THIS TIME TOMORROW

TESSA BAILEY

Copyright © 2020 Tessa Bailey

Kindle Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For Mackenzie

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

About Tessa Bailey

CHAPTER ONE

Las Vegas 2017

Elias clearly needed to get out more.

Laughter came easy to everyone else gathered around the poker table, the fellow members of his S.W.A.T. team getting to know the strangers they’d been seated with. The sound of shuffling poker chips blended seamlessly with their conversations, cards spitting out of the dealer’s hands and landing with neat, two-card piles in front of them.

This wasn’t his first time in a casino, but he didn’t recall a state of suspense chafing between his shoulder blades those other times. They’d arrived an hour ago and he’d checked behind himself a dozen times, expecting…what? He had no clue. But the energy in Vegas was almost frenetic. Desperately hopeful. People on a deadline to have the time of their lives. And his law enforcement intuition was probably in overdrive, trying to put everyone and everything into two categories. Threat. Not a threat.

A balled up cocktail napkin hit him in the shoulder. “For the love of God, Perry, would you stop thinking so hard over there?”

Elias’s lips jumped. He didn’t need to look up from his cards to know his teammate Kenny had thrown the napkin. “You would say that when you’re trying to rob me blind.”

“Hey, look.” Across the table, Kenny leaned over the green felt. “We’ve all had our turns going home broke to the missuses.” The beers he’d knocked back at the pool were catching up with the former college linebacker. “It’s your weekend to pony up, Silent E.”

Elias showed no reaction to his name being shortened, but it was the first time any of his teammates had done so. He’d been working with the highly trained tactical unit for three years, and with their lives at continual risk, the brotherhood was fierce. Every damn body had a nickname. Except him. Until now, apparently. He tried not to let the meaningfulness of that show on his face as he folded his terrible hand.

“Kenny speaks the truth,” chimed in Darius, also known as “Latte,” thanks to that one time he had Postmates deliver a tray of lattes to a post-raid crime scene. “Give us all your money. Think of it as a long-overdue initiation.”

Kenny chuckled. “Still can’t believe we finally convinced you to come. We were starting to think you didn’t love us.”

“Calm down,” Elias said without missing a beat. “I’m still on the fence.”

Kenny and Latte laughed along with the strangers at the table, but Elias couldn’t join them because that odd rub was happening again between his shoulder blades. He accepted his next hand from the dealer, checked his turn, then cast another glance toward the casino floor. There was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, everything was status quo. The poker section was populated with young men mostly, only a couple of women. The slots were swarmed with seniors, their hands smacking down on the buttons, the jackpot count ticking higher over their heads. A younger crowd crammed in around the roulette wheel. Pit bosses paced down the center of endless blackjack tables. Nothing was off but him.

Elias shook himself and turned his attention back to the table where Latte was in a tense hand with a man in a San Diego Padres hat. “Where did Jenks and the commander go?” he asked, referring to their other teammates. Five of them had driven up from Los Angeles together for a mandatory breather from the department. They’d yet to talk about why, but Elias suspected that’s what the beers were for. Liquid courage might make it easier to bring up the uncomfortable subject. “Don’t tell me those punks snuck off to another Cirque du Soleil show.”

“Yup. Mystère this time.” Kenny chuckled. “They’re going to meet us back at the Encore later. After they’ve located their dicks.”

Latte lost the hand with Padre man and leaned back in disgust. “Hey, man,” he said to Kenny after a moment of grief for his bank account. “I cried at O. That shit is emotional.”

Kenny gestured to table’s occupants. “You’re really going to humiliate the LAPD like this? Do you care nothing for our reputation?” Obviously enjoying the laughter from the other out of towners, he tipped his head at Elias. “Now Silent E over there has the right vibe. Lethal. Cynical. Mysterious.”

Elias shook his head, uncomfortable being the focus of attention at the table, but not wanting to lose the ground he’d gained with his teammates. He liked these guys. A lot. And hell, they were right. He’d never come to Vegas with them, despite repeated invitations. Only gone for a handful of happy hours, usually when it was someone’s birthday. Maybe it was time. To start making friends again. To loosen some of the mortar in the brick wall he surrounded himself with. “Mysterious?”

Kenny and Latte flicked a look at each other, visibly surprised he’d taken the bait. They were always casting out a line and reeling it back in empty. “Yeah, man,” Latte said, patting a hand over the tight twists of black hair on his head. “Been on the team with you for years and I still don’t know your Starbucks order.”

“Jesus,” Kenny muttered, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. “That’s the first thing you want to know about him? What is it with you and the fancy coffee?”

“Sprinkled cinnamon makes it taste good.” Latte kept a glare trained on his friend for several beats and this time, even the dealer laughed. He took a moment to place a bet and survey what everyone else was doing. “Fine, Silent E. I retract my earlier query. How come you never tell us about the dates our wives set you up on?”

Kenny threw up his hands. “Hallelujah. That’s what I wanted to know.”

Elias hedged. They couldn’t ask him his favorite movie or something?

A couple of times over the last few years, he’d gotten cornered by the S.W.A.T. wives, who frankly were a tactical unit of their own, and coerced into some blind dates. Nothing had ever come of them, to put it mildly. He’d found it impossible to be present or have a decent conversation with any of the women, whose names and faces he now couldn’t recall.

But he wouldn’t be telling Kenny and Latte that. First of all, those women were perfectly nice. The issue was his and his alone. And he definitely wouldn’t be telling his teammates that the older he got…the more going on dates made him feel as if he were doing something wrong.

Like he should be home. Waiting.

Waiting for what?

Elias cleared his throat. “I’m sure they gave the play-by-play to your wives.”

“It’s not the same,” Kenny groaned.

“Yeah,” Latte agreed, calling with a toss of chips into the center of the felt. “We should be compensated, man. We took the blame over you never calling their friends back.”

“If you’re trying to guilt me into letting you win a hand, it’s not working,” Elias drawled, pushing a short stack toward the dealer. “Raise.”

Kenny shot forward in his seat. “You see that, everyone? Lethal.”

Latte did his best to look betrayed, but his cheek jerked with a smile. “How are you going to play me like that, Silent E?” He sniffed into his wrist. “Here I thought we were finally becoming confidants.”

Thing is, he had been trying to “open up,” so to speak. Then he’d gotten a good hand.

His teammates were a lot more curious about him than he’d realized, though, and he kind of got the sense they were hurt that he’d withheld so much. He didn’t like that. These men were constantly at his back in harrowing situations. They guarded each other’s lives. Despite Elias’s standoffishness, they tried to include him in everything and he needed to reciprocate.

“Beers on me later,” Elias muttered, keeping his attention on the cards. “You can ask me whatever you want…”

He trailed off, that scrape between his shoulder blades growing more pronounced, until he couldn’t concentrate enough to decipher the suits of his cards. What the hell was going on? Throat dry, he laid down his hand and turned in his chair—

Silence fell around him when he saw her.

She was golden. Radiant.

Miserable.

The long-legged blonde limped through the casino with a beautiful pout on her face, a pair of high heels shoved under one arm. There was a fine sheen of dew on her incredible face, telling Elias she’d just escaped the stifling Vegas heat. Simply by existing, she commanded fealty and the casino seemed to part around her like the Red Sea, creating a path for her to complete a wobbly strut toward Elias’s poker table—and the closer she came, the more his lungs compressed, as if he was running out of fucking oxygen.

Who is she?

No idea. But the discomfort between his shoulder blades was gone.

Like a balm had been applied.

The girl was beyond gorgeous. He’d never noticed cheekbones on anyone in his life, but he noticed her high ones. The indigo blue of her eyes. And Jesus, he definitely noticed the way her soft mutterings made his heart flop over. Who are you?

Vaguely, he heard Latte ribbing him. “Bet you’d call her back, huh, Silent E?”

“Forget what I said about him being mysterious,” Kenny quipped. “Everything he’s thinking is right there on his face.”

More laughter. But the buzzing in his skull was already drowning them out.

Elias watched the blonde’s high heel fall out of her arms and flop sideways on the casino floor. He was on his feet before it stopped moving, abandoning his hand at the table without a thought so he could scoop up the shoe and follow. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. Going after her was a requirement, searing him, compelling him.

And a moment later, when she looked up at him from her seat at a slot machine, his world righted itself with a grinding snap. He hadn’t even known it was off kilter.

The blonde crossed her impossibly sexy legs and his body reacted swiftly, hardening.

“Well?” she said in a husky Russian accent. “Make it good. I only have five minutes before I wreak the havoc.”

CHAPTER TWO

Five minutes earlier

Roksana squinted at her reflection in a passing taxi window to make sure the flashing lights of her LED light-up bra weren’t showing through her sweater.

It’s August and you’re in Sin City.

The multitude of passersby on the strip’s sidewalk were more likely to find her cardigan odd, rather than the flashing pink lights of her bra.

She dodged a couple of girls in minidresses, catching the attention of her childhood friend Kira across the street, who was in similar attire and visibly flagging in the stifling heat. They’d come up with this plan to make their best friend, Olga’s, bachelorette party memorable, but if they didn’t commence Project Rump Shaker soon, tomorrow morning’s front page headline on all the Vegas newspapers would read: Five Semi-Drunk Russian Girls Melt into Flesh-Colored Puddles.

They’d come up with this plan on her apartment floor in Moscow, blissfully unaware that this level of heat even existed. Upon boarding the plane two days ago, they’d checked the weather and decided the three-digit temperatures probably had something to do with the conversion of Fahrenheit to Celsius and would probably be fine.

This was not fine.

Roksana waved her limp arms at Kira and pointed to her wrist.

How much longer?

Kira looked at the screen of her cell phone, cradled it between her chin and shoulder, holding up both hands with her fingers splayed.

“Ti cho ebanuti?” Roksana shouted across the noisy strip, safe in the knowledge that none of the Americans crowding the sidewalk were aware that she’d just yelled are you fucking crazy at her best friend.

Seriously, though. Ten more minutes of waiting to kick off the plan?

She wouldn’t make it that long without getting heat stroke. The champagne they’d drunk for breakfast, lunch and continuously in between was gurgling ominously in her stomach. Any ounce of bounce had been sucked out of her blonde hair, leaving the jagged edges of her bangs in her eyes. And she could almost hear her skin sizzling under the force of the great Western sun. Time to take cover.

Cringing over the charges likely piling up with the international texts, she shot her friend a quick message. Going to cool down. Be back in ten.

Roksana toed off her metallic gold high heels, cradling them to her chest, and kicked into a jog on the sidewalk, the promise of sweet air conditioning beckoning her toward the entrance of the closest casino, Circus Circus.

Thanks to the expensive airfare from Moscow and the cost of being a bridesmaid—all on student budgets—they were staying on the lower rent end of the Vegas strip. Considering the hijinks Roksana and four of her best friends planned to pull off in ten minutes, being a little removed from the more concentrated crowds was probably a good thing.

Hopefully it meant the police would take longer to arrive.

Did Roksana and her friends celebrate their early twenties boisterously, as if consequences were naught but some distant possibility? Yes. And she reveled in it—maybe the most out of all of them. She and her girlfriends had met as children in Moscow, though Roksana was never free to play in the park or cheer at local hockey games, her mother forcing her to keep close, to learn the family business after nightfall. It wasn’t until Roksana turned eighteen and started making her own decisions that she and her friends became inseparable. And she’d made up for a lot of lost time since embarking on adulthood, spending her nights laughing and her days being taught normal subjects at university.

History and geography as opposed to moving without a sound and concealing weapons.

Now, on her way into Circus Circus, a security guard eyed her bare feet pointedly, but she gave him her best smile and he waved her inside.

The ice-cold air wrapped around her bare calves, her damp neck, and she moaned, unconcerned about the gawkers. The brightly colored carpet of the casino floor felt smooth and soft on the bottoms of the infernos she used to call feet, the leather of a nickel slot seat welcoming her overheated body as she dropped into it sideways.

Eyes closed, she tipped back her head and absorbed the cool.

Heaven.

She was in heaven.

Until…there. A tingle caught Roksana in the back of the neck, a product of the one and only trait she’d inherited from her legendary mother. Prickly intuition when something interesting was in the air—but interesting could mean so many things, couldn’t it? A Molotov cocktail being thrown through a window was interesting with its iridescent blue trail, the shards of glass whipping around it and forming a hazardous picture frame. Given her mother’s profession, Roksana was afforded plenty of time to study those deadly cocktails and their results.

Tonight, however, she was nearly six thousand miles from home and there was no break in the excited hum of gambling and conversation. This was not her mother’s brand of interesting, thank God. For some reason, Roksana was hesitant to open her eyes and discover the reason for her neck prickle. There was a fizzing sound in her ears and it was coming to a crescendo, whipping faster and faster—

She dropped her head forward and opened her eyes.

All the sound was sucked from the room, leaving behind nothing. Well, not nothing, there was a faint, tinny, continuous beep, almost like a patient had flatlined.

Who was the man standing in front of her?

He did not belong. He did not make sense in this place.

Buzzers buzzed and music dinged. People called out to one another. Cigarette smoke curled. But he didn’t move a muscle. Everything but him was blurry. Suddenly secondary.

Yes, he was attractive. In a way that must scare some women. If a female wanted this man, they would have to hold on for dear life and she’d probably still get left in the dust. No doubt they would try to catch up with him, begging for the same treatment again.

He was dark-haired, whiskey-eyed, tall and unshaven.

Strong.

Observant.

He was watching Roksana now with a slight crease between his black eyebrows, as if trying to place her. Please. Don’t ask me if we’ve met before. That would be such a predictable opening line and weirdly, she wanted his personality to match the rest of him.

Why?

She certainly didn’t want a scary man like this one.

Easy, carefree and far as possible from the dark she’d grown up in. That’s what she gravitated toward, much to the disgust of her mother, the Queen of Shadows.

Annoyed at the reminder of the familial tension back in Russia, Roksana crossed her legs with a sniff, noting the muscle that jumped in his cheek. “Well? Make it good. I only have five minutes before I wreak the havoc.”

The corner of his mouth tugged and for some reason, that tiny reaction felt like a monumental victory. “You plan on wreaking havoc with one shoe, Cinderella?”

He held up one of her gold metallic heels and she frowned.

“Where did I drop it?”

“Near the poker tables where I was sitting.” Turning the shoe over in his hand, the man flicked a glance at the nickel slot, then fixed his hard gaze back on her. “You playing slots? I’d have pegged you as more of a roulette girl.”

She scoffed. “I play nothing. I will not give these weasels my money.”

“Smart.”

“Da.” She pursed her lips. “Also I have very little money already.”

Another one of those intoxicating lip tugs. “For what it’s worth, I think you’d probably find a way to double it.” He seemed to snap himself out of a trance, laughing without humor under his breath. “You’ve traveled a long way to forgo Vegas’s main attraction. If you’re not here for the gambling, why did you come?”

“My best friend’s bachelorette party.”

He looked around and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, where are they?

“I’m meeting them again shortly.” Sitting at a much lower height while he stood with powerful legs braced apart, his impressive height and ruthless build made her feel feminine, aware of her body as a lure in a way she never had been. While she’d spent the last few years making up for the strictness of her upbringing, the opposite sex still remained on the backburner. None of the boys at university interested her. Nor could a single one of them could ever hope to make her belly impatient and excited all at once, like this man did just by being near. And she had the most pressing urge to see inside of him.

Or push him off balance and see how he handled it.

“What do you expect from a woman?”

It was an odd question to ask a stranger under any circumstances, but especially in the middle of a loud casino. Yet he answered without hesitating, as if he’d anticipated harder than normal questions from her. “I never expect a single thing from anyone, man or woman.”

Interesting. “What do you expect from yourself?”

“Consistency.”

She liked that answer. A lot. But somehow it hadn’t surprised her. Even more than his honest answer, though, she enjoyed how fast he responded. It seemed this was a man who knew himself well and lived with conviction.

“What about you?” he asked. “What do you expect from a man?”

“I don’t know.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Whatcha got?”

His gaze meandered down her legs, heating, followed by a tic of the vein in his temple. “Name it, baby.”

Damn. If she continued to flash from hot to cold to hot again, she was going to catch pneumonia. Her body was as confused as her mind over her reaction to this man, heat seeming to permeate new spaces inside of her she hadn’t known existed. When she responded, her voice emerged as little more than a breathy whisper. “It’s a good thing I expect sound judgment from myself or I might accept that blatant invitation.”

Skepticism warred with lust on his face. “Is sound judgment really what you expect from yourself?”

“Nyet.” His astuteness made her almost giddy. “I expect adventure.”

Adventure.

At the inadvertent reminder of what she was supposed to be doing, Roksana whipped the phone out of her pocket and winced. “Uh-oh. Only three minutes until havoc time.” She took the shoe he offered, using his arm without asking to stabilize herself while sliding the shoe onto her foot, followed by the other one. “I came in here to cool off and now I’m going to be late.”

“Late for what exactly?”

Oh, what the hell, she was never going to see him again.

That really shouldn’t bother her as much as it did.

Forcing herself to grin, Roksana opened the sides of her cardigan, bathing their immediate area with the pink, blinking lights of her bra. “Dasvidanya, temnota moya.”

Goodbye, my darkness.

She left the man staring into space, her laughter trailing behind her as she jogged out of the casino, cheap heels clacking on the marble, then the baking sidewalk. When she made it down to the strip, she waved at Kira to signal her readiness and got a thumbs up in return. Something strange happened, though. She thought of the man in the casino. His face. The way he’d smelled like pine. Actually, she had an almost giddy urge to turn around and search for him in the entrance of Circus Circus. Maybe he’d followed?

At the very least, she wished she’d asked his name.

What on earth had possessed her to call him her darkness?

That sounded so intimate.

Yet she’d loved the way it felt rolling off her tongue. How the utterance of it had seemed to…lock them together. To solidify something.

“The heat has definitely turned my brain to shit,” Roksana muttered, still experiencing the craving to turn around. To look for him.

She just started to turn her head when her cell phone beeped.

Go time.

She stripped off her cardigan and discarded it on the sidewalk, immediately receiving honks from passing motorists. Whether in annoyance or irritation, Roksana didn’t know or care. As soon as there was a break in traffic, four Russian girls in flashing pink bras dashed out into the thoroughfare, breaking into the dance they’d been choreographing for weeks in between classes. Right on cue, Olga was escorted by her fiancé—who’d been in on the plan—to a stop in front of her dancing bridesmaids.

For a full ten seconds, all she could do was stare openmouthed, but when Roksana stepped to the forefront of the foursome, bending and snapping with her eyes crossed, Olga lost her battle with amusement, her body shaking with laughter.

A new wave of traffic drew closer to them, but the girls continued to dance, hitting their moves in pace with each other. And it was one of those moments where everything slowed down and life leapt like a prima ballerina, landing with perfect form. Here was why she’d avoided the terror of her mother’s legacy. The despair of what it meant to be a vampire slayer. Here was why she’d chosen light instead. For moments like this, when a person’s shine went up a notch in the universe, so bright she could be seen from space. All of them were having that moment together and she exulted in the golden haze of a memory being created. Stored forever.

A crowd had formed behind Olga and her fiancé on the sidewalk, and Roksana was compelled to search the back of the gathering. A whiskey gaze was on her, steady, amused.

Hot.

My darkness.

A shiver zipped down her spine and her steps faltered.

“Roks!” Kira half laughed, half hissed. “Big finish. Big finish!”

“Right. I’m ready.” She shook herself and turned, bending forward and flipping up her skirt. Standing in a straight line with the other four bridesmaids, their asses spelled O-L-G-A.

Horns honked like crazy in quick succession and cheers went up from both sides of the strip.

Sirens cut through all of it.

The five of them scrambled to the sidewalk to allow the traffic to pass, everyone talking a mile a minute, laughing. Olga tried to show them the pictures of the performance she’d captured on her phone, but the sirens weren’t just close now, they were in view, whipping through the intersection on the same block as Circus Circus.

“Hey!” Roksana shouted, cutting through the chatter. “Get Olga out of here. If one of us gets arrested, so be it, but she’s not missing her wedding.”

Olga’s fiancé took his still-giggling future bride by the arm and jogged her toward the casino. Which was great for them. But their clothes were long gone and they were still standing there, lighting up the sidewalk in LED bras.

“This is the part of the plan we didn’t think through,” Roksana said thoughtfully. “A little short-sighted of us, but we’ll do better next time, da?”

A gruff voice spoke up behind them, deep and authoritative. “You girls have to separate. Scatter. They’re going to be looking for a group.”

Roksana turned to find him, the man from the casino, advancing on their posse. “Our clothes are gone,” she informed him with a wince. “I think the American word for this is ‘conspicuous.’”

“You could say that,” he returned dryly, sliding a billfold out of his back pocket and peeling off five twenties, handing them to her friends. “Get inside. Buy shirts at the gift shop and lay low. Go.”

The way he took charge so easily without being pushy caused Roksana’s thoughts to trip over themselves, but she eventually reassured she friends in Russian and shooed them toward the blinking lights of Circus Circus. “What about me, man with the plan?”

He slowly lifted a hand and there was her cardigan, dangling from his finger. “Caught it before it hit the ground.”

Tiny explosions went off in her belly. “You followed me.”

“I wanted to know your name.” Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he wrapped her in the cardigan, hiding the pink blink. “And we weren’t done.”

“Done what?”

He eliminated an inch of space between them, forcing her head back. “I don’t know.” His breath moved a piece of hair across her mouth and he brushed it back with a knuckle. “Come have a drink with me and we’ll figure it out.”

Fire licked her inner thighs. The words come have a drink might as well have been come to bed with me for the hoarse way he said them. Normally Roksana had no problem putting things in the right or wrong category. Oh, she made plenty of crazy decisions, such as dancing in the middle of Nevada’s busiest street and blocking traffic, but at least she went into those situations with open eyes. An understanding of the potential consequences.

What were the consequences of spending time with this man?

A total unknown.

The ballerina in her stomach was pirouetting madly now, brushing the lining of her belly with a satin, pointed toe, urging her with sensation to go with him somewhere. Sustain this incredible anticipation, even if it didn’t lead anywhere. Even if it couldn’t, seeing as they lived on different continents. She’d never had a casual hookup, but that’s all this would be, right? Roksana didn’t want that. Did she?

She realized he was watching her perform mental gymnastics with quiet scrutiny. “I’m considering your offer.”

“I can see that.” His tone was wry. “You dance half naked on the strip and bring the cops down on your head with a smile on your face. But a drink with me scares you?”

“Jail is temporary.” The honesty whispered out before she could put a lid on it. “You don’t strike me as the same.”

The amusement gradually bled from his face. “Likewise.”

There was a fistful of coins lodged in her throat and she worked to swallow them now, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t break eye contact, drowning deeper and deeper in the amber coloring. “Maybe we should pretend we never met. It might be easier.”

He shook his head slowly. “I doubt that.” Something over her head snagged his attention briefly. “There is a cop behind you, havoc wreaker. I hate to tell you this, but the sun has gone down while you’ve been deciding whether or not to have a drink with me.”

“And?”

“Your tits are blinking.”

“Oh.” Roksana looked down to find he was right. The flashing lights were visible through her cardigan. “How close is the cop now?”

“A matter of feet.”

“The off switch is in the back,” she said quickly. “Squeeze the clasp.”

His right eyebrow went up. “Put my hand up your shirt?”

“Da! This is no time for modesty.”

“Just making sure.”

Roksana gasped when his big hand splayed on her lower back, just above the swell of her butt, corralling her toward his body. His warm palm dragged up her bare spine, catching the hook of her bra between two fingers and pinching, never taking his attention off her face. Which was bad news, because he witnessed her reaction to his touch up close. She forgot how to keep her eyelids hoisted and her lips closed. Those skills simply vanished, her nipples quickened into hard points and there she stood, pressed against this man who oozed danger, her senses in a state of chaos.

“You’re good now,” he rasped, his hand drifting lightly back down her spine, resting on the small of her back, just underneath the hem of her sweater.

“Elias,” he said, pressing his cheek to her temple. “That’s my name. Repeat it.”

“Elias,” she whispered. “I’m…Roksana.”

His chest rumbled.

“Evening, folks,” said a man’s voice to their left. It was the cop and he had his flashlight out, shining down near their feet. “You didn’t happen to catch that little performance, too, did you? Maybe see which direction those girls went?”

“No, sir,” Elias answered, his expression passive. “Sorry we can’t help you.”

“Now are you sure about that?” The cop tilted his head, flicking a glance over Roksana, and Elias’s fingers tightened on the small of her back. “A couple of people thought your date here might have participated.”

“We’re sure,” Elias said, using his free hand to dig in his pocket and pull out—

A badge?

“She’s been with me the whole time.” Roksana only caught the words Los Angeles and the acronym S.W.A.T., before Elias stowed the badge once more. “But we’ll be happy to let you know if we find anything out.”

The officer rocked back on his heels. “My mistake, brother.” He nodded and went on his merry way. “Enjoy Vegas.”

“Thank you.”

Roksana blinked, trying to reconcile this prince of darkness with her idea of law enforcement. Shouldn’t they be on different sides? Furthermore, in the world she’d grown up in, those who enforced human rules were obstacles to be avoided. She’d never made any meaningful contact with one of them. “Can I borrow that badge?”

He squinted an eye. “What do you think, havoc wreaker?”

“Sounds like a no.”

“Then your English is perfect.”

A laugh snuck out of Roksana, surprising her. She usually laughed at men, not with them, the poor idiots. They sure as heck never caught her off-guard more than once, the way this man had in under an hour. “I should get back to my friends. Soon.” She reached between them and buttoned the three middle buttons of her cardigan. “I’ve decided you may admire me for a short while more, temnota moya.”

The victory in his expression was tempered with relief, but she was only allowed a glimpse before he schooled his features. “Text your friends. Send them a picture of me and tell them I’m bringing you to the Encore.”

Nothing flustered Roksana, but for some reason, this man making sure she took precautions made her feel like she was flying down too quickly in an elevator, leaving her stomach at the top of a building. She did as he asked, laughing softly when he didn’t bother to smile for the picture, and slipped her phone back into the pocket of her skirt.

His fingers interlocked with hers and he tugged her toward the pricier part of the strip. “Temnota moya. You’ve called me that name twice now. What does it mean?”

“It means, he who is buying the drinks,” she lied.

His laugh was rusted, but so authentic, it seemed to embrace her—

A tingle danced up the back of her neck—much colder than the earlier one she’d gotten in the casino when Elias approached her—and she stumbled to a stop, releasing Elias’s hand so she could turn around. Caution whispered in her ear, but she couldn’t make out the words. Nothing looked amiss. Just revelers enjoying their night out. No vehicles driving over or under the normal speed.

“What is it?” Elias asked, his whiskey eyes scanning for a threat.

“It’s nothing,” she murmured, giving her hand to him once again, reassured by the warmth there. “Let’s go.”

But the tingle never lied.

CHAPTER THREE

Elias did not do shit like this.

He didn’t spontaneously ask out women. Especially women that broke the law and flashed their ass at half the strip. This girl, Roksana, was crazy as hell. It was obvious. If they weren’t in this city of make believe, he’d probably be more likely to cave in her front door with a battering ram and slap on handcuffs than escort her through this upscale bar at Encore, as he was doing now.

And yet, it was like his well-being hinged on making her smile.

He’d felt that way before she’d pinned him with her blue eyes in the casino.

Definitely after she’d flashed her light-up bra at him.

But before. Too.

She’d looked up at him like a skeptical angel and he’d thought, fuck.

Fuck.

In his pocket, he could feel the vibration of his phone and he ignored it. He didn’t blame Kenny and Latte for worrying after he’d stood up from the poker table like he was in a trance to follow Russian Cinderella. But they’d conducted countless raids together throughout Los Angeles and thus, his teammates were well aware he could take care of himself. If he could tear his eyes off Roksana for two seconds, maybe he could craft a text to them. What the hell would he say, though?

Sorry for acting totally out of character, but my gut told me not to leave this girl’s side.

And…I don’t want to.

A few feet ahead of him, Roksana hopped into one of the plush, white oversized bar stools and plucked a cherry up by the stem from her neighbor’s drink when he wasn’t looking, popping it into her mouth and giving him a conspiratorial look.

Who was this girl?

Elias took the stool beside her, his hand automatically curling in the underside of her chair to tug it closer. She blinked at him, her cheeks staining red, but thankfully she didn’t question his unconscious forward behavior. Rein it in, man.

“What are you drinking?”

“Mmm. Something that has a chocolate taste, I think,” she murmured, her homeland accenting every word. “Like a milkshake, but for grownups.”

The bartender arrived just in time to hear that decree. “I’m sorry, I’ll need to see some identification, please.”

She blew her bangs out of her face while rooting through her skirt pocket, producing a beat up passport and sliding it across the bar. “I’m a big girl. You can check.”

Showing no reaction, the bartender scanned the information page and placed the passport back on the bar. Before Roksana could put it back in her pocket, he scoped out the year on her date of birth. 1996.

That made her twenty-one.

For the love of God, they weren’t even born in the same decade.

“She’ll have something that tastes like chocolate. I’ll have a Sam Adams.”

The bartender nodded once and left.

“Caught you looking, officer obvious,” she said smoothly. “Now you must tell me your number.”

That was the second time she’d made him laugh in one night. It had to be some kind of record. But man, he really liked that he couldn’t get away with a damn thing around this girl. “I’m twenty-eight.” He turned toward her in his stool. “Didn’t waste any time getting to Vegas once you were the legal drinking age, did you?”

“The trip wasn’t my idea.” She crossed her killer legs and he harnessed every iota of willpower to keep his eyes locked above her neck. “My best friend, Olga, has a…what is the word here for female erection?” She waved her hands before he could answer that he didn’t have a clue. “She loves Elvis, that one. All her life. This is where she wanted to get married since we were little girls and tomorrow we will make it happen.”

“What was your plan if you got arrested?”

“You saw my boobs, da?” She waggled her eyebrows. “Maybe I would have charmed my way out.”

She probably could.

What was the weird, acidic bite in his chest?

Surely not jealousy. Over a situation they’d already averted.

Elias cleared his throat hard, grateful when the drinks arrived and he could wet his dry throat. Over the rim of his pint, he watched her take a huge gulp of her drink, diving right in without knowing what it tasted like. That told Elias more about her, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to know every damn thing and he didn’t understand why. Why it felt essential on some higher level that he learn all there was to know about Roksana.

He’d been hard pressed to even pay attention on those blind dates he’d gone on a while back. With Roksana, he was almost afraid to miss something.

For years, he’d carefully kept his teammates at arm’s length. Been indifferent to their interest in his life and kept his nose out of theirs. That’s how he operated. That was the example he’d been given in his household growing up. In the place where he’d been born and raised, there was a sense of community, but a lot of the time, that community rallied around each other after a loss of life due to violence. Nothing had ever gotten better, the cycles always seemed to continue, but Elias learned to avoid the pain everyone put on display by being a loner. Keeping to himself.

Only one friend had slipped through his defenses—and Elias often wished like hell he’d listened to his own philosophy before letting him in.

Relationships made a man vulnerable.

Yet here he sat, more defenseless than he could ever remember being in his life. As if his armor had melted away the second she walked past his poker table. And he couldn’t seem to talk himself out of exposing himself, exposing her.

Diving as deep as he could.

“When did you get to Vegas?” Elias asked, taking a drink of his beer and setting it down.

She settled her martini glass on her knee. “Yesterday.”

“What have you been doing, if not gambling?”

“Dancing,” she replied, as if that should have been obvious. “And eating. We’ve been kicked out of two buffets already for trying to sneak crab legs back to the room in our purses.”

“Really.” He leaned closer, gratified when she did as well. “You didn’t try for lobster?”

“No, but there are still three days left of this trip.”

“Three days.” A heaviness settled in his stomach. “Then back to Russia?”

She nodded slowly, a little bit of her smirk fading. “What about you, Elias? Why are you here?”

The insides of their knees brushed and he couldn’t tell if she’d done it on purpose, but every nerve ending in his body seemed to expand, throb painfully. He was grateful for the low lighting of the bar, because that one little touch made him hard as nails. Christ. She made him feel like he’d spent a lifetime deprived.

Kenny and Latte were always talking about that moment they knew their wives were the one. He’d always been skeptical, but…is that what this was? If so, they’d been underexaggerating. There was a gravity to tonight he couldn’t explain. Like if he didn’t carefully thread the needle of the time they were spending together, he’d rip the fabric.

“Elias?” she prompted him, bumping their knees together, definitely on purpose this time. “Why are you in Vegas?”

“Our team is on mandatory leave for a week. We participated in a large-scale raid a few weeks ago. Most of us discharged our weapons. There were causalities taken on the other side.” Tension crept into his neck and he reached back to massage it away. “Essentially, the department shrink has way too much power and thinks he knows what’s best for us. He decided we needed a break, so a few of us drove up for the weekend.”

She was silent for a beat. “Did you cause any of the casualties?”

Gunshots echoed in the back of his mind and he ground his back teeth together. “Yes.”

Roksana hummed lightly, her attention dancing across his shoulders and back to his face. Taking his measure. “I lied to you before. Temnota moya means my darkness.”

An invisible fist buried in his gut. This girl could see deeper than…anyone. Anyone he’d ever met. She’d called him that name back in the casino, meaning her judgment of him had been immediate. Did he hate that she saw so much? Or was he relieved to finally be seen? To seemingly be understood when some days he barely understood himself? The answer was unclear, but he wanted more. He wanted to get trapped in her awareness. “You’re a quick study.” He curled a hand beneath her knee, using his grip to tug her chair closer, once again, but the skin-to-skin contact elevated the move, made them both breathe a little faster. “You think I’m dark, Roksana?”

A wrinkle formed between her light brows and she seemed to be peering inside of him. “I’ve been raised to recognize darkness. Yours is more complicated than most.” She settled her martini glass on the bar. “There is some light in you, too.”

This was the craziest conversation he’d ever had, especially with someone he’d just met, but somehow, it made more sense than any discussion in his memory. As if some barrier that always existed between most people…had dropped between them. This was real. “What about you, havoc wreaker? Are you made up of darkness or light?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to find out, so I run.”

His muscles tightened, ready to defend. “From what?”

Instead of giving him a straight answer, she smiled softly, picking up a straw full of her drink and dropping it into her mouth. “I bet you run from nothing.”

“Not anymore,” he found himself saying. “But I have.”

“How so?”

“I could have easily been one of those causalities in the raid. I ran from the life that would have put me there.” He hadn’t spoken about his life growing up on the streets of Los Angeles in more than a decade. Yet Roksana’s very presence seemed to pull the honesty straight out of his deepest recesses. “People say running is an easy way out, but it can be the hardest, depending on the situation.”

Roksana’s eyes widened. “Yes.”

“If you’re in danger, Roksana, I want to know about it.”

Only a slight hesitation on her end, but he didn’t like it. “I’m not. You can relax.” She reached out, flattening a hand in the center of his chest—and a jolt went through him, like a sensual electrocution. “Nichego sebe,” she breathed. “Is all that thunder for me?”

The pressure in his dick grew unbearable. “Yes.”

A twinkle jumped in her blue eyes and she started to say something, but the color drained from her face and she went very still.

Elias nearly had a heart attack on the spot, the organ leaping into his mouth. “Roksana.” He searched the immediate area, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m getting a tingle.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “Okay, I’m getting two tingles, but one of them is bad.” She slipped off her stool and wedged herself between his thighs, wringing her hands against his chest. “Something is here, but I can’t see it.”

A sense of purpose swooped into Elias and hardened into cement, so quickly the breath was knocked out of him. Roksana was literally leaning into him for protection, her blonde head tucking beneath his chin, and he’d never experienced a more overwhelming sense of duty. Not even at his job. Never. His arms moved without an order from his brain. They wrapped around her and hauled her close, an urge rising up within him to shout at everyone nearby to back off.

What the hell was going on here?

This wasn’t just mental or sexual. It was chemical.

And he couldn’t stop it. Didn’t want to.

“Oh.” Her breath fanned his neck, her body relaxing. “It’s okay. I know where the bad tingle was coming from.”

“Where?” he nearly growled.

She went up on her toes and whispered against his ear. “Vampire.”

A shiver laced through his spine. Surely he’d heard her wrong. “What?”

Roksana nodded. “Don’t look now, but he’s sitting at the very corner of the bar. There’s a white feather in his hat.” Chewing on her bottom lip, she played with the collar of his shirt. “Okay, now you look.”

Positive she was making a joke, or trying to distract him from what really bothered her, Elias turned his head slightly and spotted the man in question. He looked normal enough—whatever passed for normal in Vegas. He’d ordered a whiskey, but didn’t touch it. Just sat there, unnaturally still, the bar in a continuous state of movement around him.

His head ticked quickly in an odd blur, his eyes landing on Elias.

Cold snapped in his blood.

Stop being ridiculous. He was just off kilter because this whole night felt dreamlike.

Feeling as if he’d been sucker punched, Elias faced a curious Roksana and forced himself to laugh off the ominous sensation in his middle. “Very funny, havoc wreaker.”

After a moment, she smiled and continued to play with his collar. “You think it was just an excuse to get close to you, da?”

Her low purr made his jeans feel tight. “You don’t need an excuse for that.”

“Elias?”

“Yes.”

She tilted her head. “Did you choose to bring me here to this casino because you are staying upstairs?”

His brows drew together. “How did you know that?”

Without breaking eye contact, she lifted his room key up between them, pinched between her thumb and index finger. “Lucky guess.”

Caught off-guard, he barked a laugh. She must have pilfered the room key from his pocket when he wasn’t looking. And he should be outraged, but instead, he was really, painfully turned on. “Vampire, huh?” He wrapped his forearm around the small of her back, easing her closer, little by little, unable to hide his interest in the way her breasts swelled in the opening of her sweater. “You wanted to distract me.”

“Or…” She scrubbed her palms over his pecs, whipping up lust inside him like a smoke cloud. “Maybe he was an incidental vampire distraction.”

He tucked his tongue into his cheek to hide his smile. “Right.”

“Yes. So I could find out your true intentions, temnota moya. Not merely to admire me and buy me chocolate drinks, but bring me back to your fancy room.”

“This is the closest place to Circus Circus that’s worthy of you even setting foot inside it, Roksana.” Taking a chance, he leaned in and grazed their lips together, the friction burning him head to toe. “But I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t need you underneath me tonight.”

“Need?” she whispered, unevenly.

His fingers twisted in the hem of her skirt, pulling, rocking her against his distended cock. “Yes.”

Her eyelids drooped, her tits shuddering up, down, up, and he could make out the rough, little patch of her areolas, the hard bud at their center. “Is it a cliché here in America, too, if I say I don’t do things like this?”

“Things like what?” Elias rasped, starved for the taste of her tits. For any part of her he could reach. “This is like nothing else.”

Their eyes met. “I know,” she whispered. “Why is that?”

Elias pressed their foreheads together. “Come upstairs with me and let’s figure it out.”

She started to nod, he was already reaching for his wallet—but that’s when hell broke loose. In the form of four Russian girls in Circus Circus T-shirts.

“Oooh, look at Roks. She’s such a fancy bitch now!”

A chorus of laughter kicked up near the entrance and Roksana groaned, her head falling back. A smile formed on her mouth, however, as her friends drew closer.

Elias sat there in total denial, his cock full to bursting behind his fly.

This girl that had fucking enchanted him had been about to say yes, she would come back to his room, and now his sanity was in jeopardy. Because if he didn’t consume her, if she didn’t consume him, he wasn’t sure what came next. She was essential somehow. His.

“We’ve come to bring our friend back to the Circus Circus,” announced a brunette girl, her speech slurred slightly, accent thick, as she wrapped her hands around Roksana’s bicep. “We have hair appointments early in the morning. Olga will rain hell down on this town if you are off playing with this man. Are you crazy?”

Another friend joined in the effort to usurp Roksana from her stool. “Come. I am seconds from passing out. No time for bullshit.”

“They’re right,” Roksana murmured to Elias. “I’m here for my friend. It’s her wedding and I can’t…I can’t.” She cast a bright laugh up at the ceiling. “And I don’t do this!”

“Roksana,” he said, squeezing her hip, dropping his mouth down near her ear. “I can make sure you’re where you need to be in the morning. Just as easily as I can get you where you need to go tonight. As many times as possible.”

“Oh boy.” Her body swayed, falling against him for a too-brief second before her friends hauled her away. Elias watched in total disbelief as they hustled her toward the door, away from him, never to be seen again unless he found her in the wilds of Vegas.

“Wait,” he growled, through his teeth, vaulting off the stool and following the group.

To his surprise, at the same time, Roksana shouted, “Wait,” digging in her heels before they could spirit her through the exit. Rolling her eyes at the clipped Russian admonishments being leveled in her direction, she turned and cut a path back toward Elias. She was like something out of another world, coming toward him in slow motion, hips swaying, eyes on fire. He expected her to stop in front of him, to pass on her phone number, but even after their short acquaintance, he should have known better than predict this girl’s behavior.

Because she simply kept coming closer, closer until he realized she wouldn’t be slowing down. Fuck yes. Come to me, baby. Elias caught her up against his body, plastered her tight to his frame several inches above the ground, breathing against her mouth for a bracing moment, before diving into a kiss that rocked the very foundation of his existence.

Jesus. Jesus.

She tasted like chocolate, like sin, like salvation. There was a lack of experience that made him protective and triumphant at the same time. Mine. The tongue pressing to his and stroking it hesitantly, then with more confidence, belonged to him. The arms twining around his neck, the tremble skittering through her, the hair in his fists—his, his, his.

This was insane. It was fucking insane.

He needed to breathe, but he would rather die than break the kiss.

It was like he’d been starved for it his entire life.

She whimpered into his mouth and he countered with a soothing noise, running his thumb along her cheekbone, never quitting the incredible pace, the friction, of the kiss.

Roksana broke away, gasping, her eyes a brighter blue than they’d been before.

His heart was doing something crazy, his hands still moving in her hair. Memorizing her.

“I still have your key.” Her laugh was breathless. “Which room?”

“Nine fifty-six.”

“I’ll meet you there.” She wet her lips, her eyelids fluttering as if she was savoring the taste of his mouth. “This time tomorrow, temnota moya.”

He’d take it. He’d take anything. “This time tomorrow, Roksana.”

And then she was gone, but her impact on him?

That remained.

He could barely feel his limbs as he took his seat again at the bar, her sweet scent still clinging to his clothes. After a moment of recovery, which didn’t recover him at all, frankly, his gaze was drawn to the spot where the man she’d called a vampire had been sitting.

The chair was now empty.

A layer of ice formed on his skin, but he determinedly shook it off.

Vampires didn’t exist.

Tomorrow night? That was real.

Elias paid the tab, anticipation crackling in his fingertips. Kenny and Latte had mentioned meeting back up with Jenks and their commander later at the Encore, but Elias couldn’t bring himself to go back out. To go chasing excitement when he’d already experienced the headiest rush of his life. The night would only be downhill from there, so might as well head up to his room and work through this hard-on solo style.

God knew he’d be thinking of her the whole time. Before, during, after. Her hair spread out on his pillow, her sexy mouth open and gasping beneath his, her naked thighs squeezing his hips, even if she was only in his imagination.

He’d barely managed to strip off his shirt and kick his shoes into the closet when there was a knock on the door. His abdomen knit with immediate hunger, hope kindling in his chest. Was it Roksana? Did she decide tomorrow was too long to wait?

Please, please for the love of everything holy, let that be the case.

It had to be. She was the only one who knew his room number.

He hadn’t even told his teammates.

That marked the first time in Elias’s life he opened a door without looking through the peephole first—and he would pay for it.

Dearly.

CHAPTER FOUR

Moscow

Four days later

With a woeful wail trapped in her raw throat, Roksana burst through the front door of her mother’s home, her weak legs landing her on hands and knees in seconds. She crawled, fingers nothing but pale claws on the carpeted floor. “Mother!” she cried out, her voice ravaged from screams, her eyes blind. Except for the images that wouldn’t stop bludgeoning her. “Mother. Mother.”

A woman’s outline appeared in the darkness and made no move to turn on the light. “Yes? Roksana, is that you?”

“They’re dead! They’re all dead. Kira, Olga…all of my friends. Murdered.” Sobs wracking her body, she clawed her way across the floor, collapsing at her mother’s feet and curling in on herself like an infant, no way to stop the agony. No way to lessen the burn of sorrow. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I called from the police station, the airport…”

“I was on a hunt, daughter, and only just returned,” Inessa said, as if that should be obvious. “Murdered by who?”

“Vampires,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Why were they there?”

“The undead are everywhere, Roksana. I’ve been telling you this since birth.”

“But they j-just walked in off the busy street a-and—”

“Yes. And have you seen anything about it on the news?”

Television was a foreign concept to her grief-addled mind. The last time she’d watched anything on television could have been a year ago or an hour ago. All that existed inside of her was wild, untenable anguish. It took a club to her stomach, her lungs, her brain. There was too much of it. Any second now she would explode, her woe splattering on the walls, and there would be relief in that.

She welcomed death.

“No, I haven’t seen anything on the news. I don’t think…”

“Do you doubt me now? Do you doubt that this happens all the time and humans aren’t safe as long as those abominations walk the earth?”

“No,” she hiccupped. A worm of pain wiggled between her ribs and she started to shake, blood, screams, expressions of death and shock on her friends’ beautiful faces painting themselves on the backs of her eyelids. “It was my fault. I told him. I told him where we’d be…”

“Who do you speak of?” Inessa asked sharply.

“A man,” she whined, rolling over and screaming into the carpet, guilt bombarding her from every side. Guilt and loss, even for Elias. Even after what he’d done, her heart was nothing but shards, his initials engraved in every single one. How dare she feel anything but hatred for him? How could this have happened?

“A man.” Inessa patted her on the head. “No more explanation is needed.”

“At least, he was a man when I met him…” Roksana said uselessly.

Her mother was silent for long moments. “Let me guess. He approached you.”

“Yes.”

Inessa laughed. “Some people are desperate for eternal life, Roksana. They’ll stop at nothing to get it, even if it means relinquishing their humanity. Slayers might operate in the darkness, but occasionally someone does enough homework to get close. Your mother is the Queen of Shadows, in case you’ve forgotten. My position puts us at the highest risk for visibility. It’s why vampires have always lurked in your midst and I brought you to graveyards instead of playgrounds, to learn our trade. This man you met must have known you would attract those that could give him what he wanted.”

Could that be true? Elias showed interest in her merely to attract vampires?

To appeal to them for eternal life?

Something about that didn’t sit right, but her instincts were clearly unreliable. She’d only felt the briefest of tingles before the slaughter took place. Oh God, she’d done this. All of this was on her shoulders. If she’d just followed in her mother’s footsteps, instead of wandering down a selfish path, she wouldn’t have endangered her friends.

She wouldn’t feel as if her chest was being sawed open every time she thought of Elias.

“I can’t live with this.” She dry heaved, rocking back and forth on the carpet. “I can’t breathe. I can’t live. They’re all gone!”

“You will live.” Her mother’s words were more command than comfort. “We will channel this pain into something extraordinary, daughter. To lay down and die would be smiting your friends even more than you already have. Is that your plan? To let their murders go unavenged?”

“No.” Tears leaked from Roksana’s eyes like a faucet. “I don’t know,” she managed. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t even think.”

“Because you’ve become weak. Easy prey.” On the heels of the ache caused by her mother’s statement, Roksana was shocked into silence when her mother knelt down, cradling Roksana to her chest, her hand roaming comfortingly down her daughter’s back. When was the last time her mother had hugged her? Had she ever? It was like a dose of morphine after an amputation and she swayed into the embrace, warmth stealing through her limbs. “You are forgiven for going astray. You are back now and I can make you strong. I can show you how to find purpose. You and me, daughter. We will get through this together.”

Together.

Roksana’s eyelids fluttered under the inundation of comfort.

Oh, the bliss of being held. Cradled. Accepted where she never had been before.

Yes, yes she would trust in her mother. The only person she had left. The only person on the planet that knew her at all was right here and…and she would avenge her friends. To do anything else would be dishonorable.

“Make me strong, Mother,” she whispered, hope suturing despair in her chest. “Make me the strongest.”

Coney Island

Present Day

Roksana trailed a fingertip along the perimeter wall of the rooftop, a breath of nighttime wind lifting the hair away from her neck. Stars were pinpricks in the black sky and down below on earth, apartment building windows glowed, a Ferris wheel turning slowly in the distance. The faintest sound of carnival music floated along the breeze, along with muted laughter and the scent of buttered popcorn and ocean salt.

The tingle at the back of her neck was in overdrive, but that was no surprise, since—in her infinite wisdom—she’d accepted an invitation to a vampire wedding.

Are you a guest if no one knows you’re here?

Keeping her position among the shadows, far removed from the jovial glow of the wedding about to take place, Roksana reached down and felt for the sharp, wooden stakes strapped to her leg. The outline of them was visible through the bold orange-red of her gown. She didn’t go anywhere without her weapons anymore and their presence would undoubtedly be noticed and unappreciated.

Good.

Killing bloodsuckers was her job. She was friend to no vampire.

Except for a few, damn them.

Roksana whirled back around with a curse and leaned on her bent elbows, staring out at Coney Island without really seeing it. What are you doing here?

She could answer that question in the form of lies. Or she could be honest with herself.

Lie: she merely wanted to wish her good friend, Ginny, a happy wedding day.

Fine, that wasn’t a total lie. She hadn’t made a real friend since that nightmarish evening in Vegas three years ago. And God knows she’d been reluctant to form a bond with the human she’d been asked to protect, but the guileless mortician had crept under her skin. So yes, she wanted to see Ginny marry her mate, Jonas, the new vampire king.

