“You have my word,” he breathed, banishing that offensive imagery.
She gestured to the vampires still circling Elias.
“Well?” Inessa clapped her hands together gleefully. “What are you waiting for?”
CHAPTER SIX
Moscow, present day
Roksana rolled her carry-on suitcase to the edge of the fountain, dropping down onto the concrete edge and pulling her thin coat tighter to her chest. The high-reaching tower of Moscow State University loomed in the distance, trees clustering at her feet. The sun sparkled, but the air cut into her like knives. From every direction, Russian spilled from the lips of students running to their next class or parked on benches. They lamented the fact that it was Monday while clutching cups of kofe in their hands to stay warm. Such normalcy.
What seemed like a lifetime ago, she’d been one of these students.
Lifting her face to the sky, she thought back to an afternoon just like that one. A light day, free from strain and duty and pressure. Instead of alone and stalling her certain death, as she was now, Roksana sat on that very fountain surrounded by friends, gossiping with their mouths full of sandwiches, totally oblivious to anything but the magic they were spinning. It would last forever, that magic, wouldn’t it? Who would dare take it away?
“I’m borrowing your yellow dress for Friday night, Roksana,” Olga announced, walking the edge of the fountain like a tightrope. “The one with the pockets. It makes you look washed out, anyway.”
A chorus of oooohs went up from Roksana’s friends, informing her she’d been burned.
Roksana shrugged and bit into her potato and green bean sandwich. “You are jealous because you tried to go blonde, but blonde didn’t go for you.” She slipped a green bean out from between the bread and chucked it at Olga. “You need the pockets to carry your shame.”
Olga kicked a few droplets of water at Roksana, who gasped and volleyed a handful back in return. They both hopped to their feet at the same time, a fake boxing match ensuing while their friends hooted and placed phony bets, passersby rolling their eyes at the antics.
Kira stepped in between them, her voice dropped low, like a man’s. “We will have a fair fight today, ladies. No hair pulling or nipple twisting.”
“There goes my strategy,” Roksana whined. “Is pantsing allowed?”
Kira rubbed her hands together. “It’s encouraged.”
Olga screeched and took off, holding on to the waistband of her jeans for dear life, Roksana hot on her heels…laughing. So much laughing.
Roksana realized she’d been staring into nothing for over an hour when a cloud passed in front of the sun, snapping her from a series of hazy reveries. The jacket she’d bought—on Elias’s credit card—for springtime in New York was doing little to combat the cold of Moscow, but she huddled into the nylon interior and left the park, wheeling her suitcase behind her.
Didn’t this place use to be so much bigger? Every store front, every fire hydrant, looked like a movie prop. Similarly, Roksana felt like an actress playing a part. One foot in front of the other, wheel the suitcase, look normal.
Nothing was normal, though.
Once upon a time, while still in college, she’d had the ability to drape a shroud over her upbringing, to dull its presence in her psyche. She’d lived through a youth in which monsters were pointed out on every street corner and often turned to dust, right in front of her very eyes, at the hands of her mother.
As slayers are sworn to keep their existence a secret, she’d watched battles play out in graveyards and tended to her mother’s wounds, but was never able to tell her friends about it the next morning at school. Or confide her reluctance and fears about leading the Russian slayer contingent her mother had formed, to mimic the ones in North America, Spain, Mexico and elsewhere. Not only had Inessa mimicked them, she’d turned her operation into the most prestigious jewel in the slayerhood crown.
Yes, Roksana had been groomed from a young age to fill her mother’s position as the Queen of Shadows—and she’d hated every moment. Why should she have to acknowledge every ugliness in the world? Why was it her duty to hunt the streets for the undead when everyone else got to live in blissful ignorance of such things? It wasn’t fair!
Roksana’s grip twisted around the plastic handle of the suitcase.
How self-centered she’d been. A whiny child.
And her selfishness had cost her friends their lives.
