by Tessa Bailey
He’d barely managed to strip off his shirt and kick his shoes into the closet when there was a knock on the door. His abdomen knit with immediate hunger, hope kindling in his chest. Was it Roksana? Did she decide tomorrow was too long to wait?
Please, please for the love of everything holy, let that be the case.
It had to be. She was the only one who knew his room number.
He hadn’t even told his teammates.
That marked the first time in Elias’s life he opened a door without looking through the peephole first—and he would pay for it.
Dearly.
CHAPTER FOUR
Moscow
Four days later
With a woeful wail trapped in her raw throat, Roksana burst through the front door of her mother’s home, her weak legs landing her on hands and knees in seconds. She crawled, fingers nothing but pale claws on the carpeted floor. “Mother!” she cried out, her voice ravaged from screams, her eyes blind. Except for the images that wouldn’t stop bludgeoning her. “Mother. Mother.”
A woman’s outline appeared in the darkness and made no move to turn on the light. “Yes? Roksana, is that you?”
“They’re dead! They’re all dead. Kira, Olga…all of my friends. Murdered.” Sobs wracking her body, she clawed her way across the floor, collapsing at her mother’s feet and curling in on herself like an infant, no way to stop the agony. No way to lessen the burn of sorrow. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I called from the police station, the airport…”
“I was on a hunt, daughter, and only just returned,” Inessa said, as if that should be obvious. “Murdered by who?”
“Vampires,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Why were they there?”
“The undead are everywhere, Roksana. I’ve been telling you this since birth.”
“But they j-just walked in off the busy street a-and—”
“Yes. And have you seen anything about it on the news?”
Television was a foreign concept to her grief-addled mind. The last time she’d watched anything on television could have been a year ago or an hour ago. All that existed inside of her was wild, untenable anguish. It took a club to her stomach, her lungs, her brain. There was too much of it. Any second now she would explode, her woe splattering on the walls, and there would be relief in that.
She welcomed death.
“No, I haven’t seen anything on the news. I don’t think…”
“Do you doubt me now? Do you doubt that this happens all the time and humans aren’t safe as long as those abominations walk the earth?”
“No,” she hiccupped. A worm of pain wiggled between her ribs and she started to shake, blood, screams, expressions of death and shock on her friends’ beautiful faces painting themselves on the backs of her eyelids. “It was my fault. I told him. I told him where we’d be…”
“Who do you speak of?” Inessa asked sharply.
“A man,” she whined, rolling over and screaming into the carpet, guilt bombarding her from every side. Guilt and loss, even for Elias. Even after what he’d done, her heart was nothing but shards, his initials engraved in every single one. How dare she feel anything but hatred for him? How could this have happened?
“A man.” Inessa patted her on the head. “No more explanation is needed.”
“At least, he was a man when I met him…” Roksana said uselessly.
Her mother was silent for long moments. “Let me guess. He approached you.”
“Yes.”
Inessa laughed. “Some people are desperate for eternal life, Roksana. They’ll stop at nothing to get it, even if it means relinquishing their humanity. Slayers might operate in the darkness, but occasionally someone does enough homework to get close. Your mother is the Queen of Shadows, in case you’ve forgotten. My position puts us at the highest risk for visibility. It’s why vampires have always lurked in your midst and I brought you to graveyards instead of playgrounds, to learn our trade. This man you met must have known you would attract those that could give him what he wanted.”
Could that be true? Elias showed interest in her merely to attract vampires?
To appeal to them for eternal life?
Something about that didn’t sit right, but her instincts were clearly unreliable. She’d only felt the briefest of tingles before the slaughter took place. Oh God, she’d done this. All of this was on her shoulders. If she’d just followed in her mother’s footsteps, instead of wandering down a selfish path, she wouldn’t have endangered her friends.
She wouldn’t feel as if her chest was being sawed open every time she thought of Elias.
“I can’t live with this.” She dry heaved, rocking back and forth on the carpet. “I can’t breathe. I can’t live. They’re all gone!”
“You will live.” Her mother’s words were more command than comfort. “We will channel this pain into something extraordinary, daughter. To lay down and die would be smiting your friends even more than you already have. Is that your plan? To let their murders go unavenged?”
“No.” Tears leaked from Roksana’s eyes like a faucet. “I don’t know,” she managed. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t even think.”
“Because you’ve become weak. Easy prey.” On the heels of the ache caused by her mother’s statement, Roksana was shocked into silence when her mother knelt down, cradling Roksana to her chest, her hand roaming comfortingly down her daughter’s back. When was the last time her mother had hugged her? Had she ever? It was like a dose of morphine after an amputation and she swayed into the embrace, warmth stealing through her limbs. “You are forgiven for going astray. You are back now and I can make you strong. I can show you how to find purpose. You and me, daughter. We will get through this together.”
Together.
Roksana’s eyelids fluttered under the inundation of comfort.
Oh, the bliss of being held. Cradled. Accepted where she never had been before.
Yes, yes she would trust in her mother. The only person she had left. The only person on the planet that knew her at all was right here and…and she would avenge her friends. To do anything else would be dishonorable.
