Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

We drove in whatever the version of a Russian Escalade was through the city—Moscow was a place I’d never been before, so my neck was craning, as much as my horns would let me. It’d snowed recently and the skies looked like they would keep it up so it would be a white Christmas, for anyone who celebrated.

“We’re heading to Khamovniki.” She said the word easily, like she’d been speaking Russian her whole life. “If Moscow is a chessboard, Khamovniki is where all the power players live between moves.”

As we got closer to our destination, I began to understand why. Unlike the chaotic wealth of central Moscow that we’d just driven through, Khamovniki offered its elite privacy—aristocratic homes, where secrets could stay hidden behind tall walls and iron fences.

The car stopped in front of an elegant multi-story home, with old world grace, and windows lit up warmly from within. Our driver had a short conversation with someone on the other side of a gate, and then it rolled open, allowing us entrance inside.

He parked as close to the home as he could, then got out and ran around to open up Satin’s door. She began talking to him, then tapped her bangle half-way through a sentence, and suddenly I could understand.

“…and keep the car warm enough that you don’t freeze,” she told the driver, kindly.

“Of course, Miss Satin,” the driver agreed.

I got my own door, and clambered out after her, giving the driver a companionable nod, before noticing that Satin was waiting.

“I try not to use my cane at formal events,” she explained. “Also, I’m in heels, and it’s so cold—there’s snow everywhere, isn’t there?”

“There is,” I said, coming up beside her. “And ice.” I offered my arm out, and then realized she couldn’t see it, so I reached down for her nearest small hand, picking it up to put it on my forearm, so she would have me to steady her, no matter the terrain. Her lips parted as her fingers reached my fur, playing into it, then she looked briefly down—I would’ve sworn I saw pink grace her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she said, shaking her head as if to regain her composure. I reached across myself to clasp my free hand down on hers, solely because I could.

“Twenty paces forward, and then there’s stairs. They’ve swept the snow away. Ready?” I asked her, then felt her hand squeeze my arm.

It sent a jolt of something primal straight through me. I wanted to bellow—and the second I had private time again, I would be taking out three more links on my chain, just in case.

“Of course,” she went on, and I began to lead her.

We made it inside the building easily, and people began recognizing Satin at once, chattering at her before the servants could even take her coat away.

“My dear! How long has it been? Your beauty is a bright light in a dark winter!”

“Beautiful dove, how are your exquisite fingers? Have you brought art to share?”

“Or news, of my commission?”

The voices came rapid-fire, the original Russian ringing in my ears before the translator chimed in with its quick, clipped phrasing. The words felt formal, more poetic than I was used to, as befit a language from another country. Satin handled it all with ease, tilting her head toward each speaker in turn, her posture unruffled, like she’d been born to this kind of attention.

“I’ve been well, thank you. The fingers are intact, and the art, as always, is a work in progress,” she replied, her voice polite but effortlessly warm. “I’ll send pictures of it tonight—my assistant has taken some for me. It feels—” She pulled her hand away from my arm, making a gesture in front of herself, her thumbs stroking across her fingertips like she was shaping something unseen. “Good. The marble sings to me. It will soon be complete.”

“I’m so glad to hear it!” the nearest man exclaimed, his voice booming with enthusiasm. He moved to slap her heartily on her back, and I stopped him without thinking, my hand clamping around his wrist before it made contact.

The room froze.

The man’s face registered shock, and I saw three others step forward, clearly his men, and my fingers twitched, ready for a fight, but Satin had seen nothing, and he chose not to comment on it.

“So who is this brutish beast you’ve brought inside my home?” he asked, staring me down.

Satin laughed like a wind chime. “Please ignore him Roskov. I just needed someone strong enough to carry me if I broke an ankle in the snow outside. But don’t mind him—he doesn’t understand a thing.”

“Hmmph,” the man complained. “I would be better at ignoring him, if you had a drink in your hand.”

“Then by all means,” Satin said, taking an alluring step closer to the man. “You should get me one.”

