Elias debated a half-hearted fight with her, just so he’d have the chance of their skin brushing. Feeling her breath on his face. “You’re a slayer?”
“Yes,” she pushed through her teeth. “I slay for them.”
No doubt she was referring to her friends. The ones he’d failed to save.
Self-disgust shrank his skin around his bones. “For who?”
A shudder passed through her, a light sheen glazing in her eyes. “You know who I am! You know who I’m talking about!”
Acid burned him alive from the inside out. “I’m sure I don’t.”
“You murdered my friends. All of them.” Fire raged in her eyes. “You locked me away and forced me to live with the memories of their pleading. You took my will! All so you could have your precious immortality. Tell me now. Was it worth it?”
Ah. So that’s how Inessa had explained the coincidence of him becoming a vampire the same night he met Roksana. Were there truly people who would seek out this hellish existence? Knowing she believed this of him was almost too much to bear.
“Where did this murder happen?” he said, barely managing to sound normal.
“Las Vegas,” she said, her voice strained. “You…you have to know.”
“I was Silenced in Vegas, apparently, but the whole night is a blur. It’s not uncommon for new vampires to be confused and…murderous in those first few days.” He flicked a piece of non-existent lint off his shoulder, but on the inside, his lungs were being torched. “It’s just one of those things, I guess.”
“One of those things,” she repeated, sounding winded.
“Where did you train?” Elias asked, conversationally. “I’ve never seen you at any of the sessions.”
“My training was private,” she said, visibly numb, though she bolstered herself quickly. “The great Queen of Shadows is my mother. I train under her watch and for that, I am fortunate. She has honor and patience, something you’ll never understand. She’s given me the gift of vengeance and it is what pulled me from the hole you dropped me into, monster.”
Her raw honesty threatened to double him over.
Here was the real reason Elias could never tell her what really transpired that night in Vegas. Her thirst for revenge was the only thing holding her together. Inessa had gotten exactly what she wanted when she’d executed her daughter’s friends. She’d gotten blind loyalty borne from the worst pain imaginable. Roksana had gone to her mother broken and been remolded.
I’ve already failed her once. Let her friends be senselessly assassinated.
I won’t take her mother, too.
Roksana’s vengeance was wrapped tightly around Inessa, like a tumor. Severing one would damage the other and leave Roksana with nothing.
“Wow.” He kept his voice flat. Mean. “Trained by the queen herself. You must think you’re really important.”
“This time tomorrow,” she blurted, and he wished, he wished in that moment that she would just drive the goddamn stake into his heart. End it, please. “Nothing?” she whispered.
He fixed his stare on the ceiling. “I’m bored enough that I just might let you kill me.”
“Let me?” In a flash of speed, she spun and delivered a roundhouse kick to his jaw, snapping his head back.
Any other time, he would barely have felt the blow, but weeks had passed without a drop of blood and Elias thought he might be dying. It was taking every ounce of his willpower not to overcome Roksana and sink his teeth into her neck, to feel the flow of strength course through him and more than that, finally know what she tasted like.
To have some part of her inside him would be glorious.
But he’d rather she killed him than force her to suffer that indignity.
He’d done enough.
End me, Roksana. I can’t live knowing how I’ve hurt you.
“Impressive,” he drawled, settling into a battle stance, fists at the ready. Pretense. He’d never strike her. “What else you got, slayer?”
Some of the color left her face. “It’s Roksana.”
Elias shrugged, as if her name was inconsequential.
With a shout of outrage, she kicked him in the center of the chest and he let himself hit the wall, dropping his fists to his sides. He focused on her beautiful face, savored it, as she lifted the stake high and drove it down—
It froze, right above his heart, held in her shaking fist.
“Do it,” she whispered to herself, then more forcefully, “Do it.”
His mind spun with shock. She couldn’t kill him?
After his betrayal? His ineptitude the night of the slaughter?
Was it possible this girl still felt something for him, despite it all?
No. No, he wouldn’t allow himself that hope. Even if she still held on to a remnant of what they’d established between them that night in Vegas, he couldn’t claim her.
Not when he harbored secrets about Inessa and would be forced to lie.
Not when he’d failed Roksana so bitterly.
“When was the last time you fed?” Roksana asked suddenly.
The pulse on her neck beat like a maddening drum, tantalizing him. “Weeks. Months. I don’t know.”
Her eyes closed a moment, before she pulled away from him with a scoff. “No. No, this is a ripoff. I want a fair fight from you.”
“You won’t get it,” he said in a rush. Come back here. Kill me. “She keeps me at half strength.”
“Because you are training the newbies,” she explained, completely unaware how wrong she was. His days were often endless rounds of battles with slayers at the highest level. Preparing them to kill his own kind. Or not. Depending on what gave Inessa an advantage in this dark underworld. “She brought you here as a gift to me, because of what you did,” Roksana continued. “So it’s my decision if you live or die. When I kill you, I want it to be satisfying.” Nodding firmly, she slipped her stake into a holster on her back. “You may go, vampire. But understand this.” Her voice shook a little, but he pretended not to notice. “One day, I will turn you to dust for what you’ve done.”
