Out of the Light, Into the Shadows

by Lori Foster

  Used to be, those memories colored everything. Now they were where they belonged, in the past. Not forgotten, but put to rest.

  He made a new vow: If need be, he would give his life to protect Mercy and his baby.

  It amazed him, but he knew he’d beat the odds. It wasn’t that he believed Brax had the ability to foretell the future or any nonsense like that.

  It was the love swelling inside him, the protectiveness, the determination to ensure that his child knew so much love, felt so secure and cherished, that he or she would never suffer a single moment of doubt or insecurity.

  As usual, Mercy was right: he would never deliberately cause harm to another. Most especially, he would never harm his woman or child.

  He was a better man than that.

  With her or without her, he would have broken the legacy of abuse.

  He’d spend the rest of his life showing her how happy he was to have her with him.

  “We are going to be wonderful parents, Wyatt.”

  He curved her close and spoke the truth she’d given him. “Yes, we are.”

  DEAL OR NO DEAL

  ERIN MCCARTHY

  ONE

  “YOU can’t just throw that away! What’s the matter with you?” Katie Stolin looked at her brother, Peter, in consternation and snatched from him the necklace that he’d been about to dump in the trash.

  Of course, asking what was wrong with Peter was a rhetorical question. There was a lot wrong with him, and Katie had to admit, after a hundred years in his presence, she was more than ready for a little alone time. But that would leave Peter in the care of Nick, and Katie wasn’t sure she could toss him that hand grenade and walk away.

  “Who cares?” Peter said, rolling his eyes as he flung his thirteen-year-old body down onto the couch. “It’s ugly and it reminds me of being weak … I hate those memories.”

  “But it was from Mom. It’s a symbol of how much she loved you. I didn’t even know you had this still.” Katie held the necklace up in the air as she stood next to the coffee table in Peter and Nick’s suite. It wasn’t a beautiful necklace, being clunky and overly gilded. Then again, back in the Russia of their youth, when they had lived as a prince and princess, gold had been much in fashion. The more detailing, the bigger, the flashier, and the more expensive, the better it had been. That had been their mother’s philosophy.

  But she hadn’t bought this particular piece for prestige or pleasure. It had been a gift from her holy advisor to protect her son, Peter, from the terrible effects of hemophilia. How ironic then that the same son had wound up a vampire, trapped forever in his underdeveloped preadolescent body.

  “Mom was a nut and you know it. I didn’t even remember I still had the necklace, and I don’t want it. If you want the piece of shit, you can have it for fifty bucks.”

  Katie glanced over at her brother. She was used to his adult language and mentality housed in a boy’s body, but she still didn’t like him. He’d been a spoiled brat of a child, and he was still a brat at a hundred.

  “I’m not paying you anything. You were just going to throw it away.”

  “Fifty bucks or it goes in the garbage disposal.”

  “Careful. Your sentimental side is showing again,” she told him ruefully.

  “Screw sentimental. I need the cash. I would have preferred some actual money from our parents instead of a crappy necklace.”

  “And I would have preferred that they weren’t shot in front of me,” Katie snapped at him, sick of his callousness.

  Peter just rolled his eyes. “Let it go. It’s been almost a century. And it’s not like either of them could have ever qualified for parent of the year. I’m serious. Fifty bucks or I’ll trash it.”

  “I’m the one holding it,” Katie reminded him, undoing the clasp. Let the little punk try to make a grab for it. She’d wrestle him to the ground if she had to; she was not about to be blackmailed.

  The necklace was shaped and detailed like a Fabergé egg with a starburst of gold around it. At one time there had supposedly been some kind of medicine sealed in the egg portion of the necklace, but Katie didn’t know what it was. Hell, there had probably never been anything in there. It wasn’t like her mother would have checked—she had been willing to believe anything if she thought it would help her son.

