by Anne Schlea
She smiles. Kristoff knows her style well.
Once dressed, she opens the bedroom door to find Kristoff waiting at the desk in the living room. He’s dressed for work, dark dress pants, a silver-gray button up shirt with the top two buttons undone and no tie. A jacket is tossed over the back of the sofa. The muscles across his back clench and shift as he saves his work and closes his laptop.
He looks up at her and pauses. His eyes linger as they look her over, familiarity and more going through them. She wonders what he’s seeing beyond her appearance. Finally, he smiles. “You look lovely.”
“Lovely?” Runa clicks her tongue, raises an eyebrow and moves past the threshold into the living room. There’s a confidence in her step, a sway to her hips. Clothes make all the difference in attitude. Maybe she should have gotten dressed in something besides yoga-wear before today. “Not hot? Sexy? Goddess-like?”
“I’m trying not to be too forward.” He grins and stands, drawing the jacket over his shoulders as he does, then he brushes back his dark hair with a hand. “How about you look stunning?”
“That’s a little better.” She crosses the room to straighten his lapels and then rests her hands on his chest. The action makes her blood start to race, adrenaline pumping. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. This seems too normal, too familiar. She’s not ready to end this dinner where dinners with Kristoff usually end.
“Hey.” Kristoff’s hand comes up to touch her arm, resting on her bicep. He dips his head so he can look directly into her eyes. “This is dinner. I have no expectations of anything else.”
Runa lets out a frustrated sound, her eyes focusing on his shoes. “Am I that obvious? My fear?”
“No.” He smiles and moves his hand to touch her chin, forcing her to look up and away from the floor. “I’m a vampire. I heard your heart speed up.”
“Oh.” She feels a little foolish. Of course, he had. But, she thought, he hadn’t thought it was because of her attraction to him.
“After your heart sped up, you looked at the floor.” He holds her chin, keeping her from looking away. His eyes are soft, gentle. “You can’t ever meet my eyes when you’re unsure or afraid. It takes you a minute to compose yourself, to set the mask of your face. When the first feeling of uncertainty hits, you always look away. It’s your tell.”
“God, am I that transparent?” No wonder Runa’s sisters think she’s weak. They must be able to see her every doubt on her face.
“Only to me.” Kristoff kisses her gently on the forehead, his hand releasing her chin to run carefully over her hair. “I’ve had a lot of practice learning your language. I don’t think anyone else would notice. Everyone else is too fearful you’re going to kick their ass.”
That makes her smile. Impulsively she leans forward to kiss him quickly on the cheek, the action done before she has enough time to overthink it. It isn’t much, but it’s all she can manage right now. “Good.”
“If you’re up to it, I’d like to show you the hotel before dinner.” Kristoff opens the door leading into the outside hallway and gestures for her to step through it. “You should know who my people are, and they need to recognize you as someone who holds authority here. Most of them have seen you come and go enough, but I’d like to make your presence here official since your sisters already know.”
Unmoving, she looks out into the hallway. Her feet don’t want to step into the unknown. To cover, she raises an eyebrow. “You’re giving me authority over your men?”
“While you’re here, you’re part of my life.” He waits patiently, door in hand, not rushing her. She can see from his body language they will stay here all night like this if that’s what it takes. “I trust you with my life and I trust you with the lives of my people.”
Disbelief rushes through Runa. Kristoff rules one of the largest vampire territories, the territory that protects the boundaries of the maji homelands. Giving her his trust, even in this small part of Atlanta, is giving her the trust over thousands of lives of vampires and maji. She grounds herself. “Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything.” He shrugs, still waiting. “It is simply…the truth. You did better this time, by the way. You didn’t look down when you stopped at the door.”
Runa meets his eyes and feels his energy embracing her. Even from several steps away it gives her solidarity. She feels like part of his empire, like she belongs here. And somewhere in that feeling, she finds the courage to take his arm and step through the door.
