“Yes, but she didn’t like it.”
“I wouldn’t either.” Anna waved a hand. “If you had a reason for it, just explain it. She won’t stay angry with you for long. That’s not her nature.”
“I did explain it. She still didn’t like it. And remember, she stayed angry with me for two years after she became a vampire.”
“You deserved that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, matushka.”
Anna gave him that look again, then stepped away and sat in her chair. Pushkin immediately pranced over and jumped in her lap.
Oleg turned. “Do you want to come to the wedding? You wouldn’t have to be presented formally or anything like that. It’s safer if you do not, but some of my clan have human family attending, and you are welcome to join them.” Polina’s partner had asked after Tatyana’s mother, and Oleg wanted to extend the invitation.
“No, I went to the real one.” She frowned. “I don’t need fancy parties. I would feel out of place.”
“If you change your mind in the next month?—”
“I won’t.”
Oleg smiled and went to sit in the chair across from her. “So how do I make things right with your daughter?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Doesn’t a mother know her daughter best?”
“You had a human mother long ago, didn’t you? Did she know you?”
“She trained me on the sword,” Oleg said. “But other than that, I do not have many memories of her. I was around twelve or so when I left home.”
Anna blinked and her expression softened. “You were just a little boy.”
“I suspect I thought I was a man.” Oleg smiled. “But you are correct. I was a boy.”
Anna was quiet for a long time. “She will try to take care of you, you know.”
Oleg knew exactly who Anna was talking about. “She doesn’t need to take care of me. My job is to take care of her.”
“It does not matter. That is how she loves. Not with words—with actions. If you’re as smart as you think you are, you will let her.”
Let Tatyana take care of him?
Anna’s house phone rang. She stood up and walked to the kitchen.
He could hear her answer. “Yes?”
Oleg frowned. The idea of allowing Tatyana to take care of him was so foreign he had to fight the urge to recoil or argue. How could Tatyana take care of him? He was far older, far more powerful. Far richer.
“He’s here.” Anna called his name. “Mika is on the phone for you. Something about a priest.”
Oleg stood, walked to the rotary phone, and picked it up. “Yes?”
“The priest in the village,” Mika said. “The one who married you and Tatyana. He’s dead. You need to fly here right now.”
Chapter 20
Tatyana
“Did he give you notice he would not be in attendance?”
