by Tara Rose
“Tomorrow we’ll give you a more detailed tour of the home than we did yesterday. There are a lot of secrets like that here.”
“Thank you. I’d like that.” Thunder crashed overhead at the same time as lightning flashed, and now she could hear the rain. “This is a big storm.”
Alexei put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on. Let’s sit on the front porch and watch it. It’s coming from the south and the porch faces north, so it won’t get the wind and rain.”
“All right. If you’re sure.”
Alexei looked surprised. “Didn’t you ever sit outside and watch a storm roll in?”
She shook her head. “If I did before I came to the US, I don’t remember it. And once we came here, we lived in an apartment without a balcony. If I wanted to sit outside, I had to leave the building.”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “Then you’ll love this. Come on.”
“But you just made me promise not to go outside. What if someone sees me?”
“We’ll turn off the porch lights,” said Konstantin. “And we’re too far back from the street for anyone to catch a glimpse of you at night, even if someone was out walking in this storm.”
Alexei curled her hand around his arm. “We wouldn’t ask you to sit out there with us if we didn’t think it was safe.” He led her toward the front of the house. The storm was closer now, but she was no longer afraid. Under different circumstances, this would be quite romantic.
But Faina didn’t let her mind go there. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a romantic relationship. She might not be their prisoner, but she wasn’t exactly a houseguest. She had no clue what to label her role here, but she knew one thing. Losing her heart to these two would be the biggest mistake of her life.
Chapter Thirteen
The front porch wasn’t wet except at the edges, and it was so large and deep that they were able to sit on the rocker just to the right of the front doors without the rain touching them. She also realized now why she wouldn’t be seen with them out here at night.
Lattice work filled the space from railing to ceiling on both sides of the porch, and it was currently covered in wisteria vines. As for the front of the house, there were so many trees in the yard that someone would need to stand directly at the front gate with an infrared lens to see them in this rain.
They’d not only turned off the porch lights, but the lights at the end of the front walkway as well. Those were mounted on the brick archway that contained a wrought iron gate. Alexei led her to the eastern edge of the porch, and through the wisteria vine he pointed out the fence, also of wrought iron, that circled the property.
“It’s ten feet high,” he said, softly, “with spikes at the top, just like you’d see in a gothic movie. But you can still see through it, and so especially in the daytime you might be spotted.”
“Do you know your neighbors well?”
“Not really. We keep to ourselves.”
They took their seats on the rocker once again, where Faina watched the lightning and listened to thunder rumbling in the distance. She wondered if she’d react to storms differently once she was home again. It would be difficult not to associate them with this night from now on.
On her left, Konstantin placed an arm around her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “So…where in my room did you say you hid when Magda and Will came in?”
His voice was filled with humor, and she was grateful for the lack of light because her face burned with embarrassment. “Your dungeon.”
“It’s too small in there. We talk all the time about turning one of the other bedrooms into a larger one, but there’s never been a reason to.”
He’d given her the perfect opening. Would they be upset that she asked? “Do you two do this a lot? I mean, keep women here and…share them?”
He chuckled softly. “No. Not at all. We’ve never done this, if you can believe that.”
She hadn’t realized it until now, and finally knowing the truth made everything they’d told her about trying to keep her safe more meaningful. She also finally understood they were being completely truthful, even if their methods were a bit unconventional.
He kissed the top of her head. “Does knowing that make you a bit more trustful of us?”
She gazed into his eyes. “Yes. Thank you. I really am sorry about earlier.”
“It’s forgotten.”
She snuggled against him, wishing once again they were out here under better circumstances. The rolling thunder and gentle rain lulled her into a state of sleepiness. How could she be tired again so soon? It must be the stress of everything that had happened to her in the past couple of days. That and all the sexual activity she wasn’t used to.
She wanted them again, right now, but she could barely keep her eyes open. She dreamed that one of them picked her up and carried her inside, and when she realized she could no longer feel the warm breeze on her face she jerked awake. “Did I fall asleep out there?”
Alexei laid her on the bed in the room she’d first been brought into the night they took her from the cemetery. “Yes.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I can’t seem to stay awake today.”
“It’s all right. We were out there for over an hour.”
“We were?” Faina had no memory of the time.
He took off her slippers and pulled the covers up to her neck. Then he sat next to her and brushed the hair off her face. “You’ve had an exhausting couple of days. Sleep now. Tomorrow we’ll give you the real tour of this house and you’ll learn all its secrets.”
“Thank you.”
Alexei kissed her gently. “Na dobranich.”
She smiled at his use of her native tongue. “Good night.”
Konstantin kissed her as well. “Sleep well, my sweet.”
“You, too.”
* * * *
When Faina woke, the smell of eggs, bacon, and coffee filled the room. She sat up and stretched, shaking her head slightly to clear the cobwebs. This was the most rested she’d felt since coming to New Orleans. She glanced around, half-expecting to see the men in her room with a cart full of food, but no one was there. The smell must be drifting up from the kitchen.
