"I'm not alone," Viktor said. "Gavriil, the others with me, they're like me."
She felt the tension rise immediately. "I'm all right, Gavriil. Please tell the others it's safe to come in."
Gavriil still didn't look at her. "Five years. No word."
"I left word for all of you. Hundreds of messages. I wanted Blythe looked after. No one ever answered me."
This time fury shimmered in the room. Blythe realized that rage was a part of Viktor's makeup. How he'd hidden it from her in the months they were together, she'd probably never know, but it was stamped into his bones and impressed on every cell. That fury was directed at Gavriil. He really had sent messages, and no one had answered him.
"There were no messages, Viktor. Not for the last five years. Not one."
Blythe clutched the back of Gavriil's coat and held her breath. It seemed as if something had crept into the room and then suddenly sucked all the air out so it was impossible to breathe.
"I can feel that both of you are telling the truth, so how would that happen?" If Viktor had tried to get to her and asked others to look after her, then at least she could feel as if he'd cared. Maybe it hadn't all been a complete sham on his part.
"That's the question," Viktor said. "If you didn't get my letter and you didn't have the codes and no one else received my messages, then someone else has the codes and deliberately erased them. There's no other explanation."
"How many men you have out there?" Gavriil asked.
"How many did you spot?" Viktor countered.
"Six."
"You missed two. One's probably hanging back deliberately with a bead on whoever you have sitting up with a sniper rifle on me. The other is a woman, and she's lethal. She's already assessed the most vulnerable and marked him, one who might hesitate because she's female. Every one of them has some sort of psychic gift, so you can't depend on your gifts to even the odds. Call them in."
"Blythe? You good?" Gavriil asked.
"Perfectly. I just feel a little silly for causing such a fuss."
Gavriil stepped to the doorway and held up his hand, signaling his brothers. Again, Blythe felt shimmering emotion filling the room--this time it was coming solely from Viktor in anticipation of seeing his birth brothers. She couldn't help herself; she went to him. He needed someone whether or not he knew he did.
He immediately circled her waist with his arm, locking her front to his side. She felt the small tremor move through his body as first Lev entered, and then Stefan. She looked up at Viktor's face. He was utterly still. His features could have been carved from stone.
The emotion in the room was so strong it threatened to drive her to her knees. She had no choice but to cling to Viktor for strength. She recognized that they both were doing the same thing. Holding on to each other. She'd had no one. She'd thought he hadn't either in those days, but now she realized he had an entire life she didn't know about. Brothers and perhaps sisters. And birth brothers. Men she had grown to love. She wasn't alone anymore. She had her sisters, the five women standing with her. She knew them well. They weren't hiding in their homes, cowering; they were somewhere outside, waiting to see if they were needed. Viktor's new family might be lethal killers and they clearly had psychic abilities--he'd said so--but she wasn't helpless and neither were her sisters.
She started to pull away from Viktor and his other arm clamped around her, preventing movement. She glanced up at him again. He wasn't looking at her; he was looking at the two other men entering the house. Maxim and Casimir. Another tremor ran through his body. The emotions in the room ratcheted up another notch. She curled her fingers into his shirt as Ilya Prakenskii walked into her house.
There was a stirring in her mind. A brush along the walls like a caress. Blythe. Her name was a whisper in her mind. A shared anguish.
Viktor couldn't show his emotions, maybe he wasn't even feeling them, but they were strong enough to nearly bring her to her knees. Her breath hitched in her throat. She hadn't expected to see Ilya there. Evidently Viktor hadn't either.
It was worth it. I didn't know if it would be, but they're all safe.
Her eyes burned, and then she couldn't see anything because tears swam and spilled over. They were his tears, tears he couldn't shed. It was too much for any one human being. The knowledge of how his daughter died and then seeing six brothers he hadn't seen in thirty years other than from a distance when he'd tried to help them on some impossible assignment.
