“What about you, havoc wreaker? Are you made up of darkness or light?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to find out, so I run.”
Had she been forced to find out by now?
His middle ached at the thought.
Through listening to the slayers chitchat, he’d also learned a lot about the structure of the underworld, though he still needed some crucial blanks filled in. So far, he knew the vampires were ruled by the High Order and there was at least two of them. One in Russia, one back in the United States. The slayers were also divided by country and called themselves contingents. As Inessa had explained the night she had him Silenced, she ruled the Russian branch.
Of which Roksana was now a card-carrying member.
He burned as he stared at Roksana from a short distance away, his voice was hoarse, unrecognizable when he spoke. “Who are you?”
It was as if the oxygen was wrenched from her lungs. “Liar,” she said, sounding choked.
“You know who I am and you know why I’ve come.” She scanned the cell, her brows knitting together. “You are finished scourging the earth, like the rest of your kind.” She advanced a step, balancing on the balls of her feet. “You are welcome to fight me, bloodsucker. I will win.”
Elias debated a half-hearted fight with her, just so he’d have the chance of their skin brushing. Feeling her breath on his face. “You’re a slayer?”
“Yes,” she pushed through her teeth. “I slay for them.”
No doubt she was referring to her friends. The ones he’d failed to save.
Self-disgust shrank his skin around his bones. “For who?”
A shudder passed through her, a light sheen glazing in her eyes. “You know who I am! You know who I’m talking about!”
Acid burned him alive from the inside out. “I’m sure I don’t.”
“You murdered my friends. All of them.” Fire raged in her eyes. “You locked me away and forced me to live with the memories of their pleading. You took my will! All so you could have your precious immortality. Tell me now. Was it worth it?”
Ah. So that’s how Inessa had explained the coincidence of him becoming a vampire the same night he met Roksana. Were there truly people who would seek out this hellish existence? Knowing she believed this of him was almost too much to bear.
“Where did this murder happen?” he said, barely managing to sound normal.
“Las Vegas,” she said, her voice strained. “You…you have to know.”
“I was Silenced in Vegas, apparently, but the whole night is a blur. It’s not uncommon for new vampires to be confused and…murderous in those first few days.” He flicked a piece of non-existent lint off his shoulder, but on the inside, his lungs were being torched. “It’s just one of those things, I guess.”
“One of those things,” she repeated, sounding winded.
“Where did you train?” Elias asked, conversationally. “I’ve never seen you at any of the sessions.”
“My training was private,” she said, visibly numb, though she bolstered herself quickly. “The great Queen of Shadows is my mother. I train under her watch and for that, I am fortunate. She has honor and patience, something you’ll never understand. She’s given me the gift of vengeance and it is what pulled me from the hole you dropped me into, monster.”
Her raw honesty threatened to double him over.
Here was the real reason Elias could never tell her what really transpired that night in Vegas. Her thirst for revenge was the only thing holding her together. Inessa had gotten exactly what she wanted when she’d executed her daughter’s friends. She’d gotten blind loyalty borne from the worst pain imaginable. Roksana had gone to her mother broken and been remolded.
I’ve already failed her once. Let her friends be senselessly assassinated.
I won’t take her mother, too.
Roksana’s vengeance was wrapped tightly around Inessa, like a tumor. Severing one would damage the other and leave Roksana with nothing.
“Wow.” He kept his voice flat. Mean. “Trained by the queen herself. You must think you’re really important.”
“This time tomorrow,” she blurted, and he wished, he wished in that moment that she would just drive the goddamn stake into his heart. End it, please. “Nothing?” she whispered.
He fixed his stare on the ceiling. “I’m bored enough that I just might let you kill me.”
“Let me?” In a flash of speed, she spun and delivered a roundhouse kick to his jaw, snapping his head back.
Any other time, he would barely have felt the blow, but weeks had passed without a drop of blood and Elias thought he might be dying. It was taking every ounce of his willpower not to overcome Roksana and sink his teeth into her neck, to feel the flow of strength course through him and more than that, finally know what she tasted like.
To have some part of her inside him would be glorious.