16. Lukas
Fyodor’s Rules #3 - Actions have consequences. So, make sure the actions were worth it.
Ihad spent most of the day away from the hotel. The hounds had been itching to get some exercise, so I’d taken them out. We’d kept track of what the Shadow Aces were doing, as I wanted to make sure they weren’t preparing to screw us over as well. Betrayal was coming from too many sides, and I needed to be sure of their intentions.
Most of the day was spent in the Spectral Realm, it made it easier to follow people, and the dogs could chase after ghosts to their heart’s content. They enjoyed eating them, and it didn’t hurt anyone.
The Aces had been operating business as usual, and I had received a text halfway through the afternoon from their president. They had been asked to move more money through a brokerage. It was good to know he’d been paying attention when I visited, and was taking it seriously. Once I had the information from him, I traveled back to the hotel. That way, I could fill Nikolai in on the recent developments in person, and we could also talk about all the other shit that was going on.
I knew he thought I was fighting against this marriage bullshit because of Yana, but that wasn’t the case. I just didn’t have time for some woman needing my attention, and half-assing a relationship also sounded terrible. There were plenty of trophy wives within the families. Women who were compensated well for a lack of attention or affection, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t have the stomach for that sort of transaction-based relationship. If I was going to be coming home to a woman in my space, it was because I wanted her to be there, and she wanted to be there.
I just needed to make Nikolai see that. I knew if push came to shove, he wouldn’t force me to get married. He wouldn’t hold a gun to my head. But I also didn’t need his emotional blackmail, or pouting all the fucking time. He did that enough about his need for blood, no matter how often we told him he wasn’t a burden.
I wonder what his soon-to-be fiancé thought about the fact that she was soon going to be feeding him as well. Maybe she was one of those girls who had grown up reading Twilight and was into that sort of thing. There had been a phase in our late teens where Nikolai had been beating the fangirls back with a stick. Some of the girls had even asked him if he sparkled in the sunlight, and I still have the photos capturing the horror on his face. I would never delete those, and planned on showing them at his funeral.
I’d had a plan to talk to him about this whole messy situation as soon as I returned. For us to talk heart-to-heart, and actually listen to each other, hearing out each other’s point of view and coming up with a new plan of attack. It had been a good idea, and it was a shame it had all gone out the window the moment I appeared.
As I stepped into the hotel, I caught the barest hint of a scent that brought me to a standstill. At first, I thought it must have been my imagination, my mind playing nostalgic tricks on me, triggered by the boys’ mention of Yana recently. She’d been dead for over a decade now, so there was no logical reason for her scent to be lingering in the hotel. Especially since she had never even been in the building before she had been killed.
I didn’t care about the woman in the lobby who screamed as the dogs, sensing my unease, stepped out of the Spectral Realm. With a nod of my head, they were immediately aiding me in tracking the scent. I could find anyone, anywhere, but I didn’t trust my own senses right now. I’d swear that someone was playing a cruel prank on us, probably the bastards who were attacking our shipments and warehouses. When I found out who was toying with us, I was going to rip them apart with my bare hands and scatter their pieces across the realms. No one would ever be able to find them all. My anger throbbed in my blood, burning through me. The intensity was so consuming, I was surprised that I hadn’t caught fire.
I was going to kill everyone who’d been involved.
There were so many questions running through my mind as I made my way down to the basement. How had someone gotten their hands on Yana’s scent? There hadn’t even been a body for us to bury ten years ago. It had to be magic; some kind of cruel magic to throw us even more off balance. However, it was coming from the basement, and the only things down here were storage, and Alexei’s rooms. It meant that Alexei had already captured whoever was behind this fucking travesty. If that was true, he would get all the information and retribution we needed.
I briefly considered just leaving him to get on with it, going upstairs and having the conversation I had planned with Nikolai. But now that the hunt buzzed in my blood, I couldn’t pull myself away so easily. I hadn’t engaged in a proper hunt in so long, and my instincts were riding me, rather than the other way around.
The door was locked from the inside, but that wasn’t too unusual. There was a room next door where we could watch. I didn’t want to observe, though; I needed to get to my quarry. When they didn’t answer my knock, I just kicked in the door. Alexei would bitch about it, but I was just showing him he needed a better fucking door.
That scent wasn’t just a hint down here, it flooded the room. And it was tinged with fear and pain. In the middle of the room, tied to a seat was a woman, and as I kicked open the door, I could see she was convulsing. Her eyes were wide and sightless, and I saw red.
It was the woman from the party.
