Chapter 6 Tatyana #2
She put her hand over his mouth, and he sank his fangs into the fleshy heel of her hand. “Stop being crude.”
“I’m not being crude—I’m being factual.” He lapped at the wound in her hand. “We should go upstairs unless you don’t mind the glass doors. Mika and the others won’t look.”
“No!” She laughed and pushed away from him. “I’m serious. What are we going to do?”
“About what?” Oleg looked at her. “Are you ready to tell the world that we are married? Are you ready for the inevitable questions from your people about where your loyalties lie?”
“No.”
Oleg stared at her and said nothing.
Tatyana sighed and stood up. “Okay, fine. We have six nights together, not counting the gala, because that will likely go until nearly dawn.” She held out her hand.
Oleg leaned back and spread his legs. She could already see his erection tenting the loose wool pants. “Are you asking me to fuck you?”
Tatyana rolled her eyes, then dropped to her knees and put her hands on his flesh, running her polished fingernails up the inside of his thighs—the most sensitive spot on his entire body—and leaned into him as she turned her face up to his.
“Lord Oleg Sokolov, knyaz of the Kievan Rus and immortal lord of fire, please would you make love to your wife?”
His lips were already red, and his fangs were gleaming in his mouth. “You will ruin me, little wolf.”
“Is that a no?”
He lifted his chin. “Tell me again.”
Oh, he was such a bastard. She knew exactly what he wanted to hear, which made her perversely reluctant to repeat it.
They had avoided words of love for five years, and Tatyana didn’t know why. Perhaps because the truth of their feelings lived in their blood. Perhaps they were both too stubborn.
But she had slipped, and he was never one to miss an opportunity.
She forced the words from her mouth. “I love you, Oleg Sokolov. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes.” He waited no longer, reaching for her and tossing her over his shoulder before he stood and walked to the wooden staircase in the center of the old farmhouse.
“And?” She was being obstinate. She knew he would not return the words.
“And now I will happily fuck my wife.” He slapped her bottom, turned his head to the side, and nipped at her hip with bared teeth as she laughed.
She lay with the bedsheets crumpled around her. Oleg had very definitely made good on his promise, and now he was licking up her body, tasting her at leisure and gently burning off the small hairs that covered her legs.
It was a ticklish sensation but one that Tatyana enjoyed as much as Oleg enjoyed performing the small, intimate task.
Immortal bodies moved at a slower pace, which meant she didn’t often need to trim her hair or shave her legs, but the single time that Oleg had seen her doing it—in the back of a caravan during kamvasa three years before—he had gotten a gleam in his eye.
“I think you enjoy it.” She watched the low, licking flames dance over the surface of her skin.
“Burning off these tiny hairs?” He leaned over and licked up the inside of her thigh, tickling her sex with his tongue and making her want him all over again. “I consider it my duty as your husband.”
Oleg rarely lost control over his fire. The only time she witnessed it was when they were together and he was climaxing. And that wasn’t even all the time. Usually only when it had been a long time apart or if they had been fighting and his temper was riled.
Tatyana often lost control over her element. She was young enough that it still happened regularly. She couldn’t imagine the level of control her husband had to exercise at all times over his. There was a reason fire vampires were rare in immortal circles.
They were a spontaneous mutation; all of Oleg’s sired children were earth vampires like his sire. Added to that, fire vampires very often killed themselves in the first year of their life.
“How does it feel to control fire?”
He looked up with a raised eyebrow. “How does it feel to control water?”
“Water cannot kill me. Water would never kill me.”
“My fire doesn’t want to kill me. Anymore.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her knee. “We have come to an agreement.” He slid between her legs, propping himself up with his muscled arms as he rested his head on her belly. “Ah, my favorite place.”
He smiled, and he nearly looked boyish.
She felt suddenly afraid for him. He was so powerful, and that made him a very large target. “Samson asked me about you when we spoke.”
Oleg’s smile fell away. “You mention that man in our bed?”
“Do you really consider him any kind of competition?” She rolled her eyes. “Especially after tonight.”
He lowered his head and scraped his fangs over the soft flesh of her belly, never breaking his stare. His eyes narrowed in calculation. “What did he ask?”
“I think they were Arosh’s questions more than Samson’s. He was asking about the incident with the warehouse and the trucks.”
“So Ivan’s incompetence has made the news outside of Russia. Good.”
“It’s more than that. They are questioning your control of such a large territory. There was some insinuation that you are not strong enough to hold that large a territory on your own. Samson kept talking about how when human populations expanded, most immortal territories fractured.”
“He is not wrong.
“But yours did not.”
“Because I am powerful enough to hold it.”
Oleg was powerful and he had his druzhina, a group of vicious warriors who would shed blood out of loyalty to him. He had his brothers, but Tatyana never felt like Oleg saw his brothers as family. Oleg and his brothers were more like a very suspicious gang all forced to work together.
And then there was Ivan.
Tatyana mused, “I worry that Arosh might consider the internal problems with Ivan an opportunity to weaken your eastern border.”
She was also thinking about her meeting with Kezia and Radu and Kezia’s suspicions about Arosh’s intentions with Alina, but she tried not to mention Poshani business with Oleg ever. That felt too much like a betrayal of her family.
“Don’t worry about that.” Oleg ran his hands up and down her sides. “The things you mention are not anything I have not considered.”
“And you still think undermining Ivan is the best tactic instead of challenging him directly? Even if it exposes your territory to speculation?”
“When I remove Ivan and set one of his more competent men in his place, I will be seen as the rescuer instead of the usurper,” Oleg said.
“Then, shortly after that, I will press my influence even farther into North America via the northern trade routes with Pavel. Ivan will be irrelevant history, and my empire will be expanding again.”
She ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair. “Ever the Varangian raider.”
“I am who I am.” Oleg looked up, his chin at an arrogant angle. “And you love me for it.”
Oh, he was going to throw those words at her regularly for the rest of eternity.
I will never leave my people.
She remembered the conviction in his voice when he’d said it to her many years ago. She understood it, and she respected him for it even if the thought of an eternity of conflict exhausted her.
“I love you for you.” She gripped Oleg’s hair in her fist. “But I know the empire that comes with the man.”
She knew the empire, and she loved the man.
The question was, would she be forced to turn from the family that had embraced her to defend the vampire who held half her soul?