This shit was getting complicated.
Urvashi redirected her attention to Ivan and patted his hand. “We have a vault to open. Now, if you please.”
* * * *
Katya stood beside Aaron and Urvashi as Ivan molded C-4 charges around the seams of a meter-high steel vault door set into the back wall of Dmitri’s entertainment room. The overwhelming scent of noxious perfume drew Katya’s attention to the two bloodslaves standing back a few paces, the dark-haired whore, Natalya, and the meek blonde, Svetlana. The women watched the vault with looks of anxiety. How curious. They were actually worried … they didn’t want to see the drug destroyed.
Bloody addicts.
Katya had to admit she had considered this drug might be a way to regain her freedom from the bloody leeches. She wondered if it was possible to reduce the mind-erasing sexual tension and emotional quagmire Aaron created in her life, simply by using otrok in place of his bite.
“Stand back!” Ivan swept his arm towards everyone as he gave himself a good distance from the doors.
He held up a small radio device and reached for the toggle switch.
“Wait!” Svetlana grabbed Ivan’s shoulder and put her hand over the switch to block him from detonation. “I know the code to the door. You don’t need to do this.”
“Bitch!” Natalya spit in Svetlana’s direction. She had a vicious stare of hatred for her fellow bloodslave. “I knew it! You had the code all along.” She shook her head. “The idiot trusted her.”
Aaron stepped up to Natalya and growled low. “And why should he have trusted you?” He nodded towards Svetlana and Ivan. “Let her help, if she’s willing.”
Svetlana smiled at Aaron.
Katya fumed. The bastard was working his way under their skin, insinuating himself as the new vamp-cock in charge. Bloody leech pranced around with a hard-on, twenty four seven.
Svetlana moved past Ivan and punched in a series of letters and numbers on the keypad to the right of the vault door. As soon as she finished, a green light flashed and a click sounded. She pulled on the door and a four inch thick slab of steel swung open to reveal a walk-in room larger than most bank vaults. There had to be some serious valuables inside to justify spending this kind of money on security.
Katya followed Svetlana, Ivan and Urvashi inside. “It’s a bloody bunker. I’ll bet its blast proof…”
The blonde bloodslave led them to the back of the vault to a refrigeration unit built-into the wall. She opened the heavy duty padlock with a key from her key ring. The girl was full of surprises. Svetlana stepped back and swung open the stainless steel door to a series of glass shelves filled with hundreds of vials of clear liquid.
“Bloody hell.”
Aaron had snagged two or three vials from the whore back at that strip club – only the tip of the iceberg.
This was enough to supply half of Europe, and create thousands of addicts. Dmitri could have started up a supply chain to rival the 80’s cocaine madness – if that was his intention.
Natalya snapped on Svetlana in Russian. “You had this key and code all along and you hid it from me!” She smacked the blonde and reared back with a closed fist, planning to deck her.
Urvashi flashed in and slapped her so hard Natalya hit the floor. The bloodslave yelped in pain, as the back of her head bounced off a wall filled with little locked drawers.
“Enough!” Urvashi stood over the dark-haired whore like an avenging angel ready to smite sinners into a pillar of salt. “You were his distributor! That’s why we found you at the club with the otrok.”
Urvashi looked mad enough to hack the bitch in half. Lucky for the bloodslave Urvashi wasn’t carrying her samurai blade. Katya considered Urvashi might be willing to do the job with her bare hands.
Aaron stepped in between them to face off against his master. “She’s an addict who has been victimized by Dmitri. Let’s not get this twisted around.” He reached down and pulled Natalya to her feet.
How noble. The leech defends his whore against unjust persecution.
Urvashi eyed him, and looked like she had more to say on the matter, but Svetlana spoke up. “We all knew she was selling it. She used twice as much as we did. She was doing it on her own. Dmitri never intended her to sell it … that’s not why he commissioned Pharzyme to create the drug.”
