Page 124 of Blood Mosaic

He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know. Did Zara bring you here?”

“I don’t remember.” She shook her head. “I was knocked out after the car crash. Then… There are chunks of time that I remember, but I don’t recall anything more than flashes after Zara killed Elene.” A punch of anger and sadness as tears sprang to Tatyana’s eyes and her emotions swung wildly from pain to anger to longing. Her fingers gripped the carafe, and she heardglass crack as the vessel caved in. “She killed Elene in front of me.”

“Give it to me.” Oleg took the broken carafe from her hand and wrapped his hand around her clenched fist. “Take a deep breath and try to relax.”

She whispered, “I love her so much.”

“I’m sorry.” Pain leached through his voice. “I loved her too, but the only thing we can do now is find?—”

“Not Elene!” Tatyana started rocking again, her body shaking with an overflow of emotions like water spilling over the edge of a bowl. She felt everything and sensed everything at once.

Oleg kept his voice quiet. “Your emotions are intense right now. Your nervous system has been overloaded by your heightened senses, and your brain hasn’t had the time to process?—”

“I hate her!” she screamed, then slapped a hand over her mouth as a sob tore from her chest. “I hate Zara. I hate her. I want to kill her.”

Oleg’s voice was quiet and even. “Trust me when I say that I understand?—”

“And I love her.” Tatyana couldn’t stop the words even though she hated them. “Iloveher so much.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“So that is why Zara brought her to you.” Mika blew a stream of smoke from the thin cigar he’d lit in the library. The French doors to the back terrace were open, and the scent of oranges and lemons filled the air. “Because Tatyana will be loyal to her blood.”

It was midnight and the newborn in the house was taking a bath. If Oleg knew water vampires, she could be in there for several hours.

“I always liked this house.” Oleg breathed in the scent of the sea and the ripening citrus trees. “I should spend more time here. Lazlo isn’t hard to be around, and he mostly wants to be left alone.”

“It’s not very convenient.” Mika took another drag on his cigar.

He’d taken up the old habit in the weeks since they’d found Elene’s body. Mika hadn’t attended the funeral because he knew it would anger Dmytro and the children. He’d spent most of his nights alone or working furiously with Oksana to track down every human and vampire who’d had a part in Elene and Tatyana’s abduction.

They were dead. All of them except Zara and whomever she had directly with her. Mika had personally executed them all.

Oleg had been trying to walk softly around his old friend even through his own grief after losing Elene. Because his grief was nothing to Mika’s.

“It’s too isolated here,” Mika said. “It’s not close enough to a seaport or an airport.”

“It reminds me of the citadel.” Oleg didn’t mind the isolation. He’d been far too exposed in the past few years. His blood craved revenge, but his soul craved a decade or two away from business and politics, which wouldn’t be possible anytime soon after Elene’s sudden loss.

“The citadel is also too isolated,” Mika muttered, “but at least there’s the river.”

“Luana and I had many good decades in this house. She was fond of this place.” Which was probably why Oleg avoided it.

Mika set his cigar to the side and returned to the matter at hand. “What are you going to do about the newborn? She’s a problem.”

“She’s Zara’s child,” Oleg said. “So she loves her sire; her feelings are completely predictable.”

“But she’s under your aegis, so you’re bound to care for her,” Mika said.

“She’s not under my aegis.” Oleg raised an eyebrow. “Not at the moment. Until she disavows her own sire and pledges loyalty to me, she’s under Zara’s.”

“So you could kill her.”

“Zara? I would like to, but it’s complicated now.”

“No, Tatyana.”

Oleg wasn’t prepared for the snarl that erupted from his throat, the way his fangs fell and cut his own lip, or the look of utter terror when Mika saw his reaction.

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