Dinah sits quietly in the hotel bar, drinking her coffee, waiting for Joseph to arrive. She’d rather meet him in the restaurant but doesn’t want to intrude on Runa and Kristoff’s evening out. Thankfully, this bar isn’t a nighttime hot spot for rampant parties. This one serves mostly businessmen and hotel guests.
He looks unsure when he approaches her, his eyes moving through the bar, surveying each table. They land on the bartender and hesitate, eyes taking in everything behind the counter.
Finally, he moves his attention to her waiting and diverts toward her table.
He’s dressed in an elegant suit, not quite as nice as the ones Kristoff will sometimes wear, but with expensive shoes. She stands when he reaches her to allow him to kiss her on either cheek before he joins her at the table. Looking him over, she smiles. “Damian picked your clothes for this trip?”
Joseph rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Living with him is worse than living with my mother.”
She chuckles at that. A glass of red wine, Joseph’s drink of choice, is delivered to the table. He looks at Dinah with a raised eyebrow. She smiles again. “I told them to bring it when you got here.”
“Thank you.” He lifts the glass to his nose and smells the bouquet before he takes a drink. “It’s very nice. Do I look like I need a drink?”
“It doesn’t hurt to loosen your tongue a bit before I ask you how my son and his new wife are doing.” She leans forward, resting her arms on the table and nods at the wine. “I brought the bottle and asked them to uncork it, Syrah from Israel.”
“Ah, the real reason you wanted me to try it.” He takes another deep breath of the nose, his eyes closed. She wonders if he’s picturing the landscape of the middle east. As far as she knows, he’s never been there. Damian has offered to go with him many times over the years, but Joseph has always declined. Dinah wonders if he’s worried that he may find family there still alive. “It truly is unique, much heavier than a Syrah from Europe.”
Damian had “purchased” Joseph from a German concentration camp during the height of the war. Both men refused to talk about exactly what had transpired prior to Damian’s extraction of Joseph, but they had been inseparable friends since then. Joseph had been human when he first entered the camps but was turned vampire during his stay there as part of the experiments to create a super race.
While Damian has always taken responsibility for creating Joseph, claiming him as a blood-son, Dinah isn’t sure either of them actually know who Joseph’s true blood-parent is.
Dinah had done work as a nurse during the war, but she’d never ventured that far into the continent. She’d never seen firsthand how terrible the camps were, nor seen the results of the experiments the Nazis had been committing on human and non-human alike. She’d read the reports, which was more than enough for her to imagine what Joseph had gone through.
“The Old One is in need of a business advisor.” Dinah leans back in her chair, reaching the first reason for her request to see him. “She has some holdings in Israel and Egypt that she needs to visit later this year. She expects her travels to be safe, but it will help her to have a male escort. You understand international trade and exporting, thanks to your time with Damian. It will only be for a few weeks; would you like to go?”
“And what of what is happening here?” He slowly turns the glass in circles on the table, watching her over the rim. He’s never been an easy man to understand; keeping mostly to himself, she�
��s never truly gotten to know him.
“The world continues to turn during times of war, Joseph.” She reaches forward to still his hand of its motions. “You aren’t a warrior. We must discuss the business of running our houses, once that is over you should leave Atlanta. There is no need for you to stay in the middle of a battle.”
“I appreciate the consideration.” He smiles, but there is no lightness to his eyes. “I respectfully decline. Despite my human heritage, I have no desire to set foot in Israel.”
“Yet you still practice your faith, I’ve seen you in Charleston.” Dinah’s eyes look him over like a puzzle to be solved. He still abides by the old laws, as much as he can, and refuses to do Damian’s bidding Holy Days. His tallit is kept in a special room at Damian’s home, along with his kippa that he only wears while praying, and his copy of the Torah. While outwardly, he is worldly and modern, Dinah knows him to be devoted at home. “Can I ask why you don’t want to go?”
