Selene

Her heart was pounding in her throat. “This itches,” she said, shifting uncomfortably.

He finished buckling his boot and glanced up at her. “Hm?”

“Why aren’t you carrying any guns? And what about—”

He held up the sword in its sheath, shrugging so the long black leather coat fell correctly. “This is all I require. In my day, a nobleman carried nothing else, and counted it an honor.” He glanced across the room.

The room was long and low, mirrors along one wall, windows along another, woven mats over some of the floor. Wooden walls held racks of weapons. A ballet barre was bolted to the mirrored wall.

People came and went, exchanging brief terse sentences. One woman with a ruff of sleek dark hair and a bandolier of knives strapped across her ample chest checked clips on a pair of nine-millimeters and slid them into holsters, her tanned face drawn into a thoughtful smile. The blond thrall Selene kept seeing—Enrique, she reminded herself—took an M-16 from the tall dreadlocked Bradley, who had a smear of white face paint on each cheek. I had no idea he had so many thralls. And they were all so competent, so thoroughly-prepared.

And they trusted Nikolai. They didn’t seem afraid of him, but there was never a pause when he gave a command. They simply did what he told them, without any struggle but also without any sense of being forced. It was amazing, especially since Selene had heard all sorts of horror stories, here and there, about what a Master could inflict on his or her thralls.

Bradley, his dreadlocks bobbing, slipped between two small Asian men, one of whom wore what looked like a long black cassock with a Chinese collar. He crossed the huge expanse of floor, skirting a group of people buckling on gunbelts.

The prevailing fashion was black leather, with a sprinkling of camouflage. There was a small but definite proportion of women, who tended to dress very simply, without some of the flamboyant touches the men sported—Bradley’s face-paint, the man who had what looked like dog-tags sewn onto the inside of his coat, the man with a bare Celtic-tattooed skull. One woman, tall and stick-thin with muscle rippling under her skin, shrugged into a leather harness and started making various weapons from the wall racks disappear into the harness and her clothes. Her short blonde hair slicked to her head with gel, she had the fair clear-skinned face of a Nordic princess.

Bradley reached the edge of what seemed to be Nikolai’s space and stopped, bowing slightly. “We’re ready.” His dreadlocks bobbed. “The cars are waiting. Netley called. He’s made the drop-off, Jorge is bringing him back.”

Nikolai nodded. “Very well, then. Proceed as planned. Kill everything and everyone not explicitly allied to me. The Guard?”

“Ready and waiting.” Bradley waited a beat. “It’s been a pleasure, sir.”

Nikolai inclined his head slightly. “On my part as well, Bradley. May our gods protect us.”

“Amen to that,” Selene muttered. Nikolai had found jeans, a tank top, a hip-length leather coat for her—black leather, of course—and a pair of combat boots that fit. I’m dressed like I should know what I’m doing. She swallowed against the sudden taste of copper in her mouth. Her wrists twinged, remembering Grigori’s chains and the burning. Give my regards to Nikolai.

Be careful, Selene. Danny’s voice whispered inside her head. The All-Dead Hit Parade just kept going.

Bradley made that slight bow again, and his face broke into a wide grin. He looked at Selene, his teeth very white in his dark face. He bounced back across the room, his own black leather trench coat shushing as he moved.

“You guys certainly have a weird fashion statement.” Selene licked her lips. “Kind of like kickass mixed with my mommy made me wear this.” The guns were heavy, and the knife-sheath dug into her hip a little until she shifted. The Kevlar was uncomfortable, and if she’d been human she would have been sweating.

If I was human I’d be a little puddle on the floor. She bit her lower lip gently. The aura of fear, anticipation, and adrenaline in the air mixed with Power, hit the back of her throat like vodka and burned in her stomach like brandy going down.

Nikolai’s eyes moved over the crowd of people at the far end of the room. His lips moved soundlessly. Was he praying?

Selene sighed, closed her eyes, and tipped her head back. I wish we could just get this OVER with. She took a deep breath. Another, and years of practice took over. The still quiet spot where magick lived folded around her.

Her shields were much thicker now, flexible stone instead of brittle glass. The glow of Power was much stronger, too, lining her entire body in a shimmer, Nikolai a red-tinged swirling at her side, little fingers of his awareness slipping around her, a thick pulsing rope of connection stretched between her foxfire glow and his spreading blur of Power. That’s a blood link. She pulled back, opening her eyes.

So he did have a psychic connection to her. Sex, blood, and the Turn had cemented it; no wonder he’d always seemed to know where she was before. You sneaky bastard. And yet, after seeing how his thralls trusted him, and hearing him actually apologize to her, and seeing how bad Grigori was. . .

Well, Nikolai hardly seemed like the devil she’d known before.

Warring with that new perception was the fervent desire that he and Grigori would just hash something out that ended with everyone leaving her alone. And with Grigori dead as a doornail.

“Come,” Nikolai finally said. “Leave everything to me, you must simply stay close.”

She nodded. Her fangs pulsed in anticipation, she was slowly getting used to how sensitive they were. “Okay.” I wish I could stay here. A shiver tightened the skin on her scalp. How do I get into these things?

Everyone was leaving. The tall Nordic-looking woman clapped Bradley on the back and paced out of the room, soundless. In the few moments it took Selene and Nikolai to cross the room, everyone—including Bradley—was gone. Power still echoed and boomed silently through the empty space.

It’s Nikolai. He’s doing it. He was always so goddamn careful before, he treated me with kid gloves and I didn’t even know it.

“What if Grigori—” She swallowed the rest of the question. What if he kills you? What if he kills both of us? What if—

“He will not.” Nikolai’s voice was flat and matter-of-fact.

“What if we don’t find Marina?” I sound scared to death. What a coincidence, I am scared nearly to death. Go figure. and now that the fear didn’t send a spill of red-laced desire through her, she wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. Was this what other people had felt instead of sex? How did they stand it?

How could she stand it, now?

Stop your bitching, Selene. Just focus on the matter at hand.

Nikolai’s hand found hers, his fingers slipping through hers. The touch was warm, and oddly comforting. “Courage, dorogaya moya. Grigori wants us to find her. It would do him little good to take her otherwise.”