“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 was discovered, 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. Her man. 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.
He went from near unconsciousness to his mind on complete alert. She felt him pushing into her mind, and he was extremely strong. Like a battering ram. A tidal wave.
Be careful, she cautioned. There are others who might overhear if you aren’t cautious. How badly are you injured?
He didn’t withdraw from her, but he remained silent as though thinking whether or not he was going to answer her. You are?
She sighed. She should have known he would ask. There was no getting around this. Vasilisa Sidkorolyavolkva. And you?
I am called Afanasiv Belan. Or Siv for short. The daughter of the royal wolf, he mused. Are you aware of what you are to me?
Vasilisa didn’t know if it was because they were speaking telepathically to one another that his voice stroked and caressed like a deep, husky velvet brush. Soft. Gentle. He sounded as if he belonged to the night, just as she did. She only knew it was one of the most sensual experiences of her life.
She wanted to lie to him. She didn’t belong to any man. She was her own person and she went her own way. He was the one who needed help, not her. She didn’t say any of that. Yes, of course. I connected to you when you were first injured. Your head.
Forgive me. Had I known, I would not have allowed you to feel anything. You must leave this place. I will find you once I know you are safe.
Her belly grew hot, and she knew her temper was fighting for supremacy. She hadn’t just sauntered down a brick road to get to him. She’d fought a battle and killed men to make certain he was all right. He was laid out like bait in a trap. He was bait in a trap. He’d been nearly unconscious when she’d first arrived. A small kernel of doubt seeped in. Hadn’t he? He’d come alert awfully fast. Had he been faking?
I do not allow strangers to be accosted on my lands without retaliation. In any case, I believe they are using you as bait to draw me to them. It would be nice to know why.