Page 20 of Crimson Oath
“Yes. Because you are mine.” He kissed across her jaw until his lips hovered over hers. “You belong to me only. Not to anyone else. Only to me.”
She met his eyes, dark storm grey like the clouds before it snowed. Burning cold into her very soul. He sucked the breath from her lungs when he looked at her that way. “Why do I dream about you?”
“Because you know that you’re mine.” His lips landed on hers, and she closed her eyes.
You know that you’re mine.
You know that you belong to me.
Tatyana blinked awake,her body flush with unsatisfied yearning for the vampire who consumed the few moments of dreaming that eternity granted her.
Was it him? Did he have some magical power to send these constant dreams to her? Why were the few moments in time when she could dream about her human life consumed by the very being who’d caused her to lose it?
Her emotions swung between fury and grief.
She’d never wanted this. She didn’t want to be a vampire.
She’d wanted to be an accountant. She wanted to have a boring office job in a medium-sized city, meet some nice man she could tolerate and have a few children. Take summer holidays on the farm where she’d spent her childhood. Watch her babies grow up. Help them with their schoolwork. Take them to dance class or tennis practice.
Tatyana felt hot, blood-tinged tears track from the corners of her eyes.
But she couldn’t even have that. After years of taking care of her mother and working for others, she was deprived of even a hint of normal life.
She would never see the sun again. She would never know what it meant to be a mother. She would never wade in the sunshine along the shallow water of the Black Sea or sit on a dock and fish while she watched the sunrise.
The most mundane human activities now felt like precious pearls that had been ripped from her neck and scattered on the ground while other, more powerful feet stomped on her simple dreams.
Stop.Tatyana heard her mother’s voice in her mind.Just stop it.No more of this morbid talk. You could have died, and you didn’t. You should be grateful.
To be a vampire?
Yes, she should be grateful. Would she rather be dead?
She didn’t want that. It might be coming for her, but she would fight it.
Because now she had fangs.
Some nights Tatyana felt like she was living on borrowed time, and in those moments—like those desperate, breath-catching moments when she’d been standing in the middle of Arosh’s guests—she realized that she was nobody in this world.
Then again, she’d been a nobody as a human. At least now she had gold, fangs, and could only be killed by fire or a sword to the neck.
And that…
That was not nothing.
Chapter 5
Oleg
Radu le Basarab—wind vampire, Poshani terrin, and all-around pain in the ass—had a club in downtown Bucharest called Zarva, which smelled of human sweat, pungent perfume, and spilled beer.
While the vampire lounge was soundproofed, less crowded, and less odorous than the human part of the club, it was still not Oleg’s favorite place to meet.
“It costs Radu so much money to make a place so cheap,” Mika muttered.
“Quiet,” Oleg said. “Be respectful.”
“We’re not there yet.”