A lot more had gone into Roksana’s decision to detour into Brooklyn on her way to JFK Airport tonight, however.

Truth: she couldn’t stop herself from seeing Elias one last time.

One last time. A memory to carry her through the trial to come.

The mere whisper of his name within her mind caused her fingers to tremble.

The tingling at the back of her neck was courtesy of the forty vampires sitting in neat rows just beyond the shadows. But the twisting ache in her stomach was all for him.

Elias.

The man who’d smashed her life to pieces with a sledgehammer.

Enough thinking. She needed to get this over with.

Roksana pushed off the wall and smoothed her hands down the soft silk of her dress. She might have been more confident in leather and boots, but Ginny had personally made her the dress and for some stupid reason, she didn’t mind seeing the girl smile.

You are weak. That’s why.

You pander to those you have sworn to kill.

Roksana’s breath released on a shudder and finally, she stepped into the light. Just ahead, Ginny waited by herself behind a decorative screen, flowers clutched tightly in her hands. Preparing to walk down the aisle and greet her destiny. What must that be like? To know that no matter what happened, one person would remain steadfast beside her through all of it? A person who had passed all tests and earned absolute trust, instead of putting her heart through a meat grinder?

“Must be very nice, indeed,” Roksana murmured, passing along the back of the waiting crowd, her gaze straying unerringly to the dark head in the front row. Through the jacket of Elias’s suit, his strong shoulder blades tightened, letting Roksana know he was aware of her presence. She gave it a minute or less before he approached. She and Elias being drawn back into one another’s orbit, time and time again, had proven inevitable.

Tonight would be no exception.

But it would be the last time.

Nearly to Ginny now, Roksana staunchly ignored the yawning pit in her stomach, throwing back her shoulders and putting some swagger in her walk. “Easy there, tiger,” she drawled, noticing the way Ginny peeked from behind the screen, undressing her soon-to-be husband with her eyes. “You’ll give new meaning to the term ‘blushing bride.’”

“Roksana?” Ginny breathed, whirling around to face Roksana, her skin several shades paler than it had once been. “You’re wearing the dress I made you.”

“I am.” Roksana pinched the hem of the crimson skirt and raised it, showing off her arsenal of wooden stakes. “Very convenient for hiding weapons.”

That got a laugh from the mortician-turned-vampire queen and it set loose warmth in Roksana’s chest. “Are you going to complain if I hug you?”

Roksana sniffed. “I’ll endure it on your wedding day. Even though you’re a bloodsucker now.”

The force of Ginny’s embrace caught Roksana off-guard. It was…nice, she guessed. And anyway, what choice did she have but to return it? “I guess this means you’ll have to slaughter me now,” Ginny whispered in her ear.

“Yes.” Roksana blinked away the moisture in her eyes, giving the answer she always did when asked when she’d finally visit death on the vampires she’d been tasked with killing. “Tomorrow.”

Ginny stepped back, a serious expression on her face. “Walk me down the aisle?”

Roksana scoffed, but her throat was suddenly two times too small. “You want a slayer to walk you down the aisle at a vampire wedding?”

“Yes. Please?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but the words remained trapped. Choked off. Electricity surfed over her skin and she knew without turning that Elias was behind her. Taking up more space than anyone else in the universe. A dark, sexy, traitorous planet that she couldn’t seem to stop circling in her spaceship. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, she wanted to turn around and scream at him. She wanted to beat his chest with her fists. Or better yet, remove one of the stakes from beneath her dress and drive it into his cold, dead heart.

Thus far, she’d been unable to do it, though her chances had been many.

Weak. You are weak.

“The king grows impatient for his bride,” Elias said, vibrating every hair follicle on her body. She turned, catching him in the act of raking her with hungry eyes. “You’re here. In a dress.” The scar bisecting his mouth turned white, anger igniting his deep brown eyes. “Where the hell have you been?”

It was almost impossible to hear over the wild rapping of her heart—and she hated knowing he could hear every single beat. “Wherever I want to be.”

“You…” A muscle worked in his cheek. “You left my credit card behind on purpose so I couldn’t track you.”

“Get used to it.” Her attempt at flippancy came out sounding breathless. “I’m leaving as soon as I walk Ginny down the aisle.”

Frowning, he stepped into her space. “Where are you going?”

Do not show him your fear. “Russia. I’ve been called back and rightly so.”

Elias choked a sound, a wealth of knowledge written on his face. Oh yes. He knew what awaited her there. But she refused to entertain the possibility that he gave a damn. That possibility would give her hope, and as soon as she stepped off the plane in her home country, hope would cease to exist.

“Yes. It’s…been real.” Unable to bear his presence any longer without letting her emotions get the better of her, she stepped past Elias and hooked her arm through Ginny’s. “Shall we?”

The two women—one human, one vampire—moved from behind the screen and stepped onto a white runner strewn with flower petals. At the altar, Jonas Cantrell waited, his never-flagging intensity riveted on his bride. Recalling the romantic turmoil of those first couple of weeks between Jonas and Ginny, Roksana couldn’t help but crack a small smile at where they’d ultimately landed.

Jonas met Ginny when he’d shown up on her embalming table, a victim of a prank. Humans were forbidden from having any knowledge of vampires, so he’d been seconds from erasing her memory when she’d informed him her life was in danger.

With no choice but to leave her memories intact so she’d trust him to watch over her, he’d enlisted Roksana’s help as a bodyguard.

Now Ginny’s funeral home was a halfway house for freshly Silenced vampires.

Yes, things had certainly changed since Ginny and Jonas found each other. Vampires had once lived by three very important rules and were killed for violating them:

1.   No relationships with humans

2.   No drinking from humans

3.   No taking of human lives

Jonas had cleanly broken the first two before ascending to the vampire throne, however, and now consequences for breaking the rules were meted out in a more compassionate and understanding manner, especially for new vampires, though they still stood.

Roksana felt as if her heart might break now, knowing she’d never see Ginny or Jonas or Tucker, the wise-cracking, Uber driving vampire ever again, but she would do it all over in a heartbeat. She’d even miss the vampires currently recoiling over having a slayer in their presence. They knew better than to utter a single negative word to her. She’d been marked off limits by Elias, no doubt because he wanted to kill her himself one day.

Part of Roksana wished he would.

Then she wouldn’t have to live with the shame of failure.

I came here to kill vampires and became their pal, instead.

She’d become the pathetic girl who couldn’t stay away from a man who doesn’t have the capacity for love, all because they’d shared one magical evening, before everything fell apart. For that, she would return home a disgrace and accept her punishment.

Possibly even her death.

They only made it halfway down the aisle when Ginny handed Roksana the bouquet and ran toward her king, throwing herself into his waiting arms. Roksana absorbed the sight of such beauty. Holding it tight to her breast and offering thanks to whoever was listening that she got to be a part of it.

And she couldn’t help but offer up a silent tribute to a wedding that never got to take place like this one.

Taking one last, longing glance, she turned and walked back up the aisle, not stopping to acknowledge anyone or anything. Just going, going, gone—

Elias blocked her from entering the stairwell. “Not so fast.”

Her pulse tripled and she tried desperately not to show it. As if he couldn’t hear every little punch inside her veins, every shallow breath in and out of her mouth. Bastard. “Out of my way or I’ll stake you.”

He performed a casual lean against the stairwell door. “You’re welcome to try.”

“There would be no trying, silly man. Only execution.”

A line ticked in his temple. “So what’s stopping you?”

“Wedding etiquette.”

The right corner of his mouth twitched. “Right.”

Roksana sighed and studied her nails. “Are you going to miss me, bloodsucker?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but forged ahead on a fool’s mission. One she’d gone on too many times to count, burned every time. “Face it, I’ll be back in Russia…this time tomorrow.”

She held her breath, searching desperately for some sign of recognition.

This time tomorrow.

This time tomorrow.

Remember, damn you.

But he only stared back impassively.

A now-familiar sharp pain stuck in her side. She bit down on the back of her tongue until her teeth started to break the surface, then sucked in a breath. “I have to go.”

Again, Elias stepped into her path. “No. Why are you being called back to Russia?”

“Why do you think?” she said in a hushed whisper. “My mother had mercy on me. She gave me a clear mission and I…” Couldn’t kill the man I still dream about, still miss, still hunger for. God, her memory of Elias before was still so vivid, sometimes it seemed as if she could reach out and touch it. Inessa would have cut him down with a cry of fury and lopped off the heads of his friends while she was in the neighborhood. After a year of daily, grueling training and working in the field, that was the task she’d given her daughter.

Kill the vampire who murdered your friends. Take his friends as tribute. An eye for an eye. Reclaim your pride.

Eighteen months later, Roksana had nothing to show for her time spent in New York. “I went on a vacation instead of doing my job. Now it’s over.”

His scar turned the color of cotton. “What are the consequences, Roksana?”

Death. “Considering my mother is meting out the punishment, she’ll probably just ground me.” She put on an American accent. “Aw geez, mom. I can’t even play Xbox?” She shrugged. “That will be me, probably.”

“You’re making light of it,” he said, sounding as if he was trying to keep his tone even. “You don’t think I can tell?”

“Can we be done with this discussion? I want to browse magazines before my flight. There’s a double issue of Dungeon Beautiful I have my eye on.”

She tried to step past him, but he shot an arm out, keeping the door from opening. “What time is the flight?”

Nine thirty. “Eleven forty-five. Why?” He didn’t answer, but his jaw looked close to snapping. Do not consider the possibility he might care. Do not. She’d spent eighteen months in purgatory, waiting for him to give her a sign he felt something for her. A sign that he remembered. Anything. But he didn’t. He hadn’t maintained his humanity, like Ginny and Jonas. This was just an undead being who liked control and exercised it as a matter of fact. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet now he stared down at her now like she could crumble him with a snap of her fingers?

Oh. Oh, she remembered now.

Roksana rolled her eyes and jerked up the hem of her dress, untucking a small, gold object from her garter belt. “You are waiting for your credit card back, da? Here you go.” She pressed it into his palm. “Those weird porn charges aren’t mine.”

Elias’s rapt gaze was still locked on her exposed thigh, burning her sensitive skin.

Attraction.

That was the one area she knew they connected. Not that he ever came close to acting on it. Nor would she let him! No, they hadn’t so much as held hands since that kiss in Vegas. A kiss which he didn’t remember but would be branded on her memory forever.

“Keep the credit card, Roksana,” he rasped.

“I don’t need—”

He moved in a fit of speed, reversing their positions and flattening her back against the stairwell door, rattling the hinges. Stunned by the unexpected, electric contact—contact she’d been craving for years—she could only swallow a sob as Elias gripped her knee and jerked it up, his breath pelting her mouth as he slid the credit card back into her garter. “Keep. It.”

Kiss me.

Hurt me.

Make love to me.

Anything.

The tortured begging sounding off in Roksana’s mind prompted her to push him away, even though the loss of his nearness caused her knees to buckle, her back hitting the door. How dare he? How dare he exploit her weakness in these last moments? The final seconds she would ever share with him. Shame and irritation and grief over what could have been rose up within her, a stake materializing in her hand without a formal thought.

She raised it.

Elias stayed very still, hands loose at his sides.

Looking her in the eye. Searching.

She searched him, too, rummaging for the man who’d made himself a vital part of her existence in the matter of one night, then turned into a monster—

There.

There? Did she see him? Was there a glimmer of something like…bitter longing?

No, her mind was merely playing tricks on her. Still, what if?

What if?

Roksana dropped the stake, threw open the door and ran, hating herself with every step. At least by tomorrow, she’d no longer have to live with the memories.

CHAPTER FIVE

Las Vegas 2017

Elias wondered briefly if his beer had been spiked.

Was there another logical explanation for the sight that greeted him when he opened his hotel room door?

The woman had several inches of height on Elias—and that was saying something considering he was six foot two. He couldn’t pinpoint her age, but she could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty. Pretty hard to tell with a mask hiding the top of her face and an explosion of blonde hair falling around her shoulders like curtains.

Was that a cape she was wearing?

Usually this level of Vegas lunacy remained in the streets, but somehow the fringe had made it up the elevator.

Elias rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. “Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong room.”

Her mouth pulled up at the edges, remaining poised in an unnatural smile that made the hair stand up on his arms. “Nine fifty-six, right?”

Her lips barely moved when she posed the question, so he couldn’t place her accent. Not precisely. But it sounded…Russian. It couldn’t be, could it? That was too big of a coincidence, considering he’d just lost his mind over a girl from the same part of the world. A very faraway part.

His attention ticked to the number on the door, just to be sure he’d memorized it correctly. God help him if he gave Roksana the wrong room—he’d lose his shit. But no, just a second ago, he’d seen his discarded shirt on the bed, left there from this morning. This was the right place. Which meant they’d either double-booked the room, she’d misremembered her own room number or…or what?

He didn’t have a clue.

“You, uh…want to wait here while I give the front desk a call?”

“I’m in the right place,” she murmured, playing with the tie of her cape. “How was your evening with my daughter? She’s always been a bit of a handful.” Her head tipped to the side. “Sadly, not in the way I’d hoped.”

Russian. Definitely Russian.

Discomfort unfurled like a flag in his chest. What the hell was going on here? Surely this wasn’t really Roksana’s mother. She had to be some yahoo who’d heard them talking in the bar, although wouldn’t he have noticed someone this distinctive? And weren’t the odds extremely low that they’d have been within earshot of another Russian?

A memory of the man with the white feather in his hat rose unbidden, but he staved it off. There was a satisfying explanation for this and he was going to find it.

“Who is your daughter?”

Her laughter was high and tinkling. “Roksana. Don’t think to test me.”

A buzzsaw started to spin in the back of his head. Whatever was going on here, it was worrying and he didn’t like Roksana out of his sight. “Where is she?”

“Off making a fool of me, I’m sure. She does it so well.” Her teeth snapped together and she strode into the room.

“Listen, lady—”

Elias’s protest was cut off when men began piling into the room, one by one. He was so stunned by the fact that he hadn’t noticed them obviously loitering in the hallway that it took him a few seconds to try and shut the rest of the intruders out.

They hadn’t made a fucking sound.

Now, they shouldered past, their movements unnatural, jerky, to say nothing of their effortless strength. Elias could handle himself in any fight. He’d spent most of his youth and some of his twenties picking them to show everyone just how much he didn’t give a shit about approval, so the fact that he couldn’t manage to close the door on these men…rattled him.

He made eye contact with the final one to enter and reared back.

There was a white feather in his hat and…

The guy was hollow.

Dead. Lifeless, save the body propelling him forward.

Pride kept Elias positioned inside the door. Pride and the need to understand this woman’s connection to Roksana. Something was wrong with this situation. Way wrong. He wanted every single one of the facts—and he wanted them now, so he could protect her to the best of his ability. She was not…the same as these people.

While she did share the same hair color and slim build as the woman claiming to be her mother, there was none of Roksana’s impishness. This woman’s eyes didn’t sparkle with mischief and hope and occasional nerves. No, there was a malevolence to the person who’d knocked on his door that made him feel wired. On edge. In a way that the worst criminals of Los Angeles had failed to do.

“Come in, come in,” called the woman, perching on the end of his bed and spreading out her cape. “We have much to discuss.”

Elias let the door close and crossed his arms. “I’m fine where I am.”

Her laugh was little more than a baring of teeth. “As you desire, Mister…”

“You can call me Elias.”

“Very well, then I’m Inessa.” She reached out and tickled the chin of one of the surrounding men, eliciting no reaction. “I also answer to Queen of Shadows.” Elias was still processing the absurdity of her words when she swept a hand full of rings along the white comforter. “It’s a shame you didn’t manage to seal the deal with my daughter. It would have made our job so much easier.”

If she was trying to wound his ego, she’d have to try a lot harder. But he didn’t like her phrasing what he wanted from Roksana as “sealing the deal.” He didn’t have a name for what took place between them tonight, but it was a hell of a lot more than brokering a one-night stand. And what mother talked about their daughter like that, anyway?

“What job are you referring to?” If he didn’t like her answer, did he even have a chance of preventing some bad shit from going down? He mentally calculated how long it would take him to reach the safe and remove his department issued gun. Too long, dammit. “Does Roksana know you’re in Vegas?”

“Nyet, darling.” Inessa reared back with a pout. “That would make it much more difficult to kill her.”

Elias’s adrenaline spiked so hard, his vision blurred. Why didn’t he get Roksana’s number? How was he going to protect her if he didn’t know where to find her? “Yeah, there’s no fucking way that’s happening.” He worked to keep his voice steady. “Why do you want to kill your own daughter?”

Anger erupted in her eyes. “She makes a fool of me. Shunning her birthright to party and make merry and dance in the streets like a joke. Her insolence will not stand.”

Elias blinked several times, but his depth perception seemed to waver and he had a hard time focusing on her words. There was an odd energy coming from the man with the white feather in his hat, his focus on Elias oddly hypnotic. No way could he be responsible for the way Elias’s mind started to fuzz, his tongue turning heavy, though. Had his drink been spiked? “Her…birthright?”

“Yes.” Inessa rose from the bed, her long, white fingers clasping together at her waist. “Roksana was born to be a slayer, like myself. To carry my mantle. The slayerhood’s Russian contingent didn’t even exist until I built it from the ground up, populating it with nighttime warriors.” She squeezed her hands together so hard her hands started to shake. “My daughter makes a mockery of the institution I created. An institution that safeguards Russia, and in turn the world, from the putrid undead.” Stopping beside the man with the white feather in his hat, she patted him on the shoulder. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he rasped, his voice cultured, southern. “We know the score.”

“Are they…” Elias shook his head trying to clear it. “Roksana thought he was a—”

“Vampire? Oh, he is. They all are.” Inessa inclined her head. “It is even more infuriating that she refuses to embrace the family business when she possesses the gift of intuition. She could have been one of the best. Perhaps not as lethal as me.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Then again, who is?”

He struggled through his lethargy, piecing together the information she’d imparted as best as he could, but his eyes kept trying to close, his hands heavy as barbells by his sides. “What is happening to me?” he muttered, not intending to say it out loud.

Inessa smiled. “There’s a strength in you and we’d like to keep it at bay.”

Focus. Focus. Fight the fatigue. He’d been through worse, hadn’t he? “You say you’re a slayer? Of…vampires?” His right knee buckled and he caught himself against the wall. “Let’s say that bullshit is true. Why are you here together in the same room?”

She was silent so long, he wasn’t sure if he’d blacked out and missed her answer. Finally, though, she murmured, “At the top, there is no division. It’s only the risen cream, doing what needs to be done to stay afloat.” Her eyes tracked over him. “I think he’ll make a fine vampire, don’t you, men?”

All at once, the intruders took a step in Elias’s direction. “Stay the hell back,” Elias growled, reaching back for the door handle. Before he could wrench it open, the man with the white feather in his hat materialized behind him. Jesus Christ. Was he hallucinating or had the guy moved at the speed of light?

Elias grabbed the smirking fuck by his collar and threw him up against the wall, hitting him with a right cross that snapped his head to the side.

The lethargy in him dissipated.

He didn’t have time to enjoy the recovery. A set of hands caught him by the shoulders, dragging him farther into the room—and just like that, he was surrounded.

These were just humans, he reminded himself. He was just seeing things.

No way were their eyes glowing eerily green, others gold.

No way they had fucking fangs.

Elias should have been concerned for his own well-being, but there was only one thought running through his head. They want to kill Roksana. They want to kill Roksana. That reminder had Elias’s fists bunching, his body dropping into a fighting stance. “You want to go?” He crooked his finger at the closest dude. “Let’s fucking go, then.”

One of them laughed before breaking into a dead blur around him, but Elias fought his shock and found a way to use that speed against him. Breathing, waiting for the perfect timing, he hauled back and wailed on the guy, the impact sending him crashing against the opposite wall.

He shook out his stinging hand. “Who’s next?”

The fight continued for long minutes, Elias in constant motion. The ramped up strength of his opponents found him on his back several times, and despite the steady drain on his energy, he kept staggering to his feet, gesturing for the next one to bring it on, fighting with every ounce of defiance inside of him. Until suddenly Inessa stepped into the circle. “Stop!”

The ring of intruders dropped their fists as if they’d been deprogrammed, leaving Elias panting in the center of the brawl.

“I think this one will be very useful to me.”

Elias spat blood on the carpet. “I’ll be nothing to you—”

A wooden stake was produced from the inside of her cape before he finished speaking, arcing down and slashing through the center of his lips. Pain and shock struck him immobile and all he could do was stand there, staring back at Inessa and dripping blood on to the carpet.

“I don’t fight women,” Elias coughed through his ravaged lips.

“You will,” she hissed, her face contorting in an evil mask. “Soon, darling, you will be so desperate to feed yourself, you won’t have the ability to discriminate. All humans will be blood donors to you. You’ll leave carcasses in your wake.”

“Never.”

At some point during the brawl, his mind had begun to accept that these were not normal, everyday people. They were inhumanly strong. Their fangs shot in and out of their gums as signs of aggression. They moved at a rate of speed his eyes weren’t sharp enough to track.

Holy shit. Was he really believing this?

How could he not? He was seeing them with his own two eyes.

Vampires.

The idea of becoming one of these soulless monsters was so abhorrent, he could no longer stop the fear from taking hold. How could he stop them? He’d fought them with every ounce of skill and spite in his arsenal and barely winded them. They operated differently. More efficiently. If they wanted to make him a vampire or worse, hurt Roksana, he couldn’t stop them. Not physically.

Elias closed his eyes briefly, wishing he had his teammates at his back. Wishing he’d spent a little less time taking them for granted. More time appreciating what they’d given him. Friendship. Security. Acceptance. There was no time to dwell on that now, though. Not with Roksana’s safety in question.

“You claim I will be useful to you. How?”

A hint of a smile curled her brutal mouth. “You will lead them to my daughter. You will be there for the slaughter of Roksana and her friends. I wish her to taste betrayal and heartbreak, the way she has made me feel it, every day since she walked away from her birthright.”

By the time she finished, Elias was so pissed, he was shaking. “Vampire or human, whatever the hell you turn me into, I will never lay a goddamn finger on her and neither will any of you. Bet on it.”

Inessa carefully replaced the blood-covered stake in her cape, her eyes turning thoughtful, calculating. “Let’s not pretend you could stop us, shall we?” She paused, scrutinizing Elias. “But perhaps slaughtering only her friends will drive her back to the fold. I had not considered this. See, already you are useful to me.”

He glimpsed hope in the form of Roksana living and pounced on it. Because Inessa was right. As much as it scored his pride to admit it, he couldn’t stop nearly a dozen inhumanly strong beasts from hurting her. “Spare her and I’ll do anything you want,” he said thickly.

Triumph wove its way through her expression. “I need someone to help train my slayers to keep up with the undead. And of course, the experience needs to be authentic, doesn’t it? Yes, a year of your life should do it.” She waved a hand. “Well, I use the term life loosely. Since technically, we’ll be taking yours.”

Refusing to show weakness, he lifted his chin. “No matter what, I’ll be keeping my soul.”

“That’s sweet, but don’t get your hopes up,” she cooed, before her face hardened and she pointed a long, bejeweled finger in his direction. “Tell my daughter of this bargain and it’s off. I’ll lop her head off in the middle of Red Square.”

“You have my word,” he breathed, banishing that offensive imagery.

She gestured to the vampires still circling Elias.

“Well?” Inessa clapped her hands together gleefully. “What are you waiting for?”

CHAPTER SIX

Moscow, present day

Roksana rolled her carry-on suitcase to the edge of the fountain, dropping down onto the concrete edge and pulling her thin coat tighter to her chest. The high-reaching tower of Moscow State University loomed in the distance, trees clustering at her feet. The sun sparkled, but the air cut into her like knives. From every direction, Russian spilled from the lips of students running to their next class or parked on benches. They lamented the fact that it was Monday while clutching cups of kofe in their hands to stay warm. Such normalcy.

What seemed like a lifetime ago, she’d been one of these students.

Lifting her face to the sky, she thought back to an afternoon just like that one. A light day, free from strain and duty and pressure. Instead of alone and stalling her certain death, as she was now, Roksana sat on that very fountain surrounded by friends, gossiping with their mouths full of sandwiches, totally oblivious to anything but the magic they were spinning. It would last forever, that magic, wouldn’t it? Who would dare take it away?

“I’m borrowing your yellow dress for Friday night, Roksana,” Olga announced, walking the edge of the fountain like a tightrope. “The one with the pockets. It makes you look washed out, anyway.”

A chorus of oooohs went up from Roksana’s friends, informing her she’d been burned.

Roksana shrugged and bit into her potato and green bean sandwich. “You are jealous because you tried to go blonde, but blonde didn’t go for you.” She slipped a green bean out from between the bread and chucked it at Olga. “You need the pockets to carry your shame.”

Olga kicked a few droplets of water at Roksana, who gasped and volleyed a handful back in return. They both hopped to their feet at the same time, a fake boxing match ensuing while their friends hooted and placed phony bets, passersby rolling their eyes at the antics.

Kira stepped in between them, her voice dropped low, like a man’s. “We will have a fair fight today, ladies. No hair pulling or nipple twisting.”

“There goes my strategy,” Roksana whined. “Is pantsing allowed?”

Kira rubbed her hands together. “It’s encouraged.”

Olga screeched and took off, holding on to the waistband of her jeans for dear life, Roksana hot on her heels…laughing. So much laughing.

Roksana realized she’d been staring into nothing for over an hour when a cloud passed in front of the sun, snapping her from a series of hazy reveries. The jacket she’d bought—on Elias’s credit card—for springtime in New York was doing little to combat the cold of Moscow, but she huddled into the nylon interior and left the park, wheeling her suitcase behind her.

Didn’t this place use to be so much bigger? Every store front, every fire hydrant, looked like a movie prop. Similarly, Roksana felt like an actress playing a part. One foot in front of the other, wheel the suitcase, look normal.

Nothing was normal, though.

Once upon a time, while still in college, she’d had the ability to drape a shroud over her upbringing, to dull its presence in her psyche. She’d lived through a youth in which monsters were pointed out on every street corner and often turned to dust, right in front of her very eyes, at the hands of her mother.

As slayers are sworn to keep their existence a secret, she’d watched battles play out in graveyards and tended to her mother’s wounds, but was never able to tell her friends about it the next morning at school. Or confide her reluctance and fears about leading the Russian slayer contingent her mother had formed, to mimic the ones in North America, Spain, Mexico and elsewhere. Not only had Inessa mimicked them, she’d turned her operation into the most prestigious jewel in the slayerhood crown.

Yes, Roksana had been groomed from a young age to fill her mother’s position as the Queen of Shadows—and she’d hated every moment. Why should she have to acknowledge every ugliness in the world? Why was it her duty to hunt the streets for the undead when everyone else got to live in blissful ignorance of such things? It wasn’t fair!

Roksana’s grip twisted around the plastic handle of the suitcase.

How self-centered she’d been. A whiny child.

And her selfishness had cost her friends their lives.

With a lump lodged in her throat, Roksana caught sight of the library ahead, its grand columns seeming to announce her homecoming.

After Vegas, she’d spent one year training to retaliate.

Six months honing her skill in the field, preparing to travel back to America, this time to the East Coast. Another year and a half in New York, failing to carry out the revenge she’d once lived to execute.

Ordered to deliver by her mother.

Elias’s face appeared in her mind, not as he’d been in Vegas all those years ago. But as he’d been on the rooftop, just two nights prior. Commanding, pissed off, beautiful. The memory of his finger slipping into her garter had Roksana’s steps faltering on the sidewalk, her rolling luggage ramming into her heel.

Why did he have to do that?

Had he not proven his hold over her enough?

If not, she’d certainly done so by dropping her stake and running. Thank God she never had to look into his bottomless whiskey eyes again.

Thank God, right?

Roksana swiped the back of her wrist beneath her nose, sniffed and trudged on. The closer she came to the library, its gargoyle protectors lit by the sunset, the more her knees started to tremble. Her mother could probably smell her weakness from the underground depths of the building. And it annoyed her like nothing else that Elias’s image is what gave her the balls to keep moving. He would demand it of her. He would raise that single eyebrow if she stopped, as if to say, “Really? You’re quitting?”

Just to spite him, she halted mid-stride and ducked into a shop, the suitcase trundling along behind her. She would have left her single piece of luggage in a hotel, but she hadn’t bothered checking into one, since this was probably her last day on earth. Although it would have been a nice, final go screw yourself to pay in advance for a week at the Four Seasons, charging it on Elias’s credit card.

After a layover in Paris, she’d landed in Sheremetyevo and browsed gadget stores, sleeping for a while beside a quiet gate and eating in one of the terminal restaurants for a meal, but hadn’t been able to choke down a bite. Thank God no one was there to bear witness to how long she stalled at the airport or she would leave a legacy behind as a coward, instead of a badass slayer of vampires (sometimes).

Now her stomach growled and she found herself carefully selecting her final meal from a row of candy bars. A moment later, she dropped her Hematogen on the counter and asked how much, starting to take cash out of her inner jacket pocket. But she changed her mind and handed the bleary-eyed shopkeeper Elias’s credit card, instead.

Refusing to acknowledge why she’d done that, Roksana ripped open the wrapper, bit the end off the candy bar, and stomped toward the library.

She wouldn’t live her final moments on this earth as a wimp.

Roksana closed the door of the library basement behind her, sending a deafening echo out into the darkness. She was surrounded in black, the smell of dust and leather bringing her back to the last time she stood in this hall.

“Well, daughter.” Her mother turned sideways in her chair, throwing a leather-clad leg over the carved, wooden arm. “What will you do now that your training has been completed?”

“Avenge them,” Roksana whispered fiercely, the cold concrete floor serving as ice to her sore knees. All of her was sore, but the hurt was good. It was healthy.

“Yes, you will.” Inessa bit her lip in a considering way, as if they were discussing what to have for dinner. “You will enact revenge on the vampire who took the lives of your friends, as we discussed. His friends will be snuffed out to pay homage to your own. You will slaughter them all. The one who preyed on the innocents that night and all who associate with him. For they will prey on innocents as well. It is their nature. Hunting is what you do now. That is what we do. We slay. We do the dirty work and keep the sheep safe.”

Roksana nodded, ignoring the way her skull rattled from taking so many hits lately. “Yes.”

“I was lenient when you set that murderous vampire loose from our hold, but I understood your desire for an actual challenge. Revenge must be satisfying. It’s something I might have done at your age.” Her eye twitched. “I won’t be so lenient next time.”

A finger of cold traced each bump of Roksana’s spine. She still had no idea why she’d set Elias loose from the prison at the training facility, where Inessa had held him for a year. Only that she’d been physically incapable of putting a stake through his heart when his vigor had been visibly eroded, leaving behind nothing but hollow eyes and sunken cheeks.

And no memory of her.

Roksana ignored the coil of pain in her chest.

“Name the vampires you will kill. Engrave their names on your bones.”

“Elias Perry, Jonas Cantrell, Tucker Moore,” she intoned.

Inessa inclined her head. “They are in Coney Island. New York. Living in a cozy little horde, as they are wont to do.” A breath passed. “You are grateful for this information I’ve found for you, da?”

“Yes. I’m very grateful, Mother.”

That was not a lie. Not at all. She would never have known where to start tracking down the bloodsucker who’d killed her friends. Her mother was being generous.

Her mother was all she had.

The angel of mercy had given her a reason to live in her darkest hour.

She only kept her at arm’s length and left her in physical pain at the end of each day to make her stronger. To make her a warrior worthy of her legacy.

Inessa tapped a finger on her knee. “Remember, if only you’d done as you were told and begun training as a child, you would have been able to protect your friends that night.”

Knowing better than to show weakness in front of her mother, she merely nodded, commanding herself to keep the tears suppressed until later. When she was alone. “Da, Mother. You are right.”

“Hmmm.” Inessa’s pupils turned to daggers as she leaned toward Roksana. “Don’t come back here until every last one of them is a pile of ash. Do not embarrass me after I’ve given you this chance or you will suffer the fate of your friends. Am I understood?”

“Yes.”

With a heavy swallow, Roksana wheeled her useless luggage to the side and advanced into the darkness, positive she was being observed from all sides. For that reason, she kept her stance low and her fists at the ready. I will not be caught unaware.

She moved without a sound, balancing on the balls of her feet, breathing evenly. By the time she’d taken her fifteenth step, she knew she’d reached the center of the hall. That she stood directly beneath the chandelier that dangled vampire fangs instead of crystals.

Her mother might be the Queen of Shadows, she might hold dominion over the Russian contingent of vampire slayers, but she didn’t have a throne. No, her modus operandi was to keep everyone guessing, at all times, so she could be in any location—

A heavy object whizzed toward the back of Roksana’s head and she ducked just in time, whatever it was grazing her blonde flyaways. She dropped into a crouch and spun, kicking the feet out from beneath her attacker and pouncing without preamble, ramming her forearm into their jugular and being rewarded with a satisfying grunt. There would be no celebrating, though, so while she held down her assailant, she closed her eyes and listened for the whispers of her next attack. Concentrate. Concentrate. Would it come from above? Beneath?

Both?

A high-pitched squeal of rust was her only warning before two hundred pounds, give or take, dropped onto her from above. Someone must have been waiting on the chandelier, she concluded absently, while flipping the live weight over, smashing her closed fist into their nose—and delivering a backward kick to the first attacker who was now back on their feet.

Roksana tilted her head, using her split second of rest to dissect the new footsteps rushing in her direction from the side. A woman. No shoes. Skilled in the art of moving unaware, but not skilled enough. Roksana reached for the skulls of her first two aggressors, smashing them together, tossing both stunned bodies into the path of the oncoming threat and snorting when the chick tripped and fell over her teammates.

The confidence she’d been sorely lacking rose like yeasty dough in her veins. “Send me a challenge, Mother—”

Blunt force caught Roksana in the stomach and she wheezed, nearly dropping to her knees. She stumbled, but somehow found the strength to remain standing. To fall in front of her mother would be the ultimate shame. Die with a modicum of pride, damn you.

Light bathed the basement, revealing Inessa standing two feet away, holding an ornately carved club, which she’d obviously used to strike Roksana in the stomach. Her lips were peeled back from her teeth in a snarl, her eyes leveling utter disgust at her daughter’s head.

Roksana sucked in a breath and snapped her spine straight, a dark sort of joy filtering into in her breast. Her mother was standing there. Right there. It had been so long. If only she could just sink into that singular maternal embrace, this constant burden on her soul might lighten, the way it had post-Vegas. It didn’t matter that loathing shone in Inessa’s eyes. It didn’t matter that she’d expressed disappointment in Roksana every day since her birth. There had been occasional positive reinforcement. Sporadic expressions of pride.

In the darkness after the death of her friends, her mother had been the light shining on the other end of the tunnel, giving her purpose. A way to divert the pain before it smashed her heart into a thousand pieces. Others might classify her mother as a horrible, spiteful human being. But the little girl inside Roksana didn’t care. She just saw her mother and wanted to soak up even the smallest droplet of love.

Careful not to let her joy—or her misery—show, Roksana bowed her head. “Inessa.”

“You.” Tapping the club against her palm, she circled around the back of Roksana. “My own daughter has returned to me a failure. Your inability to complete an important assignment is made infinitely more frustrating by the fact that you’re able to take down my three best slayers without breaking a sweat. What an unforgiveable waste of talent you are.”

Knowing better than to interrupt one of Inessa’s rants, Roksana formed a flat line with her lips, keeping a close eye on the felled slayers in case they decided to attack again.

“Our contingent has a zero tolerance policy on failure. Have you returned to face your consequences head on, or will you grovel for your life like any other lowly pissant?”

Roksana lifted her chin, ordering the tears to stay locked away, where they would never be shed. “I’m here to face my consequences.”

Inessa completed her circle around Roksana, stopping in front of her. “You will not beg to keep your life?”

“No.”

“No? But you seemed to be enjoying it so much, palling around with the enemy. My own daughter,” she ground out, tracing the side of Roksana’s face with the blunt tip of her club. “Thumbing her pretty nose at my legacy, as usual.”

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Roksana whispered, blinking several times when the back of her eyelids started to burn. “I don’t know why I couldn’t do it.”

That was the truth, wasn’t it? She should have had no problem driving a stake through the heart of the vampire who helped kill her friends. The vampire who’d turned them into nothing more than bloody corpses lying on cheap carpet on an occasion that should have been happy. A lasting memory of friendship and love.

Damn you, Elias.

She should have killed him as soon as her training was completed.

Not only had he ruined her life and stolen that of her friends, but he’d made her helpless in those horrifying moments.

That last part burned like a constant torch beneath her heart.

Briefly, she closed her eyes and heard her own screams, felt the door shaking beneath her pounding fists. Let me out.

“Look at me, daughter,” Inessa snapped, drawing Roksana out of her agonizing thoughts. “You could have been one of the best, if not the best. I saw what you could do in the field before I let you go to America, despite the potential consequences for sending a slayer into another jurisdiction without permission from their contingent. And your skill…” Inessa shrugged. “It rivaled my own.”

Roksana’s heart sprouted wings and they beat rapidly, a grateful sob building in her throat. Approval. It was so rare from her mother, from anyone, she latched onto it and held, savoring every syllable, memorizing them. “Thank you, Inessa.”

“I was not finished.” She tapped a jeweled finger against the center of her chest. “It is here where you fall painfully short. You have the heart of a pathetic, sniveling woman, instead of a warrior. You chose a man over loyalty. You will pay for that this night.”

There was no denying her mother’s accusation. Elias’s eyes glowed in the forefront of her mind. His hand on her thigh. His voice in her ear. His confusing presence in the darkness when she walked the street at night. If there was a scale inside of Roksana, there would be an equal balance of love and hate, always teetering in one direction or the other. But right now?

Right now, hate was winning.

How dare he make her a failure in the eyes of her mother?

You could have been one of the best.

You chose a man over loyalty.

If Elias was standing in front of her at that moment, she thought…no, she knew she could end his existence. One strike. And then, she’d have this woman’s full approval. Next time she visited, there would be no attack in the dark. There might even be an embrace.

A childlike moan stuck in her throat.

“Give me another chance. I can do it,” Roksana blurted, unplanned. “I can kill him.”

Inessa snorted at the request and rested the club on her shoulder. “It is a shame you must die tonight, daughter. There is a mission to be completed back in Coney Island. Unfortunately, it not only requires the disposition of a warrior, but entry into Enders—and I have it on good authority that last time you were there…” Her eyes flashed dangerously. “You fought alongside vampires.”

Hisses went up around the basement and a cold shiver traveled down Roksana’s spine. The accusation was true. She’d made the epic mistake of bringing Ginny to the slayer bar for a birthday drink, but her mortician friend wound up writhing in pain on the floor instead, imbued with Jonas’s then-suffering. Not knowing what else to do, Roksana called Elias and next thing she knew, there he stood with his friend Tucker, ready to take on a bar full of slayers.

Roksana chose the wrong side to fight on.

As confusing as it was, she’d been physically incapable of fighting Elias.

The prospect of him being hurt or killed made her nauseous. Made her dizzy.

No. No. Next time, she would fight through it.

“I make no excuses for what I’ve done,” Roksana managed. “What is the task in Coney Island? Send me and I will complete it. I know that neighborhood now like the back of my hand and…I will find a way to get into Enders.”

Her mother considered her with skepticism, but truthfully, Roksana had fully expected to be dead by now, so the delay was welcome. “Why should I allow you a second chance when I never give them to anyone else?”

Because I’m your daughter. “Because I’m a better slayer than every single one of them.”

Inessa remained silent for a moment, then threw her head full of blond spiral curls back and laughed. “If you fail, I suppose the slayers would kill you anyway, since you’re known as a traitor.” She turned to face the basement filled with the Russian contingent, her mouth in a pout. “Though my loyal comrades were so looking forward to the bloodshed of a traitor tonight, weren’t they?”

They pounded their fists against the walls, shouting for vengeance, and Roksana barely checked the urge to hug her elbows to her belly. She favors them over me. “I can do this. Tell me the task.”

Her mother’s expression grew pinched and the battle cries died down. She paced another circle around Roksana, the club tap-tap-tapping against her palm. “May I ask, Roksana, what have your feelings for this vampire given you? Sexual gratification? Affection? Companionship?”

“No,” she whispered, the weight of her heart increasing to that of an anvil. “Nothing.”

“Nothing. That’s right. He’s brought you nothing but a death sentence and the ridicule of your own kind.” Inessa bared her teeth against Roksana’s ear. “Men will always disappoint you. I learned my lesson with the bastard who fathered you, then left for another before you could walk. A woman who wouldn’t make him insecure about his own strength, like me. Was there hurt? Yes. But I learned, and now I possess myself. I own myself and I owe not a soul. Especially a man.”

Roksana breathed in the motherly lesson like an addict inhales smoke. This was useful. Her mother loved her and wanted to see her successful. And wasn’t Inessa right? What had Elias given her but one, single night where hope existed?

Now that hope was extinguished she needed to wake up.

To grow up.

“The task, Inessa. Please. I’ve learned my lesson.”

Her mother hummed in her throat, moving to face Roksana fully once again. “You think it will be easy? It won’t. You will probably die.”

“I will live and be triumphant. You underestimate me.”

Inessa backhanded her across the face.

Ignoring the ringing in her head and the laughter from the surrounding slayers, Roksana snapped back to attention.

“There is a poker game on Wednesday night. At a well-appointed home near the Arbatskaya metro station. There is money at stake, but the pot will hold something much more valuable.” She lowered her voice for Roksana’s ears alone. “The winner receives a binding marriage decree for Mary the Mad. Whoever holds it can dictate who she marries.”

Hello left turn. “Who is Mary the Mad?”

“She is the daughter of Tilda.” Inessa inclined her head. “Tilda is the owner of Enders and she wants to decide who Mary weds. Unfortunately, her husband crafted this decree and now it has been compromised. See how men fuck everything up?”

“Why are people competing for this decree?”

“Despite her mental shortcomings, Mary has quite a…value.” Inessa trailed the top of her club along the slope of Roksana’s throat. “Win the decree, bring it to Tilda. And in exchange, she will give you something I want. A game piece, so to speak. Bring it back and place it in my hand.”

“What is it?”

“That’s for me to know,” Inessa said lightly, though a threat flickered in her eyes. “Only me. Is that understood?”

Roksana nodded. “Yes.”

Inessa pressed the club to Roksana’s jugular, twisting. “But before you come back here, you will kill Elias Perry or you’ll be slaughtered as soon as you set foot in Moscow. His existence is offensive to humanity. With your failure to end him, he’s now an offense to me, as well. You will never be strong until you overcome this weakness. He is your weakness and you will obliterate it.” The words landed like a vicious backhand. “One task. Three parts. Can you do it, Roksana, or should we simply kill you now?”

“I can do it,” Roksana gasped, her voice emerging unnatural because the club was cutting off her air. “You have my word.”

Inessa removed the club and Roksana sucked in a lung full of oxygen. With it came gratitude. Hope. She wasn’t going to die tonight. Instead, she would get a second chance to earn her mother’s respect and maybe, just maybe, the love she’d proven herself unworthy of so many times. Suppressing the urge to throw her arms around Inessa’s neck, Roksana took a backward step toward the door—

“Oh.” That single word from Inessa stopped Roksana in her tracks. “You didn’t think you were just going to walk out of here without any consequences. Did you?” Whatever took place on Roksana’s face made her mother laugh. “Aw. You did. But that’s not how it works.” She gestured for the other slayers, dozens of them, to attack at the same time. “Leave her alive.”

Twenty minutes later, Roksana stumbled out of the back library entrance and fell to her knees, blood pouring from her nose and bottom lip, her eye sockets screaming with pain. The bruises to her stomach and back wouldn’t be formed yet, but they were trying, pushing up from beneath her skin like miniature beds of spikes. Was one of her ribs cracked?

Roksana coughed and blood misted onto the concrete steps.

Don’t curl up and die. Don’t curl up and die.

Not yet.

One of her eyes was swelling closed, but she looked ahead with her good one, locking her attention on the market in the distance. The place where she’d bought the chocolate bar.

Just get there. Get there.

She refused to acknowledge why the market was her goal or why she’d used the credit card there instead of paying cash. Not thinking too deeply wasn’t a challenge when the physical pain was so immense, either. She simply crawled on hands and knees across the quiet street, leaving a trail of blood in her wake, her bones shrieking with every inch she traveled. Until finally she collapsed in front of the now-dark store, her damaged eye using the cold sidewalk as a makeshift icepack.

Roksana drifted in and out of consciousness, rousing only when people passed, so she could deem them safe or a threat. Pain. So much pain. It hurt to breathe, to lift her head. She just wanted to sleep and…she refused to name the other thing she wanted, because it made no sense. She’d never really had him to begin with and definitely didn’t have him now.

The effort of staying alert eventually became too great, but just before she drifted off, a hallucination crept in. The streetlamps overhead guttered, flickers of light raining down and hissing in the gutter water on either side of the street—and the outraged howl of a man shattered the night. Her broken body was lifted off the sidewalk and cradled in arms she trusted enough to finally give in to blessed unconsciousness.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Roksana woke up neck deep in warm water.

A single bulb hung down from a stained ceiling and swayed, only giving off a modicum of light, the pull chain rattling quietly.

Panic bottomed out in her stomach and she pinwheeled, her arms and legs flailing and splashing water in every direction. The abused muscles of her abdomen protested mightily, but she couldn’t stop fighting. Where was she? How had she gotten here?

“You’re safe, Roksana,” said Elias’s gruff voice in her ear. “Stop fighting or you’ll injure yourself even worse.”

She went limp with relief. Hated herself for it.

But she had the immediate, indisputable faith that she was sheltered. Why? How dare she have such conviction about this vampire when she knew so well what he was capable of doing to a human being? She’d seen it with her own eyes.

Roksana peered down into the bathtub, but it was so dark, she couldn’t make out a single thing in the water’s depths. She could only feel the position of Elias behind her. Around her. His body was a hard, muscle-packed cushion between her and the back of the tub, his legs extended out on either side of her, his right knee raised. A washcloth was clutched in his fist, resting on the elevated leg, as if it had suspended in animation when she woke up.

Wait. Whoa. She was in a bathtub with Elias.

The intimacy of the act started her breath racing and she rushed to slow it down, lest she inhale a fatal dose of his perfect, spiced pine scent. Seriously, why couldn’t his scent have changed when he lost his humanity? “Am I naked?”

“No. And neither am I,” he drawled without missing a beat, as if he’d been anticipating that question. “We’re in a vacant apartment in Arbat. I wanted to get you indoors fast—”

“So you went into the closest building and looked for empty buzzer tags,” she said in a rush, still sounding breathless, dammit. She’d had no time to gather her wits. “I know that trick. I’ve done it many more times than you.”

Elias dipped the washcloth into the water, lifted it and wrung the water free over her shoulder, sending a cascade of heat over her sore muscles. “If your hurt pride is giving you the need to boast, you can give it a rest,” he rasped, bringing the cloth to her face and carefully scrubbing caked blood from her cheek. “I didn’t come to your rescue, I just owed you one.”

“Right,” she murmured, knowing very well the favor he referred to. “This is payback for the time I found you half dead in a slayer prison, da?”

“More like slightly incapacitated, but sure.”

She ignored his amused correction. “This does not mean you are safe from the ultimate payback, vampire. If I could lift my arms right now…” She whistled through her teeth, a sound totally at odds with the feeling welling in her throat. “You would be in big trouble.”

“Yeah,” he said solemnly. “It would be slaughter city.”

Roksana tried to turn her head and pain in her tendons robbed her of sight. She dropped her head back onto his shoulder, winded, her teeth buried in her bottom lip to keep from crying out. “Don’t humor me.”

She could hear his hard swallow against her ear. His voice was torn up gravel when he said, “I can’t believe your own fucking mother did this to you.”

Her teeth broke the skin on her lip. “She can’t take it easy on me just because I’m her daughter. There are consequences to my actions. Or lack thereof.”

Was it her imagination or were Elias’s muscles taut to the point of vibrating? “There is a difference between consequences and beating her own flesh and blood half to death.”

This was getting too real, too personal. They didn’t operate on this level. She was the slayer sent to end his objectionable existence and he was the cold, sarcastic visage of the man she’d once fallen for in a Vegas casino. She’d arrived in New York eighteen months ago with the intention of killing him, but always found an excuse to wait one more day. One more day. In the meantime, she’d made herself useful by staking vampires that she deemed a risk toward humans, but this man who was a definite risk? She couldn’t seem to seal the deal.

One night after arriving in New York, she’d found Elias and his friends, Jonas and Tucker, hanging out in a secret vampire pub. Instead of sucking on bones of the innocent and toasting their general evilness, she’d witnessed them counseling newbie vampires through the transition. Giving them money, guidance and a community. The Russian High Order were a bunch of ancient assholes who let their vampire subjects run amok. At the time, before Jonas took the king’s seat, the American High Order had been cutthroat as well, though with stricter rules than the Russians. She’d been raised to believe vampires rampaged without mercy. So she’d been surprised by the trio’s seeming…grace. Perplexed by their apparent goodness, she watched them from afar for months, but they never slipped up.

Roksana was perched on a rooftop watching them leave a different pub one night when Tucker looked up and invited her over to watch Netflix. Under the guise of keeping her enemies close, she’d accepted. She’d become grudging friends with Jonas and Tucker, while Elias usually spent their hang outs glowering at her from across the room. When the tension between them became too great, she usually skipped town for a few weeks to cool off, only to arrive back to an even more pissed off Elias than she’d left behind.

