by M. R. Noble
“Funny how fast Ana’s features can disappear from your face.”
“I’m only half my mother.”
Another twitch surfaced, and I knew I hit a nerve. Loukin’s posture recoiled for a moment and I prepared for a firefight, but he relaxed back into his professional indifference which he had practiced while playing a diplomatic Tzar. He was nothing of the sort.
“If you want your freedom, it’s the price. It’s the price for Roman’s safe passage.”
“Roman can handle himself, and I’m starting to like it here.”
“Oh, Karolina. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.” He rose to match my gaze. “You will do this,” he whispered. “Or Miruna’s wards will be dismantled and I’ll end the old crow myself.”
I scoffed. “No one can pentrat—”
The book. I gave him Miruna’s book of white magic when I pitied him for hearing about Mama’s death. Now, I see I might as well have petted a viper. He had me the moment I gave away the book of Albesuc secrets.
“You would hurt my mother’s family?”
The look on his face confirmed my answer and made me wonder what Miruna could have done to make him hate her so much.
“What makes you think I couldn’t just take the book back?” I asked.
“You don’t know where it is, and even if you escalate this to a fight, you’ll never know who has read it or who could be heading to your aunt’s door at any moment.”
My shoulders clenched down on my spine. I wanted to break his desk in two. I wanted to kick down the fancy gold doors of his office and tear apart his web of deception which trapped me into this position. But I couldn’t. The tension in me rippled down my back. The fire within begged to break free and obliterate the whole damn building.
Instead, I slithered back into my chair, crossed my legs, and mimicked his demeanor, but it couldn’t keep the fire from my voice. “I have terms—in addition to what you’ve done.”
He sat down. “Go on.”
My mind was blank. I wanted some control, any power over my situation, and the child in me wanted to make demands in return, but I didn’t have any requests in mind. The length of my pause bordered on embarrassing.
“Ina,” I said.
He looked at me sideways.
“Ina comes with Roman and me to Canada. I will need a roommate who won’t be suspicious, and her guidance has been useful. If she agrees, of course.”
He studied me. The clock I threw from his desk still ticked in the pile, even though its glass had shattered to pieces on the ground. Each tick felt more weighted than the last.
“Done.” He stood up and stuck out his hand. “I’m glad you’ve made a friend here, Karolina.” As we shook, he said, “This really was devised for your benefit. You’ll see in the long run.”
Half of me wanted to laugh, the other wanted to cry. I took my hand from his and headed for the door, but as I was leaving a thought made me stop and look back over my shoulder. “The greatest monsters in the world are the ones we ourselves have created.” I didn’t know if I was his monster, or if the greatest one he’d created was the one inside himself.
“Tell me, Loukin. What was it in your soul that prevented you from killing Kazimir yourself? It must’ve been bad, if you had to send me instead.”
“You and the wolf make a cute couple. Too bad he won’t age like a vampire.”
I turned and headed for the door, hoping I would never be in this room again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Leaving on a Jet Plane
I was packed, but Ina reopened my bag to shove in more designer clothes from the closet with the tags still on them. My pack looked like a colorful stuffed snack cake.
“It’s full! I’ve got enough in there to break my back.”
“Your house burnt down, and you have nothing to your name but a bank account and a rucksack of clothes. One more outfit won’t kill you.”
Even the backpack wasn’t mine. I borrowed it from Roman when I ran away but mentioning it would just further her point. She rammed another outfit in, which was impressive. Ina agreed to leave with me to Canada and be reunited with her mother and brother. I was grateful for her company, even though she’d most likely be spending the majority of her time with them. I looked up when she stopped moving. She stared at me, catching me in a moment of thought.
“You ready?” I asked.
“Yup.” She struggled to pick up the bag.
I crossed the room and took it from her. I under-calculated how much it would weigh. “Thanks,” I said, “for everything.”
She nodded. Like Lukas, it was short and simple, but it still relayed she understood what her thoughtfulness meant to me. “My bags are downstairs. I’m going to do a final sweep of my room, and I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
“Sure.”
After she left, I took her advice and did a final check of my room too before I retrieved the package left for me at the front desk for my new place in Canada. I walked through the glittery pink and red room and wondered if my mother had encountered as much heartbreak here as I had. Maybe she had, and it was why she’d left the Grand Hotel to be with her family in Romania.
Loukin said she left just before my father’s assassination. My dad would have sent her away to protect her. One of the blessings which arose from my journey was I learned my parents loved each other. Enough to sacrifice themselves for one another and their child. Me.
I turned with my pack on my shoulder and headed into the hall. The elevator lights flickered between the seventh and eighth floor. It screeched to a halt. When the doors opened, lighting up the darkness, I decided to jump out while I could and walk the rest of the way. Six flights of stairs later, I rounded the corner and passed the elaborate entrance which lead into the stone great hall. In the shadows there was a narrow passageway I hadn’t noticed before. It was just another path I hadn’t taken, but the snake emblem on the door made me pause.
I headed to the main lobby, but a figure appeared from a connecting hallway.
“What’s the hurry, Princess?” The nickname I used to smile for now just provoked a wall of cold. “Hey,” he said and reached for my arm.
