She held her breath, searching desperately for some sign of recognition.
This time tomorrow.
This time tomorrow.
Remember, damn you.
But he only stared back impassively.
A now-familiar sharp pain stuck in her side. She bit down on the back of her tongue until her teeth started to break the surface, then sucked in a breath. “I have to go.”
Again, Elias stepped into her path. “No. Why are you being called back to Russia?”
“Why do you think?” she said in a hushed whisper. “My mother had mercy on me. She gave me a clear mission and I…” Couldn’t kill the man I still dream about, still miss, still hunger for. God, her memory of Elias before was still so vivid, sometimes it seemed as if she could reach out and touch it. Inessa would have cut him down with a cry of fury and lopped off the heads of his friends while she was in the neighborhood. After a year of daily, grueling training and working in the field, that was the task she’d given her daughter.
Kill the vampire who murdered your friends. Take his friends as tribute. An eye for an eye. Reclaim your pride.
Eighteen months later, Roksana had nothing to show for her time spent in New York. “I went on a vacation instead of doing my job. Now it’s over.”
His scar turned the color of cotton. “What are the consequences, Roksana?”
Death. “Considering my mother is meting out the punishment, she’ll probably just ground me.” She put on an American accent. “Aw geez, mom. I can’t even play Xbox?” She shrugged. “That will be me, probably.”
“You’re making light of it,” he said, sounding as if he was trying to keep his tone even. “You don’t think I can tell?”
“Can we be done with this discussion? I want to browse magazines before my flight. There’s a double issue of Dungeon Beautiful I have my eye on.”
She tried to step past him, but he shot an arm out, keeping the door from opening. “What time is the flight?”
Nine thirty. “Eleven forty-five. Why?” He didn’t answer, but his jaw looked close to snapping. Do not consider the possibility he might care. Do not. She’d spent eighteen months in purgatory, waiting for him to give her a sign he felt something for her. A sign that he remembered. Anything. But he didn’t. He hadn’t maintained his humanity, like Ginny and Jonas. This was just an undead being who liked control and exercised it as a matter of fact. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet now he stared down at her now like she could crumble him with a snap of her fingers?
Oh. Oh, she remembered now.
Roksana rolled her eyes and jerked up the hem of her dress, untucking a small, gold object from her garter belt. “You are waiting for your credit card back, da? Here you go.” She pressed it into his palm. “Those weird porn charges aren’t mine.”
Elias’s rapt gaze was still locked on her exposed thigh, burning her sensitive skin.
Attraction.
That was the one area she knew they connected. Not that he ever came close to acting on it. Nor would she let him! No, they hadn’t so much as held hands since that kiss in Vegas. A kiss which he didn’t remember but would be branded on her memory forever.
“Keep the credit card, Roksana,” he rasped.
“I don’t need—”
He moved in a fit of speed, reversing their positions and flattening her back against the stairwell door, rattling the hinges. Stunned by the unexpected, electric contact—contact she’d been craving for years—she could only swallow a sob as Elias gripped her knee and jerked it up, his breath pelting her mouth as he slid the credit card back into her garter. “Keep. It.”
Kiss me.
Hurt me.
Make love to me.
Anything.
The tortured begging sounding off in Roksana’s mind prompted her to push him away, even though the loss of his nearness caused her knees to buckle, her back hitting the door. How dare he? How dare he exploit her weakness in these last moments? The final seconds she would ever share with him. Shame and irritation and grief over what could have been rose up within her, a stake materializing in her hand without a formal thought.
She raised it.
Elias stayed very still, hands loose at his sides.
Looking her in the eye. Searching.
She searched him, too, rummaging for the man who’d made himself a vital part of her existence in the matter of one night, then turned into a monster—
There.
There? Did she see him? Was there a glimmer of something like…bitter longing?
No, her mind was merely playing tricks on her. Still, what if?
What if?
Roksana dropped the stake, threw open the door and ran, hating herself with every step. At least by tomorrow, she’d no longer have to live with the memories.
CHAPTER FIVE
Las Vegas 2017
Elias wondered briefly if his beer had been spiked.
Was there another logical explanation for the sight that greeted him when he opened his hotel room door?