Yes, annoying him had become her favorite pastime and damn, did she excel at it. The scar-lipped vampire followed her from deep in the shadows at night, during her outings, always waiting and watching just out of her sightlines. But she held no delusions that he was concerned for her. Or that he was capable of romantic feelings for her. No. He merely wanted to return the favor he owed her. If he was angry on her behalf over the beating she’d taken, Roksana rejected the illusion of sympathy. It was too tempting to believe he was the kind of man who cared, instead of the monster who’d massacred her friends.

“You’re just pissed you had to come halfway around the world to give me a bath. Did you have to cancel a hot date or something?”

He chuckled under his breath. “Yeah. Had to cancel dozens of them.”

“You can probably make it back in time for at least one. Maybe two.” The jealousy swelled rapidly, even though she was responsible for inciting it—and what sense did that make? “I’m fine now to take care of myself. I was even thinking of looking up an old boyfriend—”

“And show up looking like your parachute didn’t open?” Elias growled the question. “You won’t be looking up anyone.”

In a snap, her worry was blanketed with stardust. Her world was free of worry.

“Yes, Elias,” she murmured obediently, before the worry and horror of the last twenty-four hours blew back in, scattering the protective layer of stardust from her thoughts. “D-did you just compel me?”

“I’m…” He trailed off with a curse. “I didn’t mean to. I can handle the blood, but try not to provoke me.”

She jolted, pain rippling through her limbs.

How in God’s name did it take this long to occur to Roksana that she was sitting in a bathtub tinged liberally with her blood, being held by a vampire? In her weakened condition, if Elias wanted to feed on her, kill her, she wouldn’t be able to fight him off.

Come on, couldn’t she even conjure a smidgen of fear over that fact?

“How long did it take you to learn such willpower?” she asked, her toes curling in the water when he dragged the washcloth slowly along the curve of her neck, loosening her tight muscles like magic. “We both know you didn’t possess any self-control in the beginning.”

For just a brief second, his ministrations paused. “Like I’ve told you hundreds of times, Roksana, I don’t remember anything about that night.”

“Convenient,” she managed around the object in her throat. “Would you like me to tell you again what happened?”

“No,” he said roughly. “Once was enough.”

How pitiful that guilt should turn down the corners of her mouth. What did she have to feel guilty about? Still… “Have you…blacked out the windows yet?” she asked lightly, her eyes roaming around the dim bathroom. “Not that I’m concerned for you.”

“No, of course not.” The return of his dry humor relaxed her curled fingers. “You were frozen. I haven’t done anything but run this bath and put you in it.”

“I’m thawed now.” Urgency nipped at her. “The sun will rise soon. At least, I think so. I don’t know how long I was lying there—” She ignored his prickly growl. “Like I said, I can’t lift my arms. Cleaning up a pile of dead vampire dust would be bothersome. Go fix the windows.”

“You’re coming with me.” Before she could protest, Elias stood, holding Roksana in his arms, and with her head lolling against his shoulder, she got the first look at his face since waking up. He was paler than usual, lines of strain bracketing his mouth, but even in the muted light, she could see his pupils expand like drops of black ink when their gazes met. “You can’t keep yourself afloat. Fishing a drowned slayer from the bottom of the tub would be bothersome,” he said, the words barely audible, his Adam’s apple lifting and plummeting. “You lied to me about your flight time, Roksana. Your heart barely skipped a beat doing it.”

“It won’t be the last time I lie to you.” The sound of water dripping from their clothing was the only sound in the small bathroom. That and her rapid-fire pulse, which he could definitely hear, could always hear, but rarely admitted it out loud. “Did you really come here to repay a favor, Elias?”

“Yes.” He stepped out of the tub. “And that probably won’t be the last time I lie to you, either.”

She was still deciphering that cryptic statement when they entered the empty flat. Heat rattled in through a wrought-iron gate in the corner, blowing around dust bunnies. Old pots and pans lay forgotten on the counters. Apart from a full-size bed in the corner, there was no furniture. “Homey,” she muttered.

“I was short on choices.” He advanced toward the bed, his gait purposeful. “We need to get you out of these wet clothes. I didn’t come to your rescue just to have you die of pneumonia.”

As much as she wanted to argue, Roksana had to agree that getting out of her wet clothing sounded heavenly. Already the soaked material was beginning to cool and goose bumps formed on her skin. The weight of the sodden clothing alone was agony on her sore muscles. “How are we going to do this without you bearing witness to my breathtaking nakedness?”

His silence was strained. “Can you stand?”

“I have to go on a quest in two days’ time,” she said, pressure settling on her chest. “If I can’t stand, I better start learning how to fly.”

Elias’s frame tensed. “Say more about the quest.”

“One thing at a time, temnota mo—” Alarmed by her near slipup, she patted him on the shoulder harder than intended. “Put me down.”

He did as she asked, slowly, keeping her steady with an arm around her waist. When she glanced back at him over her shoulder, to see if he’d noticed the nickname, he only regarded her with grave eyes and a stiff upper lip. “I’m going to take this old sheet off the bed and wrap it around you,” he said, his gaze never leaving her as he stripped off his own drenched shirt, letting it slap down to the floor without a smidgen of self-consciousness.

Warrior.

That single word whispered through her mind. This was her first time seeing his naked torso, and man alive, he was a sight. Of course he was engraved with muscle, deep grooves forming a V starting at the tops of his hips and disappearing into his pants. A generous patch of black chest hair, flat brown nipples on either side. Lethal arms cut with brawn and decorated in ink. A puckered knife scar bisected his abdomen.

Souvenirs of his past life? The skin beneath his clothes must be paler than the first time she’d met him, but it could be no less rugged. Male. Elias.

How could someone who pulsed with such vitality have no pulse?

“You need a minute, Roks?”

Her tummy flipped. He rarely shortened her name, but the raspy intimacy of it never failed to jump-start her libido. “I’m merely sizing up an opponent.” She faced forward again before he could see her blush. “Don’t get it twisted.”

He scoffed lightly and crowded close once again, banding that strong arm around her waist. Keeping his hold in place, Elias leaned past her, whipping off the top white layer off the bed and shaking it out. Grateful he couldn’t see her face, Roksana let her eyes drift shut so she could heighten her sense of touch. Because my God. The ripple and swell of his pectorals against her back was incredible. Even in her injured state, she wasn’t immune to the flex and dip of his strength. His sinew. She could feel it all, even through her layer of wet clothing.

Elias eased away from her only momentarily to secure the sheet over her shoulders and around her body, then drew her back to his solid wall of muscle. “All right.” Was it her imagination or did his fingers clutch at the sheet a little desperately? “Can you…” He paused and she couldn’t help fantasizing that he needed to gather himself, to prepare for being this close to her while she stripped. “Can you unfasten your pants and push them down?”

Being pressed to Elias made her limbs feel languid. She’d never been taken care of in her life and despite who this man was, despite the fact that she would kill him in the near future, she couldn’t help but want to give in. To let him care for her fully. But no good would come of indulging that temptation, so she pushed through the haze of comfort and unbuttoned her leather pants, lowering the zipper. Upon sliding her thumbs into the tight waistband, she winced, her forearms shaking and seizing up when she tried to push them down.

“I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t do it.”

A vibration traveled through his body. “You’re not supposed to get hurt, goddamn you.”

Her teeth started to chatter. With cold, irritation, residual fear. “Considering the alternative was death, I think I fared pretty well.”

Elias remained still for several seconds, then the sheet was twisted in his hands and ripped straight down the middle, the thin material falling in tatters to the floor.

She clucked her tongue. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but we are short on linens.”

The floorboards creaked as he came around, stopping in front of her, his eyes glowing like copper fire. “You knowingly came here to die?” One more step and he’d completely invaded her personal space. “You came here to die over your failure to kill me?”

In lieu of a yes, Roksana lifted her chin. “And your cronies, da.”

His pupils expanded, blocking out the color. “Why were you allowed to live?”

Because I was given a second chance to kill you. “I was given a different task,” she said, amending the truth slightly. “One that is more important than ridding the planet of a few inconsequential bloodsuckers.”

“One of those bloodsuckers is the king now.” Elias raised an eyebrow. “Your mother no longer wants him dead?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Nyet. She does not.”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

Elias didn’t answer her—and his anger was far from dissipated. “Enough with the bullshit. You’re shaking.” He took her by the wrists, guiding her hands to his shoulders. “I’m going to take your shirt off.”

She braced herself with a breath, at this point prepared to remove the chilled garments by any means necessary. “Okay.”

Roksana glued her attention to Elias’s throat while he lifted the wet shirt, easing it over her aching shoulders. “All right, reckless brat,” he instructed gruffly. “Drop your head forward.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, tucking her chin to her chest. “Homicidal ass.”

With a grunt from Elias, her wet shirt was pulled forward over her head, smacking into a saturated bundle on the ground. Leaving her in nothing but a red demi-cup bra and leather pants. Elias’s only reaction was a sharp leap in the line of his jaw. “No bustier today?”

Roksana straightened with a groan and pursed her lips. “I like to feel cozy when I fly.”

“Comfort mattered on the way to your own death?” Elias snapped.

“What is it to you?” Roksana blurted, wishing she had the strength to shove him backwards. “Why do you care? With me gone, you’d have been cleared of any favors owed. You could already be on your way back to New York. What should my death matter to you?”

Elias gripped the meat of her arms in a whip of color. For just a fleeting second, there was such torture on his face, she forgot to shiver. She could only chase that expression like a hound, stunned, and then it was gone. Had it ever been there to begin with? The swift presentation of something—some feeling for once—and then the quick removal of it rocked Roksana back on her heels.

“You are a close friend of the king’s wife. And I serve the king now,” Elias said quietly, dropping his shaking hands from her person. “To allow something to happen to you would…upset things.”

There it was. The truth. He wasn’t there because of some star-crossed, unrequited love. Stupid girl. He might have come to repay a favor, but he did so out of pride. He cared for her out of duty to Jonas and Ginny. Nothing more, nothing less.

“I hate you,” she whispered.

His blanch was a slight, infinitesimal thing. As imaginary as the agony she’d glimpsed just seconds ago. “That’s fine,” he said in a clipped tone. “Just stay alive.”

Roksana stared woodenly at the wall as Elias peeled down her leather pants, going down on his knees to remove her shoes, socks, pants. When he finished, it took him longer than necessary to stand, but he did, features tight, fists bunched. Refusing to read anything more into a single thing Elias did, she closed her eyes and ignored him, willing her body to restore its balance. Taking her misplaced gravity back from the man.

But all the fight went out of her when Elias wrapped her in his warm coat, sweeping Roksana off her feet and laying her in the center of the bed, cradled in his scent. “Rest now.”

For now, she didn’t have a choice, did she?

Soon, though.

Soon she would have nothing but choices—each of them harder than the last.

What else was new?

CHAPTER EIGHT

Roksana stared at the door of the apartment, her body paralyzed—and not because of her injuries. After Elias broke off the kitchen cabinet doors and nailed them up over the windows, he’d left to go find food, clothes and painkillers for Roksana. She’d shrugged when he announced he was leaving, not even bothering to roll over. Or attempt it, anyway.

How could she have been so flippant about him going outside this close to morning? When would she learn not to let her emotions win out over reason?

There was approximately five seconds until the sun came up and he wasn’t back.

He wasn’t back.

She shouldn’t even give a damn. It was only a matter of time before she killed him!

“Kozyol,” she breathed shakily, using her grip in the mattress edge to haul herself upright, her joints grinding together like rusted engine cogs. “Asshole. Where are you?”

Voices meandered by down on the street and she closed her eyes, babbling the rosary, though she had no beads. If people were awake and going places, it was morning time. Or close. There was no clock in this empty apartment to alert her to the exact time. Maybe he’d holed up somewhere because he couldn’t make it back in before sunrise? Her cell phone was stuffed in her luggage somewhere, but she’d left the suitcase in the basement of the library, hadn’t she? There was no way to call Elias and scream at him for being a careless idiot.

Roksana clenched the cheap memory foam tightly, using her grip to twist sideways and throw her legs over the edge of the bed. “Oh. God,” she screeched through her clenched teeth, dizziness rattling her brain. Her infirm status was unacceptable. She’d never been so badly injured she couldn’t get up and be useful. Not even the time she hunted a vampire at a rave and fell off the pedestal they were battling on, landing two stories below in a pit of glow sticks.

There wasn’t even a way to look out the windows and see if he was coming, since they were all boarded up. But she couldn’t just lie there. This helplessness was like trying to do a cartwheel in an MRI machine.

She placed both of her flat feet on the floor and took a deep breath, calling on the discipline of her training. Remembering the afternoon she’d knelt at her mother’s feet in the courtyard of their home, her hands bandaged and bleeding from hours of combat.

When you are at your weakest, that is when the true strength finds a path.

Her mother’s words. Words she’d been so determined to live by, but she’d lost her way. Lost sight of what was important; avenging the fallen. Her friends.

Roksana tilted her head slightly and listened to the growl of her stomach, the back and forth glide of her big toe in the grooves of the floorboard. She took stock of each finger, each muscle, the hunger plaguing her bones—and having reacquainted with her body, she ordered it to stand. And it did.

One foot moved in front of the other, bringing her across the floor at a snail’s pace.

What the hell did she hope to accomplish by leaving the apartment?

She didn’t have a clue.

But it went against every facet of her nature to lie dormant when death was imminent.

It didn’t matter whose death it was. Really, it didn’t.

Roksana gathered Elias’s coat tighter and pressed it to her face, the rattling of a shop gate opening outside making her scream with her mouth closed. Any second now. Any second now and he would poof into a dust cloud. She’d seen hundreds of those. She’d been responsible for them. Staking vampires had been an enjoyable pastime until her mother deemed her ready to go after Elias.

“Elias,” she juddered through her teeth.

The apartment door opened and there he stood, outlined in the doorway, stuffed plastic bags in each of his hands. “Yes?”

Roksana’s legs chose that moment to protest her standing, liquefying beneath her.

Distress spilling across his features momentarily, Elias’s figure became distorted with speed and he caught her in his arms, the grocery bags spilling onto the floor seconds later. “What are you doing out of bed?” he gritted.

She forced down the apple-sized lump in her throat. “I was bringing a broom and dustpan outside to sweep you up!”

Carefully, he lifted her against his chest, her useless legs dangling over the crook of his arm. “Sunrise isn’t for another twenty-eight minutes.” He started toward the bed, though his curious gaze never left her. “Worried you wouldn’t get breakfast?”

Not trusting herself to speak, she only nodded.

Elias laid her back down on the bed and stepped back frowning, appearing as if he wanted to say something. Instead, his mouth formed a grim line and he backed away from Roksana, crossing the room in a vampiric haste to collect the fallen groceries. “Nothing was open so I helped myself,” he muttered, snatching up the bags and dropping them onto the kitchen counter. “Painkillers, some decent clothes, a few ready-made sandwiches—”

Roksana whimpered.

The corner of his mouth ticked up into a smile, though he was partially facing away and Roksana suspected she wasn’t supposed to see it. A flower sprouted in her belly. On his way back to her, he unwrapped the sandwich, hesitating before handing it over. “Can you hold it?”

She nodded, reaching out slower than her appetite begged her to, taking the sandwich as if it were a rare delicacy and sinking her teeth into the cold yet crusty bread. “Ohmygod.” Elias chuckled, coming back a second later with two blue pills and a bottle labeled Baikal, causing Roksana to pause mid-chew. “This was my favorite drink growing up. I was only allowed to have it on my birthday.”

“That’s pretty strict.”

“Pleasure in abundance is gluttony.” She tossed the blue pills into her mouth, uncapped the bottle and took a long, satisfying pull of the carbonated soda, sending the painkillers tumbling down her throat. “My mother would say that all the time. I think she even had it laminated and taped to our refrigerator.”

Elias leaned back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching her closely. “Based on my credit card statement, you’re only a glutton for shopping.”

“Yes, well.” Reluctantly she twisted the cap back onto the Baikal and set it aside. “I obviously pick and choose which of my mother’s lessons to follow, don’t I? It is a great fault of mine, this selective learning.”

“It was a joke, Roks,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t pointing out a fault.”

She shrugged off his sort-of apology. “My positive attributes are in much greater supply.”

“There you are,” she thought she heard him say under his breath.

Roksana ate in silence for a couple of minutes, far too hungry to be self-conscious about the too-observant, annoyingly sensual vampire watching her eat. “What about you?” She took the final bite of the sandwich, then collapsed back onto the bed, her strength spent. “Did you keep a strict household in Los Angeles?”

She turned her head to find Elias chewing the inside of his cheek. “How did you know I was from Los Angeles?”

Because you flashed your badge once to get me out of trouble with the police.

You called me havoc wreaker.

Remember.

Why did the loss of him feel as fresh today as it felt three years ago?

No. No, it was worse.

It got worse every time Roksana thought she detected traces of his past self.

“Los Angeles,” Roksana hummed, trying not to be obvious about gathering the scent of his coat into her nose. “Jonas or Tucker must have mentioned it.”

Several beats passed. “My household was not strict, no. Not growing up, anyway. No one really paid attention to my comings and goings. Got into a lot of trouble that way.” A line formed between his eyes. “Trying to get someone to notice me and give a shit.”

Roksana realized she’d been holding her breath. Had he spoken to her this honestly or at this length since Vegas? Definitely, positively not. She would have remembered every word. “And did they? Start to notice you?”

“No,” he said simply.

Her heart panged when he didn’t elaborate. “I’m wondering which is worse. A parent who notices everything, controls all. Or a parent who washes their hands at the beginning.” She laid a hand flat on the mattress. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Look how we ended up in the same apartment in Moscow. One of us dead, one of us halfway there.”

His nostrils flared. “You’re nothing like me, Roksana. You’re alive and…”

He trailed off, visibly reining himself in.

“I’m alive and…courageous. Fashionable. The perfect shade of natural blonde.” She gave an exaggerated sniff. “You may keep going.”

Amusement crept into his expression. “Wild, impossible, argumentative.”

Roksana bit back a smile. “You spoil me with these compliments, vampire.” Why are you flirting with him? He is meant to be your enemy. She forced her features into a frown and huddled deeper into his coat, desperate for a reminder of why she hated him in the first place.

“Didn’t you have friends that noticed you growing up?”

The scar on his lip lightened a shade. “Yes, I had one.”

A change in his tone perked up her sixth sense. “You’re no longer friends with him because you were Silenced?”

His puff of laughter was humorless. “No. I cut ties with a lot of people when I was Silenced, but Jaxson and I stopped being friends long before that.”

She shifted on the bed, trying and failing to get comfortable. “Why?”

“Are the painkillers working yet?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

With a sigh, he turned away and continued removing items from the grocery bags. Candles and matches. Clothes. A hairbrush. Boots. All for her. Thankfully, when he started speaking again, she was able to ignore the tide of gratitude and focus on his story. “His name was Jaxson. We grew up together.” He braced his hands on the kitchen counter. “I was the ringleader back then, getting us both into trouble. Stealing cars before I was legally allowed to drive them.” His head fell forward. “We got picked up by the cops one day, brought down to the station. Jaxson’s uncle came and picked him up, but my parents never showed. I don’t blame them. But I realized none of my antics would get their attention, so…I decided to knock off the bullshit. It wasn’t getting the desired results. I never had anything to show for stealing but a few bucks and it always went too fast. A cop handed me a recruitment brochure and I just threw myself into going straight. Being on the other side of the law. And it felt…good. Better.”

Had she breathed for the last two minutes? “What happened to Jaxson?”

Elias said nothing for a long time. “I’d already led him down a dark path, hadn’t I? I introduced him to a shit life and he couldn’t get out. He wasn’t as determined as me.”

“You pronounced ‘stubborn’ wrong,” she said softly.

He expelled a sound. “Pot meet kettle.”

She battled the urge to steer him away from what she sensed was a sad story. One he wasn’t finished telling. “Where is Jaxson now? Do you know?”

“Dead.”

Her stomach seized. “Dead?”

Elias turned to face her again, his expression remote. “One of my first drug busts…he was in the entry point room cooking meth. He pulled out a Glock and…” He plowed a hasty hand through his dark hair, his frame riddled with tension. And…grief? “I’m still not sure if mine was the kill shot, but I know he recognized me. Even through my gear.”

“Elias,” she whispered, invisible fingers clawing at the walls of her throat. Why had she brought this up? Forced him to relay such a horrible tale? Not only did she regret making him relive what must have been a terrible moment, but seeing him this human was a danger to her resolve. “Then…” She swallowed hard and pushed the acidic words out. “You know what it’s like to lose a friend.”

“Yet I took yours anyway. Is that what you’re going to say?”

Looking him in the eye was nearly impossible. “Yes.”

He nodded briskly, saying nothing.

“I know you were a new vampire. You were confused and hungry. But you could at least apologize. You’ve never once said you’re sorry for taking everyone I love. I loved them.”

His fist came down hard on the kitchen counter, his otherworldly strength causing the Formica to buckle loudly beneath the blow. “Would it bring them back?” He didn’t wait for her to answer, but continued in a raw voice. “I’m a man of actions, not words, Roksana. Remember that.”

When she wanted to roll face down on the bed and scream into the mattress until her throat was raw, she breathed deeply instead. In, out, in, out. Accept the past for it is set in stone. Focus on what you can change. “A man of actions,” she repeated, her voice threadbare. “Good. Because it is necessary for us to trade favors once more.”

“What favor do you need?” he asked without missing a beat.

“I need you to teach me how to play poker.”

CHAPTER NINE

Las Vegas 2017

Thirst ruled Elias.

His fingertips scraped his throat raw in an attempt to rid himself of the pain. The desperation. The dryness and the yearning. His vision vacillated between sharp—so sharp he could count dust motes in the darkness—and blurry because the hunger ripped through him, grinding his organs between hot metal plates. Need food. I need food.

Laughter rose up in the back of the van. Sinister amusement from the vampires who’d made him like this. A parasitic creature, just like them. He’d barely been able to believe these things actually existed when he suddenly became one, writhing on the floor in mindboggling pain one moment, his organs grinding to dust, then opening his eyes to a different world. No physical pain at all, just the thirst. The unending thirst.

“Silly man. It is no longer food that you need,” Inessa sing-songed from the front seat, her body outlined by the bright casino lights passing by on either side of the van.

“I’m not drinking blood,” Elias growled through his teeth.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth did his fangs descend for the first time, cutting into his lower lip. The pain was fleeting, the injury suturing itself and ceasing to exist within seconds, but the horror remained. This had to be a nightmare. He was caught in a fucking nightmare.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked raggedly, trying to breathe through his nose, through the increasing desire to slice his fangs into something fresh. Living. He fought the impulse, though instinct told him it was the only thing that would satisfy him. Sustain him.

He thought of her. The soft slope of her neck. The gentle give of her mouth.

The ultimate satisfaction lay with her. Somehow it was indisputable fact.

No. No, goddammit.

“Where is Roksana?”

“We’re bringing you to her now.”

“No. I…” He buried his head in his hands and squeezed hard, alarmed by the absence of prolonged pain. “Please no. I don’t think she’s safe around me.”

He glanced up to find Inessa’s surprised gaze locked on him in the rearview. “How curious,” she murmured. “Still he worries for her well-being?”

Elias scanned the faces of the other vampires, finding their expressions confused. Why? “You swore she would be spared,” he shouted at Inessa, wincing as a painful ringing started in his ears. Brought on by the hunger? Yes, it had to be. He couldn’t close his eyes without picturing awful scenes. Holding down Roksana and burying his fangs in her neck, the blood surging thicker and faster into his mouth the more she thrashed. “Fuck,” he rasped into his hands, self-loathing pouring over him like boiling oil.

Never. I will never.

“Yes, I did agree to spare her, but I didn’t say how,” Inessa said, her eyes ticking back to the road. The van began to slow, finally stopping outside a small, white wedding chapel. Elias leaned forward and saw that a statue of guitar-playing Elvis sat positioned near the door. “It will be up to you to keep her safe, Elias. Think you can manage?”

Again, a ripple of disgusting laughter filled the van and Elias’s stomach swarmed with nausea like he’d never experienced before. An inhuman variety. It was anticipation and denial, wrapped tightly around an unholy requirement for sustenance. Needing blood sickened him, but not enough to stop wanting it. Pining for it.

Elias was barely conscious of being hauled out of the van, propelled toward the door of the chapel in a moving huddle of a dozen vampires. He could sense the excitement and bloodlust in them, could see them licking the tips of their fangs through his adjusting vision.

They were there to kill Roksana’s friends.

On Inessa’s order. To punish Roksana for her disobedience without her realizing her mother was responsible and thus, bringing her back into the fold.

No. Not a fucking chance he’d let this happen. He’d only spent one too-short night in her presence, but this was a girl who loved deeply and fiercely. Losing her friends in one fell swoop—violently—would crush Roksana. He’d witnessed the affection between the girls. The bond. And he knew all too well what it was like watching a friend die.

Elias had to stop them.

Before they could reach the door of the chapel, Elias turned and launched a right cross at the vampire to his left, but his fist moved at an unnatural rate of speed, carrying his body with it so he stumbled on the sidewalk and missed his target completely, landing him yards away. Dizziness rocked him.

Thirst was a bottomless pit in his stomach and it yawned wider by the second.

Fight it.

Elias spun around and gripped the closest vampire by his shirt, hauling back with his fist, but when he normally would have buried his knuckles in the guy’s smug face, his arm slingshotted and Elias himself went flying, landing on his hands and knees before the statue of Elvis.

Laughter cut through the night, self-disgust impaling him like a dagger.

“Are you finished?” one of the vampires asked, gripping Elias by the hair and yanking back his head. “You may have held on to some of your humanity, but your motor skills are a thing of the past. It will take time. Time you don’t have right now, so get the hell up.”

Elias struggled through being pulled to his feet, but quickly he saw the vampire was right. He lacked any control over his new abilities. It was as though he’d been put in the captain’s chair of a rocket ship. Jesus. He couldn’t save Roksana’s friends.

He wasn’t even sure he could save her.

From himself.

Someone tried to handle of the chapel door, but it was locked. A sign hung on the door that read, “Ceremony in progress.”

Elias’s focus wavered, thirst ripping his chest open.

There was a blur to his right. In an eerie mimicry of S.W.A.T. procedure, a foot kicked in the chapel door, again making him wish for his teammates. Kenny, Jenks. Anyone to help.

But there was no time for regrets.

Light spilled out and there she was.

Roksana.

She stood at the front of the church, to the left of the bride and groom. Dressed in a blue gown, she held a bouquet of pink roses in her hand.

Christ. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. A dream come true.

And he wanted to drink her blood. Wanted it so bad, his fangs sliced into his bottom lip again and they ached so badly, he couldn’t close his mouth. Could only surge forward, along with the rest of the mob of monsters, his sole purpose in this horrifying afterlife to reach her.

His vision was sharp enough to see her face pale, the roses tumbling from her hands.

Screams shattered the peaceful scene. People started to run, but not Roksana. She remained stock still, unblinking, watching him tornado through the white pews that were already being sprayed with the blood of victims.

As badly as he wanted to throw Roksana to the ground and obey the call for sustenance that refused to be denied, her obvious fear slowed his progress. She made a tiny sound of shocked distress, a single tear sliding down her cheek—and he stopped two feet away, as if hitting a wall of solid glass.

Think about what you’re doing.

Control yourself.

Elias attempted to breathe deeply out of habit, but the usual calming effect never took hold. He couldn’t even feel the oxygen expanding his lungs. Couldn’t feel his pulse or the beat of his heart and yet somehow, he was positive that organ still functioned because with the falling of one tear from Roksana, it sputtered one last time and broke.

“Elias? H-how did…what did they do to you?” she whispered, flinching and stumbling backwards when one of her friends screamed in agony. “Oh my God. No. Vampires.”

Roksana tried to run past Elias, but he stepped into her path and wrapped his arms around her, holding her with ease as she fought like a wildcat.

“Let me go. They’re killing them!”

The volume of the ring in his head amplified until he could hear nothing, not even her screams. Her sweet neck was so close. He could hear the life pumping in her veins. It would take no effort to insert his fangs into that beating river of red and end his misery.

The end of his thirst was only the beginning. There was more. It was as though drinking her blood was inevitable. Written in stone. Futile to resist.

You’re losing your mind. Remember who you are.

His time as a human felt like it had lapsed years ago, instead of hours. Who had he been? Not a man who hurt women. Not a man who would take something from a woman against her will. And with absolute conviction, Elias knew he would have rather died than see Roksana in the kind of emotional pain that had her shaking like a leaf in his arms.

Quench your thirst. Drink from her. You can’t help it.

Yes, he could. He would.

Before Elias registered his own actions, he picked up Roksana in his arms and blew through the chapel, through the chaotic violence, and taking one last, longing look at her beautiful, devastated face, he deposited her in a back office and held the door closed until the massacre was over, his bones riddling with agony every time she screamed.

CHAPTER TEN

Moscow, Present Day

Roksana peeked under her pair of cards, memorized her hand and quickly slapped them back down on the cardboard box. A pair of jacks. That was good, da?

After the painkillers gave her some blessed relief, she’d drifted off to sleep for a solid nine hours, waking to Elias watching her in stoic silence from his seat on the kitchen counter, shuffling a deck of cards deftly in his hands.

It was nighttime again, Tuesday, though she didn’t know what time exactly. Time and space had been whittled down to this dark, little flat. And Elias. Now she sat on a nest of blankets and the clothes she’d been wearing upon arrival in Moscow, grateful she could finally remain upright. Lying down like a useless baby was hell on a slayer’s pride.

“I know you have a hand, Roks.”

She frowned. “Of course I have a hand, vampire. You dealt me one.”

“A good hand, I meant.”

“How do you know this?” She sat up straighter, pleased when her spine didn’t shatter. “Is my pulse giving me away?”

Briefly, he tucked his tongue into his cheek. “Your pulse is always a little…rocky. Around me.” Words of denial flooded her mouth, but he held up a hand, before she could give them a voice. “I know. It’s because you want to kill me. No other reason.”

“My fighter’s adrenaline senses a threat. That is the explanation.”

“Right.” He nodded at the cardboard box where each of their two-card hands was laid out. “Every time you have decent cards, you smack them down on the table after looking. When you don’t have shit, you stare at them longer, trying to decide if you’ll limp into the pot and see the flop.”

“Limp?”

“Yes. Like throw in the blind without raising, just to see if you hit a pair or something on the flop, even though you have bad cards.”

“I see.” Roksana took her sweet time brushing her hair back. “I take it I am not the first one to come up with that strategy.”

His lips twitched. “No.”

Frustration mounted in her breast and she kicked the box hard, scattering the cards onto the floor. “Oops.”

Something like affection flashed in his eyes, but all they had in the apartment was candlelight, so she was definitely mistaken. More than likely, what she’d seen was triumph that he’d forced her into losing her cool. “Do you want to take a break?” Elias asked.

“I can’t afford a break.” She massaged the center of her forehead. “I have to be an expert by tomorrow night.”

His hands paused in the act of picking up the downed cards. “Why?”

“Winning a poker game is the first phase of my task.”

“How many phases are there?” he asked calmly.

Three. The last of which is killing you. “Two.”

Elias absorbed that with a slow nod. “We better keep playing then.” He cut the deck and shuffled them together, never taking his eyes off her. “Do you want two more painkillers?”

“No.” Even though she could feel the last round wearing off, the sharp edges of her injuries reforming under her skin. “No, I…”

“You what?”

“I need to fight the pain and win. My ego is taking too many hits lately.” Why was she saying this out loud and giving him a weapon in the form of her insecurities? It was stupid and reckless, but in the tight cocoon of the candlelit apartment, a place where no one on the planet knew they were, she found herself blurting too many truths. And her honesty might have had something to do with her faith that Elias wouldn’t repeat a word of it to anyone. Why couldn’t he just be completely terrible, instead of mostly terrible with some honorable qualities? God, it was annoying. “First I have my ass kicked and you have to come scrape me off the street like road kill. I can’t even stand up. Now I am bad at poker. At least if I don’t take medicine, I am beating the desire to give in to one weakness.”

Elias leaned forward slowly, the cards seemingly forgotten in his hands. “There can be strength in recognizing your own weaknesses. Just like laying down a bad hand and living to fight another day.”

She took that in, let it roll around her mind. He did have a point. Knowing where her shortcomings lay during a fight taught her the valued skill of compensating. Adapting. “What is your weakness?”

His gaze flickered and dropped away. “Look, you came here to face your own death instead of running away like a coward. That speaks to your character more than some arbitrary skill. If you didn’t have a serious game tomorrow night, I wouldn’t give a shit that you have a terrible poker face.”

Roksana sucked in a breath at his mean-spirited insult. “My face will heal. I just had a fight with fifteen slayers. It tends to leave a few marks and bruises behind.”

“Jesus Christ. Fifteen—” He tossed the deck down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “‘Poker face’ is just an expression. It’s the ability to remain unreadable by your opponents no matter what kind of hand you have.”

“Oh.” Her heating cheeks made her grateful for the lack of light. “I knew there had to be a misunderstanding. Ordinarily, I have a face that inspires sonnets.”

“I’m aware.” A muscle ticked in his cheek. “You know I’m aware.”

The air in the apartment thickened dramatically. Elias’s attraction to her was an unspoken thing. He got annoyed when she brought up other men (that’s why she did it). He made it his business to guard her. To keep the closest of tabs on her whereabouts. Every once in a while, he didn’t manage to hide his hunger when looking at her. But apart from that night in Vegas a million years ago, when he’d been a different person, there had been no verbal acknowledgment of the inconvenient pull between them.

Why would they acknowledge their attraction when nothing could ever be done about it? This was a man who’d not only been a party to the slaughter of her friends, but he’d rendered her helpless during the ordeal. She’d beat that door in the chapel so hard, she’d broken bones in her hand. For years she’d watched her mother slay vampires. If she’d just gotten out of that office, maybe with her retained knowledge she could have saved one of them.

But Elias hadn’t given her that chance.

It was galling to possess such devastating need for this man.

And it would continue to burn unquenched. Touching him, being touched by him, would be a betrayal of those who’d been slain—and she would not dishonor their memories. Not when she’d already made them a target that night for those vampires.

“See?” Elias drawled, sitting back in his chair, something in his eyes going dark. “I can tell if you were healthy right now, you’d be trying to stake me. No poker face.”

It was unacceptable, how much she wished she’d pursued his gruff statement—you know I’m aware—instead of falling down the rabbit hole of hate. Like mother, like daughter. “I will work on this poker face and have it mastered by tomorrow evening. Just watch me.”

He picked up the shuffled deck again and dealt them each two cards. “Who are you playing against?”

“I’ll find out when I get there. It will be a fun surprise.”

His upper lip curled, obviously displeased with her answer. “How are you going to explain the fact that you’re bruised and hobbling?”

“I don’t know. But I was thinking of renting one of those motorized carts and really leaning into it.” She checked her cards—a nine and ten of hearts. Keeping her features schooled, she laid down her cards carefully, making a note to do it the same way every single time, and tossed a few pennies into the pot. “Raise.”

No physical reaction. “Call.”

He took three cards off the top of the deck, spreading them on the surface of the box. Two of them were hearts, giving her a flush draw. Every card in the flop was a low number, so unless he had a high pair in his hand, she might be on track to the best hand.

She got a fifth heart on the turn, felt his gaze hit her hard, but stayed perfectly still.

“Anyway,” she said conversationally, checking her turn. “I think I will be back in fighting shape by tomorrow night. Look how much progress I’ve made already. Walking and breathing and sitting up like a big girl.”

“It’s a shame my heart isn’t beating,” he muttered, examining his cards one more time. “A drop of my blood might heal you completely.”

“What?” Her spine straightened. “I thought that was only a myth.”

“Might, I said.” He checked his turn, then laid down the river card. An ace. “I’m not sure if it would work with a full human, but Jonas’s blood saved Ginny’s life when she was being Silenced. I watched it happen. She would have died without it.”

A dagger stuck in her throat. “I didn’t know,” she breathed, wishing for a phone so she could text her friend, even just one of their GIF battles. “Like you said, your heart isn’t beating, so there’s not much point in speculating.”

“Right.” He leveled her with a long look, transferring it back down to the card game. “Only my mate will make it beat. Until then…”

Jealousy went off inside her like a hydrogen bomb and she barely resisted kicking the table again, this time hard enough to send it across the room. Vampires and their mates. The holy grail that could jumpstart a dead heart. Wow. What a cool party trick. So what?

Her stupid fingers were shaking and she couldn’t stop grinding her back teeth.

Only when a vampire drank from another could he determine if they were mated. Because they couldn’t very well go around sampling every vampire they came into contact with—and it was against the rules to drink from a human—it often took decades or even centuries to find their mates. Which tended to leave a lot of the male vamps grumpy-sauce since they couldn’t have a full sexual release until they were inside their one and only.

This information hadn’t been passed on during her training.

Oh no. She’d heard it from Tucker, though in much saltier terms.

And it was as hard to acknowledge now as it was then.

What if he ended up with a human mate, like Jonas? Would he Silence her? Take her blood in exchange for the venom he stored in his fangs, so they could be together eternally like a bunch of stupid jerks?

“Remember your poker face, Roks,” Elias said quietly.

Garnering every ounce of her self-possession, she studied the five cards on the board, eschewing the vision of another woman approaching Elias and being found so irresistible, so essential to him, she made his heart start pumping again. Hot moisture crowded behind her eyes, but she blinked it away. Focus. You have to get good at this.

And she couldn’t have Elias anyway.

Didn’t want him.

Concentrate.

He’d stayed in on the flop, but checked the turn. Chasing something. Maybe that ace that showed up on the river. Whatever he had, it couldn’t beat her flush. But she’d checked the turn, when she’d gotten that fifth heart, so he might not suspect she had one.

Meaning he would call her bet.

Roksana cleared her throat, but still sounded like a rusted boat rudder when she spoke. “I’m all in.”

Elias reared back a little and surveyed the board. “Really.” She said nothing, keeping her eyes downcast, even though her skin prickled when he started to study her. “Call.”

She turned over her flush.

A crack of laughter left him. “Nicely done, Roks,” he said, turning over his ace-king. “You threw me off the scent of that flush.”

“I think I’m getting the hang of this game!” She hopped to her feet and threw up her hands in victory. Her muscles all screamed at once. “And thank God, too,” she gasped. “With one weakness conquered, I can allow myself to accept the painkillers.”

Elias caught her before she hit the ground.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Roksana bolted upright in bed and searched in the darkness for Elias.

“Hello?” she called, rubbing her eyes. No answer. “He must have gone out for supplies.”

How much time had passed since she’d been asleep?

She took stock of her body and found it didn’t ache nearly as bad as before. Her muscles were still sore, but the sharpest of pains had abated. Thank God. Wishing desperately for her cell phone or a clock, she climbed out of bed and went to use the bathroom. Elias had left a travel-size tube of toothpaste on the rim of the sink, along with a purple toothbrush. She picked them up and examined them, trying to picture Elias, thundercloud in the flesh, trying to pick out the right brush, and when she glanced up in the mirror, she found a dreamy smile on her face.

Grimacing, she hastily brushed her teeth and started a bath, hoping the hot water would give her the final boost she needed to appear normal at the poker game tomorrow night.

At least, she thought the poker game was happening tomorrow night? As rested as she felt, her nap might have lasted a month. Although deep down, she knew with an ironclad certainty that Elias wouldn’t let her sleep through something so important.

Winning the game would be her first step toward redeeming herself and she needed to be laser focused on making that happen. Not mooning over toothbrushes, for godsakes. Her mother had once again been merciful in giving her a second chance, and the possibility of approval from Inessa was the dangling carrot she could never seem to grasp.

This time. This time I’ll do it.

A few minutes later, Roksana took off the T-shirt and loose pants she’d slept in, leaving them in a pile on the floor, and carefully stepped into the hot bath, lowering herself down.

“Oh lord lord lord,” she breathed, muscles rejoicing by turning to jelly, tingles running along her scalp. “If only I had some—”

Soap.

A simple white bar caught her eye from its perch on the edge of the tub.

Roksana reached for it, grumbling about confusing vampires under her breath. Moving gingerly, she lathered the fragrant soap in her hair and cleaned herself beneath the surface, the sound of stirring water eerie and beautiful all at once in the black bathroom. She finished and replaced the soap, leaning back in the tub, plugging her big toe in and out of the faucet lazily, the sound of dripping water unearthing a memory.

“We should be studying,” Olga fretted, flopping down on the wooden sauna bench, the heat causing her eyelids to droop. She collapsed sideways, the knot of her white towel coming loose. “Oh never mind. Fuck it. This is way more important.”

Roksana traded an amused look with Kira and followed suit, sprawling themselves out in the giant sauna. She’d encouraged her friends to ditch their Wednesday afternoon classes for some girl time, too excited about the upcoming trip to Vegas to focus on inconsequential things such as calculus. One boisterous ride on the metro later, they were enjoying the two-hundred-year-old facilities at the Sanduny bath house. And since it was the middle of the day, they had it all to themselves.

After a few minutes of silence, Olga raised an eyebrow, sweat already beginning to dot her forehead. “How much did you say the day pass cost?”

Roksana waved a hand. “Not so much. I know a guy.”

“You know a guy,” Kira echoed, letting Roksana see her skepticism.

“Da.” Roksana rolled over to face the wall, mooning them in the process. “I told him we were coming, so he left the back entrance open for us.”

Actually, she’d come this morning and picked the lock in advance.

Not that she could tell them that.

Seeming reassured, Olga and Kira started talking about logistics of packing her wedding dress. They were still bickering about the merits of vacuum packing when the sauna door burst open to reveal a scowling woman in a white uniform. “Out!” She made a shooing motion at them, her sneakers squeaking on the sauna floor. “Paying customers only. The police have already been called!”

“Roksana,” Olga groaned, rolling off the bench and securing her towel, all while cowering in the face of the woman’s anger.

Kira was splitting her sides laughing. “You are insane.”

“Run!”

And that was how they ended up half dressed and barefoot in the freezing cold streets of Moscow, stumbling into a coffee shop bathroom, laughing while onlookers shook their heads.

It was a great day.

The apartment door opened and closed, widening Roksana’s gritty eyes.

She waited for footsteps, but there was only silence. Tension.

“Roksana,” Elias called sharply.

The worry in his voice made her frown. “I’m in here.”

She crossed her arms over her breasts just in time for him to zip into the doorway…and right away, she noticed differences in him. Eyes clear, skin glowing with health. He looked as well rested as she did, but unless he’d taken a snooze standing up, there was no way he’d slept.

Discomfort oozed into her middle. “Did you go out to…feed?”

He glanced away, throat working. “Yes.”

His answer deflated her lungs, oxygen leaving her in a rush. “Oh.”

It took her several recovery breaths to realize her fingernails were digging into her palms. Did he feed on a human? A woman? She’d already been aware of the fact that Elias needed to feed. She’d been aware for a long time. But his eating habits were an abstract thing. They happened sometime, but what time? Who knew? Who cared?

Obviously she did. Like a typical shit for brains.

Even steeped in neck-deep water, she was frozen. Yet her throat burned.

“Can I have some privacy, please?” she managed haltingly.

“Christ, Roksana,” Elias growled, digging harassed fingers into his hair. “I don’t like it any more than you do. Would you rather I withered and died?”

She smacked the water, sending droplets in every direction. “Yes!”

His laughter sounded thoughtful. “You’re acting like a jealous wife.”

“You are delusional, vampire,” she scoffed, shifting sharply in the bathtub. “I don’t care who you drink from.”

“Who I drink from?” Jaw flexing, he dug in his back pocket and tossed two empty blood storage bags onto the floor, complete with puncture holes from his fangs. “There’s a blood bank half a mile from here.”

Roksana took a deep breath and sank down into the water until it covered her head.

Maybe when she surfaced, he would be gone.

She peeked up at him from behind a wet hank of blonde hair.

Still there, only now he was leaning back against the wall, visibly enjoying himself.

“I think it’s time for me to go,” she whispered, and his face fell. Her stomach dropped in response to his disappointment—and that was even more reason to go. Being in close quarters with Elias was no longer wise. The more time she spent with him, the more thoughtful gestures he inflicted on her, the easier it was becoming to lose sight of her goals.

Avenge her friends.

Be the slayer her mother wanted her to be.

“What time is it? What…day?”

He stared at her hard. “Nine thirty on Wednesday.”

Panic shot down to Roksana’s toes, her sudden scramble sending a wave of water cresting over the edge of the tub. “I slept through an entire day?”

“The game isn’t until midnight,” he said calmly. “There’s plenty of time to get there. You needed every minute until then to rest.”

Roksana shot to her feet in the tub, only then remembering her naked state.

Time stopped, the sound of dripping water and her own breaths amplified in her head.

Elias came off the wall slowly, watching the water stream down her body, his face contorting with pain. He approached her as if in a trance, that whiskey gaze raking her in a long, hungry sweep, his long fingers curling into fists. “Your body ruins me,” he rasped, almost to himself, as if she wasn’t even there. “I can’t stand this. I thought if I fed, the worst of my cravings for you would stop…but they persist in the fucking extreme.”

His words turned her breasts heavy, the dusky buds tightening into peaks. “Elias…”

The attraction between them had always been poignant, but this was a side of him she’d never seen before. A side he’d never allowed her to see.

Her body liked being perused by him. There was no denying it. She turned soft and pliant between her thighs, her clitoris seeming to pulse for attention. There was more than just her physical response, however. He looked at her like she was a rare treasure, even though she was decorated in bruises and something about that made her heart ache.

Elias’s eyes squeezed shut. He pressed his fists to his temples, knuckles turning white, until finally he jolted into action. Eyes blazing open like golden glowing coals, he removed his T-shirt, jerking it down over her head, covering her drenched body. Stepping back and observing his handiwork—and it was immediately obvious he hadn’t thought through this impromptu wet T-shirt contest.

“Sweet Jesus,” he breathed, raking a hand down his face. “Can you get out on your own Roksana? I’m afraid if I touch you…”

Imagining his hands on her waist, gripping, sliding lower, she barely managed to nod. “Da, I think so.” Gathering the hem of the sodden shirt, she stepped over the rim of the tub, but her hamstring chose that moment to spasm and her heel caught, causing her to lose her balance. “Elias.”

Calling his name wasn’t even necessary. She’d barely pitched forward when he caught her against his chest, groaning. The primal sound was still ringing in her head when Elias spun on a heel at mach point vampire and flattened her against the bathroom wall, leaving her toes inches from the floor.

Their mouths were dangerously close. Hers panting, his hard. Predatory.

Roksana’s loins pulled taut, tickling a part deep inside of her. So deep and intimate, her thighs shot up reflexively to anchor the sensation. It didn’t work, though. No, it didn’t, because Elias caught her by the knees, settled her around his waist and pressed his hips into the cradle of hers. One forward pressing step forced a gasp out of her mouth, right against his lips.

Elias is hard for me.

He’s really, really hard. For me.

She was in nothing but a drenched T-shirt that had ridden up to her belly button, sandwiched between a wall and muscles so tense, she braced for a snap.

“The way you fit me…” Elias said hoarsely, “…is obscene.”

Where was the lie? Her legs might as well have been molded to wrap about his hips, her breasts crushing to the mantle of his pectorals, their mouths on level. To say nothing of his steel erection. Even through denim, it pushed apart the lips of her sex. As if seeking its home.

“Remind me why you hate me,” he implored her, his nose burying in her neck to inhale. “Remind me why I’ll never have the right to touch you.”

Roksana’s heart lurched. She opened her mouth to recount the massacre in Vegas, as she’d done to him several times before, but no amount of willpower would force the words out. Instead, she found her fingers traveling through his hair, tugging the dark strands.

Without a direct command from her brain, her ankles locked at the small of his back.

“Roksana,” he warned, surging forward to grind her into the wall, his lips peeled back in a pained snarl. “You need to be careful with me.”

“Don’t you know by now that warnings only entice me, vampire?” she breathed.

Something akin to affection sparked in his eyes, before it was swallowed up once again by lust. Regret. “Remind me what I’ve done. Now.”

“Or what?”

He laid the flat of his tongue against her pulse and dragged it slowly up to her jaw, grazing her there with his teeth. “Or I’m going to unzip these jeans and finally fuck you.”

Now would be an awkward time to tell Elias she was a virgin.

Right?

Definitely.

“We are getting ahead of ourselves.” Roksana blurted, her body flushed, heated, her lips full and aching for contact. “What about kissing?”

A mixture of shock and hope shone in Elias’s eyes. “You’re asking to kiss me?” An eyebrow went up. “Voluntarily?”

Of course he was surprised. He should be surprised. This vampire was supposed to be her enemy and she was all, yeah, but can we, like, make out and stuff? Silly girl. “Technically I owe you a favor for teaching me how to play poker,” she said, sliding even further into irredeemable territory.

Even as his hands molded to her waist, keeping Roksana steady for a grind from his hips, he shook his head. “I’m not collecting a kiss as a favor.” Eager lips raced up the slope of her throat, forcing her head back. “It’ll give you an excuse later to say you didn’t really want it.”

“Not if you use the favor wisely,” she said, finishing on a whimper when he lapped at the sensitive skin beneath her ear. Her legs moved restlessly around his hips, her core contracting, heels digging into his hard butt.

Elias pressed their foreheads together and remained silent for several beats. Then his eyes lifted to hers and there was so much gravity swirling in their depths, she held her breath. “Here’s the favor I’d collect from you, Roks. Forget for a little while that you hate me.” He crowded her tight, tight to the wall. Their lips brushed and the flesh between her thighs turned even more slick. Desperate. “Just forget for five minutes, huh? Whether you’re letting me touch you or not. Just forget.”

“See, I knew you could be creative,” Roksana hiccupped.

