“You need to keep your voice down, Gav Sobol,” Alik hissed. “She has very good hearing.”
“She’s a woman. It isn’t like she’s going to give us much trouble,” a third man said. He was also dressed in snow gear. He had the air of a man in charge and looked bored out of his mind. He sat in the snow with a large knife cradled in his hands.
Alik sent him a pitying look. “Brody Portnov, you know this family is no ordinary family. They have skills. All of them, including Vasilisa. Just because she’s a woman, you shouldn’t underestimate her. She is very experienced with weapons, and she’ll try to fight her way free.”
“You say she will come on a mercy run in order to try to save a stranger trapped and hurt in the gorge,” said the fourth man. “Why would she have weapons on her? She would bring bandages. Blankets. Aid for him, not weapons.” He stood just off the trail, his hands on his weapons.
“She has an affinity with the mountains, Arman Botnik,” Alik proclaimed. “She always knows when someone is hurt, and she goes to help them. She’ll come this way. It’s the only safe way to get down to the gorge. And she’ll have weapons on her because no one is safe traveling in this wild place alone.”
“I’ve heard rumors that she is as good as her brothers,” Arman admitted, “but I’ve never seen her in action.”
Vasilisa didn’t know the other three men at all. They clearly camefrom another area, outside the territory of the royals. In some ways, she was grateful. It was difficult enough knowing Alik had betrayed them. Having four of her kind that she knew personally would make this battle all the more sorrowful.
A red squirrel raced across the ground, nearly running over the top of Gav Sobol, the man lying in the snow just to the left of the trail. A great gray owl came out of the night like a phantom and swooped low silently, stealthily, huge talons outstretched in an effort to reach its prey. It missed but tore straight into Gav’s face, raking his eyes nearly out of his head before the wings beat hard, taking the bird into the air and out of sight into the trees. Gav screamed, dropped his gun, covered his face and rolled over.
At the same time, the red squirrel had backtracked, spinning around as if frightened by the presence of all the men and scurrying straight at Brody Portnov. The squirrel landed in Portnov’s lap, looked up at him and then burrowed down between his legs. Portnov tried to shove at the little squirrel, first with his hand, and then he stabbed at it with the knife. The squirrel retaliated by biting down viciously and holding the bite between his legs.
Brody roared with rage, let go of the knife and tried to catch the small animal to tear it away and fling it off of him. Just as he put both hands around it, the wolverine rushed out of the trees straight at him, seemingly intent on claiming the squirrel for a meal. The dripping fangs closed around Brody’s upper thigh close to his groin as he flung off the squirrel. The wolverine shook Brody’s thigh and then retreated fast, leaving behind blood, a ring of bite marks and Brody swearing in Russian.
Vasilisa came out of the snow, a blur of movement, so fast that even Alik, who was expecting her, was unprepared for her speed. She slit the throat of Arman Botnik as she raced by, not even slowing to watch him fall. As she leapt over Brody Portnov, who was still sitting on the ground, she leaned down and stabbed his jugular. Her next step tookher to Gav Sobol. He was lying faceup, still covering his eyes. She cut his throat and then was standing in front of Alik, looking beautiful. Serene. Without a single drop of blood on her. She had disposed of three armed men in less than three seconds.
“Alik. Lovely to see you. Our people have been informed that you have betrayed us. There is nowhere for you to go.” Vasilisa watched him closely for any movement. He would be very dangerous. He knew she was going to kill him. He would never get off the mountain alive. Never. Every member of their people would be looking for him for the rest of his life. That included those who had left to live in other countries. They had hunters who were sent after rogues. Betrayers were far worse than rogues.
“You were so fast. I didn’t even see you move.”
She didn’t respond to his comment. What could she say to that? She had been that fast. He would still think he could kill her.
“You don’t have to tell me why you would do such a thing, but I would like to know. It seems so out of character for you. You have a mother. A sister. The disgrace and humiliation will be terrible for them to bear, unless, of course, they were in on this and encouraged you to plot against us.”
Again, she was very careful to watch him closely. Every minute movement. His expression. His eyes. His mouth. There was a small wrinkle around his mouth when she mentioned his mother and sister. He hadn’t liked that at all. His eyes had darkened. She waited, knowing sometimes words were too much. Silence could win battles.
“Oil.” He mumbled the word. “It was the oil.”
Her eyebrow went up. “The oil? You thought if you told the government about it, they would give you a piece of the profits? Seriously, Alik? You have to know better than that. The government takes. They don’t give. They would employ many of you, but under difficult conditions, just like in the past. Too many people die under their watch. The oil field was abandoned after they left. When more wasdiscovered, we took it to the council, and they voted against talking to the government, Alik. Your mother sits on the council. She voted against it.”
“She was wrong.” He was gearing up to make his move.
“She wasn’t.”
“We all could have lived in luxury instead of living in this place.” He gestured around him and leapt at her.
She was no longer where she had been. She gutted him as she slipped by—a blur, impossible to see. She was that fast because she had secrets of her own. He should have taken into consideration that she’d killed all three of the men he had brought with him, and he hadn’t been able to follow along with his eyes because she’d been too fast.
Alik’s body shuddered. Both hands came up to hold his entrails in as he went to his knees. “What are you?” he whispered.
Her people had a collective mind. One didn’t confess secrets, because secrets crossed mind barriers sometimes. “Royal blood runs in my veins, Alik. You should never have forgotten that fact simply because I’m a woman.” Let him put her speed down to that. Let them all put her speed and capabilities down to that.
She leaned down and ended his life, not so much out of compassion for him but out of necessity. Somewhere in the gorge was the bait. Whoever had trapped the stranger there hadn’t been betrayers. The man in the gorge was Carpathian, a vampire hunter. He could easily have disposed of most of her kind. Something else had been brought into play, something far more sinister.
She raced up the narrowing pathway to Drifter’s Point, her mind trying to fit the government agent she’d encountered at the inn with Alik and the others she’d killed. For some reason, it just didn’t compute for her. The oil didn’t seem like something a man like Nikolay Solokov would be sent to Siberia to inquire after, especially when he was doing so in a roundabout way.
Once she reached the top of Drifter’s Point, where the snow was at its highest peak, she looked down into the steep slopes below. The canyon walls were narrow, nearly straight up and down. Ice formations appeared like sculpted figurines climbing up the snow-covered trees that stuck out of the sides of the canyon walls. Anywhere the rocks shone through the white snow appeared a shiny black, an ominous warning of thick ice, sheets of it.
She leapt over the ridge, barely allowed her foot to touch, skimmed in the snow and lifted again to cover a good thirty feet, then repeated the action until she hit the floor of the gorge. She landed in a silent crouch on both feet and froze, only her eyes moving, searching around her for any sign of movement. She listened to pick up the natural rhythm of the earth.
With her bare feet, she was able to feel the heartbeat, catch the movement of small rodents skittering along the top of the sparse vegetation that had fallen from the few trees that clung to the floor of the narrow gorge. She tapped her chest over her heart until she matched the same beat.
In the distance, she caught the faint sound of air moving through labored lungs. There he was. She had him now. She waited until she was positively certain that this was the man she was connected to.Herman. The man whose soul she guarded so carefully. She began to match that labored breathing, allowing her lungs to take on the same ragged gasps struggling for air. Once they were in perfect sync, she began to even the two of them out slowly. He became aware of her instantly.