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

“ W ho are these people?” Her mother was staring out the window at the car waiting in the lane. “You can’t stay in your own home? Even with all these guards? Mrs. Lipovsky was asking about them the other day, you know. She thinks you’re working for the mafia now.”

“Oh my God.” Tatyana was exhausted by her mother. She loved her, but she was exhausted. “I’m staying at Oleg’s house because I’m working and all the other people in the accounting department are staying there too.”

Which made it sound like there was a gaggle of people in Sevastopol when really it was only Tatyana and Elene.

Still, when her mother was like this, Tatyana couldn’t regret having an excuse to have some space.

“Tell me about the birds.” Tatyana glanced at the clock. She had ten more minutes before she would need to go, and she didn’t want to spend it listening to her mother complain. “How is Rex Harrison?”

“A champion, of course. I took him to the farm and he was back before I arrived.” Anna looked out the window again, her arms crossed over her chest. “These vurdulac?—”

“Vampires.” These were not the monstrous creatures from folktales. “Vampires, Mama.”

“Same thing.” Anna walked over and picked up the cat from the back of the sofa, putting Pushkin in her lap as she sat across from Tatyana. “Can they hear us?”

“Maybe.” There was at least one vampire guard out on the landing in back. “Probably.”

“So they’re monsters, but they’re” —she twisted her mouth— “ civilized monsters?”

“They’re people,” Tatyana said. “At least as far as I can tell.” She’d spent over a month observing the various types of immortals she’d run into at the Admiral. It was an interesting study.

“What do you mean they’re people? Of course they used to be people, but?—”

“I don’t know that becoming a vampire changes your character all that much.” Tatyana shrugged. “Except for the blood thing.”

The moment she said blood, she felt Oleg’s hot breath on her neck. His firm lips on her mouth.

Anna looked down at Pushkin, stroking his back as he purred. “You should go to church.”

“You don’t go to church.”

“No? I don’t work for vampires either.”

Tatyana couldn’t stop her smile. “I’ve watched them. They are mostly like normal people. There are bosses and employees. There are quiet, introverted vampires who keep to themselves. There are outlandish and generous ones who prefer human company more than that of other vampires. Water vampires are sneaky and always seem to be plotting silently. Earth vampires are loyal and friendly. Wind vampires are hard to judge. Of all of them, they seem the most strange to me.”

“And your boss?” Anna’s hand paused on the cat’s tail. “I see the way he looks at you.”

Tatyana felt her cheeks burn. She’d tried her best to forget the experience of Oleg “claiming” her in front of a hundred staring eyes, but she couldn’t forget it, and the thread of pleasure that shot through her blood whenever she remembered his lips filled her with shame.

He was a monster. He was her boss. No matter what he said or how determined he was, any kind of relationship with him would be a disaster.

“Fire vampires are something else,” Tatyana said. “They don’t fit into neat categories.”

“Fire vampires,” Anna muttered. “Working for a fire vampire sounds like a fast way to die.” For a moment Anna’s hand clutched the back of Pushkin’s neck and trembled. “Do you want to die, Tanya? Is that what this is about? Do you hate me so much?”

“It’s not about you.” That was enough; Tatyana stood. She couldn’t take any more of her mother’s selfishness. “I need to go.”

“You just got here.”

Pushkin gave a loud chirrup and leaped off Anna’s lap.

“I have to go.” She walked over and bent down, placing a kiss on Anna’s cheek. “I’ll call you if I have time before I go back to Odesa.”

“It must be nice,” Anna said, “to travel like that.” Her mother’s eyes lifted to the ceiling. “Like the birds. They can fly anywhere. They don’t know borders, do they?”

Tatyana’s anger cooled, and she saw her mother for the worried, trapped woman she was, bound by her own anxiety, unable to leave a home that brought her little pleasure because to give it up meant losing her daughter.

Anna was right. Her pampered birds had far more freedom than she did.

