Immanuel's Veins (13 page)

Half of my mind was on the fact that Natasha and Alek had been so easily bewitched by these Russians. I now understood why.

“I'm not here to play,” I said.

“Then I might show you out,” my host said, wrapping his arms around the woman's shoulders from behind. He gazed at me, his cheek against her flowing mane. “It's cold outside, remember. No party pooping.”

I gently removed the woman's hand from my chest. Her fingers raked my palm as I released her.

“Johannes, please, I beg you help me. I won't be a problem, I only want to take my man aside with a message. Then I will leave you. No ‘party pooping,' as you say.” I couldn't believe I was engaging this man with these words. A shrill laugh from the circle behind me. “But I'm your guest so I . . .”

Then I recognized the laughter and I spun back.

The slight man dressed in the shiny leather pants had his arms spread wide and his chin tilted to the ceiling, screeching with laughter as the party around him lifted chalices in a salute.

I knew that laughter, surely.

“She lives with us!” the leader cried.

“She lives with us!” they all repeated.

And then the man, whom I now saw to be a woman, lowered her head and drank deeply from a brass chalice given to her by the man who'd called the salute.

This was Natasha.

Her eyes caught mine and she froze. Immediately the others noted the sudden change in her and turned. The man who'd fed her from the chalice swiveled to see what she'd seen.

Me.

Now every eye in the room was surely fixed on Toma Nicolescu, warrior sworn to the duty of the Russian empress, Catherine the Great.

“Toma!” Natasha dropped her chalice, ignoring the splash of ruby wine at her feet. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “You've come!”

But my eyes were now on the man beside her. This was either Stefan, the man I had shot dead three days earlier, or his identical twin.

Natasha was rushing forward. She flew at me, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me on my lips. Then she grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the group.

“Everybody, this is him! Toma, the one who shot Stefan. A brute of a man, as quick and sharp as a whip. The one who loves my twin sister.”

I was too stunned to speak.

“Dance with us, Toma!” She released my hand, having maneuvered us among the others, and twirled. “Dance, dance, dance!”

Stefan, risen from the dead, watched me with a steady, haunting stare. No, his twin, I decided. A fiddle played by a musician who walked out of the shadows drew one long, mournful note.

“Alek will be so excited,” Natasha cried. “Did you bring Lucine? Please say you did. Not even she is prude enough to resist magnificence.”

The long violin note lingered, then spilled into a string of notes from very high to nearly a growl. Natasha spun in rapture to the sound while I stood at a loss. The others watched, waiting for something, perhaps Stefan, who now wore a mischievous smile.

He stepped up to me, leaned forward, and kissed me on the cheek. “All is forgiven,” he whispered in my ear. “Call me by his name.”

Then he lifted his arms over his head, clapped twice, and started to dance with Natasha. The others laughed and twirled, and the fiddler's fingers flew over the strings at a dizzying pace.

The dance resembled no movement I had ever seen—a twisting, twirling affair that might be better suited for dervishes than ladies and gentlemen. It was at once beautiful, even breathtaking, and terribly sensuous, in part because of the way the women were dressed in their tight-fitting leathers and boots.

“Natasha,” I managed to croak, now flushed with uneasiness.

She cast me a coy smile and rotated her hips. “Dance, Toma.” Her face was pale like her hair; dark circles swept under her eyes. Stefan stepped up to her, took her into his arms, and kissed her lower lip. He took it into his mouth. She closed her eyes in rapture.

He was biting her? Biting her! The blood on her bedsheets . . . Surely it hadn't been from her mouth.

All of this took only moments as I stood like a tree, rooted in stone.

Stefan pulled away, leaving her laughing with her head thrown back. Blood glistened on her lip.

The sight pushed me to the edge of panic. “Stop!” I cried. And when they did not, with my full chest, I thundered in the hall.

“Stop this!”

Now they did. The fiddler ceased midstroke; the Russians froze in dance; the entire room came to perfect stillness.

“What did I tell you?” a voice murmured behind me. Johannes, reminding me of my promise.

