Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four

O leg had cleared the covered furniture from the ballroom and taken everything to storage. Until he was ready to entertain again, this room would be used to train the newborn.

The expansive hall had marble tile floors and a large fountain set into the floor of the room with a water channel that ran out to the series of fountains in the garden outside.

Oleg was circling the fountain, and Tatyana was on the other side of the room, watching him with suspicion.

“Ideally,” he said, “your sire should be teaching you all this, but that’s not possible for obvious reasons. Mika is a water vampire though. When he gets back?—”

“Not him.”

She was wearing a pair of overly long leggings and a loose shirt with a sports bra underneath. They were the only things Oksana had that fit Tatyana. Until her clothes arrived from Odesa, it was the best they could do.

Tatyana crossed her arms under her breasts. “Are there other water vampires besides Mika who can help me? I don’t trust Mika.”

“That’s probably smart,” Oleg said. “He suggested that I kill you.”

Tatyana bared her fangs, and Oleg felt his cock stiffen.

His reaction to this woman was getting out of hand. He needed to fuck her. Soon.

“It’s nothing personal,” Oleg continued. “He’s thinking strategically, and you’re a possible asset for Zara. Right now all Mika can think about is killing Zara.”

“Why?”

Oleg had no qualms telling her Mika’s secrets when she already knew the man wanted to kill her. “He loved Elene. For decades. If she hadn’t been happy with her husband and family, he would have pursued her, but he had too much respect for her choices.”

Tatyana said nothing for a long time, but she eventually moved closer to Oleg. “I’m sorry about Elene. Zara was interrogating her, and Elene was trying to calm her down.”

“That never goes well,” Oleg muttered.

“She lost control. I think she just… snapped. I don’t think she meant to do it. Zara knocked her over and the fall?—”

“Her neck was broken. She would have died instantly.” Oleg closed his eyes. “At least there was that.”

“Yes.” Tatyana’s hands curled around her belly. “I think…” She frowned. “I think I was bleeding. I think Zara was trying to ask me questions and she kicked me and I was bleeding internally, but I have no real idea how I died.” She shook her head. “I don’t remember much after that.”

Oleg snapped his fingers and motioned to the fountain. “Come.”

Tatyana curled her lip. “I don’t like the snapping thing any more now than I did when I was alive.”

“You’re still alive, volchitsa. Your teeth are just sharper now.” He snapped again, enjoying the curl of her lip. “Like I said, a water vampire should be teaching you all this, but instead, you have me.”

“A fire vampire.” She walked to the fountain. “Your opposite.”

“Elements don’t work like that.” He snapped his fingers and brought a flame to his hand. “Ideally, they work in cooperation, not in conflict.”

Tatyana reached down, splashed a stream of water at Oleg’s hand, and doused his flame. “Except there’s that.”

He smiled. “There is that.” He shook off his hand and wiped the damp on his trousers, watching Tatyana’s eyes follow his hand to his thigh. Then her eyes drifted to his cock, which decided to stand at attention again now that she was admiring it.

“Do you want to learn about your amnis?” he asked. “Or do you want to fuck me? I am open to either option tonight.”

Her cheeks didn’t blush like they used to, but he could see the mortification in her expression.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be.”

Tatyana shook her head. “I can’t seem to control… anything. I’m not thinking clearly and my reaction to you is just?—”

“Normal.” He tried to make his voice as neutral as possible, even though the part of him that wanted her was tempted to crow in victory. “We were not indifferent to each other when you were human, Tatyana. Now you are immortal. All your appetites are ravenous with new power.” He snapped his fingers again. “For now pay attention.”

“Will you stop snapping at me?” She snarled. “I hate it.”

Oleg walked over to her, held his hand in front of her face, and snapped, sparking a tiny amount of static electricity that his amnis grabbed and fed until the flame was the size of Tatyana’s head.

“We may not have the same element,” he murmured, “but we both have amnis. You need to become aware of yours and learn how to control it.”

She crossed her arms over her chest again. “I don’t feel anything like that… snapping. Or sparking.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t.” She was getting angry. She was a newborn—even the slightest provocation could send her into a rage.

