Page 53 of Blood Mosaic

Her mother had been born on that farm, and while most of the land was rented out to a local farmer who cultivated almond trees and lavender, the house, the old barn, and the garden was theirs alone.

It was isolated, and as far as she knew, it was still in her grandfather’s name. Maybe it would be enough to keep Oleg’s people from finding it immediately.

“So you saw something criminal,” Anna said. “Did you even think of going to the police?”

“What I saw went far past criminal.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a man, like all men. Maybe he’s an evil one behind that charming smile, but he’s just a man.”

No, Mama, he is not.

Tatyana swallowed the lump in her throat. “I just need to get away and think for a little bit, okay? Those people were in front of our house.”

“And whose fault is that?” Anna snapped. “You brought them to our home.”

The cat decided that was the perfect time to start howling. Pushkin had been surprisingly amenable to this entire adventure when they were escaping the city, but one and a half hours in his carrier was quite enough.

“Yes!” Tatyana shouted over the yowling animal. “I’m sure this is entirely my fault.”

“You never should have taken a job with that crazy woman.”

“Of course not! In fact, I never should have moved away from Kyiv,” Tatyana snapped. “I had a good job there. I would have had a promotion in six months if I hadn’t left.”

Anna clamped her lips together and said nothing.

But Tatyana was on a roll. “Then again, why would I want to stay in Kyiv with my friends and my good job that paid half your bills when I could move back to the place I was desperate to get away from?” Her voice rose to shout over Pushkin’s.

Anna spoke with a clenched jaw. “You have family responsibilities here.”

The cat was howling directly in Tatyana’s ear, the country road rocked and rolled their little compact car, jolting her jaw so hard that she bit her cheek.

Tatyana snapped. “What I have is a paranoid mother who has no friends, no job, and is completely incapable of living on her own like an actual adult. A mother who is determined to keep a farm we can’t afford to pay taxes on because it’s the only happiness she ever had. But you won’t move back, so we have to pay for an apartment in Sevastopol too. But yes, Mama.” She turned and shouted at her mother. “It’s completely my fault that I ended up working for a vampire!”

They pulledinto the farm at three in the morning after taking the old twisting roads through the hills and valleys of the Crimean peninsula, dodging skunks that crossed the road and a few drunks in tiny towns that had once been throughways and were now backwaters because of the highway.

They skirted the scattered lights of Feodosia and headed into the hills. The farm where Anna had grown up was only ten miles from the historic town and seven kilometers from the sea.

Tatyana turned off the paved road and came to a stop near an old metal gate. Anna jumped out of the car and went to open the gate while Pushkin finally settled down.

Her mother hadn’t said a single word about Tatyana’s blurted confession. She either thought her daughter was losing her mind, or she was too furious to speak.

Very possibly both.

Tatyana pulled the car forward as Pushkin’s yowls turned to happy meows.

“Oh, you know where we are now, do you?” She glanced over her shoulder. “She’ll let you outside now that you can’t attack her birds.”

Pushkin chirped.

“Oh no, that was entirely your own fault. Rex Harrison was your friend and you maimed him.”

She couldn’t blame the cat; he was an animal. It was in his nature to attack birds, even birds his mistress loved.

What was Oleg’s nature? Was he compelled to attack humans? To feed from them? He hadn’t attacked Tatyana.In fact, the more she thought about the strange night she’d experienced, the less it made sense.

Anna closed the gate and walked back to the house.

Out in the country and miles away from the bloody alley in Sevastopol, Tatyana finally took a breath.

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