The memories, always fresh, were never far away, but they were cold companions. He thought again of the Gypsy girl and how her dark eyes had flashed with passion. How different her eloquence had been from the inane squealing of the redhead.
He recalled the images that had flashed through her mind and his when he had set the vampiric mirror before her. He had seen loneliness most of all, and the pain and frustration that were offshoots of that isolation. Had the girl indeed known persecution? How could she? She was young. Worse yet, she was an aberration. He couldn’t forget that.
He wrinkled his nose in disgust. It was disturbing to even think that he would give a second thought to such a foul creature as an aberration, even one as beautiful as Marya Jaks. It didn’t matter anyway. It was over. He closed his eyes again, sank lower in the warm water, and tried not to think about growing old, Nikolena, or dark-haired Gypsies.
DRAGO DRESSED very carefully for his meeting with Nikolena. Her eyes were always appraising him, as if he were a prize-winning animal for sale at market. But he allowed himself the illusion that her pleasure at his appearance helped blunt any anger she felt disposed to direct his way. He dressed in snug black trousers, knee-high black leather boots, and a long black-velvet coat embroidered in gold, green, and blue silk in a pattern of peacock feathers. Underneath the coat he wore a gold brocade vest and, as usual, his sapphire collar pin at his throat. He left his hair loose in the manner he knew Nikolena preferred, checked the time, and called for his chauffeur. The drive to the chateau housing the Directorate offices outside Paris took less than an hour, but Drago dared not be late.
He wasn’t, nor was he early, but Nikolena made him wait. Drago passed the time with Philippe Chenard, his assistant. Philippe, as all the Undead, looked the same as ever. His copper-brown hair hung straight to his collar and was combed neatly behind his ears. His dark goatee was trimmed with the same precision that his work was known for, and his tawny eyes gleamed with a feline shrewdness. And yet for all his debonair looks Philippe always somehow managed to look weary and put upon. Drago had often wondered exactly how he did it.
Drago sat on a corner of Philippe’s desk. “So, tell me. What’s madame’s mood?”
Philippe lazily cocked his head and arched an even more indolent brow. “What do you think?”
“If I knew, mon ami, I would not be asking.”
His aide leaned back in his chair. “Well, for starters she expected you three days ago.”
Drago brushed a piece of lint from his black-velvet coat. “I can’t help her unrealistic expectations. She knew I was delayed.”
“Then there’s your New Orleans report. It appeared she didn’t think any better of your sanctions than those you imposed them on.”
Drago flicked his brows in a quick dismissive gesture. “Nikolena wasn’t there. Neither were you. A decision had to be made quickly, and harsh measures were called for. The deaths of two enforcers cannot be tolerated.”
Philippe pursed his lips. “No, of course not. But sanctions so harsh that they inspire rebellion certainly cannot be any more desired.”
Drago smoothed the velvet nap of the coat, as if daring another piece of lint to attach itself. “Then Nikolena should have sent someone else. She knows how I operate.”
“Yes. We all do. But who would you have suggested?”
Drago smiled. “How about His Highness, King Evrard? Or was he too busy elsewhere?”
Philippe smiled. Drago knew his assistant didn’t care for Evrard Verkist, the Brotherhood Patriarch, any more than he himself did.
At long last, the word was given from Nikolena’s sanctuary.
“Wish me luck, mon ami.”
Philippe smiled again. “Good luck, Drago.”
Drago drew a deep breath and strode into the airy chamber that comprised Nikolena’s office, but halted well short of her grand desk. One didn’t approach unless one was commanded to. He inclined his head in greeting. “Bonsoir, Madame la directrice.”
Her dark eyes, even across the room, were cold and empty pits in her face. “You’re late, Aleksei Borisov. Three days late. You know I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
He bowed low from the waist. “Je suis desole d’etre en retard, madame. My apologies. The incident in New Orleans was . . . complicated.”
“‘Complicated?’ Your assignments always seem to complicate themselves. And two dead! The dead never fail to multiply when you are on a case. Why is that?”
“It’s all in my report, madame.”
She picked up a stack of reports and slammed it down. The ringing slap of paper against wood echoed in the chamber like the report of gunfire. “If I could make sense of this muddle you dare call a report I wouldn’t have to ask such a question, would I? Come here and explain yourself!”
He glided up to her and settled into an ornate chair, not across the desk from la directrice, but at her side. Nikolena liked to be close to those she chastised. As elegant as ever, she was dressed in a full-length ecru dress with a high collar and long sleeves, heavily embellished with hundreds of seed pearls and silver embroidery. A lace shawl hung from one shoulder. Though she barely topped five feet in height, Drago had to look up to meet Nikolena’s eyes. Her chair, like a throne, sat on a raised platform.
“A votre service, madame. What can I clarify for you?”
She peered down at him. “Save your charms for your human conquests, Aleksei Borisov. They win you nothing with me.”
He tilted one side of his mouth in the barest of smiles. “I did not presume they would, madame.”
A matching shadow of a smile touched Nikolena’s austere face. It was a never-ending game, played to perfection by both parties.
