Page 140 of To Catch A Rogue

She looked nothing like either of his sisters, but for some damned reason he hadn't been able to turn his back on her.

Chiyoh's mouth softened into a half smile. "We shall see."

"You enjoyed that?"

"She reminds me of you," Chiyoh murmured, drawing her cloak around her shoulders with a majestic sweep.

"In what way?" His glance should have warned her, but then nothing swayed the Deathless.

"Guarded. Stubborn. Determined." Chiyoh paused, and a smile softened her mouth. "And loyal. It is like looking at two reflections in a mirror."

"We are nothing alike."

"You may tell yourself that, if it eases your mind."

Curse her. "What do you think of her plan?"

Chiyoh examined the smoldering tips of the extinguished candles. "Without you, she will die."

"If I rise against Sergey, many of theChernyye Volkiwill die."

"That is not yet known. And the Deathless do not fear death."

He stared at the altar with its darkening candles as Chiyoh waited for him to make his choice. The wizened faces of his bone saints seemed to stare right back at him.

"Prepare theChernyye Volkito strike at midnight."

Chiyoh began to fade into the shadows. "As you wish."

"And send a letter to Sergey. Tell him I agree to his terms."

Chapter 26

Charlie watched the enormous clock across the canal slowly tick toward the hour. Midnight.

"He said he would come," Lark murmured at his side. "He swore on my father's grave he would help us."

"You're not convinced?"

Without Nikolai and his Black Wolves, they had no hope of breaching the manor two doors down from them. They might be able to handle one vampire by themselves, but several? And Jelena or Dido? Or both?

Lark chafed her hands together, her long hair braided back. "He's different from us," she admitted. "He's not really my family."

Blade turned his ever-present cheroot over and over, never taking his eyes off the house. "Family's what you make of it. Don't always mean blood."

"Herbert and Kincaid, are you both in position?" Charlie muttered into the communicator.

"Ready, Master Charlie."

A shadow suddenly stalked across the rooftops toward them, appearing out of nowhere.

Charlie had a knife in hand before catching a glimpse of the masked face within the cowl of her cloak. Chiyoh. She'd been the one to drive off the rogueChernyye Volkithe night he and Kincaid found themselves cornered.

They came.

Breaking into the house with the help of theChernyye Volkiwas going to be difficult, but it was no longer impossible.

Nikolai appeared with several others. They were all dressed in strict black, but there was a defined elegance to the way Nikolai stood that set him apart. Despite the cane, despite the limp, he looked like the sort of man you didn't want to cross.