by Cecy Robson
“Misha, let him go,” I say.
He holds tight, not bothering to look at me. “No. He must answer for the insult.”
For touching me as Misha’s guest, and for threatening the mate of the Second in Command to the Pack. I understand the rules. It doesn’t make Jeffrey’s re-death easier to stomach.
Horrible plopping—Jeffery’s brains hitting the slate floor, I presume—precede the eruption of ash. I’m not watching, my concentration so fixated on the giant windows, I start to singe the glass. Jeffrey, being as young as he is, doesn’t need his heart destroyed to die, not with the force of his master bearing down upon him.
Instant silence is followed by two very hard thuds. I cringe, knowing no one bothered catching the future Mrs. Aleksandr or her escort when they fainted.
I lurch away, gagging at the lingering smell of Jeffrey’s cooking brains. Misha catches up to me in the garden. One minute I’m alone, the next he’s in front of me with his arms crossed.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I ask, glaring.
“I told you. Jeffrey must be punished for the disrespect he showed you,” he replies coolly.
I throw my hands out. “I meant Breasha. Damn it, Misha. She’s practically a little girl.”
“I’m aware of what she is, as well as how it appears. Don’t think I haven’t given her age any thought.” He watches me closely. “I’m a patient vampire, at almost three-hundred years of age, and with an eternity still ahead of me, years have become mere breaths to take. It’s for this reason, and more, I’m in no rush. My plan is to wait until Breasha is well into womanhood before I ask she bear my son.”
My heart thuds in sickening beats. “And how long will you wait to ask if you can deflower her?”
Misha’s gray eyes flash with anger, only to soften when he regards my features. “I don’t take women against their will,” he tells me. “If you must know, I’ve never bedded anyone younger than twenty-seven.” His eyes flash for a different reason. “Although I would have made the exception for your sister.”
Yeah, you would have. “Celia isn’t an option, Misha. She never was.”
He quiets, and I do, too, yet not for long. “You’re expecting her to bear your children.”
“A son,” he clarifies. “But only if she wants to.”
He takes a seat on one of the wrought iron benches. “Perhaps we should discuss the matter,” he says. He sprawls across the bench, one leg bent, the other stretched.
One of his arms rests against the back, the other dangles loosely at his side. His shirt is ruined, the collar appearing chewed off and the expensive fabric is likely splattered with brain bits. He should look ridiculous, but I don’t think Misha ever could.
“What happens if she doesn’t want to have your kid? Who will bear your son then?”
“I have other options,” he replies casually.
“You mean, Ileana.”
His sudden stillness is response enough. “What do you know about that?” he questions.
“Just that it wouldn’t be a good match. She’s . . .”
“Powerful,” he answers for me.
“That’s what it all comes down to, doesn’t it? Getting more and being more. It’s why Johnny is here.”
He raises a perfect brow. “Need I remind you, you’re the one who asked me to keep him.”
“I asked you to keep him safe on behalf of the Alliance,” I counter.
He motions in the direction of the guesthouse. “And I have.”
“Yes, just for the chance to one-up the witches.” I knew he wouldn’t give up an opportunity to influence Johnny, or for Johnny to owe him a favor. Misha considers his interactions with other supernaturals like a game of chess and will always seek the right moment to hump the queen.
He flashes a fang, not bothering to deny it.
“About your future kiddos,” I begin. “What makes you so sure you’ll produce a son over a daughter?”
He shrugs. “I’ll simply will it to happen.”
“Oh, yes, I heard about your semen.”
“My what?” he asks, chuckling.
“You know what I mean.” I shift my weight to one hip. “Why the sudden interest in family?” I ask. “Is your biological clock ticking or something?”
Misha’s smile fades. “There comes a point when every being becomes aware of his own immortality. As I am one of few vampires capable of creating a legacy, I feel obliged to do so.”
“Sounds like it’s more than a sense of obligation to me,” I say carefully, watching how his focus sweeps across my face.
