Page 52 of Taste of Death

“I… Of course I’ll tell her,” I called out. “Soon.”

Thorne gave me one final, slimy smirk over his shoulder. “See that you do, Novak. See that you do.”

Chapter 16

Amy

“God, I love this view.” I leaned against the doorway of Novak’s office balcony, looking out at the city below and the mountains in the distance. “If I were you, I’d be looking out at this all the time.”

Novak glanced up from the mess of notes on his desk, his gaze softening as he smiled. “I never noticed its beauty until you mentioned it. But maybe I’ll start appreciating it more.”

From my vantage point, he seemed to be looking at me, not at the landscape beyond the balcony railing. I looked toward the mountains again to hide the fact that I was blushing. He was doing that more often, saying things that sounded like he might be flirting, but I could never be sure.

We’d been in his office together for a couple of hours in mostly companionable silence. Before getting up to stretch, I had been working on a knitting project, a throw blanket, in one of Novak’s armchairs while he worked at his desk. The silence between us was just as easy as our conversations. I loved that he didn’t feel the need to fill quiet moments with the noise of his own voice. The scrapes of his pen, shuffling of papers, and the clicking of my knitting needles were the perfect ambiance to a relaxing evening.

“Take a break, you’ve been poring over those papers for hours.” I went to his drink cabinet and started rummaging around.

“Sorry, am I boring you?” Again, he sounded playful.

“Massively.” I closed my eyes halfway and made a long snoring sound.

He laughed, and I drank in the sound like water to a parched woman. “You’re the one who showed up and wanted to hang out while I worked.”

“And aren’t you lucky I’m the most interesting thing in your life?” I pulled out two glasses and a corkscrew. “Want to try Tavia’s wine?”

“Sure.” Novak leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head with a groan.

I might have let my eyes linger on him for a second too long before focusing on opening the wine bottle. Everything he did seemed to have inherent sex appeal lately. His smirks when he joked and teased me sent my heart racing a little faster. I found myself sneaking glances at his forearms and shoulders so often, you’d think I was raised to believe arms were pornographic.

And it wasn’t just his arms, but his hands too. His throat, the crease between his brows. Even the way he walked, full of understated confidence. My crush on Novak was growing out of control and I was helpless to its whims.

After pouring two glasses of wine, I re-corked the bottle and noticed an end table covered in small objects against the far wall. One of the objects was a framed miniature painting of a figure in a barren, red landscape. My curiosity piqued, I went for a closer look, aware of Novak’s approaching steps behind me.

The figure in the painting was feminine with long black hair spilling out from a masked headdress of feathers and some kind of animal skull. She was posed in a way that seemed to indicate dancing, wearing a long necklace of skulls, black and white striped paint, and nothing else.

Recognition hit me the moment Novak spoke up. “That’s Temkra, our goddess.”

“I saw her,” I said, recalling the dancing, fanged figure that pulled me back from death. “Before I woke up as a brusang. She spoke to me.”

“Did she?” Novak handed me one of the wine glasses as he lowered into a loveseat nearby.

This end of the office was cozier, with couches and ottomans, the drink cabinet, a few messy shelves, and a large window facing the same direction as the balcony. And of course, the end table with the Temkra painting, and a few scattered objects including a small bird skull and an incense tray.

As Novak placed his feet on the ottoman, he didn’t look skeptical, but genuinely intrigued that I had seen his goddess, the mother of all vampires.

“What did she say to you?”

I took a sip of wine as I recalled it, thankful that Tavia didn’t add any blood to this one. “She said I wasn’t dead yet. That her blood was in my veins and I wasn’t finished.”

Novak’s eyebrows went up. “Wow. That had to be a strange experience. Temkra doesn’t speak to our kind very often. The recorded instances of it are few and far between.”

I stared at him. “You mean, you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I dunno, it’s just… ” I went to sit next to him, propping my feet up on the same ottoman. “Human deities are a lot more intangible, I guess. There are a lot of non-believers because so much rests on having faith. When someone claims to have a special connection to God, the first thing people suspect are delusions. Maybe even a mental illness.”

Novak chuckled. “It’s not like that with us. Temkra and Rathka are very real, tangible presences in our lives. There’s enough proof of their existence that pretty much all vampires believe in them to some degree.” He looked at the miniature painting with a pensive sip of wine. “Temkra shows herself to those who pray and ask for guidance. As you can probably tell by the lack of burned incense, I haven’t tried to communicate with her in years.”

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