“Just as you would be suspicious of the Kievan Rus after the attack on your mother’s house.”
What did it mean? “They are trying to drive a wedge between us, perhaps? So that we will call off the wedding?” She lowered her voice. “But you said that your brothers are in favor of our union?”
Oleg’s eyebrows went up. “So you assume my brothers are behind this but not your sister?”
Tatyana angled her head. “Really? We all know that Ivan was probably behind both. And if he tortured Father Izaias, he probably knows the true nature of our marriage.”
Oleg narrowed his eyes. “Which is?”
She felt her fangs fall. “Are you truly asking me this?”
“I would burn the world for you, Tatyana le Tala.” He kept his voice low. “Can you say the same?”
Tatyana thought about the Hazar who would be risking their lives to kill Oleg’s brother just so Tatyana could be certain Oleg would not have to execute yet another of his kin.
“I would do the same for you,” she murmured. “You are my mate.”
There was a leap of energy between them, and Oleg reached for her, but she eased away from his touch. “I cannot.”
He glared at her. “Why not? It has been weeks.”
“And it will be a week more until we are publicly wed and all this pageantry is over.” Tatyana stood. “Until then, there are too many eyes on us.”
And Kezia was already proving more suspicious than Tatyana preferred.
Oleg narrowed his eyes. “I can smell how much you want me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please don’t smell me.”
“Why not? You are my mate. and everything about you pleases me.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning his face toward the juncture of her thighs. “When we share a day chamber, I will wake at dusk and put my face between your legs to breathe in the scent of your desire. It will be the first breath I take.”
When he said things like that, she wanted to hide her face. “Next you’re going to tell me it smells like the sweetest flowers or some nonsense like that.”
“No, it smells like my wife’s pussy, which is infinitely superior to the smell of flowers.”
“I’m leaving now.” Her blood was surging, but the moment he got her naked, he’d see the red mark below her ribs, and she was tired of fighting. “Keep your energy for the polo match tomorrow, Lord Oleg.”
He muttered something in that dark, rough language that only he spoke, but Tatyana was already at the door.
She madeit back to her office to find Diana waiting for her.
The woman’s eyes were red from crying. “Did… did Lord Oleg tell you? Is that what he wanted to speak to you about?”
Tatyana pretended that she knew exactly what Diana was talking about. “I would prefer to hear it from you.”
She walked around to her seat, leaving the desk between them. She folded her hands and placed them on the desk but made no move to comfort Diana.
“It was never…” She blinked. “I thought he liked me.” Her smile was tight and bitter. “It’s inappropriate. I knew it was, but… I have no excuse for my behavior. Maybe it’s all the wedding things, and you were human once and I know you met Oleg then, so when he asked me to dance at the summit?—”
“Is that when it started?” Tatyana was beginning to suspect that Sándor’s theory about Ivan seducing Diana was the correct one.
Diana nodded. “I mean, I had seen him before. Heard of him, of course. He’s… he’s very rich,” she whispered. “And you don’t spend as much time with day people anymore—of course you wouldn’t—but women talk, and having a vampire boyfriend…”
A wealthy vampire patron could change a human’s life. “You thought, why not?”
“I’m not…” Diana wiped her eyes. “I’m not a prostitute.”
“I would never say that about you.”