After that, I was basically tortured for the rest of the evening. People kept coming up to Satin, far too familiar, and far too close, and I could see it grating on her slowly as the night went on, people not announcing their presence in a timely fashion, instead surprising her over and over again. She hid it well, but I could see it in the way her knuckles went white around the flute of champagne she held—and I noticed she’d been milking just one drink, for most of the time.

Luckily for everyone else, being overly worried for her—and making sure that none of the people surrounding us were threats—meant I missed most of the insults directed at me. I heard more than one joke about the ‘club’ I must’ve been swinging between my legs, and how my balls were probably as big as a newborn calf’s head.

I mean, they weren’t wrong, but the comments were still rude.

But finally, things were winding down, and most of the remaining guests’ opinions on the night were tainted with enough alcohol to pickle a fish.

I had yet to see a Faberge egg on display, however—but then the man named Roskov started clinking a caviar spoon on the edge of his glass.

“Is it time?” a woman asked, giving him an indulgent smile and batting her eyes.

Thank God Satin had merely stayed polite with other party-goers tonight—if I’d seen her looking like that at another man I would’ve crawled out of my own skin if I had to, to murder him.

“It is!” he cheerfully announced, hoisting his glass up high, and continuing to clink it, as everyone followed him down one of his house’s many grand halls, before he waved his hands for everyone to stand back. Satin’s hand was on my arm again— where it belonged —but I angled myself in front of her, ready to take on all comers. “Beware the dogs!” Roskov shouted, and then laughed with his whole chest. “No—beware the lasers,” he went on, then turned, to do something with an electrical panel beside a door behind him and…

The entire back half of the hallway opened like a curtain, sliding either way, accordioning up, one aggressive clack of most-likely bullet and bomb-proof metal at a time.

Other party goers gasped, and I had to admit that I was impressed—and what it hid in the room beyond….

It was like a throne room’s worth of treasure.

In fact—I thought there really was a throne, somewhere beneath a collection of historical tapestries, under a chandelier seemingly made of diamonds. There were paintings on each wall that I was sure cost several fortunes, suits of armor no doubt worn by nefarious men, and an entire table with a place setting on it fit for a king.

“Well?” Satin asked, as the rest of the crowd moved past us, eager to inspect Roskov’s maximalist collection. “Is it as amazing as they say?”

I looked down, at her beautiful doll-like face, with her elegantly blindfolded eyes.

“I’ve seen prettier things.”

She bit her lips, and then quickly tugged me forward.

“Some of the Tsar’s finest China,” Roskov said, noticing me checking out the dinnerware—before remembering I shouldn’t be able to understand him. “Lovely Satin, please tell your brute why what he’s looking at is special.”

“It’s the dinnerware that survived Tsar Alexander II’s assassination attempt,” she told me, in English.

“And that none of the blood the servants had to scrub off of it was his,” Roskov went on in Russian, and then clicked his tongue to shout at a countryman. “Hey Andrei! I see you! Stop groping the case! I’ll open it in a minute!”

He huffed back through the room, and Satin nudged me after, so we followed him. She stayed close enough to me that she could mimic my movements, almost before I made them, but it was hard to maneuver—there wasn’t much space between the priceless objects of art.

I felt like a goat in a china shop.

But being beside Satin was worth it. Her hand on my arm was still thrilling—although the more I thought on her, the more my chain tugged. I cleared my throat to center myself quickly—I couldn’t put her life in danger because I was proverbially, and satyr-esquely, horny.

“All right, you heathens. Time for the main attraction,” Roskov said, standing in front of a solid black case, and waving everyone else present back. He used three different biometrics on it—spit, palm, and eye—before pulling out a final archaic key from a pocket inside his waistcoat, and with that, the case rocked back, allowing the priceless egg inside to be fully seen.

It looked like something someone had stolen from heaven. I was so stunned by its beauty it took me a moment to recognize that it was a scene from a perfect garden, at night—the top half of it was sapphire-blue enamel dotted with tiny diamond stars, and below that were delicate roses growing up, their petals carved from rubies so rich they looked wet, supported by thin veins of emerald green, mimicking vines wrapping tenderly around the egg’s curves.

And at the top, a small golden crown rested, encasing a perfectly round pearl—a perfect moon for a perfect evening.

