Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

T atyana woke again, but for the first time in weeks, she wasn’t cold and in pain. There was no dripping sound in the background. She was warm, and the sheets around her were tucked in tightly. The fabric soothed her skin, and the warm air in the room was thick and misty with water. Someone had washed her and braided her hair in a long plait down her back.

The walls around her were a soft green color, and the floor was smooth, dark oak that settled something inside her. There were no paintings hanging, but a verdant green mosaic was inlaid along one wall, depicting a starry sky over a forest.

Oleg. Somehow she had come to be in Oleg’s house. She knew it without a doubt.

There was no light save for a very low lamp in the corner with an amber bulb. It cast a gentle glow across the room and glinted against small mirrored tiles in the mosaic.

The bed she was lying on was soft, and somewhere in the distance, classical music played.

Despite the deliberately muted scene set for her, Tatyana’s throat was on fire.

“Tatyana?”

She heard his voice through the door like a whisper, and her body reacted immediately. She didn’t know how or why, but she felt needy and nearly desperate for him.

“Yes?” Her breasts were sensitive to the touch. She could feel her own arousal. Smell it.

What was this madness?

Had Oleg smelled every time she’d been aroused around him?

Her mind flooded with embarrassment, but part of her was only more turned on. She wanted him so badly, and she wanted him to know.

Oleg’s voice was gentle and even. “I have fresh blood for you. Open the door when you’re ready.”

He was her monster. Her protector. And without a doubt the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth, picturing the body of the dead man in the garden. “I can’t. I killed him.”

“There are no humans out here. Take a deep breath. Your sense of smell is stronger than a bloodhound’s now. Do you smell anyone?”

She inhaled deeply. Dust. Something green she couldn’t identify. The scent of linen coming from a cabinet near the door. She could smell the sea from a distance. A hint of pine from the air outside and lemon-and-eucalyptus soap in the bathroom. There were flowers somewhere close.

She breathed in Oleg’s scent and wanted to wrap his body around herself like a blanket. Cedar and smoke and a hint of the incense she remembered from her childhood Sundays in church. She wanted to touch him, wanted to fuck him. She wanted to sink her teeth into his body.

This could not be happening.

Tatyana rocked back and forth, hiding her face as her fangs grew long and painful in her mouth. “I don’t want this,” she whispered. “I don’t want any of this.”

“I have donated blood,” Oleg continued in the same soothing voice. “It’s fresh, but the longer you wait, the harder it will be to control yourself.”

Control. Right now she would do anything that would give her back a hint of control.

Tatyana lifted her chin, set her jaw, and winced as her fangs dug into her lower lip.

She wrapped the silk sheets around her body and walked to the door. It was heavy, wooden, and bolted with old-fashioned iron locks. It took her less effort than she imagined to turn the lock, and then she cracked the door open and peered outside.

Outside the bedroom was a cozy living area with a couch and double French doors that looked out over the terrace to a garden filled with white blooms. She could smell gardenia and jasmine in the air.

Oleg was sitting on a white couch reading a book, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. On the table in front of him was a large silver carafe, and Tatyana could smell the blood that it held.

Her eyes flashed toward him but settled on the blood.

“Take as much as you want.” He leaned forward and set his book down before he reached for the carafe but froze when a fierce snarl erupted from Tatyana’s throat.

She slapped a hand over her mouth, but Oleg raised his hands and sat back.

“Take it.” He nodded at the carafe. “Drink. You’ll feel more control after you’ve fed.”

With trembling hands, she knelt in front of the coffee table and grabbed for what looked like a silver coffee carafe, twisting open the top and bringing the vessel to her lips.

She poured the blood directly in her mouth, chugging past the thickness that coated her throat as the warm blood soothed the burning pain. She could feel it dripping down either side of her mouth, but she didn’t care.

It was heaven and heat and everything that she needed. It wasn’t the rancid, dead blood she’d smelled the night before but fresh, warm, and soothing. She felt as if she were swallowing life itself.

Oleg silently walked to a door, opened it, and brought her another carafe before she finished the first.

“In the first month of immortal life” —he kept his voice soft and clinical— “you will need roughly the equivalent of a human body’s worth of blood every night. That is not weakness or lack of discipline; that is physical necessity.”

As he spoke, she continued to drink.

“Your amnis is new and developing,” he continued. “Your body is burning through what is left of its human energy stores and food will no longer sustain you, though you will need to eat light meals so your stomach does not ache.”