“Perhaps,” he agrees, his voice and his stare growing distant.
I almost ask if Celia has anything to do with this. But that’s a can of worms better left sealed and buried. He wanted children with Celia. He wanted Celia, period. Her relationship with Aric never discouraged him, but her pregnancy . . . that affected him in ways I never imagined.
“Why does it trouble you to know that I’ve chosen children with another?” he asks, affirming my thoughts.
“Because if you’re going to have babies, Misha, have them the right way. Not like this.”
“Like how?”
“With a young woman you’ll never love.”
“You assume a great deal,” he tells me.
“Then don’t let me. Explain yourself. Why her? What’s so special about this girl?”
“Her lineage,” he answers simply.
“Her lineage?” I look back to the house, trying to pick up on something other than vampire. “Don’t tell me she’s a witch.”
“No, not a witch,” he replies, appearing amused.
“Then what is she?” Although I ask, I’m no longer sure I want to know.
Misha leans back in his seat and brushes a strand of his loose hair behind his ear, only for the soft breeze to sweep it back against his cheek. A small smile forms around his perfect lips. “She is a direct descendant of Vlad Dracula.”
“The Impaler,” I clarify. “The original master of all the masters?”
“Yes.”
I glance up as if I can somehow see her from where I stand. I can’t. That might be a good thing because holy shit, I think Misha has lost his damn mind.
“She’s not a vampire,” I say.
“No.”
“So then why . . . What’s the point?”
“Breasha is of royal blood.”
“So?”
“She has been educated in the best schools.”
“And?”
“Her family history is impeccable.”
“I still don’t get it.”
Misha stares back at me as if questioning my intelligence. Typically, only his vampires look at me that way. I scowl at him. “She’s the most suitable choice,” he explains as if I’m missing the obvious.
“Because of who her great-great-great-great granddaddy was?” I ask.
“No, because of her blood. Any child I bear with her will be unstoppable.”
He abruptly stops speaking, clutching his heart and curling in agony.
I hurry to him, cupping his shoulder. “Misha, what is it—”
I leap back when his fangs elongate and his savage gaze meet mine. The earth shifts, not shakes, not rumbles, it shifts. First left, then right, knocking me on my ass.
“Taran!”
Johnny stands a few feet away, his tattoos swirling and travelling across his arms and around his body, the tailspin of movement and energy punching through the air like angry fists. But it’s Misha, roaring in pain that lures my focus back to him. His shirt falls away in pieces from the surge of vampiric magic coursing through him.
At once the world erupts in gold, blue, and white and I’m thrown across the garden.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rows of skulls erupt from ground, their mouths opening and closing as if crying out in pain. Alternating flames of blue and gold burn their faces, the heat singeing and cracking through the dense bone.
“Taran!” Joh
nny is yelling from afar. I can’t hear what he’s saying. I only know he’s scared and in trouble.
“Taran!”
The vampires are screaming for me.
“For fuck’s sake,” Agnes pleads. “You have to help the master.”
I can’t see her, or Johnny, or any of the vampires. I only feel them, lingering close while their voices screech further away.
Around me, the earth burns, roasting the skulls and releasing a sickening aroma that makes me cough. I’m perched on my hands and knees, my fingers digging into the barren wasteland the garden has become.
I whip around at the sound of Misha howling in agony. He’s on his knees, beating the flames overtaking a giant tiger with his bare hands. His efforts and despair are pointless, she’s dying, her roars mercilessly raking against my ears.
“No!” I scream, racing forward.
It’s Celia, it has to be by the way Misha is losing it. I struggle to reach them, every step I manage taking them further away from me.
Misha’s cries turn wretched and his magic responds in turn, sending another burst of his power coursing through me. My arm reacts to the invasion of energy, flailing madly and throwing me against an invisible wall.