He patiently explained the circumstances leading to the two deaths in the Warehouse District that had been the result of a misguided power play between two of the city’s newest enforcers. He emphasized the fact that both vampires had met the True Death long before he himself had arrived in town. The fact did nothing to mollify Nikolena.
Her gaze traveled the length of his body like a whiskbroom looking for dirt. “And just what took you so long to get to your assignment? I called for you because you were nearby.”
“I was a state away. You called for me because Curt Deverick is inept.” Deverick was the Brotherhood enforcer in charge of the Southeast Region.
“We’re not here to discuss Deverick. It’s your pretty head on the chopping block, my sweet, not his. I want to know why you took your time getting to a priority assignment, and so help me, Alek, if it’s because you dawdled in Vicksburg, you will be sorry!”
Drago remained calm. It never served anyone to respond in kind to Nikolena’s vitriolic censure. Many had found out the hard way. Her reference to ‘chopping block’ was not just a figure of speech. “I spent only one night in Vicksburg. I was in New Orleans within four hours of your call. The two vampires had already been dead twenty-four hours.”
Nikolena tapped her pen on her desk, an irritating accompaniment to the equally annoying job she did of gleaning his intentions with the forceful gaze of her dark, narrowed eyes. After a moment, she dropped the pen and sighed. “Why, Alek? Why do you persist in defying me?”
“New Orleans . . .”
She shook her head. “I’m not talking about New Orleans. I’m talking about Vicksburg. What you did with that aberration is intolerable, and well you know it.”
“Then you should have sent some neophyte enforcer to do the job. Zut! Any one of Curt Deverick’s incompetents could have bungled their way through that assignment and made everyone happy in the process.”
Her eyes slitted even more, yet Drago knew she saw into his mind with no less ease than before. “Have a care, Alek. You presume too much on my tolerance. One day it may not be there.”
He didn’t answer. There was little reason to. He h
id no thoughts from Nikolena’s piercing stare.
“Come closer, Aleksei Borisov.”
The only way he could move closer to her was to get out of his chair and kneel by hers. He did as she bade. She reached out a small, manicured hand and fingered the velvet and silk of his coat, then lifted her hand and stroked his hair. A sad smile played across her mouth, softening her features at last. “You don’t even care, Alek, do you? You persist in playing your role, but as time goes on you kick aside the rules of the game, one by one, don’t you?”
“I live to serve only you, madame.”
“Oh, bullshit, Alek. You serve only yourself these days, and soon, you will tire even of that. Then what? I can’t protect you forever. The others talk. There are whispers of your removal already on the wind. L’enforcier has made too many enemies.”
He closed his eyes. “I made my reputation, Nika, and I’ve built it every chance I’ve had. I’m aware of what it’s done.”
“Are you? I think not. We are too alike, you and I—both Russian, both of noble blood. I understand the things you feel. My fortune is tied to yours. But I won’t let you bring me down, Aleksei Borisov. You may be tired of living, but I am not. Fair warning, Alek, fair warning. Do you hear me?”
He stood. “Oui, madame.”
“Then to whom is your devotion?”
He took her hand, raised it to his lips, and pressed a kiss to the pale skin. “To you, madame.”
“Good. Then we understand each other.”
He looked into her eyes and nodded. He understood.
THREE HOURS LATER Drago stood in the courtyard formed by the private wings of his chateau. It was cool for early April, and a chill breeze swirled in the confines of the yard, setting the more slender tree branches to fluttering. The cold didn’t bother Drago, though. He had removed the velvet coat, but still wore the high boots and brocade vest.
He canted his head and looked up at the moon, almost full, and did something he didn’t often do. Considered his future. Tonight’s meeting had signaled a subtle shift in his relationship with Nikolena, and it hadn’t been for the better.
He heard Adelle tread up the stone path to stand beside him, and he acknowledged her presence with a long glance. Her hair shone more silver than blond in the moonlight, but she was still the slender, striking woman she had always been.
She adjusted her shawl to cover more of her arms. “Still pensive, Leksii?”
He looked away, a rumble in his throat his only answer.
“The meeting with Nikolena didn’t go well, did it?”
“No.”
She ran her fingers down the silk folds of his sleeve. “You look splendid tonight. How can you not have her eating out of your hand?”
He twisted his mouth into a rueful smile. “If I were naked, ma chere, I would not have her eating from my hand.”
Adelle strengthened her hold on him, and he could feel the palm of her hand warming the muscles of his arm. “I doubt that,” she whispered, but the smile quickly slid from her voice. She dropped her arm from his. “Is it that serious?”
Adelle was the only human he could share Directorate business with. She was bound to him by marks of blood, and as such, was not only unquestioning in her loyalty and faith, but shared a mental connection with him that no other mortal did.
“Talk of my removal is starting to circulate.”
She shrugged her shoulders, setting the fringes on her shawl to dancing. “You’ve never been popular.”
He sighed. “Unpopular. Now there’s an understatement. No, but there’s a big difference between being disliked and being removed.”
She gave him a short, mirthless laugh. “Disliked. Another understatement?”
“Very well. Hated. Hated by everyone except you, mon chou.”