Urvashi turned on Svetlana with a hiss. “Why would he let her sell it? Why would he send her to the streets of Moscow to create addicts? You know exactly what vampire’s venom does to a woman. If the dose is strong enough, one injection could create instant addiction. The entire world could be victimized by this drug, and the man who controlled its supply!”
Svetlana shied away from Urvashi’s wicked tongue-lashing. She backed up until the walls of the vault stopped her retreat. “He … even when he beat her, he couldn’t control her.” Svetlana seemed to have more to say, but she looked Natalya in the eyes and shut her mouth.
There was definitely more, Katya could almost guess the unspoken. The bitch Natalya couldn’t be beat down, because she was one of those girls. Natalya took pleasure in pain. Dmitri probably had a grand ole time slapping her all over the bedroom while he made her do things no other woman would do for him.
Natalya’s eyes burned with rage, even as her lip bled from the smack-down she’d just absorbed. She regained her feet and balled her fists up. No shame in that woman’s game. She looked everyone in the eyes, making damn sure they felt her fury. “I never worked for Dmitri! I was here when he wanted me, when he needed me. He brought me home from the club one night, paid me more money than I could earn in a year, and then he bit me, over and over. I was never given a choice!”
Tears streamed down Natalya’s face and she laughed – a cynical hate-filled sound. “Dmitri made sure I had plenty of money, and the sex was great. Who was I to complain? He gave me the otrok so I would leave him in peace until he wanted me again. It never mattered what I wanted, whether or not I wanted to see him. We were not allowed in his presence until he summoned us.”
Svetlana nodded. Her eyes glued to Natalya as she spilled the rest of the story. “He didn’t make the drug to sell it. No one outside his household knew of its existence. He gave us two vials a week so that we wouldn’t bother him. I didn’t even need that much. I only used one vial a week, and only when Dmitri wasn’t in residence. Natalya used all that and more. If we left our vials in a drawer somewhere, she would find it, and steal it. She sold the drug, not Dmitri.”
Natalya moved like she would come after Svetlana again, but Aaron blocked her path and held her by the throat in his powerful clawed grip. Katya knew quite well the strength he exerted when he chose to use it. He could crush Natalya’s windpipe in an instant.
“I’ll get the truth out of you.” Aaron pulled her into a crushing hug and buried his fangs in her throat. He held on for a long time as the girl melted into his arms, grunting and squirming as she shamelessly moaned in orgasm in front of everyone. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she sagged in his grip, flesh turned to gelatin before the onslaught of Aaron’s unmerciful venom.
Finally he let up from her and licked his lips as he looked to his master with eyes full of knowledge. “Once I got past the block in her mind I could see it all clearly. The tiger lady was living it up, high as a kite, twenty four seven, riding the erotic edge of otrok, fucking anyone with the money to pay, and shaking her striped ass all night long. She’s a one-girl party machine, just add venom. It’s all a game to her, a high-stakes game of pleasure and manipulation. She uses men and drugs to get what she wants. She’s a sex addict, a voyeur, and a bloodslave who can’t go more than a few hours without another bite or dose. But all that was simply a distraction from the unpleasant truth. I doubt she ever admitted it to anyone. She loved him, Dmitri. In spite of all the use and abuse, she loved him.”
Svetlana again nodded her head. “Dmitri didn’t care. He got what he wanted from her, from all of us. The drug wasn’t made to take over the world, it was his
personal freedom. He told me stories of other bloodslave women years before. They could not stand to be without him, constantly begging for another bite. He told me what happened to one girl when he locked her out of his sight for a week. She went insane and slit her wrists in the bathtub. I don’t know what I would do without otrok. Dmitri traveled regularly. He left us waiting for him for weeks, sometimes an entire month. The drug was for Dmitri, so he could keep as many bloodslaves as he wanted, but only attend us when he wanted, on his terms.”
Ivan started laughing so hard the sound echoed back and forth against the interior walls of the vault. “You mean all this was for nothing? I wanted the monster dead, for my own reasons, but this drug … it’s meaningless.” He couldn’t stop laughing. He had tears in his eyes as he cackled like a hyena.
