Chapter 22 #2
He stumbled to the right, falling into the snow from the axe blow, and his sword disappeared into the powdery snow that had fallen earlier in the night. Tatyana kicked, punching the toe of her boot into the man’s groin as he scrambled for his weapon.
Another arrow grazed her, and this time she felt the burn when it touched her skin.
No time. End him. She heard her mate’s voice in her mind.
Tatyana didn’t stop to question her attacker, she lifted the axe again and swung down in a well-aimed arc, severing the vampire’s neck in one blow.
Good. Now look for the next threat.
There was another shadow creeping along the side of her mother’s house. It ducked into the aviary and the birds immediately began the alarm.
Wary of the noise and attention, the vampire backed out of the dovecote—casting that strange scent of sour milk toward her—only to be met by another swing of Tatyana’s axe.
Thwack.
There was a hot splatter of blood, then the vampire’s head fell to the ground and sank into the snow.
She heard Sándor calling: “Tatyana, on your left!”
Turning, she already had her axe raised, but she wasn’t prepared for the spike of heat that came from an arrow sinking into the center of her back.
Twisting heat and the certain knowledge that one of her lungs had a hole in it.
Tatyana felt the slow collapse of air in her body even as she fought through the human instinct to panic. She did not need air to survive. She did not need it.
She remembered Marko’s voice in her mind. Not my heart. Leave it and go.
Tatyana ignored the burning pain and stumbled forward, meeting the raised sword of the oncoming vampire with the handle of her axe, blocking the blow as an angry rush of blood and amnis churned around her.
The snow whirled and leaped, swirling around her attacker as she pulled the solid water to block him.
She blocked another blow, then another, and by then the man’s feet were stuck, surrounded by a wall of ice and snow that was growing taller by the second.
Another blow came, but now it was the vampire wielding the sword who began to panic when he couldn’t move.
She felt him reach down, felt his elemental energy expand as he reached for the earth, but the ground was covered in snow, and it was her element blocking him.
Tatyana lifted her axe as the ice crawled up his body. She grinned and felt a bubble of blood escape from between her lips.
His legs were covered. His waist. The snow was climbing up his chest, and now his arms were frozen in place. He was utterly defenseless.
She left his head and neck bare so that he could swing his head around in panic, looking for help before she killed him.
Tatyana’s voice was gone because her lung was collapsing, but she could still smile.
She lifted her axe, enjoyed the widening of the vampire’s eyes and swung—
“Wait!”
The blade stopped an inch from the man’s neck when she heard Sándor’s yell.
A second later, the wind vampire landed beside her, his own sword bloody. He looked her up and down. “Surati, forgive me.”
She shook her head and pulled the buttons of her shirt wide. She pointed to the arrow that was just peeking out from between her ribs.
“Kali, forgive me.” He looked like he was going to prostrate himself. “Kill him if you want, but he is the last survivor. If you want to question him…”
She shook her head and pointed to the blood at her mouth.
Sándor looked at the arrow again, then at the placement as she tried to speak and words only came out as a rasp.
“You can’t speak. Your lung,” he stammered. “Oleg is going to kill me.”
She shook her head but pointed to the vampire in front of her who was frozen, quite literally, in place.
“Question him?” Sándor asked.
She nodded, then pointed to the house, then the barn.
“The wounded man. I’ve already sent two Hazar to check on him, but I’ll go check on your mother now.” He started away, then turned back. “I cannot leave you injured.”
“San…” She gasped out the last of her air. Then just pointed. Hard.
God, an arrow through the chest hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before.
Two more Hazar landed softly on the snow beside her, immediately drawing their weapons and watching for more attackers. Another landed, pulled back her mask, and bent down to look at Tatyana’s wound. “Surati, it has pierced your lung.”
She nodded silently.
The vampire looked up. “Luckily, you will heal quickly from this.”
Tatyana pointed to the barn, and the woman nodded. “I understand the human is injured. Vanya and Bidi will stabilize him and then fly him into the city so the human surgeons can heal him, unless you would prefer to make him your child in honor of his sacrifice.”
Wow, that was not a question that had even crossed her mind. She needed her voice back, but she also had to keep holding the vampire in the snow.
As if sensing her conundrum, the medic looked up with a nod. “The others can bind your snowman for you and hold him until Sándor can question him. But you will not start healing until we get rid of the arrow and get you some fresh blood.”
Tatyana looked down at the vicious barbed head of the arrow in her midsection, then closed her eyes and nodded.
Immediately, the two Hazar flanking her went to the frozen vampire and took zip ties from their pockets. Tatyana released her amnis, and the ice and snow started falling away.