“I’ll try to come back,” Tatyana said, “before I leave the city.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“You didn’t stay with your mother long.” Oleg was paging through a magazine about race cars. “You had more time.”

“My mother is complicated.” Tatyana looked out the window as they sped out of the city and toward the outskirts of town, taking the road along the shoreline where vast estates were reserved for the rich and powerful. “You have a house here?”

He didn’t look up. “Yes.”

“Do you enjoy spending time in Sevastopol? It’s beautiful in the summer.”

“I can’t really sunbathe.” Oleg glanced at her. “Which steals some of the charm of the seaside.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Tatyana smiled a little bit. “So is it an instant ‘burst into flames’ kind of thing, because I’ve seen you on fire and you seem to handle it well.”

Oleg chuckled, and the sound warmed her belly.

“But that is my fire,” he said. “She belongs to me. The sun is the mother of humanity and has no love for those who feed on them.”

She glanced out the window at the rising moon. “So is the moon the mother of vampires?”

“No, but you’re going to meet the mother of vampires tomorrow night.”

Tatyana blinked. “What?”

“You’re going to meet the immortal Eve.” Oleg glanced at her. “Don’t worry. You won’t be alone.”

If Tatyana’s brain had been a computer, there would have been a spinning disk in her eyes. “Who is vampire Eve? What if I don’t want to meet her?”

In fact, Tatyana was fairly sure she did not want to meet vampire Eve. She had a vision of a naked woman wearing fig leaves and baring bloody fangs, even though she was certain she was wrong.

“Saba is the oldest known vampire on earth. She is tens of thousands of years old, and she comes from the Rift Valley in Ethiopia.” Oleg closed his magazine. “If Saba asks to meet with you, you meet with her.”

“Tens of thousands of years old?” Tatyana couldn’t imagine it.

“Probably. No one really knows.”

“Why would she want to meet me?”

“She doesn’t want to meet you.” Oleg set his magazine to the side, leaned his head back against the seat of the car, and closed his eyes. “She wants to meet me.”

“So why do I have to meet her?”

“Because you’re coming with me. Don’t worry; you won’t have to talk. In fact, I forbid it.”

“You forbid it?” What century did he come from?

The ninth century, Tanya, you know this already.

Tatyana tried to change the subject. “So the house we’re going to?—”

“I built it for my mate,” Oleg said. “Who is dead.”

Oleg’s driver glanced in the rearview mirror and quickly looked away.

“I’m sorry.” Tatyana scooted toward the window. “So a mate is like a husband or wife, right?”

“In human terms, yes.” Oleg kept his eyes closed. “But as I said, mine is dead. And she wouldn’t care if I had sex with you if she were alive.”

Well, that was a raft of information in three small sentences.

She’d known that he’d had a mate, but what did losing one do to a vampire? Did they mate for life? That was a cruel fate for an immortal.

But he also said his mate wouldn’t have cared if Oleg cheated on her.

That surprised Tatyana. Vampires seemed like the possessive sort. Then again, maybe male vampires were expected to keep mistresses like powerful human men. They had to drink from humans, didn’t they?

Tatyana already knew from the brief physical contact she and Oleg shared that he could make drinking from her neck intensely pleasurable.

“So you cheated on your wife,” Tatyana said, “and she didn’t care?”

He opened one eye, looked at Tatyana, then closed it again. “It’s not cheating if it’s not a secret.”

“Would you have cared if she had sex with someone else?”

“If you’re wondering whether I make a habit of sharing the women I have sex with, I do not. When you and I are lovers, you will not have relationships with any other men.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Hardly.”

The car turned right and paused at a set of wrought iron gates with a guardhouse next to it. Two men stepped from the shadows and started to pull open the door.

“Even mates can grow apart.” Oleg kept his head back, his eyes closed and his hands folded loosely on his lap, as if he were discussing the latest business trends in Japan and not immortal infidelity. “Luana thrived on novelty, so I indulged her.”