His big hands raked down over her ass, kneading it roughly, using that hold to rock her against his lap. “How are you going to spend your five minutes not hating me?”

The seam of his jeans dragged over Roksana’s clit and her eyes almost crossed. “Y-you know how.”

“Uh-uh, baby. Need to hear you say it.”

“Kiss me, vampire,” she whispered.

The second Elias’s lips opened over hers, pressure bloomed in her throat. There was a part of her that wondered if she’d exaggerated their connection in Vegas. Exaggerated the perfection of their kiss. But when their tongues brushed and they melted into one another like chocolate in a saucepan, the truth became wildly obvious. Her memory hadn’t been doing Elias’s kiss sufficient justice. He was infinitely better.

This was not a kiss for the sake of kissing. It was memorization. Seeking. Trying to find what she liked, locating it, giving her so much that she could barely stand the pleasure. She liked Elias looming over her, kissing down into her mouth. Roughly. She tipped her face up to receive the hot, sensual treatment and he gave, allowing her no time for thought, for breath. There was only her femininity being savored by his maleness. There was only demands being made and met and satisfaction wracking her.

There was a major difference this time. His hands clutched the flesh of her bare derriere tightly and his hands were so large, the pads of his fingertips were nearly on top of her exposed back entrance—no, they were. They brushed against it and she whined in his grip, her heels unhooking, thighs widening so he could hit more of her with every thrust.

“I don’t know much longer I get of this heaven.” His voice emerged thick against her lips. Choked. “Let me spend it making you come.”

The lust was too much to bear. She didn’t want to think about why giving him another piece of her was a bad idea, she only wanted to feel. “If you don’t, I’m going to die.”

Elias tucked her head under his chin protectively and in a blur of darkness and shadows, she was laid down on the bed. She could barely see a thing, only the barest outline of Elias as he dropped into a kneel, gripping her knees and dragging her to the edge of the bed with strong, insistent hands. The action caused the wet T-shirt to bunch above her breasts, leaving her naked from the neck down before Elias and it struck her how right it felt. Showing him. Being seen by him.

And she couldn’t pause to consider why. Not when his hot mouth landed on her inner right thigh, branding her, licking the sensitive flesh. “Tell me you’ve ached for me. Admit it to me now when it’s just the two of us and you’re finally giving me a taste of this pussy.”

Her body fairly vibrated, her teeth chattering. “I’ve ached for it.”

“For me, damn you.” He bashed a fist off his chest. “For me.”

Roksana bit down on her lower lip to keep the confession, the truth, from escaping.

Elias laughed darkly, his mouth traveling to the opposite thigh, pushing it open and exposing her further. The very tip of his tongue licked a path to her femininity, parting the folds and teasing up and back. “Admit you’re wet every time you pass me in a room. Wishing I’d tug that pretty ass up against my lap. Wishing I’d cup you through those leather pants and play with all this sweetness until you scream. I need to hear you say it.”

She could hear her own heartbeat rapping in her ear, could hear the acceleration of her breath and all she could do was grip the bedclothes, arch her back and pray he would end her suffering without demanding the price of her soul.

“Elias, please.”

“Roksana.” He kissed her hungrily, dragging his stiff upper lip side to side on her throbbing clit, groaning at whatever he tasted. Whatever discovery he made. His tongue swirled around the rim of her entrance, mouth opening so wide she could feel the rasp of his chiseled chin on her backside. He licked, prodded and lapped without cease. “Please.”

She shook her head, trying to fight through the long-awaited sensations that cascaded through her. God, she needed this. Needed him. Release. But she wasn’t going to strip herself down to nothing to have it, was she?

You have the heart of a pathetic, sniveling woman, instead of a warrior.

You chose a man over loyalty.

Inessa’s words came back to her in a blinding rush and guilt flooded in from all sides. She jackknifed on the bed, twisting and bounding off the other side. Cold air met the feverish heat of her body and she didn’t know whether she was hot or freezing. Betrayer. Traitor. To her friends and their memory. To her mother who gave her chances she didn’t deserve. Her arms came up to shield her breasts, sexual frustration making a sob stick in her throat.

“I have to get out of here.” She turned in an awkward circle, her body still engulfed in flames. “I-I have to get out of here. What am I doing?”

“Roksana,” he rasped, followed by the sound of his fist bashing into the wall, busting the plaster wide open. “I…fucked this up. Just wait.”

“No. I have the game in a couple of hours and I don’t even have a weapon. I am unworthy of this task. I am unprepared.” Hating the way her voice shook, she felt her way around the room, locating a candle and matches on the kitchen counter, lighting them.

Elias was across the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, the muscles of his shoulders in a permanent flex. As if he was trying to get himself under control. “By the door,” he said tightly. “There’s a bag.”

Dragging her attention off Elias was almost impossible, but she crossed to the black backpack, zipping it open to find a gun, several makeshift stakes and…another bottle of Baikal.

He’d packed her a fight bag.

And it made her knees weaker than any bouquet of roses would.

“Thank you.”

Silence resulted.

Roksana had no choice but to pass Elias to collect her clothes and boots. She dressed as quickly as possible, still staunchly fighting the urge to get back on the bed and make the admissions he needed. God knew they would feel good…and they would satisfy him. Would a minute pass for the rest of her life where she didn’t wonder what it would be like to quench Elias’s thirst?

I can’t stand this. I thought if I fed, the worst of my cravings for you would stop…but they persist in the fucking extreme.

A hot shiver shot down her spine and Elias must have sensed it, because his head finally came up and he pinned her with a look that was possessive and promissory. “Your taste will stay in my mouth for the rest of my life.” He stood, his height making Roksana tip her head back. “The hunger for more will never stop. Not for a single second.”

Her knees almost gave out.

She wished they would.

Wished to be back in his arms, cared for and…not judged.

Instead, made to feel strong. Clever. Worthy. Invincible.

All those things she never truly got while slaying.

The fervency of her need to stay with Elias alarmed her into backing away. “I, um…” She reached the door and shouldered the backpack. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, so keep it real, I guess—”

He turned and braced rough hands on the window frame, leaving his rippling back exposed. Open. She was almost insulted that he would give a slayer such a blatant opening, especially when she held a bag full of weapons in her hands. He resembled a man waiting for a whip to fall…

Was he doing it on purpose?

Giving her a chance to slay him?

Roksana choked a sound, her hand fumbling on the doorknob.

“You will see me,” she heard him say, just before she closed the door.

Her heart was frantic in her chest as she ran down the hallway, down the stairs and out into the night. She couldn’t think of the vampire who’d nursed her back to health. Couldn’t think of his mouth, his words, the behavior so at odds with what she knew about him. She had to put it out of her mind until later. After all, there was a poker game to play and a marriage decree for a madwoman to win.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Moscow, 2018

Eternal life was a curse.

Elias stared down at a crack in the concrete floor of his prison, wishing it would widen and swallow him whole. Then maybe he’d be in hell where creatures like him belonged. He’d spent the day fighting, as he’d spent every other day of his life for the last…

How long had he been there?

Did it matter? It wasn’t as though he had any idea where to go after his year as Inessa’s punching bag was over. He couldn’t go back to Los Angeles and show up at the department like nothing ever happened. His livelihood there no longer existed for him. Those friendships he’d only been on the verge of solidifying with his teammates were a thing of the past. His daylight allergy would make it impossible to operate with any sense of normalcy anywhere. There was also the slight problem of him never aging.

Putting roots down or settling in was henceforth a thing of the past.

He rolled over onto his back and tried to concentrate on a roach scuttling along the far wall. From ten feet away, he could count the tiny legs, watch the toggle of the antennae. Anything to take his mind off the thirst. The never-abating thirst.

After that nightmarish evening in Vegas, after he’d been left alone among the carnage in the chapel, no choice but to speed out the back door or risk feeding on Roksana, he’d gone back to his hotel room, no idea what else to do. He’d knelt on the floor trying to abate the hunger with breathing exercises to no avail. Inessa had shown up eventually and tossed him a plastic bag of blood and he still burned with shame, remembering how he’d dove on it like a salivating beggar, ripping into it like a savage.

She’d brought him back to Moscow on a plane that allowed no sunlight, transferring him to a stone cage with no sunlight and there he remained, in the bowels of some manner of slayer training facility where everyone spoke Russian. He held no delusions that Inessa would actually hold up her end of the bargain and let him out after a single year. She’d already proven herself to be a lying sociopath and anyway…Roksana was here. So leaving hadn’t crossed his mind.

Not that he’d seen her even once. But he’d sensed her, smelled her about a week after his arrival. His beliefs were proven correct when one of the trainees said her name. Elias had pinned the motherfucker in the dirt and demanded to know where she was. The slayer had spat in Elias’s face, but finally yielded, pointing upstairs.

Training, he’d said.

Training to be a slayer. Of course she would be after what happened.

Her hatred for him and his kind must be the stuff of legends.

Eventually, Elias would need to go somewhere. Breaking out wouldn’t be that challenging considering his supernatural speed and strength. But the idea of leaving her vicinity cleaved his skin from his bones.

The roach he’d been watching disappeared into a crack and Elias let his eyelids fall…

And there she was.

Roksana.

Strutting past him in the casino with her sweater clutched tightly over her breasts, an air of mischief surrounding her like an aura. A shoe dropped in her wake and as he’d done countless times when replaying his first meeting with Roksana, he questioned his past self.

Knowing what happens, knowing your life will be stolen thanks to your association with Roksana, will you still follow her?

Yes.

Yes, the Elias in his memory rose every time, picked up the shoe and went.

He went over and over again. Would for all eternity.

Elias let his mind drift to the kiss, how breathless she’d been returning to him in the bar, leaving her friends staring after her. How she’d mimicked the movements of his tongue, so enthusiastic, but so unpracticed, her breath hitching, body softening—

“I’m here to kill you, vampire.”

The command in the darkness didn’t startle him at all. Voices in his head had become the standard, especially Roksana’s husky voice. Inessa often left him in the cell for weeks on end without sustenance. The amount she fed him depended on the strength with which she wanted him to battle her slayers. This time was the longest he’d gone without blood, so the voice didn’t even cause him to stir. Instead, he savored the sound of her, let it coast over him like a cool wave.

“I said, I’m here to kill you!” Something nudged him in the ribcage—and that was new.

Elias opened his eyes to find an angry angel staring down at him, a wooden stake held high over her head. Roksana.

The dead organ in his chest leapt and squeezed, before going back to unfortunate rest.

The scent of her battered his senses, making his veins shriek.

Even if his mind was in a fog, his body knew. She was really there.

Beautiful. God. So beautiful, she ravaged him. Made him want to roar at her and grovel at her feet at the same time. Would his instincts ever make sense again?

Still in shock, Elias bolted upright, his lack of strength making him stagger when he gained his feet. Shame over his weakened state strangled him around the throat. He’d been pathetically inexperienced the night he’d failed her. The night he’d let her heart be ripped to shreds. Now here he was again, unworthy of her.

Roksana still held the stake above her head, but she seemed stunned by what she saw.

What did she see?

Time and place and existence had become inconsequential to him. He could only fight when he was told to fight. That’s what Inessa demanded. Train her slayers to combat vampiric abilities. Do it without killing them, no matter how badly he had to war with his instincts to hold back. Doing her bidding for a year, in exchange for Roksana’s life, was the deal he’d made.

The deal he would make a million times again.

Greedily, his eyes ran over her new haircut, the softer sweep of her bangs. The tight leather clothing she wore. The sadness and rage and confusion she carried in her eyes.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

But he couldn’t say it out loud. He couldn’t tell Roksana he hated himself for the turmoil he’d put her through. The pain. His lack of aid. And God, the screaming.

No, he could offer her no apologies, because he might have to answer questions. His memory of the night alone could lead her to the truth—and the truth would spell her death.

Inessa was in league with the vampires.

Oh, she might hate vampires with the fire of a thousand suns, but she loved money and power more. If calling a truce with them meant a payday or an elevation in status, she did it without hesitation. He’d learned a lot while playing an authentic opponent to her training slayers. And Roksana had no idea her mother was nothing but a politician, giving and receiving favors. Not some noble avenger of humankind.

How many times had Inessa reminded Elias that Roksana learning the truth would result in her death? Hundreds at least.

Elias had been given a lot of time to think and he’d come to some conclusions. Inessa didn’t merely want Elias to keep their secret because it could destroy her relationship with Roksana. No, it had to be more than that. Perhaps a fear that Roksana wouldn’t fall into line and jeopardize the organization she’d built on lies. Because he remembered every single word of their conversation that night in the casino.

“What about you, havoc wreaker? Are you made up of darkness or light?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to find out, so I run.”

Had she been forced to find out by now?

His middle ached at the thought.

Through listening to the slayers chitchat, he’d also learned a lot about the structure of the underworld, though he still needed some crucial blanks filled in. So far, he knew the vampires were ruled by the High Order and there was at least two of them. One in Russia, one back in the United States. The slayers were also divided by country and called themselves contingents. As Inessa had explained the night she had him Silenced, she ruled the Russian branch.

Of which Roksana was now a card-carrying member.

He burned as he stared at Roksana from a short distance away, his voice was hoarse, unrecognizable when he spoke. “Who are you?”

It was as if the oxygen was wrenched from her lungs. “Liar,” she said, sounding choked.

“You know who I am and you know why I’ve come.” She scanned the cell, her brows knitting together. “You are finished scourging the earth, like the rest of your kind.” She advanced a step, balancing on the balls of her feet. “You are welcome to fight me, bloodsucker. I will win.”

Elias debated a half-hearted fight with her, just so he’d have the chance of their skin brushing. Feeling her breath on his face. “You’re a slayer?”

“Yes,” she pushed through her teeth. “I slay for them.”

No doubt she was referring to her friends. The ones he’d failed to save.

Self-disgust shrank his skin around his bones. “For who?”

A shudder passed through her, a light sheen glazing in her eyes. “You know who I am! You know who I’m talking about!”

Acid burned him alive from the inside out. “I’m sure I don’t.”

“You murdered my friends. All of them.” Fire raged in her eyes. “You locked me away and forced me to live with the memories of their pleading. You took my will! All so you could have your precious immortality. Tell me now. Was it worth it?”

Ah. So that’s how Inessa had explained the coincidence of him becoming a vampire the same night he met Roksana. Were there truly people who would seek out this hellish existence? Knowing she believed this of him was almost too much to bear.

“Where did this murder happen?” he said, barely managing to sound normal.

“Las Vegas,” she said, her voice strained. “You…you have to know.”

“I was Silenced in Vegas, apparently, but the whole night is a blur. It’s not uncommon for new vampires to be confused and…murderous in those first few days.” He flicked a piece of non-existent lint off his shoulder, but on the inside, his lungs were being torched. “It’s just one of those things, I guess.”

“One of those things,” she repeated, sounding winded.

“Where did you train?” Elias asked, conversationally. “I’ve never seen you at any of the sessions.”

“My training was private,” she said, visibly numb, though she bolstered herself quickly. “The great Queen of Shadows is my mother. I train under her watch and for that, I am fortunate. She has honor and patience, something you’ll never understand. She’s given me the gift of vengeance and it is what pulled me from the hole you dropped me into, monster.”

Her raw honesty threatened to double him over.

Here was the real reason Elias could never tell her what really transpired that night in Vegas. Her thirst for revenge was the only thing holding her together. Inessa had gotten exactly what she wanted when she’d executed her daughter’s friends. She’d gotten blind loyalty borne from the worst pain imaginable. Roksana had gone to her mother broken and been remolded.

I’ve already failed her once. Let her friends be senselessly assassinated.

I won’t take her mother, too.

Roksana’s vengeance was wrapped tightly around Inessa, like a tumor. Severing one would damage the other and leave Roksana with nothing.

“Wow.” He kept his voice flat. Mean. “Trained by the queen herself. You must think you’re really important.”

“This time tomorrow,” she blurted, and he wished, he wished in that moment that she would just drive the goddamn stake into his heart. End it, please. “Nothing?” she whispered.

He fixed his stare on the ceiling. “I’m bored enough that I just might let you kill me.”

“Let me?” In a flash of speed, she spun and delivered a roundhouse kick to his jaw, snapping his head back.

Any other time, he would barely have felt the blow, but weeks had passed without a drop of blood and Elias thought he might be dying. It was taking every ounce of his willpower not to overcome Roksana and sink his teeth into her neck, to feel the flow of strength course through him and more than that, finally know what she tasted like.

To have some part of her inside him would be glorious.

But he’d rather she killed him than force her to suffer that indignity.

He’d done enough.

End me, Roksana. I can’t live knowing how I’ve hurt you.

“Impressive,” he drawled, settling into a battle stance, fists at the ready. Pretense. He’d never strike her. “What else you got, slayer?”

Some of the color left her face. “It’s Roksana.”

Elias shrugged, as if her name was inconsequential.

With a shout of outrage, she kicked him in the center of the chest and he let himself hit the wall, dropping his fists to his sides. He focused on her beautiful face, savored it, as she lifted the stake high and drove it down—

It froze, right above his heart, held in her shaking fist.

“Do it,” she whispered to herself, then more forcefully, “Do it.”

His mind spun with shock. She couldn’t kill him?

After his betrayal? His ineptitude the night of the slaughter?

Was it possible this girl still felt something for him, despite it all?

No. No, he wouldn’t allow himself that hope. Even if she still held on to a remnant of what they’d established between them that night in Vegas, he couldn’t claim her.

Not when he harbored secrets about Inessa and would be forced to lie.

Not when he’d failed Roksana so bitterly.

“When was the last time you fed?” Roksana asked suddenly.

The pulse on her neck beat like a maddening drum, tantalizing him. “Weeks. Months. I don’t know.”

Her eyes closed a moment, before she pulled away from him with a scoff. “No. No, this is a ripoff. I want a fair fight from you.”

“You won’t get it,” he said in a rush. Come back here. Kill me. “She keeps me at half strength.”

“Because you are training the newbies,” she explained, completely unaware how wrong she was. His days were often endless rounds of battles with slayers at the highest level. Preparing them to kill his own kind. Or not. Depending on what gave Inessa an advantage in this dark underworld. “She brought you here as a gift to me, because of what you did,” Roksana continued. “So it’s my decision if you live or die. When I kill you, I want it to be satisfying.” Nodding firmly, she slipped her stake into a holster on her back. “You may go, vampire. But understand this.” Her voice shook a little, but he pretended not to notice. “One day, I will turn you to dust for what you’ve done.”

Slowly, she backed out of his cell, leaving the door open.

As soon as she was out of sight, his hands flew to his throat, gripping tight, trying to get his thirst for her under control. His bones rattled, begging him to go after Roksana. Take.

His knees hit the ground hard and he curled into himself, roaring into his closed mouth. He stayed that way, counting to one hundred and back, until she was safe from him, then he staggered to his feet and out of the cell, the world rolling out before him an unfamiliar place.

An invisible compass demanded he follow Roksana, just as he’d done in the casino, but he couldn’t do that and keep her safe.

Not yet.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Elias leaned into the freezing Moscow wind and moved silently down the empty street, resisting the urge to quadruple his speed. He might work for the North American vampire king as a handler for newly Silenced vampires, but Moscow was an entirely different jurisdiction and if he risked discovery by humans, getting out of that jam could prove a challenge. He didn’t have time for that tonight. Not when Roksana was on her way to the poker game and he didn’t even know the goddamn address.

Why the hell wasn’t Jonas answering his phone?

Before he’d left for Moscow, the king had confided in him about an increase in vampire slayings throughout the States. Perhaps he was occupied finding out the reason for the uptick.

At first, when Jonas convinced Elias to join him on his mission to help new vampires acclimate to their new life, he’d done it to fill time. But over the years, he’d grown more invested. If someone with the same affliction had been there to guide him in the beginning, he would have benefitted greatly. It pained him that he wasn’t there to be of assistance when Jonas had a potential crisis on his hands. Elias’s first priority was Roksana, however, and Jonas had known that since day one. That didn’t mean Elias felt good about deserting the guy who’d pulled him out of a black miserable hole.

Voicemail. He ended the call with a curse.

Grinding his back teeth together, Elias cut through a dark park, stopping when he reached the monument at its center.

Three years later, it was still hard for him to believe vampires existed, but for some reason, the fact that the king of them had a voicemail box was the oddest shit of all.

It was impossible for Elias to remain motionless, his tread threatening to wear a path in front of the monument. He’d kissed her. He’d kissed Roksana.

Her taste owned him. Consumed him.

There was no going back now. None.

Hell, there had been no going back three years ago, but his tether had fully and completely snapped tonight. First when he’d walked into the apartment and thought she’d left. His skull had almost caved in on itself. Going into the bathroom with that weak of a will had been error enough. There’d been no strength to fight when she asked to be kissed.

How had he ruined something so perfect?

She’d clung to him the way she’d done every night in his dreams, her legs tight around his hips, her mouth the definition of perfection, her sighs like balms to his tortured soul. But he’d been unable to content himself with physical touch. Not with this woman. He’d craved words, confessions, declarations, truth. Everything.

He’d screwed up big time. But that wouldn’t happen again.

No longer could he maintain this vitriol between him and Roksana. It was slowly killing him. Every time she looked at him with pain in her eyes, thinking he was just some fang chaser who’d used her as an avenue to eternal life, he wanted to rage at the unfairness. Because he was holding firm to his resolve to keep the truth hidden. He would not be the one to shatter her illusions about Inessa. He would not steal more from her life. He’d done enough to hurt her.

Somehow, even believing him a deceitful enemy, she’d softened for him tonight.

She’d opened her legs for him, kissed him like she couldn’t stand stopping.

Oh, there was no going back.

A twig snapped on the ground behind Elias and his fangs snapped into his mouth, lips peeling with a snarl. His muscles relaxed when the tip of a cigar winked at him in the darkness.

“Fuck me, man. Could you be more dramatic with this meeting spot?” Tucker swaggered forward, dropping his voice to a rasp that mimicked Elias’s. “Meet me in a deserted park in the shadow of a hammer and sickle sculpture. You’re allowed to pick an intersection or a Starbucks, you know.”

Elias couldn’t completely subdue his smile. “Thanks for coming.”

“You owe me.” He stomped his boots and buried his hands further into his coat. “It’s so cold here, I’m going to cry.”

“I do. I owe you.”

“Ah, I was just playing. You know I love flying on the Vamplane,” Tucker said, referring to the planes with blacked out windows that were secretly kept at more airfields than any human could fathom. “If I ever get sick of driving Uber, I’m going to become a flight attendant on one of those things. Talk about an easy gig. There’s no meal service, there’s only one drink choice on the beverage cart—”

“Tucker, I brought you were for a reason.”

“Right-o.” He clicked his heels together and saluted Elias. “At your service, pal.”

Elias shook his head. How he could be such good friends with someone his total opposite still remained a mystery to him. His path had diverged from Jaxson’s as a youth and he’d learned to be comfortable as a loner. As soon as he’d started to open himself back up to friendships, he’d been Silenced. He really hoped his third time making friends was a charm, because…hell, he liked Tucker. The guy was an irreverent goofball, but he was reliable and trustworthy. Not to mention, Elias got the feeling Tucker had a lot more layers than anyone realized. “It’s Roksana. Obviously.”

“Yeah, somehow I didn’t think we were in Russia for the borscht.”

Elias checked his phone again, growling when he didn’t find an incoming call for Jonas on the screen. “She’s playing in a poker game tonight. I’m not sure what the stakes are, but her mother arranged her place at the table.”

“Meaning you need to be at the table.”

“Damn right.” He nodded at Tucker, still willing his phone to ring. “Both of us, if possible. I don’t take chances with her.”

“Oooh-eee.” Tucker rubbed his hands together. “I haven’t played poker in years. Being able to hear everyone’s pulses at the table kind of took the fun out of it.”

Elias had thought of that. If the poker game was among humans, they could help Roksana win easily. But Elias wasn’t betting on this being some average, run-of-the-mill poker game. Not if Inessa was involved. She surrounded herself with dangerous elements, as he knew too well, and he wasn’t letting Roksana face the night alone.

“Anyway,” Tucker said, scratching his chin. “Poker isn’t going to be the same without beer and snacks, but I’ll take it.”

“Unfortunately, we have no invitation or way of negotiating our way in.”

“Have you tried calling Jonas?” Tucker asked.

Elias just looked at him.

The phone rang. Elias answered it before the first ring was completed. “Jonas.”

“Elias,” the king said. “I’ve been trying to get in contact for days”

In the background, there was the unmistakable sound of a bed creaking, a dreamy feminine sigh. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Jonas hadn’t been answering the phone. What it must be like, sharing a bed with the woman who had their hooks in you. Knowing she would be there always. Having no deception between them. It had to be incredible.

Elias beat back his envy. “I’ve been dealing with Roksana.” The king knew him well enough that no explanation was needed. “I need your help.”

“Sure, now you do,” Jonas said dryly. “What do you think the chances are that I was trying to get a hold of you for the exact same reason?”

He didn’t answer directly. “There’s a poker game happening tonight in Moscow. Unless I’m wrong, it’s underworld only. Do you know anything about it?”

“Yes, although now time is against us.” Footsteps echoed down the line. “You’ve heard there’s a been a rash of slayings recently in North America? Well, it’s gotten worse. There is…unrest in response to the vampire throne changing hands. To say the least. Sides are being formed and there’s a game piece floating around. Something that could be valuable to whichever side claims it first.” He paused. “Evidently the key to procuring the game piece is on the line at the poker game tonight. It’s a marriage decree.”

Elias frowned. “For who?”

“The daughter of Tilda who runs Enders in Coney Island. Mary the Mad.”

He massaged the bridge of his nose. “All right, I’m not asking any more questions because the answers are always fucking weird. Just get me and Tucker spots at the table.”

“Consider it done. I’ll send you the details.” A door closed on the other end of the line. “I take it Roksana is competing tonight?”

Why did he hesitate to answer? “Yes.”

He heard the regret in the king’s voice when he said, “Then she competes against us.”

Roksana watched the mansion from a crouched position in the shadows, backpack slung over one shoulder, her mother’s voice ringing in her head.

Locate weapons in advance.

Know your exits.

Know your opponents.

She should have spent the last two days finding out more about this poker game. Who attended. Was it a one-time event or a usual occurrence? If it was the latter and the players were well acquainted, she needed to be especially on her guard. She could be walking into a house full of allies. Whereas a one-time event could mean more volatility, people on edge.

The mansion was enormous, pale yellow, designed in the Art Nouveau style. There were bars on the windows, but they were ornate wrought iron, making the blocked means of egress seem almost fashionable. If she was required to get out, it would need to be through a door. Or smashing through the one large window without bars. It was high and arched at the front of the house, showing off the crystal chandelier inside, though it wasn’t lit. The only light was a dim glow coming from the basement.

Why did everything have to be in a freaking basement?

Roksana reached down and massaged her sore legs, willing her limp away. On the way to the game, she’d caught sight of herself in a car window and cringed. How far the sexy had fallen. She was now a wet rat with a black eye, busted lip and no cleavage. With only minutes to go until the game was scheduled to begin, however, she would have to make do.

A red Jaguar slid into park at the curb outside the mansion, turning off its lights.

Her neck started to tingle, telling her immortals were present.

A second later, she was proven right.

Two men climbed out of the vehicle simultaneously. Sharply dressed in suits and baseball caps, moving almost in tandem, they strode up the stone walkway, both of them rapping on the door in six quick knocks, pausing, then knocking one more time.

Roksana filed that information away. Had Inessa failed to mention the knock on purpose, wanting to give her daughter a challenge? Most likely. She was always finding creative ways to make Roksana more astute. Better at her job.

The door opened and the two men disappeared inside, but before the door could shut, someone came jogging down the sidewalk, his gold chain catching the moonlight. “Hold up. Hollllld up. One more for the part-ay.”

Roksana’s eyes widened.

She knew that voice. There was rust and humor laced through every note, as well as a whopping dose of Midwestern America.

“Tucker?” she whispered, puzzled.

What the hell was Elias’s best friend doing there?

Was the vampire competing for the marriage decree or did he have other business?

If he was trying to win the decree, did that make them…enemies?

A knot formed in her throat. Dammit, she liked Tucker. Unlike her relationship with Elias—

Roksana made a croaky sound and it took several breaths to make her heart stop constricting. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him standing in the kitchen of the vacant apartment, the broad muscles of his back flexed. Waiting.

If you want to be effective tonight, you can’t think of him.

Or the fact that despite everything, she missed him.

Roksana took a calming breath and re-focused.

Unlike her relationship with Elias, her rapport with Tucker was easy. With his jocular attitude and ability to lighten the mood, he was impossible not to get along with. In other words, he was Elias’s exact opposite, but the two were as close as brothers.

Hopefully she wouldn’t have to kill him.

Best to find out his angle before the game started.

Roksana pushed off the house she’d hunkered down behind and started toward the mansion. As soon as she stepped into the street light, Tucker’s pace stalled at the door. Of course, his super-sensitive hearing caught her footsteps, especially because she was making no effort to soften them. But he continued into the house, nonetheless, telling Roksana that Tucker was aware of her presence, but wouldn’t be acknowledging the fact that they knew each other. Even as a niggle of hurt worked its way through her chest, she was glad for the information. She preferred the illusion that they weren’t acquainted, actually.

Someone was letting her opponents into the house, but until she climbed the stone staircase, Roksana didn’t see who it was.

A flutter of wings and a gasp was all she glimpsed before the door was slammed shut.

“Vot eto pizdets,” she grumbled. Dammit.

Roksana stood dumbfounded for a moment, then raised her hand to rap on the door.

Six times. Pause. One more knock.

The door flew open, revealing a woman in a long, gold robe. Sparks of the same color rotated around her head in an endless marathon. Her eyes were huge and tilted at the corners, her cheekbones liberally rubbed with bronzer.

And she had wings.

The small appendages in question flapped so rapidly, there was no way they belonged to a costume. Even minus the wings, there was something decidedly otherworldy about this woman. Like maybe the fact that she appeared to be hovering an inch above the floor.

This was one of the fae she’d been taught about during her year of training. Those lessons had been brief, however, because the fae were so few in number. A dying race, her mother then called them. Their origins were entwined with Irish folklore and they’d once been deemed a powerful race of conquerors. Decades ago, they’d been driven back into the Faerie realm, leaving only their black sheep brethren behind.

Roksana had never met one in real life, though she didn’t let that show on her face. Instead, she reminded herself to be on guard. Fairies were known for their trickiness and abilities to read minds, control the actions of others and more.

Not today, Satan.

“You are here for the poker match?” the fairy asked in a melodic French accent.

Roksana put a pleasant expression on her face. “Yes.”

“Then you must be Roksana.” The wings fluttered faster. “You cannot wear that. You did not come here for a slumber party at your friend’s house.” Her impossibly large eyes widened further, flashing from brown to bronze. “Come, I have something you can borrow, but we need to move swiftly. We don’t want to keep the men waiting.”

“Speak for yourself.”

The fairy laughed and the stardust around her head whipped into a blur. “I am Cosette and I serve the man of the house. Come in, come in.” She clapped her hands twice, before gripping Roksana by the elbow and pulling her into the house, shutting the door behind them. “I’ll take your bag, if you please!”

Roksana tightened her grip on the strap. “I’ll hold on to it.”

Cosette’s smile became a baring of teeth. “I must insist,” she said brightly.

Without warning, the backpack was ripped away from Roksana’s shoulder and dropped unceremoniously on top of a gilded entry table. The fairy hadn’t moved once.

“I was so excited when I found out a woman was coming to the game,” said the fairy, as if she hadn’t just divested Roksana of her only protection with nothing more than her will.

Keep your guard up.

Cosette bustled her through a white marble foyer with no decoration save a plain woven rug, drawing her down a back hallway. Male voices drifted up from downstairs. Cigar smoke, tinkling ice cubes, chairs moving across the floor. She’d only caught the tail end of Tucker’s rusty chuckle when Cosette pulled her into a room. The interior was dark, and immediately Roksana braced for battle, but when the fairy flipped on the light, there was nothing but an army of garment racks packed with clothes.

“Clothes” really wasn’t the right word, though.

More like, inventions.

Feathers plumed, rhinestones winked and collars popped everywhere Roksana looked. In a sea of avant garde and couture, there wasn’t a basic bustier and leather pants to be seen.

Cosette glided between the rows of racks, humming to herself. “You have a fair complexion, so we should stay away from pastels. We don’t want to wash you out, darling.”

“Got any leather?”

“Why yes!” Cosette plucked a hangar off the rack and held it up.

A laugh puffed out of Roksana’s mouth. “Oh, I, um…I don’t have the right undergarments for something that short. Or low.” She tilted her head sideways, trying to discern whether the fairy was holding a belt or a minidress. “What does it cover exactly?”

“Darling, I am helping you. Why would you not want these men distracted?” Her smile dropped and red bled into her irises. “If you touch the man of the house, I will fly you to the top of the Kremlin and let go.”

Roksana believed her. “I’m not really in the market for a man.”

“Oh, but you never know what the night will bring…” She shimmied her shoulders suggestively and let out a feminine squeal. “Now strip and let me have some fun!”

Ten minutes later, Roksana regarded herself in the mirror with approval. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn her hair any way but down. The fairy had wound it in a high, tight bun on top of her head, but somehow made the sides looks loose and feminine. Some essential oils had been rubbed into her skin, leaving it glowing and fragrant. Deep magenta painted her lips, black eyeliner had been smudged artfully and a pair of blood-red heels elongated her legs in a practically indecent way. And her boobs.

They looked like sexy produce.

“You hid the bruises,” Roksana murmured. “I can’t believe it.”

Cosette preened. “The magic of makeup!” She took Roksana’s hand, swinging it back and forth gleefully on their way to the door. “Confidence matters. Now you have it in spades.” Out of the side of her mouth, she said, “Poker humor.”

“Poker?” Roksana muttered. “I don’t even know her.”

Glitter sprang from the fairy as she laughed, pinging on the white floor like sparks. They traversed the dark hallway, but Cosette stopped before they could reach the top of the staircase. “I like you, Roksana.” She pressed her lips together. “I wonder if you know what you’re going into?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you’re walking into a basement full of…well, other. Two vampires, three fae. There is only one other human competing tonight.” Her fingers flickered at her throat. “Even if you won, is there a possibility of you walking out alive?”

“Hell yes.” Roksana winked back at Cosette on her way down the stairs. “Although a fight in this dress might be awkward since I’m not wearing panties.”

Her words were still hanging in the air, along with Cosette’s high-pitched giggle, when she stepped into the basement—and found five pairs of male eyebrows raised, nobody moving.

Roksana shrugged. “What? I need a convenient place to hide the cards.”

Their laughter held an edge of wariness, but she took the opportunity to quickly take stock of her opponents. Of course, Tucker was there, smiling broadly at her joke without making eye contact, his signature cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth. The two identical men she’d seen enter the house were already seated at a professional, green-felted poker table, on opposite ends, both of them holding a tumbler of bubbly white liquid.

A fourth man stepped into her vicinity, holding out his hand for a shake, and she immediately recognized him. A slayer who’d gone through training at the same time as she, though his lessons hadn’t been private, like hers. They’d never formally communicated, but she’d probably passed him on a daily basis on the way to meals or combat sessions. He was blonde, had a crooked nose and perceptive eyes.

Did Inessa send him to hedge her bets? In case Roksana couldn’t deliver?

“Rob.” The slayer’s eyes danced down to her legs, then back up. “Very nice to meet you.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Gross. Can we get started?”

Roksana stepped around her admirer—and came to a dead stop.

There, standing in the corner of the room, in low conversation with another man, was Elias. Elias was there. Leaning on a fully stocked bar, complete with bartender, his hands were loosely clasped in front of him, his head nodding as he listened to what the man said. His gaze drifted to Roksana and away, as if she were invisible.

“Poker face, kiddo,” Tucker said for her ears alone, on his way to a seat at the table.

Roksana’s mouth snapped shut and she attempted to force calm into her whizzing bloodstream, though her hand shook as she pulled back the antique chair and sat. Why hadn’t Elias told her he was coming tonight? Had he planned to compete all along, even while teaching her how to play poker? Both of those possibilities opened a giant crater up in the center of her chest. No honesty, no friendship. Just deceit.

This part of her that stubbornly believed in a connection between her and Elias, a connection that was outside the world’s reach, couldn’t withstand being trampled on any more.

It was in tatters.

“My dear,” a voice said to her left, and she turned her head to find a gray-haired man in a pink sweater vest and a bowtie approaching. He was the man Elias had been speaking with. There were no wings attached to his back, but there was a certain brilliance to his skin when combined with his oversized features, that told Roksana he was fae. “I am a terrible host. Allow me to introduce myself! I am the man of the house.”

Roksana waited for a name and realized there wasn’t one coming. “Roksana,” she managed, holding out her hand. “Charmed.”

He planted a kiss on her knuckles and pulled back with sparkling eyes, oozing Americana like a small-town mayor. “I take it Cosette showed you her closet.”

She forced herself not to react when Elias sat down to her right, his scent, his presence stampeding through her like a dozen loose horses. How could having him close affect her like a sharp, sensual attack when they’d so recently been in close quarters? It wasn’t fair. Especially now when her damnable trust in him was reeling. When the man of the house cleared his throat, she realized he was waiting for her response. “Ah…yes. I did see Cosette’s closet. It was more like a warehouse.”

He tossed a bark of laughter up at the ceiling. “Before we get started, my dear, please allow me to bring you a drink.”

“No, thank you.”

The smile remained frozen on his face, reminding her of Cosette when she’d declined to have her backpack taken away. The legend might be that the fae had left behind their black sheep when they’d vanished to the Faerie realm, but Roksana was starting to think they’d left behind their most deceptively dangerous. “Just the obligatory house drink, then.”

Roksana’s sixth sense started to pulse. “Which is?”

His shrug was almost prim. “Just a tiny shot of motivation to make things interesting.” He glided to his seat in the dealer spot and sat down. “Now. This is no limit Texas hold ’em. Everyone has been given an equal amount of chips and the blinds will start at ten-twenty. Whoever has all the chips at the end wins our prize. Is that clear enough?”

Murmurs all around.

Cosette floated out of seemingly nowhere. In one hand, she held a tray of shot glasses, each of them full to the brim with clear liquid. She stopped behind Roksana first and set one of the shots down in front of her. “If this is vodka, we don’t get along. It never got the memo that I’m Russian and should be able to handle more than a drop. I’ll pass.”

“Not if you want to play,” Cosette sing-songed, dropping shots off in front of Rob, then Tucker, each of the stoic fae, then eventually Elias. “All of you are here to compete for one thing. The marriage decree for Mary the Mad—a document of great worth. But who wants it most? This drink will ensure the player with the strongest motivation wins.” She smiled like a Cheshire cat. “Once drunk, the concoction determines what it is you want the most in life. It will amplify that desire. Enflame it. You will compete harder knowing you could obtain your one true desire by winning tonight’s bounty, be it superiority or wealth.”

“You didn’t think we would make it easy, did you?” crooned the man of the house, circling the table. “We seek to be entertained. There’s every chance an underworld poker game would be thrilling enough, but we like a little guarantee. Not to mention, we can’t have pulses pitter pattering and giving certain creatures an advantage. This will slow it down.”

Roksana glanced briefly at Tucker and found him passing Elias a subtle nod. What were they communicating to each other?

“On three, everyone.” Cosette’s eyes grew excited, the tray gripped tightly in her hands. Everyone picked up the shot glass, save Roksana, whose stomach was taking repeated dives. The concoction determines what it is you want the most in life. It will amplify that desire. Enflame it. Was she ready to find out what that was? On paper, her greatest desire was being the badass slayer daughter her mother deserved. She wanted to avenge her friends. But what if she secretly wanted, needed, something…or someone much different?

“One, two…”

Elias tossed back his shot.

At the same time, Tucker dropped his on the floor, shattering the glass.

With everyone distracted by the error, Elias reached over in a blur of speed, took her shot glass and drank it himself. Within a split second, Roksana was staring down at an empty glass and Elias had gone back to looking bored.

“Damn. I’m so sorry about that,” Tucker boomed, slapping a hand to the center of his chest. “They keep telling me vampires are supposed to be cool and sophisticated, but I’m about as smooth as a speed bump, you feel me?”

Cosette grumbled on her way to the bar, but returned in a jiffy with a replacement shot.

With an affable smile, he drained it and passed the glass back to Cosette.

“Hold on a second,” Tucker said, feigning shock. “My greatest desire is to be able to eat sandwiches again? Can that be right?”

“It takes a while to start working,” Cosette snapped, adding something in French that was clearly not a glowing review of the cigar-smoking vampire.

Roksana scanned the table carefully, trying to determine if anyone had seen Elias down her shot, but no one appeared the wiser. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or suspicious of his motives, considering his surprise appearance tonight. Why had he done it?

There was no way to ask him without letting on they knew each other.

Although, Roksana was starting to wonder if she knew Elias at all.

An envelope floated down to the center of the table, dropped there by the man of the house. “There she is. Tonight’s grand prize.” He rubbed his hands together. “I will be your dealer this evening. Please remain seated and keep your hands inside the ride at all times. It could get bumpy.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Around the fifth hand, the air started to change.

To Roksana’s right, Elias shifted in his seat and a prickle rode up her arm.

Across from her, Tucker had fallen uncharacteristically silent, his cigar stubbed out in the ashtray. Rob was paying more attention to the players than the cards, which would have been a valid strategy, except with his jaw clenched, sweat beading at his hairline, his stress was obvious—and she didn’t like it. A desperate energy was slowly winding everyone in its grip and the more pronounced it became, the more grateful she was to be concoction-free.

Whatever Elias’s motivation had been in drinking her shot, he’d given her the advantage of a clear head and she wasn’t going to waste it.

She was in the big blind position, so after checking her cards—ace, nine—she waited for everyone at the table to make their play, whether it was a call or a raise. Fae Twin Number One folded with a growled curse, Tucker called, Rob raised to quadruple the amount of the big blind.

The second fae twin went all in.

Wiping away his sweat with an agitated hand, Rob shoved all of his chips into the pot. “Call. I’m all in.”

On the fifth hand of the night?

Cosette giggled from her perch on a stool at the bar, stirring a peach-colored drink. “I guess it doesn’t take too long to kick in after all. The greed is already showing, darling.”

“Yes, it is,” purred the man of the house. “The option is to you, Elias.”

“Fold,” he rasped, sliding his cards to the dealer.

Roksana folded, too, more than happy to lose her small ante in favor of watching one of the other players risk their spot at the table and ultimately get knocked out.

Rob turned over his hand. A pair of twos.

Fae Twin Number Two hooted, whipping off his baseball cap to reveal enormous features, much like Cosette. He hopped to his feet and turned over a pair of tens.

“Tens have the advantage. Still. Anything could happen.” The man of the house laid down the flop. 7, J, 4. The turn was a queen.

The dealer savored the anticipation of turning over the final card, everyone including Roksana leaning in to see what it would be.

A two of diamonds.

“No!” Fae Twin Number Two bellowed, the force of it pushing against Roksana’s shoulders. “No, fuck that. Burned on the river? I had the better hand.” He turned and paced away, came ripping back. “You got lucky, you son of a bitch.”

“Accept it. You’re out.” Rob raked in his chips. “Take your shit and go.”

“That’s for me to say,” the man of the house said smoothly. He tilted his head at the fae. “Take your shit and go.”

A ripple of light crossed through the fae’s bulging eyes.

Was it Roksana’s imagination or did Elias slide his chair closer to hers?

With her backpack upstairs, her fingers itched to have a stake at the ready. Neither of the men posturing at each other across the poker table was a vampire, but it was her weapon of choice nonetheless.

A full ten seconds had passed in the basement without sound or movement, until Cosette laughed merrily at the bar—and the fae lunged for the envelope in the center of the table. Rob snarled and leapt onto the green felt, catching the fae by his forearm and—biting down like a dog with a bone.

Beneath the table, Elias laid a protective hand on her thigh. As if to say, I’ve got you.

Everything south of her belly button melted and clenched, heat stealing up her front and making her nipples peak. His spiced pine scent wound her up like a clock, each of her pulse points ticking, ticking, ticking. Still, she shook off his touch, confused about his presence there and angry he’d kept his participation in the game from her. Hell, maybe she was simply angry that one touch of his hand could make her forget who she was. What she was fighting for.

Roksana turned to deliver him a frown for good measure—

“What…” she whispered, instead, her muscles tensing.

Elias’s eyes were black—and fixed on her neck.

His mouth was open just enough to show her the tip of his fangs, his seductive energy pulling her deep into a dense, blurring eddy of need.

Oh my God. What is happening?

Her attention was drawn away when the fae bashed the back of Rob’s head with a fist. Still, Rob, his eyes possessed, wouldn’t let go. An arc of dark blue blood splashed across the felt, but still the fae held on to the marriage decree. Over the top of the tussle, Roksana could see Tucker leaning back in his chair and observing the fray, casual as he pleased.

“Darling,” Cosette called. “This is getting boring.”

“Couldn’t agree more.” The man of the house pulled a handgun from his previously unspotted ankle holster, aimed, and fired at both men. Elias threw himself in front of Roksana, using his body to back her chair across the room—and in a blur, Tucker was there, too, using his broad body to shield her. But not before she saw both of the fighting men slump in a death pose in the center of the poker table.

“Zhizn’ ebet meya,” Roksana muttered.

Life is fucking me.

“Well now.” The murderous dealer fired a bullet up at the ceiling, raining plaster down onto the dead pair. “We’re off to a fine start.” He treated the remaining guests to a toothy smile. “How does everyone feel about a short break while we get this mess cleaned up?”

Roksana took a backwards lunge and booked it up the stairs. “Don’t get rattled,” she ordered herself in a winded whisper. “They knew what they were getting into and so did you.”

At the top of the stairs, another wave of alarm passed through her when she discovered her backpack of weapons was not where she’d left it. Gone. She couldn’t decide which direction to go searching, either. But she needed to get somewhere, be alone, get her shock under control. Since when did she let a little death and blood distract her from reaching a goal?

Since you went to New York, whispered a voice in the back of her head.

A better question was, when had she last reached a goal she’d set out to achieve?

She pressed a hand over her mouth, as if to keep the truth at bay and jogged up the opulent staircase leading to the second floor. Before she could turn the corner and hit the next flight, she heard him coming.

Elias. His presence was like a stick of dynamite exploding in the marble foyer below. Roksana slowed to a stop and watched him storm after her, his strides long and purposeful. Tucker stepped into his path and put a hand to his chest, saying something to him Roksana couldn’t hear, but Elias easily evaded his friend and began taking the steps two at a time.

Though it was unlike her, she ran.

She didn’t know what else to do.

In this vulnerable state, she wouldn’t be able to cling to her rage. Her sadness. Her betrayal. “Leave me alone,” she called to him over her shoulder.

“I can’t,” he said, raggedly.

Once drunk, the concoction determines what it is you want the most in life. It will amplify that desire. Enflame it.

Cosette’s earlier words blared in Roksana’s head and she tripped to a stop beneath an unlit chandelier, her feet sinking into the thick ruby-red carpet of the large landing. She remembered the way Elias had looked at her at the poker table. How he followed her now, a man missing his usual restraint. Did that mean…she was what Elias wanted most in life?

“Double dose,” she whispered, turning to face Elias, just as he crested the top of the stairs. Here was not the man she’d met in Vegas, nor was it the complicated creature she’d spent years trying to gather the willpower to kill. This was Elias, the vampire. The predator. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t hurt her.

This Elias?

He was a wildcard.

And yet, she ached to run to him. To cradle his face in her neck and tell him whatever this was would pass. God, he’d saved her from this fate, taking the burden of their amplified desires on himself. Still, even though she wanted to soothe him, she backed away instead. Backed away from the fever he was stirring in her with his raw, open display of hunger. “Elias. What are you doing?”

“Roksana,” he growled, ripping at his hair. “The pain.”

“It’s a headache, da? You want to check the medicine cabinet for some aspirin?” She continued backward until she hit a pillar, sidestepped it and kept going, deeper into the dark corridor. Doors lined the landing and she thought about ducking into one, finding a place to hide and catch Elias off-guard after he passed, but the lack of escape routes made her hesitant to enter any of the rooms. “I think we can eliminate heartburn.”

“Stop running from me. I hate it.”

Roksana bristled. “I don’t run. I gauge my opponent.”

“I am not your opponent,” Elias roared.

The hallway lit up with loud zapping sounds, sconces flickering and shooting off sparkles of light, before everything went black again. “You…are doing that. You manipulated the lights the night you found me, too. It was not a dream?”

In her awe, Roksana forgot to back away. Or maybe in her bones she never wanted to put distance between them to begin with. Whatever the reason, Elias drew closer, his fingers still sunk into his dark hair, the strands twisting between his fingers. “The pain,” he gritted.

“You have to tell me what hurts,” she whispered. “If it’s blood you need, I-I can’t—”

“It’s everything.” Elias fell to his knees in front of Roksana, walking forward and wrapping his huge arms around her middle, pulling her stomach flush to his face. “The pain of not having you as my own is excruciating. Don’t you understand?”

Her very being seized and shook, her lungs emptying of air.

She was the thing Elias wanted most in the world?

How could that be?

How dare that be true?

When she thought him an indifferent murderer with whom she shared an attraction, staying away had been easier. Now? Now her own attraction stole through every limb, free of her denial, loose to run amuck. Before Roksana was aware of her own actions, she’d slipped her fingers into his hair, lightly running her nails along his scalp. She trailed them down his neck and traced his earlobes, her eyelids fluttering when he sagged against her, groaning into her stomach.

