“But both of you have been in my druzhina for centuries.” He shrugged. “Don’t be impatient, Mika. Besides, I have a more entertaining job for you.”
“What? Is it something with SMO? Is that why Seban is taking us to the office?”
“Yes.” He smiled internally at the plot he had concocted on the journey from Moldovia. “I need you to arrange a meeting here in Odesa and draw up some contracts.”
Mika was staring out the window as the streetlights grew brighter and brighter. They were getting closer to the city center. “Contracts for what?”
“For everything I want.”
Chapter 12
Tatyana
Bucharest, Romania
“You have got to be kidding me,” Kezia sputtered. “He’s mad.”
Tatyana was frozen. She was trying to wrap her brain around the letter Radu had just read to them both.
Not even a week ago, she and Kezia had been planning a quiet operation to kill Ivan. From Kezia’s perspective, it was purely practical. From Tatyana’s perspective, she was doing exactly what her mate had told her not to do, but it was her right to take care of him, so she didn’t care.
And Radu didn’thavea perspective on it. Radu was completely in the dark about future Ivan’s assassination.
Now the three Poshani terrin were sitting in Radu’s home office in Bucharest. Not the club and not his business office. They usually met at his business office when he called them, but two nights before, Radu had demanded both Tatyana and Kezia join him at his home in Bucharest “for matters of clan and personal importance.”
“It is what he proposes.” Radu lifted the heavy linen paper sitting on top of an envelope with a broken red wax seal. “Oleg Sokolov, Velikiy Knyaz of the Kievan Rus, heir of Truvor the Red and keeper of his blood, born of Earth and sired to Fire, does propose this day a contract of marriage to be formed between His Greatness and Kezia le Almásy, terrin of the Poshani, for a period of one hundred years, starting on January twenty-seven?—”
Tatyana’s head turned toward Radu. She blinked.
No.
“—in order to commemorate the historic partnership of our two clans, secure our mutual trust, and honor the ancient ties between the Kievan Rus and the Poshani people for as long as my reign endures.”
Oleg was proposing a wedding on January twenty-seventh?
The twenty-seventh of January?
Secure our mutual trust… as long as my reign endures.
Dear God.
What was her husband doing? He was taking a huge risk. What if Kezia said yes?
Tatyana’s eyes flew to Kezia, and she pressed her lips together. Her heart was racing.
“What have I done?” Kezia was staring at the wall in front of her. “What have I done to bring thiscurseupon me?”
Okay, so it appeared that Kezia wasnotgoing to say yes.
Tatyana’s heart calmed, her fangs relaxed, and her brain started to work again.
Radu took a steadying breath. “Sister, this is a proposal of political marriage—he specifies that this is ceremonial only and he has no interest in your personal life—from the most powerfulvampire leader in Eastern Europe, who is host to over seventy percent of our traditional roaming territory.”
Tatyana saw a map in her mind, a map of all of Eastern Europe, the roads and the trade routes. The route of the kamvasa running straight through the heart of the Kievan Rus.
The kamvasa, the heart and soul of her new family, that symbolized their freedom to roam as they would and live as they chose.
With this contract, Oleg was promising that the Poshani would be secure. For as long as he remained the lord of the Kievan Rus.
