And Oleg?
He was certain that rumors of the fiery path he had cut through Ivan’s clan were already being whispered at the edges of his empire.
Not even an arrow through the chest could stop Oleg the Terrible’s fire.
“How many dead?” he asked her again.
“Too many,” she whispered. “It will always be too many, my love. And yet we will go on.”
Because death would be easy.
So they did not choose death.
Chapter 32
Tatyana
“And then Tatyana le Tala, the warrior terrin of the Poshani, ran up with her own axe and cut off the head of the evil vampire Ivan the Red!”
The children gasped, and more than one covered their little round mouth or their wide eyes.
Rumi continued, “Then, as Ivan’s head rolled across the snowy field, she claimed the Russian vampire king as her own blood mate.”
Despite the gory narrative, one of the little girls listening to the story giggled.
There were at least a dozen wide-eyed children sitting in Tatyana’s living room, listening to Rumi share the story of Tatyana’s more than unusual wedding while she finished working for the night.
Tatyana leaned over to Sándor. “Isn’t this story a little?—”
“It’s fine,” he whispered. “Poshani kids like a little blood and gore before bedtime.”
Tatyana shook her head and kept working.
Rumi finished the children’s new favorite story. “For in defending Tatyana le Tala and fighting for the Poshani people, Oleg, the King of the Rus, had proven to be worthy of beingthe true mate of a Poshani terrin and was allowed to join our people.”
Now there were claps.
Sándor leaned over to her. “You’re a legend, Tatyana le Tala.”
And Tatyana, who was sitting behind her desk, reckoning expense reports from her bookkeeper like the legend she was, nodded. “I do appreciate how Oleg is basically sidelined in Rumi’s version of this story.”
Sándor pursed his lips and nodded. “It’s good for him. It’s a Poshani story. The Russian is always going to be a supporting character.”
Her chief Hazar had more than enough respect for her husband, but Tatyana was pleased at the mutually respectful—and mildly antagonistic—relationship that Sándor and Oleg had developed.
It had been six months since Tatyana and Oleg’s state wedding, and despite her fears, most of Tatyana’s Poshani family seemed utterly charmed by the idea that the two former rivals had fallen in love through their short engagement and were now mates in truth.
The Poshani credited Tatyana’s violence at the wedding reception for making the Russian knyaz fall desperately in love. And Tatyana said nothing to dissuade them.
Her adoptive family tended toward hopeless romanticism, and if there were a few rumors about Tatyana concealing her relationship with Oleg or questioning her loyalty to the clan, they were quickly snuffed out when she absolutely skewered the Sokolovs during negotiations for a port expansion project in Constanta.
“You did land the killing blow,” Sándor said.
“Hmm?” She frowned. “In Constanta?”
“No.” The Hazar chuckled. “Not the financial blow—though you did that as well. No, I was talking about Ivan.”
She shook her head. “Don’t even say that name.”