“I am the undead.” He shrugs. “I have no business being in a place that is holy. I continue to practice the rights of my ancestors only in the hope that, when I come to my final rest, my soul may be a bit less black than it is now.”
Leaning forward, Dinah squeezes Joseph’s hand. “You’re a good man, Joseph. I don’t believe your soul is black at all.”
“In that, we must agree to disagree.” Joseph takes a deep breath and gently pats the top of Dinah’s hand. “Let’s change the subject to something more enjoyable. I would rather spend the evening telling you about how terribly boring Damian has become since his marriage to Tara.”
Chapter 7
Sitting at a table in the hotel’s restaurant with an open bottle of wine decanted and ready, Runa has learned the names of nearly every member of Kristoff’s staff. Not that she’ll remember. Her life had always been a mostly solitary one with no need to remember many names or faces. For the time being, it looks like that is about to change. It seems that for as long as she’s at Kristoff’s hotel, she’s now something of mistress of the castle.
So much for keeping their relationship quiet and under wraps.
Kristoff had patiently taken her through the day-to-day operations of the hotel, showing her the main business office – on the top floor, of course, where they had an enviable view of the city, the kitchens, laundry, and hidden hallways and elevators of the building. Each member of Kristoff’s staff stopped to greet her and introduce themselves.
The security officers showed her their monitoring system and talked her through the enchantments that Kristoff’s maji had put on the building. Then they walked her through their weapons – they carry both traditional human variety security weapons, but also gear capable of downing most immortals.
Perhaps most important, Kristoff introduced Runa to two sizable vampires she’d already seen around the suite. They were, it turned out, her private guard. Although he insists he realizes she won’t need them for long, he does want her to have support when he isn’t around. These two males had one job – to keep her safe. When Kristoff leaves to work, one of them takes up residence outside the suite door.
While the valkyrie in her is highly offended at Kristoff’s assumption that she needs a bodyguard, the other part of her that lives to feel Kristoff’s warmth around her body is grateful. Plus, she reasons, there’s a bonus in having a big bodyguard. No one with any sense, besides her sisters, will bother knocking at the door if she doesn’t want them there. No more door to door solicitors for her!
The day is fast approaching that Runa will need to choose between the warring parts of her mind – the one that values valkyrie freedom above all else and the one that is ready to give up everything to stay with Kristoff. Because try as she might, she can’t find the middle ground where she can keep both. This relationship had turned into an all or nothing gambit with the end of the track in sight.
The last few months might have slowed down the race, but it hasn’t moved the ending. If anything, it’s sped up the race to the finish.
In her deepest of secret places, she can see herself living here with Kristoff the rest of her days. They complement each other well, both have a healthy appetite for adventure and humor, he keeps her a little grounded and she keeps him a little on the edge. They rarely tire of each other’s company and the few times they argue it’s usually about her leaving.
She enjoys the lifestyle he lives; there can never be enough diamonds and staying in Atlanta affords her a close proximity to an airport that can get her anywhere in the world quickly. Say, Paris, for a new pair of shoes or New York for the next fashion week. Or maybe South America to search for El Dorado when things get boring around here. She bets he even has a private airplane hidden away somewhere ready to whisk her away at a moment’s notice.
Smiling, Runa remembers how long it would take him to find her not that long ago. A trek from the Russian wilderness to the seedy streets of Chicago wasn’t an easy thing a century ago. But he’d done it without argument because she wanted him to.
“Why did you buy a hotel?” Runa pushes thoughts of happily ever after from her mind to focus on the here and now. The rest will have to wait until later.
“After Antonia came back, it became evident that war with the nosferatu was unavoidable. I decided it might be prudent to have a property near Zartan’s capital.” Kristoff pours two glasses of wine and samples his. With a nod, he set the glass down and focuses on Runa again. “I needed something big enough to house my people without drawing attention. I liked this property; it took a while, but I convinced the owner to sell.”