Urvashi’s eyes spewed daggers at everyone, especially the slumped over Natalya hanging in Aaron’s arms. “It matters not. He died as he deserved, and we will ensure that the drug never sees the public market again. Anyone supplying so much as a drop of otrok outside this room will know my wrath.” She speared Aaron with a look that could skin him alive. “Keep your whore under tight control, Aaron, if you wish to see her live. She will not sell any more of this drug.”
Urvashi turned towards the refrigerator filled with the most potent drug in the world, and looked like she was about to blast it to pieces with one of her angelic attack moves. Svetlana reached out for her with shaking hands, but Katya’s hand fell on Urvashi’s shoulder first.
“Wait! Don’t destroy it.” Katya couldn’t hold back the intensity of this revelation as it poured over her soul with the promise of glorious freedom. “I need it. We need it. I don’t care if the whore gets high and dances on fucking tables. I don’t care how many men fuck her painted arse. I need the drug!”
Urvashi turned on Katya and hissed with fully elongated fangs bared. Katya had no illusions about how deadly vicious Urvashi could be.
Katya quickly backed away out of reach “Don’t you see? It’s the only way I can ever be more than ten feet from him!” She pointed at Aaron and tried to still the shaking of her fingers. This was her one chance – she had to make Urvashi understand – or lose it forever. “You owe me this. You brought these leeches into my life. Now let me take my life back. Let me have my freedom once again.”
Urvashi was speechless. She looked at the bloodslaves, looked at Katya, looked at Ivan, and looked at Aaron. The stainless steel vault and all its occupants awaited her, silently.
Ivan chuckled once more. “She is right. Dmitri needed to die, of that there is no doubt, but Katya is right about the otrok. Look how difficult it is for her, for these women. The drug is for them. They need it.” Ivan stepped up to Urvashi casually, like a friend giving wise council to another friend. “Your globe-trotting adventures will be much simpler if you aren’t forced to drag these poor women around the world every time you take Aaron for a joyride.”
Urvashi cursed in a language that Katya had never heard before and slammed her fist into the steel wall hard enough to leave deep, Urvashi-shaped dents. “Damn you all!”
She wrapped her lethal claws around Svetlana’s throat and lifted her off the ground with one hand, choking her with her feet dangling in the air. “You will account for every drop of this drug. I hold you responsible. Supply it to the bloodslaves as if your life depended on it – because it does!”
She tossed the blonde bloodslave aside and stomped out of the vault and through the outer room to the stairs leading up into the main hallways of the mansion. Svetlana picked herself up off the floor and rubbed her sore neck. She found blood on her fingers from where Urvashi’s claws had cut into her skin. Her wide blue eyes reflected a well-earned fear of death at the hands of an avenging angel.
“That was fucking intense.” Aaron grinned, bloody lips and fangs on display. He looked around the room until his eyes rested on Katya.
She could hardly meet his gaze. She felt the growing divide between them, and hated herself for it, but she had meant every word. She needed that drug. She needed to find her way back to the life she once knew, before Aaron and his damned teeth and ramrod cock had sunk into her body and soul.
* * * *
Chapter 22
Aaron held Michelle on his lap and stroked the smooth, soft skin of her back with his hand up her sweater. He tried to ignore the noisy Russian gibberish from Anatoly as he paced back and forth across the great room arguing with someone on his cell phone. The wolves were planning a smash and grab over in Iraq, the latest of several missions they had pulled off over the years. He’d expected Ivan, Anatoly, and Nikolay to jet off as soon as the dust settled on Dmitri’s estate, but it was Katya that had him worried.
She had been avoiding him. Last night he caught her shooting up otrok in the bedroom she had claimed as her own. She shoved him out of the room without a word of explanation and locked the door in his face. She hadn’t come to him for a bite in over three days. He’d tried talking to her several times today, and all he got for his trouble was a series of non-answers. She was stonewalling him, trying to keep him out of her heart, mind – and pants.