Tatyana reached for the second carafe and opened it; this time her hands didn’t tremble. She was still kneeling on the floor, and Oleg walked over and grabbed a cushion from an armchair, setting it next to her.

“Relax. You’ll process what you’re drinking better if you relax.”

Silently, she sat on the cushion, pulling the sheet around her body and crossing her legs as she started to drink the second carafe of blood. It was hotter than the first and tasted better.

“You will drink two liters of blood when you wake in the evening. You will need to pace yourself.” He continued speaking as he sat back on the sofa. “Another liter halfway through the night or whenever you feel a craving again. Another two liters before you go to rest at dawn.”

She took it all in, his calm recitation that almost sounded like a doctor prescribing a course of treatment.

“You should not be around humans for several months. At least. All the human staff of this house have been sent away. Only vampires I trust are on the property.”

She looked at him, her eyes darting around the room, but she didn’t stop drinking.

“You’re at an old home of mine.” Oleg answered her unspoken question. “It’s some distance outside Sochi, in the middle of a forest. There are no houses around for five kilometers at least. That should be enough of a buffer to keep you contained.”

Five kilometers in every direction? Not even a hound could smell blood from that distance.

Oleg leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I am assuming that this was not done as a willing choice.”

She pulled the carafe from her lips and wiped her bloody mouth with the back of her hand. “Do you think I would ever want this?” Her voice was hoarse, nearly unrecognizable to her own ears.

Oleg silently handed her a linen kerchief from his pocket. “Ever? Perhaps. But not as it was done. It should never be done in anger.”

“Did you choose to become a vampire?”

“No.” Oleg shook his head. “But my sire never asked permission for such things. When I woke, I was enraged. And I was a fire vampire, so I killed a half dozen of my brothers on waking.”

“Was your sire angry?” A thread of something feral and sad and angry shot through her.

“No, he didn’t care about their loss. He was thrilled,” Oleg said. “He’d never sired a fire vampire before. He was pleased because I was dangerous.”

Was Tatyana enraged?

No. She didn’t know how she felt.

“You’re staring.” She looked at the floor. “Do I look so different now?”

“You look the same. Your eye color didn’t change.”

“Should it?”

“It’s not a rule. It only happens sometimes. I’m glad yours remained the same.”

So did Tatyana. She didn’t want a stranger’s eyes looking at her from the mirror.

She wiped her mouth, did what she could to clean up the blood that had dripped down her neck and onto her breasts, but there was too much. She was going to need a shower. “I didn’t want any of this, but…”

Oleg waited.

Tatyana met his steady gaze. “I didn’t want to die either.”

“Good.” Oleg’s voice was low and steady. “You’re wise for your age. I could see that the moment I met you. You’re a survivor. You will survive this. And if it is up to me, you will thrive.”

She took another long drink from the carafe, then rested it on the pillow she was sitting on, but she didn’t let go of it.

She was confused and angry, but she could think again. Her throat wasn’t on fire. “Why am I here?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know. Did Zara bring you here?”

“I don’t remember.” She shook her head. “I was knocked out after the car crash. Then… There are chunks of time that I remember, but I don’t recall anything more than flashes after Zara killed Elene.” A punch of anger and sadness as tears sprang to Tatyana’s eyes and her emotions swung wildly from pain to anger to longing. Her fingers gripped the carafe, and she heard glass crack as the vessel caved in. “She killed Elene in front of me.”

“Give it to me.” Oleg took the broken carafe from her hand and wrapped his hand around her clenched fist. “Take a deep breath and try to relax.”

She whispered, “I love her so much.”

“I’m sorry.” Pain leached through his voice. “I loved her too, but the only thing we can do now is find?—”

“Not Elene!” Tatyana started rocking again, her body shaking with an overflow of emotions like water spilling over the edge of a bowl. She felt everything and sensed everything at once.

Oleg kept his voice quiet. “Your emotions are intense right now. Your nervous system has been overloaded by your heightened senses, and your brain hasn’t had the time to process?—”

“I hate her!” she screamed, then slapped a hand over her mouth as a sob tore from her chest. “I hate Zara. I hate her. I want to kill her.”

Oleg’s voice was quiet and even. “Trust me when I say that I understand?—”

“And I love her.” Tatyana couldn’t stop the words even though she hated them. “I love her so much.”