Page 132 of Blood Mosaic

“He wouldn’t though.” Oksana narrowed her eyes. “You know that, right?”

Did she?

“I think so?”

“Oleg is…” Oksana pursed her lips. “He’s complicated. But you’ll figure him out. And just so you know, there’s a reason that so many of us are loyal to him.”

“Why is that?”

Oksana took a step back and smiled. “I think you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.” She headed toward the door. “Let me know if you need more clothes, but I think yours will be coming tomorrow night.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Oleg strolled along the back terrace that overlooked what Luana had once called his moon garden. The shape of the garden mimicked a crescent moon that curved out from the house, its tips leading to winding paths through the evergreen forest behind the house.

The lushness of the moon garden reflected the climate of the subtropical coast, and the plants looked more like a Mediterranean paradise than a formal European garden.

Fragrant citrus trees mingled with waving palm trees that wintered over thanks to the microclimate that survived even on top of the hill overlooking the sea.

Wrought iron arches crawled with fragrant, white-blossomed jasmine. Carefully clipped gardenias and camellias lined the pathways. All the flowers were white, heavily fragrant, and luminous under moonlight.

Now the whisper of the wind through the pine trees was joined by the cooing of six pigeons Tatyana’s mother had sent her from home.

When Tatyana had told him the birds were coming, he felt an unexpected lightness in his chest. It pleased Oleg that she would keep pets in his home, and he immediately ordered supplies tobuild a large aviary and a dovecote at the back of the garden in a sunny spot that would be warm enough for the birds but sheltered from the wild animals that lived in the forest.

He and Mika had finished the structure in a matter of hours with the help of his brother Lazlo, just in time for the truck from Sevastopol to arrive with two heavy chests of Zara’s gold, the birds from Tatyana’s mother, and more homemade food than half a dozen vampires could eat in a week.

Tatyana had let the birds loose in the aviary and spent two hours sitting with them and whispering secrets as he tried not to listen in.

When she’d returned to the house before dawn, her expression seemed slightly more relaxed, and Oleg had been encouraged to see peace on her face instead of anger.

But that night as he walked through the moon garden, Oleg heard her crying.

He walked down the path, past the massive reflecting pool in the middle of the garden where a delicate fountain shot water upward in a crescent-shaped fan.

She was leaning against the trunk of the small apple tree, staring at the ground where his old gardener’s body had been found on the night he came for her.

“My little wolf,” he whispered. His heart ached because there was nothing that pierced the immortal soul like the sting of regret.

Oleg walked over, and just as Tatyana was turning, he bent down, picked her up in his arms, and cradled her in his lap.

“Oleg, I don’t have the energy to fight with you right now.”

“Stop.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “No lessons tonight.”

He had spent the past week teaching Tatyana the basics of using her amnis. He’d taught her to draw it over her skin like a shield. He’d watched as she learned the beginnings of controlover her instincts, calling on the water with clumsy but potent power.

Every moment had been like pulling teeth.

His little bookkeeper was resistant to mental manipulation of any kind now that she had an immortal mind. She was stubborn, determined, and defiant.

And frightened.

“No lessons tonight,” he repeated, pressing her head to his shoulder. “Let me be sweet with you.”

She sighed and pressed her tearstained face against his shoulder. “I thought that was an insult.”

“Only when I’m trying to seduce you.”

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