Regina made an only slightly less incredulous sound, her gaze traveling from Dima to Misha and back again. “Yes, let’s explore this, please. At the moment, I’m really quite interested in learning how it’s possible that these two are brothers.” She looked at her husband and frowned. “When you say that, do you mean ‘childhood friends’? Or is it just a ‘Yo, bro, ’sup?’ Russian cultural thing? Because I know you can’t possibly mean ‘born from the same womb.’ ”
“Not the same womb,” Misha admitted, not looking away from his brother’s face. “The same seed. Technically we are half brothers. My mother died when I was still a child, and my father—our father—took Dima’s mother as his new wife.”
“And you never mentioned this to me in all the years we’ve been together … why, exactly?”
Misha glanced down at his petite spouse, his expression instinctively softening. “Dushka, I never thought it would come up. I never expected to see him again, and the whys and wherefores are rather complicated.”
“Misha, my idiotic love, so are you.”
Ava examined each of the men in question again. “You look nothing alike,” she pronounced, still having trouble grasping this revelation.
“Sure they do,” Regina said. “They have the same cheekbones, the same jaw. Even their mouths look similar. You can definitely see the resemblance. I think it’s the coloring that throws you off at first.”
That made sense. After all, Misha had dark hair and eyes so brown they appeared black in all but the brightest lights. His skin was darker, too, with a more olive undertone than Dima’s.
“Dima looks like our father,” Misha explained. “Eerily so, I must say. For a moment, I thought it was Papa standing before me. I have some of his features, but my coloring comes from my mother. She was a dark-complected Slav from the southern part of Russia, probably with some Romany mixed in. Dima’s mother was from Kiev—fair, like our father.”
“So you claim him now?” Dima growled. Ava’s gaze flew to his face. He hadn’t used that dark, threatening tone with her, not even when she’d run away from home and not left a note about where he could find her. “It is eight centuries too late for that, don’t you think, Misha?”
“What are you talking about? What makes you think I haven’t claimed him all along? Rurik of Novgorod is as much my father as yours, and I have always admitted this with pride. Why would you think differently?”
Dima stepped forward, his eyes narrowed in anger. “If you honored your father, where were you when he needed you?” His voice shook with such fury that Ava had to steel herself against the urge to back away from him. “Where were you when the stinking Chernigovs waged war against us? For a decade and more we struggled against them, but after Father was slain, our warriors lost heart. With no Dmitri to lead them, they thought the war already lost. And so, lost it was. But I remained. I fought on until I, too, fell beneath their alliance with the filthy Turks. But where were you, Dmitri? Why had you abandoned us?”
“Abandoned you?”
Anger flooded Misha’s voice as well, and Ava suddenly realized being in the line of fire in this particular little family squabble might not be the best idea. She stepped back.
“Is that what you think? That I abandoned you? My God, I would have given anything to see you again! I left to protect you!”
“Why? Did you believe you were the only reason the Chernigovs attacked us? You could have protected us better if you had stayed and faced them at our sides. Father and I needed you, and you let us think you were dead. Do you have any idea how we felt when we learned differently?”
While Ava was busy looking for a nuclear fallout shelter to climb inside of, Regina planted her hands on her hips and squared off against her newly discovered brother-in-law with the ferocity of a mama grizzly.
“Hey, don’t you talk to my husband like that, buster,” she warned, displaying the redheaded temper Ava hadn’t even known Regina possessed until Misha had come into her life. “If he says he has an explanation for what happened, you owe it to him to listen.”
Dima stared down at the fierce pint-sized woman in front of him and snarled. But when he curled his hands into fists, Ava knew it was to keep from strangling Regina, not in preparation for hitting her.
“I owe him nothing,” he bit out, turning away from his brother and stalking across the carpet to the wide marble fireplace at the far side of the room.
Ava fought back the urge to follow him, mostly because she wasn’t sure where the impulse had come from. She still hadn’t decided just what it was they had going on between them, and so far had been planning to go with pretending the sex they’d had last night—the amazing sex—hadn’t happened. But even if they were now in some sort of strange and disturbing vampire equivalent of a relationship, she wasn’t the type to go all melty and protective over a man. Was this unfamiliar desire to comfort him something she was coming up with on her own, or was it another side effect of the blood they shared? And hence another reason to stay the hell away from him so that she could relearn how to think with her brain instead of that alien, unwelcome hunger inside her?
Damn it, she hated this feeling of not being in control of her own damned life. Control was as fundamental to her sense of herself as her intelligence, and giving it up about as alien as shopping in a consignment store. Yet since she had met Dima, the only time she had legitimately been in control of her own actions had been when she had gotten in the limo and ridden across town to Missy and Graham’s house. And look how that had turned out. If nothing else, it had very clearly illustrated for her that regaining the control she had always cherished would not be an easy thing to do. From now on, she would always need to remember that her actions affected more than just her and that making the wrong decision could have fatal consequences.
The only way she could shake off the paralysis that threatened when she tried to examine that thought was to put it quickly away and focus on something different. When she considered the obvious problems between Dima and his brother in that light, their argument seemed almost like a godsend.