Tatyana tried not to think about it.

She didn’t follow gossip columns. She didn’t read internet news about actors or athletes. She was intensely uninterested in other people’s love lives because she had none of her own. It would be miserable to dwell on what she couldn’t have.

“As for you, once we are lovers, I would prefer you avoid any contact with other men, but I know that’s not practical. Family is acceptable. Business associates will be tolerated. Random friendships with human or vampire men will not be.”

“You arrogant?—”

“We’re here.” His eyes flew open as if he were one of her mother’s homing pigeons who had found his way home. “The human quarters are on the first floor. Pick whichever one you prefer. The others can wait until after you’ve chosen yours.”

“I don’t want preferential treatment.” There were at least half a dozen other mortal staff traveling with them. “I’m the most junior employee; I can go last.”

They were driving through an alley of arching palm trees, and the moon was at its apex, shining over the water with an eerie blue glow. Tatyana stared out of the window at the hidden luxury she never could have imagined was only a few short miles from where she’d grown up.

“If you don’t pick a room for yourself, volchitsa, I’ll put you in the locked closet attached to my day chamber.” Oleg smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s very spacious and has a washroom and a bath.”

Absolutely not.

The car came to a stop in front of a massive whitewashed mansion, and Tatyana pushed her door open before Seban or Oleg could open it for her. “I’ll pick something right now.”

They were sitting in a tavern on the outskirts of the city, a place where fishermen mingled with luxury-yacht owners and most people kept to themselves.

Tatyana was sitting at a table with Mika while the tall vampire named Oksana stood near the door, watching the tavern with sharp green eyes.

Oleg waited in a booth by himself, sipping a cup of tea and ignoring the pretty server who was trying to catch his attention.

The young woman was dressed in a low-cut V-neck top, and her breasts were nearly falling out of it. Her jeans were skintight, and Tatyana had the distinct urge to yank her hair and drag her out into the drizzly night.

“You’re possessive.”

She turned when she heard Mika speak. “What?”

The vampire was smiling a little bit. “You’re glaring at that server like she kicked your cat.”

Tatyana looked away and stared at the door. “When is this person coming?”

“Whenever she wants to,” Mika said. “She doesn’t answer to anyone.”

Tatyana glanced at the vampire, then looked away. She didn’t want him to think she was studying him even though she was. Mika Arakis was an utterly average-looking man. He was just handsome enough to wear a suit without looking awkward. Yet if she had put him in a fisherman’s sweater and work pants, he wouldn’t look out of place either.

He was tall but not taller than Oleg. His accent was vaguely Baltic but not strong. He had brown hair and blue eyes. His features were even and somewhat forgettable.

But those keen blue eyes saw everything in the tavern, and he communicated seamlessly with the humans and vampires who had come with them and filtered through the pub.

The fact that Oleg had asked Mika to sit with her probably grated on the man, but she was also grateful. It was hard to be a woman alone in a place like this.

Tatyana didn’t have a phone or a book with her, so she tried to make conversation. “How long have you worked for Oleg?”

“I don’t work for him.” Mika looked amused. “I am his boyar.”

“I don’t know what that means to vampires.”

Mika narrowed his eyes as if trying to decide if she was worthy of the information. “You don’t know much about history, do you?”

“I was a mathematics person.”

“A boyar was… is a title. The English would probably call it a duke or something like that. But we are the leaders of Oleg’s druzhina.”

She opened her mouth, but Mika kept speaking.

“And the druzhina is something like Oleg’s immortal army. Some carry blood relation to him. Brothers. Children. But most are simply very old, very loyal vampires who would follow Oleg into battle should he need us to do so.”

“Aren’t modern vampire battles fought through business?”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “Not always. And Oleg controls a great amount of territory. He keeps it together through his boyars.”

“Like you?”

“I am personally attached to him, but my own territory is nearer to Tartu in Estonia. Others oversee it in my absence.”