Slowly, she backed out of his cell, leaving the door open.
As soon as she was out of sight, his hands flew to his throat, gripping tight, trying to get his thirst for her under control. His bones rattled, begging him to go after Roksana. Take.
His knees hit the ground hard and he curled into himself, roaring into his closed mouth. He stayed that way, counting to one hundred and back, until she was safe from him, then he staggered to his feet and out of the cell, the world rolling out before him an unfamiliar place.
An invisible compass demanded he follow Roksana, just as he’d done in the casino, but he couldn’t do that and keep her safe.
Not yet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Elias leaned into the freezing Moscow wind and moved silently down the empty street, resisting the urge to quadruple his speed. He might work for the North American vampire king as a handler for newly Silenced vampires, but Moscow was an entirely different jurisdiction and if he risked discovery by humans, getting out of that jam could prove a challenge. He didn’t have time for that tonight. Not when Roksana was on her way to the poker game and he didn’t even know the goddamn address.
Why the hell wasn’t Jonas answering his phone?
Before he’d left for Moscow, the king had confided in him about an increase in vampire slayings throughout the States. Perhaps he was occupied finding out the reason for the uptick.
At first, when Jonas convinced Elias to join him on his mission to help new vampires acclimate to their new life, he’d done it to fill time. But over the years, he’d grown more invested. If someone with the same affliction had been there to guide him in the beginning, he would have benefitted greatly. It pained him that he wasn’t there to be of assistance when Jonas had a potential crisis on his hands. Elias’s first priority was Roksana, however, and Jonas had known that since day one. That didn’t mean Elias felt good about deserting the guy wh
o’d pulled him out of a black miserable hole.
Voicemail. He ended the call with a curse.
Grinding his back teeth together, Elias cut through a dark park, stopping when he reached the monument at its center.
Three years later, it was still hard for him to believe vampires existed, but for some reason, the fact that the king of them had a voicemail box was the oddest shit of all.
It was impossible for Elias to remain motionless, his tread threatening to wear a path in front of the monument. He’d kissed her. He’d kissed Roksana.
Her taste owned him. Consumed him.
There was no going back now. None.
Hell, there had been no going back three years ago, but his tether had fully and completely snapped tonight. First when he’d walked into the apartment and thought she’d left. His skull had almost caved in on itself. Going into the bathroom with that weak of a will had been error enough. There’d been no strength to fight when she asked to be kissed.
How had he ruined something so perfect?
She’d clung to him the way she’d done every night in his dreams, her legs tight around his hips, her mouth the definition of perfection, her sighs like balms to his tortured soul. But he’d been unable to content himself with physical touch. Not with this woman. He’d craved words, confessions, declarations, truth. Everything.
He’d screwed up big time. But that wouldn’t happen again.
No longer could he maintain this vitriol between him and Roksana. It was slowly killing him. Every time she looked at him with pain in her eyes, thinking he was just some fang chaser who’d used her as an avenue to eternal life, he wanted to rage at the unfairness. Because he was holding firm to his resolve to keep the truth hidden. He would not be the one to shatter her illusions about Inessa. He would not steal more from her life. He’d done enough to hurt her.
Somehow, even believing him a deceitful enemy, she’d softened for him tonight.
She’d opened her legs for him, kissed him like she couldn’t stand stopping.
Oh, there was no going back.
A twig snapped on the ground behind Elias and his fangs snapped into his mouth, lips peeling with a snarl. His muscles relaxed when the tip of a cigar winked at him in the darkness.
“Fuck me, man. Could you be more dramatic with this meeting spot?” Tucker swaggered forward, dropping his voice to a rasp that mimicked Elias’s. “Meet me in a deserted park in the shadow of a hammer and sickle sculpture. You’re allowed to pick an intersection or a Starbucks, you know.”
Elias couldn’t completely subdue his smile. “Thanks for coming.”
“You owe me.” He stomped his boots and buried his hands further into his coat. “It’s so cold here, I’m going to cry.”
“I do. I owe you.”
“Ah, I was just playing. You know I love flying on the Vamplane,” Tucker said, referring to the planes with blacked out windows that were secretly kept at more airfields than any human could fathom. “If I ever get sick of driving Uber, I’m going to become a flight attendant on one of those things. Talk about an easy gig. There’s no meal service, there’s only one drink choice on the beverage cart—”
“Tucker, I brought you were for a reason.”
“Right-o.” He clicked his heels together and saluted Elias. “At your service, pal.”
Elias shook his head. How he could be such good friends with someone his total opposite still remained a mystery to him. His path had diverged from Jaxson’s as a youth and he’d learned to be comfortable as a loner. As soon as he’d started to open himself back up to friendships, he’d been Silenced. He really hoped his third time making friends was a charm, because…hell, he liked Tucker. The guy was an irreverent goofball, but he was reliable and trustworthy. Not to mention, Elias got the feeling Tucker had a lot more layers than anyone realized. “It’s Roksana. Obviously.”
“Yeah, somehow I didn’t think we were in Russia for the borscht.”
