Page 3 of Crimson Oath (The Firebird and the Wolf #2)

Tatyana

“ N o one is trying to kill me, Mama.” Tatyana kept her eyes on the screen, which was hidden behind a heavy silicone case. “He’s trying to get information from you. Do you remember everything?”

“He didn’t touch me.”

“Not once?”

“No.” Her mother narrowed her eyes. “But he did touch Dymka. Can he use his special mind powers on dogs? Is that why Dymka liked him?”

Oleg’s “special powers” were the same as Tatyana’s, an electrical current called amnis that ran under her skin like an extra sense. It let her manipulate humans, like the ones working at this very quiet bar in Kutaisi where she was using the Wi-Fi.

With a handshake, Tatyana could alter the humans’ cerebral cortexes to wipe their short-term memories. It was also the reason she had to use the homemade silicone case for her laptop.

Computers and vampire amnis? They didn’t get along.

It was her third laptop this year. She’d shorted out the others.

“He’s trying to scare you.” She glanced at Samson, the silent wind vampire who had flown with her to the city at the base of the mountains. “This is why I didn’t want you to go back to the farm.”

Kutaisi was the unofficial borderland between the territory under Arosh’s control, which stretched northeast into Central Asia, and that under Alina Machabeli, the vampire ruler of coastal Georgia and some of northern Turkey.

“And what was I going to do? Stay in Kherson with strangers?”

Her mother had been in a safe house in Kherson for over a year before she broke.

Tatyana had known it was going to happen. She could tell her mother was miserable. The fact that she was safe wasn’t as important as who was watching her birds.

But by then Tatyana was fairly sure that if Oleg was going to kill her and her mother, he would have found a way. Even though her mother had been in Oleg’s territory, he’d basically ignored her.

Tatyana rubbed her temple. “You were safe in Kherson. That’s why I sent you there.”

Talking to Anna couldn’t provoke headaches anymore, but her mother could try. And she tried very hard.

“I’m safe here,” Anna said. “Your vampire didn’t do anything to me.”

“He’s not my vampire, Mama.”

“In fact, he said he has someone watching the farm.”

“Watching the farm?”

“Yes, for my safety.”

Her mother actually sounded reassured.

By Oleg. The fire vampire.

Tatyana had considered sending her mother to Romania or Turkey, somewhere out of Oleg’s territory, but her mother would have been even more miserable somewhere that no one spoke her language.

And Tatyana wasn’t completely sure how far Oleg’s territory stretched. Sometimes it seemed like it was endless.

From what she’d learned while hiding in Arosh’s court, Oleg Sokolov, vampire lord of the Kievan Rus, controlled the territory from the Caucasus Mountains and east of the Volga River, skirting the edge of the Caspian Sea north to Siberia and clear over to Mongolia.

But control could be a very loose term.

In the immortal world, powers were constantly shifting, and it was all Tatyana could do to keep track of who ruled what territory and how strict that control was.

The vampire world operated more like medieval city-states than modern governments, and the past year and a half had been one lesson after another in going with the flow.

“He said he was going back to Odesa,” Anna said.

Tatyana frowned. “Arosh?”

“Who is Arosh?” Anna asked. “I’m talking about your vampire.”

Of course her mother was still talking about Oleg. “Right.”

“Who is Arosh? There is a different vampire now?”

“Arosh is the one I’m working for at the moment.” It wasn’t exactly true, but it was enough to satisfy her mother, who would be stressed if she didn’t think Tatyana had a job.

“Good. That’s good to keep busy, Tanya.”

Work tires you, but it’s better to be tired than stupid . She could hear her grandfather’s words in her mind.

Tatyana wasn’t working for Arosh; she didn’t need money. Maybe ever again.

She’d calculated the value of the gold and jewelry she’d taken from Oleg, and it was enough to keep her comfortable for a very long time.

If she lived past a century, she might need to work some things out, but she was frugal by nature. She wasn’t prone to lavish displays like Oleg, and she didn’t have anyone to support except her mother.

Every now and then, a pang of guilt hit her about the theft of the gold bars and jewelry, but Oleg himself had told her the treasure she’d taken belonged to her sire Zara, who was dead.

So it didn’t count as stealing.

Technically .

Calculating all of her sire’s treasure along with the money Oleg had paid her after she found Zara’s loot made Tatyana realize that she was well and truly rich.

As long as Oleg didn’t try to get Zara’s gold back.