The scene breaks apart before I can gather my senses, the inferno and heat surrounding me replaced with large snow drifts and a cruel wind that sails my hair behind me. As I watch, Misha’s clothes dissolve. He collapses into a drift, naked and unmoving.
I lurch forward, cursing when I strike the wall and can’t find my way around it.
Misha is dying, I sense it even from where I stand. I pound my fists against the walls, calling forth fire that fails to come. Images of the skulls appear and fade. I don’t know if they’re real. I don’t care if they are. I only see Misha, his long, wet hair and limbs strewn across the frozen ground.
He’s half the man he was moments ago, his frame lanky and emaciated. His chest heaves as a pool of blood forms beneath him, trickling and tainting the otherwise pure white surroundings. I think he’s trying to rise, or breathe. It’s only when I stop pounding the clear wall that I realize he’s crying.
My hands slide along the invisible barrier keeping me from him, each ragged breath and sob that breaks through his throat like a shard of glass that pierces my heart.
His torment is more than I can take. I’m not certain what happened to him until the long tail of a whip soars past me and the tip cracks across Misha’s back.
A man dressed in fur spouts angry words in Russian as he sends the whip soaring again and again, slicing through the muscles along Misha’s back and exposing the bones.
“What are you doing?” I scream at him.
He ignores me, pulling back the whip and bringing it viciously down.
“You’re killing him,” I shriek.
“Stop it!”
My palms slap against the invisible divider.
“Stop it!”
I curse, begging the man to show Misha mercy.
He won’t listen. Instead he shakes out his hand, now sore and swollen from the strength he used to hurt Misha, and passes the whip to another man.
This other man, he’s not tired, and more than eager to take over his comrade’s task. Snow falls in wet clumps as he lifts the whip and strikes Misha’s broken body.
A streak of blood splatters against my face with the next lash. Somehow it breaks through the invisible space keeping me in. I run forward, tripping over a long skirt I shouldn’t be wearing and falling beside Misha.
My long dark hair is now blond and streaked with gray, the force of my fall spilling it from of the head scarf I’m wearing and draping it over my wrinkled and battered hands. My mouth moves, speaking words in Russian I shouldn’t be able to say.
The first man swings back his leg, kicking me hard in the stomach, his heavy boot-clad foot cracking a rib. I roll over, gasping for breath as he straddles me.
I beat my fists against his chest, thinking he means to rape me, until his fist comes down in an arc and crashes against my sternum.
I didn’t know he had a knife. I caught the glint of the blade as it came down and buried deep into my chest.
Pain unlike any I ever felt spreads along my limbs and warm fluid spills from my mouth. The next stab that comes dulls the ache by half. The third, I don’t feel at all. All I feel is my body bouncing off the ground as he continues to pound the knife into my chest.
His strikes are now more annoying than anything, after all, my time to die has come.
My head rolls to the side, meeting Misha’s tormented features. Tears stream down his eyes and fluid trickles against his dry, cracked lips.
Still, he screams, his hand reaching out. “Mama. Mama!”
I sob into my hands as I return to my prison behind that invisible wall. Misha crawls to his mother, his fingers barely grazing her outstretched palm when the first attacker casts his final blow.
The heel of his boot comes down, crashing into Misha’s head. Misha crumbles, his bloody fingers falling just beside his dear mother’s grasp.
The men say something I don’t understand. Neither bother looking back as they mount their horses. I swallow hard, unable to stop crying even long after they gallop away.
This is a memory from Misha’s past, triggered by his pain at watching Celia burn. It’s what my mind reasons. But just because it occurred long ago, doesn’t make it less horrific or easy to witness. No, this is one of those memories that will haunt me the remainder of my days.
The snow thickens, obscuring him as he lies naked beside his dead mother. But I know they’re still here, abandoned like garbage and their bodies left to rot.
I wipe my eyes as another set of riders arrive. I can’t see them well through the thickening snowfall. That doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the man in the lead.
