There was so much despair in his voice. So much sorrow. Vasilisa felt that sorrow weighing her down. Andros and Grigor were in the same way, she was certain of it. The women they had chosen had to have been used against them. The enemy, using the women they were involved with, had trapped her brothers.
The demons thought they would capture Vasilisa using Afanasiv. The vampire had other ideas for her. She wondered what would have happened if she and Afanasiv hadn’t defeated them so quickly. Would the demons have destroyed the master vampire? It seemed he wasn’t so easily defeated, or Afanasiv would be with them.
“She is not lost to us yet, Garald,” Vasilisa assured him.
“She is lost to me. She is young, as I said, and any kind of violence would be abhorrent to her. For me to be responsible for her torture would end our relationship before it ever began.”
Was there a sob in his voice? Please don’t let her have heard a sob. Maybe it was in his heart. All the royals were connected by their blood. They could cut one another off so the others didn’t feel emotion or hear thoughts, but in unguarded times, anything could slip through.
“I’m sorry, Vasi. I love her. I’ve never loved a woman other than you and Mom. She completely took over my heart. I didn’t share with anyone, not even Grigor. I was afraid if I said how I felt about her aloud, something terrible would happen. I didn’t even tell her.”
Again, she closed her eyes briefly. Her fingers gripped her sword just a little tighter, and then slowly she loosened them.
She felt a burst of dark, almost sadistic joy hastily cut off.I will be with you shortly.
Vasilisa had the impression of an intense battle taking place on the ground. Afanasiv was no longer in the sky, and there was more than one opponent. He was experiencing an almost euphoric rush of brutal excitement as he fought the master vampire and his servants. She hadn’t expected that of him, and for a moment, she was thrown by the knowledge that he was completely different than she had thought him. That tiny glimpse of him showed an animalistic side that savored viciousness.
The demons came within fifteen feet of them and abruptly halted. As if they were in a synchronized ballet, they all stood straight and tall, easy to see now against the white backdrop. They were strange mutations of mountain hare. They looked human, standing tall, nearly all men, but with their bodies covered in thick bluish-white fur. Their ears were long like the rabbits’, white and tipped black. They had the faces of human males, but the noses were those of rabbits. They wiggled them often, which Vasilisa found a little distracting.
The demon facing Garald didn’t deign to acknowledge Vasilisa. None of them did. They stared only at him. “We have brought you agift.” The one talking had sharp serrated teeth in his mouth. She presumed the others had those same sharp teeth. “Would you like to see it?”
“Don’t answer him yet, Garald,” Vasilisa whispered. “Do you see that they don’t seem to notice me? I don’t think they even realize I’m here. These demons are programmed by someone we don’t yet see, and they don’t really see us that well. They see what they expect, which is only you. It would be interesting to see what he says if you don’t answer him.”
Silence hung in the air. The wind blew through the trees, and snow fell from the branches when they shook and trembled, showering them with a blend of snow and ice.
“Vasi.” Garald’s voice shuddered nearly as much as the branches. “That’s Taisiya. I recognize her hair. Her hair always reminded me of a mink, that deep rich brown.”
“She’s alive, Garald,” she pointed out again. “Right now, that’s all that matters. We’re going to take her back from them and heal her. She’s Lycan. She’s strong. You keep their attention on you. They haven’t seen me. I’ll move around them and try to find who is actually orchestrating everything. Don’t touch her or allow her to touch you. Something happened with Andros and Grigor. I don’t have time to go into that now, but we can’t afford for the demons to trap you as well.”
“Hurry, Vasi,” Garald pleaded.
Vasilisa put her sword away and instantly shimmered into transparency and then completely disappeared. She circled around her brother, making certain to stay above the ground. She moved slowly enough that she didn’t displace any snow. It was very difficult not to look at the young Lycan woman lying trussed up like a game hen with small, deliberate cuts all over her body. Signs of suffering and strain were on her face, seen at just a quick glance. She had her head tucked down and was trying to avoid Garald’s gaze, but the demon closest to her prodded her with the sharp nails on his enormous paws.
Vasilisa studied each of the demons. It stood to reason that one ofthem might be the driving force behind all the rest, although she thought that the demon would have noticed her. She took her time, not wanting to miss anything important. None of them seemed different from the other. They stood straight and tall, acting in that strange synchronized motion as if they had been trained to perform on a stage.
It is possible they have been. Or they are being directed by someone who has been a performer. Someone close to your family. Someone who knows your brothers and you.
That voice was calm and steady. Even soothing. But the moment he spoke, anger exploded in her. The emotion was unexpected, but it was profound. Harsh. Beyond her capacity to feel. She realized she had tapped into her brothers—all of them. It was common for the siblings to share intense emotions, but she hadn’t thought they could hear her lifemate when he was trying to help her sort through possible answers. Not only was that wrong of her, but it was dangerous. She closed her mind to her brothers.
I’m sorry, Afanasiv. I had no idea I was sharing with my brothers.
You are worried for them. It is only natural.Afanasiv excused her.
But two of them are compromised. Whatever is said between us might possibly be heard by our enemy.
Was he getting closer? She had never had trouble solving problems or working alone, but she knew this journey wasn’t hers alone. She had read the tarot cards handed down for hundreds of years from mother to daughter that very evening, and she knew she would never be alone again. There was unexpected relief in knowing that. She understood her brothers’ anger and fear. They didn’t want to be alone.
You believe the person directing this abomination is someone who is or was close to my family? Someone who knows all of us intimately?
They would have to, wouldn’t they? They trapped your brothers. They know the very thing that would get to them.
How would they know about me? I have never discussed guarding your soul with anyone, not even Sorina until this evening.She hadn’t. That secret had been a sacred charge. Even as she tried to dismiss his more-than-valid inquiry, her mind began to go through a list of suspects. At the same time, she began to search her surroundings—the sky, forest and landscape—to see where the conductor might be hiding.
All vampires know Carpathian males have a lifemate and that lifemate is the guardian of the other half of their soul. I was taken into the underworld and subjected to torture. I could not have told them about you because I did not know who you were. Someone from your line had to have known. Perhaps someone who has passed. Someone female whom your mother might have confided in.
Dread began to gather in Vasilisa’s stomach. Hard knots formed. Someone in her family, not a family friend. Her mother would never have confided in a friend. She would have kept their legacy a secret from everyone, just as she had drilled into her daughter to do. Vasilisa couldn’t imagine a scenario in which her mother would have broken her word unless there were dire circumstances. What would those be?
She would have to think she was dying and unable to pass my soul to her daughter. She would want to entrust it to someone she thought would pass it to her child. Did she have a difficult birth with you? You were her last. What were the circumstances of your birth?