Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

T atyana’s head was aching. Her whole body was aching. Her mind was woozy as she tried to understand what had happened. One moment she and Elene were watching Oleg’s guards ease into the intersection and the next…

Crash.

Grab them!

Voices coming from everywhere. An explosion and hands grabbing her from the crumpled car. Everything happened at once.

She’s no one! Elene had shouted. My secretary. Leave her alone!

More voices in a language she didn’t understand.

What was happening?

“Tatyana?”

Elene’s familiar voice cut through the haze and the pain. Why did her body ache so much? Everything had gone black. Where was she?

“Tatyana.” Elene’s voice again. “Are you awake?”

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Something was dripping in the background, like when a pipe burst in the bathroom. She’d woken to dripping, and she would never forget that sound.

Drip. Drip.

“Tatyana.” A soft hand on her face. “Try to wake up. You’ve been asleep for hours.”

Hours? It felt more like days.

Her eyes fluttered open, and sunlight streamed through a round window. The floor around her rocked.

“Where am I?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Bright.”

“You probably have a concussion.” Elene scooted over and tried to help her sit up. “I’m sure both of us do.”

Tatyana tried opening her eyes again and held a hand up to the glaring light that streamed in. “Can you turn it off?”

“It’s the sun.” Elene laughed bitterly. “It’s probably the only thing protecting us right now.”

Tatyana looked down at her clothes, but nothing made sense. She was wearing what looked like the overalls her grandfather used to wear when he was working on his tractor. “Where are my clothes?”

“They took them.” Elene propped her up and held Tatyana’s chin in her hands. “Look at me if you can. I want to check your eyes.”

Tatyana opened her eyes and looked at Elene, who had two black eyes and a bloody lip. “They beat you up?”

Elene shook her head. “That was the airbag. You look about the same, I think. We both had bloody noses. Blood all over our clothes. Cuts from the glass.” She plucked at the navy-blue coveralls that sagged on her. “That’s why they put us in these. I think our clothes were covered in blood. They probably don’t want the vampires to lose control.”

“Who is they?” She closed her eyes again. “My head hurts so much.”

“I’m sure it does.” Elene stroked her cheek. “I am so sorry, my dear. This is all my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was so determined…” She sighed. “It didn’t occur to me that she would have that many people working with her.”

“Her?” Terrifying realization dawned. “Zara has us. They were speaking Albanian.” She blinked. “Zara’s people took us.”

“I believe so.” Elene glanced at the window as the ground rocked again.

“Where are we?”

Elene was staring at the round window. “On a boat, but I don’t know where. I can’t see any shoreline. We’re probably heading south.”

It wasn’t a window. It was a porthole. She and Elene were sitting on a narrow bed in what looked like a small whitewashed cabin. Crew quarters maybe?

There were no sheets on the bed. No pillows or blankets or any signs of habitation. There was a small desk built into the wall with a metal toilet underneath it, but there was no chair. There was a single door with no window.

Elene was staring at the door, her face cut, her eyes bruised.

Nothing seemed right. Nothing made any sense. “Why would Zara kidnap me? I thought she’d just kill me.”

She’d been half expecting it for weeks.

Sometimes on the news, you would hear about a person who committed a horrible crime, but their friends and neighbors would say: Oh, we never would have thought! He was so quiet. She was so kind!

Not Zara. The moment Oleg had confirmed to Tatyana that Zara was a vampire, all she could think was: Yes. That makes sense.

And vampires hunted people. People were their prey. Like cows. Like deer in the forest. It was the natural order of things. A pigeon was never going to survive in a hawk’s world.

“Zara won’t kill us,” Elene said. “She wants her money. She wants her inheritance.”

Tatyana let out a long breath, and that hurt. Her entire body hurt, but letting out a breath really hurt. “What inheritance?”

“Her gold.” Elene shifted and winced as she did. “Her inheritance from Oleg. He moved it to Odesa last week to provoke her into action. He said it was taking too long for her to come out of hiding.”

“That was…” She grimaced. “That was actually my idea. I can’t believe he took my advice.”

“Well, it worked.” Elene looked around the small cabin. “It worked very well.”

Tatyana wanted to lie down and go to sleep again, but she didn’t want to die.

Which was unfortunate because she had a suspicion that she was definitely going to die. “You know, I’m really glad we took her money. At least when she kills us, I can die satisfied that she’ll spend eternity being poor. I’m poor, and it’s not fun.”

Wait. She wasn’t poor anymore.

“Your humor is grimmer than Oleg’s,” Elene muttered. “Maybe you two are a good match.”

It was a strange turn of conversation. Not that it mattered, because Tatyana was going to die. “Do you think Oleg will give my commission to my mother when I’m dead? That would be fair, right?”

Elene snapped at her. “We’re not going to die.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Tatyana grew up on a farm. She knew how the natural order worked.

The hawk ate the pigeon.

The fox ate the hawk.

The human ate the chicken.

And the vampire ate the human.

Her head was starting to swim again. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

“She doesn’t want to kill us. Tatyana, stay awake. She won’t kill us. She’s going to use us as leverage to get her gold. She knows Oleg will want us back.”

“You? Maybe.” She wiggled her finger like a teacher chiding a student. “But I’m the bait, remember? The bait doesn’t usually survive the trap. That’s the whole point of being bait.”

Whatever Elene said, it drifted away as Tatyana fell back into darkness.