Staring ahead, I kept walking.
He raced behind me, just missing my arm again. “Karo?”
That nickname from his voice felt like an insult. I clenched my fist, combating the urge to turn around and face him.
Andre took hold of my shoulders and whirled me around. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. I looked at the wall instead. His hands glided from my shoulders over my body, like he could find an unseen wound which would cause me so much pain. He stopped. He turned my head to his. I settled for staring up at his chin.
Panic spread across his face. “Tell me what’s wrong.” His thumbs stroked my cheeks trying to coax the words from my mouth. When it didn’t work, he plunged his lips against mine in a desperate kiss, like it would breathe the life back into me, and I would be the Karolina he knew.
I stayed as straight and rigid in his arms as a corpse.
He withdrew, holding my face before his, and I finally met his eyes. The wall crashed down between us. Even if I wanted to tell him how I felt, I couldn’t. I had no words to say. Instead, I let the numbing mess of confusion and rage flood into him, leaving a hurt I hadn’t known existed.
Realization hit his face like a bomb. His hand trembled on my cheek, and he looked down to the ground, no longer able to hold my gaze.
“Goodbye, Andre.” Turning from him, I walked to the lobby, leaving him frozen to the floor. I heard him find his voice again and start to call my name—but I never looked back.
My cousins were waiting with Roman and Ina on the front steps of the Grand Hotel when I stepped out. The first day of fall carried a crisp breeze even in Kislovodsk, which made me wonder what weather we’d be facing in Canada.
“Thought we’d come to help you with your bags,” Lexi said.
Leonid looked at my pack. “But looks like y
ou got it covered.”
I smiled and tried not to feel like a cartoon hobo with my only possessions slung over my shoulder. “Thanks. But I think you may be of more help to Ina.” I looked to Ina and her small mountain of bags she sat upon.
They laughed and started loading the luggage into a black limo, which appeared to be our ride to the airport. Roman helped them, being the ever-steady white knight. After my cousins were done, they hovered in front of me looking down at their feet.
Lexi was the first to break the uncomfortable pause. “Come in here, cuz.” His arms shot forward and wrapped around me, causing me to lose my footing.
“Thanks.” I had a little more warning for Leonid’s hug. “And thanks for the bags.” I didn’t bother asking if their reptile of a father put them up to it. I knew he had, but my cousins had managed in our few interactions to treat me like genuine family. Recent events showed my judgement could be flawed, but so far, I surmised they weren’t misleading me. I wouldn’t hold their parentage against them, but neither would I assume it would be wholesome to cross them.
“See you around,” Lexi said.
“Don’t set the plane on fire,” Leonid said.
The two of them stood by and watched us get into the limo.
“Your uncle really hooked us up, eh?” Roman said as he perused a basket of brightly packaged snacks. He hunkered into his seat and opened a bag of peanuts. I would have made the same choice.
Ina cleared her throat, expressing her discomfort at Roman’s ignorance, and signaling this was my moment to tell him. I had considered it, but I knew Loukin’s threat on Miruna would have roused a fury in him which would have unleashed his wolf. We would have to take on every agent in the Grand Hotel, and it still wouldn’t have secured Miruna’s safety. White lies, they say, are a long fall through the mud. But my way meant leaving with the situation intact without starting an all-out war. It gave me time to strategize a way to egress my new occupation.
I rolled up the tinted window on the Grand Hotel as the limo trailed away, darkening the view of glittering gold, intricate stone, and royal windows. For all its beauty, this was a place of duality. The place my parents fell in love and the place of my father’s assassination attempt. Now it was the place I lost the bargain for my freedom. I had no idea if Loukin’s fire power could overtake mine, but he won our battle without magic. That scared me more.
“Yeah, Ro. Loukin really hooked us up.” I rested my head against Roman’s arm and closed my eyes.
The ride to the airport had been long and boring, giving my mind time to ponder what was to come. When we arrived at the gate, I worked my way to imagining being tarred and quartered for treason. The plan was to take a regular plane from the airport to Canada, to keep the contrivance of two kids caught up in a kidnapping nightmare alive. Still, it was uncharacteristic for the boarding line to be this empty. Loukin wielded more power with the Russian government than I anticipated.
Ina’s excitement took some of the sting out of it all. Her family was waiting for her in Canada. She’d arranged for them to meet her at the Ottawa airport and to stay with them in Toronto for a few days. I knew they had catching up to do, and agreed she’d meet me at our new condo in Ottawa afterward. Roman wasn’t one for cities but had made a list of all the things she had to see in Ottawa.
When we boarded the plane my ruminating was no different, and no amount of airplane food and action films with subtitles could keep my mind from the bargain I was bound to. The numbness I felt helped with the initial shock, but it couldn’t last forever. I was traveling a thousand miles an hour toward the bleak reality of my mistakes. I had no idea what it meant to be a spy. Slipping intel on the Canadian government seemed darker than any battle. I was betraying my country.
The information I would be blackmailed into giving had the potential to hurt millions of Canadians. I looked at the pamphlet before me which showed how to use the oxygen masks and felt like the room was out of air. With every second, we flew closer to my new duty, and the weight of it crushed me.