“Your beauty eats me alive, Roksana.” He nipped at her belly button through the leather of her dress, turning her nipples to tight, little bullets. “Not having you is hell. I live in hell.”

“Stop,” she breathed, her heart missing beats all over the place. Worry for Elias battled with duty and the former was winning. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

“Give yourself to me.” His arms banded tighter, his mouth traveling up her stomach toward her breasts, those ink-black eyes intent on her cleavage. “I need to take you, Roksana. Hard and fast and completely. But I will drive the stake through my own heart before hurting you. Flesh or soul. So I’m begging you to give me your body. Freely.” He bit into the bodice of her dress and dragged it down, exposing her heaving breasts. “I’m begging for your blood.”

Roksana’s neck went instantly loose, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip to keep a moan from slipping out. She would deny fantasizing about Elias drinking from her until she breathed her last, but the truth was, sometimes late at night in the dark, she reached down beneath the covers and pet herself while imagining it. To be the woman sacrificing herself so that he might have strength—to calm his hunger—called to a deep, unexplainable part of her. She wanted to experience that piercing of skin, his desperate pulls of her neck. Even the vulnerability and helplessness appealed to her. Use me, savor me, own me.

Oh God, she couldn’t. She couldn’t give in. “It’s just the drink she gave you,” Roksana pushed through panting lips. “You’ve never been like this. Not since…” A pang stuck her at the reminder of Vegas. “It’s not real.”

Elias stilled, his genuinely confused eyes locking in on her, holding her captive. “I’m always this desperate for you. Every minute, every second, every day. The drink only took away my ability to hide it. Believe me, Roksana.”

His words stole her breath…and her final reservations began falling one by one.

What if she said yes?

Just this once?

Elias wouldn’t tell anyone. Her secret moment of weakness would be safe.

And when you kill him? It’ll be really safe then.

That thought almost spurred her into a panic, but the barest hint of Elias’s lip brushed the tip of Roksana’s nipple and she gasped, clenching her thighs together, her femininity growing weighty, wet. If she truly planned to kill him, didn’t she deserve to create this memory? Her need for fulfilment from Elias had been a constant curse, keeping her body yearning day and night for years, and here was the remedy. Him. No one would know if she took what he gave. Offered what he needed in return. No one would know, but she’d have the echo of this night to call forth in the dark forever. She couldn’t resist it. Couldn’t resist him.

“You may have me and my blood,” she whispered unevenly.

When he made a hoarse sound and pulled her down to the carpeted floor, it felt nothing short of inevitable. She stuffed a rag in the mouth of her common sense, crossed her wrists above her head, arched her back and abandoned everything but sensation. Here in the dark, in the middle of this surreal night, she would give in to the fierce attraction she’d lived with so long. She’d pay homage to the girl who never got her night with the man of her dreams. And she would ease his suffering because every fiber of her being called on her to do so.

Elias rose up over Roksana, studying her face as if to make sure she’d meant yes. Really meant it. Whatever he saw there made him growl. Made his fangs elongate in the gentle moonlight. His tongue curled around one and she whimpered, recognizing the sound as something base, uncontrollable. “I’ve never felt grateful to be immortal until now,” he rasped, dragging a fingertip slowly downward between her breasts. “But losing the memory of this by dying would be unacceptable.”

Roksana held her breath as Elias lowered his head to the peak of her right breast, groaning through a slow lick, then opening his mouth wide to suckle both nipple and areola, drawing on her until his cheekbones hollowed. Her hands flew to her sides, fingers digging into the carpet. She looked up at the ceiling blindly, her knees jerking up just as Elias settled between them, pinning her lower body to the floor with his substantial weight.

Without warning, he punched his hips forward roughly, baring his teeth against her ear. “Do you know what your little entrance downstairs did to my cock, Roksana? I almost yanked up this fucking dress, pushed you face down over the poker table and hit your pussy from the back.” He kissed her neck sweetly, his manner at odds with his coarse language. “Now pull it up around your waist and get it out of my goddamn way.”

Roksana’s hands were shaking as she reached down and gathered the hem. “Tonight is your one free pass to speak to me with that trash mouth, vampire.”

His impatient hands covered hers, helping her draw up the tight hem of her dress, leaving her naked from the waist down. “Every filthy word makes your pulse go crazy, baby. That fucking pulse. Even when you’re continents away, it haunts me.” He crashed his lips down on top of hers, desperate, seeking her tongue with his own—and she gave it, moaning at the feel of his fangs pressing to her top lip. “Wrap your thighs around me. I’m not waiting. I can’t.”

“I don’t want you to wait,” she managed, drawing up her legs and squeezing his ribcage. “Just…”

He paused in the act of licking the side of her neck. “Just what?”

Roksana’s breath hitched, heat pushing against the backs of her eyelids. “Y-you’re not going to forget this, are you?”

For the briefest moment in time, utter ruin was a living thing on his face, but it quickly passed, replaced by white hot intensity. “Never, Roksana. Never. That’s a promise.” With his mouth poised on top of hers, Elias reached down and unzipped his pants, making a sound in his throat when he fisted himself. He dragged the head of his sex through her damp folds, his eyes losing focus with every pass, his fangs seeming to sharpen and throb. “I’m going to remember how wet my trash mouth made you between these legs, baby. Going to remember how you’re looking up at me with trust, even though I’m trying…I’m trying so damn hard not to go fast and break you. I’m going to remember your hair spread out behind you, the same color as the moon. I’m going to remember it all. Every goddamn detail. Okay?”

With an effort, she swallowed, some of the tension leaving her chest. “Okay.” A muscle jumped in his cheek and he seemed to be fighting a battle against saying more, but in the end he kissed her thoroughly, his fist still moving the blunt tip of his shaft from her entrance to her clit, again and again and again, until her hips turned agitated on the floor and she was panting, her fingers twisting in the back of his shirt. “Elias.”

“Roksana,” he said thickly against her lips, finally pushing the first, wide inch of his erection inside of her, then spearing deep with a hard twist of his hips. “Roksana.”

Overhead, bulbs shattered, setting off crackling fireworks in the dark hallway, outlining Elias’s strong shoulders and head with a light show.

Explosions went off inside Roksana as well. Thrilling ones, victorious ones.

I’m full of him. So full. So complete.

There was discomfort, as well, but it made her feel like a woman, a warrior and a sexpot all rolled into one. Her ache was full of his ache. They ached together.

“You’re a virgin,” he choked out into her neck. “Goddammit, Roks, am I hurting you?”

“A little.” She shifted her hips experimentally and he made a guttural, open-mouthed sound into the crook of her neck. “But I am used to pain, vampire.”

“Not from me.” His tone was vehement. “Not physically.”

If she found his statement odd, she was too wrapped up in the rush of endorphins to examine it too closely. “It is a good pain.” She squeezed him with her inner walls, whimpering when he swelled thicker inside of her, his abs jolting and flexing. “It’s the kind that l-leads to reward, is it not?”

“Yes.” He pressed his forehead down on hers, enthralling her with eyes that were slowly turning from black to gold, a glow increasing in their depths. “You’re going to get a reward all right. Just keep your thighs open and that pussy tight.”

His bad language made her flesh spasm around his shaft and they both groaned, Elias starting to rock his hips, lips peeling back to reveal the full, dangerous size of his fangs. “After all the taunting.” He thrust roughly and she cried out. “Flaunting ex-boyfriends.” Another merciless pump that rattled her teeth. “And threatening to date…” Pound pound pound. “You’re just an innocent, little tease. Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, exhilaration tickling her nerves endings. Who knew she would like being chastised so much? Lord, she did, though. She loved him calling her on the head games she’d played. Loved being sensually punished for them, one plunder of her body at a time. Loved the hard smack of his muscle, the quiver of her feminine flesh in response, the way her body stretched to acclimate to him. “Big,” she babbled, head tossing side to side. “You’re so big.”

The pace of his drives sped up, their eyes locked on one another. “I’m the right size for Roksana. That’s all I care about.” He reached down and squeezed her hip with blatant ownership, before walking his fingers to the place where their bodies joined, finding her clit with the pad of his middle finger and rubbing it in circles. “God help me, that pulse of yours is driving me insane. I don’t know how I’ve existed at all without tasting you.”

Knowing the moment drew close, Roksana’s sex constricted and she lost her ability to breathe. All she could do was turn her head to one side and beg incoherently for the act she didn’t understand, had no experience with, but somehow was essential. “Need it, need it.”

Elias flattened his tongue on her pulse, his body never ceasing in its deliberate invasion of hers, his hips pumping madly as his fangs settled over her neck, pressing tight, but holding back from breaking the skin. “My hunger for you goes so far beyond blood, Roksana. But it flows in the same endless way. You hear me?” Eyes a bright, burnished gold, he kissed her pulse reverently. “Mine.”

His fangs sank deep and paralysis locked her limbs, but somehow, she’d never felt more. A rush of dizziness fogged her mind, pleasure dug silken claws into her loins. She burned to wrap her body around Elias and hold him fast, but she was immobile, save the thundering of her heart. How could it not beat out of control when he feasted on her neck as if he’d just discovered his favorite flavor, moaning loud enough to make her ears ring. One of his hands cradled her cheek, the other balanced him on the ground, and pull, after pull, after pull of her blood made him wild, made him take her roughly, their bodies straining on the floor of the hallway—

A muffled boom brought Elias’s head up.

Another one had him clutching at his chest. Her world had already narrowed itself down to him, but now it was nothing but a cocoon holding them both, connecting them through the sudden change. Something blossomed inside of her in that moment fossilized in time, the gravity of what the loud beating meant drawing an awed sob from her mouth.

“Roksana,” he heaved, a shudder wracking him. “My heart is beating.” Wonder and gratitude crossed his handsome face. “You are my mate.”

She should have been reeling. Screaming.

Or denying it, despite the obvious truth.

But she could only think back to the first time she’d met him in that Vegas casino, how fate seemed to be propelling them from one minute into the next with an invisible hand, and a voice whispered in the back of her mind human or vampire, you knew you were his mate.

Like a key turning in a lock, a sense of purpose fit into place inside of her and she could only follow instinct. Please him. Give this to him. With greedy hands, she reached down to grip his hard buttocks, hauling him back into motion. “Don’t stop, don’t stop…”

“Jesus, you’re my mate. That means I can come inside you, Roksana,” he gritted out, the rhythm of his hips turning frantic, jaw going slack. “Ah, baby, baby, first time I’ve come in years and you’re giving me such a tight place to put it.”

Oh she had an idea. Her own orgasm was hurtling closer, like a bus heading toward a collision with a wall. It was going to decimate her, but she couldn’t stop tilting her pelvis at just that perfect angle, so the trunk of his sex would grind on her clit. Couldn’t stop clenching and unclenching around him, swelling that male part of him until every inch of her was not only filled to capacity, but every erogenous zone was being exploited. “Faster, faster,” she sobbed, her fingernails digging into the flesh of his backside—and then, clouds broke in the sky of her arousal and the sun blared through, beaming her up into the wide, blue yonder. “Elias!”

“Roksana. Mine, finally. My mate.” He bore down one final time and heat melted throughout her femininity. And in her chest from watching Elias in the throes of immortal abandonment and masculine gratitude as his body released for the first time in years. His body jerked violently several times, his shoulder muscles flexed, the veins in his throat standing out, amber detonating in his eyes.

Wetness coated the point where their bodies joined, spreading down her inner thighs until finally Elias collapsed on top of her, the sound of his heartbeat dancing with hers.

“Holy hell, vampire,” she breathed shakily. “If it was possible for vampires to get a woman pregnant, we would be having triplets in nine months.”

Elias puffed a laugh and lifted his head, staring down at Roksana with so much affection, tears began to leak from her eyes. And they fell even faster when dread slowly bled into his expression.

What now?

She could almost hear him asking that same question.

Elias was her enemy. The man she was going to kill.

She was his one true mate. Now that he’d drunk from her…

He could only drink from her. Nothing and no one else could sustain him.

And she still didn’t know why he was there tonight. Were they in competition?

Roksana’s heart rebelled stubbornly, willing her to forget the past, forget his most recent deception and follow its dictates. To simply…be with him, despite him being a vampire and her being a slayer. As if that were realistic.

Tears clogged Roksana’s throat as she rolled from beneath a rapidly stiffening Elias and fixed her dress. She’d just slept with the enemy. The man who’d locked her in a room, rendering her helpless while draining the life from her best friends. And she hadn’t just slept with him, she’d given herself over to him completely, defenses gone.

“Roksana,” he said, a warning clear in his tone.

A warning for what? Not to freak out over her inexcusable betrayal?

Before she could ask, footsteps came from the direction of the staircase and the man of the house came into view, a gun extended in his hand. “If the two of you are finished, the game will resume now.”

There was a loud snap, followed by a bloodcurdling scream from the fae.

Roksana was only given the tiniest window to watch in wonder as the man’s arm bent at an unnatural angle, seemingly with no assistance, before Elias blocked her view. His back bristled in front of her, wrath evident in the pitch of his growl.

And then everything went up in flames.

Angry red fire ripped along the perimeter of the room, tearing in zigzags on the ceiling, bursting out of light sockets. Roksana had never been one to cower, but the explosion was so unexpected, instinct dropped her into a crouched position, arms wrapped around her ducked head. What the hell was happening?

Slowly, she lifted her eyes and peeked through Elias’s braced legs to find the man of the house trapped in an incredible blaze, his gun forgotten at the top of the staircase. His squeals rang out, his hands batting at the flames, but that only seemed to make the fire rage harder.

That’s when Roksana realized Elias hadn’t moved. He stood still as a statue, heat radiating from his back, thighs…all of him.

“You’re doing this,” she whispered, her voice swallowed up in the pandemonium.

Tucker appeared at the top of the stairs, giving the burning fae wide berth and taking in the scene in a sweeping glance. “Damn, son. You got fire powers?” He scratched at his chin. “Jonas is going to be jealous.”

Oh my God. Elias was protecting his mate.

A vampire’s powers were latent until his mate was threatened, at which point they made themselves known with a vengeance. The danger had caused his abilities to manifest and now…he was about to burn this enormous house down. While they were still inside.

More importantly, while the marriage decree was still inside.

Roksana ignored the ridiculous flutter of feminine pleasure and jumped to her feet, swaying a little bit over the loss of blood. Perhaps later, when no one was around, she would press a secret smile into her pillow—she’d induced a man to make fire—but right now, she had a job to do. “I’m going to go find some marshmallows and coat hangers,” she called, skirting past Elias, weaving through the enflamed fae and Tucker. Extremely aware of the need to hurry, she hopped onto the banister and slid down to the main floor, hitting the ground running and heading for the stairs leading down to the basement.

“Roksana,” Elias boomed, causing the overhead chandelier to shake, along with the floor. “You are not going anywhere without me.”

Her steps faltered on the marble floor, a dark, twisting yearning cropping up in her belly. Elias could no longer live without her. Was she really going to run away from him?

Yes.

Yes, because what was her other option?

Become her enemy’s permanent meal?

On the way down the stairs, her hand stole to her neck, noting the bite marks already seemed to be fading. Despite her self-recriminations over what she’d done, syrupy heat wound through her nervous system remembering the desperation in Elias’s bite. How needed she’d felt. How complete. How she’d never wanted it to end.

I shouldn’t have given in. Now I know.

Now she was aware of the deep mutual fulfillment. Would she ever stop needing it?

Needing him?

Ignoring the creeping desolation, Roksana paused at the bottom of the staircase, listening for voices. Surveying her surroundings and taking stock of potential challenges in her quest to retrieve the marriage decree. Fae Twin Number One still sat at the poker table, head in hands. Mourning his lost brother? Her fellow slayer and the other twin had been removed to God knew where. Tucker was upstairs with Elias—although not for long. They could move at the speed of light so she needed to be quick. Not to mention, the smell of smoke and ash was already reaching the basement. Get what you need and get out.

A too-casual humming noise approached, tilting Roksana’s head.

Cosette approached.

An air of malice and grief and rage preceded her.

It appeared their friendship would be a short-lived one.

Gripping the top of the doorframe, Roksana swung into the basement feet-out, blocking the blow from an axe. The sharp edge took sliced off an inch of her sole.

Good thing she’d hung onto Elias’s credit card. She’d need a new pair of boots.

“Where is the man of the house?” shrieked the fairy, her eyes swimming with glittering crimson. “What have you done to him? To my home?”

The fairy levered the axe back and brought it down hard. Roksana remained in place as long as possible, before feinting left to dodge the blow, smashing a knee into the fairy’s nose. “Thanks for letting me borrow the dress,” Roksana said, delivering a savage elbow to the back of her opponent’s head, dropping her to the floor unconscious. “I’ll have it dry-cleaned.”

Not waiting so much as a beat, Roksana vaulted over the fairy’s slumped figure.

She snatched up the marriage decree from the center of the poker table and tucked it into the bodice of her dress, dashing back up the stairs two at a time. With the ceiling above fully engulfed in flames now, she sprinted through the luxurious foyer and threw open the front door.

It slammed shut, the hinges rattling violently.

Roksana whipped around and plastered her back against the door, her skin quivering with the awareness that Elias was right behind her. And he was, but this vampire was eminently more powerful than she’d ever seen him. Despite calling on every ounce of her common sense, she couldn’t help marveling over the amber fire illuminating his eyes, the rippling swell of his muscles, the possessiveness which was a presence unto itself…and knowing she was responsible.

A hot shudder cascaded down her spine, her body demanding she remain in his presence, but her mind compelled her to shake the door handle, attempting to free herself.

“The sun will be up soon,” she blurted. “You can’t follow me or you’ll die.”

“I will always follow you.”

Badump, badump, badump. Could she…hear his heart pounding? His heart. Lifting her chin, Roksana tried not to let him see how badly that resurgence of his past humanity made her want to weep and celebrate. “You have no choice but to follow me, da? I’m your mate.”

“I’d have followed you either way. I have always followed you and I always will.” He jabbed a finger in the air. “Do not pretend to think otherwise.”

“Please keep these sentiments to yourself,” she whispered, shaken. “True or not, they hinder my judgment.”

Elias’s nostrils flared. “They make you question if I’m still your enemy?”

“Nothing can question that,” she said hoarsely. “You didn’t even tell me you would be here tonight. No doubt you are working against me.”

“I’m sure it must seem that way,” he said carefully, scrutinizing her, visibly restraining himself from coming closer. “But do you believe it?”

“Yes,” she pushed through clenched teeth. Then softly, “I don’t know.”

Was that victory flaring in his eyes? “Give me your trust and hand me the decree, Roks. I don’t want to take it from you.”

Pain lanced her square in the stomach. One moment he made vows to follow her forever, the next he betrayed her. “You would sentence me to death at the hands of my mother, Elias?”

The very suggestion seemed to cause him pain. “Never.”

“Your actions tell me otherwise.” Horror of horrors, tears welled in her eyes, one of them rappelling down her cheek before she could swipe it away hastily with a wrist.

Elias made a choked noise. “No. No crying. Not you.”

“It’s the fumes from the fire.”

Visibly dazed by her display of emotion, Elias seemed to finally recall the house was going up in flames. Suddenly they were outside on the stoop, Elias’s arms encircling her waist. Every nerve ending in her body pushed to the places her softness made contact with his muscle, but she forced herself to shove him away. “Where is Tucker?”

On cue, a car pulled up at the curb, the horn tapping out “Shave and a Haircut…Two Bits.”

Tucker saluted them from the driver’s seat, but Elias never took his eyes off her.

“You have to go and find cover. It’s almost dawn.” He didn’t budge and unwanted urgency clawed the insides of her throat. “Please.”

“You beg me to hide from the sun,” he grated. “But you’re trying to leave me behind knowing I can no longer survive without your blood? Your body?”

Pressure weighed down so heavily on her chest, she couldn’t speak.

Elias eliminated her personal space, reaching up to cup her cheek, and she was powerless to do anything but lean in to his touch. “If it was just my safety in question, I wouldn’t stand in your way. But it’s yours, too, and I don’t fuck around with that.” He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “People and places might seem safe to you, baby. But they could be the most dangerous of all.”

Frustration twisted beneath her skin like thorns. “Why does everything have to be a riddle, temnota moya?” His eyelids drifted shut, so she couldn’t search for any recognition of the nickname. There would be none anyway. Why did she continue to hope? She didn’t know. She just needed to get out of there now or she would give in to the gravity between them and stay. Give in to the responsibility of being his mate, his source of life, and never leave his side. “If you let me go now,” she whispered, “I’ll forgive you.”

Elias went extremely still. “For what I did in Vegas?”

She closed her eyes. “Yes.”

“No. I don’t accept,” he roared, eyes glittering. “I don’t deserve it.”

Roksana bashed at his chest with her fists. “There is nothing else I can offer you.”

He gripped her elbows, holding her still. “Marry me.”

Inside the house, a beam fell and shook the foundation. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“Not to rush anyone, but we’ve got about eight minutes until sunrise,” Tucker called through the rolled down passenger window. “And not for nothing, but the neighbors are bound to notice the house on fire.”

Elias didn’t even flinch. “Agree to marry me and I’ll give you a head start back to New York.”

“How do you know I’m going to New—” She ripped her arms out of his hold. “Oh, never mind. Go get in the car or you’re going to burn, damn you.”

“Your concern is a good sign. Say yes and I’ll go.”

This was complete insanity. Could she really make this man her husband knowing she would eventually kill him? Then again, wasn’t a piece of paper a mere formality considering she was already his mate? Elias would consider Roksana his either way.

“Six minutes,” Tucker drawled through the window.

“Fine, vampire! I’ll marry you.” Roksana shouted over her shoulder, already storming down the stairs, Elias hot on her heels. “It’s going to be my pleasure making you miserable.” She ripped open the car’s passenger side door, imploring Elias with her eyes to get in. “Do you care nothing for your own life?”

“Suddenly I’ve got a much stronger urge to survive,” Elias rasped, cradling the back of her head in his palm, winding her hair between his fingers and kissing her mouth possessively. There was a car door between their bodies, but she pressed against it anyway, seeking contact and felt him bump hard against it, too, pursuing a physical connection. Mouth open and hungry, his tongue speared into her mouth and licked it possessively, reminding her of the way he’d tasted her between the legs. How he’d looked, kneeling between her thighs. Dominant and prepared to serve, all at once. She whimpered and gave her tongue over, letting him possess it with a groaning stroke, before he pulled away. “Be safe until I can be with you again.”

A moment later, Elias was gone in a squeal of tires. In the approaching dawn, Roksana reeled in place on the curb, positive the last couple of hours had been a dream, until the sound of sirens pierced the quiet, reminding her to get moving.

Focus on the mission.

Not on the fact that someday soon, you’ll kill your own husband.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Coney Island, 2018

Elias leaned back against the headstone of a young mother, letting soil slide through his fingertips, the wind sifting it sideways. Like he’d done every night this week, he sat in the graveyard beneath the heavy moon and waited for a slayer to arrive, ready to hunt. Hoping it would be Roksana, while equally dreading the possibility.

Although his penance to Inessa had been served in Moscow, not New York, he knew damn well where slayers preferred to roam. To hunt. Where they searched for his kind, eager to snuff out their vile existence.

He awaited the battle just as eagerly, desperate to feel anything.

Desperate to be punished for his sins. His helplessness when she needed him.

After Roksana freed him from the prison beneath the facility, he’d felt like a fucking kid again, devoid of direction. Penniless. Feeling as if he didn’t know how to belong in the world. Like any dog, he’d been pulled in the direction of home. Not Los Angeles. No, he’d been called to the last place he felt normal. The last place that held good memories for him.

He’d gone back to Vegas.

It hadn’t been easy, figuring out how to travel safely now that sunlight could snuff him out. He’d used a stolen credit card to book travel to Vegas in an Internet café. It had taken several flights over the course of a week, stopping over in unfamiliar places so he could take cover from the light, before finally reaching Sin City once again.

There he’d found it incredible easy to make money. A lot of it.

He’d discovered his ability to compel humans by accident, when in a bout of hunger, he’d demanded a blood bank employee open their doors after closing time. After all these years, he was back to being resentful, combative. Feral. He was the man who’d settled Jaxson into a life of crime, then exited stage right, not bothering to look back at the destruction left in his wake until it was too late.

Within the walls of the casinos, he’d taken money off unsuspecting humans, using his abilities to compel them or simply read their pulse. He’d disgusted himself in doing so, but what were his other means of survival? He had none. Just like Jaxson. And so, during those dark nights in Vegas, he’d been humbled in his own downfall. Made aware of how superior he’d once believed himself to be, even while grieving his friend. How quickly a man could go from the top to a bottom feeder.

Most of the money he’d won had gone to Jaxson’s family. He’d also donated to the S.W.A.T. team he’d left behind, sending the cash in an envelope with the words, “From Silent E,” written on a note inside. Elias must have been paying closer attention than he originally thought to Kenny, Latte and the rest. How they thought and operated. Because he knew instinctively that when he went missing, they probably believed they’d failed their teammate. Hopefully the message he’d sent would give them some closure, if not satisfying answers.

After the donations he’d made, Elias had a sizeable amount of money. Too much to spend in three lifetimes, especially since he’d taken up residence in the seediest motel he could find. At least there he didn’t have to watch people going about happy, healthy lives. He could be the company to the misery surrounding him.

The sound of grass being depressed beneath a heel narrowed Elias’s eyes to slits. This one was more skilled than the others. Moved more quietly.

Anticipation stole up his spine. Was it her?

This time, he wasn’t a starving prisoner. She wouldn’t let him slide, wishing for a more fulfilling fight. She’d drive that stake into the dead organ in his chest and finally, finally, he’d be free. He wouldn’t have to live with the sounds of her betrayed screams anymore. Wouldn’t have to live with this constant burn for someone he’d never deserve. He’d give her the retribution she needed, because it was all he had to offer now.

There was no reason to believe she’d be in New York, instead of Moscow, but he was slowly making his way back to Russia, one domestic flight at a time and maybe, just maybe they’d met in the middle. She’d promised to hunt him, hadn’t she? He’d used their time apart growing more adept at managing his new superhuman movements and strength, so he’d never again feel as helpless as he had outside that chapel.

Elias heard the footsteps stop behind the headstone and braced himself for the sting of her stake entering his chest—but it never came.

“Right,” said a brisk male voice that hinted at the south. “Come with me.”

Elias gained his feet and spun, ready to attack, finding a vampire roughly his age watching him with an air of confident curiosity. “Who the hell are you?”

The man put out his hand. “I’m Jonas Cantrell. Here to save you from your self-pity.”

“Fuck. Off.”

Jonas’s composure stayed intact, but he let his hand fall away. “How have you been feeding?” He scanned him with a critical eye, probably seeing the outline of his ribcage, the dirt under his fingernails. “Have you been feeding?”

“Only when I can’t hold off any longer,” Elias said after a stubborn silence. “It’s not natural. We are not natural.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean we can allow ourselves to lack purpose.”

“I have a purpose. I’m waiting here for her.”

Jonas raised an eyebrow. “A woman?”

“A slayer.” Elias dropped back to the ground, taking his post against the headstone. “I owe her a debt and I’m waiting for her to collect it.”

“Interesting.” Jonas blurred into a crouch at his side. “And then what?”

“What do you mean ‘and then what’?”

Jonas shrugged. “She won’t have long to enjoy her revenge.”

Something hot and dangerous roiled through Elias, the muscles bunching at the base of his neck. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means the lifespan of a slayer is woefully short. They can train all they want, they’re seldom a match for inhuman speed and reflexes.”

“She’s smarter than most,” Elias said through his teeth.

“The fact remains.” The other vampire almost sounded bored now. “She’ll probably only have a year tops to enjoy the retribution you offer her.”

Denial lodged in his throat. “I don’t like you.”

Jonas laughed and the graveyard fell silent for long moments. “I’ve watched you fight these last three nights. I need someone like you to have my back.”

“Again, I say, fuck off.”

His mouth twitched. “I’m the good guy.”

Elias snorted. “There are no good vampires.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Jonas’s voice swelled with sincerity. “If we have to drag our lifeless bodies around eternally, I’m going to validate us. You can help me.” He paused. “More than that, you can help her. The slayer.”

Elias’s head whipped around. “How?”

“Like I said, she won’t live long. But you could protect her.” His gaze cut toward the ground. “Once upon a time, there was someone I would have guarded from the shadows eternally, if I’d been given the chance. Take it now. Live knowing you’ll help her do the same.”

“She hates me. Rightly so.”

Jonas stood and extended his hand again. “Who says she has to know?”

This time, Elias reached back.

Six months later

Elias sat perched on the roof of the building like a stone gargoyle, his fingers biting into the brick so hard they eventually drilled through.

There she was below.

Roksana.

Swaggering through the dark alley, wearing her invincibility like a cloak.

More beautiful than anything on earth, as always.

To say the sight of her was welcome would be a heinous understatement. She was a sparrow arriving on the bow of a boat to alert weary sailors that land was near. That grace and freedom and home was close by. Elias took a moment to absorb the sight of her into his bones, and another, longer one to remind himself he couldn’t let his presence be known. No matter how badly he wanted to drop down in front of her from ten stories above, fall to his knees and beg forgiveness, his presence was supposed to remain a secret.

Elias never intervened in her fights. He simply hung back.

After all, he’d watched proudly from the shadows as she’d kicked the shit out of dozens of vampires, slinging catchphrases and stakes like nobody’s business. He’d ached afterward watching her limp off alone, her demeanor one of deep dissatisfaction. It was those times he almost gave in and offered himself up. Her ultimate revenge. But he always managed to pull back, reminding himself that his protection could be more valuable someday.

As if the universe read his mind, Elias watched a vampire stalk Roksana in the shadows.

Any second now, she would turn and roundhouse him in the jaw. Turn him to dust.

But time ticked by and still she seemed distracted.

Lost in thought.

“Come on,” Elias hissed, prowling to the opposite corner of the roof and back, his eyes never leaving her. “Turn around, havoc wreaker. Turn around.”

She didn’t.

The vampire broke into a sprint and with panic slicing him in two, Elias didn’t hesitate. He dropped from the building, landing between Roksana and her predator, asphalt rippling out around him in a wave. “She’s off limits,” Elias seethed at her would-be attacker, his fingers loosening at his sides. “Run. And that offer is only good for the next five seconds.”

Based on the vampire’s expression, he recognized Elias immediately.

Elias had been living with Jonas in New York for the last six months. Long enough to know half of the vampire population respected and emulated the former prince, while the other half failed to fall into line, choosing instead to embrace their predatory nature. This vampire obviously fell into the latter category.

“Five…four…three…”

Elias trailed off when Roksana’s attacker cursed and vanished into the shadows.

He couldn’t stop himself from waiting, holding his breath to see if she’d take advantage of his back being turned. He was almost disappointed when she didn’t. Bracing himself, Elias slowly turned to face the slayer, finding her immobile with shock.

Thirst for her blood—only hers—rocked him, but he used every ounce of strength to block it. God, he hadn’t seen her up close since the night she let him out of prison. In his pitiful, weakened state, his eyesight must have lacked the precision it did now. With the moonlight shining on her face, he could count every fleck of black around her irises. Could get lost in the indentations on her lower lip where she’d clearly been chewing. The subtle jut of her nipples might have gone undetected by a human man, but he witnessed the gradual swell and his cock followed suit, swiftly and relentlessly.

One taste. I would do anything for one taste of her.

Roksana blinked up at Elias and raised her stake in an unsteady hand, shifting her stance side to side, and he forced himself to ignore the stir of arousal in his belly. The poor girl. Her heart was going a thousand miles an hour. Didn’t she know he’d walk into the sun to take back the hurt he’d inflicted? Did she really think he’d inflict more?

“I didn’t need you to do that,” she said in a rush. “W-why did you do that?”

I’m drawn to you. I ache to be near you. Protecting you drives me.

The truth wasn’t an option. Roksana hated him. Admitting how deep his feelings ran would only repel her. Moreover, she might suspect he remembered that night in Vegas. Before the massacre. Before he’d lost his humanity. And if he admitted to remembering that night, he’d have to tell her the truth about who made him a vampire. About the deal he’d cut with Inessa to train her slayers, in exchange for her life that fateful night. The knowledge could endanger her—and he would never put her in harm’s way. His only wish left in this life was keeping her safe.

Lastly, he remembered how she’d spoken of her mother in the slayer prison.

The great Queen of Shadows is my mother. I train under her watch and for that, I am fortunate. She has honor and patience, something you’ll never understand. She’s given me the gift of vengeance and it is what pulled me from the hole you dropped me into, monster.

Elias knew what it was like to lose the last person on earth that meant a damn to you. He didn’t even realize how much he considered Jaxson a brother until he’d aimed his gun, did his job like a well-oiled machine and kept moving, even while his past seemed to be evaporating, like it never existed at all. No way would he cause Roksana that kind of pain. If she believed her mother to be some benevolent saint, that’s how it would stay. He’d never divest her of that notion and take away the remainder of who she loved.

Not when he’d allowed so many to be eliminated already.

“I asked you a question, vampire. Why did you help me?” Understanding seemed to dawn on her face. “I set you free from prison. Telling your buddy to vamoose is your way of returning the favor, da?”

Elias scoffed. “You think I put that much thought into it?” He shook his head. “The man I work for doesn’t want blood spilled on his turf. I’m doing my job. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Her posture deflated momentarily before she built herself back up. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing vampires don’t bleed.” She rocked back into a battle stance, twirling her stake once between her fingers. “I’ve been hunting you for months and tonight you’ll finally die by my hand.”

He pretended not to hear the wobble in her voice on that final word.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I couldn’t save them.

I’m sorry I drove you to this violent life so unsuited to your bright spirit.

Elias could say none of those things out loud. But in the spirit of keeping Roksana alive, he could use her hatred of him. Use it to make her tough. Use it to disguise his true feelings.

“Will a fight between us even be worth my time?” He rubbed at the scar bisecting his lip. “That vampire was making enough noise to wake the dead—and I should know, right? Meanwhile, you were daydreaming.”

Indignation squared her shoulders. “Nyet. I would have heard him before the strike. My reflexes rival a jungle cat.”

“Who told you that? Your mommy?” When she flinched, self-loathing twisted his insides. “Another second and it would have been too late. Run along and learn how to become a worthy opponent for someone like me. Until then, I’m not wasting my time.”

Red bloomed on her cheeks. “I wish you to hell.”

I’m already there, baby, Elias thought, but said nothing.

Her light brows pulled together. “Who do you work for?”

Telling her that piece of information wasn’t wise, but he wanted Roksana to know where she could find him. Always. This would help. And at the end of the day, he might work for Jonas’s cause, but his own purpose—guarding the slayer—trumped everything else. “Jonas Cantrell.”

Roksana hid her surprise well. “I have heard of this bloodsucker. He seeks to help the Freshly Silenced and give them a human existence.” She shook her head. “But there is no such thing as an honorable vampire. I know this well.”

“Your opinion is irrelevant.”

His rude rejoinder narrowed her eyes and she dropped down once again onto the balls of her feet, stake at the ready. “Fight me now, vampire.” There was a note of desperation in her tone when she added, “Please.”

She can’t make the first move.

Neither could he.

They stood mere feet from one another in the moonlit alley, neither one of them moving, her puffs of breath the only sound for miles. Her internal struggle was visible in her eyes. She wanted to kill him, but couldn’t. She looked at him and still saw the man she kissed with total abandon that night in Vegas—and she hated herself for it.

But not nearly as much as he hated himself.

Elias gave her a once-over and sighed. “Find me when you’re ready.”

She sniffed and swiped at her nose. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll slaughter all of you.”

He started to walk away, but stopped and looked back over his shoulder. He couldn’t verbally offer her his devotion and protection, but he was driven to make her a vow. Some kind of promise to her that he would keep, no matter what, so she might one day believe him to be unwavering, even if she hated him. “I still owe you a favor for releasing me from the prison. And I will return it one day.”

“Keep it. I want nothing from you.”

Her words struck him like sharp stones. “It’s yours regardless.”

He walked away wondering how a dead heart could ache so much.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Roksana paced back and forth in front of the hut, trying to talk herself out of ringing the bell. She’d disembarked from her flight at JFK and instead of going straight to Enders to complete the next leg of her mission, she’d rented a car and driven to Massachusetts.

Stupid.

Sure, she might be welcome in the multi-story chamber located beneath the assuming hut, where the High Order once dwelled—before Jonas usurped them—but she shouldn’t be. The vampires in residence should tremble at the very mention of her name. That would not be the case, though. Ginny would probably put out coffee and cake.

And she would eat it.

I am the world’s most pitiful slayer.

The marriage decree was still tucked safely in the bodice of her dress. She could walk into Enders and exchange it for the game piece sought by Inessa.

But once the next part of her task was finished, all that would remain was to kill Elias.

Roksana scrubbed at the back of her neck and started a quick-paced lap around the car. There was an odd tightness in her midsection that had been increasing ever since she boarded her flight in Moscow. No amount of stretching or breathing exercises would ease the strain.

She couldn’t simply be missing Elias. Could she?

Guilt formed like a brick in her belly. It would be ridiculous to miss this man she was supposed to hunt. This man who’d torn her happiness away when he could have taken anyone else. Any loss of human life would have been a tragedy, but he’d specifically chosen her friends and now she worried over the fact that he couldn’t feed? That he could be hungry if she wasn’t there to nourish him? Such knowledge should be inconsequential to her. He would be dead soon enough by her hand, wouldn’t be? Since she’d been unable to stake him thus far, maybe starving him to death was the best option.

Roksana looked down, alarmed to find her hands wringing together.

With a broken off sound, she started pacing again, this time weaving through the trees of the surrounding forest, her boots snapping twigs in her haste to move, move, keep moving.

Get rid of the ache.

After her mission was complete and she’d ended Elias’s life, she would no longer be welcome in Ginny’s home. Another friend lost. How would she hug the vampire queen knowing what the future held? How would she look Jonas in the eye?

Dammit, no matter how hard she’d tried, becoming friends with the vampire king had been unavoidable, hadn’t it? He was noble. Proof that good vampires existed. After that long ago evening in Coney Island when Elias saved her in the alley, she’d sought Jonas out, thinking she might earn her mother’s approval by staking this so-called savior of the vampire race. By taking him and Elias out in one fell swoop.

Instead, she’d watched Jonas and Elias—Tucker rounding out the trio—work in fascination. Watched them locate Freshly Silenced vampires in the throes of their confusion and help them acclimate to a quiet, new life. A life where killing humans was off limits. She’d almost resented Jonas for bringing Elias into his well-meaning fold. She wanted him to be the face of her rage, this man who’d participated in the massacre of her friends. Was that so much to ask?

Roksana firmed her chin. Her mother’s appeasement, forgiveness, and possibly even approval would be enough to sustain her through this loss, just like the last one. She’d throw herself back into her training and make her mother proud. To memorialize her friends.

That was the goal that had seen her through the darkness.

Why was she losing sight of it now?

Roksana stomped to the hut, ringing the bell, giving her middle finger to the camera that whirred downward to scan her face.

The door popped open and she stepped inside, closing it behind her.

The interior of the small room held nothing but a metal elevator door and it rolled open now. After the slightest hesitation, she let herself be enclosed in the elegant car, her stomach dropping when the elevator started to plummet. She’d never actually been to the High Order’s hold before, but Ginny gave her the address once, telling her she’d always have a room ready if the slayer needed one.

Roksana swallowed the object in her throat and took a long, bracing breath.

A well-kept vampire stood with his chest puffed out when the elevator door sprang open. A quick once-over of Roksana was followed by an eyebrow raise. If he was scandalized by her leather minidress she’d been wearing since the poker game, he could join all the pearl-clutching mamas on the flight from Moscow. “Too much leg?” She breezed past the vampire into a dark stone hall. “You’re welcome.”

The hold seemed to be in a state of transition, which made sense since Jonas had only become the new vampire king months earlier. Torches sat unlit on the walls, a man on a ladder unhooked a heavy velvet tapestry and let it drop to a heap on the floor. There was a scent of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies in the air.

Vampires didn’t eat baked goods.

Roksana sighed. “You knew I was coming.”

“Yes,” Ginny squealed, rushing into the hall and throwing her arms around Roksana’s neck, choking the oxygen out of her. Roksana tapped her friend on the back and Ginny released her with a contrite expression. “Sorry, I’m still getting the hang of the whole superhuman abilities thing.”

Roksana’s lips kicked up at the corner. “I’m sure it’s a complicated process.”

“Yes. I’m not allowed to have pets yet.” Ginny clasped her hands together beneath her chin. “So. Are you going to tell me why you’ve been pacing back and forth outside for an hour?”

The slayer sniffed, disgusted when her cheeks burned with color. “Give me cookies and I’ll think about it.”

Five minutes later, Ginny had led Roksana upstairs to a small, book-lined study. The friends were sprawled out a butter-soft leather couch, their feet stretched out in front of them, bare toes being warmed by a crackling fire. Roksana had the plate balanced on her full stomach. There was one cookie left and it wasn’t a mystery who would be consuming it.

“Eating with you is no longer fun,” Roksana complained. “There is no one to share the guilt with.”

Ginny snuggled her face into a pillow, but couldn’t hide her smile. “You seemed to enjoy it just fine. There was nine of them when we sat down.”

“Rude of you to count. And I didn’t eat on my flight from Moscow.” She used the heel of her hand to rub at the emptiness at the center of her ribcage. “I was hoping food would make this go away.”

“Make what go away?”

“I don’t know. Nerves or something.”

Determined to ignore the discomfort, Roksana set aside the plate hastily and turned on her side to face Ginny. Having a friend at this stage in her life never failed to make Roksana feel indulgent. Like she was giving in to an unwise temptation. How easily she knew friends could be taken away and wasn’t she just an idiot for setting herself up for that pain again? But a welcoming magnetic pull existed around Ginny, an old soul energy, that made it impossible for Roksana to resist. Quite simply, she loved her.

And this could be the last time Ginny looked upon her with open acceptance. She couldn’t squander that gift.

“I am Elias’s mate.”

Ginny’s lips popped open. “Whoa.”

“Da,” she sighed.

“I-I mean, we always suspected there was something serious there. You’d have to be pretty blind to miss the chemistry.” She paused. “But in order for him to know you’re his mate, he had to drink from you.”

Roksana rolled over until she was face down on the couch and groaned. “There was a potion involved and…I had a rare lapse in judgment.”

Liar.

I’m always this desperate for you. Every minute, every second, every day. The drink only took away my ability to hide it. Believe me, Roksana.

Her eyes had been wide open and so were his.

Roksana shoved her face further into the pillows.

She sensed Ginny sitting up slowly. “Where is Elias now?”

“I don’t know. Probably en route from Moscow.”

Several seconds went by. “Um. About those nerves you’ve been feeling…”

“Nyet.” Roksana sat up so fast she grew momentarily dizzy. “I know what you’re thinking and it’s not the same thing.”

Ginny failed to disguise her skepticism. “When we found out I was Jonas’s mate, because of—you know—that whole accidental fang scratch?” She shook her head. “You were with me, Roksana. You know how much suffering I went through.”

“You experienced his hunger because he was also your mate. Your soul knew this even as a human and…no. No, I am a slayer. A permanent human. There might be a boyfriend or a husband someday. That is all. I cannot have a mate.” Her friend said nothing, just letting the conclusions draw themselves. The answer Roksana had been staunchly avoiding since the yearning woke inside of her. “Perhaps it’s heartburn?” She avoided Ginny’s gaze so she wouldn’t have to see the doubt there. The complications dangling in front of her on invisible strings. “My mother…if she knew…”

“If she knew, what?” Ginny asked softly.

She would ridicule me. Have me beaten. Turn her back on me.

Hadn’t she already done those things, though?

Roksana mentally leapt back from the shock of the truth, lunging off the couch to go stare into the dancing flames of the fire. A crowbar seemed to slide between her ribs and twist, but she forced herself to breathe. To have no outward reaction. She was stronger than most, wasn’t she? If she ignored the yawning pit of hunger inside her, it would go away.

If Ginny’s theory was true, though…Elias was feeling it, too.

And it would never go away for him. Until he died.

“I knew Elias before he was a vampire,” Roksana whispered, turning to face her friend.

She drew up short when she found Jonas framed in the doorway of the study, several yards behind his wife. “I know,” he said, striding into the room in that royal way of his.

Roksana took several breaths, attempting to get her shock under control. It wasn’t so much shock that Jonas knew. The king surely made it his business to know everything, especially about his closest allies. It was the acknowledgment that the night she’d met Elias in Vegas existed. It had been real. That another person believed her, validated her, made Roksana want to sink to her knees and wail like a baby. In triumph, in pain. In both.

It wasn’t a dream after all.

Jonas laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder and Ginny covered it with her own, her face betraying nothing. Had she known, too? It would likely remain a mystery, because Roksana sensed Ginny would never reveal anything Jonas told her in confidence.

“How did you know?” Roksana asked Jonas, hating the threadbare quality of her voice. “He couldn’t have told you, because he doesn’t remember.”

The king’s stoic expression didn’t change. “I made it my business to know everything about Elias Perry before he became part of my inner circle. What I learned about his past satisfied any doubts about his character.”

Roksana breathed a humorless laugh. “Maybe you didn’t learn the whole story then.”

Jonas’s head tilted ever so slightly. “Does that sound like me?”

She ground her back teeth together. “My friends were mutilated by his hand. He was there. He put me in an office to be tortured by their screams—”

“Until I became king, I only had second-hand accounts of what happened that night. I trusted them. But I inherited a lot of things in addition to the throne.” He seemed to be unconscious of the fact that he was cupping Ginny’s cheek, tracing her earlobe with his thumb. “Whenever a vampire risks discovery by humans, evidence is collected.”

Roksana’s heart missed a beat. “What do you mean ‘evidence’?”

“My sire kept records of vampire transgressions. For blackmail, no doubt. We all remember how he liked eliminating his own kind as punishment while neglecting to provide them with the correct tools for survival.” Jonas’s jaw popped. “Most likely, the High Order are responsible for cleaning up the mess of that night. Paid off law enforcement to keep quiet. Hid it from the press.” He gave a heavy pause. “Roksana…there is an archive of evidence here in the hold. I’ve only begun to go through it, but…”

Ginny tipped her head back to meet her husband’s eyes.

Her friend definitely hadn’t known this part.

“I warn you, it won’t be easy to watch,” Jonas said quietly. “But I can show you what happened that night.”

An invisible fist buried itself in the center of Roksana’s stomach. “There is a tape?”

“Surveillance footage, yes.”

She stiffened. Could she watch her friends’ lives being snuffed out? Being behind a door and listening to the slaughter take place had been the worst moments of her life. But seeing it? She would never get the images out of her head. And…

What if she had no choice but to alter the scene she’d envisioned for so long?

Elias ripping out the throats of her childhood best friends, feasting on them with the same lips he’d used to kiss her so passionately the night of the poker game. She’d operated with a strict set of beliefs concerning that night for so long…what if watching the tapes blew them sky high?

Don’t be a coward.

She’d spent years failing to avenge the deaths of her friends. Didn’t she owe it to them to at least watch this tape and go through the suffering with them?

“Show me.”

Roksana sat on a hard chair facing a computer screen.

She didn’t look left or right. Jonas had led her to this room and she’d gone silently, a numb woman walking, afraid to stare anywhere but the path ahead, worried doing so might tempt her to escape.

“The events prior to this are unclear,” Jonas said, his finger hovering over the keyboard. “Elias hasn’t told me who Silenced him. Or how it happened. Maybe he truly doesn’t know—”

“Does it matter how? He got what he wanted. To be immortal.”

The king’s skepticism was obvious. “Even if you really believe that was his motive, how could he have ended up at this chapel—”

“I told him we’d be there,” Roksana cut in, voice hard. “I brought this on them.”

Jonas gave a long exhale. “Roksana, those first few days and weeks after being Silenced are normally a tortuous blur. For Elias to not only remember the location, but transport himself somewhere with a clear mission? It’s not only unlikely, it’s practically impossible.”

“I recently played poker with some murderous fae,” she muttered. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that nothing is impossible in this world.”

Jonas hit a button on the keyboard and left the room. She was grateful for it. She had no idea what it would be like to witness the hellish night from her memories and didn’t want an audience. The screen remained blue for several seconds before soundless, grainy black and white footage commenced, waves of static passing through a still image of the chapel’s interior. It looked so much smaller than the place in her memory, the cheap pews and three-day-old flower stands especially garish without her friends’ laughter to make it an adventure.

Roksana watched in a trance as she appeared on the screen, her smile effusive and youthful. Why wouldn’t it be? At that time in her life, she’d been happy to pretend the horrors of the earth didn’t exist. She’d chosen to live a life free of the lessons her mother tried to teach her, picking ignorant bliss instead. There was an extra lightness in past-Roksana’s step, too, courtesy of meeting the man of her dreams the night before. Knowing she’d see him again tonight. Never in a million years could she have imagined what was about to take place.

Her knuckles ached from gripping the arms of the chair, but she didn’t abate the pressure, needing it to stay grounded. Kira twirled down the aisle of the chapel, her skirt fanning out around her. Roksana passed around an inexpensive bottle of champagne to her friends, the chapel director trying to wrangle the group of free-spirited Russians and get them in place for the ceremony.

Suddenly, everyone in the group jumped, backing away from the entrance. They all moved, trying to find cover, but Roksana remained in place, frozen. Vampires prowled into the space. God, she didn’t remember there being so many of them, she’d been so focused on Elias. A lot like now, when she held her breath, watching him stagger into the open, obviously trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

Elias…

That was him, but not. Her memory hadn’t catalogued details that stood out to her now. His gait was disjointed, blurring in short bursts of speed, then stopping, as if he couldn’t get control of his movements. His clothes were torn and streaked with blood. His own? And the misery etched into his features. How could she not have remembered?

