Page 168 of Blood Mosaic

She dressed in jeans that rasped against her sensitive skin but would be sturdy if she had to walk far and a silk sweater Oleg had bought for her.

She could not think about Oleg.

Tatyana grabbed a notebook from her bag, scrawled out a message to her mother with the arrangements she’d made with Grimace two weeks before.

If her calculations were correct, at least one of the birds would reach Anna by dawn, hopefully not enough time for Oleg’s people to move but enough time for her mother to escape.

Tatyana tore the paper into small pieces, rolling each one into a tiny cylinder before she got on her phone and sent a text to a number Grimace had given her.

Rex.

Grimace would understand the message. Tatyana stuffed the rest of her belongings into a duffel bag but left the computer and threw her backpack over her shoulders. She grabbed the phone because she couldn’t abandon it yet. It was her only tie to information. Then she left her room.

She waited in the hallway, listening for any movement, but there was nothing. Creeping along the corridor and up the stairs, she paused again, but the house was deadly quiet.

She ran to the garden and the aviary, marveling at the beautiful cage that Oleg had built for her birds in only two nights.

Oh yes. Her lover was skilled at building beautiful cages. Tatyana looked at the mansion behind the garden and realized the massive birdcage Oleg had built mimicked the lines of the house.

Beautiful. And no less a prison.

“Shhhh.” She eased open the door of the aviary and woke the six birds nestled into their roosts. “How are you tonight, Rex Harrison?” She opened the first cylinder, latching it onto Rex’s left leg as the bird woke and began to hop around, cooing happily when he knew he had a message to deliver. “I have a job for you and Brigitte, sir.”

As soon as Rex Harrison woke, the other birds roused themselves, flapping around the aviary with excitement. Hermother’s birds loved to fly, and that night they would be going home.

One by one, Tatyana affixed the messenger cylinders to each bird’s leg, and then she lifted Rex first and walked outside, leaving the door open behind her.

She held the precious bird in her hands, whispering into his ear, “Fly quickly, Rex. Fly home.”

Then she threw the messenger pigeon into the air and watched him soar.

Tatyana quickly launched the other five birds, but when she went to shut the gate, she saw Lazlo standing on the edge of the garden.

Her heart gave a fast thump, but she lifted her chin. “I’m leaving.”

The old vampire lifted one eyebrow. “Are you?”

She gripped her duffel bag in her hand. “Yes.”

“Hmm.” There was something behind his bushy beard. Was it a smile? Maybe a hint of one. “He won’t be happy.”

“He has plenty of vampires around him who want nothing less than to make him happy.”

“But that’s not you.” Lazlo narrowed his eyes. “I’m not my brother’s enforcer. You want to go? Go. But be careful of your thirst. If I hear about dead humans cropping up, I will come after you.”

Tatyana had thought about that. “I stopped. When I was feeding from that man earlier? I stopped.”

Lazlo smirked. “The arrogance of the newborn.” He shrugged. “Kill a human in my territory and I’ll kill you. You want to take a chance? That’s up to you.” He turned and started walking into the forest.

She stared at him in a moment of panic, realizing that she’d been half hoping Lazlo would stop her. The dark road before her was unknown, and she had nothing.

She had nothing.

Or did she?

Oleg satin the lobby of a hotel in Sochi as Mika interrogated a confused human who didn’t realize that the busload of men from Moscow was not, in fact, a hunting party at all.

Moscow.

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