With a lump lodged in her throat, Roksana caught sight of the library ahead, its grand columns seeming to announce her homecoming.
After Vegas, she’d spent one year training to retaliate.
Six months honing her skill in the field, preparing to travel back to America, this time to the East Coast. Another year and a half in New York, failing to carry out the revenge she’d once lived to execute.
Ordered to deliver by her mother.
Elias’s face appeared in her mind, not as he’d been in Vegas all those years ago. But as he’d been on the rooftop, just two nights prior. Commanding, pissed off, beautiful. The memory of his finger slipping into her garter had Roksana’s steps faltering on the sidewalk, her rolling luggage ramming into her heel.
Why did he have to do that?
Had he not proven his hold over her enough?
If not, she’d certainly done so by dropping her stake and running. Thank God she never had to look into his bottomless whiskey eyes again.
Thank God, right?
Roksana swiped the back of her wrist beneath her nose, sniffed and trudged on. The closer she came to the library, its gargoyle protectors lit by the sunset, the more her knees started to tremble. Her mother could probably smell her weakness from the underground depths of the building. And it annoyed her like nothing else that Elias’s image is what gave her the balls to keep moving. He would demand it of her. He would raise that single eyebrow if she stopped, as if to say, “Really? You’re quitting?”
Just to spite him, she halted mid-stride and ducked into a shop, the suitcase trundling along behind her. She would have left her single piece of luggage in a hotel, but she hadn’t bothered checking into one, since this was probably her last day on earth. Although it would have been a nice, final go screw yourself to pay in advance for a week at the Four Seasons, charging it on Elias’s credit card.
After a layover in Paris, she’d landed in Sheremetyevo and browsed gadget stores, sleeping for a while beside a quiet gate and eating in one of the terminal restaurants for a meal, but hadn’t been able to choke down a bite. Thank God no one was there to bear witness to how long she stalled at the airport or she would leave a legacy behind as a coward, instead of a badass slayer of vampires (sometimes).
Now her stomach growled and she found herself carefully selecting her final meal from a row of candy bars. A moment later, she dropped her Hematogen on the counter and asked how much, starting to take cash out of her inner jacket pocket. But she changed her mind and handed the bleary-eyed shopkeeper Elias’s credit card, instead.
Refusing to acknowledge why she’d done that, Roksana ripped open the wrapper, bit the end off the candy bar, and stomped toward the library.
She wouldn’t live her final moments on this earth as a wimp.
Roksana closed the door of the library basement behind her, sending a deafening echo out into the darkness. She was surrounded in black, the smell of dust and leather bringing her back to the last time she stood in this hall.
“Well, daughter.” Her mother turned sideways in her chair, throwing a leather-clad leg over the carved, wooden arm. “What will you do now that your training has been completed?”
“Avenge them,” Roksana whispered fiercely, the cold concrete floor serving as ice to her sore knees. All of her was sore, but the hurt was good. It was healthy.
“Yes, you will.” Inessa bit her lip in a considering way, as if they were discussing what to have for dinner. “You will enact revenge on the vampire who took the lives of your friends, as we discusse
d. His friends will be snuffed out to pay homage to your own. You will slaughter them all. The one who preyed on the innocents that night and all who associate with him. For they will prey on innocents as well. It is their nature. Hunting is what you do now. That is what we do. We slay. We do the dirty work and keep the sheep safe.”
Roksana nodded, ignoring the way her skull rattled from taking so many hits lately. “Yes.”
“I was lenient when you set that murderous vampire loose from our hold, but I understood your desire for an actual challenge. Revenge must be satisfying. It’s something I might have done at your age.” Her eye twitched. “I won’t be so lenient next time.”
A finger of cold traced each bump of Roksana’s spine. She still had no idea why she’d set Elias loose from the prison at the training facility, where Inessa had held him for a year. Only that she’d been physically incapable of putting a stake through his heart when his vigor had been visibly eroded, leaving behind nothing but hollow eyes and sunken cheeks.
