Page 114 of Crimson Oath
Irritabledidn’t begin to describe how she was feeling.
“Okay.” Ben Vecchio raised his hands as if in surrender. “Oleg did not send me.”
“Good.” With that answered, she turned back to the stew. Maybe if she ignored him, he’d go away.
She didn’t really want to get to know him. Most of the vampires in the kamvasa kept to themselves, and that was fine with Tatyana. This American seemed overly friendly and was trying to speak with her in English, which was not her best language.
“Tatyana!” Rumi called in Poshani. “Is that stew ready for the fish?”
She answered her friend in the same language. “No, I just added the ground pepper. It needs to cook more.”
“The fish is cleaned when you’re ready for it.” Rumi pointed to the table. “Just let me know.”
“Another half hour maybe?” She turned her attention back to thefire.
The American vampire spoke again. “You’re very good at languages. I’ve been trying to figure it out.”
“Poshani?”
“Yes.”
Tatyana looked up and sighed a little bit. He was not going away. “You’re probably trying to fit it into a Roman or Slavic paradigm.”
She might as well talk with him if he was going to insist. Maybe he wasn’t an aloof asshole like the others if he was truly interested in the Poshani. She repeated what Rumi had told her about the language’s history. “The Poshani language is primarily North Indian with borrowing from Hungarian, Turkish, and Farsi.”
Benjamin Vecchio smiled. Was he baring his fangs at her? His teeth reminded her of a crocodile.
He looked overly excited. “You’re a language nerd! How did you get to be a vampire?”
Her eyes went wide. What kind of immortal was he?
“None of your business.” Maybe he didn’t know he was being rude. He was from a different region of the world. “Do all Americans smile so much?”
“Probably.” He held his hand out as if he wanted the spoon. “Can I help?”
Absolutely not. “You’re a wind vampire?” If he was sired by Zhang Guo, he would have to be a wind vampire.
“I am.”
“Then cool the stew. It’s getting a little hot.”
When he summoned his element, that was when she saw it. The vampire was as young as she was and could barely control all the power that was packed into his body.
It was like watching a baby try to handle a shotgun.
The wind he called was so strong the base of the goulash bubbled up and blew out of the side of the pot, nearly burning a Poshani girl who had just walked by.
The girl yelped and darted away.
Tatyana waved her hands at him. “Stop. Just stop.”
He stopped, thank God, or she would have had to remake everything.
The man had the grace to look apologetic. “So if you don’t want to talk about yourself?—”
“I don’t.” Tatyana poked at the coals to rearrange the heat under the pot. “I know who you are. You didn’t need to introduce yourself. Everyone knows who you are.”
It was true. The entire camp was buzzing with excitement, partly because of the nearness of the Vashana Zata, partly because more and more people were showing up, and partly because new vampires seemed to be appearing overnight.