Adelle put her hand on his shoulder and stroked the length of his arm. “That’s because no one knows you like I do. But Nikolena . . .”
“Nikolena is afraid that if I’m ousted, her position is forfeit as well. So I am to behave myself. If I don’t, her implication was clear. She’ll distance herself from me any way she can.”
Adelle shook her head. “But you and she have always held an alliance. You’re like a favorite son to her.”
“More like a favorite dog. Even the best alliances are hardly about loyalty or friendship. No, she would throw me to the pack in an instant if it meant her survival.”
Adelle was pensive. Should he meet la Belle Mort, Adelle would die as well. Die or go insane. “Would forging a new alliance help? Perhaps then you would have help at your back instead of knives in your back.”
He smiled, but it was more a rueful acknowledgment of the truth in her statement than any expression of hope over the idea. “I still have my old alliance with Philippe and Ricard De Chaux. There’s no one else I trust even superficially enough to form an allegiance with.”
“So what will you do?”
“Je ne sais pas, ma chere. I just don’t know.”
“Well, you’re home now,” she said with renewed liveliness. “If you’re ever going to enjoy yourself, it’s here. Let me send you Cerise, Leksii. She’s not at all like Danielle. Really.”
Maybe Adelle was right. He would accomplish nothing by brooding. His scheduled time in Paris was short, and then he’d have to return to the States. There would be no time then for relaxing, only for refereeing the never-ending power plays of vampires with not enough time on the earth to know real power.
He put his arm around Adelle and gave her a hug. “You’re right, ma chere, as always.” Cerise did have exquisite lavender eyes and a lovely, quiet voice. “Cerise, then.”
He saw Adelle smile, but it was cheerless, doing nothing to light her eyes. Did she remember the times when she herself was the one to come to him? If only time could have stood still for both of them . . . He would much rather be with Adelle than any of the empty-headed young girls at the chateau, but it had been Adelle herself who had ended their intimate relationship a decade ago. It was her own comparison of his forever youthful appearance to her aging features that made her too uncomfortable to continue as lovers.
“Cerise,” she acknowledged.
He gave her another squeeze. “Send her to the red room.”
CERISE WAS A veritable feast for the senses. All but one. She was as quiet as the dead.
“Talk to me, Cerise,” he begged as he kissed the side of her face.
She only laughed.
“Come, regale me with your day so I can experience both your voice and your mind.” He nipped at her earlobe, a further entreatment to feed all his senses.
Cerise would have none of it. “You’re a crazy Russe, you know that? Do you want to make love or hold a conversation?” She kissed him on the mouth to still any response.
Drago gave in and decided he could forgo the foreplay of small talk. Besides, what she did to his remaining senses more than made up for her silence.
He took his time, pulling away from her and taking in the sight of her beauty first. She had long, rich brown hair and eyes the color of spring violets. And she smelled like spring—fresh, fragrant, and full of the promise of life. His hands and mouth explored that promise first, feeling the softness and warmth that invited yet more. But he waited. This was not to be rushed. He started at her throat and worked his way downward. When he arrived, at last, at the moment of indulgence of the final sense—that of taste—he wanted her as badly as he had wanted any female in recent memory.
His cell phone jingled.
Drago groaned. “Merde!” His body drove him to ignore the interruption, but the mood was broken, at least on Cerise’s part.
“Drago, maybe you should answer that. It could be important,” she mumbled against his hair.
He didn’t stop, but neither did the ringing, muffled
though it was from beneath the jumble of his fine clothes on the floor.
“Drago . . .”
“Zut!” He rolled away from her and was on his feet in an instant. “Wait here, cherie. I will be right back.” He dug the phone out from under his trousers. The ringing had stopped, but an icon flashed that a voice mail message waited for him. He slipped into an adjoining sitting room and closed the door. He could always cloud Cerise’s mind later, but it was just less complicated if she didn’t hear Directorate business to begin with. He played the message.
“Drago? This is Marya Jaks. Remember me? Or are all your cases forgotten as soon as the paperwork’s done? Did you really believe that after what you did, you’d heard the last of me? Oh, and one more thing. When that vampire shows up later this week, I’m going to kill him. And if you don’t think I have either the will or the ability, think again. I’m my father’s daughter, and this will be for the both of us.”
What? He stared at the phone as if it were to blame. What was she babbling about? Was she insane, or playing some kind of sick joke? Either way, he didn’t need this. He groaned again at the denial of his pleasure, then let loose with every profanity in every language he knew. Either way, he couldn’t ignore the call.
His vacation was over.
Five
DRAGO LEANED back in the wide, leather seat and shut the distracting sounds of the plane from his mind. He needed to calm down.
Everywhere he had gone this morning, he had seen angry people, both human and Undead. Cerise had been upset over the loss of her pleasure. Adelle had lamented the loss of his company, so seldom had these days. Nikolena had been . . . There was no single word to describe Nika’s anger. Tart, scathing, cold, hot—her anger was a brew of every kind of threat, rebuke, and cajolery possible. And it hadn’t been only verbal. She had ripped at his mind with the power of her own until he had sat before her drained, exhausted, and unable to so much as form a thought.
Afterimage Page 6