Elias checked his phone again, growling when he didn’t find an incoming call for Jonas on the screen. “She’s playing in a poker game tonight. I’m not sure what the stakes are, but her mother arranged her place at the table.”
“Meaning you need to be at the table.”
“Damn right.” He nodded at Tucker, still willing his phone to ring. “Both of us, if possible. I don’t take chances with her.”
“Oooh-eee.” Tucker rubbed his hands together. “I haven’t played poker in years. Being able to hear everyone’s pulses at the table kind of took the fun out of it.”
Elias had thought of that. If the poker game was among humans, they could help Roksana win easily. But Elias wasn’t betting on this being some average, run-of-the-mill poker game. Not if Inessa was involved. She surrounded herself with dangerous elements, as he knew too well, and he wasn’t letting Roksana face the night alone.
“Anyway,” Tucker said, scratching his chin. “Poker isn’t going to be the same without beer and snacks, but I’ll take it.”
“Unfortunately, we have no invitation or way of negotiating our way in.”
“Have you tried calling Jonas?” Tucker asked.
Elias just looked at him.
The phone rang. Elias answered it before the first ring was completed. “Jonas.”
“Elias,” the king said. “I’ve been trying to get in contact for days”
In the background, there was the unmistakable sound of a bed creaking, a dreamy feminine sigh. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Jonas hadn’t been answering the phone. What it must be like, sharing a bed with the woman who had their hooks in you. Knowing she would be there always. Having no deception between them. It had to be incredible.
Elias beat back his envy. “I’ve been dealing with Roksana.” The king knew him well enough that no explanation was needed. “I need your help.”
“Sure, now you do,” Jonas said dryly. “What do you think the chances are that I was trying to get a hold of you for the exact same reason?”
He didn’t answer directly. “There’s a poker game happening tonight in Moscow. Unless I’m wrong, it’s underworld only. Do you know anything about it?”
“Yes, although now time is against us.” Footsteps echoed down the line. “You’ve heard there’s a been a rash of slayings recently in North America? Well, it’s gotten worse. There is…unrest in response to the vampire throne changing hands. To say the least. Sides are being formed and there’s a game piece floating around. Something that could be valuable to whichever side claims it first.” He paused. “Evidently the key to procuring the game piece is on the line at the poker game tonight. It’s a marriage decree.”
Elias frowned. “For who?”
“The daughter of Tilda who runs Enders in Coney Island. Mary the Mad.”
He massaged the bridge of his nose. “All right, I’m not asking any more questions because the answers are always fucking weird. Just get me and Tucker spots at the table.”
“Consider it done. I’ll send you the details.” A door closed on the other end of the line. “I take it Roksana is competing tonight?”
Why did he hesitate to answer? “Yes.”
He heard the regret in the king’s voice when he said, “Then she competes against us.”
Roksana watched the mansion from a crouched position in the shadows, backpack slung over one shoulder, her mother’s voice ringing in her head.
Locate weapons in advance.
Know your exits.
Know your opponents.
She should have spent the last two days finding out more about this poker game. Who attended. Was it a one-time event or a usual occurrence? If it was the latter and the players were well acquainted, she needed to be especially on her guard. She could be walking into a house full of allies. Whereas a one-time event could mean more volatility, people on edge.
The mansion was enormous, pale yellow, designed in the Art Nouveau style. There were bars on the windows, but they were ornate wrought iron, making the blocked means
of egress seem almost fashionable. If she was required to get out, it would need to be through a door. Or smashing through the one large window without bars. It was high and arched at the front of the house, showing off the crystal chandelier inside, though it wasn’t lit. The only light was a dim glow coming from the basement.
Why did everything have to be in a freaking basement?
Roksana reached down and massaged her sore legs, willing her limp away. On the way to the game, she’d caught sight of herself in a car window and cringed. How far the sexy had fallen. She was now a wet rat with a black eye, busted lip and no cleavage. With only minutes to go until the game was scheduled to begin, however, she would have to make do.
A red Jaguar slid into park at the curb outside the mansion, turning off its lights.
Her neck started to tingle, telling her immortals were present.
A second later, she was proven right.
Two men climbed out of the vehicle simultaneously. Sharply dressed in suits and baseball caps, moving almost in tandem, they strode up the stone walkway, both of them rapping on the door in six quick knocks, pausing, then knocking one more time.
Roksana filed that information away. Had Inessa failed to mention the knock on purpose, wanting to give her daughter a challenge? Most likely. She was always finding creative ways to make Roksana more astute. Better at her job.
The door opened and the two men disappeared inside, but before the door could shut, someone came jogging down the sidewalk, his gold chain catching the moonlight. “Hold up. Hollllld up. One more for the part-ay.”
Roksana’s eyes widened.
She knew that voice. There was rust and humor laced through every note, as well as a whopping dose of Midwestern America.
“Tucker?” she whispered, puzzled.
What the hell was Elias’s best friend doing there?
Was the vampire competing for the marriage decree or did he have other business?
If he was trying to win the decree, did that make them…enemies?
A knot formed in her throat. Dammit, she liked Tucker. Unlike her relationship with Elias—
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