“Make me strong, Mother,” she whispered, hope suturing despair in her chest. “Make me the strongest.”
Coney Island
Present Day
Roksana trailed a fingertip along the perimeter wall of the rooftop, a breath of nighttime wind lifting the hair away from her neck. Stars were pinpricks in the black sky and down below on earth, apartment building windows glowed, a Ferris wheel turning slowly in the distance. The faintest sound of carnival music floated along the breeze, along with muted laughter and the scent of buttered popcorn and ocean salt.
The tingle at the back of her neck was in overdrive, but that was no surprise, since—in her infinite wisdom—she’d accepted an invitation to a vampire wedding.
Are you a guest if no one knows you’re here?
Keeping her position among the shadows, far removed from the jovial glow of the wedding about to take place, Roksana reached down and felt for the sharp, wooden stakes strapped to her leg. The outline of them was visible through the bold orange-red of her gown. She didn’t go anywhere without her weapons anymore and their presence would undoubtedly be noticed and unappreciated.
Good.
Killing bloodsuckers was her job. She was friend to no vampire.
Except for a few, damn them.
Roksana whirled back around with a curse and leaned on her bent elbows, staring out at Coney Island without really seeing it. What are you doing here?
She could answer that question in the form of lies. Or she could be honest with herself.
Lie: she merely wanted to wish her good friend, Ginny, a happy wedding day.
Fine, that wasn’t a total lie. She hadn’t made a real friend since that nightmarish evening in Vegas three years ago. And God knows she’d been reluctant to form a bond with the human she’d been asked to
protect, but the guileless mortician had crept under her skin. So yes, she wanted to see Ginny marry her mate, Jonas, the new vampire king.
A lot more had gone into Roksana’s decision to detour into Brooklyn on her way to JFK Airport tonight, however.
Truth: she couldn’t stop herself from seeing Elias one last time.
One last time. A memory to carry her through the trial to come.
The mere whisper of his name within her mind caused her fingers to tremble.
The tingling at the back of her neck was courtesy of the forty vampires sitting in neat rows just beyond the shadows. But the twisting ache in her stomach was all for him.
Elias.
The man who’d smashed her life to pieces with a sledgehammer.
Enough thinking. She needed to get this over with.
Roksana pushed off the wall and smoothed her hands down the soft silk of her dress. She might have been more confident in leather and boots, but Ginny had personally made her the dress and for some stupid reason, she didn’t mind seeing the girl smile.
You are weak. That’s why.
You pander to those you have sworn to kill.
Roksana’s breath released on a shudder and finally, she stepped into the light. Just ahead, Ginny waited by herself behind a decorative screen, flowers clutched tightly in her hands. Preparing to walk down the aisle and greet her destiny. What must that be like? To know that no matter what happened, one person would remain steadfast beside her through all of it? A person who had passed all tests and earned absolute trust, instead of putting her heart through a meat grinder?
“Must be very nice, indeed,” Roksana murmured, passing along the back of the waiting crowd, her gaze straying unerringly to the dark head in the front row. Through the jacket of Elias’s suit, his strong shoulder blades tightened, letting Roksana know he was aware of her presence. She gave it a minute or less before he approached. She and Elias being drawn back into one another’s orbit, time and time again, had proven inevitable.
Tonight would be no exception.
But it would be the last time.
Nearly to Ginny now, Roksana staunchly ignored the yawning pit in her stomach, throwing back her shoulders and putting some swagger in her walk. “Easy there, tiger,” she drawled, noticing the way Ginny peeked from behind the screen, undressing her soon-to-be husband with her eyes. “You’ll give new meaning to the term ‘blushing bride.’”
“Roksana?” Ginny breathed, whirling around to face Roksana, her skin several shades paler than it had once been. “You’re wearing the dress I made you.”
“I am.” Roksana pinched the hem of the crimson skirt and raised it, showing off her arsenal of wooden stakes. “Very convenient for hiding weapons.”
That got a laugh from the mortician-turned-vampire queen and it set loose warmth in Roksana’s chest. “Are you going to complain if I hug you?”
Roksana sniffed. “I’ll endure it on your wedding day. Even though you’re a bloodsucker now.”
The force of Ginny’s embrace caught Roksana off-guard. It was…nice, she guessed. And anyway, what choice did she have but to return it? “I guess this means you’ll have to slaughter me now,” Ginny whispered in her ear.
“Yes.” Roksana blinked away the moisture in her eyes, giving the answer she always did when asked when she’d finally visit death on the vampires she’d been tasked with killing. “Tomorrow.”
Ginny stepped back, a serious expression on her face. “Walk me down the aisle?”
Roksana scoffed, but her throat was suddenly two times too small. “You want a slayer to walk you down the aisle at a vampire wedding?”
“Yes. Please?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but the words remained trapped. Choked off. Electricity surfed over her skin and she knew without turning that Elias was behind her. Taking up more space than anyone else in the universe. A dark, sexy, traitorous planet that she couldn’t seem to stop circling in her spaceship. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, she wanted to turn around and scream at him. She wanted to beat his chest with her fists. Or better yet, remove one of the stakes from beneath her dress and drive it into his cold, dead heart.
