Page 165 of Blood Mosaic

“Knyaz!” Mika ran to him and threw his arms around Oleg’s torso. “I have you. I have you.”

If Mika had not caught him, Oleg knew he would have collapsed.

Zara’s blood spread across the inlaid mosaic floor, crimson over aquamarine and jade, the scarlet red feathering through the pooled water from the fountain until the flooded ballroom was awash in glistening, stinking rose.

Oleg stood with his feet planted wide, his chief boyar holding him up as the water coating his skin started to steam. His element finally woke and reacted to his pain. Tears that fell from Oleg’s eyes turned to steam when they hit his cheeks.

“I have you,” Mika kept repeating. “I have you.”

After a few long moments, Oleg threw his arm around Mika’s shoulders. “Brother.” He leaned down and kissed his boyar’stemple. “My brother.” He gently pushed Mika’s arms away even though the pain still twisted in his veins. “Where is she?”

Oleg answered his own question when he turned around to see Tatyana—a vision in the water—passed out on the ground.

The silk she wore was stained pink from the bloody water she lay in, and her golden hair was matted with blood and gore. There was a red gash across her abdomen that the water was quickly healing.

Oleg looked at Mika with a raised brow. Despite his pain, the violence that had touched Tatyana offended him. “That was from your blade.”

“I thought she was with Zara.” Mika lowered his head. “I thought?—”

“I know what you thought.” Oleg had thought the same. For a moment he had thought the same, and he’d even wavered for a second.

Would death be so unwelcome if it came at her hand?

The thought of killing another gentle creature was exhausting.

He patted Mika’s shoulder and walked to Tatyana, scooping her up even though the water tried to hold her. “Deal with the bodies,” he commanded. “Our guards outside must be dead.”

“There had to be fifty men with her,” Mika said. “All Russian. Two vampires—one flew away before I could identify him, but the one I killed I did not recognize.”

Oleg took a deep breath, his amnis slightly mollified with Tatyana in his arms. “We’ll deal with who was supporting Zara after I clean her up.”

“Yes, Knyaz.”

Oleg paused at Zara’s body, glancing at the head covered in dark curls that lay against the far wall. “Prepare her body for burial,” he said quietly. “We will return her body to the earth.”

Mika frowned. “She’s a water vampire.”

After three nights, if a vampire didn’t burn, their body would return to its element. Water to water. Earth to earth.

“She ismydaughter,” Oleg said gruffly. “She is a Sokolov. We will return her body to the earth.”

With Tatyana curled in his arms, Oleg strode through the bloody entry hall where his druzhina waited.

“Zara is dead,” he told them. “Help Mika in the ballroom.”

Carrying Tatyana to his own day chamber, he kicked open the door and shut it behind him. He’d deal with the locks before dawn. His druzhina was awake; no one would cross the threshold without his permission.

Tatyana was still limp in his arms as he walked to the lavish bathroom made of grey marble. He set her on a carved bench in the shower and considered how to remove her bloody clothes. Should he cut them off? Try to get them over her head?

He didn’t want the blood and gore from the battle to stay on her skin any longer than necessary.

“Are you happy now, volchitsa?” He stood and walked to the faucet to turn on the water as he pictured Zara’s head flying through the air. “Are you at peace?”

She was rootless now, an orphan in the immortal world. She had no clan, no family, and she refused to ask for his aegis.

“Yes.”

He turned when he heard her speak.

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