Page 120 of Blood Mosaic

She saw the sky growing lighter and felt darkness creeping over her mind. She would fall asleep. She would burn in the daylight when the sun marched across the ground.

Tatyana would die and that would be just.

She’d had enough. Enough horror. Enough blood. Enough pain.

Enough.

“Tatyana!”

The moment of her death and she heard the damn vampire’s voice? Did heaven really want to torment her so much?

“Leave it and get the house open!”

Tatyana dreamed of strong arms that picked her up as if she were weightless. She was tucked against his chest, and she turned her face to his shoulder, drinking in the scent of cedar and incense that seemed to emanate from his skin.

She was dying, and this was the last vision life offered her?

“Why you?” she murmured.

“Get the doors open.” His voice was just as commanding in her dreams.

Terrible. Oleg the Terrible.

“I don’t care what you call me, but you’re not dying just when I have you back.” The sound of wood cracking and something crashed in. “I have you, Tatyana. You’re safe.” The brush of tender lips across her forehead. “I have you now. You’re safe. I have you now.”

No.

Didn’t he realize?

Tatyana finally understood what was happening a moment before darkness swallowed her mind.

She would never be safe again.

Chapter Thirty

Mika stared at the sleeping newborn vampire, his eyes darting between the young woman and Oleg. “Why did Zara bring herhere?”

Herewas a country estate twenty kilometers outside Sochi, an isolated compound that overlooked the sea and backed up to one of Oleg’s favorite forests. Oleg hadn’t lived here in decades, but the grounds had been maintained by the old man whose body was currently being buried at the edge of the garden.

One of his oldest brothers lived in the forest behind the house and oversaw the territory for him.

Oleg had washed the crusted blood from Tatyana’s body, wrapped her in silk sheets that would be the easiest on her skin, and laid her in a day chamber that only he had the key to open.

And he had no idea what was going on.

Tatyana was a vampire, and her blood smelled of Zara. Zara had sired her and then left her on Oleg’s door. And he had no clue as to why.

“Why here?” Mika repeated. “If we hadn’t found her?—”

“I don’t know.”

Relieved. The moment he’d heard rumors that a ravenous newborn vampire had been dumped in front of his house in thehills outside Sochi, he had hoped that somehow his little wolf had come back to him.

It had been two weeks of searching, but Mika had come up with nothing. Oksana had come up with nothing. There were no rumors that reached Radu’s ears, and Oleg’s entire organization was in mourning for Elene, crippled by the loss of one of his finest people.

After killing Elene, Zara had disappeared across the sea, and Oleg had started to lose hope. His rage had torn through the streets of Odesa, crossed the sea to Sevastopol, and even brought him close to violating treaties with some of his closest allies, whom he suspected might harbor those who had taken his bookkeeper.

But according to his information wizards, none of the money had moved. Zara hadn’t tried to access anything. She had no funds left after hiring the Albanians. Her resources had been drained, and she’d burned all the favors she had left. Most of the immortal world already thought she was dead.

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