  Looking into the mirror above the console table in the entryway to Nick’s suite, Katie watched the necklace dangle in the air as she held it up to herself. As a vampire, she couldn’t see her own reflection, but the piece of jewelry shone vibrantly. Katie put it around her neck, ignoring her brother’s diatribe of complaints from behind her. Peter always had something to whine about, and she had learned to tune him out. The cool metal settled against her flesh as she managed to hook the clasp.

  Staring at it was pleasing, a wave of nostalgia washing over her. Despite what Peter said, their parents had loved them and cosseted them as children, and Katie was entitled to still miss them, along with her three sisters, who had also been killed in that tiny room in Ekaterinburg. Nick, the guard who had saved her and Peter and turned them to vampire, was the closest thing she had to family now.

  Suddenly afraid that she might cry, which she hadn’t done since that awful time when her family had died and she’d found out Michael had betrayed her, she forced a joke. “I look damn good, don’t I?”

  As if she could see herself.

  For once, Peter didn’t have a snarky remark. He just shrugged when she turned back to smile at him. “I’ve seen uglier women than you.”

  That was a serious compliment coming from him. Katie laughed. “Gee, thanks.”

  “But it’s making a red mark on your neck.”

  “Really?” Katie tried to look down at her chest, nearly going cross-eyed. She couldn’t see very well, but she did see a red line when she shifted the necklace. “Great, I’m allergic to it.”

  “Told you it was trash.”

  Katie made a face at her brother and told herself she was not feeling itchy, even as her hand reached up and scratched her skin.

  THE vampire formerly known as Rasputin was walking across the main room of his apartment, where most of his business operations were generated, when he drew up short. His hand flew to his neck, where the snakehead necklace he’d been wearing for more than a hundred years suddenly was tingling. Reaching under his black T-shirt, he pulled it out and gripped it tightly, caressing the vial that was encased in the snake’s mouth.

  Well, who would have guessed?

  A grin split his face, and he turned to the irritating young man who did all of his computer work for him. Sergei was sitting at the desk Rasputin had stolen from an office-supply store, typing away at the keyboard diligently, his glasses slipping down his nose. Rasputin had often thought that it was no wonder Sergei wanted to work for the largest Internet porn operation in Russia—the kid was clearly not getting laid.

  But Sergei’s lack of sex life meant nothing to Rasputin at the moment, not when the necklace was heating from the inside out so intently it was burning his flesh.

  “Sergei, I need you to do some research for me. Whatever the hell you’re doing will have to wait.”

  He had long suspected that not all of the royal family had died in that room, and two bodies had never been found.

  Now he had confirmation that someone still lived.

  Only the tsarevitch or his sister could cause such a reaction from the vial around his neck.

  One of them had put the necklace on, the one that Rasputin had given the tsarina for her son to wear, to sustain him during his illnesses.

  The one that was filled with the drops of blood of every ancient vampire still walking the earth.

  The one that Rasputin needed to increase his own strength and stave off gradual aging.

  “What do you need, sir?” Sergei asked, swiveling in his chair.

  “I need you to find a boy and a girl for me.”

  “For a video, sir, or for you personally? How old?”

>   Sergei’s face was impassive, and Rasputin grinned. For being such a sweet-looking lamb, Sergei certainly never blinked in the face of any perversions Rasputin threw his way.

  “No, for neither. This is more of a family matter. My niece and nephew have been missing for several years.”

  Rasputin held the necklace tightly and closed his eyes, to focus, to let the energy pass over him. He could see bustling crowds of people, bright flashing lights, poker tables, and … the Eiffel Tower? “Where is there gambling and a fake Eiffel Tower?”

  Sergei frowned. “Perhaps that would be Las Vegas in the United States, sir.”

  That might be it. “What is Las Vegas like?”

  “Very flashy. Hotels built on themes like Paris and Venice and the Colosseum. Lots of lights. Surrounded by desert. Beyond that, I am not sure. Would you like me to investigate it?”

  “No, no, that sounds right,” he murmured, eyes still closed. “Book us passage to Las Vegas and find us a hotel. Leaving tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Sergei asked in surprise.

