Page 164 of Blood Mosaic

“Might.” Zara still held the sword between them. “Not will. Youmight.”

“I guarantee nothing until I hear your apology,” Oleg said. “You are part of the Sokolovs, Zara. You have always rejected this, but you carryourblood. The blood of Truvor and Ruda. The earth beneath us belongs to our clan, and we carry the weight and the duty of that. Honor that legacy, honor your clan. For once in yourlife,” he spat out, “think of something other than your own pain.”

This was not how Tatyana had expected this conversation to go. What should she do? She was torn between her sire and her lover. The axe was in her hand.

Zara lifted her chin. “I apologize…”

Oleg’s shoulders released. “Good?—”

“…for nothing,” Zara whispered. “I apologize for nothing. I will hate you until the day I die. I apologize. For nothing.” Her eyes drifted to Tatyana for a moment; then she charged.

Oleg’s fire came to his arms.

Zara ran toward him, her blade lifted.

And Tatyana moved from her corner, racing to the center of the ballroom.

She slipped in blood, but she struggled to her feet, running toward the two vampires battling in the center of the room.

Oleg’s fire rose over his shoulders, and as it reached, a wall of water came from the fountain, showering him and Zara both,devouring his flames. He looked at the floor, searching for a weapon as Zara ran toward him with her blade pointed at his neck.

“No!” Tatyana screamed. She lifted her axe and rushed toward Oleg.

Mika bared his fangs and arrowed toward Tatyana, a silver dagger raised.

Tatyana slipped again, the blow she’d aimed at her sire glancing off Zara’s shoulder, missing her neck.

Zara’s eyes went wide when she saw Tatyana strike out. “What?”

The blade that Mika had aimed at her glanced across her abdomen, raising a line of blood.

“Mika!” Oleg’s roar was ferocious.

But Tatyana could only stare at Zara and the red gash on her shoulder that was not a killing blow.

Zara’s eyes were wide. “What are you doing?”

Tatyana wanted her freedom. She wanted Zara gone. She wept bloody tears as she lifted the axe again, but before she could land a blow, the weapon was snatched from her hand and Oleg knocked Tatyana to the floor.

She looked up at him with pleading eyes.

Zara lifted her hands. “Papa, no!”

Oleg curled his lip, baring a fang at Tatyana, and then turned, lifted the axe, and swung it, slashing Zara across the neck. Her head detached from her body and flew across the room.

A scream ripped from Tatyana’s throat as Zara’s head thudded against a wall and her body fell to the bloody floor.

The pain seared through her veins like fire, and for a moment her heart felt as if it would burst before an icy pull swept through her body like a wave.

Tatyana screamed, curling into a ball on the blood-soaked floor as the water from the fountain rose and covered her,washing her clean even as she vomited the blood from her stomach and twisted with the pain of her sire’s death.

The water washed over her again and again, like waves along the shore, cleaning the blood and the battle that clung to her skin. Moments after Zara’s death, Tatyana’s amnis was spent and a drugging wave of darkness pulled her under.

Chapter Forty-Seven

The pain of his child’s death seared his veins, doubled by the pain he tore from Tatyana as her sire perished. Oleg felt his blood dying in Zara’s body. He felt the last of Luana’s amnis dying with her.

Though he remained standing, Oleg was frozen and his amnis was screaming in pain.

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