The scent of youth entered the room, and Lana made her way to him, like she always did. No matter where he went in this monstrous mansion, she always found him. The girl had adopted him. As always, Lana pulled up a chair and sat next to him, like it was totally normal to hang out with a pair of cuddling vampires. He smiled at her and ran his hand through her hair. She presented a huge problem for which he had no solution.
“Lana, sweet Lana. What am I supposed to do with you?”
Her somber eyes held no answer. Before he could dig into her mind to see how she was dealing with the loss of her mother, Urvashi cut into his mind with a sharp directive. {{We need to talk. Now. Privately.}}
Lana put one hand cautiously on Michelle’s knee, and her other hand on Aaron’s knee, her eyes addressed them both. “You can take me to Paris … to see the Eiffel Tower.”
He chuckled as Michelle looked at him with a crinkle of amusement in her eyes. This quiet little thing had already gotten under Michelle’s skin.
“Perhaps.” Aaron pecked Michelle’s cheek and laid his hand atop Lana’s with a gentle pat. “We will see the world, eventually. But not tonight. For now, I need to keep up with the Kardashian.”
With that he slid Michelle off his lap and settled her on the chair next to Lana. A vampire assassin and a six year old werewolf sitting together as friends.
He walked away with a grin on his face, wondering what new pile of steaming crap his master had for him. Their little talks usually led to some serious shit.
He found her in an upstairs bedroom, standing in the cold night air on the balcony with the french doors open. She stared down at the glistening white snow covered fountains in the courtyard below.
As soon as he locked the door behind him she started in. “The help I acquired for this operation was not without cost. As you and yours are accountable to me, so am I accountable to others. We did not pull off this coup alone.”
As usual, her words were more enigmatic than enlightening. “What are you saying? We owe somebody?”
She nodded. “Yes. If only it were that simple.” She turned to him and brought her cold hands up to his face. She added a hint of her powerful aura to warm and energize him, probably trying to manipulate his emotions. It felt suspiciously good in her embrace.
“I don’t think anything will ever be simple again. Please tell me what’s going on.”
She kissed him. “I’ve told them you’re not ready, but these people do not listen as well as they should. They want a meeting.”
Aaron looked into her eyes, wishing he could catch the depths of unspoken meaning she hid behind the wall closing her mind away from him.
“It would be unwise to capitulate to their demands – for now. We will meet them next week, after the New Year. I want you to listen to them, but speak only the words I advise. They are very dangerous, Aaron, and t
he more they know, the more dangerous they become. There is much you need to learn, and little time for me to teach it.”
“I trust you, Vash. Whatever you want me to say, that’s what I’ll say.”
She kissed him again, imparting another tingle of her aura and energy. He felt like a dog catching a biscuit for good behavior. Good dog.
“Does this have something to do with Dmitri’s estate?”
She nodded again, but he sensed she had finished with her revelations and admissions for the night.
* * * *
Aaron found Michelle where he left her, sitting with a seemingly happy Lana, reminiscing about the wonders of Paris. He interrupted their chat. “We’re out of here. I need to get out of this house for the night. Let’s see what Moscow has to offer.”
He grabbed Michelle’s hand and pulled her up from the chair. When Lana slid off her chair too, Aaron shook his head. “Aht! This is an adult’s night out. Sorry, girlfriend, where we’re going, there’s no children allowed.”
She frowned, but Aaron dipped down to one knee and smiled at her. “I promise we can do all the fun stuff you want to do. Soon. Okay?”
She perked up and gave him a tentative smile. She didn’t quite trust him completely, but, she was giving him a chance. He really liked this little girl, and hoped he continued earning her trust. He pecked her soft little cheek with a light kiss and snagged Michelle’s hand.
“Let’s change our clothes and hit the town.”
Michelle’s wondrous hands settled on his shoulders and she pulled him into a kiss. When she parted, her emerald eyes held him enrapt, filled with love and understanding. With that wicked vampire sexy beast look, she whispered. “I know what you need.”
The Nightlife Moscow (Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Suspense) (The Nightlife Series Book 5) Page 16