Roman touched my hand and squeezed. I looked up at him. His hand felt hot and rough from his calluses. I remembered the scratchy tickle they’d left across my skin in the warm wake of his touch from our night in the woods. I’d traveled through the dregs of humanity since then, and he’d followed me.
“I still haven’t thanked you.”
“Karo, you never have to thank me for being with you.”
I looked down to the emblem on his shirt. “I left you behind. At the time, it felt like the right thing to do. And I knew you were keeping the truth from me. That hurt, Ro.”
“You have every right to be pissed. I get it. But my family made promises to your mother to keep you away from those people. And I didn’t know everything. I knew who they were, and that your mother didn’t trust them fully. I also knew if I said you still had family, the first thing you’d do was go charging out to find them.”
It was exactly what I did. How many times did we need to have this conversation for me to finally accept he was right? Miruna was right. Even Gerel had warned me. I always thought regret would taste bitter. The taste in my mouth remained the same. What changed was I couldn’t stand the taste of myself, because I had no one to blame but myself.
“You’re right. Nothing could have stopped me. But I’m still thankful you were there, Ro.”
He looked down at me. “I know.”
“I know there were things you wanted. What you said on the boat, in the woods. But with the circumstances, things just got complicated”
“I know, Karo. You don’t have to say it.”
Looking up at him, I wished I could make things different. Going back on my decisions was an impossible dream, like I could save Mama. Like I never could have met Andre or Loukin. Miruna would be safe, and Roman’s parents wouldn’t have been threatened. I’d be free. At what point did my fate leave my own hands? When I lost control.
Control. I found Grandpa Dalca’s words in my head, like I lost them ages ago. Andre had made losing control so seductive, and the most threatening thing was I hadn’t wanted to come back from the abyss it created. Now Miruna’s survival depended on me. Losing restraint made me easier to influence, and I was exploited. All my mother had warned me about in our last conversation proved true. The hard lesson I learned was now mirrored in my destitute situation. But things could still get worse, quickly. I was alive, and Kazimir was dead. I was a spy, but I was alive.
Roman was still watching me. “I didn’t ask you. Before you left.”
“What?”
“Should have said it better, before you left, I should have asked you.”
“Ask me what?”
“To be my girlfriend.”
He wanted to talk about Andre, about what happened between us. My tongue fell dry. For a moment, my courage wanted to shrivel. “I needed blood and we bonded. I didn’t know what it meant until after. The cravings took on a new role, and the feelings they gave me complicated things.”
He nodded. “You’d never had human blood before, let alone a vampire’s.”
“I don’t know if I can go back to animals. It’s so different, so real. Like what it’s supposed to be.” I caught my gaze trailing down his neck.
“Is it a sex thing? When you feed?”
“Yes and no. It depends on who it’s with.”
Although feeding off Andre had felt like drinking the nectar of the gods, I managed to stay in control. Feeding in the midst of battle, I had lost control completely. Memories of the lout’s final moments still itched my skin. Was it my feelings which kept me in check with Andre? It was a formidable question. If I dropped the wall between the bond now, would I feel him miles away?
A cough sounded out on the mostly empty plane, reminding me we weren’t alone. Ina stirred beside me, waking up. She took a sleepy sip of water.
Roman and I continued the rest of the flight holding hands. We stopped talking for the moment, but it felt like there was less of a rift
between us. The simple comfort of knowing he was there for me gave me the courage to brainstorm my plans.
When we arrived in Ottawa, we headed to the baggage collection for Ina and walked to the pickup and departure lobby. Amongst the crowd, a blonde woman with eyes like Ina waited with a young redheaded boy. In his tiny hands he held up a makeshift sign with Ina’s name on it. Ina ran to them, her purse flying back in tow. She scooped up her younger brother, whirling him around in a hug. Her mother dove in and wrapped her arms around the two of them as tears soaked her cheeks.
Roman and I stayed back, giving them their moment. After, Ina introduced us, and we had a chance to say hello and chat. Just when they were about to leave, Ina swooped to my side.
“Karo, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Thank me for what? You know Loukin was the one who forced you on me,” I said. “I’d be a lost cause without you.”
She threw her arms around me. “Thank you, Karo.”
I squeezed her back. “No. Thank you.”
She lowered her voice. “Whatever you’ve done, just know it was worth it. Don’t think we all don’t know the Northern Russian Organization has been disbanded. Often, people doubt what a woman can do, and those people can be women themselves. I want you to know I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, and neither should you.”
Well, Ina, the thing is when you kill people, you can’t tell the difference between yourself and the villains after that. Instead I said, “Thanks.”
“And be careful with wolves. I hear they bite,” she said with a wink and turned to her departing family.
“I bite too.”
A nearby man stepped back from me, pulling his backpack farther up his shoulder. I turned back to the departure pickup. Roman waited at the curb.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
His hand found mine again as we waited. “Did they tell you who would be picking us up?”
The fall air was cooler, but not shiver worthy. The pickup lane was full of buses and yellow cabs, which was why a black unmarked cab entering the roundabout had my attention.