“Convinced?” She feels the corner of her mouth twitch toward a wry grin. She picks up her own wine glass and swirls the red liquid around. “And how did you do that?”
“I didn’t kill anyone, if that’s what you’re implying.” He tisks at her and shakes his head, his eyebrow raised. “Every human wants to die a millionaire, Runa, and I have enough money to make dreams like that happen. He was half ready to give up the property as it was, this part of town is so far away from midtown and the majority of business traffic.”
“Awe.” She sticks her lip out in a practiced pout, tucking her chin down. “Paying up isn’t as good of a story as taking care of. You could have made up something more fun than that.”
“I’m sure your old friend Al felt the same way.” Kristoff smiles. He looks toward the entrance to the restaurant, his eyes on his restaurant manager who is straightening a red, plush dining chair. “It’s my first official property in the United States, a visible statement to the nosferatu and other clans that I support Zartan and Antonia. I wanted to make sure I made the right kind of statement. Purchasing one of the more prestigious hotels in the city seemed to be the best way to do it.”
“You came last fall with the intention of joining the war.” Runa leans back in her chair, recalling the day he’d arrived in Zartan’s mansion. At the time, she, along with everyone else, had assumed he’d come to take Stephanie away. But now, here he sits with Stephanie tucked safely away in Russia, the proud owner of an upscale hotel. “You weren’t here for Stephanie at all.”
“No, I wasn’t.” His smile grows. He, too, leans back in his chair. Eyes sparkling with mischief, he’s challenging her, proud he’d tricked her with the rest of them. “It worked to my advantage for Stephanie and everyone else to think I was for a while. Zartan, of course, knew what my true intentions were. I had already obtained his blessing to look for property. He was insistent that Stephanie be changed. I think he encouraged the misunderstanding so to push the issue with Arthur.”
Runa chuckles, shaking her head. It’s the kind of mischief a valkyrie would be proud of. “I’m impressed. You had all of us fooled. I thought you were here just for me.”
“I told no lies.” Kristoff’s eyes grow big and innocent, his hands held up defensively. “I simply omitted acknowledgement that Stephanie’s assumption was wrong. You being here was an added benefit I took full advantage of once I had you alone. I don’t recall
you objecting, either.”
Narrowing her eyes across the table at him, she thinks about how many nights they spent together while Stephanie was holed up with Arthur in the damned Carriage House. She feels a stab of irritation. “You could have told me.”
“And run the risk that you tell your best maji buddy?” Hands drop to the table; he shakes his head. “Zartan would have had me packing my bags, abandoning the mission, and selling off this wonderful piece of property. Stephanie, and Arthur, needed a little fear in their lives to move things along. Don’t you agree?”
Runa opens her mouth to protest but then closes it. She’d like to deny that she’d tell Stephanie, but the truth is she would have. She’d enjoyed patrolling with the young maji and would have fought to keep her in Atlanta. As for Stephanie and Arthur…well, Runa still isn’t sure how she feels about that relationship, but with the little bundle of joy on its way, there isn’t much she can do about them, either.
Who is she to throw stones, anyway, when her own personal life is liable to start a war among her own kind? What Arthur and Stephanie do – naked or otherwise – is none of Runa’s business.
As long as she eventually gets her patrolling buddy back, that is.
“Do you think the seat of the nation is moving here then, to Atlanta?” There’s no way to deny the tide is shifting. For all memory, the vampires have held their court in Spain, a neutral territory. But with travel easier and the clans more dispersed, the necessity of a central European home has become less important. Now, with so many clans holding property in America, it only makes sense to seat their nation here.
But under who’s leadership?
“Yes, nosh, I do.” He looks around the hotel. Expensive businessmen are seated at the bar, well dressed socialites are enjoying dinner before a trip to the theater, a Congressman is seated a few tables away. “It has a major airport but is less high-profile than New York. There’s enough space here for each clan to have a residence without being on top of each other. I think this is the future of the nation.”