Page 122 of Blood Mosaic

“Tatyana?”

She heard his voice through the door like a whisper, and her body reacted immediately. She didn’t know how or why, but she felt needy and nearly desperate for him.

“Yes?” Her breasts were sensitive to the touch. She could feel her own arousal. Smell it.

What was this madness?

Had Oleg smelled every time she’d been aroused around him?

Her mind flooded with embarrassment, but part of her was only more turned on. She wanted him so badly, and she wanted him to know.

Oleg’s voice was gentle and even. “I have fresh blood for you. Open the door when you’re ready.”

He was her monster. Her protector. And without a doubt the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth, picturing the body of the dead man in the garden. “I can’t. I killed him.”

“There are no humans out here. Take a deep breath. Your sense of smell is stronger than a bloodhound’s now. Do you smell anyone?”

She inhaled deeply. Dust. Something green she couldn’t identify. The scent of linen coming from a cabinet near the door. She could smell the sea from a distance. A hint of pine from the air outside and lemon-and-eucalyptus soap in the bathroom. There were flowers somewhere close.

She breathed in Oleg’s scent and wanted to wrap his body around herself like a blanket. Cedar and smoke and a hint of the incense she remembered from her childhood Sundays in church. She wanted to touch him, wanted to fuck him. She wanted to sink her teeth into his body.

This could not be happening.

Tatyana rocked back and forth, hiding her face as her fangs grew long and painful in her mouth. “I don’t want this,” she whispered. “I don’t want any of this.”

“I have donated blood,” Oleg continued in the same soothing voice. “It’s fresh, but the longer you wait, the harder it will be to control yourself.”

Control. Right now she would do anything that would give her back a hint of control.

Tatyana lifted her chin, set her jaw, and winced as her fangs dug into her lower lip.

She wrapped the silk sheets around her body and walked to the door. It was heavy, wooden, and bolted with old-fashioned iron locks. It took her less effort than she imagined to turn the lock, and then she cracked the door open and peered outside.

Outside the bedroom was a cozy living area with a couch and double French doors that looked out over the terrace to a garden filled with white blooms. She could smell gardenia and jasmine in the air.

Oleg was sitting on a white couch reading a book, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. On the table in front of him was a large silver carafe, and Tatyana could smell the blood that it held.

Her eyes flashed toward him but settled on the blood.

“Take as much as you want.” He leaned forward and set his book down before he reached for the carafe but froze when a fierce snarl erupted from Tatyana’s throat.

She slapped a hand over her mouth, but Oleg raised his hands and sat back.

“Take it.” He nodded at the carafe. “Drink. You’ll feel more control after you’ve fed.”

With trembling hands, she knelt in front of the coffee table and grabbed for what looked like a silver coffee carafe, twisting open the top and bringing the vessel to her lips.

She poured the blood directly in her mouth, chugging past the thickness that coated her throat as the warm blood soothed the burning pain. She could feel it dripping down either side of her mouth, but she didn’t care.

It was heaven and heat and everything that she needed. It wasn’t the rancid, dead blood she’d smelled the night before but fresh, warm, and soothing. She felt as if she were swallowing life itself.

Oleg silently walked to a door, opened it, and brought her another carafe before she finished the first.

“In the first month of immortal life” —he kept his voice soft and clinical— “you will need roughly the equivalent of a human body’s worth of blood every night. That is not weakness or lack of discipline; that is physical necessity.”

As he spoke, she continued to drink.

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