Chapter 42

They had been back in Paris for two days, and Trajan couldn"t put off feeding any longer. Early in the night, Cerise met him in the garage downstairs, dressed in scrubs with a small satchel over her shoulder.

"Are you ready? I want to get this over with quickly," Trajan said, toying with his keys.

"Of course I"m ready. I"m gagging for a drink. Relax, Trajan. We"ll be back within the hour. I told Izrayl where we were going, and Yvan isn"t about to let anything happen to Anya. No matter how much you like playing human, you need to feed."

"Don"t lecture me, Cerise. Let"s get this over with so we can get back here where we are meant to be," he said, climbing into the driver"s side of a black sedan. It didn"t matter that common sense told him Anya would have a night eating and chatting with Yvan, Katya, and Izrayl. His overprotective side had kicked in a whole level after he had kissed her, and the fact that the Darkness had been onto Katya so quickly also put him on edge.

"Anya knows you need to feed too, Trajan, so don"t think you can shield her from it. For fuck's sake, she saw you kill Vasilli"s monster for herself. I don"t want to lecture you, but do yourself a favor and be as honest as you can with her. Human women are big on honesty."

Trajan rolled his eyes. "Because your experience with human women has been so extensive?"

"It"s been a lot more extensive than yours, pet. You should know Anya well enough by now to know she would handle honesty over you lying to try and protect her."

"Can we please not fight about this anymore?"

Cerise butted out her cigarette. "We aren"t fighting. We are discussing. What hospital?"

"The American. It"s closest." Cerise dug around in her bag and pulled out two ID tags. She clipped one onto the breast pocket of his jacket.

"I"ll meet you back out here in thirty minutes," Cerise said after they had parked. "Be a doll and send me down some freshies, would you? If you need me, I"ll be in the morgue looking gorgeous."

Trajan watched Cerise move off, efficient and smiling as if she was there legally. Despite their hospital IDs, Trajan never thought he had the acting skills to pull the deception off so successfully. He ducked into the men"s room and faded, his human form melting away until he was invisible to the human eyes and video cameras. Sometimes, he was spotted by someone attuned to the supernatural, but it didn"t happen often. Unanchored to a physical form was freedom itself. He languished in being his true self and not being bombarded by the needs of a human body.

Hospitals were the perfect hunting grounds for a thanatos. They were the gateways of life and death and could always provide what he needed. At times, Trajan never even had to feed properly because so much life force residue hung in the air, he could gather it to him like a magnet. Tonight, he haunted the corridors, the silvery strands of soul absorbing into him like he was taking small sips of fine wine.

The cancer ward was a place of slow suffering, and Trajan moved towards it, following the call of so many lives begging for release. The first person he saw was a woman that couldn"t have been much older than Anya, both of her breasts had been removed, and each breath was a struggle. Her pale blue eyes filled with tears as she sensed him move closer.

"Finally," she whispered through cracked lips.

Trajan pressed a kiss to her forehead and replied in the ancient language of the dead, "May you find your Elysium." Then as her shade surrendered, he drew it into his body and exploded with energy. Like a drug addict finally getting a fix, Trajan sighed in relief and ecstasy before moving on to the next set of rooms.

Cerise had tiedon a face mask in the morgue and was calmly looking through the folders of the recently deceased. She didn"t like to drink from just any old corpse. Clean body, clean mind applied to supernaturals as well as humans. If she wasn"t careful and put trash in her body, it had all sorts of repercussions. Sometimes she would get flashes of memory that didn"t belong to her and had strange cravings. She was never affected by such trivialities as a full keres, but being released from her servitude and having to maintain a human guise, the old rules had changed. She saw it as a parting "fuck you" from Eris because the goddess never liked to relinquish what belonged to her.

A man had come in after dying from a triple bypass, and with one look at the corpse, Cerise decided against it. The man was grossly obese, and she would be able to detect the thick, sticky taste of fat in his blood. She would also crave every crap food the man had put into his body, and her thighs didn"t need it either.

Cerise was just inserting a huge syringe into the heart of a twelve-year-old girl when two male orderlies pushed in a fresh cadaver.

"We have three more on the way down… Wait, who are you?" one of them asked. Cerise flashed them her ID tag.

"I"m on loan from the H?pital Saint-Vincent de Paul for the night," she answered confidently, pulling down her mask and smiling. "I"m Cerise."

They didn"t question her further but chatted politely and left to get the other bodies. Once they had gone, she quickly went back to work. She had ten minutes, and she really didn"t want to be there when they came back.

Yvan paced his rooms,trying to force his mind to be silent. The streets below him were filled with vehicles and light and so much noise despite the late hour. This era was nothing like his own, and Yvan didn"t think he would ever get used to it.

Earlier that day, Izrayl had shown him what television was, and it gave him such a fright he hadn"t been able to bring himself to turn it back on again. Izrayl, the prick, had laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.

On top of facing the confusing technology, Yvan had to deal with Anya and Trajan, snuggling on the couch. They had been so comfortable together that Yvan could barely stand to look at them.

Anya had told him that her heart was big enough for both of them. He wouldn"t be an asshole and not be happy for her. Anya deserved happiness wherever she could get it.

You know you only have yourself to blame. The firebird"s voice dripped with arrogance as it rolled through Yvan"s mind. If you hadn"t been so emotionally unaware that you were getting feelings for her, you could have prevented her from leaving your side at all.

"Please shut up. I have enough to think about without your input," Yvan muttered.

You know I am speaking the truth.

"You know nothing. It doesn"t matter anyway. Even Baba Zosia told me that she saw them together in her visions. It would"ve been pointless."

I am beginning to learn much about the human heart being inside of one. You didn"t even try."

"Just shut up!" Yvan shouted. Flames spurted out of his hands, and he hurried to shake them out. He sat down, breathing heavily once they were gone.

That is…new. The firebird didn"t sound nearly as confident. Yvan studied his hands. They weren"t burned, but he could still feel the tingling aftershock of the firebird"s power riding him.

"It"s something we have to get control of if it"s going to be useful," Yvan said, curiosity getting the better of him. Yvan held up his hands and focused on getting a small flame to burn in his palm.

Out of his three brothers, Yvan was the most average. Vasilli had his magic; Dimitri had his brute strength, and Yvan had to rely on his wits and swiftness to out-match them. Now he had magic and wasn"t sure what to do with it or how to control it. If he could learn how to harness it, he could better protect Anya and himself. He was still having nightmares about Vasilli"s vicious thorns killing her slowly and painfully while he stood there, unable to help her.

I find it interesting that you have nightmares over something that didn"t happen with the shamanitsa, but you don"t even dream of the death of your wife. I can feel the pain of her betrayal deep with you, prince. The grief.

Before the firebird had finished, Yvan was burning. Flames licked out from his skin as the magic reacted to his anger.

"Never speak of my wife again," Yvan hissed. The firebird didn"t have a chance to berate him as a different pulse of magic hit him in the chest, driving the air from his lungs and setting his nerves tingling. "What the hell was that?"

That was Anya"s power. Quickly, prince, before it"s too late!