She produced a heavy pistol that she had stashed up there and pointed it at him, her arms outstretched between her knees. She reminded him of a gun-toting gargoyle.
“Get the hell out.”
He put his hands up. “Why?”
“You were about to bite me, you son of a bitch.” She pointed to a pair of scratches on her neck. “Again.”
Blood ran warm down his chin. Moving slowly, so as not to panic her, he pinched his nose to slow the bleeding. “And that’s wrong? You gorged on me.”
It sounded like “Yoob gorbed on muh.” He sighed and squinted up the barrel of the gun. His brothers would pay good money to see him right now.
“That was different.”
“I’m your mate.” That he knew with absolute clarity. That was non-negotiable. “It’s your duty to feed me.”
“My duty?”
Livid, she leapt down from her perch and advanced on him with the gun outstretched. He didn’t move, and she didn’t stop until she pressed the barrel between his eyes. He let his hands fall to his sides. The blood started to flow again. He licked it from his upper lip. He couldn’t afford to waste it.
“Give me one good reason why you want me. Besides the fact you’re hungry. Besides my territory.”
Mikhail couldn’t see past her finger on the trigger. “At this moment I have to say I’m drawing a blank.”
That hurt her. He heard echoes of confusion and disappointment, faint and fleeting, passing through her defenses. She took three steps backward and lowered the gun.
“There you are. You don’t like it, and neither do I. We don’t have to submit to this curse. There’s got to be a loophole.”
“There’s no way out.”
Was marrying him really worse than starvation, insanity and death? She glared at him, as if confirming this was, in fact, the case.
He tried again. “I can’t hunt anymore. Neither can you. Believe me, I tried, and couldn’t get past the first swallow. We’re like Roland now. We can’t feed unless we feed on each other. And the more we feed on each other, the more tightly we’re bound. There is no escape.”
“There is always a loophole. There is always a work around.”
Mikhail laughed. Let her shoot him. He couldn’t be worse off. He dug a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his nose.
Alya lowered the gun and paced in a circle, her face tight with concentration. Only she could look regal barefoot and crusted with blood. She didn’t even seem to be aware that she was naked.
He glanced at the bathroom door and back at her, a fantasy forming. He wanted to pull her into the shower and soap her from her ears to her toes and then take her––wet, warm and slippery––against the tile.
Her head whipped his direction. He shoved the fantasy aside. She had her mind locked down so tight, he couldn’t tell if she could listen in on him or not.
She sat on the bed, placing the pistol next to her. Crossing her legs, she leaned back on her hands and cocked her head at him. “I know your family sets a lot of store by this bonded bride thing, but even you will have to admit that ultimately it is an outdated, unnecessary and rather distasteful tradition—even among the hopelessly retrograde vampyr. There must be a cure nowadays. An unbinding of some sort.”
“An unbinding?” The woman was insane. “Good luck with that. If you find this spell, please bring me back a pet unicorn, because they must be kept in the same place.”
One corner of her mouth curled up. “You want the virgin who comes with it, too?”
He wadded the handkerchief in his fist, trying to keep hold of his temper. Knowing that she was pushing his buttons on purpose didn’t make it any easier to take.
“Have you ever considered that submitting to our destiny is the right path? The only path?”
She picked up the gun again. “If you think that the word submit is in my vocabulary, Mikhail Faustin, you don’t know me very well at all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a shower. And then I’m going to get us a divorce.”
He closed with her. “We all submit to hunger, Alya. Even you.”
Unblinking, she stared back at him, her eyes hard and gold, like a hawk’s.
Dominick and four of his men burst into the room. When had she triggered an alarm? All the men except Dominick reeled backward at first sight of her.
“Ah, Dominick!” Alya smiled pleasantly, casually raising her pistol again. “You see Mikhail is in need of an ice pack. Could you help him with that?”
Turning so Alya couldn’t see him, Dominick gave Mikhail an apologetic look and gestured to the door. His men parted into two neat columns and let Mikhail pass.
Alya’s cat waited for him in his room, purring. He scratched its ears absentmindedly. Alya was scared to death of him, and he didn’t know why.
Chapter Eleven
Alya wondered why she should bother with clothes at all anymore now that Dominick, her guards, and half of Minnesota had seen her nude. But clothes did offer a measure of moral support, and she needed all the help she could get. In the shower, the dried blood reawakened, turned bright red and swirled thick around her feet. It streaked down the shower walls, just as it had in that narrow hallway.
Are you a sissy girl, Alya? Her father’s voice was always right there, ready to shoot her down when she felt the worst. She wasn’t a sissy girl. But between defending her thoughts from Mikhail, and avoiding reading him in turn, compartmentalizing Halverson and dealing with blowback from the fight, it was a wonder she was sane at all.
She put on a crisp white blouse with wide sleeves and deep cuffs, close fitting trousers and riding boots. The more structure, the more cover, the better. If she could have worn armor, she would have. She twisted her hair into a tight knot and went in search of Dominick. And her cat. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the beast.
Good lieutenant that he was, Dom had cleaned up the living room and transformed it into a temporary command center. The transformation he’d wrought in such a short time was amazing. No trace remained of the bullet holes that had riddled the walls. The broken glass and fallen plaster were gone, not to mention the bodies and buckets of blood. The only difference was that the ruined settee had vanished, leaving a gap in her furniture arrangement. Four guards sat with him, cleaning their weapons. Two of them blushed to see her. She dismissed them.
Rising, Dominick kissed her cheek. “What a charming outfit. What are you riding today?”
“Ass, darling. Nothing but ass. Where’s Mikhail?”
“In his room. I gave him that guest room at the end of the hall the night we came home. With him so weak and the possibility of retaliation high—”
Alya waved her hand. “That’s fine. Have you seen Lulu by chance?”
“She might be with Faustin. He…er...inquired if he might borrow a cat brush.”
The traitorous creature. Dominick scratched the side of his nose, trying to hide a smile. Make that two traitorous creatures.
“Dominick, you’re enjoying this too much. It’s not seemly.”
“Forgive me, sir. Cats are peculiar, without a doubt.”
Evie Byrne
“She’s welcome to adopt him as her new scratching post, if that’s what she wants.” Alya shrugged. “I don’t care. Not at all. She’s a poor excuse for a cat anyway.”
He nodded in sympathy. “Indeed. No more need be said on the matter.”
“Of course not.” Alya checked her phone and put it away. “And just when has Mikhail had time to be making himself cozy with my cat anyway?”
“Last night, it was.” His puzzled expression cleared. “Ah, he didn’t tell you? You’ve been out a while. You slept through a day, a night and a day. It’s Wednesday.”