Blythe rubbed her wet cheek along his shirt. She couldn't have moved even if she wanted to, he was holding her that tight. "Honey, you need to tell your other brothers everyone is safe and they can go home. I know that the women are out there, covering their men. Waiting to see if I'm all right. I'm going to step to the door and let them know everything is good."
No one else had spoken. The seven men faced one another, birth brothers, men who had sacrificed so much for one another, yet didn't know one another very well and Viktor not at all.
Viktor swallowed visibly and then he nodded and stepped with her, holding the lock he had on her. She knew why. He needed her. She was what was getting him through this moment. There was so much emotion, he couldn't allow himself to actually feel it. He compartmentalized. Instinctively she knew it was the only way he could survive. Something in him was very, very broken. Very wrong.
Again, it was sheer instinct that had her gripping him hard and walking in perfect sync with him. His brothers parted to allow them through, although Lev trailed after them. She could feel the fierce protective vibe coming off of him in waves. The other brothers were nearly as fierce, although it was difficult to read Gavriil. He didn't take his gaze from Viktor, not even when Maxim moved through the room, dimming the lights and moving furniture to get the chairs out of line with the windows.
Viktor gave another call, the distinctive call of an eagle owl, three hoots, signifying all was well. He lifted his hand and made a circle, indicating his brothers and sister could go home for the night. Blythe lifted her hand to her sisters. She could feel them out there. They could go home and know she was safe.
"They were a surprise," Viktor said. "I don't know why, but I thought my brothers would tuck them somewhere safe and come themselves."
Amusement shifted through her, breaking up the terrible weight of his overwhelming emotions. "Of course you thought that."
His eyebrows shot up and his entire focus was on her. His long fingers captured her chin and tilted her face up toward his. "Why would you think that, baby?" His voice was low, just between the two of them, and held a warning caress that slid down her spine like fingers. She shivered with reaction, her sex clenching.
"Because you belong in a cave half the time."
"Only half?" Now brief amusement cut through all the terrible emotions, and he took a deep breath as he turned her back toward the inside of the house.
She had to nod. "Only half. Sometimes you can be reasonable."
"I'll have to work on that."
She wasn't certain what he was going to work on, being a caveman all the time, or trying not to be a caveman most of the time. She closed the door while he stood with one arm still locking her to his side. Blythe didn't try to step away from him because she could feel his struggle. He wanted to walk out the door, not allow her to close it.
She was the one who took the first step back into the room filled with his brothers. She was very, very grateful that she had wanted a house built with wide open spaces. The Prakenskii brothers were all tall with broad shoulders and a presence that took up every available space.
"Blythe." Ilya shocked her by putting a hand on her wrist as if he would take her physically from his brother. "Are you all right?"
"Yes. Of course. I'm so sorry I got all of you out of your homes. I just panicked for a moment when I saw Viktor and I just pushed the button. As you can see, I'm fine," she tried to reassure them all. Testosterone was heavy. None of them were going to relax or back down until they believed every single w
ord she said. She felt just a little desperate. Any one of these men could erupt into violence at the slightest provocation, and she didn't want any of them hurt.
"Let go of her." Viktor all but snarled the order. "You don't put your hands on my wife."
"Viktor," Blythe protested. "Ilya is only trying to make certain that I'm all right."
"You don't have to give him explanations, Blythe." Ilya didn't back down for a minute. "He hasn't been here in thirty damned years, he can't just walk in and decide you belong to him."
"Thirty years?" Viktor echoed. "You want to tell me how difficult your life was, baby brother? In that easy, skate-through-life school straight into Interpol? Yeah, that was a rough fuckin' life, wasn't it? You know who earned you that life? That was me. Thirty years of the worst kind of shit you couldn't even imagine. Did you bother to find out what it was like for me earning you that school and that easy life?"
"Viktor." Gavriil indicated a chair. "No one had it easy. None of us, and we can all acknowledge that you were put in the worst of the worst. We know what you did for us. The point Ilya is making is about Blythe, not about us. She's the innocent here, and yes, she's your wife."
