Page 83 of Blood Mosaic

“No.” Mika grimaced. “She’s coming to see you. She’ll be in Sevastopol next week.”

That was either a good sign or a very, very bad one.

Oleg stared at the sky swirling with gold and ice-white stars. “I see fate is coming for me.”

“Do you think she wants you to atone for your sins?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure she will tell me.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest. “I’ll take the woman.”

Mika sighed. “I really wish you wouldn’t.”

“She can visit her mother. It will be good for her.”

“That’s not why you’re taking her.”

Oleg smiled a little bit. “Oh? Then why am I taking her?”

“Just fuck her and get it over with. The fascination will die, and she won’t be a distraction anymore. It’s been far too long since you’ve had a proper lover. Just get the woman out of your system.”

Oleg had a sneaking suspicion she might be even more distracting after he’d fucked her. “And then you won’t have to worry about dangling my little human farther out on a tree branch?” He stretched out his arm and flicked his fingers in a coaxing gesture. “Here, kitty, kitty. Come get your bookkeeper, Zara.”

“You want me to protect the human and catch your daughter without killing her.” Mika narrowed his eyes. “These are not complementary goals.”

Oleg leaned against a rock wall that faced the sea. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. When was the last sighting?”

“There was a rumor that she showed her face in Plovdiv a few nights ago. Someone reported it to Radu as if he’d seen a ghost.”

“Do you think Radu knows she’s alive?”

“Knows? No. Suspects? Probably. He won’t say anything.”

Oleg nodded. “I’ll take the woman to Sevastopol. She can meet Saba. After she meets a vampire like that, nothing in our world will scare her.”

“And she might just run into your arms for protection?”

“She might.” His mouth watered at the memory of her scent, and his fangs ached in his jaw. “And once she comes to me, I will do as I wish.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Who are these people?” Her mother was staring out the window at the car waiting in the lane. “You can’t stay in your own home? Even with all these guards? Mrs. Lipovsky was asking about them the other day, you know. She thinks you’re working for the mafia now.”

“Oh my God.” Tatyana was exhausted by her mother. She loved her, but she was exhausted. “I’m staying at Oleg’s house because I’m working and all the other people in the accounting department are staying there too.”

Which made it sound like there was a gaggle of people in Sevastopol when really it was only Tatyana and Elene.

Still, when her mother was like this, Tatyana couldn’t regret having an excuse to have some space.

“Tell me about the birds.” Tatyana glanced at the clock. She had ten more minutes before she would need to go, and she didn’t want to spend it listening to her mother complain. “How is Rex Harrison?”

“A champion, of course. I took him to the farm and he was back before I arrived.” Anna looked out the window again, her arms crossed over her chest. “These vurdulac?—”

“Vampires.” These were not the monstrous creatures from folktales. “Vampires, Mama.”

“Same thing.” Anna walked over and picked up the cat from the back of the sofa, putting Pushkin in her lap as she sat across from Tatyana. “Can they hear us?”

“Maybe.” There was at least one vampire guard out on the landing in back. “Probably.”

“So they’re monsters, but they’re” —she twisted her mouth— “civilizedmonsters?”

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