Chapter 27
Oleg
The flare of rage was instant and inflammatory. The fire rippled along his fingers, only to be quelled immediately by the cool mist of her element.
“I didn’t want you to have to do it.” The words tumbled from her mouth. “Not again. Luana. Zara. All of your brothers you killed after Truvor’s death—”
“Tatyana,” he growled.
“It’s too much!” she shouted, then took a deep breath. “What could I do? Ivan needs to die, but how could I ask you for even more blood on your hands?”
He shook his head, furious at her deception even as he heard the echo of her mother’s voice in his mind.
“She will try to take care of you, you know… That is how she loves. Not with words—with actions. If you’re as smart as you think you are, you will let her.”
Oleg swallowed his rage and closed his eyes. “Why are you telling me now? What has happened?”
“Our plan was to have three Poshani infiltrate Ivan’s monthly card game, pretending to be outcasts because of their relationship with Vano.
” Her voice was rote and lifeless. “We were going to work slowly, and once they had gained enough trust in Moscow, we were going to stage an attack on the card game and make it look like Ivan’s Bashkir allies turned on him. ”
He could not fault the plan. It was not rash or reckless. It was strategically planned and would minimize violence to anyone outside Ivan’s inner circle.
Oleg crossed his arms over his chest, clenching his hands to smother the flames that itched beneath his skin. “That’s actually quite good. What happened?”
“Ivan…” She swallowed hard, and he saw her fangs extend. “Ivan pretended to be Pavel and… romanced my stylist, Diana. She met Pavel in Budapest and thought he was charming.”
Oleg frowned. “Pavel was involved in this?”
“No, Ivan was pretending to be Pavel.”
She carefully explained each step of Ivan’s seduction of her stupid human stylist, the phone calls, the flowers, the planted microphones.
“She is gone.” Tatyana looked at the ground.
“I have already sent her away. I ask you not to send anyone after her. I believe her that her betrayal was unintentional, and Sándor has interrogated her with amnis. I cannot punish her for being a fool any more than she is already punishing herself. She has kept nothing from us since she discovered the deception, but—”
“She cannot continue to work for you. Her carelessness led to the death of three Poshani, a breach in your personal security, and the violation of my own household.”
“She’ll be on her way back to Bucharest as soon as Radu can arrange it,” Tatyana said softly. “But in the end, this is my fault, not hers. Three men are dead.” She swallowed hard. “I will have to answer to their families, and I must answer to you for going behind your back.”
As much as Oleg wanted to yell at her, rage at something, vent his anger at Ivan’s violation… His wife was standing alone in a secret passage with him, and she was trembling.
Who was he to stand in judgment of her?
Would he not have done the same thing in her position?
She had been going to kill for him. It was infuriating and thrilling at the same time.
“I was not going to tell you about the priest,” Oleg confessed. “At all. If your mother had not said something, I never would have told you. I would have let you believe that Father Izaias was killed by a vagrant like we told his family.”
“Why not?”
“Because there were signs of torture, and it’s very possible that Ivan already knew we were married.
Obviously, now I’m sure he does.” He shook his arms out, loosening the tension between his shoulders.
“Between the priest’s murder and your human’s betrayal, there is likely little about us that Ivan doesn’t know. ”
“Why hasn’t he used it?”
“A good question.” Oleg shrugged one shoulder. “He likely has plans to use that information against us once our public marriage is final and our guard is down. I did not want you to worry about it.”
“He knows we are blood mates as well.” She took a deep breath. “I had a conversation about the attack at my mother’s house with Sándor, and he mentioned that you were my mate.” She opened her mouth. Closed it.
Oleg knew there was something else. “No more secrets,” he snarled.
“During the attack at my mother’s house, I took an arrow to the abdomen.” She waved a hand just under her ribs. “It’s healed now, and I didn’t want you to worry. It didn’t seem like—”
“What?” In the space of a blink, Oleg had knelt before her and ripped open her shirt.
Nothing. He ran his hands over the smooth skin that showed not even a hint of redness. Whatever wound she’d had was well and truly healed.
He looked up at her. “How long?”
“To heal? Not even a week.”
“If you had taken my blood, it would have healed faster,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is why you have been avoiding me.”