A hand appeared in front of the lens, blocking the view of the interior. But not before she saw a white feather in the grainy corner of the screen.

Her stomach bottomed out.

There’d been a vampire in the bar with her and Elias the night before with a white feather in his hat. How could she have forgotten?

The implications dug into her flesh like sharp dagger tips. She was still sorting through them when the camera moved and all she could see was the rear of the chapel.

Roksana shot forward in her chair, uselessly pressing buttons on the keyboard. “No.”

She needed to watch. She wanted to be there with them. For them.

Roksana started to call for Jonas to ask if readjusting the footage was possible, but Elias moved into the frame again, this time carrying her over his shoulder. His eyes were pinched shut, his nostrils flared. Starved for blood. At the time, she wouldn’t have recognized a vampire’s thirst, but she did now. Especially this man’s.

On the screen, Elias went so far as to press his fangs to her neck and inhale, his muscles flexing with the effort of restraining himself. But he didn’t give in. Instead, he pushed her into a room and slammed the door, dropping to his knees and holding it closed.

And that’s where he stayed, grinding his forehead into the doorjamb as if tortured.

Protecting Roksana from the same fate as her friends. Fighting his physical and mental upheaval in order to do it. Nothing had happened as she imagined. Reconciling the Elias she knew with a violent murderer had always been difficult. Still, she’d always assumed his involvement in their butchery of her friends ran much deeper.

She’d made a career out of hating him for it.

What if she’d been seeing everything in black and white, while ignoring shades of gray?

What if she’d been wrong to blame Elias?

She stared at the screen long after it went blank until finally Ginny and Jonas entered the room, guiding Roksana to her feet and down the stone hallway. “Come on, I’ve got a shower running for you and a change of clothes.”

“Who were those other vampires? Do you know the man with the white feather in his hat?” Roksana asked, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. “I always thought Elias led the vampires who Silenced him to the chapel. But I never stopped to ask why. Why would he have targeted me and my friends if all he wanted was to feed? And…he didn’t even do that.”

“They’re not familiar to me,” Jonas said quietly. “I’ve made inquiries since finding the video, but I’ve had no luck.”

Roksana nodded dazedly, replaying the scene over and over again in her head.

If the man with the white feather in his hat was in the bar with her and Elias…did he overhear the name of the chapel? It wouldn’t have been a stretch, considering the superhuman hearing of an immortal. Did the vampire, not Elias, target Roksana, perhaps recognizing her as the slayer queen’s daughter?

Elias’s behavior in the video was not that of a man embracing the vampire lifestyle, as if he’d been seeking it out. Quite the opposite, actually. He’d appeared devastated.

If Elias wasn’t a willing victim…had she led the vampires to him? Did his fateful association with Roksana lead to him being Silenced against his will, instead of the ritual being welcome, as she’d always believed?

Oh God. Oh no, please. It can’t be true.

A wave of pain rammed straight into her middle and she barely managed to hide her reaction from Ginny and Jonas. “I’ll take you up on that shower,” she managed.

Ginny watched her oddly, but nodded, stopping outside of a door at the end of the hallway. “Try and sleep afterward, okay? We’ll talk in the morning.”

Roksana nodded and left the pair, closing and locking the door behind her. Well aware of her friends’ keen sense of hearing, she forced herself to enter the bathroom and step under the running shower spray before she succumbed to the pain in her middle, curling beneath the stream of water in a fetal position. And she could no longer tell if the pain was due to Elias needing to feed…or proof that her own vengeance had made her blind.

It was impossible to know how long she stared at the water circling the shower drain, but the spray was ice cold by the time two strong, familiar arms slid beneath her limp form, lifting Roksana from the tub.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Breathe.

Do not set the goddamn place on fire.

He’d been repeating that same command to himself since boarding the private plane from Moscow, worried he’d inadvertently turn the aircraft into an inferno. Fear for his mate held him hostage and he’d yet to get his new abilities under control. They’d first begun to rear their head when he came across her bloody and beaten in that Moscow street. Blistering hot fire had streaked through his veins, traveling through the gutters like a match dropped on a trail of kerosene.

And he’d been trying to calm the furnace inside himself ever since.

Finding Roksana curled in a ball in the bathtub, her skin ghostly white, was doing nothing to keep the melting heat inside him from escalating, turning dangerous.

Elias strode into the bedroom with a dripping wet Roksana in his arms, the heart she’d awoken hammering painfully in his chest. Dammit, she’d tried to overcome her injuries too soon. It had only been a matter of days since he’d found her bruised and unconscious. Fighting fae and traveling back the States must have taken a toll. She might be fierce and strong, but she was still human, and that fact was never more obvious.

“I never should have let you leave me,” he whispered jaggedly. “I never should have let you out of my sight.”

Christ, he’d been a man possessed when it came to her safety before drinking her blood. Now, though…this clawing sense of desperation riddled him. It came screaming from the deepest pit of his soul, demanding she be made safe and happy. And he was beginning to suspect that the incessant burning inside of him had been there since the moment he met Roksana. Waiting in the wings. Hadn’t he been aware all along of the demanding draw between them?

Mate, my mate, my mate.

He hated himself for hungering for her body and blood when she was suffering in his arms. But having her near made his throat constrict, made his thirst urgent, painful. Extreme. But his concern for her far outweighed his own discomfort. He’d live with it as long as possible. Forever if she required it.

Elias made a hoarse sound and turned in a circle. What was wrong with him? He knew how to care for her, but the possibility of not caring for her well enough shook him to the core.

“I don’t feel so good, vampire,” Roksana whispered into his neck—and he almost fucking lost it right there. Almost erupted into flames and burned down the whole vampire stronghold.

“I know, baby. I know,” he managed raggedly, sitting down on the edge of the bed with Roksana lengthways across his lap. His hands felt clumsy while unzipping the back of her leather dress. “We’re going to talk about the fact that you rode on a commercial airplane in this outfit.”

“Nyet.” Her head lolled against his shoulder. “We will not.”

Keep her talking. He needed her conscious, not only for her health, but his sanity. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I set things on fire now. This dress is next on the list.”

“I have to admit, the fire thing is pretty badass—” She broke off on a wheeze, her left hand twisting in the collar of his shirt. “Oh God, oh God it hurts.”

Helplessness and distress whipped up inside of Elias and the lights snapped and sizzled in the room, his distressed bellow cutting through the noise. “What the hell is wrong, Roksana? Have you eaten…” Understanding struck him, tightening every tendon in his body and throwing the final ingredients into the stew of his possessiveness. Could it be?

Vampires and humans were rarely mated, but on the rare occasion it happened, one mate could feel the other’s pain. Jonas and Ginny had gone through it and Elias could now understand the utter agony of knowing your woman suffered because of you. His body’s misery stemmed from hunger for Roksana’s blood and it refused to abate. It ground against his bones, his brain, his jugular. That she could be experiencing anything resembling this was unacceptable. A crime.

“You are not suffering from your injuries. This is something else. You are my mate and I am yours.”

A weak snort. “You wish.”

“Christ, I can’t bear knowing you feel an ounce of this hunger.” He finally succeeded in removing the skin-tight dress and quickly stripped off his own shirt, praying his damnably low body temperature helped in some small way to warm her. Not enough. Even as he rocked her in his arms, he scanned the room for a blanket. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

A deep groove formed between her brows. “You are feeling this, too?”

“Don’t you dare worry about me.”

“Maybe I’ll just kill you and the pain will go away,” she gasped.

“I thought of that already,” he said truthfully, turning and ripping the comforter off the bed, wrapping it around them. “But then I’d no longer be alive to protect you.”

The distress that kindled in her expression told Elias she’d only been joking—and his response had been too telling. But another wave of pain distracted her, bowing her back and making her tremble. He couldn’t stand another second of the agony.

With her bare body pressed to his, the bedclothes surrounding them in a cloud, he turned and laid her down on the mattress, unable to stop himself from kissing her shoulders, her cheeks, her forehead, the contact soothing some of his restlessness. “I don’t know if I can do this when you’re weak,” he said thickly. “It feels wrong.”

Roksana’s hand lifted, her palm conforming the back of his head, and she pulled him down, tilting her head to one side and exposing her neck. “Maybe I don’t want you to die just yet, vampire,” she whispered, not looking at him. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

This close to her fluttering pulse, Elias’s fangs descended with a vengeance. She alone sustained him. Made his existence possible. And he infused every ounce of his utter hero worship into the bite, brushing her hair back once, twice, before puncturing her skin with a moan and allowing the flow of life to spread through his limbs.

Her taste couldn’t be believed. It was singular. With no description because the flavor existed to him alone. The gnawing hunger in his stomach shrieked with victory, then slowly started to ebb, allowing the rest of Elias to regain sensation. Beneath him, Roksana’s body was still, but their connection allowed him to feel the gradual loss of tension in her muscles, to feel her relief. Here was the proof.

I am her mate. She is mine.

I can’t live without her and she can’t live without me.

Jesus, he was caught between triumph so heady he couldn’t bear the weight and utter devastation on her behalf. Just when he thought he couldn’t make her life any worse, he was tethering this woman to him as long as they both walked the earth. And goddammit, Elias hated himself for wanting that. Wanting Roksana with him forever more than he wanted his own humanity back.

A shiver passed through Roksana and her nipples peaked against his chest. Heat bloomed along her flesh and he could hear her lungs expanding with oxygen.

Thank God. Thank God.

There was an unruly beast inside of Elias demanding he continue to drink. To drink until there was nothing left. The taste of her was that magnificent. That fucking essential. But once a vampire drained a human of their liquid life force, it caused something beastly to awaken inside the immortal, bringing forth the venom that could Silence a human. The process had been illegal so long that it had gone unperfected, though. It was a risk. Even if Roksana agreed to become like him—which she never would—he didn’t take chances with her.

Elias forced himself to release his hold on her neck, his eyes roaming over her greedily to make sure his senses hadn’t deceived him and she was truly healed.

Miracle of miracle, she was.

By my bite.

Those three words whispering through his mind made Elias’s cock throb. Her skin glowed like a beacon, her breath warming his shoulder, pulse delicate. Her lithe body was pinned beneath his on the bed, and without his fangs preventing her from moving, Roksana’s legs seemed to lift instinctively around his hips, her pussy cushioning the strained fly of his jeans.

Was it an invitation or did she seek comfort?

Though it nearly killed him, the lack of clarity she was able to provide forced Elias to climb off her sweet body, wincing when her thigh brushed against the uncomfortable swell trapped inside his pants. “Are you well now, mate?” he choked out.

For several beats, she said nothing. But just before he could start to worry, she shocked him to the very core by rolling up against his chest. Her face pressed into the hollow of his throat, her arms creeping around his neck slowly. She clung to him, her embrace tightening gradually. Not letting go.

And after years of being confined to hell, he was allowed to roam free in heaven.

Roksana trusted him enough to hold her in his arms.

Savor it.

“Rest,” he managed around the lump in his throat. “There is no safer place than where you are right now.”

Just before her breath turned even, he felt a drop of moisture fall from her eye and travel down the center of his chest, and he pulled her closer.

Roksana woke up winded.

Her hair follicles stood on end, vim whipping in her blood.

An ache pulsated between her thighs so severely that she immediately reached for it, not sure if the pain came by way of an injury or something else. A gasp popped her lips open when, in their downward journey, the back of her knuckles brushed smooth, hard, hair-covered flesh. The lower she got, the denser the hair became until she could sift her fingers through it and the ache heightened all the more, nearly making her dizzy.

Cool fingertips trailed along the slope of her shoulder, massaging her tense, fevered skin and the possessiveness, the familiarity of that caress brought awareness crashing to the fore.

Elias.

She was in bed with Elias. In every sense.

They weren’t just sharing the space for comfort, either. The hard ridge of his erection was wedged between their bellies, nothing but a worn-in layer of denim between them, and Roksana’s hand was paused in animation just above that distended male part. There was no way to reach her own discomfited flesh without touching Elias there, and if she hadn’t woken up, there was no doubt it would be wrapped in her fist by now.

In other words, she kind of wished she hadn’t woken up.

Now she had to think, instead of just act—which would have been a lot more convenient.

They both lay on their sides in the center of the bed, facing each other, but they were pressed together so tightly, they might as well be one entity. Her open mouth was already rubbing side to side on Elias’s collarbone and his hand—God, his huge hand—was already skimming down her spine to palm her backside.

Awake.

Of course he’s awake, idiot, he’s a vampire.

They slept only occasionally and in the safest conditions. And safe conditions were the opposite of sharing a bedroom with a vampire slayer.

Like, in theory, okay?

Elias drew Roksana from her thoughts when he kneaded her left buttock roughly, his mouth moving in her hair. “It’s just the two of us here, Roksana, and we both need me inside you.” He used his hold on her bottom to grind her core against his lap and she was powerless to do anything but sling her thigh over his big body, allowing his hips to crowd closer, both of them groaning at the added friction. “Let me inside you.”

An image drifted through her conscious, making her cling to him more fiercely. Elias kneeling in front of the door in the chapel, guarding her from the violent mayhem, his face a mask of sorrow and misery and protectiveness. The memory of it moved her body in ways her mind never would have dared—until now. Until tonight.

She slipped her fingers into his dark hair and brought his mouth down for a kiss wrapped in confusion and gratitude and desperation, refusing to examine any of those emotions too closely but unable to do anything but give. Give to him. All of the turmoil housed inside of her, knowing he would receive it and keep it safe. Keep her safe.

Elias’s mouth greeted the kiss with caution, care, as if he needed to pinpoint the origin point of her passion, but finally he gave a surrendering groan and licked his tongue deeply into her mouth, employing his grip on her butt to drag her higher against his chest, making it easier for them to devour one another. She kissed Elias as if the sun would rise one final time and take him away. That comparison ran too closely to reality and made her whimper brokenly against his mouth. Give to him. Give him everything. Desperate to obey the urges of her body, head and heart, she pushed the powerful vampire onto his back and straddled his hips, never coming up for air, their tongues delving and twisting, lips slanting and taking.

She’d never been more grateful to be naked, because the press of their flesh was glorious, her bare breasts flattened on the thick slab of his pecs, his abs flexing beneath her soft stomach, the smooth drag of skin turning her femininity damp, pliant. Equally powerful and powerless at the same moment, she rubbed against the peaks and ridges of his muscle, her sex easing down on his bulge, hips bucking—

“Roksana,” Elias growled, breaking away—and his fangs descended into view with a vengeance, sharp and white. “You’ve been rubbing those tits against me for hours. I’m too hot for foreplay.”

Being on top made her feel sexy, exultant. Luxuriating in that feeling, she stuck out her lower lip and ground her hips against him in two quick circles. “Aw, can’t you deal with a little more? For me?”

His palms slid up the outsides of her thighs, his right hand delivering a harsh slap to her upturned ass. “You seem to have forgotten I’m a monster who has only claimed his mate once. And she was the perfect little fit,” Elias rasped, amber eyes flashing. “I want her again now.”

“I want you, too,” she breathed, crawling backward down his body, her tongue licking a path over his left nipple, then crossing to the right, nipping it lightly. Worshipping him. Some deeply rooted part of her couldn’t face another moment of living without cherishing this vampire, maybe even apologizing for her false, long-held beliefs about him. “Please, Elias. I have to show you how much.”

Elias’s sudden scrutiny was too dangerous, too exposing, so she focused on circling the ridges of his tattooed stomach with her wet, open mouth, her tongue delving into his belly button, eliciting a back arch and a growl from Elias. Nimbly, her fingers unfastened his jeans, her mouth breathing hot air on the wicked curve of his arousal while lowering the zipper. He sprang out and she caught his thickness with her mouth, his texture and flavor striking her like a mallet to a metal stake.

Mate.

It was useless to deny it. She drew on his shaft hungrily, her hands working in twisting strokes, her every movement ruled by instinct—and his shouted encouragement.

“Suck it. Suck me so fucking hard, baby. Oh God, yes. Oh my God.” His fingers rifled through her hair, his hips pumping upward, his grunts jagged. “You trying to make me come? Huh? You want me to come, keep that up. You’re the only one that can, Roksana. You’re the only one who can suck it out for me. It only wants you, baby, baby, don’t you know that? Fuck, you’ve got me so hard.”

The ache between her legs intensified, squeezing her legs together, and she wailed around his swollen sex. Her nipples peaked and throbbed in a devastating rhythm, leaving her no choice but to rub them on his hair-covered thighs. Arousal pitched inside of her like a storm, tossing her senses on a wild ocean and all she could do was pleasure him, riding her mouth up and down the engorged stalk of his manhood and—

Elias’s hands scooped beneath Roksana’s armpits, dragging her slowly up every inked, sinful inch of his body, stopping only when their mouths met, pressing together with a mutual moan, his eyes scrutinizing her with dark sensuality. “As much as I love you worshipping my cock like it’s your new lord and savior, I know when my mate needs to be fucked.”

Roksana’s gasp was still hanging in the air a second later when she came face to face with the headboard, her panting mouth leaving condensation on the polished wood. Elias was not gentle about arranging her body on hands and knees, cheek to the pillow, knees wide. And until Roksana was in the subservient position, she had no idea how much she’d been craving it. Being laid bare and vulnerable for this man, her body the only one able to give him relief.

“Do you need to feed from me?” Roksana whispered, almost distressed in her overwhelming desire to be needed. She buried her face in the mattress and chanted nonsense, tilting her hips and offering her sex for the taking, willing it to be amply wet for him. “Do you, please, do you? Need to feed? Do you…”

“I will always need to feed from you, Roksana,” he said, raking his tongue up the side of her neck. “But my need for you is not always about blood. Understand?” He kissed his way down her spine, his mouth moving with relish, stopping to rake his fangs from the small of her back to the spot where the divide of her backside began. “Sometimes it’s about protecting you. Holding you. Having your eyes on me. Feeding you. Your voice in my ear.” His tongue slid down between the split of her backside, the flat of it resting on the pucker of her back entrance. At the same time, Elias’s long middle finger tucked inside of her womanhood, pressing deep and making her gasp. “And sometimes it’s all about this tight pussy.”

A spasm shook Roksana, constricting her femininity with such intensity that she buried her teeth in the mattress, biting down hard on a sob. Elias caught her hips in his hands, yanking her bottom up into his lap and she started to tremble, the inner walls of her core already milking him, anticipating him, even though he wasn’t inside of her yet. “Please, please…”

His hardness prodded her, right at the precipice of where she needed him, but stopped short of thrusting home. “I was rough last time,” he said, voice deep and dark, his chest coming to rest on her back, his lips moving against her ear. “Did you like that?”

“Yes,” she panted, rubbing her bottom brazenly in his lap. “Yes, I loved it.”

He dragged the head of his sex up and down, teasing her clit with it until she gave a closed-mouth scream. “If that’s how I took your virginity, Roksana…” His teeth grazed her neck. “How hard do you think I’m going to hit it the second time?”

“Hard,” she whimpered.

A vibration passed through his strong body. “I can’t help it, baby.”

“I know. I…” Her fingers flexed in the bedding, the confession coming out in a choppy rush. “Sometimes I used to fantasize that we finally fought. You finally fought me and…I wondered what your strength would be like if you used it against me. I-I wanted to know.”

Elias plowed his shaft into her, his growl echoing in the bedroom, though Roksana could barely hear anything over the ringing in her ears. Was aware of very little, save the rampant lust commandeering all five of her senses. “Christ,” he shouted, the word muffled by her shoulder. “Open your knees wider, mate. Make room for me.”

Breathless, dangling over a hot bed of release, she did as she was told, gratified when Elias slid a final inch inside of her, his triumphant exhale puckering her nipples. “Like that?”

“Yes, like that.” He pushed his face hard into her neck, fangs bared. “What you said to me before…God, Roksana, I’m trying to keep myself in check—”

“Don’t. Don’t.” She squeezed her intimate muscles rhythmically, tempting him, desperate to make him lose control and show her his true nature. “I want it. I can take it. I hate that there’s anything I don’t know about you. Break me with it.”

The visceral snap of his tether made her almost giddy.

Relief and excitement and hunger gave her everything she needed to weather the sudden storm of Elias. This was him, nothing held back, stripped down to his basest form and she soaked in every nuance. The way his heart rapped against the center of her spine, his guttural grunts in her ear, the smack of muscle impacting softness, the way his hard length buried itself inside of her, over and over again, like he’d been called for decades to join them together, fuse their bodies so they couldn’t be told apart, and this was his only chance.

“You want me to break you, Roksana?” Elias rasped into her neck, his hips slamming into her buttocks repeatedly, gloriously, his sex going so deep it hurt and aroused in equal measure. Perfect. Perfect. “You’re the expert, baby. Tell me how. You break me every time you go away. Every time you come back. Your eyes break me. Your breath. Your heart.”

Chest in a permanent squeeze, her knees liquefied and she collapsed to the bed, but their lovemaking didn’t pause. It couldn’t. It was inevitable. Elias merely stuffed a pillow beneath her hips to angle them and fucked her all the harder, the sounds of her screams caught by the soft padding. “More,” she whispered, turning her head so she could see his face, her blood firing at the ownership and intensity she glimpsed there. “More.”

Elias made a hoarse sound and caught both of Roksana’s wrists, bending her elbows so he could pinion them to the center of her back, his thrusts turning ferocious. “More? You have all of me. You’re the keeper of everything.” He stayed her wrists in his left hand, rearing back and punching a hole through the center of the headboard with his right, sending wood splinters in every direction. “Mine. You’ve always been mine.”

Roksana’s body met with her heart, forming some perfect, terrifyingly fated constellation and pleasure cleaved into her like velvet teeth. Tears scalded the backs of her eyelids and her womanhood pulsed and seized around Elias’s tunneling erection, her thighs trembling out of control. With her arms held behind her back and Elias baring down on her with his full weight, she was at the mercy of pleasure and it took advantage, digging its claws in deep so she could do nothing but scream and work her hips, hoping to give Elias an ounce of the bliss he was bestowing on her.

Declarations crowded in her throat, dying to be spoken out loud, but instead she chanted his name on repeat, hoping he would interpret her correctly. “Elias, Elias, Elias…”

For long moments, there was only Elias and his slapping entries into her body, his animalistic snarls, and then his hand shot out, reaching through the center of the broken headboard, his grip turning white, his body shaking, shaking—

“Ahhhh, fuck. Roksana. My mate, my life,” he gritted out, his hips trapping hers to the mattress for one long grind after the other, liquid heat pouring into her and satisfying something deep and elemental inside Roksana. Your mate is satisfied, purred a voice, intoxicating her, filling her with the ultimate satisfaction, whether her mind accepted it or not. “Roksana, baby, I feel you milking me. I feel it.” His hand left the headboard and without warning, he yanked Roksana back onto her knees to receive several hard thrusts, a rough spanking to her right butt cheek. “Now take back what you earned. Take it all.”

“Yes, Elias,” she breathed, her body going limper by the second, but pride keeping her upright, loving the sense of being filled by proof of his satisfaction. “Mine.”

“Yours,” he agreed gruffly, intensity ringing in his voice.

Finally, Roksana lost her battle with fatigue and melted down onto the bed, barely able to keep her eyes open in the haze of such potent relief. The last thing she remembered was Elias pacing at the foot of the bed naked, fingers ripping at the ends of his dark hair, before he eventually dressed and left the room.

Uncertainty over what the next day would bring normally made it impossible for Roksana to sleep, but the unknown seemed to take pity on the slayer just this once, yawning wide and swallowing her whole, the words you’ve always been mine echoing in her mind.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Elias stepped out of the bedroom and closed his eyes, restraining himself against the need to wheel back inside and have her again. Consume her again. Again. He would never get enough of the paradise she’d just given him. But with her delicious scent baptizing his skin, he was raw and reborn at the same time. Caught between heaven and hell. He was highly attuned to Roksana’s energy, and while she’d abandoned herself to the attraction between them in a way that his body would crave with desperation until his final hour, the inner conflict he sensed inside her made him restless.

Using his heightened hearing, he tuned into the conversations happening throughout the vampire hold. Two floors down, some of the guards were making bets about which team would win the Premier League championship, layered over the sound of a broom scraping over stone. And there—Jonas and Tucker one floor above.

He turned and laid a hand on the door, making sure Roksana’s breathing had turned deep and even, before flying to the staircase and upward, stopping in the doorway of an unfamiliar study. Jonas and Tucker were seated at a dimly lit table in front of a bookcase, a half-finished tumbler of blood in Tucker’s grasp, Jonas peering down at some paperwork.

Without removing focus from his work, Jonas kicked out a chair for Elias.

Elias shook his head and started to pace. “I’ll stand.”

“Are you sure, buddy?” Tucker drawled, twisting the glass on the table. “You’ve had a pretty strenuous evening.”

Goddamn vampires and their inconveniently heightened hearing. “Not another word about it,” Elias warned, hitting Tucker with a death glare. “Especially to her.”

Jonas finally set down his papers. “Ginny tells me Roksana is your mate.”

“Yeah. We’re all in shock,” Tucker deadpanned. “How is she handling it?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not talking to you about it,” Elias snapped. But his concern was layered on top of more concerns and he could no longer keep them to himself. So a second later, he broke his own rule. “She was different tonight.”

She looked at me like she’d forgotten to hate me.

She…let me in. Let me deep.

If Elias was being honest, he was still shaken from the permission she’d granted with her body. For a woman like Roksana, trust was a rarely bestowed gift, especially where he was concerned. Whatever had inspired the change in Roksana, he was damned grateful for it, but the turmoil inside of her was still apparent—and his mate being anything but happy left him bashing up against the rocks.

Jonas picked up a gold letter opener, holding it up so it caught the firelight. He struck Elias as being conflicted about something, but he knew Jonas wouldn’t share until he was good and ready. Such was the prerogative of a king.

“We spoke before you boarded the flight in Moscow, to make sure Roksana would be protected if she went straight to Coney Island. Yet she came here instead.”

“Roksana makes her own rules. I just try to keep up.” Elias finally dropped into the offered chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Did Tucker already fill you in on the poker game in Moscow?”

“Three, potentially four murders and a burned down mansion?” Jonas pinned the paperwork with the tip of the letter opener. “Trust me, I heard about it long before you arrived. If the Russian High Order didn’t have an aversion to fae, there might have been consequences.”

“Hand to God, it was craziest fucking night of my life,” Tucker said, slapping a palm over his heart. “And I’ve been to WrestleMania three times.” He raised an eyebrow at Elias. “You tell Jonas you’ve got fire powers yet? Fire powers, bro. You’re like a goddamn X-Man.”

Jonas inclined his head. “Jesus. A lot happened in Russia.”

“The fae gave us this concoction—”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Elias cut in.

“No, I think I’d really like to hear this,” Jonas said, settling back in his wingback chair. “What kind of concoction?”

Tucker elevated the tone of his voice several octaves and put on a French accent. “Once drunk, the concoction determines what you desire most in life and amplifies it to make you compete harder.” His voice went back to normal. “Basically, we were there to entertain this crazy French fairy chick and her weird boyfriend. And then a bunch of people got shot or burned alive.”

“Good thing none of it happened on my turf.” Jonas’s expression was incredulous. “You drank this mixture, Elias? I can see Tucker tossing back just about anything—no offense—”

“None taken,” Tucker said, good-naturedly.

“But you?”

Elias drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “The concoction presented an unknown and I don’t take chances with her. I wanted to make sure Roksana didn’t drink any, so I downed both.” A moving image of Roksana straining and moaning beneath him on the floor of the mansion had him gripping the wooden arm of the chair. “It had an effect.”

Understanding dawned in Jonas’s eyes. “Because she is what you desire most.”

“You know that’s always been the case,” Elias rasped, unable to meet the king’s gaze. “The concoction stripped my ability to hide my…devotion, so now she knows it, too. Perhaps that knowledge makes it harder for her to hate me.”

Tucker chuckled, but his brow was wrinkled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“She needs her vengeance against me. If she loses me as her target…”

“She’ll start searching for the correct one,” Jonas concluded, his face inscrutable. “I don’t understand. Why is that a bad thing?”

Finding out what led to the massacre in Vegas could get her killed. Inessa had vowed to lop her head off in Red Square if Elias spilled the secret and that venomous promise still rang in his ears. The mere thought of Roksana taking a final breath boiled his gut in acid. He couldn’t even voice that fear out loud. Nothing would endanger her. Nothing.

Not as long as he walked the earth.

There was more to his silence where Inessa was concerned, too. Years ago he’d made the vow to himself that he wouldn’t take away the final thing Roksana loved. Her mother. Exposing Inessa would do that, right enough. He would protect his mate from her evil mother, but he wouldn’t be the one who trashed the one who’d given her hope. Purpose.

Hope and purpose he’d been instrumental in her losing in the first place.

“What happened when you drank the concoction?” Elias asked Tucker, desperate to change the subject. “Were you surprised by what you desired most?”

Tucker almost never lost his grin, but it faltered now. “It doesn’t matter.”

Elias frowned. “Tell us.”

His friend seemed almost embarrassed, picking up his glass of blood and taking a quick sip. “Home. All right? I saw…home.”

“The home you grew up in?” Jonas asked.

“Uh-uh.” Tucker shook his head, his gaze fixed on something invisible in the distance. “A different one. A place I’ve never been before, but I knew it was home.” He barked an unnatural laugh. “Talk about unfair. I saw a white picket fence and Elias gets fire powers. Why is no one losing their shit about him being a human torch?”

Jonas’s lips jumped at one end. “It is pretty badass. Can you control it?”

“Not when Roksana is in danger.”

“So, basically never,” the king drawled, shifting in his chair. “Excellent.”

Elias studied the glossy surface of the table, but he was really seeing fire engulfing the ceiling of the mansion in Moscow. Feeling the undiluted rage taking him over, stretching his muscles, making them pop. A gun pointed at Roksana. His mate.

Jonas’s paperwork burst into flames.

“Son of a—” The king whipped off his coat and patted out the fire. “All right. We’ve got a problem here.”

Tucker was laughing so hard, he almost fell out of his chair.

The king tossed aside his charred coat. “You risk discovery if you go out in public, Elias. How can I allow that?”

“You’ll have to find a way, because I’m going with Roksana to Coney Island to trade the marriage decree for Tilda’s game piece.”

The two vampires faced off over the table. Elias wouldn’t give an inch and Jonas gave nothing away. “You have chosen her side, then,” the king said, finally, his face unreadable. “You’ll openly allow her to give this advantage to her mother.”

“Her mother will kill her if she doesn’t hand over the game piece.”

“What if I told you thousands of vampires could die if she does turn it over to Inessa?” Elias reeled, but Jonas barely paused to let that statement sink in. “There is more happening in the vampire world than she realizes.” Jonas scrutinized Elias for long moment, as if judging how much he knew, but Elias forced his face to remain impassive. “Right after I became king, Inessa contacted me about a protection deal.”

Several beats of silence passed. “The leader of the Russian slayers wanted protection from vampires?”

“No.” Jonas stacked and shuffled the partially burned paperwork. “She offered us protection from the North American network of slayers. Said she was close enough to the American leader to make the deal happen with no issue. When I refused…the rise in slayings began. Most of the casualties are among the Freshly Silenced, of course. The helpless and weak.” Visibly troubled, he pushed a hand through his hair. “After studying the finances of my predecessors, it appears the High Order were paying off Inessa for a long time to keep slayers…ineffective in the States. I can only assume she has finagled a deal with the Russian High Order. There appears to be an unholy alliance between slayers and vampires. If they expect the same fealty from me, they can go fuck themselves.”

Guilt bled into Elias’s chest. He’d known about the alliance between Inessa and the vampires since that night in Vegas. Fear for Roksana’s safety had kept the information locked inside of him, safer than any vault. His loyalty to her was absolute. But now Jonas was telling him his silence had visited death upon the very vampires he’d been helping Jonas nurture? Christ, no matter what path he chose there was a cost. Goddammit.

“Unfortunately,” Jonas continued. “I’m not the only game in town. Not anymore. There are vampires who were loyal to the High Order we eliminated. They don’t like my efforts to integrate the Freshly Silenced into society. They think we risk being discovered if we forgive mistakes by the newbies and take the time to teach them how to live effectively. They’re bloodthirsty and unforgiving and they loathe change. Not convenient when we have an entirely new High Order to elect here.”

Tucker propped his elbows on the table, visibly processing everything Jonas said. “So…Inessa could make a deal with these old-school jerks instead of us. That’s what you’re saying.”

Jonas let out a long breath. “They’re not enthusiastic about dealing with her, either. Slayers have always been the enemy.” He paused. “But that’s why Inessa’s eagerness to trade the marriage decree for the game piece at Enders is concerning. It could be a bargaining chip. A way to persuade the Elders to side with her—and if that happens…”

“Overthrow,” Elias finished, knots tying in his stomach. “And Roksana has no idea about any of this, so she could unknowingly hand her mother a way to take you down.”

The king said nothing.

If Elias still had the ability to breathe, he would have been winded. “If Roksana doesn’t bring that bargaining chip to Inessa, her mother won’t stop until she’s dead.” His fangs started to vibrate, preparing to descend at the threat to his mate. “I could protect Roksana, but I know damn well she’ll seek out her own punishment.”

“You could tell her the truth about Inessa,” Tucker suggested quietly.

Elias shook his head. “No.”

“I could tell her, too. But as much as I want to trust Roksana, there is no guarantee she’ll side with me and grant me the game piece instead,” Jonas said briskly, his Adam’s apple lifting and falling. “After all, this is the girl who has been threatening to slaughter us for the better part of two years.”

“Don’t ask me to steal it from her and bring it to you, instead,” Elias said.

“I wouldn’t waste my breath.”

“She will do the right thing,” Elias rumbled, his fangs dropping, outrage on behalf of his mate tightening his skin like elastic. “Her heart is ten miles wide. She has more integrity in her little finger than I could ever hope to have.”

Jonas studied him for a heavy beat. “Are you willing to gamble on that?”

“Any day of the week.”

After a tense moment, the king nodded. “Go to Coney Island. Once Roksana finds out what exactly her mother has sent her to retrieve, she’ll make her decision.” He rose from the table. “But if she makes the wrong one, it’s up to you, Elias, to make sure that bargaining chip doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. Even if it means betraying your mate. I won’t have this kingdom crumble before I’ve even had the chance to build it.”

Elias nodded tightly, the urge to go gather Roksana close burning him like a fever.

He wouldn’t go to her again tonight, though. He needed to think. To prepare himself for the potential calamity ahead. No matter what happened, he would see that Roksana lived. She had her vengeance and her mother’s love driving her. He had his undying love for his slayer.

Heart heavy, Elias stood to leave the room, but Jonas’s voice halted him at the threshold. “Elias. Before you go…” The king flicked a glance at Tucker who, interpreting Jonas’s request for privacy, lumbered from the room at his preferred human speed.

“Yes?” Elias prompted, crossing his arms.

“You’ve always kept your secrets and I’ve respected that. But I have a kingdom and a mate to protect now.” Jonas settled a fist on the table. “You might have absolute faith in Roksana. She does not have the same level of faith in you, however.”

Elias’s voice was as raw as his insides. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying you keep things from her that could paint you in a stronger light, yet you don’t take those opportunities. All so that Roksana can have her almighty vengeance.” Jonas reclined in his chair. “I will and have taken those opportunities, not only because I have cause to be strategic now. But because you’re being self-destructive.”

“So what if I am? I’m not reasonable when it comes to her. I can’t be,” Elias growled. “You understand this feeling well, don’t you? It was only a few months ago you arrived at this hold to die so Ginny could live a free, happy life.”

“And your actions that day are part of the reason I didn’t. Why I have the privilege of calling her my wife now and keeping her eternally.” He leaned forward. “You have more worth than her vengeance, Elias. Start believing that before it’s too late.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Roksana rolled her neck right to left, shuffling her feet agilely on the mat. Sweat soaked the tank top and yoga pants Ginny had helpfully left in the guest room. She’d woken alone in bed, anxiety pouring down on her like a waterfall as soon as she opened her eyes. Dressing quickly and securing her hair in a ponytail, she’d gone prowling, looking for a place to blow off steam. There were dozens of floors in the vampire hold and she’d chosen to go down, away from the upstairs bedrooms and beneath the great hall in search of space.

There wasn’t a treadmill in existence that could go fast enough to make it worthwhile for a vampire, nor did it make sense for them to lift weights. Their bodies would never change from the form it was in upon their Silencing. At best, she’d been hoping for an empty room, but she’d found a massive training facility instead. A blue mat covered the entire floor area of the room, mirrors made up the walls, dummies hung from ropes.

And based on the half-full blood bags and weaponry scattered on the mat, it had been recently used. With slayings on the rise in the States, it was prudent for Jonas to be holding training sessions with his closest assets and advisors. Seeing the evidence of their preparations, however, really made it hit home that the vampires she’d grown to care for were in danger. Elias was in danger. From her own kind.

From her?

With a sound of distress, Roksana whirled and struck her invisible opponent’s neck with the flat of her foot, followed by a hitch kick to the jaw, a series of stunning punches. Back to the start again, her sides heaving, muscles on the verge of turning to jelly. She tucked and rolled, springing up with her right arm ready to strike, bringing it down, her fist closed around an imaginary stake. She tried to picture Elias on the other side of the blow and her will to stand or breathe or think deserted her, dropping her heavily to the mat.

“No.”

She knelt there for several moments, staring at her exhausted reflection in the mirror, her labored inhales loud in the cavernous room. The girl looking back at her was a lot of things. She’d lived two lives, it seemed. But there had always been a common thread of stubbornness. A quick temper. Skepticism. She considered none of those things a fault. They kept a lot of bullshit at bay. On the more positive side, however, she’d always considered herself to be a loyal person to the bone. Once a loyal friend and now loyal to the slayer cause.

Faithfulness meant seeing things in black and white. Putting down her hard head and powering through. Always knowing the right direction to turn, the right cause to fight for. But now she stood in a valley between two mountains, unable to pick which one to climb. One represented Inessa and the slayerhood. Duty. The other was Elias and the unlikely but fulfilling friendships she’d formed with the vampires. Both of the mountains had their share of hazards.

Inessa’s mountain was harsh, unforgiving and she could never quite find her footing or a handhold. Oh, but reaching the top would be so glorious. The view would be breathtaking and she could finally find that elusive fulfilment she’d always pined for as a daughter. Even now, a cavity in her chest yawned wide, praying for that approval only a mother could provide.

Elias’s mountain…it was almost like she’d already reached the top. He stood there with her, angling her toward the best breezes, always remaining that safe presence at her back. But how long could she really stay on top of feel-good mountain? Elias was immortal. Being with him meant hard decisions. Disobeying her mother. Staying human or…not, unless she wanted to grow old while he remained the same forever. So while she might be on top of that breathtaking landform right now, eventually she might have to jump off and plunge into a bottomless ocean, forsaking Inessa’s mountain forever in the process.

Awareness tickled her spine. Before Roksana even opened her eyes, she knew she would find Elias framed in the entrance of the training room. And God, he was electric. He stood leaning against the doorjamb, eyes serious and rapt, head tipped forward, arms crossed. So still, yet swarming with magnetism. His jeans hugged his thighs, the soft cotton of his T-shirt practically clamoring to get as close as possible to his sinewy stomach and arms. Indecent and effortless and hers. Her mate. The man whose life was braided together with her own, impossible to unravel.

Did she want to? Had she ever really wanted to, even in the darkest hour?

She swallowed hard and dropped the eye contact they made in the mirror, rubbing at her overworked wrists. “I would invite you to spar, but you’ve always refused to fight me.”

“I fight with you, not against you.” He pushed off the doorframe and prowled toward where she knelt on the mat, a quivering seed of awareness germinating more and more in her belly with every step he took in her direction. “In light of what you said last night about wanting to feel my strength, though…maybe I’ll make a small exception.”

Roksana’s eyes flew to his in the mirror. “Really?”

“You need it.” Elias whipped off his shirt and threw it aside, leaving him in nothing but worn-in jeans and that maddening scent of pine. “Don’t you, baby?”

Dizzy at the sight of his S.W.A.T. Daddy body on display, she hummed an affirmative and rose to her feet, though unsteady at the turn of events. “You can call me baby in the bedroom, but if you call me that in combat, I will rattle your brain.”

His smile turned her nipples to hard, little buds and he didn’t pretend not to notice. “You sure it’s fighting you want?”

“Da! I’m not letting this opportunity pass.” She was already breathless, just being this close, witnessing the tight tics of his jaw, triceps, pecs. Vampire circled slayer. It was in that moment that Roksana realized she’d never enjoyed a single fight over the last three years, no matter how much she’d lied to herself. There had always been desperation involved. Fear of failing her mother. A feeling like she was in someone else’s reality, trying unsuccessfully to make herself fit.

There was safety here with Elias. The appreciation in his gaze, the affection, even the secrets comforted her. Anticipation warmed her blood. Excitement. Attraction.

Belonging.

Elias was behind her now, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Roksana balanced on the balls of her feet, wiggling her fingers at her sides. She shuffled nimbly, willing adrenaline into her legs and without warning she pivoted and delivered a high kick in the direction of his chin. He narrowly avoided the strike, but without using his otherworldly speed.

“Don’t hold back on me,” she breathed, advancing on him.

They moved across the mat in a choreographed dance, Roksana spinning, kicking, throwing punches, but he moved just out of her reach every time, ducking, evading, and finally he crouched, sweeping her legs out from under her with a low, arcing kick. Roksana eliminated the angles and rolled when she hit the mat, springing off the mat, finally catching him in the face with a sharp right hook.

Watching in slow motion as his head jerked back, Roksana’s heart lurched in her ribcage and her footing faltered, arms going slack at her sides. She’d actually hit him. After all this time, she’d done something to cause him pain. She’d always thought the world would stop spinning when she finally did it, but all she felt was…his approval, along with her own.

“Nice,” was all he said, beckoning her forward again with sexy chagrin. “That fucking hurt.”

Joy carried a laugh up from her belly, filling her mouth. An image of her mother standing above her while she bled on the floor of the library flickered in her mind. The sound of disgusted laughter. The shame, the anguish, the yearning for affection crowding in her throat while she stretched up a hand to Inessa and was denied.

There was none of that darkness here with Elias. There was sweet welcoming completion. His encouragement opened a dam of emotion inside of her and the rush was so powerful, she gasped under the deluge. She’d been wrong all along. Oh God, she’d been so very wrong about him and now her loyalty would have to expand. It had to expand to include both mountains. Was that even possible? She didn’t know. But she had to try.

When she made no move to continue the fight, the tension unlocked Elias’s muscles and the concentration on his face turned to concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Jonas showed me the videotape,” she blurted, pressing her hands to her burning cheeks. “He showed me the videotape of that night in the chapel.”

Vampires were pale by nature, but his complexion leached of even more color. “Videotape?”

Heat welled up behind her eyes, but she forced the tears away. Breathed through the sorrow and firmed her chin. She wouldn’t court sympathy she didn’t deserve. “You didn’t hurt my friends, Elias. You didn’t even touch them. You just protected me.” She held up her palms, disarmed of her hate, her weapons, her war against him. “I was wrong. You didn’t want to be Silenced, did you? Instead, it was me that brought this on you.”

He stared at a spot over her shoulder, jaw rigid. Nothing was said for several seconds, until, “I’m glad I didn’t directly kill your friends. Of course I am.”

“Not directly or indirectly,” she sputtered. “I saw you on the tape. How you were that night. You couldn’t have done anything to stop it. You were—”

A choked sound left him and he turned away, a shudder traveling through his broad shoulders. When he turned and ticked his eyes back to Roksana’s they were confusingly guarded.

“Whether or not that’s true, Roksana, it doesn’t mean you’re to blame instead.”

“It does,” she insisted. “At least partly.”

“No,” he barked. “I’m not letting you take the blame for what I can’t remember.”

Roksana reared back. “You would remember wanting to be a vampire. Seeking out the means to do it.”

Elias rolled a restless shoulder. “Leave it alone, Roksana.”

“Leave it alone?” She recoiled from the suggestion that she not take responsibility for her mistakes. “You have been pissed with me for years. Now when I really deserve a good ‘fuck you, I told you so,’ you’re just letting me slide? I don’t think so.” He raked a hand through his hair and snorted. but not even the play of delicious muscle could distract her from the point. Was Elias protecting her from something, like he always did? But from what? She didn’t want to be spared from the blame. If she’d earned the burden, she would damn well carry it. “Fine. If you choose to deny me any responsibility for you being made immortal against your will, you have another reason to curse my name.”

Temper flared in his eyes, power coiling in his biceps. “I will never curse your name.”

Dread swamped her, but she pushed through. She owed him full honesty. “Not even if killing you is part of my mission from Inessa?”

Her admission ripped the wind out of his sails. He opened his mouth to speak, choked a little and swallowed before finding his voice. “Not even then.”

A shudder wracked her, legs turning unsteady. “Because I won’t do it. I can’t. I can’t.” She shook her head vigorously, words spilling from her mouth in a jumbled torrent. “Not even if you killed them. Not ever.” His eyes started to glitter, his nostrils flaring. “You’re…you’re mine. I’m yours. I can’t do it, Elias. I could never—”

In a blur of movement, he enfolded Roksana in his arms, crushing her to his chest. “Shhh, mate. My beautiful Roksana. Everything is going to be all right.”

Being held by him was the ultimate anchor and she clung, soaking him in. “I’ll tell my mother about the video,” she said against his throat. “About what really happened that night. I’ll tell her you weren’t involved and request she no longer demand an eye for an eye.”

Roksana wisely left it unspoken that she would beg and barter with Inessa. That she would offer servitude if necessary to keep Elias from being eliminated. It would be her penance for spending three years punishing him for a crime he didn’t commit. If Inessa demanded she walk away from Elias altogether, she would do it to spare him, except he needed his mate’s blood to survive now. They couldn’t be apart. What was she going to do?

Elias must have sensed her panic because his arms tightened, lifting, her bare feet leaving the floor. “We’ll face her together.”

“No.” She tried to wriggle free of his grasp, but Elias’s arms were forged in steel. “She will wield her stake and ask questions later. You could be killed before we have the chance to explain!”

“The same could happen to you!” he raged against her temple, his big body shaking. “Don’t ask me to allow the woman I love more than life itself to put herself in danger. We go together. We do everything together from now on, Roksana. I’d rather be dead than separated from you, don’t you understand that?”

Tears that would no longer be held at bay blurred her vision, her lungs seizing with so many emotions she couldn’t name them all. Happiness, dread, disbelief were chief among them. “I lay my transgressions out in front of you and I get love in return?”

“Yes.”

This. This was unconditional love. And she was beginning to believe she’d been looking for it in the wrong place all along. Then and there, clinging to her vampire for everything she was worth, Roksana vowed on her own honor that she would not let that faith be misplaced.

She would keep it safe and sound.

Keeping them safe came first, though…and that would be much more difficult.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Please remain seated at all times,” Tucker called through the open window of his black Impala as Elias and Roksana emerged from the vampire hold. Exhaust sputtered out into the night air, creating a gray, twisting cloud that matched the one coming from their chauffer’s cigar. “Tucker is not responsible for lost or stolen property or anyone’s inability to appreciate a good fart joke.”

After a quick shower and a change into one of Ginny’s vintage dresses—and another round of cookies for the human—they were leaving for Coney Island. Saying goodbye to her friend had been hard, but not as hard as she’d imagined it would be upon arriving. She’d been mired in doubt and guilt this time yesterday. Now her path was clear. Her decision to approach Inessa and plead Elias’s innocence was a thousand-pound weight gone from her shoulders, even though she knew the negotiation would not be easy.

The trial would be worth it.

Elias loved her.

Roksana was carried toward Tucker’s car in a warm safety net and it was a scary, beautiful imprisonment. She didn’t want out. Lord no. But knowing she couldn’t escape nudged her flight or fight instinct, as much as her heart tried to subdue it. As much as she wanted to give herself over entirely to Elias, without a single reservation, the tell-tale heart of guilt still ticked away under her floorboards. All those hours her mother had spent training her, coaching her through the worst grief imaginable…and she’d once again arrive a failure in Inessa’s eyes. If it wasn’t for Elias’s steadying presence, her calm would have deserted her.

Elias’s palm curved protectively to the base of her spine, his thumb brushing casually across the valley of her bottom, causing her intimate muscles to flex.

Okay, calm might be an exaggeration.

“Shotgun,” Roksana said, a little breathily.

Would she ever not sound out of breath after tonight?

I’d rather be dead than separated from you, don’t you understand that?

The magnitude of what transpired between them in the gym had discombobulated her. There were so many unknowns yet to solve, but sex was not one of them. She’d been anxious to bring the focus back to the physical burn between them. Almost desperate to do so.

While she showered and prepared to leave, Elias had sat watchfully on the end of the guest room bed, thick thighs in a manspread, hands clasped loosely between his knees. She’d let him observe, the shower curtain pulled back, water pooling on the floor, positive he would storm the bathroom any moment and reward her for being a tease. But he’d simply continued to stare, a vein ticking in his temple, a host of mysterious thoughts whirring behind his eyes. The seduction attempt had left Roksana critically hot and bothered. Elias seemed to know it, too, taking every opportunity to graze fingertips across her hip bone or twist his grip in the hem of her borrowed dress.

Elias opened the passenger side door of the Impala for her, leaving only enough room that she had to squeeze past his hard body, a knowing smile curved his lips.

She almost bit him.

