Page 14 of Crimson Oath
“Because he’s the one that started it.”
Oleg had to smile. “My brother is the master of creating a problem and then showing up to solve it. He has always been this way. It’s strategic thinking for small minds.”
“That may be.” Polina kept her voice low. “But right now he’s telling a story that those vampires out there are hungry for. And all of them are listening.”
They were backon the plane before Mika finally blurted out what he’d clearly been holding in for hours. “The vampire you just killed was Poshani.”
“And this is why you have a job.” Oleg settled into his seat in the custom plane they’d flown to Minsk. “His accent was definitely Poshani.”
“Eastern Poshani to be precise.” Mika closed the metallic cage that enclosed Oleg’s personal compartment. “You need to call Radu. Or I could call Kezia if you’d rather.”
“Not all Poshani vampires work for Radu,” Oleg said quickly. “Or the clan. This could mean nothing. He could have been an outcast.”
“An outcast with four partners who were probably also Poshani?” Mika sat next to him. “Their people are everywhere in our territory.”
Cesar, Oleg’s air steward, came to check on them and offer a bottle of blood-wine, but Oleg declined with a wave of his hand and Cesar retreated back to the galley.
Moments later, Oleg felt the plane moving toward the runway.
“The Poshani are our allies. Our relationship has never been compromised,” Oleg said. “Other than some bitching from Ivan, theirpeople have never caused us problems. They pay us handsomely for roaming access to our territory.”
“As they should,” Mika said.
As the plane’s engines built up speed, Oleg felt that same clench in his belly. The same dip and fearful thrill he’d experienced the first time he left the earth.
Machine-powered flight. It was a truly marvelous thing. Airplanes were one of the few things that still got his heart beating.
Human ingenuity had always interested Oleg. Unlike many of his kind, he was curious about the modern world. He had no nostalgia for the past. The past was dirty and violent and cruel.
And yet so many of his kind clung to their history as if it were a precious jewel. The Poshani were the perfect example.
Had their lives fundamentally changed in the past millennium?
They were a vampire clan like none other in the world. Uniquely coordinated between their human and vampire elements, many did live in cities and operate in the modern world, but the majority maintained the itinerant lifestyle of their ancestors.
They were traders, builders, fighters, artists, and more than anything, they were fiercely loyal.
Perhaps if Oleg’s history had been marked by that kind of loyalty, he might cling to it as well, but he was the son of Truvor the Red, a cruel warlord who’d seen himself as above humans and nearly all vampires.
“You should have a meeting with Radu.” Mika glanced out the window, but he was already opening a book. The vampire read voraciously. This night it appeared to be a volume of Spanish poetry.
Obviously Mika had not been sired by Truvor the Red.
Oleg’s sire detested learning about anything that wasn’t related to violence or greed. He made a habit of pitting his children against each other, and Oleg’s brother Ivan had picked up many of his habits even though he’d hated their sire as much as Oleg did. He’d also inherited Truvor’s loathing for anything different or anything he couldn’tunderstand.
Like the Poshani.
The clan was enigmatic by design and often spread lies purposefully to mislead the immortal world. Radu of Bucharest was one of their leaders—the public face of the Poshani clan—but Oleg knew that Radu had two coregents, a brother and a sister, who held equal power.
“I can tell the pilot to make a detour to Bucharest,” Mika continued. “We could be there in a couple of hours and open the house. Cesar could call the butler before we land.”
Oleg picked up a magazine. “No need just now.” He opened it, but he couldn’t concentrate. His eye caught on an ad for a perfume. The image was of a blond woman walking through a field of lavender.
Mika noticed the ad. “Is she one of your ex-girlfriends?”
“No.”
What would Tatyana have looked like in the sun?