Tatyana was getting a better picture of this complicated world. “Is this vampire really the oldest vampire in the world?”

Mika was looking over her shoulder when he answered. “Maybe.”

“And does she have territories?” Tatyana glanced at Oksana by the door. “Does she have boyars of her own?”

He smiled. “I suppose she does. At one point this vampire and three others ruled most of Europe, Central Asia, and Africa. It was the age of vampire emperors, before humans became more advanced.”

“What happened? Why aren’t they still the emperors?”

Mika shrugged. “Maybe they became bored.”

“Bored?” Tatyana almost laughed. “Of being emperors?”

“Being a leader is a lot of work.” Mika glanced at Oleg, who was still sipping his tea and trying to look inconspicuous. “Particularly when you’re trying to rule vampires, who all think they’re minor gods.”

“Actually, you’re right. That sounds horrible.”

Mika smiled a little bit. “I think I don’t hate you.”

Tatyana picked up her tea, which had gone cold. “What a glowing compliment.”

“You’re welcome.”

Tatyana looked over at Oleg, who was still alone. “I would assume there are no vampire history books with her face in them.” Tatyana glanced at the bar, noticed the waitress sashaying away from Oleg’s table, then turned back to the door. “How will you know it’s her?”

“From what I have heard, there will be no question.” Mika glanced at her, then back over her shoulder at Oksana. “She is rumored to be very… other.”

“You blend in with humans well,” she said. “If I didn’t know about vampires, I’d never guess you were anything but a banker or something.”

He cracked a hint of a smile. “See? You can give glowing compliments too.”

“Isn’t blending in the goal?”

Mika stared at her. “You’re quite clever, aren’t you?”

“That’s why Zara hired me.”

“That’s why Oleg hired you too.”

“Let’s hope Oleg is smarter than Zara.”

Mika shrugged. “He is. Zara is reactionary. Oleg plans.”

“And he has me for bait.”

“You came to him.”

To get paid! She didn’t say it. Getting into an argument with Oleg’s boyar was as pointless as being annoyed at the server who was literally dangling her breasts in Oleg’s face as she placed a bottle of vodka on the table.

She turned her flushed cheeks away from his table. “You didn’t answer my question before: how long have you been Oleg’s boyar?”

“Long enough to know when he’s distracted.”

She looked at Mika. “Distracted?”

“Yes. You distract him. You should make your intentions more clear. If you’re interested in being his mistress, he will be very good to you. But if that is the case, I should kill Zara before she can kill you.”

“Wait, he’s really going to kill her?” Tatyana blinked. “You don’t kill someone for stealing.”

Mika looked amused. “What do you think she would do to someone who stole from her?”

Kill them. Knowing how unpredictable Zara could be, imagining her murdering someone for stealing anything was not a stretch.

“There are neutral spaces for vampires, aren’t there? Places like the Admiral?”

Mika cocked his head. “What are you getting at?”

“Aren’t there…” She tried to think of a better word but couldn’t. “Aren’t there vampire prisons? Of some kind? I mean, Oleg has basically trapped me. Couldn’t he do the same thing to Zara?”

“Oleg has allowed you a surprising amount of access and freedom. Too much freedom if you ask me, which he rarely does when it comes to women.” Mika lowered his voice. “And no. There are no vampire prisons.”

“So you’re just going to kill her?”

He was looking over her shoulder again. “She’s near.”

Tatyana’s heart leaped to her throat. “Zara?”

“Saba.” Mika narrowed his eyes. “Don’t say her name in front of her. Maybe don’t even think it.”

Tatyana whispered, “She can’t read my mind, can she?”

“I don’t know what this vampire can do.” He glanced at the door, then looked away and sucked in a breath. “Tatyana, don’t look.”

“Why?” She felt a tug of energy like a hand in her chest, wrapping around her lungs and drawing her attention to the woman in a black overcoat who was walking through the door. “Oh…” Her lungs heaved, and she closed her eyes. “Who is that?”