“So Oleg is going back to Odesa.” Tatyana nodded. “Good. That’s good.” Odesa was farther from her than Sevastopol.

“How does he move so easily everywhere? Is it all by boat?” Anna had left Sevastopol by boat, so she assumed anyone fleeing without government permission had to go by boat.

“No, he’s just rich.” And he had human authorities in his pocket and specially built planes. “Rich people can do anything whether they’re human or… not human.”

The first thing Tatyana had learned after becoming a vampire was that human borders meant little to vampires unless they became a hindrance to movement. And even then, with enough bribery or violence, those hindrances often disappeared.

Okay, the first thing she’d actually learned was how miserable and overwhelming bloodlust was, but that was quickly followed by the territorial thing.

She glanced at Samson, but he was sitting in a booth and drinking a beer, ignoring the women who were hitting on him while he read a book.

For some reason, Samson liked Tatyana enough that he was willing to fly her to Kutaisi once a month to call her mother. It wasn’t strictly in Arosh’s territory, where she officially had safe haven, but it wasn’t exactly out of it either.

Tatyana asked, “You didn’t tell him we had a regular call time, did you?”

“No, but he knows I’ve talked to you.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“No, he knew already!” Anna twisted her mouth into a scowl. “You think I would snitch on you?”

“I know you wouldn’t mean to.” But she had.

Oleg probably suspected that Tatyana called her mother, and Anna had confirmed it. Which meant she would need to stop coming to the same comfortable spot and look for something new, because now she knew Oleg was watching her mother.

Her mentor Kato had told her she would need to vary her movements, but Tatyana had become comfortable with the same quiet bar where no one seemed to pay her much attention.

Damn it.

“We’ll need to change the time for next month,” Tatyana said. “Just in case.”

Anna sighed. “I was finally able to remember this time, and now you want to change it. And you don’t want me to write anything down. I don’t have your vampire brain, you know.”

“I know, but tell me…” Tatyana racked her brain. “Who is someone famous who has a birthday in March?” Her mother loved old movie stars and had a trivia-like knowledge of their lives.

“Liza Minnelli has a birthday on March twelfth.” Anna pursed her lips. “I can’t remember the year.”

“Okay, that’s perfect. Three and twelve.” It was near the beginning of the month. “I’ll call you on March twelfth at twelve in the evening. Midnight. Can you remember that? I’ll call you on Liza Minnelli’s birthday.”

Anna nodded. “I can remember that.”

“Good.” She waved at her mother. “I love you. Be careful.”

Anna muttered, “Becoming a monster has made you very sentimental.”

No, it had made her very conscious that everyone she knew was probably in danger of early death. “I should go.”

“Wait!” Anna raised her hand like she was still in school. “Your boss said to give you a message.”

“He’s not my boss anymore.”

“I mean…” Anna shrugged. “You’re still afraid of him, so he’s kind of still your boss.”

“I’m not afraid of him.” She was so afraid of him. But probably not for the reasons her mother thought. “What did he want me to know?”

“He said that he was waiting for you to come out of your cave,” Anna said. “But that others were waiting too.” Her mother’s voice got soft. “He said that other vampires want to find you. I think you might not be safe where you are.”

He’s waiting for you to come out of your cave, but others are waiting too.

A genuine warning? An attempt to flush her from her safe haven in the mountains? Or an empty threat?

With Oleg, any of those choices was a possibility.

The vampire could be mercurial to say the least. Tender and protective one moment, domineering and imperious in the next.

Tatyana closed her eyes against the wind that beat against her back as Samson carried her above the low-hanging clouds that bumped against the Caucasus Range in northern Georgia. She could see scattered lights in the distance and suspected there was a party in progress.

The Fire King loved a party.

Since Samson was one of her only friends, Tatyana had prioritized learning the sign language he used.

She took one hand out and braved the cold, whipping wind. Party tonight?

Samson nodded.

At the harem? she asked.

He shook his head.

Good. If it wasn’t at the harem, she wouldn’t have to attend.

Since Tatyana didn’t fall under Arosh’s aegis—his vampire authority—she couldn’t work or stay in his castle. She didn’t fall under anyone else’s aegis either.

And it was starting to become a problem.

She was rootless and at loose ends in this complicated political world.

Since she didn’t belong to anyone or have any official role, once Tatyana had been able to control her bloodlust, she’d been moved to Arosh’s harem, which mostly consisted of human women and girls looking for refuge. There were a few vampires there, but mostly humans.