No sooner had they settled into the Impala, Elias directly behind her in the backseat, did Tucker fire up the engine and gun the car in reverse, sending them flying down the bumpy forest floor at a breakneck pace. They hit the road in under a minute and he whipped the wheel into a K-turn, flooring the gas pedal with a cry of, “Road trip, motherfuckers!”

Roksana grimaced at the dress she wore. “We need to stop for clothes. I can’t go to the club dressed like a grandma.”

Tucker sighed, the tires of the Impala squealing as he turned onto the highway. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Women are hell on road trips.”

“Hush, bloodsucker. I’ll buy you a fancy cigar.”

He laid on the horn. “Now we’re talking.”

They’d driven for a while, trying to get some distance in the rearview before looking for a place to stop. A matter of days ago, Roksana had played in an underworld poker game with fae and vampires. Now she was in a mall in suburban Connecticut.

Life was weird.

With the shopping center twenty minutes from closing, there were very few customers in the place, but the people who did pass them did a double-take. She could only imagine the picture they made, her in a vintage dress with a bruised face and combat boots, Elias prowling like an amber-eyed lion in his long black coat, daring anyone to get too close to her. And Tucker smoking a lit cigar, his gold chains glinting in the open collar of his white dress shirt.

Not exactly the typical clientele for Nordstrom, but hey, desperate times called for desperate shopping. Elias followed behind her closely now as she browsed the racks, essentially grabbing everything black and in her size.

“She’s not even looking at the price tags,” Elias murmured, pretending to scroll through his phone, even though she could feel him staring at her legs. “Must still have my credit card.”

She made a show of bending over and untucking it from her boot, holding it up and winking at him. “I never leave home without it, vampire.”

When he only looked gratified, a hot wave of awareness sizzled through her, sensitizing every inch of her skin. His eyes were sending the clear message that he loved providing for her. Initially, she’d stolen his credit card to annoy him, but had it ever really done the trick? Or was he secretly enjoying it the whole time?

“What about this?” From the other side of the rack, Tucker held up a yellow kimono. “You could jazz it up with a chunky necklace or something.”

Roksana shook herself free of the Elias-trance with a laugh, but the buzz in her blood remained. Focus on the night ahead, ding dong. But how was she supposed to do that when having him so close put her in a constant state of arousal? She desperately needed to come up with a game plan for when they reached Enders. Sure, she could use the marriage decree to gain entry and secure a meeting with Tilda, but she was banned from the slayer bar months ago for fighting alongside vampires in order to protect Ginny. Tonight could very well turn violent and she was still not at full speed after Moscow.

“Here,” Elias said, taking the pile of clothes out of her hands. “I’ll start getting these rung up. We need to get back on the road.”

“Thanks.” Roksana held up a pleated leather mini-dress, cooing at it like a mother to an infant. “I’ll be there in a minute. Just going to go throw this on in the dressing room.”

Elias eyed the sexy dress with distaste, but wisely chose not to comment, him and Tucker winding their way through the racks to the register. Roksana made quick work of stripping off her borrowed clothes and squeezing into the black leather, feeling so instantly at home in the confining material, she let out a gusty sigh.

She was still smiling when she walked out of the changing room, Ginny’s dress folded in the crook of her arm. And it stayed frozen on her face when the scene taking place at the register unfolded in front of her.

The female clerk was flirting with Elias, leaning seductively on one elbow and flipping her long, midnight hair.

Okay, fine, so he wasn’t giving the clerk the time of day. Some might even say he was outright ignoring her as he scribbled his signature on the credit card receipt. But that didn’t stop tiny explosions going off in Roksana’s ears. If she had fangs, they would already have been out and very likely covered in blood. Her stomach swam with boiling oil and a screech burned in her throat, begging to be released.

This was not a petty feeling. It was a flash flood. It was a firing of synapses in her brain, a short-circuiting of veins and wiring. An air-splitting howl from the pits of a cavern inside her no one had ever visited.

Obviously sensing her presence, Elias turned his head and locked eyes with Roksana. In a snap, his expression went from bored to a mixture of furious and voracious, gold swimming in his eyes, his tongue tucking into the corner of his mouth.

“There’s the beautiful girlfriend I mentioned,” he drawled.

Tucker stuck his head out from behind Elias. “He did mention you. Three times. Witnessed the whole thing.”

“I think I still want to stab somebody,” Roksana choked out, no longer recognizing her own emotions. Without a command from her brain, she grabbed a hanger off the closest rack and snapped it over her knee, tossing it down at Elias’s feet. “Why are you continuing to stand there?”

“We’re going to need a minute,” Elias said, striding in her direction and calmly throwing a bristling Roksana over his shoulder. Continuing on without a hitch.

Her jealousy kept her paralyzed until they were almost to the dressing room, then she started to fight, though she wasn’t sure who or what she was fighting, only that she couldn’t bear the claws digging into her middle.

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” she hissed. “I want to be alone.”

“Maybe that’s what you want.” Elias walked them into the farthest stall, drawing her forward off his shoulder, pinning her hard to the wall. “But you need my cock.” He rammed his hips up between her thighs and it felt so good, she slapped him across the face. The hard contact from her palm only put a savage smile on his face. “More?”

Lust blanketing her senses and robbing her of reason, she slung her legs around him, squeezing his hips with her knees. “More.”

He licked the curve of her throat, his hands busy between their bodies unzipping his jeans. “You want me to make it hurt, baby. Don’t you? You behaved like a brat and now you want to be fucked like one?”

The walls of her femininity seized so tightly, her eyes crossed. Oh God, what new level of dirty was this? Hadn’t they hit the ceiling of it last night? Or would a ceiling ever exist for them? “Yes. Yes. Just like that.”

Elias’s mouth stamped down over her gasping one, his hand positioning the wide head of his shaft between the damp lips of her sex, thrusting home in one mighty move, her answering scream muffled by a vicious kiss. His hips pumped once, twice, a third time, then held deep, those amber eyes boring into hers. “Take what you feel right now and imagine living with it all the fucking time. Whether other males are around or not. Doesn’t matter. Just knowing they might happen past you makes me so hard to claim this pussy, Roksana. I want to claim it day and night.” His drives turned rough and punctuated, mean—and she gloried in every single one. “And I’ve been locked in this state for fucking years, so don’t you dare give me a goddamn attitude after feeling it once. Don’t make me laugh.”

Who knew she liked being chastised so much?

Liked? No, she lived for it.

Broken sounds tripped from her mouth, though she could barely hear them over the rattling of the dressed room stall, the entire place shaking with every surge of his hips.

His lower body was so robust, pressed so tightly between her thighs that she couldn’t even close them enough to squeeze his waist. They were splayed open, parallel to the wall, her knees occasionally smacking into the plaster. Bump, rattle, bump, rattle, bump.

She tossed back her head and revealed her neck, desperate to be fed on.

Desperate to be salivated over, desperate to satisfy.

Without warning, Elias crowded closer, flattening her so securely to the wall, she could scarcely draw breath. “My bite is yours alone.” His voice was dangerous against her ear. “My fuck is yours alone. You don’t question that again, are we clear?”

“Yes,” she gasped, his powerful pulsations inside of her almost enough to make her orgasm. Almost. Almost. “I won’t.”

“Listen good, baby. You’re going to walk out of here with me shining up the insides of your thighs.” His fist pounded the wall. “You’re going to wear me all fucking night.”

She had to grit her teeth through a spasm of pleasure. “You too.”

His laughter was more like a growl. “Better come then, baby.” He bent his knees and thrust upward, forcefully, covering her mouth with his own to muffle her scream. “Better come hard and put your claim on me. I’m damn well going to put mine inside you. Deep as I can. Every time I get between these gorgeous fucking thighs.”

A shudder wracked her, jolting her back into an arch. “Oh my God.”

Elias was an animal from that point on, and she became one, too, digging her claws into his neck, grinding her sex into his merciless thrusts, biting his grunting mouth and pulling his hair. She couldn’t even remember why they’d ended up in the dressing room or why she’d been angry in the first place—and that was his obvious goal. There was only him and the impatient, relentless filling of her body. There was only his tongue and lips sucking at the slopes of her breasts and his biting grip on her ass. They reached the point of no return and Elias looked into her eyes, his own glowing like lit coals, his fangs visibly throbbing in his mouth.

He tilted his hips, sliding his shaft roughly against her clit. The muscles of her stomach wrenched, melted, wrenched and she started to struggle between her vampire and the wall. Oh no, no, no. The release was going to be too intense, too great. She couldn’t shatter so thoroughly with him looking her in the eye like this, could she? She couldn’t avoid it, either. Her thighs were starting to shake wildly, her core clenching around him and he wouldn’t let up on that illicit stroking of her pleasure source. “Elias!”

“This is your punishment for being jealous. For doubting me.” He rubbed her clit faster with the thick trunk of his erection, pressing tighter, grinding his hips until she was screaming through her teeth, batting at his shoulders with the heels of her hands. “Bad, bad girl. Questioning your mate’s loyalty when he would kill and steal and die for you. Never do it again. Come hard so I know you’ve learned your lesson.”

It was already upon her, the glorious pain. She clenched involuntarily until he made a sound of discomfort, sensual excitement slackening his features, then the storm barreled through her, ripping through her head to toe, flexing her muscles until they were unnaturally taut, her throat burning with the need to scream. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything but accept the blow of the all-encompassing climax. It rode roughshod through her, biting her with razor-sharp teeth and leaving marks that would never fade.

And when Elias buried his fangs in her neck, his hunger propelled her higher. She threw herself into the eye of the storm and let it batter her.

Elias followed, undergoing his own perfect torment, his desire forming a hot pool inside her body, his hips moving in a broken pattern, his gratified male moans filling her ears. When she became aware of their surroundings again, she was boneless between Elias and the wall, her lungs struggling to fill themselves while he kissed her temple.

“My love is solid. It doesn’t bend,” he said fervently. “Don’t forget again.”

Roksana could only manage a nod, her heart doing flips in her chest.

Dazedly, she let Elias fix her dress with three efficient moves and thread their fingers together, leading her from the dressing room. When they walked past the gaping clerk, she couldn’t even summon an ounce of smugness.

Jealousy 0.

Elias 1.

And in just one round, the competition was forever over.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Elias walked a few paces behind Roksana, satisfaction burning deep in his gut.

If she didn’t know he was all about her before, she goddamn well knew it now.

She swaggered down the alleyway like princess of the world, the pleated flap of her skirt swinging with every sway of her hips to slap the tight underside of her ass, her long hair in sexy disarray down the center of her back. Her outward strength had always filled him with an odd sense of pride, but after being witness to so many of her vulnerable moments, he recognized her signature swagger as something more. It was bravery in the face of the unknown. A dare to test her. And the fact that she knew uncertainty and pain only made her confidence more impressive.

Putting one foot in front of the other was becoming more of a challenge because each moment that passed, his mate, this phenom, introduced him to a new emotion that he had to put on his back and carry. The anguish, regret, jealousy and lust he’d always felt for Roksana had been joined by admiration, understanding, love so thick he couldn’t cut to the middle.

All of those new components made it difficult to follow her toward potential danger when he wanted to seize her and run, hide her away from every single threat. But that wasn’t an option. His soul belonged to a complicated woman and that meant living with fear that harm might come to her. To stuff her in a safe room and stifle her spirit was tantamount to throwing a sheet over a parakeet’s cage. He’d learned his lesson in making her helpless once. He’d lose her by trying it again—and that wasn’t an option.

“So do we actually have a plan?” Tucker asked to his right. “Or do we just kick down the door of Enders and start swinging?”

The slayer shrugged. “The marriage decree could probably get me in the door alone—”

Elias cut her off with a reflexive growl.

Roksana sent him a smirk over her shoulder. “Alas, the old ball and chain is opposed. I have a standing plus one now. It’s very annoying.”

“They think you’re a traitor, Roksana,” Elias said patiently, though the closer they got to the underground slayer club, the less calm he felt. “Walking in there alone is dangerous.”

“Yes, and there is no way I can disprove that theory by walking in with two vampires.” She stopped in the shadows and crossed her arms. “Unless, I don’t walk in. Perhaps I am dragged?”

Elias stared. “Already I don’t like this.”

“My mother told me the slayers are eager to mete out their own punishment for turning on my own kind. Why not give me to them?”

“Let me get this straight,” Elias started, a storm of denial gathering in his sternum. “You expect us to knock on that door and hand you over, just to buy us a meeting with Tilda?”

“Yes, but it’s only a bluff.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“No one knows I’m in possession of the marriage decree. For all they know you won the poker game. Thanks to your little fire problem, there are no witnesses from that night.” She smoothed the pleats of her dress. “You have come to Enders to trade the decree for Tilda’s game piece. I am a pot sweetener. A show of good faith.”

“When did you think of this plan?” Tucker asked, putting up his hand for a high five. “There’s twists, there’s turns. It’s dope.”

Roksana completed the high five. “Thank you.”

Elias ground his back teeth together. “And once you’ve been handed over? Then what?”

“Refuse to hand me over to anyone but Tilda. That will get all of us into the famous back office and then…” She cocked a hip. “I’ll just find a way to bargain my way out.”

“You expect us to play it by ear when it comes to your life?” The contents of a nearby trash can ignited, painting the dark alley in an orange glow. “You have seriously underestimated my instinct to protect you, Roksana.”

“You are protecting me. Don’t you see?” She settled a hand on his chest and rubbed it in a slow circle, peering up at him through her eyelashes. “This way, I don’t have to go in alone.”

“Are you trying to flirt me into agreement?”

“Maybe.” Her blue eyes teased. “You are such a flirt magnet.”

Even though she joked, the need to claim her tightened his groin. Again. His hunger for his mate was a constant, replenishing fountain and he loved, craved, burned to banish every last remnant of his mate’s doubts about them. They were not welcome. He would surround her in his devotion until she accepted it without question and he’d make her scream with pleasure as many times as it took to convince her. They were each other’s and no one else’s. “Do we need another minute alone, baby?”

Tucker used a hand to cut the air between them. “Guys. I am literally right here.”

Roksana stuck her tongue out at Elias and he vowed to make her put it to good use later. “Tucker gets the merit of my plan.”

“And suddenly I regret reminding you of my presence,” Tucker muttered, before giving Elias an elbow in the side. “Come on, E. Once we’re inside, if you think she’s in actual danger, just burn the joint down, you lovable pyromaniac, you.”

“You have to be convincing or this won’t work,” Roksana said, scrutinizing him carefully. “I am a means to an end for you. Nothing more than a passing irritation. Can you pull that off?” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Please? I need you.”

Those four words wound through his ribs like a greedy vine.

My woman needs me.

Elias paced away, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. His mate’s instinct wasn’t something he could turn off and on. He embodied all the protectiveness of the man who’d met and fallen for Roksana in Vegas, but the call inside him to make it known was loud and unceasing. Having his claim on her soothed the beast, but denying that claim? He could already hear the bars rattling, the caged animal pacing back and forth.

She is your mate.

She must know it. The world must know it.

“I agree to your plan.” Elias paced to a stop in front of her, the heart she’d brought back to life rioting in his ribcage. “But you agreed to marry me and I want to hear your promise again. I’ll have my lifetime of calling you mine in exchange for denying you, Roksana.”

Roksana’s chest rose and fell swiftly, a tremor coursing through her. She opened her mouth to speak several times, but seemed unable to find the words. Then finally, “I won’t go back on my promise,” she said unevenly, stooping down and dragging her hands through the dirt, covering herself in filth, turning her hair to a tangled web in seconds. “However, I have a quick reminder of my own. I went on a few dates with the manager of Enders and he wanted me to meet his parents.” She straightened, looking as if she’d been in a scuffle with two vampires. “Shall we?”

“Ah, for crying out loud,” Tucker muttered.

Several yards away, the enflamed trash can exploded.

Elias gripped Roksana’s wrists behind her back in one hand, lifting his hand to knock on the non-descript metal door with the other. She struggled against him, attempting to free herself, but he only tightened his grip, wincing when his fingertips bit into her delicate skin. Footsteps approached from the other side of the door, and Tucker stepped closer, pressing a metal blade to Roksana’s neck. Elias closed his eyes momentarily, breathing in and out, reining in the overwhelming need to protect. To get the weapon as far away from her as possible.

The door opened a crack, then slowly pushed wider, letting out house music turned up to an earsplitting level. A man appeared in the opening, his white T-shirt a stark contrast to the deep brown of his skin. “You’ve got to be joking,” he said, eyeing Roksana with distaste. “Not only do you come crawling back here, you bring two undead with you?”

Fire rippled in Elias’s fingertips, his fangs vibrating with the need to slice down from their home within his gums. After punishing Roksana with pleasure for daring to be jealous of someone inconsequential, he recognized his own hypocrisy, but hell if he could help it.

This man had been on dates with his mate. Dates plural. He’d only taken her on one, they hadn’t even finished their drinks—and she thought he didn’t remember it. Everything about it was a travesty.

“Luther,” Roksana choked out, her attempts to break free increasing. “A little help here, please? I didn’t come by choice. They—”

Elias slapped a hand over Roksana’s mouth, forcing her down to her knees in front of him, pressing his hand tighter to her lips when she tried to bite him. “Not another word,” he barked, his stomach rebelling at the sight of her knees grinding into the dirty ground.

“We’re here to meet with Tilda,” Tucker said, holding up the document at a safe distance from Luther. “Tell her we have the decree.”

Luther eyed the paper suspiciously. “What decree?”

Tucker snorted. “Wow. You’re obviously super important around here.” He puffed on the lit cigar between his lips. “Tilda will know what we’re talking about.”

“You’re delusional if you think I’m letting two bloodsuckers in here.”

“Send us away.” Tucker ashed his cigar. “Tilda will probably let you live.”

“We had a feeling you might be a little hesitant, seeing as how we kicked your asses last time we were here,” Elias said, gripping Roksana’s jaw and turning her face up to the single fluorescent light, highlighting the bruise around her eye, the split lip she’d gotten in Moscow. Not from them. But Luther didn’t know that. “We’ve been holding her a while, waiting for the right time to play this particular card. Consider this the closest you’ll ever come to getting an apology for wrecking your little clubhouse.”

Slowly, Luther leaned an elbow on the doorjamb. “You’re turning the traitor over to us?”

“We’ll turn her over to Tilda,” Tucker answered, giving the slayer a tight smile. “Gotta get those brownie points, right?”

“She fought on your side that night.” Luther intoned, his forehead wrinkling thoughtfully. “Your allegiances changed so quickly?”

Elias tilted his head. “Are you saying vampires are capable of loyalty?”

“No,” Luther said quickly, curling his lip at Roksana. “We know damn well she isn’t capable of it.”

It was the slightest flinch that jolted Roksana. And though Elias kept his features bland, he felt it like a five-point-oh earthquake.

I’ll kill you one day, Luther.

Maybe even tonight, if I’m lucky.

“This offer is good for another five minutes,” Elias said coldly. “I suggest you let Tilda know we’re here before we find another buyer for this decree.”

“That won’t be necessary,” came a cultured English voice. It was quiet and breathy, but somehow sliced through the loud music with no effort. A second later, a rail-thin redhead came into view, looking straight down her nose at them. “Oh my. What a scene.”

Elias put the woman in her late forties, but he was basing that on the weight of knowledge in her eyes, because her skin looked like it was made of porcelain, not a single wrinkle or blemish to be found. “Tilda?” Tucker asked.

The woman’s movements were unnatural, as if she was shifting each body part separately to face Tucker. First her head, then her torso, finally her lower half. Elias could only describe it as a graceful version of the robot. “I am she, yes. Proprietor of this place. Famously.”

Roksana lunged onto her side, delivering a kick to Elias’s kneecap and rolling to her feet.

“You better catch her, I suppose,” Tilda said breezily. “If she is to be my gift.”

Elias moved in a blur of speed, wrapping an arm around Roksana’s waist and hauling her back up against this chest. Every time she struggled or drilled an elbow into his gut, the beast inside of him howled in confusion, but she was counting on him to hold it together, so he soothed the beast with a reminder that she’d wear his ring soon. “Your gift is a pain in the ass. Do you want her or not?”

“Oh yes.” Tilda reared back, hand pressed to her throat. “Where are my manners, you must come in at once, of course. Did I hear you mention you’d also brought the marriage decree for Mary?”

Tucker held up the piece of paper between two fingers. “Got it right here, ma’am.”

Tilda’s skin beat in a glowing pulse of light, her eyes taking on a luminescent quality. “Brilliant. I can’t wait for her bastard father to know I got the last laugh.” She patted Luther on the shoulder on her way into Enders. “This way, please.”

Tucker passed Elias with eyebrows raised, mouthing, “She’s fae?”

Elias gave an almost imperceptible nod, tucking Roksana against him and carrying her wriggling form over the threshold, barely quelling the urge to brandish his fangs at Luther as they passed.

Mine, motherfucker.

Enders looked exactly as it had the last time they were there. A bar ran along the right wall, a dance floor in back. Dancers undulated to the frenetic beat on elevated platforms. The atmosphere was dark and dramatic, a lot like most slayers of his experience. Neon phrases had been written on walls, such as send the undead to hell and protect the living.

Not in a million years could he picture Roksana in this place, drinking and reveling in a united purpose to commit murder. Neither one of them belonged in this underworld to which they’d been relegated, did they? Life-altering decisions had been made on their behalf. Their personal choices had been taken away and yet nothing seemed to stop them from continually choosing each other, no matter the consequences.

Would that always be the case for Roksana?

He would always choose her. No questions asked. His loyalty was absolute.

Once this exchange was made with Tilda, however, they would be on their way to Moscow. With Inessa in the picture, up close and personal, Elias was no longer confident in his ability to keep Roksana…with him. She had a deep, complicated allegiance to her mother.

Thus far, she’d been unable to seal the deal and kill him, but if her mother refused to be lenient and demanded his head, what would Roksana do?

What would he do?

The music fizzled to silence in the club, the slayers ceasing their movements in waves, drinks pausing in mid-air at the bar. Customers parted on the dance floor, nodding in deference to Tilda as she breezed through the middle, sneering at Tucker next. They all registered shock when they saw Roksana, but recovered quickly, spitting on the floor in front of her.

“Traitor,” they hissed.

“Judas.”

Roksana jerked out of his hold, settling her feet on the floor. “I can walk,” she snapped at him over her shoulder. Walking behind her as he was, Elias couldn’t see her expression, but the rigid tension in her shoulders didn’t appear to be for show. Nor was the jagged pounding of her heart. It echoed in his ears and the desire to soothe her ate him alive, scrambling his objectivity like the blades of a lawn mower.

Pull back.

Elias focused on her citrus scent and continued through the club, which remained suspended in animation. If he made it through tonight without starting a structure fire, it would be a miracle—

“Oh!” At the head of their human convoy, Tilda turned and clapped her hands twice. “I almost forgot. The vampires have brought you all a gift.” She lifted a hand and released a sprinkling of glowing sparks. They whirled in an arc above Tucker, twisting to stop above Roksana’s head, blinking and dancing. “The traitor slayer is all yours. I could tell you to be firm yet fair, but I’d rather save my breath. Paint the walls with her blood, if you must, just keep the noise down.” She cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered, “Mary is sleeping upstairs.”

Elias’s world narrowed down to a pinpoint, his throat collapsing in on itself. Hands reached for his mate, pulling her into the crowd, their boisterous cackles ripping through his bones. His fangs filled his mouth and fire blasted from a deep, dark, unknown land inside of him. The place would be leveled in minutes, but he’d be damned before something inflicted so much as a fucking scratch to Roksana—

“Mother?”

The flames were poised to erupt from Elias’s pores when a young woman stumbled into view among the paused bodies on the dance floor. Not so young, he amended. A teenager at least. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. She wore an old-fashioned nightgown, her deep red hair in a tangle from sleep. In her hand, she felt along the floor with the handle of a broomstick, her bare feet sticking to the nasty wood, though she didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Mother?” called the young woman.

“Mary, you’re supposed to be sleeping!” Tilda admonished, rushing forward with an air of maternal concern that definitely hadn’t been on display when she suggested her slayers paint the wall with Roksana’s blood. “Go on back up to bed now. Mummy is working.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She stared straight ahead with sightless eyes—and it was then that Elias noticed Tucker’s expression. He was staring at Mary, as if she’d been beamed down from heaven in a ray of light. “Is it the marriage decree? Have you found it?”

“Yes, dear. Yes.” Tilda patted Mary’s arm, trying to guide her daughter toward the back staircase leading up to where Elias assumed the office was located. “I told you I would take care of everything, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but…” Mary started to become visibly upset, the broom twisting in her hand, her breathing sounding as if it came through a straw. Around her the slayers remained eerily unmoving, their silence almost reverent, as if there was a saint in their midst. “Yes, but now will I have to go away and marry the—?”

Tilda interrupted with a nervous laugh, a pink glow blooming on her cheeks. “This should be a family discussion, dear. Not a public one.”

“Will you tell my future husband I’m blind or are we going to surprise him?”

“Mary, please. Come upstairs.”

The young girl tilted her head in a quick movement, the way someone might listen for an approaching train. Her nose wrinkled and she took a few steps forward, the nightgown swishing around her calves. Slayers stepped out of her way as she advanced, her hand lifting slowly, reaching out, her fingertips making contact with the center of Tucker’s chest. She walked them along his gold chains, up the side of his neck, then carefully traced them over his features. All the while, Tucker appeared to be under hypnosis, his eyes fixed on Mary’s face.

With everyone’s attention drawn to Mary and Tucker, Elias seized the opportunity to sidle closer to Roksana, signaling her with his eyes to do the same. The fear in her expression hollowed him out, but he did everything in his power to keep his composure, when in reality he longed to start kicking ass and taking names.

“Who is this, Mother?”

“You can ask him directly, Mary. He’s standing right in front of you.”

“I’m just Tucker,” he said in a funny voice.

“Just?”

Elias’s friend rubbed at the back of his neck. “Why do you use a broom to guide you?”

Mary seemed surprised by the question. “Because it serves a dual purpose. I’m not just walking around, I’m cleaning the floor behind me. I’m like a human—”

“Roomba,” they said at the same time.

“Yes,” Mary breathed, a smile widening her mouth. Little red sparks began dancing around her head merrily and several of the slayers traded astonished glances. “Are you here to bring me to my future husband?”

Tucker’s throat muscles worked. “No.”

“Can you?”

“No,” Tilda said firmly, taking Mary by the elbow and attempting to move her away from Tucker, visibly distressing the vampire. He seemed powerless to do anything but move with them, keeping Mary close. “No, he can’t, dear.”

Mary frowned and shrugged out of her mother’s hold. “You haven’t even asked him.”

“I’ll do whatever she wants.” Tucker’s voice was gravelly. “Please.”

Tilda snorted. “Absolutely not.”

The red sparks flying in a meandering pattern around Mary’s head started spinning faster, faster until they were connected in a continuous blur. Her shoulders lifted and fell, distress bringing spots of color to her cheeks. She took a deep breath and screamed, the earsplitting decibel shattering every drinking glass, cell phone screen and liquor bottle in Enders. Elias fought through the pain plaguing his ear drums, taking advantage of everyone’s distraction to lunge for Roksana, pulling her from the midst of her would-be attackers.

“Mary!” Tilda shouted, shaking the young girl by the shoulders. “Enough of this—”

The scream lifted in volume. To such a degree that Elias had to bury Roksana’s face in his chest, wrapping his arms around her head, fearing her human ears wouldn’t be able to withstand the sound. Slayers dropped to their knees on the dance floor, doubling over and pressing their palms over their ears. Meanwhile Tucker didn’t seem to be affected at all by the noise, seeming more worried about Mary than anything.

“Fine!” Tilda screeched. “Fine, yes…he can bring you. All right? Stop this at once!”

Mary quieted gradually, her red sparkles over her head returning to a happy glimmer. With a quiet smile growing on her face, she threaded her fingers through Tucker’s and led him through the parted crowd toward the stairs.

“Well now.” Tilda watched her daughter and Tucker walk away with a mixture of dread and shock on her face. “Pleasantries are out of the way, I suppose. On with the meeting.”

The tension remained in Elias’s back and shoulders until he and Roksana were safely inside the upstairs office with the door locked. Thankfully, her intention to toss Roksana to the wolves had obviously been forgotten in the uproar, but he wasn’t letting his guard down for a single second. Not until they were free of this place and she was safe in his arms.

Tilda’s office was decorated like it belonged in a Victorian mansion. All the furniture was miniature, ornate and cluttered, the walls hung with side profile paintings of people in period clothing, and classical music played lightly from a record player in the corner.

Mary and Tucker had entered the office in front of them, taking a seat on a plush bench to the side of Tilda’s desk, Mary pressed tightly to Tucker’s side. He appeared caught between alarm and disbelief over his own luck.

Remembering his role as captor, Elias caught Roksana’s wrists behind her back, propelling her toward a leather couch on the far wall of the large office. He stopped short when Tilda snorted and waved a floppy hand at him. “You can drop the ruse now, Mister Broody and Damaged. The jig is up.”

Roksana’s pulse leapt against his fingertips, but his expression didn’t change. “I’m sorry?”

Tilda sat down behind a feminine, antique desk and lit a cigarette, blowing out a thin cloud of smoke. “Perhaps you weren’t aware of the ungodly roar you let out when I handed her over to the slayers?” She laughed without moving a single one of her facial muscles. “Your prisoner, she is not.”

“Mother talks like Yoda when she’s stressed,” Mary piped up with a stage whisper, scooting even closer into Tucker’s side and patting him happily on the knee. “Stressed she talks Yoda like Mother.” She frowned. “I don’t think I’m doing it right.”

“Yes, you are,” Tucker rasped, staring down at the crown of Mary’s head.

Tilda diverted Elias’s attention when she nodded at Roksana and asked, “Is the traitor slayer your mate?”

“I’ve had enough of her being called that.”

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Tilda said, narrowing her eyes. “You’re very lucky I’ve been forced to switch my allegiances or I’d mount your heads on my wall.”

“You’d try,” Elias and Roksana said at the same time.

Tilda sighed. “Do take a seat. My neck is forming a crick.”

Keeping a wary eye on the fae, Elias guided Roksana to the leather couch and sat her down, positioning his body between her and Tilda. “We brought you the marriage decree,” Elias said. “We’ll exchange it for the game piece and be on our way.”

With the cigarette perched in the corner of her mouth, Tilda unlocked a slim desk drawer and removed a stuffed red envelope. “This is what you seek.” She drummed her fingers on the envelope. “Who will you bring this to? Out of curiosity.”

“My mother,” Roksana said, craning her neck to see past Elias. “Inessa. The Queen of Shadows.”

Tilda showed no reaction. “Very well. Then I shall consider this valuable information my last service to the slayers. We’ve had a good run, but beckoned by greener pastures I am.”

“I don’t understand,” Roksana said.

“It’s Yoda-speak,” Mary explained brightly.

Roksana nodded, though the young woman obviously couldn’t see her. “Yes, but I don’t understand what you mean by this being your last service to the slayers.”

Tilda took her time answering. “The fae have long been an ally of the slayers. Though we were reluctant at first, it became necessary to form a united front against the vampires. You see, we are much fewer in number. Our influence in the underworld is not what it used to be. We do have value, however.” Her skin pulsed with a dull glow. “Our abilities made us a threat to the vampires. Thus, we went into league with the slayers.”

“For protection,” Roksana guessed, her brows drawing together. “What has changed?”

“Why, there is a new vampire king. Haven’t you heard?” Tilda stubbed out her cigarette and lit a fresh one. “Not a fan. His peaceful practices have stirred the hornets’ nest and now there is an uprising in the States. There are now two vampire contingents and I no longer have faith in the slayers’ ability to make our alliance worthwhile.”

The back of Elias’s neck tightened, trepidation lining his stomach. “You’re forming an alliance with the vampires that rise against the king?”

“That’s right. You’ll let him know, won’t you? Since you work for him.” Tilda paused, smiling at the tension she’d created by casually dropping her knowledge of their identities. She didn’t seem inclined to care beyond the enjoyment of proving her intelligence. “Through Mary’s marriage,” she continued, smugly, “we will unite the fae and the dark uprising.”

Tucker’s head swiveled around. “What now?”

Tilda’s delight increased with Tucker’s distress. “We fae have subdued our abilities to appear less threatening long enough. We want to play, too.” She gave an exaggerated pout. “Those leading the dark uprising welcome all the power they can get. We intend to give it to them and take back the influence we deserve. Maybe a victory will be enough to draw our oh-so-perfect relatives back from the Faerie realm. I suppose only time will tell.”

“Hold up, hold up, hold up.” Tucker massaged the center of his forehead. “You’re going to send Mary to something called the ‘dark uprising’?”

“Yes.” Tilda smiled. “Their leader awaits her arrival, along with the marriage decree. Do have her there by this time next week, darling.” She tossed the red envelope to Elias and he caught it in mid-air. “Pass on my regards to the Queen of Shadows.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Roksana felt like she’d been dropped into an episode of Black Mirror—and that was saying something considering she was a vampire slayer by trade, not to mention a recent acquaintance of several ill-tempered fae. As she stood at Elias’s side and watched Tucker help Mary the Mad into the passenger side of his Impala, as if the girl was made of glass, the soundless night surrounding them seemed two dimensional. Unreal. Her consciousness had been shot full of holes. Now it let in light from unexpected sources.

“Did you know?” she asked Elias, tonelessly. “About the dark uprising?”

“Jonas told me about it only last night,” he said, clearly expecting the question. “But I knew nothing about the fae’s allegiance. Hell, I knew nothing about them at all until now.”

There was no question in her mind Elias told her the truth. That moment in Enders when she’d been thrown to the slayers to carve up like a turkey, the remaining barriers between herself and Elias had fallen. In the midst of her fear, she’d reached for him, needed him. His eyes had told her their own tale in that split second.

He’d have died defending her.

She’d never experienced more absolute trust in anyone. Not in her entire life.

A battle was coming. Bigger than any she’d ever fought. More important than a single slayer stalking vampires at night, taking out one or two on occasion. If this dark uprising attempted to overthrow Jonas…and the slayers took advantage of the conflict to assert their own agenda…the loss of life could be tremendous in every corner.

“If Jonas has to fight the uprising…will you fight with him?”

He looked over at her. “Of course.”

Even as a fissure formed in her heart at the very possibility of Elias being hurt or killed in a war, his unspoken question hung in the air between them.

Which side will you take, Roksana?

She planned to plead with Inessa to spare Elias, citing the fact that he’d actually saved her life that night in Vegas. Wouldn’t that mean something to her mother? That her daughter’s life had been spared because of this man’s actions? If it didn’t mean something to Inessa—and Roksana’s heart ached over the possibility—she’d offer to complete countless missions, even tracking down her own elusive father and dragging him to Moscow if Inessa wished it. But even if Roksana’s request was granted and Elias was spared, she would still be left in her limbo, wouldn’t she? Caught between her legacy and the man she’d fallen for.

Where do I belong? What the hell do I do?

Self-disgust roiled in her belly, flooding her mouth with the taste of acid.

“Be calm. We have enough to worry about right now,” Elias said, voice steady. “We leave for Moscow before the sun comes up. One thing at a time, okay?”

“We can’t ignore the fact that a war is brewing.”

He mashed a fist against his chest. “We have to fight our war first.”

Roksana looked down at the red envelope in her hand. She didn’t even know what was inside and somehow it felt like a time bomb, ready to go off. When allegiances and power hung in the balance, the smallest thing could make a difference. Thankfully, the contents of the envelope would be in her mother’s hands. Safe.

Why didn’t she feel reassured as she should be by that?

“Will you open the envelope before handing it over to Inessa?”

“No.” Resolutely, she shoved the envelope into her back pocket. “The game piece is for her eyes alone. Those were my orders.”

Elias cut her a sideways glance, but said nothing.

Her confidence waned. “You think I should look?”

“I don’t make decisions for you, Roksana. I protect you.”

The sound of boots on the pavement broke their staring contest. Tucker approached them, but he walked backwards, as if he couldn’t stand to take his eyes off the car where Mary sat. “I guess I’m off, folks.” He rubbed a hand over his hair. “Just going to bring this blind girl with the crazy-ass scream and drop her off at her fiancé’s lair. Typical weekend plans, right?”

“You’re not really going to drop her off,” Elias said. “Are you?”

“Nope. Fuck that noise. Can’t and won’t do it.” Tucker turned briefly and put his hand out for a shake. “It’s been great knowing you. Try not to kill each other.”

Roksana ignored Tucker’s outstretched hand and gave him a hard hug. “Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure yet.” He laughed without humor. “Is anywhere safe these days?”

“Not when you’ve kidnapped the key to an unholy alliance,” Elias said, shaking his friend’s hand. “Lay low and be safe. We’ll wait for your call.”

Tucker’s gaze took on a far-off quality. “Remember when I told you I saw home, that night at the poker game?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded at the car. “She was there.”

Roksana and Elias watched Tucker climb into the driver’s side of his car. A melodic greeting from Mary floated out into the night, followed by a gruff rejoinder from Tucker.

And then they were gone.

Standing side by side in the darkness, Elias and Roksana watched them go, the lack of sound creating a static buzz around them.

“I miss dancing in the street,” Roksana whispered, hazy visions of the Vegas strip glimmering in her head. “I miss believing the fate of the universe was someone else’s responsibility.”

Silence passed them like a river’s current. “I could tell you we don’t owe the universe anything. I could tell you we don’t have to go to Moscow. That we can run off and find a way to have that lightness together.” He put an arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side, pressing his lips to her temple and she went like a child, seeking…something. Reassurance. Validation. She didn’t know. “But you’re not a woman who buys bullshit and I’m not a man who sells it. You need to be stronger than ever now, Roksana. You will be. Accept the fact that you are the maker of hard decisions. Someone else gets to be blissfully ignorant and you have to pick up their slack. That’s your life. That’s my life, too. Take a deep breath and go toward the next fight. I’ll be there with you.”

They were words only someone who knew her heart and recognized her soul could say.

They were hard and truthful and exactly what she needed.

They could only come from him. Because he was Elias.

“I love you,” she whispered, her fingers twisting in the front of his shirt, those three words ripping the lid off what felt like a lifetime of suppressed emotions, drowning her, leaving her literally and figuratively gasping for air. “I have loved you and I will love you.”

He opened his mouth to say something, to return the sentiment, but he couldn’t seem to get it out, choking on his first and second attempt. So instead he took her hand and placed it, palm down, over his thrashing heart—and it told her everything she needed to know.

Elias and Roksana took a cab to the airport where Elias had the Vamplane waiting in a private section of the airfield. Roksana was wired. Exhausted but unable to sleep once the plane took off. She paced the length of the private aircraft, weaving possible scenarios for the upcoming confrontation with Inessa, while Elias alternated between watching her with quiet concern and typing on the screen of his phone.

Finally, on lap number eighty thousand, Elias snagged her around the waist and settled her in his lap. “Look at me,” he ordered gruffly, tilting her chin up. “I’m going to compel you to sleep. You have to take advantage of this long flight and rest.”

She tried to squirm free of his hold. “Not a chance. I need to plan.”

“Roksana.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, bringing their foreheads together. “You need to sleep. Allow yourself to be human.”

The word human on his lips summoned a whole other host of concerns. Ones she’d had more and more frequently over the last twenty-four hours with all the talk of war and matehood and love. “Have you ever thought of silencing me, Elias?”

He averted his gaze, but not before she saw the blazing possession there. “I’m not proud of myself, but I have.”

She traced his lip with the pad of her thumb. “I love the truth from your mouth, no matter what it is.” For some reason, her statement caused his scar to whiten. “You don’t have to feel guilty for wanting me to be like you.”

Elias curled a hand lightly around her throat. “You’re strong as hell, baby, but in my world you’re fragile.” A muscle slid up and down in his cheek. “You love the truth from me? The idea of turning you terrifies the hell out of me. You know it’s not always successful.”

Pulse skittering, she nodded. When a vampire drained a human of blood and infused them with venom from their fangs, it produced varying results. Timing and circumstances were huge. If the human was bloodless a moment too long before the venom took effect, it was lights out. Ginny almost hadn’t survived it. Wouldn’t have, if she hadn’t taken Jonas’s blood in return.

His fingertip traced down the side curve of her neck, lingering over where he’d bitten her in the dressing room. “Have you thought about it?”

The magnitude of what they were talking about—eternal life—made her breathing grow short. “Yes.”

Elias’s eyelids drooped and she could tell he was willing his fangs to stay hidden. “I think it’s best if I make you sleep,” he said hoarsely. “Now.”

Roksana knew he was right. With all the changes taking place and so many unknowns hovering over their heads, it was too tempting to take control of something. Relinquishing her humanity couldn’t be a rash decision.

Sleep. Okay. That meant Elias compelling her, because she definitely wouldn’t manage it on her own. Having her will taken away wasn’t something she did easily, but she did need her batteries recharged. Plus, she liked giving Elias this proof that she trusted him. “Promise not to draw a Sharpie mustache on my face.”

The corner of his lips jumped. “I’ll try and control myself.”

“Do you need my blood first?” she whispered, leaning in to graze their lips together.

With a stuttered groan, Elias sampled the inside of her mouth with his tongue. “I will wait.” He captured her jaw in his hand, holding her steady as his gaze lit gradually with a warm glow that she couldn’t look away from. Her thoughts grew fuzzy, her neck loosening, but the energy snapping in his eyes held her in thrall. “Sleep now,” Elias said, his voice resonation like a gong in an enclosed space, the potency of it reaching into her brain and flipping an off switch.

Consciousness rose and set once during the journey, the sound of the voices filtering in through the dusky glow surrounding her. Talk of refueling the plane and time zones and estimates on their arrival time. She had the vague sense they’d landed in Paris to service the plane, before Elias kissed her forehead and she dropped back off the face of the earth again.

When she woke fully, it didn’t happen in degrees. She snapped into alertness, springing up on the soft leather seat on which she’d been sleeping lengthways. In the absence of the engine’s rumble, she guessed they’d landed and her theory proved correct when Elias stepped from behind the dividing wall between them and the cockpit.

“Hey, we’ve landed in Moscow.”

She eyed the blacked out windows. “It’s okay to go outside?”

He nodded once. “With the time difference, it’s already nighttime here,” he said gruffly, reaching over her head and retrieving a heavy blanket, wrapping it around her body. “Damn, I missed your eyes.”

Without giving her a chance to respond, Elias scooped her up without preamble and strode for the door. Cold air numbed her face almost immediately. She was home. Yet there was nothing welcoming about it. Sleep had given her focus and it was already channeling itself into trepidation of what was to come, stiffening her spine and parching her throat.

Desperate for some sense of control, she wormed free of Elias’s hold so she could walk on her own down the stairs leading to the night-blanketed tarmac.

Men in heavy coats and ushanka hats moved in a swarm around the plane, breath exiting their mouths in rolling white plumes. Not a single one of them lifted their heads when Roksana and Elias disembarked. Elias took her hand and guided her to a waiting black town car. While someone put their meager luggage in the trunk, they settled into the backseat, their hands automatically seeking and clasping on the seat.

Roksana opened her mouth to tell the driver where to take them—she knew a cheap but safe hotel in the Lefortovo District where they could regroup and plan, but Elias beat her to the punch.

“St. Andronicus Monastery, please.”

She frowned as the car lurched forward, speeding through the empty airfield. “A church in the middle of the night? Why?” Wordlessly, Elias met her gaze and the intensity reflected back there raised goosebumps on every inch of her body. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m always serious.” His grip tightened on hers. “I applied for the marriage license before I left Moscow.”

Roksana’s heart climbed into her mouth, fluttering with a mixture of alarm and joy. “But…you are really holding me to this? Now? When everything is bonkers?”

“Everything is bonkers. That’s why we’re getting married.”

Her exhale emerged in a rush. “I don’t understand.”

Elias broke eye contact, staring out through the front windshield, and she got the odd feeling he was evading somehow. “Like you said, there is a war brewing. If something were to ever happen to me, I’d want you to have what’s mine.” He softened the blow of his words with a wry smile. “You’ll only need to put the credit card in your name.”

“Stop talking like this,” she breathed, ripping her hand away and securing the blanket more tightly around her body. Otherwise the ice forming in her blood was going to freeze her to death. “I don’t like weddings.”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

The quickness of her answer brought his head around. “Thank you,” he said gruffly, before facing forward again with a firm set to his jaw. “St. Andronicus Monastery.”

As they drove, snow began falling from the sky, the flakes light at first, but growing heavier by the time they arrived outside the church. The stone turret seemed to reach up to the moon, the carved exterior lit in a silver glow. Gas street lamps were lit and flickering outside, but there was no other light, save the quarter moon. Elias helped her from the back of the car, tucking her into his side, but when they would have climbed the church steps, he led her down a small path around back instead. They entered a small park, trees on either side blocking the wind and alleviating the harshest of the cold.

Up ahead, nestled in a dense copse of trees, there was a small structure made of stone, a round, gold dome on top. The door was open, light spilling out from within.

“When did you plan all this?”

His chuckle warmed her further. “I might have had an ulterior motive in compelling you to sleep.”

A smile spread across her mouth. “Sneaky. I like it.”

There was a priest standing at the altar when they walked inside, a bible tucked between his crossed arms and an ample belly. Apart from a slight inclination of his head, the priest didn’t acknowledge them, but she didn’t care, because the interior of the small, gold-gilded chapel was busy stealing her breath. It glowed like a jewel, candles bringing the gold plated walls to life. There were no flowers, save a single bouquet of white roses and Elias handed it to her with so much emotion in his eyes, she was surprised the blooms didn’t multiply and fill the entire magical chapel.

She let the blanket around her shoulders slough to the ground and she pressed the bouquet to her breasts, following Elias to the altar. Briefly, she glanced up to see the moon glowing in an overhead window, a scattering of stars twinkling at its feet. “There are no better witnesses than these symbols of nighttime…” she whispered. “Temnota moya.”

“Please.” Elias stepped closer, eyes glittering, arrested on her face. He handed two gold bands to the priest who placed them in the center of his bible. “Please make this woman my wife.”

The ceremony was traditionally Russian, so Roksana had to translate in quiet murmurs every time the priest paused, but her double acknowledgement of every single word only added to the gravity of what was taking place. She was marrying a vampire. But he was so much more and always had been. Elias was the man she’d once loved, the man she’d fallen for a second time against all odds, a protector, warrior, confidant, lover. The one her soul searched for every moment of the day and night, incomplete until they were close.

And she was all those things to him, as well.

The truth of that radiated from his tall body, the heart she’d convinced to beat again.

It was in the way he kissed her when the priest declared them man and wife, blissfully unaware he’d just united a vampire and a slayer in a union that would shake the underworld.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

His slayer was growing weary of being carried everywhere, but she indulged him one last time, allowing him to ferry her over the threshold of their one-room cabin. They’d only driven a mile from the church to the place he’d rented over the phone during their flight, but it might as well have taken a goddamn month. He needed his mate more with every step he took, every rap of his pulse. She seemed to know it, too, turning her knowing smile into his chest, the bouquet of white roses dangling from her hand.

Everything in the cabin had been prepared as specified. A fire sputtered and crackled in the hearth, the windows were covered with black out curtains and he scented food for Roksana in the mini-fridge. There was champagne, too, chilling in a silver bucket, even if drinking it would only have an effect on one of them.

This woman is my wife.

My mate and my wife.

Images of her swarmed his mind. Roksana fierce and vulnerable in the Brooklyn alley, a stake clutched in her hand, Roksana dancing with abandon on the Vegas strip, running toward him in the bar, sparring with him in the vampire hold.

Becoming a vampire wasn’t the only thing that made him immortal. His union with Roksana was even more substantial than some silencing of organs. Or ceasing to age. His love for her was eternal, enduring, a ripple across time that would continue uninterrupted, no matter what happened.

“You’re kind of an old-fashioned romantic, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. We’re finding that out at the same time,” he muttered, walking them into the cabin and setting Roksana on her feet in front of the fire.

“I already knew.” Eyes locked on his, her fingers slowly undid the buttons of his coat, pushing it off his shoulders. “But you don’t fit any mold exactly. You’d bring a girl to a fancy bar and not bat an eyelash when she orders a chocolate martini.”

A hoarse sound left him, but he disguised it with a cough. Fuck, he would do anything to tell Roksana he remembered their first night together. That he not only remembered it, but he replayed it endlessly, cherished it, counted it as the start of the most important chapter in his life: After Roksana. But with a reckoning bearing down on them faster than a speeding bullet, he couldn’t risk an implosion between them. More importantly, he couldn’t risk her life. Having an untruth between them was agonizing, but for now, leaving it there kept her protected.

Worried he was betraying too much on his face, Elias moved around Roksana and stopped in front of a small table for two, fishing the champagne bottle out of the ice. “It might not be chocolate, but it’ll do the trick. You want a glass?”

Her hands coasted up his back and he dropped the bottle back into the bucket with a loud rattle. “I only want my wedding night,” she said, kissing his shoulder through his shirt. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow. Don’t let me.”

Lust stiffened his cock, beginning a pulsating pressure he associated with his wife, but he didn’t immediately turn and take her in his arms. Back at the church, when she’d said the words that sealed them as husband and wife, something primal and old as time had been unearthed. It howled inside of him to be released, a wildness wanting to complete the ritual of ownership. Possession. To have Roksana underneath him and make her understand he’d be her first, last, forever. To impress that fact on her while she screamed.

But he wasn’t all beast. He’d been teeming with love for Roksana since before their matehood was even known. And she was a human girl who deserved better than a vampire giving in to the call to claim and own and fuck.

“Let me get myself under control,” he rasped, gripping the edge of the table and trying not to snap it. “This isn’t going to be some down and dirty hookup in a dressing room.”

