Page 136 of Crimson Oath
“It’s a vardo.” She smiled. “I know my brothers prefer more modern conveniences like your trailer, but my houses in town arequite modern, so when I am in the kamvasa, I enjoy being sentimental.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“And it’s more secure than it looks.” She waved Tatyana closer. “Come. We should share a drink. You’re quite private, you know. A little hard to get to know.”
Was she?
“I think I’m still more comfortable around humans,” Tatyana said quietly as she ducked her head to enter the trailer.
“That’s understandable,” Kezia said. “Vampires are scheming liars who plan in centuries instead of years. You’re quite right to distrust us.”
It appeared bigger on the inside, and the top arched overhead, also painted with traditional Poshani designs.
“Your vardo is a work of art.”
“Yes.” Kezia looked up. “Many years ago, I had a human lover who painted all this.” She waved a hand. “She was very gifted.”
“You must have trusted her very much.”
Something flickered in Kezia’s eyes. “I’ve heard it said that to be trusted is a greater gift than being loved.”
Tatyana tucked that away in the back of her mind as Kezia pointed her toward a velvet-upholstered sofa built into the side.
Her nose twitched. “What is that scent?”
Kezia glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “Peppermint schnapps. A bottle mysteriously fell from my bar.”
“Mysteriously?”
Kezia poured two glasses of blood-wine and handed one to Tatyana before she sat across from her. “Quite mysteriously.”
“You think someone broke into your trailer?” It wouldn’t even occur to Tatyana. “Would someone do that to a terrin?”
“A Poshani would not,” Kezia said. “But we have outsiders in the camp.”
Benjamin Vecchio.
Tenzin.
Madina.
Not Darius.
“René,” Tatyana murmured. “The Frenchman?”
It wasn’t René who had been lingering around Kezia’s trailer the night of the fireworks though. It had been Benjamin Vecchio.
Kezia narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. “Now why would you suspect René?” She lifted a hand. “I’m not saying you’re wrong.”
“I don’t know.” She did know; Oleg had confirmed that René DuPont was a thief. “Perhaps he reminds me of the young men in Sevastopol when I was a teenager. You could tell the ones who were only pretending to be rich to get money from people.”
Kezia’s fangs glittered in the gold light from her glass lamps. “You think René is a con artist?”
“Maybe not a con artist but an opportunist?”
She leaned back and smiled. “You are not wrong. My brother Radu asked that I invite him this year.”
“Why?”