"My mark is on her." Viktor caught her wrist and held up her palm. His thumb slid over the center and the double rings burst to life, etched into her skin like a very permanent tattoo. "This mark says she's mine and no one has the right to interfere with us."
Gavriil waved his hand toward the chairs in Blythe's great room. Reluctantly the other brothers sank into the wide armchairs. Viktor led Blythe right past Ilya to the love seat and pulled her down with him. She let him because she wasn't about to be the match setting off the sticks of dynamite. Ilya sat across from them, straddling the arm of a chair.
No one looked comfortable. Blythe struggled for a way to break the ice. They all wanted to--although mostly she felt his brothers' concern for her and for some reason that made her want to cry. She hadn't realized they felt genuine affection for her, although now it came at her in a concentrated form.
"I could make tea or coffee," she offered.
Viktor's hand tightened involuntarily on her, but then he forced his fingers to let her go, one after another. "That might be a good idea, baby," he said.
It was his most caressing voice, like black velvet rubbing over her skin, the tone that always had disarmed her. It was no different now. Every single cell in her body responded to him. She stood up quickly, looking around, grateful for the reprieve. "Tea? Coffee? Name your preference."
"Coffee." It was decisive. Without their women, their chosen drink would always be what it had been.
"Moscow prefers tea," Viktor said. "Didn't any of you spend time there? And you know how I like my coffee, Blythe."
"I spent a little time in Moscow," Ilya admitted. "But I never picked up the tea habit until I came here and married my wife. Tea is a ritual with the Drakes."
"I understand your wife is pregnant. When is she due?" Viktor said it deliberately so his brothers knew he did his homework. More, that he kept up with them.
"She's a week or so over five months. She's actually with her sister Libby right now. I was visiting Lev when the call came in."
"Why didn't you contact any of us in these last years?" Maxim asked. "I understand deep cover, but no one could have penetrated our code."
"Someone did." Viktor dropped the bomb into the sudden silence that had followed Maxim's blunt accusation. "There's no other explanation. I left you hundreds of messages. I left Blythe messages. No one got them. Someone had to have picked up the messages and then erased them." He looked around the room at his brothers, his gaze touching each of their faces.
"You're not accusing one of us." Stefan made it a statement.
"I don't know any of you." Viktor kept his voice strictly neutral. Someone had severed all of his ties with Blythe. He would have thought Sharon was capable of it, but he had sent messages after her death. By that time, his Torpedo Ink brothers could occasionally get to the States and they reported Sharon's death and that Blythe was happy and living on the farm with five other women in Sea Haven.
"You know us," Gavriil said. "We lived by the oath of our father, even Ilya, although a baby and without any real knowledge of our parents. We kept to the code. If someone destroyed your messages, it wasn't one of us."
The brothers exchanged uneasy looks. The silence was broken by the sounds of Blythe getting mugs down from the cupboard.
"You believe that someone actually read all of our private messages?" Lev asked.
"It's that or I lost my mind and didn't spend nearly every waking minute trying to get word on Blythe. I practically begged the six of you to get to her and make certain she was okay."
Again, in spite of trying, Viktor couldn't quite keep the bite of accusation out of his tone. He hadn't realized until he saw them all together just how emotional he would be, or how angry at them. Blythe had been alone. He couldn't get to her, but at least one of them should have been able to. At least Ilya. He was careful not to look at his youngest brother.
"You disappeared."
Viktor wasn't surprised that Ilya was the one to voice it. He decided the kid was a hothead. He was looking for an excuse to move against Viktor.
"You have a problem with me, kid?"
"I'm not a kid," Ilya said. "And yeah, I've got a problem with you. Thirty years and you never once walked up and introduced yourself."
"I saved your worthless ass on at least seven occasions."
"So what? You didn't so much as say hello."