“Partly.” She closed her eyes and sank to her knees so they were face-to-face. “And partly because of this distance between us. You were hiding things. I was hiding things. I did not know what it was, but I felt it like a wall between us.”
“That is inevitable.” There were things about his empire she should never know. And there were things about her people that he had no right to know. How could he reckon his possessiveness of his mate—which he had no intention of changing—with their dual need for independence?
“But we must find a better way,” she said. “We will find a better way. But for now, what are we going to do? It’s possible Ivan is already leaking information about us.”
“And what would he say?” Oleg brushed her hair back from her face. “That my wife-to-be wants to kill him? She is in good company. Half of Ivan’s own clan wants to kill him.”
“Everyone might know we are already married in truth. That we’re blood mates. The Poshani…” She shook her head. “That is my problem, not yours.”
“For now all he has are rumors.” Oleg shrugged. “Only rumors, Tatyana. We’ve dealt with rumors before.”
Her eyes were rimmed with red. “I have lied to you and put your people at risk with my carelessness.”
She had put his people at risk. The last person in the entire world he would imagine doing so.
Oleg often forgot how young Tatyana was because she carried herself with so much maturity, had done so even as a human. She was barely over seven years immortal, the leader of a large clan, mated, and about to become queen to an even larger empire.
Oleg took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Most young vampires would be crushed by the responsibilities forced on her.
“You trusted a human who betrayed you unintentionally.” He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Do you want to know how many people I trusted in my first century who betrayed me? Intentionally?”
“Oleg—”
“I knew you were plotting something, though you were quite good at concealing it.” Oleg stood and looked down at his wife on her knees. “Apologize for lying to me.”
She lifted her chin and rose to her feet, and he had never loved her more. She might apologize—she was generous enough for it—but it would never be on her knees.
“I made you apologize to me because you were rude and told me I knew nothing,” she said. “Tonight I feel like you were at least partly right. I did trust the wrong people. I created a risk for you and your household, and I will apologize for that.”
Oleg felt his heart soften. “I stand by my apology. I was in the wrong, Tatyana Vorona. As you were.”
She looked him dead in the eye. “But I will never apologize for trying to protect you. I will never be sorry that I tried to keep you from killing another person you care about.” She lifted her finger when he opened his mouth.
“Because you do care about him. Some part of you cares about every single one of them. Because you are their brother and their leader.”
“I will kill Ivan,” Oleg said. “The pieces are already in place. I have only to give the word and he is dead. I simply did not want to spoil our wedding month with an unnecessary power struggle in Moscow that would distract me.”
She blinked. “So you still want to get married?”
“Did you forget we are already married, volchitsa?” He bent down and brushed a kiss over her lips.
“This wedding is only a formality for the world. And don’t forget…
” He opened his mouth and scraped his fangs up her jaw until his lips reached her ear, holding her chin in his fingers. “I like to see your fangs.”
He kissed her, angling her head so that he had complete access to her mouth.
She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his. In the narrow corridor between the library and the smoking room, Oleg pushed her against the wall, hungry beyond words for his mate’s blood and body.
The anger still burned in his belly, but maybe he could fuck it away. He knew he was as guilty of hiding things as she was.
He might even love her more because of her scheming.
Tatyana tore her mouth away. “Oleg.”
“Yes?” He reached down and unbuttoned her wool trousers. “It’s cold in this passageway.”
“Your hands are always warm.” She ran her hands through his hair and gripped the curls at the back of his neck.
He froze.
Tatyana angled his head so his eyes met hers. There was a slight smile on her face. “You know, I think you might even love me as much as I love you.”
Oleg yanked down her trousers, knelt, and ripped away her panties before he put his mouth on her pussy, knocking her knee to the side so he could open her sex to his hungry mouth.
She draped her leg over his shoulder and braced herself against the wall, pushing her hips forward so he could take his fill of her.
He lapped at her, teasing her clitoris with his tongue, running his fangs across the delicate flesh at the meeting of her thighs.
This was what he’d been hungry for. Not her humility, not her apologies. She had plotted and planned to kill someone so that he could remain blameless.
She would kill for him. There was nothing that could make him want her more.