Whoever she was, she wasn’t human.

“It’s her ,” Mika whispered. “Don’t look.”

Tatyana didn’t look at Saba, but she did look at Oksana, who was frozen with her eyes locked on the woman walking toward Oleg.

Even the humans around the bar had fallen silent to observe the woman with a giant at her side.

She was small, shorter than Tatyana even, but her presence was massive.

Her skin was the color of ebony wood, and her large eyes took in everything around her as she scanned the tavern. Her lips were full and wide, her cheekbones set at a sharp angle drawn up from a pointed chin.

The man at her side—an immortal if Tatyana had ever seen one—looked like a statue of Poseidon, russet hair falling over his shoulders, and a heavy beard. He walked in long strides, but there was something soft about his energy that the woman didn’t have.

Saba’s energy was rumbling and precarious. Tatyana had the sensation of the earth moving beneath them as the woman walked across the room and sat across from Oleg with the giant at her side.

Mika said. “I don’t know the man with her.”

“That isn’t a man.”

“You’re not wrong.” Mika kept his eyes on the table. “I don’t want to look at her, but I can’t look away.” He swallowed hard, and his eyes took on a glassy sheen. He whispered something under his breath in a language Tatyana didn’t recognize.

“Mika.”

The vampire couldn’t look away from his boss. Saba had some kind of hold on every immortal in the room.

But while the vampires were enthralled by her power, the humans around them were vaguely intrigued but soon returned to their previous conversations.

“What is going on?” Tatyana lifted her foot under the table and slammed it down on Mika’s. “Stop it.”

The vampire curled his lip, baring his fangs at Tatyana before he blinked and seemed to wake up. “What kind of power does this vampire have?” he whispered. “I’ve never felt anything like her.”

“If she’s really…” Tatyana dropped her voice to a whisper, glancing over at Oleg and the two ancient vampires who were deep in conversation. “If she’s really vampire Eve, she’s like a mother to all of you. You’re all kind of… descended from her, right?”

Mika nodded slightly. “Yes.”

The vampire slowly began to look more like himself even though he continued to glance at the corner booth toward Saba and Oleg.

Tatyana tried to distract him. “How does that work anyway? Oleg said she’s an earth vampire. You’re a water vampire. He’s fire. How does an element choose a vampire?”

“We don’t choose.” Mika continued to stare at Saba as he spoke in hushed tones. “Amnis is inherited in the blood. Water vampire to water vampire. Earth to earth.”

“Fire to fire?” Tatyana could understand that. “So is Zara a fire vampire?”

“No. Fire vampires are…” He glanced at Tatyana, then looked over her shoulder again, clearly trying to avoid Saba’s magnetic energy. “I suppose it’s not a secret. Think of it as a recessive trait. Fire vampires can be born from any element, and they’re not very common.”

She frowned. “So if Oleg had a child?—”

“Vampires cannot father children,” Mika said. “Eliminate that thought immediately. You will never have children with him, Tatyana Vorona.”

She sat back, and her face was burning. “I wasn’t talking about babies . The last thing I want is to have Oleg’s?—”

“Oleg’s immortal children are earth vampires because his sire was an earth vampire.”

She frowned. “Zara’s not an earth vampire, is she?” The earth vampires she’d run into at the club had been the most human of all the immortals. They were friendly and seemed to like humans, far from Zara’s predatory attitude toward nearly everyone she crossed.

“No.” Mika was staring at the booth again. “Zara is a water vampire like me.”

“Then how?—”

“It’s complicated. Ask Oleg.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “They’re finished.”

Tatyana glanced over her shoulder and saw Saba holding Oleg’s hand.

The vampire had a familiar expression on her face. It was the face of a mother chiding her child.

And Oleg’s face was even paler than usual.

Moments later, her boss was striding toward the door, and Mika, Tatyana, and all the vampires in Oleg’s retinue were running to catch up.