Page 17 of Rites of Passage

TheBlack Devilsgenerals were not his favorite people in the world.

“Don’t eat anyone,” Vlad warned the tiger.

Tarang gave him a hurt look.

Vlad knocked and opened the door.

CHAPTER10

The men loungingon the contemporary Chesterfield leather sofas in front of the open fire looked around when he walked in.

“Gentlemen,” Vlad greeted with a relaxed half-smile.

Arseny Maximov, Ustin Larionovich, and Zacharin Yaroslav grunted out greetings, their expressions guarded. Their gimlet eyes swept the area around Vlad. Though they couldn’t see Tarang, they knew he was there. They’d witnessed what the familiar could do the first night Vlad gave in to his dark side and let his demon magic loose.

Yuliy’s study was decorated along the same clinical lines as the rest of the mansion, the only splash of color the vibrant, red, Diaspro wall with rich black and cream veins framing the fireplace. The Sicilian marble had been shipped over from the mountains of Custonaci when the property was being built and had stirred much interest amongst city officials when it went through customs.

“Take a seat,” Yuliy said gruffly around his cigar.

He sat at his neat, white-granite desk, his gaze on the paperwork in front of him.

Vlad observed the smoke curling around his uncle’s face with narrowed eyes. “I hope that’s filtered. You know what the doctors said about the state of your lungs.”

“The state of my lungs is no business of yours, boy.”

“It is if I’m gonna have to spoon feed you and change your diapers in your old age,” Vlad retorted.

The three generals’ faces turned disapproving.

“You should show more respect for your father,” Maximov growled.

Yaroslav looked over at Yuliy. “I told you you should have whipped him when he was a kid.” He met Vlad’s cold gaze, his mouth a sneer. “Nothing like a bit of lashing to make impertinent boys submit to their elders.”

Vlad tried not to curl his lips. Everyone in theBlack Devilsknew of the dungeon Yaroslav kept for his own private use in the sex clubs he owned. The young men he would keep there for days on end were mostly from families who owed debts to theBratvasand were selected by the Russian crime lord to spend the night with him in exchange for clearing their parents’ dues. A few came to his bed willingly, hoping to get a helping hand up the ladder and a better position in the syndicate.

By the time they left Yaraslov’s red room, not only were they covered in bruises and their eyes dead, they would often end up addicted to the drugs he pumped into them to make them more compliant during sex and spend their best years serving as male prostitutes for theBratvasand Yaraslov’s clubsin exchange for their next fix.

“No one is whipping anyone,” Yuliy muttered, his attention still on his paperwork.

Larionovich looked like he was about to say something. Yuliy cut his eyes to him briefly.

They all knew he had never raised a hand to Vlad.

A memory flitted through Vlad’s mind then. He suppressed a grimace.

Well, except for that one time, when I broke my mother’s favorite hairbrush.

He’d been six when it’d happened and hadn’t been able to sit for the rest of the day after Yuliy spanked him for smashing the hairbrush during a temper tantrum. It had taken Lena icing his bottom for the redness and swelling to finally settle enough for him to get to sleep that night.

It was the one and only time Yuliy had ever taken a hand to him.

The next day, his uncle had brought Tarang to their home, the cub rescued from a passing traveling circus.

Vlad had often wondered if it was fate that had caused him to grab his mother’s hairbrush and hurl it to the floor that day. Because Tarang had turned out to be the perfect match for him as a familiar, something that wouldn’t become apparent for several years.

“These all look in order,” Yuliy told the three generals. “I’ll sign them and send them over tomorrow.”

The men nodded and rose. They brushed past Vlad, their animosity rising fractionally. Tarang snarled at them as they headed out of the room. The door closed with a click.

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