After she used the bathroom, she tried the door and pumped her fist in the air when she realized it wasn’t locked. Clothes had been laid out for her, along with a note written in a beautiful script.
We hope you slept well. Please join us for breakfast in the morning room, and then we’ll give you that tour we promised.
Alexei
The morning room? She had no idea where that was. Faina took a quick shower and then put on the clothes they or someone else had laid out. She rang the bell chord because she didn’t want them to become upset with her again by wandering around the house alone.
Magda must have been close because she came into the room almost immediately. “Are you ready?”
“Yes. Thank you. But I don’t know where the morning room is, and after yesterday I don’t want to go off by myself looking for it.”
Magda’s face registered no response, which was kind of creepy. “I will show you.”
Alexei and Konstantin obviously trusted her, but Faina still found the woman disconcerting. She followed her down the stairs and toward the back of the house, where the smell of food was stronger now. Her stomach rumbled, surprising her. She’d eaten more than her fill last night. The restful sleep must have done her good if she was so hungry again this morning.
When she entered the room, she smiled at the realization it was yet another enclosed porch. This one faced east, because sunlight brightened up the space. Like the patio on which they’d first made love, this one was also surrounded by trees and flowering bushes. They wouldn’t be seen in here. These two had gone out of their way to ensure privacy inside their home.
“There she is.” Alexei’s smile was as warm and welcoming as the sunshine. He stood and held out his hand, which Faina took. She turned around to thank Magda, but the woman was alr
eady gone.
“She’ll be back.” Alexei indicated the chair between him and Konstantin, and once again Faina realized he’d known what she was thinking.
“Thank you for sharing breakfast with me.”
“Did you sleep well?” asked Konstantin.
“Yes. Very. More so than I have in days.”
Magda returned with dishes of food, and Faina thanked her for showing her where the morning room was. Magda merely nodded as she placed a plate in front of each of them, then left a large coffeepot on the table as well.
Once she’d left the room, Faina leaned close to Konstantin. “Have I offended her?”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “Don’t worry about it. She was quite miffed at your disappearing act yesterday, but she’ll get over it. Let’s eat.”
Their easy banter over a delicious breakfast of fried eggs, thick bacon, grits, fresh biscuits, juice, and coffee was so normal that Faina soon relaxed and simply enjoyed the meal and the company. It was as if yesterday had never happened. She could almost pretend she lived here with them, and they were her lovers.
As soon as her mind went there, she pushed away the ridiculous fantasy. That would never happen. She had to get over this obsession with staying here. They weren’t even human.
They lingered at the table long after they’d eaten, drinking coffee and talking about everything. The guys asked her about her childhood, and Faina told them stories of school and the things she and her few friends used to do for fun. They seemed interested in the smallest details, even down to the way she described the first time she’d gone up to the top floor in the Sears tower and gazed out over the Chicago skyline.
“It’s not even called that anymore, but everyone in Chicago still refers to it that way.”
“What’s it called now?” asked Alexei.
“Willis Tower. It’s been called that for five years now.”
“Likely it will take several generations before no one refers to it by the old name any longer.”
Finally, they rose, and Konstantin tucked her arm around his in an old-fashioned gesture that made her think of black-and-white movies where the leading lady and her man strolled along the streets of Paris or Rome. “Are you ready to discover all the secrets of this old house?”
She smiled up at him. “Lead the way.”
They showed her a very creepy fruit cellar off the kitchen that she swore smelled of old blood. After telling her how it was once used to cut up meat, she thought perhaps that was why, but the room had a heavy, unsettled feeling to it as well. Considering they were demons, she was surprised they didn’t give off that feeling. But to her, they felt as any other human would.
If Dani, Heidi, Erin, and Shayla came into the house, would they smell something odd on Konstantin and Alexei? Would they feel strange around them? She recalled the rotting leaf smell she’d first noticed in what she now thought of as her room, but realized she no longer detected it.
At the back of the fruit cellar was a door that led to the backyard, but they told her they kept it locked. Once they opened it from the inside so she could glance outside, she understood why. It looked out over the west end of the yard, and there were too few bushes and trees on this part of the grounds to protect this door from neighbors’ curious glances. She could see right into the neighboring backyard from here, and after what they’d said yesterday, it unnerved her.
After they locked it once more, they took her into a room she hadn’t yet seen. “This is my study,” said Konstantin. Her gaze immediately went to his desk. Were her laptop, phone, and ID locked up in there somewhere, or did Alexei have them? He led her toward what she thought was a closet, but when he opened the door, she glimpsed a spiral staircase. “It leads to a bedroom across the hall from mine.”
“Why doesn’t it lead to yours? I mean why don’t you use the bedroom up there?”
“I don’t care for it. It’s small and has a negative aura. We don’t really use it for anything.”