Even then, Uri loved his capes. He motions to the men on either side of him to Misha. They dismount, hurrying to wrap him in the fur blanket Uri throws them.
Uri slides from his steed and carefully removes his thick gloves, watching Misha with interest. His fangs elongate as he hands his gloves to another servant and kneels beside Misha.
The servant at Misha’s head pries Misha’s mouth open, and as quick as a blade, Uri’s incisor cuts through his wrist. Using great care, Uri presses the large gash he made into his skin over Misha’s mouth.
I didn’t understand the other men when they spoke in Russian. But I understand Uri. Maybe because Misha wants me to.
“Drink, young fighter, young champion, young prince,” Uri tells him. “Live for me and you shall have your revenge.”
Misha doesn’t react, at least not at first. Then I see it, his lips seeking out the edges of Uri’s wound. He fastens his mouth against Uri’s skin, suckling hard and consuming Uri’s blood like a deeply parched man taking his first drink.
Uri loves young beautiful men. I’m not surprised he chose Misha to save. What surprises me is the way he strokes Misha’s head as he nourishes him. Not as a lover, but as the son he always claimed him to be.
Misha’s head falls to the side as Uri pulls away his now healed wrist, his chest rising and falling with purpose even while his eyes remained closed. I don’t expect Uri to coddle him, and he doesn’t disappoint. He slips his gloves back into place, appearing to fuss with them so they lay just right while his servants drape Misha’s limp body over a horse.
Uri doesn’t wait for the man tasked with leading Misha’s horse to follow. He gallops away, his beautiful stallion kicking snow behind them.
I suppose he doesn’t have to wait. He knows Misha will live.
Just as he knows he’ll have his revenge.
“Taran!”
“Taran!”
Something hard smacks my face and I’m back in the garden struggling to keep my feet.
Agnes grips my shoulders. “You have to help the master,” she says, tears streaking down her face.
I turn to where the vampires surround Misha, his gaze feral and his claws
lashing out at anyone who nears him. Ash erupts as he takes one down, and another, and another.
“Hank!” I yell when Misha just barely misses him.
He turns around, his face panicked. “He doesn’t see us, Taran. It’s like he’s blind to us.”
More ash streams through the air as another of his family dies, followed by the she-vamp who greeted us when we arrived.
“Celia,” I stammer. “We have to call Celia.”
“We’ve tried, God damn it,” Hank hollers. “You’ve been unconscious for almost twenty minutes. We’ve been calling her non-stop, but the fucking mutts won’t let us talk to her.”
I whip out my phone from my back pocket and search my favorite’s list, immediately tapping Celia’s number. The line goes to voicemail as another vampire wails and ash erupts in a cloud.
“Celia, it’s Taran. Misha needs you. You have to come.”
My phone falls out of my hand when Misha lunges at me. Agnes shoves me out of the way, up the incline, and toward the house. The others tackle him, trying to subdue him and forcing him in the direction of the guesthouse.
More ash, and now blood. Misha is out of his mind with grief and rage.
“Celia needs to be here,” I say. “He needs to know she’s still alive.”
“What?” Agnes asks. “Why would he think she’s dead?”
They didn’t see the vision I had. They didn’t see her die. But Misha did. Just like he saw his mother murdered.
Growls erupt as well as hisses, the anger behind them startling my already fragile nerves. My vision sharpens as the amount of supernatural magic around me intensifies. I think it’s Johnny, but then I see her.
Celia storms across the garden flanked by a small army of werewolves in beast form.
“Stand down,” she bites out through her teeth, the severity in her tone and stance making me and Agnes back the hell up.
I think she’s speaking to the werewolves, but it’s the vampires who give her and the wolves ample berth. Her eyes widen when she sees Misha close to the path that leads to the lake.
The cluster of vampires struggling to restrain Misha back away when he falls eerily still. Like a statue, he remains unmoving, his long, deadly nails draped at his sides and his wild gaze focused on Celia.