And no memory of her.
Roksana ignored the coil of pain in her chest.
“Name the vampires you will kill. Engrave their names on your bones.”
“Elias Perry, Jonas Cantrell, Tucker Moore,” she intoned.
Inessa inclined her head. “They are in Coney Island. New York. Living in a cozy little horde, as they are wont to do.” A breath passed. “You are grateful for this information I’ve found for you, da?”
“Yes. I’m very grateful, Mother.”
That was not a lie. Not at all. She would never have known where to start tracking down the bloodsucker who’d killed her friends. Her mother was being generous.
Her mother was all she had.
The angel of mercy had given her a reason to live in her darkest hour.
She only kept her at arm’s length and left her in physical pain at the end of each day to make her stronger. To make her a warrior worthy of her legacy.
Inessa tapped a finger on her knee. “Remember, if only you’d done as you were told and begun training as a child, you would have been able to protect your friends that night.”
Knowing better than to show weakness in front of her mother, she merely nodded, commanding herself to keep the tears suppressed until later. When she was alone. “Da, Mother. You are right.”
“Hmmm.” Inessa’s pupils turned to daggers as she leaned toward Roksana. “Don’t come back here until every last one of them is a pile of ash. Do not embarrass me after I’ve given you this chance or you will suffer the fate of your friends. Am I understood?”
“Yes.”
With a heavy swallow, Roksana wheeled her useless luggage to the side and advanced into the darkness, positive she was being observed from all sides. For that reason, she kept her stance low and her fists at the ready. I will not be caught unaware.
She moved without a sound, balancing on the balls of her feet, breathing evenly. By the time she’d taken her fifteenth step, she knew she’d reached the center of the hall. That she stood directly beneath the chandelier that dangled vampire fangs instead of crystals.
Her mother might be the Queen of Shadows, she might hold dominion over the Russian contingent of vampire slayers, but she didn’t have a throne. No, her modus operandi was to keep everyone guessing, at all times, so she could be in any location—
A heavy object whizzed toward the back of Roksana’s head and she ducked just in time, whatever it was grazing her blonde flyaways. She dropped into a crouch and spun, kicking the feet out from beneath her attacker and pouncing without preamble, ramming her forearm into their jugular and being rewarded with a satisfying grunt. There would be no celebrating, though, so while she held down her assailant, she closed her eyes and listened for the whispers of her next attack. Concentrate. Concentrate. Would it come from above? Beneath?
Both?
A high-pitched squeal of rust was her only warning before two hundred pounds, give or take, dropped onto her from above. Someone must have been waiting on the chandelier, she concluded absently, while flipping the live weight over, smashing her closed fist into their nose—and delivering a backward kick to the first attacker who was now back on their feet.
Roksana tilted her head, using her split second of rest to dissect the new footsteps rushing in her direction from the side. A woman. No shoes. Skilled in the art of moving unaware, but not skilled enough. Roksana reached for the skulls of her first two aggressors, smashing them together, tossing both stunned bodies into the path of the oncoming threat and snorting when the chick tripped and fell over her teammates.
The confidence she’d been sorely lacking rose like yeasty dough in her veins. “Send me a challenge, Mother—”
Blunt force caught Roksana in the stomach and she wheezed, nearly dropping to her knees. She stumbled, but somehow found the strength to remain standing. To fall in front of her mother would be the ultimate shame. Die with a modicum of pride, damn you.
Light bathed the basement, revealing Inessa standing two feet away, holding an ornately carved club, which she’d obviously used to strike Roksana in the stomach. Her lips were peeled back from her teeth in a snarl, her eyes leveling utter disgust at her daughter’s head.
