Indignation squared her shoulders. “Nyet. I would have heard him before the strike. My reflexes rival a jungle cat.”
“Who told you that? Your mommy?” When she flinched, self-loathing twisted his insides. “Another second and it would have been too late. Run along and learn how to become a worthy opponent for someone like me. Until then, I’m not wasting my time.”
Red bloomed on her cheeks. “I wish you to hell.”
I’m already there, baby, Elias thought, but said nothing.
Her light brows pulled together. “Who do you work for?”
Telling her that piece of information wasn’t wise, but he wanted Roksana to know where she could find him. Always. This would help. And at the end of the day, he might work for Jonas’s cause, but his own purpose—guarding the slayer—trumped everything else. “Jonas Cantrell.”
Roksana hid her surprise well. “I have heard of this bloodsucker. He seeks to help the Freshly Silenced and give them a human existence.” She shook her head. “But there is no such thing as an honorable vampire. I know this well.”
“Your opinion is irrelevant.”
His rude rejoinder narrowed her eyes and she dropped down once again onto the balls of her feet, stake at the ready. “Fight me now, vampire.” There was a note of desperation in her tone when she added, “Please.”
She can’t make the first move.
Neither could he.
They stood mere feet from one another in the moonlit alley, neither one of them moving, her puffs of breath the only sound for miles. Her internal struggle was visible in her eyes. She wanted to kill him, but couldn’t. She looked at him and still saw the man she kissed with total abandon that night in Vegas—and she hated herself for it.
But not nearly as much as he hated himself.
Elias gave her a once-over and sighed. “Find me when you’re ready.”
She sniffed and swiped at her nose. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll slaughter all of you.”
He started to walk away, but stopped and looked back over his shoulder. He couldn’t verbally offer her his devotion and protection, but he was driven to make her a vow. Some kind of promise to her that he would keep, no matter what, so she might one day believe him to be unwavering, even if she hated him. “I still owe you a favor for releasing me from the prison. And I will return it one day.”
“Keep it. I want nothing from you.”
Her words struck him like sharp stones. “It’s yours regardless.”
He walked away wondering how a dead heart could ache so much.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Roksana paced back and forth in front of the hut, trying to talk herself out of ringing the bell. She’d disembarked from her flight at JFK and instead of going straight to Enders to complete the next leg of her mission, she’d rented a car and driven to Massachusetts.
Stupid.
Sure, she might be welcome in the multi-story chamber located beneath the assuming hut, where the High Order once dwelled—before Jonas usurped them—but she shouldn’t be. The vampires in residence should tremble at the very mention of her name. That would not be the case, though. Ginny would probably put out coffee and cake.
And she would eat it.
I am the world’s most pitiful slayer.
The marriage decree was still tucked safely in the bodice of her dress. She could walk into Enders and exchange it for the game piece sought by Inessa.
But once the next part of her task was finished, all that would remain was to kill Elias.
Roksana scrubbed at the back of her neck and started a quick-paced lap around the car. There was an odd tightness in her midsection that had been increasing ever since she boarded her flight in Moscow. No amount of stretching or breathing exercises would ease the strain.
She couldn’t simply be missing Elias. Could she?
Guilt formed like a brick in her belly. It would be ridiculous to miss this man she was supposed to hunt. This man who’d torn her happiness away when he could have taken anyone else. Any loss of human life would have been a tragedy, but he’d specifically chosen her friends and now she worried over the fact that he couldn’t feed? That he could be hungry if she wasn’t there to nourish him? Such knowledge should be inconsequential to her. He would be dead soon enough by her hand, wouldn’t be? Since she’d been unable to stake him thus far, maybe starving him to death was the best option.
Roksana looked down, alarmed to find her hands wringing together.
With a broken off sound, she started pacing again, this time weaving through the trees of the surrounding forest, her boots snapping twigs in her haste to move, move, keep moving.
Get rid of the ache.
After her mission was complete and she’d ended Elias’s life, she would no longer be welcome in Ginny’s home. Another friend lost. How would she hug the vampire queen knowing what the future held? How would she look Jonas in the eye?