She shuddered slightly. How could they live here with all the negative energy in some of the rooms? Then again, that probably didn’t bother them. They showed her the dumbwaiter in the kitchen, which they said wasn’t used as much for food now as it was for laundry purposes, and then they took her into a parlor in the back of the house that she’d never seen before.
“I think you’ll like this,” said Alexei, moving aside a curtain.
She followed him through a narrow slit in the wall and had to blink several times before her eyes adjusted to the low light. The air in the passageway was heavy and disconcerting, and Faina almost asked to turn back.
“This leads around the entire eastern side of the house.”
Alexei sounded so excited she didn’t have the heart to ask him if they could skip this particular secret.
When they emerged on the other side, also through a narrow slit in the wall that was covered by a curtain, she laughed. They were in the foyer behind the stairs. “I thought this was a window, but I couldn’t figure out what it overlooked since there are rooms on the other side of this wall.”
Alexei smiled. “It does give that appearance. We’re not even sure why the passageway is there, but we think it’s kind of cool.”
“It is.” She grinned more at his use of such a modern word than anything. They didn’t speak that way very often. “And now it’s time to go upstairs.”
“How long have you two lived here?”
“Since we came to the USA in 1952,” said Konstantin. “The land used to include slave cabins and a sugar plantation, but the cabins were torn down and the land sold before we bought the house. It was falling apart and about to be condemned.”
“I’m glad you had it restored without changing much of the original architecture.”
“We didn’t want to change anything that wasn’t necessary for updating it to code. And since we bought it, that’s all we’ve ever changed. We insisted on keeping the secret passageways. Whoever built them had done so for a reason, and we didn’t want to disturb that.”
Faina nodded. “Even buildings have an aura.”
“Yes, they do.”
“What else have you done to the home since you bought it?”
“The electrical and plumbing systems have been updated in the past decade, and we’ve kept up with the foundation and roof, but otherwise we haven’t changed the original floor plan. And any work we had done inside the walls was performed by keeping as much of them intact as possible. When the work was done, we had them repaired with plaster, as they were originally. Not drywall.”
“I didn’t realize anyone still did work like that.”
“You can find people to do just about any type of work, for the right price.” Coming from anyone but him, that comment would have sounded arrogant, but he said it almost as though he was apologizing for their status.
“This is none of my business, but how do you two live? I mean, what do you do for money?” They exchanged a quick glance, and she wished she hadn’t asked.
“We were given a sum of money by Sargatanas when he first took us, which we invested carefully over the years. We’ve survived numerous stock market recessions because we knew when and where to move the money ahead of time.”
She nodded. That made sense. And it explained why they lived like they were royalty. They entered the bedroom next to Alexei’s, and he pointed toward the closet. “You already know about the hidden panel in there. And what you probably would have also discovered had you tried to enter my room again through this one after Will closed the panel is that you can’t get back that way. It only opens from my room.”
“That’s so weird.”
He smiled. “We thought so, too, which is why we don’t use this room either. If we did, we wouldn’t tell the person staying here about the panel, and we certainly wouldn’t use it to enter their room.”
“Are there other hidden secrets like this up here?”
“Only one, besides the staircase that leads to Konstantin�
��s study.”
They led her down through the twists and turns of the upstairs, and this time the hallways seemed more familiar. It wasn’t as complicated as she’d first thought, and she knew now that it was unlikely she’d actually get lost up here. They opened the door to a room that smelled of sage and leather, and Alexei told her it was his study.
“I love the southern exposure in here and that’s why I chose it. It gets the sun all day long.”
As opposed to Konstantin’s study downstairs, which was darker and had made her want to whisper inside it, this room was light and airy. It fit his personality.
“This is what I wanted to show you.” He pointed toward a door that again looked like it led to a closet, but once they were inside the space, they descended a spiral staircase. At the bottom was a locked door. Alexei pulled a key ring out of his pocket and opened the door, which also led to the outside.
“This is the southern part of the house, so there’s plenty of tree and bush cover, but we keep it locked as well, just the same.”
As he closed the door and turned the key in the lock, she eyed the key ring. “Do you need keys? I mean, can’t you just use your powers to go where you want or to open doors?”
He glanced at her with a bemused expression. “Promise you won’t be afraid?”
She nodded because she didn’t trust her voice right now. Alexei waved a hand at the door, and she caught a quick whiff of sulfur that was gone almost instantly, along with a spark that could have been a trick of her imagination. The lock he’d just closed clicked open, and he pushed on the door. She breathed in the scent of a warm autumn day for a few seconds before he closed and locked it again, without using the key this time.
“The staff have keys to every door in the house, as do each of us. But you’re right. We don’t need to use them.”
When they reached the top of the stairs again, she walked to the French doors and looked out over the backyard. It was the same view she’d had while climbing along the balconies the day before, and now she realized that one of those same balconies was outside his study. The house held a few interesting secrets, and she was grateful they’d shown them to her. It gave her a better mental picture of the home.