“What's the meaning of this?” I demanded, glaring at Natasha. “Where is Alek?”

From behind again. “You promised—”

“Quiet!” I shouted, twisting back.

Johannes still stood with the young woman, his chin on her shoulder. Neither looked affected by my rebuke.

“It's for your sake, not mine,” he said.

Another spoke. “Leave us.” I could hardly forget Vlad van Valerik's voice, now reaching to me from somewhere in the room.

When I spun back to find the source of that voice, the space was empty. I saw the blur of one moving through a doorway to my far right. Between the time Valerik had issued his command and my own turning, the Russians had all vanished.

All but the tall master himself, who now stood in the middle of the room, dressed in his long coat perfectly cut to form. And Natasha, who looked forlorn on the dance floor.

The duke started to walk toward me, boots clacking on the marble floor. Then another sound came from my left: lighter feet, clipping on the same floor. I turned to the sound and saw the Russian seductress who had stared me down at the Cantemir estate.

Sofia. And her eyes were no less alluring.

Vlad van Valerik stopped five paces from me. Sofia crossed to Natasha, kissed her on the cheek, and spoke in a soft, kind voice.

“Leave us, dear. Go see to Stefan.”

Natasha smiled and hurried out the back like a girl running to share a secret with her playmates.

“I have come for her,” I said.

“And you will have her,” Valerik said.

Sofia walked up to me, placed one ruby-nailed finger on my cheek, and drew it to my chin.

“Hello, Toma.”

ELEVEN

L
ucine Cantemir paced by the fireplace, torn by her thoughts. She was at once confused and certain, adamant and reticent, found and completely lost.

“You worry too much about your sister, Lucine,” Mother said. “She's not a child.”

“And yet she acts like one. I can't bear this.”

“So you'll what? March up there and redeem her? Toma's sword isn't enough for you?”

Lucine lifted her fingers to her cheek and brushed it lightly, feeling the slight tremble in them. “He's as lost as Natasha.”

“Toma? Please, you know nothing about him.”

“I think he cares for me.”

“Nonsense.”

“You said it yourself.”

“That was confusion. Either way, I can assure you he isn't a man you want.”

“And you would know?”

“Your mother would know. Yes. Be mindful of that.” Kesia looked past her, out the window at the black night. “You'll need a man of standing and wealth, one who can command a country, not a battle in the field.”

She was talking about the duke, naturally. But Lucine found the suggestion offensive, not because she had no interest in a man of the duke's standing, but because Mother held such double standards for her and Natasha.

“Natasha can run off with a man like Alek, but for me—”

“You are not Natasha! You are Lucine, my daughter, and I know my daughters. Both of them. Natasha was born for a warrior. You were born for an emperor!”

Lucine had never heard her speak like this before. Mother might mean well, but such a broad proclamation only increased Lucine's offense. In her own way, Mother had steered Lucine and Natasha in these directions for years now without saying as much. Lucine recoiled.

“You know your daughters, but I know myself. And I'm not indifferent when a man looks at me. How can I mistake the way Toma looks at me? If I did allow myself to be taken by someone like him, it would be my decision, not yours. You've always encouraged us to think for ourselves.”

Her mother's face fell flat, and fire lit her eyes. “You can't be serious, he's a warrior!”

“He's a war hero.”

“He's a ruffian.”

“He's wild, and tamed when he needs to be.”

“He's not even in the same league as the duke!”

That was it, of course. Mother was infatuated with Vlad van Valerik. Until he had come along with his courting call, she had winked at Toma's apparent interest in Lucine. Now she saw it as a threat.

This attitude only inflamed Lucine's interest. She held her mother's stare.

Kesia stood and walked to the window, clasping her hands behind her back. This was the precursor to the most earnest talk. With her chin firm and the last hint of smile and tenderness gone from her face, she spoke evenly.

“You must consider the duke, Lucine. I demand it.”