“Oh,” Satin breathed into the sudden silence the egg’s reveal had caused. “May I, Roskov?”

“Of course, my winter rose. But you and only you. Everyone else here merely gets to feast with their eyes.”

Satin strode toward the sound of his voice, and I followed behind her. She held her hands out, and he put the egg in both of them.

“Turn around so we can see it!” one of the other partygoers shouted, and Satin did as she was told, cupping it against herself with one safe hand, while letting the other roam, feeling each individual element with her fingertips.

“It’s so lovely,” Satin whispered, holding it up to her face to press against her skin.

“Does it speak to you like your marble?” Roskov asked.

She nodded quietly. “Yes,” she whispered, as a tear appeared beneath her blindfold, to roll down her beautiful cheek. She made a soft, sad sound, and wiped underneath her blindfold, touching that tear against the crown. “It has affected me just like it always does, my general,” she said, reluctantly handing it back. “I could listen to it for a thousand days.”

The crowd murmured, enchanted by her emotion. Even I was momentarily caught, my mind spinning between wanting to protect her and wanting?—

Movement snapped me out of it. A man I didn’t recognize from the party earlier, near the edge of the crowd, his hand dipping into his coat. It wasn’t one of Roskov’s men—and I caught the shape of a gun.

I grabbed Satin and plunged her to the ground, egg and all, shoving her behind the throne. “Stay here,” I commanded, and then ran to fight, as other partygoers screamed.

His first shot went wide, his second landed—but too bad for him, satyr-hide was ridiculously tough, and the force of such a small caliber bullet was only like getting punched by a child.

“You fucked up,” I said, grabbing him by his throat, and yanking him to my full height. That was when another man tried to stab me—his knife was sharp, it did make it through my side. Not as deeply as he would’ve liked though—its serrated blade caught on a rib. “You, too,” I said, throwing the first man away like he was garbage, before leaning back and kicking the other, crushing his chest with the force of my hoof, sending him flying across the room.

By then Roskov’s men had caught up, quickly finishing the remaining three intruders.

“How did they get in here?” he angrily demanded.

All I cared about was that they were dead.

And—Satin.

I ran up to where I’d left her, and found her shaking behind the throne, her entire body curved around the egg. In my haste to protect her, I’d set her blindfold askew, and I thought I saw a glint of something behind it, before I offered her my hand.

Which she couldn’t see.

I knelt down in front of her. “You’re safe. I’m here.”

She cradled the egg in one arm and hastily straightened the line of fabric across her face.

“And…those men?” she asked, unable to call them assassins in mixed company.

I glanced behind me. “Done for.”

“Good,” she said, and then Roskov barged up.

“My dear!” he cried out—and then reached for the egg. “Are you all right?”

She relinquished it to him. “They must’ve been coming for it!” she exclaimed, with more spirit than she’d shown earlier in the evening.

“But you,” Roskov began, quickly inspecting his piece. “It’s not damaged a bit—you saved it!”

“Of course I did,” Satin said. She grabbed hold of the throne beside her, and used it to leverage herself up, which was good, because if it’d been up to me, I would’ve picked her up and ran her back into her car. “I would sooner die than let anyone hurt such a priceless piece.”

He set the egg back in its case then took her hands, one by one, and with tears in his eyes, he kissed them. “It is because of this that you are a true artist. But as for everything else that happened tonight—” he closed the case around the egg. “I will move it to my bank’s vault, immediately,” he told her, then looked past me, to the remaining crowd. “Is everyone all right?”

“No! You are out of caviar!” a brash friend of his shouted back, and Roskov laughed.

“You see?” Roskov said to me, then turned to Satin to translate. “Tell your friend that while we appreciate his services, that we, too, are used to danger—and we know how to put it in its place.” Before she could translate for him though, he shouted, “Ehh! I see you Ilya! Get that fork out of your pocket! I’ll be shaking down every one of you wealthy pricks before you leave my house, at this rate!”

“I will,” Satin promised, as I meaningfully took her hand and placed it again on my forearm.

“We’re leaving. Now.”

She didn’t argue, her fingers tightening around my arm as I led her out of the room.