Slipping on the chic, bored mask she habitually wore, she strolled back to the sofa she’d lain on earlier and sank lazily into the corner. Then she crossed her legs and hooked one elbow over the back.
“Well,” she drawled in her best Queen Bitch voice, “I’d certainly like to hear an explanation, if for no other reason than that it’s rude to have a conversation when two of the four people in the room are completely clueless about what’s actually being said.”
Regina shot her a suspicious glance, then smoothed her own expression into one of imperious irritation and settled on the other end of the sofa. “Right, though personally I think it’s even ruder to have a conversation in front of one’s wife about significant family matters that she’s never heard of before.”
“Where is Emily Post when you need her?”
“Maybe she just never encountered men this rude before.”
Misha shot his wife a dirty look. “Thank you, Burns and Allen, for that amusing routine. If you are quite finished …”
Ava gave him a toothy smile. “Quite.”
“I have no objection to telling the tale, but it seems rather pointless if my little brother refuses to listen.”
“I would love to hear what creative excuses my big brother has to offer,” Dima retorted, “but I reserve the right to clarify them with the truth.”
Misha stiffened. “I do not lie. Especially when I have no reason to do so.”
“Then let’s hear it, bratok” Dima finally turned back to the room, crossing his arms over his chest and propping his shoulder up against the ornately carved mantel. “You perceive me all ears.”
Well, ears and bitterness, anyway, Ava thought. She focused most of her attention on Dmitri because she really did want to hear what he had to say, but she kept one eye on Dima all the same. While she might not understand a lot of the feelings she had for him, and might resent a lot of the ones she did recognize, she couldn’t
deny that seeing him upset left her feeling … discontent.
“The explanation is neither long nor complex,” Misha sighed. “You grew up in the same world that I did, Dima. Our father’s people were good people, but they were products of their time. They had no education to speak of, no knowledge of the world outside their village or their region other than what they heard as tales from travelers or legends told around campfires. They still believed that a witch in the village was the cause if crops sickened and died, and they thought that the domorovoi—the local spirits—would be offended if they did not leave offerings in gratitude for their livestock not disappearing in the night.”
“You speak as if I do not know all this, but I do not see what it has to do with your disappearance.”
“Perhaps that is because while you grew up among their superstitions, you were never the target of them.”
Ava watched Dima’s face crease in a frown. “What do you mean?”
Misha’s mouth twisted wryly. “I remember how relieved our father’s people were when he announced his choice of new bride,” he said instead of answering the question. “I was only eleven years old at the time, but I remember the cheer that went up in the crowd. They were so grateful to hear that this time he had chosen a local girl, a respectable virgin from a respectable family that everyone knew and liked. After my mother, they all wanted the peace.”
Ava could see the question growing on the other man’s face, but he remained silent and allowed his brother to continue.
“My mother had been an outsider, brought back by our father from a trading journey he had made to the southwest. He stayed away for nearly a year and traveled further than anyone had expected. In addition to trading the goods he had imported from Scandinavia, he was searching for new items, and he traveled along the western edge of the Black Sea all the way into what are now Hungary and Romania. But in addition to finding trade goods, Papa found himself a bride, a fiery gypsy girl with dark hair and dark eyes. And, so his people came to believe, dark magic.”
Dima blinked. “I remember no rumors that your mother was a witch. In fact, I do not recall anyone speaking of her much at all.”
Misha snorted. “Of course not. During her life, they believed she would put a curse on anyone who showed her the slightest sign of disrespect. They believed that if they spoke ill of her after death, she would never cease to haunt them.”
Ava felt her impatience rising and raised an arrogant brow in the older vampire’s direction. “I thought you said this explanation wasn’t long?”
That earned her a glare.
“The explanation is not. The backstory is.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Do you think you could do a little judicious editing? I might not be getting any older, but it certainly feels like I am.”
“The bottom line,” Misha growled, shooting Ava an impatient glance, “is that while our people loved Papa, and by extension loved both of his sons, in the back of their minds, they could never quite forget who my mother had been. They never quite trusted me the way they did Father.”
“That is a lie.” The denial came swiftly and violently. “I remember how they spoke of you in the same tones they used to speak of God! They worshiped you!”
Dima’s brother shook his head. “They feared me. I was thirty years old when I was turned, Brother, and yet I had never married. In that age, such behavior was freakish. By thirty, I should have been looking forward to grandchildren. Indeed, there were whispers that marriage to my mother had unnaturally prolonged our father’s life. He had reached his fiftieth year, and yet he could still best any of his men with a sword or an axe. Most men of his age had retired to sit by fires and tell tall tales of their glory days, if they had even survived so long. Our people believed that my mother’s magic had blessed Father with long life but cursed me with a taint to my soul.”