He hadn't. That much was true. He'd managed to see Gavriil a time or two, and Stefan once, but Ilya he'd watched over as best he could, and he'd interfered when Sorbacov had put his baby brother in situations there was no coming back from. He'd had one of his Torpedo Ink brothers checking constantly. It had been one of them tipping the scales on all but two occasions. It wasn't like he could drop what he was doing and get to Ilya fast enough. Not with hundreds of miles between them most of the time.
He shrugged. He wasn't about to explain himself. Not to any of them. He couldn't help but be conflicted. He'd suffered endless torture for these six men. They hadn't asked him to do it--their father had. He'd kept that promise and they had grown up, served their country and now had families.
He glanced toward the kitchen. To Blythe. She'd saved him. Not only had she saved him, but she'd saved seventeen others as well. His angel. He hadn't believed in angels, but then he'd marked one as prey and she'd turned his world upside down.
Baby, I don't know how to do this. He reached out to her before he could stop himself. He realized he was stroking his thumb back and forth across the center of his palm. It was a bad habit he'd developed since he'd first met her.
"Who are these people you're traveling with?" Ilya asked.
"I'm here on a job." Viktor watched their faces closely. They didn't give anything away, and he hadn't expected them to. They were trained agents.
"Tell us," Gavriil instructed.
"Viktor." Blythe came to the arched entry that was the only break between the great room, dining room and kitchen. "I could use your help carrying all these mugs. Can I borrow you, just for a moment?"
He was on his feet immediately, striding across the room, his arm sweeping around her as he moved with her through the dining room to the kitchen. He noted the archways were wide enough to accommodate both of them. The moment they were inside the room, he stepped away from the open passageway and swept her into his arms, burying his face between her shoulder and neck. Inhaling her. Taking her deep.
She was his safe haven. The only safe haven he'd ever known. She didn't understand that, didn't know just what she was to him, but he made a silent vow that she would.
Tell me what to do.
She held herself away from him at first, a little stiff, but at the question he'd pushed into her mind she melted, her body going soft and pliant. His. All his. It had been far too long since he'd been with a woman, but especially
his woman. His body recognized her immediately and made urgent demands of its own. He was a man with iron control and he remembered that feeling of complete and utter exultation, knowing there was a woman who could arouse him naturally.
Just talk to them. Ask them questions about their lives. Just like you started to do with Ilya. Tell them why you're here. Talk to them about your other brothers and sisters and why they're important to you.
He could do that. It didn't seem that difficult. He could talk to anyone in any situation, he was trained and had skills, so it didn't make sense that he was all over the place because they were his birth brothers. Not, he decided, that any of them were doing much better.
"Thanks, baby," he said softly, meaning it.
He looped her ponytail in his fist and pulled back her head, bending to take her mouth. Her lips were soft and tasted of tangerine. Her tongue tangled with his. Danced. Teased. Was provocative. He loved that about her. She couldn't resist him any more than he could resist her.
When he knew he should stop or he wouldn't be able to, he lifted his head and rested his forehead against hers. "Give me a chance, Blythe. That's all I'm asking. Just give me a chance."
She moistened her lips and her long lashes veiled her eyes. Before she could deny him even that much, he turned away from her to pick up the tray with the coffee mugs. She caught up a plate of cookies and followed him out into the great room.
"You were going to tell us about this job of yours," Gavriil encouraged.
Viktor nodded and caught at Blythe and pulled her down next to him before she could escape. "Yes. I've been riding with the Swords for the last five years, working my way up the ranks to enforcer for the New Orleans chapter president. That's Evan Shackler-Gratsos's original chapter. It was also Jackson Deveau's father's chapter. If there's one man on earth Evan hates more than anyone else, it's Jackson. He wants him dead. He might never have done anything about it but Jackson had the bad grace to marry Elle Drake and actually be happy."
He kept his eye on Ilya. The man was reputed to be very close friends with Jackson Deveau, and Elle Drake was his sister-in-law. Viktor stretched one arm along the back of the love seat to curl it around Blythe. He liked her close to him. With his other hand he raised the coffee mug to his lips.