Page 143 of Blood Mosaic

“Drink the rest of your blood before dawn,” Mika called down the hallway.

“I was going to do that anyway,” she said. “So when I do it, do not think it was because you told me to.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Oleg returned to the house before dawn, just in time to see Lazlo slipping into the forest and a carful of human guards pull up to the house. Though it was unwise for mortals to be around Tatyana during the night, he refused to leave the house unguarded during the day.

He walked into the entryway and looked for Mika, who was waiting for him.

“Is she locked away?”

“She drank the rest of her blood and locked her door half an hour ago,” he said.

“I’ll give them the signal.” Oleg walked back to the front door and waved at the van full of humans before he ducked back inside to avoid the swiftly lightening horizon. “I’m sorry it took so long. Did you tell Tatyana that I needed to go into town to meet with Ivan’s men?”

His brothers in Moscow were growing more and more arrogant, and steps would have to be taken to clamp down on them soon.

Soon, but not that night.

“I told her you were gone. She was working with Oksana.”

“Ah.” Oleg nodded. “Good. That’s an excellent idea.”

“The others are saying that the bookkeeper catches on quickly and has good instincts.”

Oleg nodded as he walked down the hallway toward his office. “Her mind is keen, and that matters more in immortality than muscles or strength.”

The corridors and rooms near his day chamber were light safe with heavy metal shutters that would allow him an extra couple of hours before he needed to rest. He was old enough that dawn didn’t pull him under immediately; he just needed to avoid daylight.

“I should ask her what kind of weapon training she wants,” Oleg said. “She doesn’t know her own strength yet.”

“She said her weapons of choice are a computer and a smartphone.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “Amusing, but no.”

Simply by virtue of wielding amnis, Tatyana was faster, stronger, and had better reflexes than the most athletic mortal on Earth. She would be able to lift weights that would rival an Olympian, run faster than a sprinter, and take out a human commando with very little effort, but she needed to learn how to use her new body to the greatest effect.

Her new body that he was craving again.

“Clear my schedule for tomorrow night,” Oleg said.

Mika was walking behind him. “Fine. I should follow up with my informants in Moscow. What did Basil say?”

“He was blustering, as usual.” Oleg threw out his hands. “Ivan is testing my patience.”

“He’s a problem you’ll need to deal with eventually.”

“After Zara,” Oleg muttered. “One problem at a time.”

His brother in Moscow was the head of the Sokolov crime family, and Oleg had done his best to separate himself from their activities while still keeping the worst of their instincts in check.

Oleg couldn’t stop them from running drugs, smuggling weapons, or collecting protection money from human and vampire criminal rackets, but he’d cracked down on as much of the human trafficking as he could. The fact that some of it was still going on—while Ivan proclaimed innocence—was an ongoing problem.

“Things seem quiet right now,” Oleg said. “Fly to Moscow and talk to people. It may be time to take Ivan out. Or make an example of him to warn the others.”

Oleg had been choosy with which of his horrible brothers to keep alive. He didn’t want to face a full-scale mutiny when he took out his sire, so he’d allowed Ivan and some of the others to live even though he really didn’t want to.

Hundreds of years later, he wished he’d made a different choice.

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