The medic spoke to her in a curt, businesslike manner that Tatyana appreciated. “It’s going to have to go through the front because there’s no way that thing is going out the way it went in. You understand?”
Tatyana nodded.
The medic stood, and Tatyana heard the arrow snap at her back. Then she walked in front of Tatyana and put one hand on her shoulder.
The Hazar looked her in the eye. “Ready?”
This was going to hurt… like a bitch.
She was sucking down her third bag of blood in front of the fire half an hour later.
“Remind me not to let you make snowmen with the children,” Sándor said. “Too tempting to cut their heads right off.” He swung his hand out in a chopping motion.
“You’re making jokes about this?” Anna was serving bowls of stroganoff to the Hazar in the house.
Marie was sitting across from Tatyana, holding a bowl of stroganoff and staring into the fire. There was a bite mark in her neck from the vampire who had broken into her house before the Hazar had come.
“Make jokes,” Marie murmured. “Please. Or I will go mad.”
The wounds in the woman’s neck were slowly healing from the blood that Tatyana had personally spread over them to help the fang marks close.
They were waiting on a call from the hospital in Warsaw, but the good news was that Marko was still conscious when the Hazar went to check on him, and the arrow had not pierced his lung as the one in Tatyana’s chest had.
Two dozen Hazar from Warsaw were now circling the house as they waited to hear about Marie’s husband.
Betty the donkey was in the barn, consoled by Dymka and a group of human Poshani guards who were delighted with all the animals.
“I’m sorry they even touched you,” Tatyana told the dark-haired woman. “We will make sure whoever was behind this is killed, and I will make sure there are more guards around the house. Day and night, Marie.”
The vampire Sándor had questioned remained silent for most of his initial interrogation, but a particular team of Hazar had come and taken the captive with Sándor’s blessing.
Whatever they chose to do with him was not Tatyana’s concern.
“Eight vampires and two humans approached from the woods,” Sándor said in Poshani. “We dealt with most of them quite quickly, as you did, but the sniper was harder to track. Wind vampire and an excellent archer.”
“No sound,” Tatyana said quietly.
“Much less than a rifle to be sure. Greta finally found him.”
Greta was the medic who had pulled the arrow from Tatyana’s abdomen.
“Wind and earth vampires,” Tatyana said. “Archers.”
“There are many wind vampire clans with some connections to the earth, but there is one Bashkiri clan around the Volga River that is particularly known for their archers,” Sándor said. “If there are ties between these vampires and that clan—”
“Are we thinking of my brother-in-law-to-be?” Tatyana continued in Poshani so her mother didn’t become alarmed. “Could he have hired them? Are they for hire?”
“They are.”
Tatyana nodded. “See if we can find ties between the captive and these men.” She spoke in Ukrainian. “They smelled like sour milk and some kind of roasted meat.”
“The clan I am thinking of eats horse meat,” Sándor said.
Marie blinked. “Horse meat?”
“That could be it,” Tatyana said. “I don’t think I’ve smelled horse meat before.”
“It’s not uncommon among the old ones.”
“Who would eat horses?” Anna asked. “You should tell that to Oleg when you call him. I don’t think he would like that. He is fond of horses.”
“We’re not calling Oleg,” Tatyana said. “This is a Poshani matter, and Sándor and the Hazar will deal with it.”
“Of course you are calling your husband!” Anna hissed. “You had an arrow through your chest, Tanya.”
“It was more like my abdomen.”
Sándor looked cautiously between Anna and Tatyana. “I would not advise concealing this from Oleg. If there is a blood price on your head and this Bashkiri clan has taken the contract, they will not give up until it is completed.”
“And by completed, you mean me dead.” Tatyana had never had a price on her head before. What an odd feeling. “Are they expensive to hire?”
“The Bashkiri earth vampires?” Sándor shrugged. “I mean, not the most expensive, but they’re not cheap.”
“Should I be offended that whoever hired them didn’t want to spend more?”
“I’m a little offended that they thought they could get by our Hazar with only ten men.”
Anna was staring at both of them. “I cannot believe you two. If you won’t call Oleg, I will.”
“Mama—”
“You think I don’t have his phone number? That man was in my kitchen two nights ago, eating cake before he had to run off to see about that priest, and if you think I won’t—”
“What priest?” Tatyana sat up in her chair. She was feeling fully revived, and her lung was inflated again.
“I don’t know. I think he was heading back to his castle because a priest had died.”
“Died?” Sándor asked. “Or was killed?”
Anna shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Which castle?” Tatyana asked, but she already knew.
“I don’t know.” Anna looked annoyed. “I’m your mother, not his.”
Oleg had told her he was at the citadel.
And he’d told her that everything was normal.
“Damn it.”