“It’s running under your skin right now.” He kept his voice calm. “It connects to the water in the air, even in your own body.”

He saw the water in the fountain begin to move, pulling toward Tatyana as her emotions heightened.

Oleg glanced at the water. “Do you feel it now?”

“I don’t?—”

“Don’t say think ,” he hissed. “Don’t think about it. Feel. Stop thinking like a human when you’re a vampire.”

“I don’t want to be a vampire!” She threw her arm out and the water in the fountain followed her motion, leaping from the pool and dashing him across the face as his flame went out.

Oleg grinned, and he knew his fangs were out. “Good.”

Tatyana looked at her hands, shaking her head. “I don’t know how I did that.”

“The water is drawn to you. It wants to obey you.”

“How?”

“Feel. It.” In the blink of an eye, he was in her face. The water had drenched him, and his shirt clung to his body. “You told me once that when I kissed you, it felt like champagne bubbles along your skin.”

Tatyana looked up, and her fangs were already long in her mouth. “I don’t remember that.”

“You’d been drinking.” He grabbed her chin, yanked her face up, and kissed her. Hard. “Then you insulted me and I left you alone.”

She pulled her head back. “Wait, I do remember that. How did I insult you?”

“Is this part of the plan?”

“Plan?”

“To catch Zara? To get your money. Why are you being… sweet?”

Her suspicion had hurt his feelings, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “You called me sweet. It was insulting.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t worry, I take it back.”

“Good. Do you feel your amnis?”

She looked down at her arms. “I feel… I don’t know. There’s a… buzzing under my skin. It itches.”

He looked at the fireplace on the far side of the room, reached his hand out, and pulled a thread of fire toward them.

“Oleg!”

“The water is right there.” He lifted his hand, slowly building the flames into a ring of fire that surrounded both of them.

“What are you doing?”

“If you don’t like it, put the fire out,” Oleg said. “Use the water.”

The flames grew and slowly sucked the air from the room. Oleg’s clothes, which had been drenched a moment before, were already bone-dry. Tatyana was looking in every direction at the flames that surrounded them.

“The water is right there, Tatyana.”

She was panicking. The flames were growing closer, and she jumped in the low pool of the fountain, her eyes locked on Oleg. “What are you doing?”

An alarm sounded somewhere in the distance.

“The water is right there,” he repeated. “Do you feel your amnis?”

“No!”

“Yes, you do.”

“Oleg!” She looked around the room cloaked in fire. “Stop! Please stop.”

He resisted the urge to give her what she wanted. There would be time to indulge her desires, but now he needed to teach her how to survive.

“The water is crawling up your body, Tatyana. Look down and think.”

The fountain surged as she began to panic. “I can’t think when you’re going to burn us alive!”

“We’re not going to burn because you’re going to use your amnis. Feel it underneath your skin. Pull the water like a silk sheet over your body.”

“Oleg,” she cried out. “Please!”

“Grab your amnis and use it!” He roared and lifted his arms, bringing the flames up as tall as the fountain, surrounding both of them in a wall of fire.

Tatyana screamed, but he felt her amnis snap into place as her instincts connected with her element, with the current that lived within her, with the water that leaped to her command.

She lifted her arms and threw her hands out, palms flat against his fire as if she were pushing it back. The water mimicked her, gushing from the base of the fountain in a singular wave that doused the ring of flames Oleg had called, chasing it away and drenching him, the ballroom, and everything around them in the process.

“You crazy bastard!” Tatyana screamed at him, charging toward him, soaked with water and crackling with amnis. “You fucking?—”

Oleg caught her around the waist and stopped her mouth with a kiss that bruised his mouth with its ferocity.

She snarled low in her throat, and her fangs cut his lip as she threw her arms around his neck, nearly climbing his body with preternatural desire.

He gripped her braid in one hand and angled her mouth to meet his. Oleg lifted her, gripping her ass and bringing the heat of her pussy to rub against his hard cock; when the bare skin of her hand touched his neck, the contact sizzled and steam enveloped them both.

He pulled her hair and tugged her mouth away, growling at the snap of her teeth as she nearly caught his mouth with her fangs.

“Good.” He set her down, ignoring the pain in his groin. “Now do it again.”