  “Yes, tomorrow …”

  And then there it was—the names he had been hoping would come to him out of the energy of the person wearing the necklace.

  “And see if you can locate Nick, Katie, and Peter Stolin in this Las Vegas.”

  It was time for Rasputin to pay a visit to some old friends.

  MICHAEL St. Markov was eyeing the massive display of biscuits at Harrods and wondering how it was he could still crave the sugary sweetness after all these years as a bloodsucker when his cell phone rang.

  It was Sergei. “Hello?” Michael glanced around out of habit for anyone who might be a threat, but there was no one in the department store, minutes after it had opened, who cared that he was talking on his cell phone.

  “Do the names Nick, Katie, and Peter Stolin ring any bells?”

  “No.” Michael frowned, picking up a tin and shaking it absently. “Why?”

  “Because he’s on the move. We’re heading to Vegas for no other reason than those three are living there and he just figured it out. They’re from Odessa—a security guard, his twenty-something niece, and his thirteen-year-old son.”

  Michael paused in his abuse of the biscuit tin, the light from the fluorescent department store fixtures reflecting off the colorful metal. His grip tightened. He didn’t quite dare to verbalize his desperate hope, so he just said, “And?”

  “And it seems very likely that this is them, Michael. Nothing else would send him all the way to Las Vegas on twenty-four hours’ notice.”

  Closing his eyes briefly, Michael took a deep breath. “Alright, I’ll meet you there then.”

  Tossing the biscuit tin back on the shelf, he strode out of the department store, only vaguely aware of his surroundings. He had to pack, and then tomorrow, if all went well, he would see the woman he loved for the first time in a hundred years.

  TWO

  KATIE dealt the cards and watched the faces of the trio at her table. It was a slow night. August wasn’t the peak season of tourism in Vegas, and it was nine P.M., when the live shows Vegas was famous for were in full swing. They would have an influx of fresh gamblers after midnight when the shows let out, but for now it was quiet.

  And she was bored. Fondling the necklace she had persuaded Peter to let her keep, she tried to ignore the fact that it made the flesh beneath the chain itch as she did her job absently. She was scanning the room repeatedly, not even sure what she was looking for, but wishing for something else, something different, something more than the same old routine night after endless night. They had been in Vegas only a few months, and it felt like an eternity. Not good, considering she did actually have an eternity to live.

  “So how does a nice little girl like you fall into this kind of work?” the good-looking guy in his thirties with the Southern accent asked her, sticking his cigar back in his mouth.

  And how did a man that young fall into such a cheesy pickup line? Katie gave him a shrug and a smile, amused at the fact that he probably had no idea he’d made her sound a bit like a prostitute. “Oh, you know how it is. Life throws curves at you.”

  “You’re not from here, are you? I hear some kind of accent.”

  Turning the cards, Katie efficiently collected them as the house won yet again. The man kept going over, yet he seemed in no hurry to leave or to change his strategy. He looked content to sit in his chair and lose money hand over fist.

  “I’m from Russia.”

  “Russia? Well, hell, that’s a long ways away. What made you come here?”

  Keeping her tone light and conversational, she said, “The current job market for Russian princesses sucks. So I gave up my tiara and headed to the States.” All true, in a roundabout sort of way. Katie had found that if she joked about the truth, no one believed her, and she didn’t have to deal with the discomfort of lying. No lies, no way to slip up either. It made everything easier.

  “A princess? You’re telling me you were a princess?” He cocked his head and gave her an amused stare, his dark eyes sparkling. “Alright, then. That sounds like quite a story. Story being the key word.”

  “Shocking, lurid, and true. Royalty to blackjack dealer. It happens to the best of us. And if you want to get technical, I was actually a Duchess.”

  “You’re sassy,” he said. “I like that.” Ignoring the other two players, he continued, “Can I buy you a drink after work? You can tell me all about the path from princess to poker.”

