But he’d rather she killed him than force her to suffer that indignity.
He’d done enough.
End me, Roksana. I can’t live knowing how I’ve hurt you.
“Impressive,” he drawled, settling into a battle stance, fists at the ready. Pretense. He’d never strike her. “What else you got, slayer?”
Some of the color left her face. “It’s Roksana.”
Elias shrugged, as if her name was inconsequential.
With a shout of outrage, she kicked him in the center of the chest and he let himself hit the wall, dropping his fists to his sides. He focused on her beautiful face, savored it, as she lifted the stake high and drove it down—
It froze, right above his heart, held in her shaking fist.
“Do it,” she whispered to herself, then more forcefully, “Do it.”
His mind spun with shock. She couldn’t kill him?
After his betrayal? His ineptitude the night of the slaughter?
Was it possible this girl still felt something for him, despite it all?
No. No, he wouldn’t allow himself that hope. Even if she still held on to a remnant of what they’d established between them that night in Vegas, he couldn’t claim her.
Not when he harbored secrets about Inessa and would be forced to lie.
Not when he’d failed Roksana so bitterly.
“When was the last time you fed?” Roksana asked suddenly.
The pulse on her neck beat like a maddening drum, tantalizing him. “Weeks. Months. I don’t know.”
Her eyes closed a moment, before she pulled away from him with a scoff. “No. No, this is a ripoff. I want a fair fight from you.”
“You won’t get it,” he said in a rush. Come back here. Kill me. “She keeps me at half strength.”
“Because you are training the newbies,” she explained, completely unaware how wrong she was. His days were often endless rounds of battles with slayers at the highest level. Preparing them to kill his own kind. Or not. Depending on what gave Inessa an advantage in this dark underworld. “She brought you here as a gift to me, because of what you did,” Roksana continued. “So it’s my decision if you live or die. When I kill you, I want it to be satisfying.” Nodding firmly, she slipped her stake into a holster on her back. “You may go, vampire. But understand this.” Her voice shook a little, but he pretended not to notice. “One day, I will turn you to dust for what you’ve done.”
Slowly, she backed out of his cell, leaving the door open.
As soon as she was out of sight, his hands flew to his throat, gripping tight, trying to get his thirst for her under control. His bones rattled, begging him to go after Roksana. Take.
His knees hit the ground hard and he curled into himself, roaring into his closed mouth. He stayed that way, counting to one hundred and back, until she was safe from him, then he staggered to his feet and out of the cell, the world rolling out before him an unfamiliar place.
An invisible compass demanded he follow Roksana, just as he’d done in the casino, but he couldn’t do that and keep her safe.
Not yet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Elias leaned into the freezing Moscow wind and moved silently down the empty street, resisting the urge to quadruple his speed. He might work for the North American vampire king as a handler for newly Silenced vampires, but Moscow was an entirely different jurisdiction and if he risked discovery by humans, getting out of that jam could prove a challenge. He didn’t have time for that tonight. Not when Roksana was on her way to the poker game and he didn’t even know the goddamn address.
Why the hell wasn’t Jonas answering his phone?
Before he’d left for Moscow, the king had confided in him about an increase in vampire slayings throughout the States. Perhaps he was occupied finding out the reason for the uptick.
At first, when Jonas convinced Elias to join him on his mission to help new vampires acclimate to their new life, he’d done it to fill time. But over the years, he’d grown more invested. If someone with the same affliction had been there to guide him in the beginning, he would have benefitted greatly. It pained him that he wasn’t there to be of assistance when Jonas had a potential crisis on his hands. Elias’s first priority was Roksana, however, and Jonas had known that since day one. That didn’t mean Elias felt good about deserting the guy who’d pulled him out of a black miserable hole.
Voicemail. He ended the call with a curse.
Grinding his back teeth together, Elias cut through a dark park, stopping when he reached the monument at its center.
Three years later, it was still hard for him to believe vampires existed, but for some reason, the fact that the king of them had a voicemail box was the oddest shit of all.