Thus far, she’d been unable to do it, though her chances had been many.
Weak. You are weak.
“The king grows impatient for his bride,” Elias said, vibrating every hair follicle on her body. She turned, catching him in the act of raking her with hungry eyes. “You’re here. In a dress.” The scar bisecting his mouth turned white, anger igniting his deep brown eyes. “Where the hell have you been?”
It was almost impossible to hear over the wild rapping of her heart—and she hated knowing he could hear every single beat. “Wherever I want to be.”
“You…” A muscle worked in his cheek. “You left my credit card behind on purpose so I couldn’t track you.”
“Get used to it.” Her attempt at flippancy came out sounding breathless. “I’m leaving as soon as I walk Ginny down the aisle.”
Frowning, he stepped into her space. “Where are you going?”
Do not show him your fear. “Russia. I’ve been called back and rightly so.”
Elias choked a sound, a wealth of knowledge written on his face. Oh yes. He knew what awaited her there. But she refused to entertain the possibility that he gave a damn. That possibility would give her hope, and as soon as she stepped off the plane in her home country, hope would cease to exist.
“Yes. It’s…been real.” Unable to bear his presence any longer without letting her emotions get the better of her, she stepped past Elias and hooked her arm through Ginny’s. “Shall we?”
The two women—one human, one vampire—moved from behind the screen and stepped onto a white runner strewn with flower petals. At the altar, Jonas Cantrell waited, his never-flagging intensity riveted on his bride. Recalling the romantic turmoil of those first couple of weeks between Jonas and Ginny, Roksana couldn’t help but crack a small smile at where they’d ultimately landed.
Jonas met Ginny when he’d shown up on her embalming table, a victim of a prank. Humans were forbidden from having any knowledge of vampires, so he’d been seconds from erasing her memory when she’d informed him her life was in danger.
With no choice but to leave her memories intact so she’d trust him to watch over her, he’d enlisted Roksana’s help as a bodyguard.
Now Ginny’s funeral home was a halfway house for freshly Silenced vampires.
Yes, things had certainly changed since Ginny and Jonas found each other. Vampires had once lived by three very important rules and were killed for violating them:
1. No relationships with humans
2. No drinking from humans
3. No taking of human lives
Jonas had cleanly broken the first two before ascending to the vampire throne, however, and now consequences for breaking the rules were meted out in a more compassionate and understanding manner, especially for new vampires, though they still stood.
Roksana felt as if her heart might break now, knowing she’d never see Ginny or Jonas or Tucker, the wise-cracking, Uber driving vampire ever again, but she would do it all over in a heartbeat. She’d even miss the vampires currently recoiling over having a slayer in their presence. They knew better than to utter a single negative word to her. She’d been marked off limits by Elias, no doubt because he wanted to kill her himself one day.
Part of Roksana wished he would.
Then she wouldn’t have to live with the shame of failure.
I came here to kill vampires and became their pal, instead.
She’d become the pathetic girl who couldn’t stay away from a man who doesn’t have the capacity for love, all because they’d shared one magical evening, before everything fell apart. For that, she would return home a disgrace and accept her punishment.
Possibly even her death.
They only made it halfway down the aisle when Ginny handed Roksana the bouquet and ran toward her king, throwing herself i
nto his waiting arms. Roksana absorbed the sight of such beauty. Holding it tight to her breast and offering thanks to whoever was listening that she got to be a part of it.
And she couldn’t help but offer up a silent tribute to a wedding that never got to take place like this one.
Taking one last, longing glance, she turned and walked back up the aisle, not stopping to acknowledge anyone or anything. Just going, going, gone—
Elias blocked her from entering the stairwell. “Not so fast.”
Her pulse tripled and she tried desperately not to show it. As if he couldn’t hear every little punch inside her veins, every shallow breath in and out of her mouth. Bastard. “Out of my way or I’ll stake you.”
He performed a casual lean against the stairwell door. “You’re welcome to try.”
“There would be no trying, silly man. Only execution.”
A line ticked in his temple. “So what’s stopping you?”
“Wedding etiquette.”
The right corner of his mouth twitched. “Right.”
Roksana sighed and studied her nails. “Are you going to miss me, bloodsucker?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but forged ahead on a fool’s mission. One she’d gone on too many times to count, burned every time. “Face it, I’ll be back in Russia…this time tomorrow.”
She held her breath, searching desperately for some sign of recognition.
This time tomorrow.
This time tomorrow.
Remember, damn you.
But he only stared back impassively.
A now-familiar sharp pain stuck in her side. She bit down on the back of her tongue until her teeth started to break the surface, then sucked in a breath. “I have to go.”
Again, Elias stepped into her path. “No. Why are you being called back to Russia?”
“Why do you think?” she said in a hushed whisper. “My mother had mercy on me. She gave me a clear mission and I…” Couldn’t kill the man I still dream about, still miss, still hunger for. God, her memory of Elias before was still so vivid, sometimes it seemed as if she could reach out and touch it. Inessa would have cut him down with a cry of fury and lopped off the heads of his friends while she was in the neighborhood. After a year of daily, grueling training and working in the field, that was the task she’d given her daughter.