  There it was. Part of the biggest problem in her life, and no doubt part of the reason she was feeling such malaise. Here she had an attractive and friendly male asking her out, and she couldn’t work up one ounce of interest. Not one. She hadn’t been on a date since shoulder pads were in style, and she hadn’t had sex since the infamous summer of love, which practically didn’t count because everyone breathing had had sex that summer. Yet she had no desire to say yes to the man in front of her.

  Something was totally wrong with her that she was still ruined for other men when it had been a goddamn century since she’d had her heart broken. It was pathetic, lame, weird, and unnatural to be unable to move on from a failed relationship, and it felt somehow like if she stayed celibate and alone she was letting Michael win.

  So despite having more interest in watching people sweat and starve themselves on TV for prize money than going out with the good ol’ boy in front of her, Katie nodded. “Sure.”

  “Well, alright then.” He smiled at her. “What time do you get off of work, darling?”

  Katie dealt the cards to the players and said, “Four in the morning. I don’t know if you want to stick around that long.”

  “Why not? I’m on vacation. So I’ll meet you here at four, then. It’s a date.”

  “Actually, the lady has plans.”

  Katie froze, the timbre of that voice rolling over her like the soft caress of a lover’s touch, the sound so long unheard but instantly recognizable. How many nights she had delighted in that voice, whispering endearments and declarations of love to her as she giggled and sighed and drowned in the passion and bliss of youthful love.

  The voice that had meant everything to her. The voice she would have defied her father and mother for.

  Gaze snapping up, Katie took in the sight of Michael, standing casually in front of her as if an entire century hadn’t passed, as if they weren’t half the world and a million lifetimes away from St. Petersburg. He was wearing jeans and a blue shirt, his caramel-colored hair shorter than it had been, carelessly tousled, the air of the rich and privileged still securely around him.

  “Hello, Maria,” he said in French, the language of her youth, a small secret smile on his beautiful face. “I’ve missed you.”

  The voice, the face, the words, the man … all of these she had loved and her heart still trembled at the thought of them, let alone the reality. He was here, in the flesh, in front of her, using the name she’d been born with, and telling her that he missed her.
>
  It was everything she had dreamed of, longed for, prayed for, and cried into her pillow over.

  So she took a deep breath, looked the man she had intended to marry straight in the eye, and said, “Drop dead, Michael.”

  MICHAEL had been awake nearly thirty-six hours, no small feat for a vampire. After packing and making sure he had the small box he intended to give Maria, if she was in fact alive and living in Las Vegas, he had headed to the airport. The plan had been to sleep on the plane, his head under a blanket, to pass the long flight and the daylight, but he had been too keyed up to actually fall asleep.

  It had felt like too much to hope for that he could have actually found Maria after all these years. He had known in his heart that she was alive, logical or not. He would have felt it if the woman he loved, the better half of his very self and soul, were no longer walking on the earth.

  But he had been unprepared for the sight of her standing there in a white shirt, hair pulled up in a messy knot on top of her head, smiling as her fingers efficiently dealt the gambling cards.

  It had hit him like a tsunami, a century of love and longing and grief. Regret.

  She was more beautiful than ever, the young girl grown into the woman, her stubborn chin now more regal and confident than obstinate. Michael had stood at the edge of the casino floor, hidden by the row of slots, and watched her interacting with the players at her table. She hadn’t sensed his presence, but then again, there were vampires crawling all over the casino. His scent wouldn’t draw notice to her if she were inured to the quantity of undead around night after night.

  When being content with watching had no longer been enough, when he had wanted desperately to hear her voice, to see the love for him bloom in her eyes when she spotted him, Michael had moved forward and taken up position at the edge of her table.

  Intellectually he knew it was possible her feelings had dimmed over the years. That perhaps she had met another man, one who had claimed her heart. But he didn’t really believe it, nor did he think that even another man in her life would diminish a warm reception for him. Her first lover.