Page 158 of Blood Mosaic

She was his now. Her passion. Her anger. Her fear. He felt it all in his own blood.

Lifting his mouth from hers, he kept their bodies pressed together as he whispered in her ear. “Call me your lord, Tatyana Vorona. Give me your loyalty. Ask me for my protection, and you will have it. You will be my lover. No one will touch you. You will be cared for, your family will be protected, and you will want for nothing ever again.”

Her hand gripped the hair at his nape. “All I have to do is call you lord and my family will be protected?”

Oleg pulled back and stared into her eyes, willing her to come to him. To surrender. He wanted it. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to give her everything.

The realization twisted something tight in his chest.

“Call me your lord.” He spoke softly. “And I swear you will never be alone again.”

She would be his. Truly and only his. He would have no other, and he could be content because in this unexpected woman—his little bookkeeper with her sharp teeth—were multitudes. Her mind was a collection of gleaming tessera he could spend eternity learning.

“You want me to call you my lord?” The corner of her mouth turned up. “Bend to you.Bowto you?”

He frowned. “Tatyana?—”

“You said you like my fangs,” she whispered. “Was that because you want to yank them from my mouth?”

Oleg saw the fire in her eyes, and he couldn’t bring himself to hate it even as she rejected him. “So sharp, little wolf.” He dropped his hand and took a step back. “Make sure you don’t chew off your own leg trying to escape from someone who wants to keep you safe.”

Tatyana walked out of the room, and Oleg felt every step she took as she walked away from him.

Chapter Forty-Four

Tatyana woke up in a haze of hunger and torment. Her gut was still churning from her fight with Oleg, and a tearing sensation in her chest told her she’d broken something delicate and irreplaceable.

Ask me for my protection, and you will have it. You will be my lover. No one will touch you. You will be cared for, your family will be protected, and you will want for nothing again.

The temptation to give in, to bend to him and fall into the safety of his power, had been nearly too much.

Call me your lord, and I swear you will never be alone again.

In the watery consciousness of dusk, she curled into a ball, realizing that it would be so easy, sosoeasy, to fall into his arms.

He would give her safety, but it would be false safety. His clan would be her clan. His army, her army. But it would alldepend on Oleg’s pleasure. The moment he became angry with her, disinterested or detached, she would be alone again, only this time it would be isolation for eternity.

She couldn’t do it, not even to protect her mother.

Love shouldn’t feel like a trap.

Her grandmother’s words came back to her tormented mind, and Tatyana took a deep breath and felt her resolve settle.

Love should not feel like a trap. And every moment with Oleg Sokolov felt like she was walking into a trap. A beautiful, soft, pleasurable trap.

But always a trap.

A familiar scent filled the air, tugging at her attention while she mentally composed a short message to her mother. Tatyana would write it out as soon as she fed.

She already had the small cylinders the birds could carry on their legs. Her mother had secreted them into the clothes she’d packed.

Tatyana and her mother’s phone were monitored because of course they were. Mika wasn’t going to take chances again after Elene.

And her mother didn’t know how to troll anonymous message boards under an alias like Grimace.

She would write out her message and release all the birds tonight. And then…

Voices outside her room.

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