“I cannot believe this. And even if I did—”
“Dozens of men saw me fall on that battlefield,” Misha pressed on. “Seasoned warriors saw the Turk I battled skewer me through the gut. They knew there was no way I could survive such an injury, and indeed, when the battle was over and they claimed a dear victory, they left me for dead where I had fallen. What do you think would have happened if I had reappeared in our father’s hall a month later? They would have believed me returned from the dead to haunt them as my mother would have done. And if I had tried to explain that as I lay dying, a woman appeared on the field that night and offered to return me to health, to grant me eternal life in exchange for my aid in avenging the death of her younger sister … If I told them that she drank my blood and fed me hers in return, and that when the strange ritual was finished, I watched as the wound in my stomach knit itself back together, leaving no scar and no sign that I had ever wandered so close to death’s door?” He laughed at the image. “I would have been cast as the devil, and they would have said it was no wonder, as I had been tainted by my mother’s blood.”
There was silence for a moment, and Ava watched Dima’s face as he attempted to process the story and to reconcile it with beliefs he had held for so long.
“You didn’t even send us word,” he finally said, and beneath the anger, Ava could hear the confusion of a young boy deserted by the brother he idolized. “We grieved for you until I thought the heart had been cut from my father’s chest. He died believing he would see you again in the next world, and I shared that belief for years, until after I had been turned as well, and I traveled to the land of the Bohemians and heard tales of a dark Russian who battled the Mongols with the ferocity of a demon and who never appeared in the light of the sun. It was then that I learned you had betrayed us. All of that time you had been alive, and yet you left us to mourn you and to fight the battles you should have fought at our sides.”
“Do you think it was easy for me to stay away? Do you think I enjoyed the isolation? The exile? I would have given anything, including my immortality, if I could have returned to you and seen our father again!”
Dima’s eyes blazed. “Why didn’t you? We would have accepted you. Father would have accepted you had you told him you were the devil himself. And we would have shielded you from any who thought to do you harm out of fear or superstition.”
Misha took a deep breath, and Ava saw Regina’s hand tighten on his, offering comfort, promising support. “I was going to,” he said softly. “By the year you reached your twenty-fifth birthday, I had begun to realize that, and to regret my own foolishness. But then I began to look into what had happened at home, and I learned that—”
“That you were too late.” Dima finished the sentence for him, his tone flat and cold, but underneath, Ava could hear the disappointment. “Father had been slain, and with him, your reason for returning.”
“No. There you are wrong.” Misha shook his head very definitely. “I still planned to come. Even with our father gone, if you remained, I had ample reason to return to Novgorod.”
“I cannot believe that. If you had wanted to return, you would have. And it would not have been eight hundred years between our last encounter and this one.”
Calmly, Misha waited until his brother turned a challenging stare in his direction. Then he caught Dima’s gaze and said quietly, “They told me you had died, too.”
“When?” The younger brother’s tone echoed with surprise. “Who told you that I had died? The Chernigovs? You would never have been so stupid as to take their word for such a thing.”
“No, which was why I sought confirmation from several sources. I knew better than to trust the bragging of a Chernigov, but I did trust the word of your mother. When Ireniya told me of your death, I believed her, for I saw pain and despair in her eyes of the kind that touches a woman when both her man and her child are taken from her by her enemies.”
“That is impossible. My mother knew that I was injured and that the vampire Stepan Chernigov nearly had stolen my life from me, that he had cursed me by forcing an unwilling change upon me, but it was she
who cared for me when I crawled back from the battlefield. She knew perfectly well that I survived.”
Ava was watching Dima’s face carefully, so she saw when the first seed of doubt planted itself in his consciousness, saw when his memories began to shift, and something old and familiar suddenly took on new significance.
“Dima,” she prompted quietly when he remained silent. “What is it? What did your mother do?”
He lifted his head, his eyes blindly scanning the room, flashing over the faces of the people around him until they locked on Ava’s. She shivered when she saw them, for she had never seen them look so empty, nor full of so much pain. Without thought, she surrendered to the tug they inspired within her, standing and crossing to where he stood beside the empty hearth.
She reached out, hesitated, then let her hand fall back to his side. She didn’t know how to touch him. Providing consolation had never been her strong suit. All her life, she’d stood separate from people, even those she loved most, and now, even though her heart urged her with great surges of violent emotion, she couldn’t quite bring herself to take his hand or place her own over his heart. A gesture like that would be too much, too intimate.
Instead, she turned so that they stood side by side, facing out from the corner into the room at large. She leaned into him and let her shoulder press softly into his upper arm. It wasn’t a large gesture, nor a particularly lover-like one, but it was something. Something to remind him of the connection he had to her, to the present, to people who cared and wanted to know his story.
He kept silent another moment, then let out a ragged breath full of wonder and hurt and disappointment.
“She killed herself,” he said, his voice gruff and quiet, as if to say the words too loudly would be some sort of offense. “I thought she had drowned. Everyone thought she had drowned. It had been cold for more than a week, and everyone thought that she had assumed the river had frozen just as they had. They thought she was walking along it when the ice gave beneath her, that the weight of her clothes and the cold of the water overcame her and pulled her to the bottom. But it was a lie. She killed herself, because of me.”
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