Page 51 of Crimson Oath
She felt the memory of Oleg’s fangs at her neck and the corresponding surge of arousal she quickly tried to tamp down. “That will not be happening.”
“Your body reacted just now,” Kato said. “Were you remembering Oleg?”
“Do you have to ask?” She’d confided in Kato months ago when she’d been feeling particularly vulnerable and desperate.
The craving for Oleg was a stubborn glitch in her mind, and her emotions ping-ponged between anger and longing. She was convinced that he was doing something to her, even across the miles that separated them.
“How many times did he take your blood?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember.” She still craved his fangs in her neck. She wanted them. She yearned for his bite.
The bastard.
“When you were a vampire, yes?”
“Yes.” Why was he asking about this? It was like talking about sex with her father.
If she had a father.
Kato frowned. “And you never took his?”
“What?” Her eyes went wide. “No.”
“Didn’t you want to?” Kato leaned along the edge of the pool, and the water danced around him. He glanced at Alexander across the room. “I don’t think Alexander would mind you knowing that I take his blood.”
She had to smile. “I assumed that you did.”
“If he were immortal…” Were Kato’s cheeks a little red? Could vampires blush, or was it her imagination? “I would want him to bite me in return. That is all I’m saying.”
Tatyana sat in the corner near to Kato, but not too close. This conversation was awkward enough. “Oleg and I were lovers, but we were not like you and Alexander. The two of you love each other. You have mutual respect. It’s very obvious.”
“When my lovers have been human,” Kato said, “taking theirblood was an enjoyable part of sex. But a blood exchange between vampires is a much more intimate thing. I have told you about this.”
“It creates a tie.” Tatyana understood that now even though she hadn’t when Oleg had bitten her.
“I know your feelings about Oleg are complicated now,” Kato said, “and I will do nothing to defend his actions. You were too young and vulnerable to understand what was happening with that exchange.”
“It wasn’t an exchange,” Tatyana said. “That’s the point. He took my blood to control me. I never took his.”
The corner of Kato’s mouth inched up. “Ironically, he’s probably feeling the loss quite keenly. Your amnis will take years to leave his blood, but his amnis never touched your system. If it had, it would have been much harder for you to leave.”
Tatyana blinked. “What?”
“That’s why I would never take the blood of a vampire now without asking for their own bite in return,” Kato said. “It was wise of you to keep your distance, Tatyana. If you’d given him your fangs, it would have been much harder for you to leave.”
If you’d given him your fangs, it would have been much harder for you to leave.
The words kept bouncingaround her mind as she walked back to her rooms in the compound after leaving Kato.
If you’d given him your fangs…
Tatyana unlocked the door to her windowless room and locked it behind her. The scent of Oleg filled her senses.
Damn that vampire. He was everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.
She walked to the coat hanging in the closet, the one she’d worntwo nights before in Gori, the night that she’d seen him again, and somehow he’d embedded his scent in her clothes, on her skin, and even done something to her mind that made her dreams about him even more vivid.
She couldn’t join the Poshani kamvasa fast enough. Now that she’d told Kato, she was itching to leave.