Roksana sucked in a breath and snapped her spine straight, a dark sort of joy filtering into in her breast. Her mother was standing there. Right there. It had been so long. If only she could just sink into that singular maternal embrace, this constant burden on her soul might lighten, the way it had post-Vegas. It didn’t matter that loathing shone in Inessa’s eyes. It didn’t matter that she’d expressed disappointment in Roksana every day since her birth. There had been occasional positive reinforcement. Sporadic expressions of pride.
In the darkness after the death of her friends, her mother had been the light shining on the other end of the tunnel, giving her purpose. A way to divert the pain before it smashed her heart into a thousand pieces. Others might classify her mother as a horrible, spiteful human being. But the little girl inside Roksana didn’t care. She just saw her mother and wanted to soak up even the smallest droplet of love.
Careful not to let her joy—or her misery—show, Roksana bowed her head. “Inessa.”
“You.” Tapping the club against her palm, she circled around the back of Roksana. “My own daughter has returned to me a failure. Your inability to complete an important assignment is made infinitely more frustrating by the fact that you’re able to take down my three best slayers without breaking a sweat. What an unforgiveable waste of talent you are.”
Knowing better than to interrupt one of Inessa’s rants, Roksana formed a flat line with her lips, keeping a close eye on the felled slayers in case they decided to attack again.
“Our contingent has a zero tolerance policy on failure. Have you returned to face your consequences head on, or will you grovel for your life like any other lowly pissant?”
Roksana lifted her chin, ordering the tears to stay locked away, where they would never be shed. “I’m here to face my consequences.”
Inessa completed her circle around Roksana, stopping in front of her. “You will not beg to keep your life?”
“No.”
“No? But you seemed to be enjoying it so much, palling around with the enemy. My own daughter,” she ground out, tracing the side of Roksana’s face with the blunt tip of her club. “Thumbing her pretty nose at my legacy, as usual.”
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Roksana whispered, blinking several times when the back of her eyelids started to burn. “I don’t know why I couldn’t do it.”
That was the truth, wasn’t it? She should have had no problem driving a stake through the heart of the vampire who helped kill her friends. The vampire who’d turned them into nothing more than bloody corpses lying on cheap carpet on an occasion that should have been happy. A lasting memory of friendship and love.
Damn you, Elias.
She should have killed him as soon as her training was completed.
Not only had he ruine
d her life and stolen that of her friends, but he’d made her helpless in those horrifying moments.
That last part burned like a constant torch beneath her heart.
Briefly, she closed her eyes and heard her own screams, felt the door shaking beneath her pounding fists. Let me out.
“Look at me, daughter,” Inessa snapped, drawing Roksana out of her agonizing thoughts. “You could have been one of the best, if not the best. I saw what you could do in the field before I let you go to America, despite the potential consequences for sending a slayer into another jurisdiction without permission from their contingent. And your skill…” Inessa shrugged. “It rivaled my own.”
Roksana’s heart sprouted wings and they beat rapidly, a grateful sob building in her throat. Approval. It was so rare from her mother, from anyone, she latched onto it and held, savoring every syllable, memorizing them. “Thank you, Inessa.”
“I was not finished.” She tapped a jeweled finger against the center of her chest. “It is here where you fall painfully short. You have the heart of a pathetic, sniveling woman, instead of a warrior. You chose a man over loyalty. You will pay for that this night.”
There was no denying her mother’s accusation. Elias’s eyes glowed in the forefront of her mind. His hand on her thigh. His voice in her ear. His confusing presence in the darkness when she walked the street at night. If there was a scale inside of Roksana, there would be an equal balance of love and hate, always teetering in one direction or the other. But right now?
Right now, hate was winning.
How dare he make her a failure in the eyes of her mother?
You could have been one of the best.
You chose a man over loyalty.
If Elias was standing in front of her at that moment, she thought…no, she knew she could end his existence. One strike. And then, she’d have this woman’s full approval. Next time she visited, there would be no attack in the dark. There might even be an embrace.
This Time Tomorrow Page 6