“What on earth has gotten into you, Mother? A single Russian blows into the country with a single credential and you demand your daughter lift her skirts for him? This isn't like you!”

Mother faced her. “He's not any single Russian who's blown into the country. He's the son of Peter Baklanov, cousin to the empress. He has royal blood. And some would say that he's the rightful heir to the throne of all this land, if he chose to pursue it.”

Lucine stood, disbelieving.

“Wealthy beyond measure. In any case, it is in his power to run Russia if he wishes. Toma would serve in the duke's army, hero or not.”

“I've never heard such a thing. How do you know this?”

“He told me. And he showed me a letter confirming it.”

“Then why wasn't I told?”

“Because he insisted he win you without any advantage.”

“But I don't want to be won by him!”

“And I'm telling you, Daughter, you need to find a new sentiment. His path is entirely noble. He could rip this land from us. And I can tell you by looking into his eyes that few can woo like him.”

“Then let him woo you. I'm not interested.”

“Why?” Mother cried.

Why? Because of the way he looks at me, Mother. The way he undresses me with his eyes. The way he thirsts for me
. But she could not say this.

Kesia said it for her. “You're afraid of raw desire?”

“Please.”

“He's royalty! Does that mean nothing to you?”

“Am I a slave?”

Her mother blew out some air in frustration. “You can be so stubborn at times.”

“Like my mother.”

“I swear on my grave, if you let this pass, I will never forgive you. And if you think Toma cares for you like Alek cares for Natasha, you're sadly mistaken. You're no longer the kind who can draw any man the way your sister does. You've been scarred by your history.”

Lucine felt the words more than heard them, each cutting. She was speaking of the miscarriage.

“How dare you speak of that.”

“I'm being truthful.”

Lucine forced her bitterness down and took a deep, calming breath.

“You are wrong, Mother. It's not that I can't devastate any man I choose at any time I choose. It's that I choose not to. And I'm telling you now that I choose
not
to have the duke. I don't care who he is, because as I see he's the devil. And in my eyes, Toma could put him on his back and slit his throat before that devil could draw his weapon.”

“Well, isn't that a wonderful trait? Then the two of you could run off and live in the hills like paupers while all of Russia hunts you.”

Lucine felt her resentment for the Russian deepen. In that moment Toma Nicolescu and poverty looked the better choice by far.

Mother must have seen the look of resolve on her face, because she spoke quickly, with urgency. “Don't be a fool. Toma loves you no differently than he loves Alek. He cares for those he serves, that is all. He's loyal to the bone, and that loyalty is for the empress.”

“This isn't about Toma. And it's certainly not about royalty. It's about your daughter, Natasha, who has lost her mind.”

Lucine turned on her heels and walked from the room, mind resolute.

“Where are you going?”

“To bed, Mother. Good night.”

But she had no such intention.

It took her only a quarter hour to change into riding clothes— pants and a long jacket—and slip out the balcony door. Her reasoning was simple and she rehearsed it with a fixed jaw.

She wasn't willing to be shoved aside while Natasha trampled their reputation and cavorted with danger.

She trusted Toma's ability with a sword, but even he had shown some weakness in dealing with his emotions. Hadn't the Russian woman Sofia flustered him? Whatever had seduced Natasha and Alek could just as easily seduce Toma. This business had gone too far.

She would drag them all back if she had to, and while she was there she would give Vlad van Valerik a reason to leave her alone forever. And while she was at it, she would see for herself what all the fuss was about. Natasha wasn't the only one with a heart.

Lucine saddled her own mare, hoisted herself on the horse's back, and set out under a bright moon for the Castle Castile.

TWELVE

I
stood facing Sofia at a momentary loss. The whole business seemed to have unraveled me somewhat. This realization rang warning bells I could not ignore.

“Please, madam, step aside.”

She smiled. “Such a gentleman. Yet with so much blood on your hands I can smell it. I find the combination irresistible.” She stepped to my side and faced the duke.

“I hope Sofia's attraction doesn't confuse you, Toma Nicolescu,” he said, wearing only a faint grin.