“Don’t blaspheme the dressing room hookup,” she murmured in mock outrage, her hands busy untucking his shirt from his pants. “It was life changing. I can speak Spanish now and I couldn’t before.”

A laugh caught Elias off-guard, but it faded as quickly as it started. “I don’t want to be…mean with you. Not every time. Especially not this time.”

“I think we have differing definitions of mean, vampire—”

“Husband.”

Still facing away from Roksana, he heard her breath catch. “Husband.”

The ripple of his growl vibrated the air around them.

Several yards away, a picture hung on the wall and in the glass’s reflection, he watched Roksana step back and peel the black, leather dress down her body, reappearing when she’d worked it free of her feet and cast it aside. With his mate, his wife standing so close in nothing but panties, Elias obeyed his desperation and turned, devouring the sight of her excited nipples, the slopes of her sides, the lithe strength of her thighs.

Hunger bashed into his self-control like a battering ram, visions of her hair wrapped around his fist, their hips slapping together, trying to usurp his resolve—but he wouldn’t let it. Instead, he stripped off his shirt slowly, focusing on the way the firelight picked out white strands of her hair, made her skin look twice as soft, if such a thing were possible.

“Wife,” he managed around the stick in his throat. “My incredible…hot, little wife.”

“You rang?” Roksana said breathlessly, her tits heaving slowly.

Elias dropped his shirt on the floor and started undoing the fly of his pants. “I bet you’re going to taste even sweeter with a ring on your finger.”

She backed toward the fireplace, the buds of her nipples darkening a shade and Christ, he almost spilled his seed, right then and there. “Good question. H-how are you going to find out?”

He accelerated toward his slayer, fast enough to blow her hair back and make her gasp, but he stopped just short of touching her. Instead of pinning her to the fire-warmed rug and consummating their marriage in an animalistic frenzy, he called on his reserve of restraint and molded his right hand to her hip, pulling her close and settling his lips against her forehead, gently swaying her side to side. “It’s not dancing in the street,” he said, calling back the wish she’d made before they’d left Brooklyn. “I’m not even sure it’s dancing, because I’m terrible at it.” They both laughed and the soft sound seemed to drift from a perfect dream. “Maybe you can teach me.”

There she was. The girl from Vegas looking up at him. Totally unfettered and free and refreshingly wild, lacking in sorrow or familial duty. Somehow he’d revived the happiness that had been drained out of her. No matter what happened from that moment forward, he would hold on to the way her eyes sparkled and her smile came so easy tonight, like it never left. He’d hold on to the fact that he’d done something to make that happen and he’d be at peace.

Roksana locked her wrists behind his neck, her expression bursting with lightness. Enjoyment. Of this. Of them. “Don’t sound so worried, husband. You are going to love the way I dance.”

“Am I?”

“Da.” Her head fell forward on a laugh. “I was going to tease you for dancing like we’re in church, but it’s kind of nice, you know. We are leaving room for Jesus.”

“Uh-uh.” He tickled her ribs. “Show me your way.”

“Are you sure?” She went up on her toes and whispered in his ear. “It’s very risky. Our private parts might touch.”

He trailed his open mouth along her bare shoulder. “I’ll chance it.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she hummed, twining her fingers in the hair at his nape, tiptoeing forward to lock her curves to his front. They both looked down as her tits plumped against his pecs, their moans joining together like an erotic refrain, Elias’s hands finding her ass, yanking her up and forward to secure them tightly together. “Move your body with mine,” she whispered, her eyelids fluttering. “Slow and easy.”

Elias rolled his hips, using his grip on her ass to work their lower bodies together and was rewarded by Roksana’s eyes going blank, her head falling back. He did it again, again, again, never speeding up or slowing down, his erection protruding from the V of his unzipped fly to grind against the mound between her thighs. “It’s a damn good thing we kept this wedding reception private.”

He felt her carefree giggle in every corner of his body, his heart slamming into his jugular when she lifted her head, letting him see her flushed, lust-dazed expression. “We would have had a party to remember, though. The first vampire-slayer wedding in history.” She gave a happy sigh. “Think of the fights.”

He shivered. “I’m thinking of Tucker’s best man speech.”

With a laugh bubbling from her lips, she took hold of his collar and pulled herself higher against his body, both of them groaning when she wrapped her legs around his hips, his fingers biting into the flesh of her backside, riding her up and down. “If we do a honeymoon, I guess a beach is out of the question.”

Elias raked his teeth down the side of her neck, the energy between them changing, growing more desperate as she started to pump her hips, creating the kind of friction on his cock that he wouldn’t be able to withstand for long. Not without coming. “Does that bother you? Not being able to be with me in the sun?”

“Are we not in the sun?” His wife breathed against his lips. “I didn’t notice.”

He dropped to his knees and pitched forward slowly, laying his slayer down on the rug, his heart sprinting a thousand miles an hour. “My God, you are beautiful.” His mouth suctioned to hers, pulling deeply, giving her a thorough lick of his tongue. “I can’t believe you willingly bound yourself to me. I can’t believe this is real. Tell me it’s real.”

“It’s real,” Roksana said in a shaky voice, her back arching as Elias began kissing a path down the center of her chest, lapping at each nipple reverently, before traveling lower, past her navel to the wet folds he’d been salivating for since the too-brief moments he’d had his mouth between her legs, last time they were in Moscow.

Laying a kiss at the top of her slit, he breached her with his middle finger, plunging it deeply, gently, drawing her moisture back out and spreading it through the slick valley of her flesh. “Should I pick up where I left off?”

“I won’t mind if you start all over again,” she gasped, clawing the rug on either side of her hips. “D-da. Take it from the top, husband.”

Elias added his ring finger with relish, glorying at the sight of the gold band pushing at the entrance of her sex. He pushed it high and tight, jiggling that coarse spot inside of her. “If we’d gotten this far last time, I’d have known you were a virgin.” He dipped his head, dragging the flat of his tongue over her clit and her inner walls rippled around his fingers. “You still feel like one, don’t you, baby? So sweet and snug.”

“Elias,” she called, voice strangled, hips twisting. “Please, you will drive me crazy.”

“I’d only be returning the favor,” he breathed against her damp heat, working his fingers in and out of her with firm insistence, reveling in the way she parted for him with every thrust of those two digits, so he could memorize her exact shade of rose gold, watch her clit swell and beg for attention. And he gave it to her, curling his tongue around that little bud and making her moan, her hips jolting off the floor. “Fuck,” he groaned when her perfect flavor hit his taste buds, his fangs shooting down, throbbing. “Oh. Fuck.”

“Don’t stop,” she whimpered, her fingers plowing through his hair, twisting and yanking him closer to her pussy in a way that was purely Roksana. Purely his mate. He smiled savagely into his next rough series of licks, then batted her clit with his tongue, side to side to side until she slung her legs over his shoulders, her heels digging into the center of his back, those sexy thighs starting to tremble. “Elias. Elias. Poceluy menya, kosnys’ menya.”

“God, baby. Keeping talking like that. Tell me in two languages that I tongue fuck you right. More.” Jesus Christ. He’d never been more hot in his life, listening to her whine in her native language, her wetness dampening his chin. Alternating between gentle licks and dirty grinds of his tongue on top of her clit, Elias caught her hips in a bruising grip, squeezing, sliding his palms up to her tits and pinching her nipples. At the same time, he buried his tongue inside of her, moaning brokenly at the divine taste, texture, flex of muscle—and she screamed, her back arching off the rug, her sex contracting and releasing around his tongue, the taste of her pleasure satisfying him like nothing else, while starving him for more. For everything. “Need to feed,” he growled, pushing her thighs open wide, the sound of her erratic pulse battering his brain, his senses. “Do you know I worship you when I drink you? Do you know I pray to you like a fucking goddess when your taste hits me? God. Let me do it now.”

“Yes.”

His fangs slid into the supple flesh of Roksana’s inner thigh and she sucked in a breath, her body falling flat, eyes blind with pleasure. Her blood was hot and thick, mingling with the taste of her gratification on his tongue and he could do nothing but fuck the floor helplessly, his cock in a state of urgent pain. The source of her life flowed into his own veins, his heart pumping stronger, louder, echoing in his head along with her name. Putting an end to his meal was hard, as always, but he could almost read his wife’s mind. She was desperate for something.

He found out what it was when he retracted his fangs and was immediately shoved onto his back. Fine, he allowed himself to be shoved, went like a willing victim, hedonistic need tensing every one of his muscles as she climbed on top of his body, straddling his hips, her panties a twisted mess, stretched out and tangled to one side of her pussy. God above, she glowed like an angel in the firelight, her blonde hair in disarray, her face so beloved it made him ache. “Mine,” he rasped, raking rough hands up her outer thighs, his thumbs meeting at her exposed femininity to massage the swollen bud he’d crave with his dying breath. “Mine.”

For a moment, he forgot which of them was the eternal being, because her eyes seemed to blaze with something conjured by magic. “I want…you to be mine like that.”

“I am,” he roared, his chest filling with concrete. “Don’t you ever doubt it.”

“I don’t,” she rushed to reassure him while leaning down over his body, kissing his collarbone. “I meant…you know my taste, but I don’t know yours.”

“Blood.” A wicked pulse pumped between his legs, pushing his cock up between her thighs hungrily. “You want my blood, mate? You make it run. It’s yours. Drain me.”

Roksana eyed his neck in a near-trance, a breathless few seconds ticking past while he held his breath and then she lunged forward, her teeth breaking the skin above his pulse. The energy surrounding them blasted like a stereo, every particle in the air defining itself for his eyes, purpose tearing into him like saw blades. He cupped the nape of Roksana’s neck, begging through numb lips for her to take and take and take. She did so with enthusiasm, lapping at the life she’d put into him, her pussy grinding down on his shaft, her nipples stiff in his chest hair.

Her head lifted and the dazed fulfilment he saw there was life-affirming. It took him by the throat, squeezing, the beast inside him bellowing, violent, out of its mind. “If I fuck you now, Roksana, I’ll kill you,” he gasped, reaching down to position his cock at the slot of her sex, groaning when he found her twice as wet as before. “Take this dick deep and ride it. Please, baby. Show off my blood on your tongue and fuck me as hard as you can.”

His mate was shaking as she impaled herself down to the root of his cock, her hands slapping down on his chest, fingers snaring in his chest hair. “Oh my God. It feels so good it hurts. It hurts.” Eyes glassy, she put her tongue out, showing him the traces of red, bucking her hips once—hard—and the flames in the fireplace doubled in size, the lamps in the cabin blazing bright and fizzling to uselessness. “Elias,” she sobbed, her hips racing up and back, her sweet tits driving him insane with delicious little bounces. “Elias, you’re everything. Everything.”

“Just to you.” His thumbs stoked her clit in turn, using her wetness to lubricate the sensitive bud, and the faster he rubbed, the quicker those hips pistoned. “Always to you. My mate. My woman. My only.”

He was at the point of no return, the precipice of release so great, he didn’t have enough knowledge until tonight to fantasize about it. But with his mate moaning in abandon on top of him, the wound in his neck glowing hot, the satisfaction of fulfilling her needs in so many ways pushed him to a place of utter bliss. Paradise, population two. This was it. If he could have remained in that moment for an eternity, watching Roksana cry out with a second climax, her head thrown back in ecstasy, he would have. But even his immortal body couldn’t withstand the brutal onslaught of lust fulfilled as it bore down on his bones, shaking him, sending him to an even higher plane of existence.

“Roksana!” His shout ripped up his throat, deep, wild satisfaction swallowing him whole. Light streaked across his vision, his body bowing upward, hips thrusting up, up, up, nearly unseating her in his quest to put every ounce of his seed as deep as it could go. When he drifted down from the highest high of his life and opened his eyes, Roksana was curled up on top of him, a sheen of sweat cooling on her body, her breathing deep and even. “I love you,” he whispered, shaken by the emotion expanding in his throat, cradling her in his arms and carrying her to bed. “No matter what happens this time tomorrow, that will never change.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Roksana’s eyes popped open in the darkness, instantly on alert.

Nighttime or daytime? It could be either, considering she was sharing a cabin with a being that required the banishment of sunlight. Elias. His name whispered over her skin in the dark and every sore region of her body started to tingle.

Their lovemaking last night had almost been…ritualistic. She could still taste his coppery blood on her tongue. She still didn’t quite know what compelled her to drink from her vampire husband, but she wouldn’t take it back for anything in the world. Not after witnessing his breathtaking reaction. Feeling his approval inside of her. Beneath her. All over.

Erotic sounds and images from her wedding night flooded in and Roksana sat up, flushed from her thoughts. She squinted at the bedside clock, her spine snapping straight. Eight-oh-seven pm? Could that be right?

Apparently she was already living the vampire lifestyle.

The silence in the room registered and she twisted around, running a hand over the empty section of bed beside her. Elias slept infrequently, so she didn’t necessarily expect to find him there, but she’d kind of been hoping. Knowing Elias, he’d gone out to find her a bottle of Baikal or gather more weapons to surprise her. She should be grateful…but was it so much to ask for a cuddle session before she faced her mother again?

A chill walked like fingertips up her spine.

Inessa would already know she’d landed in Moscow. Most likely, she knew Elias was with her. What would the night bring? Would Inessa be satisfied with the game piece? Once Roksana explained that Elias had actually saved her life from those murderous vampires in Vegas, would Inessa still demand his life as payment?

Roksana prayed Inessa wouldn’t shred her heart like that, but if she did, Roksana was prepared to bargain. To call on any ounce of maternal instinct Inessa held for her. If her mother didn’t love her, care about her, she wouldn’t have invested so much time training her, right?

Internal silence greeted that question.

One thing was for certain. They would never see eye to eye on Roksana’s marriage to Elias and because of that, her duties as a slayer ended now. Her life would no longer include stakes. And ah, the relief of that decision was so vast, it almost slumped her back down into the bedsheets. Her grief over what happened in Vegas had driven her to kill vampires, but she counted too many of them as friends now. Her best friends.

Roksana didn’t know what her role would be in the upcoming war, but she could no longer walk the earth killing the undead, believing every single one of them to be a scourge on humanity when she knew differently. They could be bad or good or shades in between, just like humans. She wore one’s ring on her finger. Proudly.

Roksana took a deep breath and climbed out of bed. Her backpack sat on the ground near the bathroom door and she brought it into the bathroom with her, laying out a pair of black pants and a moss green sweater, though she didn’t remember buying anything involving color. Had Elias slipped it in? That thought put a smile on her face as she climbed into the shower, ducking her head under the hot spray and letting the water soothe her muscles. She planted her hands on the tile wall and tried to formulate a speech to give Inessa, but ten minutes later while blow-drying her hair, she still had nothing concrete. Probably didn’t matter anyway.

Her mother was nothing if not a wild card. Improvising would be key.

Roksana was surprised upon reentering the bedroom to find it was still empty. Where had Elias gone?

“Gross, Roksana. Day two and you are already a clingy wife,” she muttered.

Still, she frowned at the door, willing it to open while zipping on her boots and shrugging on her coat. She felt in the coat pocket for the red envelope from Tilda, holding it in front of her as she paced. What were the contents?

“None of your business,” she said firmly, tapping it against her thigh, a curious little tickle forming on the back of her neck. “Why don’t you just leave now? You don’t want Elias to come with you, right? This is your chance to sneak out and handle business without him. Really, your relationship is founded on frustrating one another. Think of the makeup sex later.”

What was she waiting for?

A kiss goodbye? A disagreement with her husband about him coming along?

Da. Kind of.

Where was he?

Roksana sat down on the edge of the bed, balancing the game piece on her knee. A laugh worked its way up from her belly, sounding odd in the empty room. “I know what you’re doing, vampire husband. You’re leaving me to my own devices, so I will open the envelope. You do not agree with my blind faith. That was very obvious. But it’s not going to work.”

She threw the red envelope up in the air and caught it, her smile slowly dissipating.

“Dammit.”

After a second of hesitation, Roksana shoved to her feet, shrugging her coat off on the way to the portable coffee pot located on top of the mini-fridge. She took it to the bathroom and filled it with water, hitting the button to make it boil, pacing back and forth while waiting. When it was finished, she cursed, holding the sealed part of the envelope over the steam, loosening the glue.

A folded sheaf of papers fell out onto the surface of the mini-fridge. She stared at them for several breaths before snatching them up. The words on the papers were sloppily handwritten and it took Roksana a moment to figure out what exactly she was looking at. Names and addresses? Of whom?

Then she saw her own name. First and last.

With the address of her crummy Coney Island apartment.

She flipped to the next page, recognizing two more names. Then a third and fourth.

These were slayers.

Slayers located in America, to be exact. Who had compiled a list of names and locations? They were meant to remain undetected. A list like this could endanger them if it fell into the wrong hands. Before Jonas took the vampire throne, his High Order predecessors would have found this information very valuable. And now…with vampire slayings on a steep rise, maybe Jonas would want this information so he could handle the problem.

But why did Inessa want these names and addresses?

As Russia’s slayer queen, Inessa wouldn’t be privy to this information. Only the American slayer queen would—

Had Tilda, a fae, been the American slayer queen?

Roksana refolded the papers and stuffed them back into the envelope, sealing it as much as possible. Inessa must have known Tilda would be abandoning her post. She must have wanted this information for safekeeping. To protect the American slayers. That was the only explanation Roksana could fathom. Her mother was trying to do the right thing. Keep this harmful information out of the hands of the wrong people. With the dark uprising taking place back in the States, Inessa didn’t want these slayer identities to become a tool to do harm.

Breathing easier, Roksana put her coat back on and secured the envelope in her pocket. Fear had been her chief emotion upon waking this morning, but she felt a lot more confident about facing her mother now that she’d discovered proof of Inessa’s good faith.

Something made her pause before she walked out the door, though.

A wrinkle of intuition.

She turned back and completed a quick task, even though it was totally unnecessary, stomping back to the front of the cabin and shaking her head at herself moments later. Refusing to wait any longer for her missing husband, Roksana closed the door behind her and trekked out into the surrounding woods, her boots sinking into the few inches of snow that had fallen the night before. Even now, tiny bits of fluff fell from the sky, the cold biting the gloveless skin of her hands and exposed cheeks.

She’d only been walking for a minute when she heard Elias’s voice.

Followed sharply by Inessa’s.

The white cloud of her aggrieved exhale obscured her vision. No. No no no. What was going on? Inessa was here? Now?

She didn’t want her slayer mother anywhere near her husband. One slide of a stake into his chest and he would cease to exist. Already agony was searing her insides and she didn’t even know why they were meeting in the woods. Forcing herself to calm, Roksana called on her training to stay totally silent, creeping forward on the balls of her feet until she could make out the conversation.

“Once again you’ve come to bargain for my daughter’s life, have you? Maybe trade another year of your life away in my prison?” Inessa laughed merrily, freezing the oxygen in Roksana’s lungs. “No dice this time, son-in-law. We’re all full. Sweet of you to ask, though.”

Elias had imagined this moment hundreds of times, but he’d failed to anticipate how different facing Inessa would be now that his heart beat. Last time he’d stood toe to toe with the Queen of Shadows, he’d been in possession of human emotions. They’d been fierce. But his immortal ones fairly ran amuck inside of him, wailing, demanding an outlet. Blood seemed to pump to and from his heart faster than ever. He was no longer indebted to Inessa by duty and sacrifice, but by love for his mate. Love that increased many times over with every tick of time. His pulse beat in the rhythm of her name.

While watching his wife sleep, her naked body curled around a pillow, replete in her trust that Elias would keep her safe, he’d sensed Inessa’s presence out in the woods. And when she’d shown no shock at his solitary arrival, he knew she’d chosen to be heard.

“Once again you’ve come to bargain for my daughter’s life, have you? Maybe trade another year of your life away in my prison?” Inessa’s laugh was gleeful. “No dice this time, son-in-law. We’re all full. Sweet of you to ask, though.”

“She has done everything asked of her,” he rasped.

“Not everything.” Considering Elias, she dragged her tongue back and forth across the upper row of her teeth. “I must admit, I’m surprised she let you live this time. Such a head of determination my daughter had when last she left me. Perhaps you failed to keep our secret and turned her against me to save your own hide?”

Elias gave her a baleful look. “No, I have not told her.” His boot crunched in the snow when he took an involuntary step forward, his finger jabbing the bitter cold air. “But only because she’s lost so much already. I couldn’t save her friends. Couldn’t save her from that heartbreak. And I wouldn’t be the one to reveal her mother as a fraud and a murderer, too.”

Inessa preened as if he’d delivered a compliment. “Then she shall find out on her own,” she said with a minor shoulder lift. “If she’s to lead the Russian slayers one day, she’ll need to understand that hard and creative decisions will be expected of her.”

His voice shook when he responded, his arms aching to cradle his mate. To rock her in his lap and howl at the injustices done to her. “Like creating a weapon out of your own daughter, borne of pain and grief that you yourself inflicted?”

A flash of Inessa’s teeth, white as the snow that fell around them. “It would have served her well, were it not for her stubborn, pitiful heart.”

“Her heart is too beautiful and resilient for someone like you to fathom.” He bit off a humorless laugh. “She must have gotten it from her father.”

Inessa lurched at the insult, her fingers stretching and flexing like claws, but she quickly reined in her rage. “Did you come here merely to incite me, son-in-law, or do you have something useful to say before I make my daughter choose between us?” She clutched her hands together beneath her chin with mock playfulness. “Who do you think it’ll be?”

Refusing to let the uncertainty show on his face, agony nonetheless severed his vocal cords. He willed his body to knit them back together so he could make the vow he’d known for some time would be required of him. “I will not allow that choice to be put in front of her.”

“It is a choice that must be made,” Inessa spat, the curls quivering around her face. “I’ve long demanded she kill you not only to keep our secret, but to satisfy her goddamn vengeance. Only then could her heart be hardened, the way a cold assassin’s must be to fight every battle like it’s her last. There is more urgency to my demand now, though. She cannot have loyalty to a vampire and help lead us into the uprising as a slayer.”

“Maybe you’re afraid of her fighting on the right side.”

She regarded him like a simpleton. “There is no right side in a war. Only profiteers.”

Elias couldn’t mask his disgust. “Such as yourself.”

“Yes, I do like to keep a foot in both ponds, don’t I?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “My daughter has secured me the game piece, you say?”

He nodded curtly.

“Hmm. I’m surprised you allowed her to bring it this far, considering how valuable it would be to your king. You do know it contains names and addresses for every member of the North American slayerhood, don’t you?” Elias showed no reaction, though there was a heavy sinking in his gut. Inessa clucked her tongue. “It’s going to be very valuable in the hands of whoever pays me the most.”

Elias shook his head. “You’re loyal to no one but yourself.”

“A hardened heart frees one of their conscience and my daughter will learn that valuable lesson soon enough.”

He felt his wife before he saw her.

When she stepped out into the clearing, he wondered how she’d managed to approach without his notice. Either the riot of his heart had drowned her out—or she was just that damn good. Maybe a combination of both. The organ in his chest clamored all the louder now, though less out of anger and more out of anguish. Not for him, but for his mate.

The betrayal and disbelief on her face was haunting.

“Roksana,” he gritted out, lunging forward to insert his body between his wife and treacherous Inessa. But Roksana held up her hand, shooting him a brief, imploring glance that did nothing to deplete her tortured expression.

Though it made his bones want to rip free of his skin, he remained in place, muscles tensed and ready to cut through atoms at a moment’s notice. He would kill Inessa only if his mate’s life was in danger. If he only had one option, he would lose her love to keep her safe, though he would live in hell for the rest of his life.

“What secret does he keep?” Roksana’s voice was little more than a strangled whisper. “What pain and grief have you inflicted on me?”

For several breaths, Inessa appeared to be made of stone. He’d never been in the same place with mother and daughter at the same time, so their dynamic had always been a mystery. As much as he wanted to believe the Queen of Shadows purely evil, he couldn’t deny the way she hesitated and looked down, as if ashamed, before regaining her bravado.

“You will not dictate the order of this meeting, daughter. Especially not while reeking of vampire.” Inessa gave his mate a once-over that kindled a growl in his throat. “You will explain to me why your mission has not been completed in full. Not only does the vampire live, but you share his bed. Allow him to defile your body. I hope you’ve arrived prepared to meet your death for such a bold transgression.”

If possible, Roksana’s face lost even more of its color, but he recognized the stubborn set of her chin and the show of courage filled him with pride. “He did not murder my friends. I was mistaken. Elias saved my life. He does not deserve to die.”

“Does he not?” Inessa’s tone was crafted of silk, but her eyes were twin flames. “He is a vampire. Have you forgotten your vow?”

Roksana’s confidence faltered. “I have not.”

“Then why does he still plague the earth?”

“I love him,” Roksana breathed, her declaration seeming to slow to fall of snow. Or maybe the intensity of his reaction altered time, because he could have flown up to kiss the moon or tunneled to the center of the earth, her admission in Inessa’s presence shot him through with such power. Gratitude. Love so deep a bottom didn’t exist.

He expected a violent outburst from Inessa.

What they got instead was something twice as dangerous.

“It’s okay, daughter. I forgive you.”

Inessa reached out her arms with maternal compassion—and Roksana went with a sob.

Roksana’s head was a beehive.

Enfolded in Inessa’s arms, she forced herself to soften. To think. To reason, though she felt as if she dangled from the edge of a rocky cliff, two fingers left to keep her from plunging into the turbulent sea below.

The conversation she’d overheard played on an echoing loop in her mind.

Once again you’ve come to bargain for my daughter’s life, have you? Maybe trade another year of your life away in my prison?

Words from her own mother’s mouth. Words that made acid rise in her throat, the hair standing up on the back of her neck. What did that mean? Elias had bargained with Inessa for her life? He’d gone there of his own free will?

That alone would have been enough to riddle her with anguish, if she wasn’t distracted by the why. If Elias had traded a year in the slayer prison to keep her safe, then…he must have struck that bargain with Inessa in Vegas.

The video footage from the chapel rolled behind her eyelids.

Elias pressed to the door, holding it closed, denying his primal instincts to feed.

Oh God.

A wail conjured itself in her belly. Her entire body ached under the pressure of keeping it sealed tight. Don’t break.

There were too many realizations hitting her at once, but chief among them was…she and Elias were not safe here. They were, in fact, in very serious danger.

My mother is not who I believed.

Or rather, she’d ignored her intuition on the matter. She’d made excuses for not only warning signs that her mother was treacherous, but she’d endured proof of her mother’s duplicity by succumbing to her affections one minute, then enduring a beating ordered by the woman the next.

She wanted to look at Elias over her mother’s shoulder, but forced her eyes to remain closed, instead. This meeting would have an important outcome and in that moment, knowing the two most important people in her life had kept secrets from her, Roksana vowed the outcome would be hers to decide—and hers alone.

One mistake could cost her everything.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” she breathed, the woman’s perfume nowhere near as pleasant as she’d once found it. No longer cool and elegant, it was blade sharp and aloof. “I come to you again as a failure. But this time I am humble. This time I will not spout bullshit and tell you I am the best. Clearly I am not.”

“Once again you need to be broken down and rebuilt in my image.” Inessa stroked a hand roughly down the back of Roksana’s head, rings catching in her hair. “Your faults do not rest solely on your shoulders, daughter. After all, I trained you. I will take some of the blame for your shortcomings and repair them as only I can.”

“Yes.” Heat scalded the backs of her eyelids, anguish roiling in her stomach, eroding the lining. “I understand now why you took them from me.”

The hand stroking her head paused, ever so briefly, but it was enough to confirm Roksana’s suspicions.

Inessa was responsible for killing her friends.

Inessa was responsible for Elias becoming a vampire.

If he’d made a bargain to spare her life…then had her own mother originally intended to murder her, too?

Bile rose in her throat and it took every reserve of her willpower not to scream down the night sky. “We have to learn hard lessons,” Inessa soothed. “It can be even harder sometimes to teach them. We can start now. Tonight. We can move forward now with a clean slate.”

Inessa eased back, but kept Roksana glued to her side, turning as one to face Elias. If she noticed her daughter shaking in rage, she must have chalked it up to nerves or shame. And she would have been right. How blind and gullible she’d been. How much time she’d wasted stewing in misdirected hatred. The revelations were forming so fast, one after the other, it took a moment for Elias’s face to come into focus—and it gave away nothing.

Roksana struggled to follow suit. To be strong.

“We will end this here and now,” Inessa murmured in her ear. “Cut the tie of this unhealthy tether and we will begin anew. With Tilda out of the way, we can claim her throne for ourselves. Play both sides as we choose, because only the dexterous survive. We will ride side by side into glory, just you and me. Victors of the uprising. This is all we’ve ever needed, isn’t it? Each other.”

There is no right side in a war. Only profiteers.

Her mother’s statement rippled through her consciousness. If she was responsible for Elias being Silenced, she had to be working with the vampires. She would actually hand over the names and locations of the North American slayers…to the vampires.

Putting them all in jeopardy.

Her own kind. Did Inessa even have a kind?

Inessa pressed a stake into Roksana’s hand, distracting her from yet another devastating insight into her mother’s double life. She closed her fingers around it and a wrench twisted in her middle, making her want to heave. Still, Elias’s expression didn’t change. “You will have the strength this time, because I will be standing at your back, daughter.”

Roksana nodded.

Took a step forward in the snow.

Elias blinked twice, his jaw hardening, the rare proof of sorrow from Elias cutting deep. So deep the wound might take decades to heal. It stopped Roksana in her tracks, her throat working heavily. With her free hand, she removed the red envelope from her coat pocket, handing it to Inessa without breaking eye contact with Elias. A line appeared between his brow as she gave over the envelope, but it erased just as quickly as it formed. “This I have done for you, Mother.”

“Good daughter,” Inessa praised, pocketing the game piece with a smile, completely unaware Roksana’s heart was being ravaged by a pack of wolves. “In this, you have proven yourself worthy. Now sever the tie and begin anew.”

The impatience was building in Inessa’s tone, forcing Roksana to take one more step forward. As soon as she was close enough to Elias, she would turn the stake on Inessa, the one who’d truly betrayed her. The one who’d held her in a maternal thrall, twisting Roksana’s emotions for her benefit. No longer. No longer.

Not five feet away stood the vampire who she’d treated as an enemy. Yet he’d been her protector. Her ally. The man who would place her safety and health and happiness above all else, even if it meant being seen as the villain.

He’d sacrificed a year of his life and in doing so, saved her own. Did he even remember making the deal with Inessa as his final human act?

He must remember.

He’d implied as much to Inessa, but he might have been told of his actions after the fact while imprisoned in Moscow.

Either way, he’d kept all of this from her so it wouldn’t break her heart. And it would have. She could admit with total humility that it would have cracked her down the middle.

Back when she’d been breakable.

That wasn’t the case now. She had love flowing through her.

Just a little closer and she could stand by his side.

“Stop being a coward, Roksana!” Inessa shouted shrilly. “Do it and be done! Or I will slay you both!”

Roksana took another step forward, her hand shaking around the stake she lifted, because even the pretense of hurting her husband was abhorrent.

Elias noticed the tremor in her grip and his eyes softened.

He pulled out his own stake, positioning the pointed tip over his heart.

The breath evacuated Roksana’s lungs, the earth dropping out beneath her feet. “What are you doing?” she wheezed.

But Elias was looking at Inessa, a sheen coating his eyes. “She brought you the envelope. My death marks her mission complete, no matter who does the deed. Vow she won’t be hurt once I’m gone.”

Inessa didn’t hesitate. “I vow it.”

“I’ve kept my word to you.” He pressed the stake firmly enough to his chest that it created an indent in his shirt. “Keep yours, Inessa.”

“Elias, no,” Roksana heaved, debilitating terror robbing her voice of volume.

When he transferred his gaze back to Roksana, such naked love for her swarmed there she lurched backwards, her balance obliterated. “I won’t make you choose. I won’t make you live with guilt or add to the pain,” he said in a hushed whisper, his eyes trying to comfort her even while sacrificing his own life. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Oh God, the wedding.

He’d rushed the wedding for exactly this purpose, though she had no doubt—not a single one—that loving her had also played a large part.

If something were to ever happen to me, I’d want you to have what’s mine.

You’ll only need to put the credit card in your name.

A low, keening sound left Roksana but Elias only reassured her with a curving of his mouth, the scar tugging at his upper lip. “This life might end here. But my love for you will continue on into the next. It’ll still be just as strong this time tomorrow.”

At the words this time tomorrow, Roksana’s knees buried in the snow.

He remembered.

He’d remembered all along.

It was like putting on a new pair of glasses, the lenses clean and clear. She could see everything so obviously—only now it could be too late. Elias had pretended not to remember that night in Vegas so he wouldn’t have to reveal Inessa’s treachery. All because she’d made her mother the keeper of her mental well-being. Hailed her as a hero, a wise leader, a noble warrior. When all along this man had been her silent hero, lurking in the wings.

Loving her from afar.

Elias raised the stake and closed his eyes. Time slowed to a crawl.

With a scream exploding from deep in the pit of her belly, Roksana scrambled in the snow. Stake at the ready, she turned to Inessa, determined to plunge the weapon into her mother’s heart and stop Elias from sacrificing himself. Her mother was closer. There was no way she could reach Elias in time. Not when the stake already arced toward his chest. The pain of not calling out to him was vast, but she needed surprise on her side to fell Inessa.

Fear made Roksana clumsy, however. And the passage of time was not what it should be. She lunged to her feet, but her boot slid back in the snow and down she went, her scream still echoing in the forest. A split second before she hit the ground again, she saw clearly one last time, the only option shining down on her like a beacon from the night sky.

Repaying Elias’s sacrifice.

It was the only way.

“I love you,” she whispered.

With the impact of landing on her back reverberating through her limbs, Roksana lifted the stake as high as she could—and plunged it into her own stomach.

A slice of cold was followed by unimaginable pain tearing through her nervous system. Not the pain of a beating or battered muscles, with which she was familiar.

This was pain that wrought death.

For a split second, she wondered if her own agony had turned the sky to billowing red fire. Or if her terror had set the surrounding trees aflame. But Elias’s earsplitting roar—proof that he was alive and hadn’t sacrificed himself—told Roksana her mate was responsible. Meaning he was alive. And she slumped under a bludgeoning of relief, even as blood burbled from her lips.

His face came into view above her, contorted in horror. “No. No! Roksana, no.” He tore at his hair, her clothes, his eyes glowing so bright they nearly blinded her. Or maybe she was already going toward the light. “What the fuck did you do?”

If she could have spoken around the blood filling her mouth, she would have joked that she’d hit an artery, but he probably wouldn’t have laughed. Thank God she could keep her good humor, even in death, da?

“Oh Jesus, I can’t stop the bleeding. I can’t stop it!” Elias raged, the sky exploding with great mushroom clouds of ash and flame, sparks raining down around them with sizzling landings in the snow. “Roksana, please. God, please. Why did you do this? Why?”

She reached for Elias’s hand where he’d wrapped it around the stake in her belly, bellowing his misery, visibly trying to psych himself up to pull it out. When their hands touched, he looked down at Roksana. Her beloved immortal was outlined by fire. Her eyes filled with tears, blurring his image, but based on the tortured sound he made, she knew he interpreted the message correctly. That her love for him was soul deep and enduring as time. That everything would be okay. That her love would be just as substantial this time tomorrow.

You know what to do, she tried to communicate with her eyes.

There was a good chance Silencing her wouldn’t work. Her injury was self-inflicted and the blood flowed from her like a river. Too fast? So fast.

Elias would need to give her his venom, but there was never a guarantee one would wake up immortal. The ritual was flawed and had to be done carefully to have a chance to success. There was nothing careful about this, but what choice did she have? Seeing him die after the repeated sacrifices he’d already made on her behalf would have hurt worse.

Roksana turned her head and coughed up a mouthful of blood and the pain started to ebb. She curled in on herself, clutching at the snow, following the line of her mother’s footsteps in the snow to where the woman fled at a dead run, arms thrown up to shield her from the overhead destruction, the red envelope clutched in her hand. And Roksana had enough pride left in her dying body to feel satisfaction that her final actions as a human being were of her own making. Not her mother’s. That she’d acted out of love, not poisonous vengeance or in the name of seeking approval.

Black seeped in at the edges of her vision and she squeezed Elias’s hand tight, only noting vaguely that he’d removed the stake from her belly. It was probably for the best.

Although having staked herself as a human and a vampire would give her serious bragging rights.

Roksana knew she was trying to bury her fear, but with the life literally draining out of her, a whimper snuck out of her and anxiety of the unknown held her captive. Ginny had been required to drink from Jonas’s vein to complete the Silencing ritual, but her throat was full of her own blood. She’d never be able to get it down.

Come on, come on. Don’t let this be the end.

She would never regret stopping Elias from killing himself. Not when she was the reason he’d been turned into a vampire in the first place, but she wanted her lifetime with him. They hadn’t even been married a full twenty-four hours yet.

Pressure at her back signaled Elias lying down in the snow behind her, his arms and legs wrapping around, his big body rocking her. “Don’t you fucking leave me, havoc wreaker. I love you. Don’t you leave me like this!”

His fangs lanced her neck.

There was no pain. Or maybe it was just so mild compared to the wound in her stomach that her body didn’t register it. But Elias’s hand on her chin, his forehead against her temple, told her he was drinking, his desperate sounds lurching the dying heart in her chest.

Placing all of her trust and hope in the one person who’d ever deserved it, she let herself drift. Mist surrounded Roksana, rendering her weightless and suddenly she was barefoot in the snow, looking down from above at her bloody body cradled to Elias’s chest. Red spread like a flood, forming a great circle around them, the stake she’d embedded in her stomach tossed several yards away like it had offended Elias. All around them, the trees waved with flames, but she and Elias seemed to be in a protected sphere of energy, like even his unpredictable abilities wouldn’t dare touch the moment.

Overhead, the flames in the sky parted, as if beckoning her through with a flare of moonlight. An unseen force pulled her upward and her body began to lack gravity, her toes leaving the spot where they’d buried themselves in the snow. But the pull toward the man howling for a second chance into her neck demanded her soul remain. Her heart demanded she remain and so she fought, screaming into the ether, bargaining for re-entry into her own body.

Around her, the forest dissipated.

For a long while, there was nothing but blackness, sorrow, the sound of lonely wind, no feeling anywhere. Nothing but a lost, weightless sensation. Floating. She had no human form, but love for Elias kept her rooted to earth, casting her down, down—

She woke up struggling, snow crunching around her, her stomach clenching violently. Rolling over and rising onto her knees, she bore down on the pain, but it wouldn’t subside. Elias crawled to her in the snow, his face red and ravaged by grief, but there was hope dawning in his amber eyes. Oh yes, there was hope and its purity almost appeased her hunger.

Almost.

The flames died slowly around them, snow swirling in the night breeze, the pungent scent of burning wood mingling with Elias’s crisp smell. She could see every molecule of her breath in the air, count the ridges of every snowflake.

Roksana opened her mouth to speak and fangs jabbed into her lower lip.

It had worked, then.

An elated sob escaped her. She wasn’t dead, but immortal. Never to be parted from her beloved. And she was starving. “Some of your blood was left inside me from last night after all.” A wave of hunger mowed through her belly. “Temnota moya,” she managed, the sound of his pulse coming to her as if through a bullhorn. “Please.”

Elias made a choked sound and reached for Roksana, determination seeming to imbue his muscles with strength and life once more. His hands were purposeful as he pulled Roksana onto his lap, slinging her fatigued legs around his hips and guiding her mouth to his neck. “Drink from me, mate. Drain me if you have to, just don’t try to leave my side or this earth ever again. Swear it.”

“I swear.”

Their mouths met in a hard kiss, Elias’s arms banding Roksana to him like she could still be snatched away by fate. “You stabbed yourself,” he grated against her mouth, his expression wild. “You had no way of knowing it would work, Roksana. You gambled with the only thing I love, goddammit. Never again. Please, never again.”

“You either.” A sob erupted from her mouth. “What you did for me…”

“You pay the debt by existing. I love you.” He kissed her hard. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She sniffed and reached into her pocket, holding up the endless list of names and addresses. “I gave Inessa a bunch of blank pieces of paper. We still have the game piece. Reward me for my cunning, vampire.”

He huffed a sound, admiration warring with emotion in his voice. “I never doubted you.”

“And I’ll never doubt you again.”

“You didn’t, baby.” He gathered her face close to his. “That’s why you could never kill me.”

Salty tears rolled down her cheeks. “You remember the night we met.”

“Every. Beautiful. Second.” Sincerity and love radiated from his eyes. “And I’d do it all again this time tomorrow.”

EPILOGUE

One Week Later

Elias twisted his wife’s wet hair into a knot, holding it on the top of her head so he could kiss her neck. The ethereal glow of the Blue Lagoon worried around them in gentle eddies, rippling like whispers against their skin, the Icelandic moonlight fanning out around them like a wavy spider web. Roksana floated on her back in front of him, her toes peeking out of the water, her back against his chest. Though her body was already limp, it went even more boneless as Elias traced her tongue slowly up the slope of her shoulder, nuzzling her ear.

It was the middle of the night and the tourists had gone home, leaving the dark coves empty, the star-scattered sky seeming to light up just for them. There was no sound except for her sigh and the slide of two bodies through the lustrous water.

They’d spent their first week as a married vampire couple plotting places all over the world that were best explored at night. Between bouts of feverish lovemaking, they’d spread out a map between them on various hotel room beds, circling destinations and musing aloud about sample itineraries. There might be a war culminating back home, but they were anxious to plan for eternity together—and they weren’t wasting a single second.

Elias traced the shell of Roksana’s ear with his tongue and her back arched, bringing the peaks of her bare tits out of the water, moisture sluicing down the pretty mounds and turning his mouth dry. Between his legs, he turned to stone, his hands itching to mold her breasts in his hands, but he didn’t act, enjoying her relaxation. After the last few weeks—hell, the last three years—she deserved it. Not to mention, she was having a difficult time adjusting to her new abilities. Her new hunger. The emotions that came from being and having a mate.

Remembering the incident from that afternoon triggered an adamant throb low in his belly.

“You are thinking of my explosion earlier. Aren’t you, husband?”

His lips jumped. “Hard not to think about it, wife.”

She sniffed. “I am not ready to laugh about this,” she murmured, but there was humor in her tone.

Earlier that night, they’d gone walking through the small fishing village of Grindavík when someone had accidentally bumped into Elias. A totally innocent accident.

Roksana had reacted like someone was trying to shoot a wooden arrow through his heart, her fangs firing out of her gums, her body launching in the offender’s direction, an anguished sound splitting the peace of the night. He’d managed to drag her behind the stall of an open-air market, commanding her to feed. She’d sucked on his neck with such desperation, he’d ended up covering her mouth with one hand and unzipping with the other, fucking her silly against a concrete pillar until she hit a peak and the fight went out of her.

They trained constantly to acclimate Roksana to her new speed and strength. Many a hotel room between Iceland and Moscow had sustained damage. But she was coming along slowly but surely, her skills shifting to accommodate the major changes. With the potential for battle on the horizon, she wanted to be ready. And she would be.

They would be.

It was the emotional aspect of matehood that seemed to wind her at every turn. It killed him to watch her struggle with the amplified instincts to feed, protect, possess, because he could relate to it on every level. He’d lived with his obsession with Roksana for three years before being able to act on it and each day was a mixture of heaven and hell. Seeing her: heaven. Not touching her: hell.

There was no doubt in his mind that he’d fallen in love with her that night in the casino. They were fated from the beginning. Every cell in his body had known her before she even opened her mouth to speak. Their love was an incredible magic, but it had become even more than that. Loyalty, perseverance, trust, friendship.

He could only imagine what it was like for Roksana to plow through this heightened state of love and connection with her immortality thrown into the mix. He had a three-year head start on Roksana and still spent his every waking moment overwhelmed, nearly drowning in his feelings for her.

His wife turned in the water to face Elias and his heart started clamoring viciously in his chest, simply from the way the moonlight bathed her blonde hair, turning her into a seductive angel. His seductive angel. She looked at him with serious eyes, her arms lifting to wrap around his neck. “Tomorrow I will control myself better.”

Elias nodded. “You will.”

“Probably.”

Chuckling, he kissed her mouth softly. “Probably.”

“I understand now why you followed me every night in the shadows. When I would go hunting.” Her voice hitched on the final word. “It must have been excruciating to watch me fight all those times and not intervene.”

Elias said nothing, the residual fear of those evenings clamping around his windpipe.

A line formed between her light brows. “You didn’t merely give a year of your life in that prison for me, you gave the whole thing. Your humanity gone, just like that. And the life you were left with…you would have ended it to keep me from suffering. You have sacrificed so much for me, husband, and I burn—I burn to do the same for you.” Her thighs slipped around his hips, her fingertips tracing his jawline, trapping him in a maze of need. “That is where my…very sexy, very attractive aggression is coming from.”

Laughter pained, Elias pressed their foreheads together. “Roksana.” His voice shook with intensity. “Compensate me with your happiness. That’s all I want. No more stakes to the stomach. No more guilt. Just your love. Please.” He kissed her hard. “I wouldn’t just get up and follow you in that casino, if I had to do it all over again. I would run. I would chase after you, get on my knees and beg to go through every second of suffering, just to reach this moment with you. Do you not think three years of torture is worth an eternity with you? Wife, I would have offered millenniums. I love you.”

“I love you…I’ve loved you so much it hurts.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “I worry sometimes it will tear me apart.”

“No. I won’t let it.” His hand traveled down her back to capture her backside roughly, guiding her heat to his erection. “You will tear me apart instead.”

Her head fell back on a moan and he kissed her wild pulse, willing it to calm, but knowing it wouldn’t until she’d been fed and pleasured. Repeatedly. Elias was caught between enjoyment of her unquenchable appetites and the desire for her to settle into her new skin. But above all, he wanted to be there for every step of her journey, supporting her, loving her beyond reason. Holding her hand and standing united against whatever fight came next.

They were forever. Bonded. Indestructible.

Elias was getting ready to swim them to shore, so he could lay his wife down somewhere sturdy and see to her needs—and his own rapidly growing ones—but she surprised him by lifting her head, smiling, her eyes sparkling with lust and humor. “You are very lucky I was not a vampire first. I would have been compelling your ass all over town.”

“Oh, yeah?” His deep laughter rang out on the surface of the lagoon. “What would you have compelled me to do?”

“Oh, innocent things, like making me coffee. In an apron and nothing else.” A smile spread across her lips. “Maybe I’d have compelled you to carry me on a silk pillow through the graveyards at night, feeding me grapes, spinning tales of my brave exploits. That would have been a good start.” She shrugged a moonlit shoulder. “And then maybe some motor boating.”

“Like this?” He yanked her naked body up higher against his own, burying his mouth between her tits and blowing loudly, burrowing his face side to side until she was squealing, her laughter carefree and full of joy. That laughter quickly turned to gasps, though, Elias’s bristled jaw raking over her nipples, again and again.

Her hands started slapping at his shoulders, her neck losing power. “Now, husband. Now.”

Elias was already moving, grappling with his own desperation, cutting through the water to reach one of the coves so he’d have leverage. God knew he needed it the way she demanded a breakneck pace when she got worked up like this. But when they reached the spot where their discarded clothes lay, Elias heard his phone ringing. He started to ignore it, the need to be inside his wife flaying him alive, but the ringing wouldn’t stop.

“It could be important,” she whispered, pulling back and giving him a meaningful look.

Every call seemed to be important these days, the number of vampire slayings still on the rise and Inessa having gone to ground, no doubt plotting where her loyalties would lie if an immortal war broke out. She didn’t have the game piece—Jonas was in possession of that, thanks to Roksana’s cleverness—but with Tilda joining the fae forces together with the dark uprising, leaving the North American slayerhood open and vulnerable, Elias suspected Inessa was already scheming to take that coveted spot, while maintaining a stranglehold on her own.

Only time would tell.

Giving his wife’s tits a longing look, Elias climbed out of the water, earning him an appreciative whistle from Roksana. He dried a hand quickly on his jeans and recovered the cell phone from his pocket. Tucker’s name flashed on the screen.

Elias answered quickly. “Yeah?”

“Hey. Congrats on your nuptials, man. Hate to break up the party, but, uh…” Tucker’s voice was uncharacteristically tense. “It’s starting. How fast can you two get to Oklahoma?”

THE END

Don’t miss the first book in the Phenomenal Fate Series!

Reborn Yesterday is available now

A timeless love story with bite.

It was a night like any other for funeral home director Ginny Lynn, until the exceptionally handsome—and unfortunately deceased—young man on her embalming table sat up, opened his emerald eyes and changed the course of her life forever, making her feel quite fluttery while he was at it.

Humans aren’t supposed to know Jonas Cantrell, or any vampire, exists. It’s kind of a major rule. Despite his instantaneous bond with perfectly peculiar Ginny, he has no choice but to erase her memories of their one and only meeting.

That was the plan. Before a reluctant Jonas can wipe Ginny’s mind clean, she reveals a secret that brings their worlds crashing together. Human and vampire. Past and present. Darkness and light. And while their love is strictly forbidden, it might be the only thing that can save them…

Reborn Yesterday is a standalone novel.

Get it here:

www.tessabailey.com/reborn-yesterday-2

About Tessa Bailey

Tessa Bailey aspires to three things. Writing hot and unforgettable, character-driven romance, being a good mother and eventually sneaking onto the judging panel on a reality show baking competition. She lives on Long Island, New York with her husband and daughter, writing all day and rewarding herself with a cheese plate and Netflix binges in the evening. If you want sexy, heartfelt, humorous romance with a guaranteed happy ending, you’ve come to the right place. You can join her fun loving Facebook reader group, Bailey’s Babes, here:

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