My body was across the room before I could think, shredding her restraints like she had been tied up with tissue paper. I wasn’t waiting for an explanation from Alexei. I couldn’t. The hunt was on, and my quarry was here. No one was going to take her from me. With barely a thought, we had left the dungeon behind, and I’d teleported us across the planes.
As soon as we landed in the thick forest of the Summerlands, I dropped her. Never mind that my hands were now slick with blood, or that she glared at me with a look of terror and burning rage. I suppose that was to be expected, given what I had taken her from.
Keeping my eyes on her as I stepped back, I was ready to tackle her if she tried to run. Now that I paused, I was’ unsure why I had brought her here; I hadn’t been thinking. But at least we would have privacy for this much needed discussion. The Summerlands were another name for Annwn or Avalon. There were people who called this place home, but they were relatively few. It was a place I had always been drawn to, one of comfort and peace. Neither of which I was feeling now.
“Run, and I will chase you the fuck down. You’re going to give me a minute to fucking collect myself and then we’re going to talk.”
I took another step away from her, and the hounds closed in on both my sides. Demon looked at me, whining softly, but I ignored him. I knew what she smelled like—who she smelled like—but it was just a cruel trick. One she was going to pay for with her life, but it would be at my hands that she died, not Alexei’s.
She was half sprawled on the ground, her head lowered, like she was refusing to look at me. Good, I hope she knew there was no chance of walking away from this conversation. That whatever she had been planning would not work. She’d been caught, and I was going to punish her for thinking she could do this to us—to me. I was going to rip her apart and hang the pieces around the hotel.
I was supposed to be reigning my anger in, but it was a raging inferno, out of control. Building with each inhale of breath, as I drew her deception deeper into my lungs, where it seared away the thin slivers of control I still possessed. I saw it in her eyes as they flicked to me; the moment she decided to run.
She barely reached her feet before I was on her, a growl in my chest, and my hand wrapped around her throat. Her scream rang out as I shoved her back into a tree, but I didn’t care; she should be screaming, begging for my forgiveness. How is it she dared to be here—breathing—and pretend to be someone she was not? My hand cinched tighter as my thoughts barreled away from me.
Again, Demon whined at me, this time Ghost joined him. It was only at their insistence that I let go of the woman, and she immediately doubled over, coughing. I could see the cuts and skin missing from her back, a clear image of a house surrounded by trees. The house, or hut really, balanced precariously on a pair of chicken legs, Alexei’s work. An interesting image, as though he was marking himself on her. I couldn’t tell you why that annoyed me, but it did.
“One chance,” I spat the words out, my jaw clenched in anger. “You get one chance to explain before I break your fragile little fucking neck and feed you to my dogs.” I wasn’t sure what she could have said that would keep me from following through on my threat. She wasn’t getting any mercy from me, I was going to end her. But before I did, I needed to know why she had done this. I needed this whole situation to make some sort of sense, even if that sense filled me with rage.
She straightened up to look at me, and the fire in her eyes made me wary. If she gave me even one word of attitude, I was going to lose my control. I could feel the dogs trying to get between us, but my feet were planted firmly, and I wasn’t moving. Whether it was the look in my eyes, or the large, clearly supernatural dogs that got her to change her mind, I don’t know.
“Luka . . .”
The name she spoke had my hand instantly moving back around her throat, and the bark of the tree digging mercilessly into her open wounds. I didn’t care that she knew my name; it was the way she had said it. Memories were threatening to overwhelm me, I pushed them back and narrowed my eyes at her, my hand flexed gripping tighter.
Her one chance was quickly evaporating.
“Luka, it’s me.” Her voice was hoarse, cheeks red, and her neck strained beneath my hand. But I just squeezed tighter; maybe she was doubting how serious I was. Perhaps she thought this deception would keep me from making good on my threat. Sure, it would make it difficult to get information out of her if she was dead, but right now, I was ready to bear that loss.
“Yesli by mne prishlos’ prozhit’ etu zhizn’ snova, ya by nashel tebya ran’she.” The Russian spilled from her blue lips like she had been born speaking it. They were the words scrawled along my hip bone—the first tattoo I had ever gotten—and ones that had become almost prophetic.
My hand released her throat without conscious thought, and I stumbled back from her, already falling through the realms. I left the hounds there, they would make sure she wouldn’t run.
They would ensure she remained there until I knew what to do with her.
I spilled out into Nikolai’s office, staggering as I almost hit the desk. Alexei was already there looking pissed, Pasha looking worried. Nikolai gazed at me with something bordering on concern.
I was sure I looked like I had seen a ghost—because I had.
The only thing I could bring myself to mutter was what she had just told me, but this time I spoke it in English. “If I had to live this life again, I would have found you sooner.”
And now I wasn’t the only one who looked like they had seen a ghost.