Page 48 of Blood Mosaic

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m older than you. It gets worse. It gets better. The worse may seem more obvious, but the better is surprisingly more enduring.”

Tatyana’s eyebrows went up. “Are you an optimist, Oleg Sokolov?”

“I have to be.” Shadows flickered in his memory. Red-tinged shadows that would claw in and take over his mind if he allowed it. “I have to be, or I would go quite mad.”

Oleg walked forward and stepped into the gold cast of a streetlight bouncing off a storefront window.

Tatyana blinked, and the look she gave him was missing the edge of suspicion she usually carried. “Did you show me a picture of something beautiful once?”

Oleg’s attention was fixed on her. That was his only excuse for overlooking the threat that emerged from around the corner and quickly surrounded them.

It was a gang of young men, nine of them and three already had blades out.

“That’s a beautiful purse, pretty girl.” The leader of the small gang lifted a gleaming blade. “Why don’t you give it to me?”

Oleg put his arm around Tatyana and scanned the circle of young men. “This is a mistake,” he told them calmly. “You do not want to bother me and my friend.”

Tatyana wouldn’t hand over her bag. Her computer was in that bag, and she’d sooner hand over her right arm.

She was clutching it to her chest, and her heart was racing in fear. The stench of adrenaline spoiled the air, coming from both the woman at his side and the group of boys around him.

Oleg regretted what was going to happen because these men were drunk and eager for a fight. A few of them were unsure and wary, looking at their leader for cues, but none of them stood up to the twitching man holding out the knife.

That one had the taste of violence on his tongue, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d fed.

Knowing what was about to happen, Oleg felt the world slow to a crawl, his preternaturally alert senses absorbing everything at once.

The cobblestones were wet from evening fog that had rolled in over the city at nightfall. He could hear the footsteps of the men shuffling behind him.

A car raced by on the street where they’d been headed, the rise and fall of music telling him they were utterly alone.

There was a siren in the distance, an ambulance speeding in the opposite direction.

There were no other humans nearby. This small gang of violent men had happened on Oleg and Tatyana and seen them as an opportunity.

They would die because of their foolishness.

“This is a mistake,” he said again slowly, moving his arm from around Tatyana. He removed his coat and let it fall to the ground. “You should leave now or I will kill you.”

Tatyana’s breath caught.

A few of the boys laughed nervously, but the leader’s eyes glittered on Oleg. “I’ll take that coat. And your money. I think I will take your woman too. Maybe you can pay to get her back.”

“Oleg, no.” Tatyana was panicking. “Please, you can have the bag but I need my computer and?—”

“You will give them nothing.” Oleg stared at the leader, whose eyes were shining with intoxication. Something more than vodka was at work in his mind, and he was not going to leave them alone without blood. “Close your eyes, volchitsa.”

She sucked in a breath, and Oleg had no idea if she closed her eyes or not. He was keeping his gaze on the ringleader.

There was a dripping sound as a drop of water fell from a nearby roof and landed on the street. A slap of footsteps on cobblestones and someone coughed.

Oleg snapped his fingers, twisted his hand to gather his element, and threw a flaming ball of fire in the face of the bloodthirsty human.

The leader screamed and fell back, but not before he threw his knife at Tatyana.

Oleg’s hand shot out, stopping the blade before it could reach her, and then he stepped away from her and let his element burst to life around him, enveloping his sweater in flames and transforming it to singed rags that floated to the ground around him like burned paper.

Tatyana screamed and ducked her head down, hiding her face from the fire.

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