“Asha.” Raziel’s voice was carefully neutral. “We are going to go speak to my brother and sister, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, but I do mind.” She tilted her head, birdlike. “You haven’t wished me a happy birthday yet. Even though I don’t really keep track anymore. Time is soboring, don’t you think? Just the same things happening over and over. Parties and politics and people pretending they matter.” Her too-wide eyes found Nadi, and her smile stretched even wider. “Butthisis exciting. A serpent and a fish, sneaking into our home. Like a game!”
“I’m glad we could entertain you,” Nadi said flatly. It wasn’t Asha’s birthday either. But she wasn’t going to take the time to point that out.
Asha giggled again. “Oh, Ilikeher. She’s funny. And we didn’t get to finish our dance last time!” She turned to one of her guards, tugging on his sleeve like a child seeking attention. “Isn’t she funny? I want to keep her. Can I keep her? Everyone wants to keep her.”
The guard’s face remained impassive. “Lady Asha, Lord Mael’s instructions were to bring them to him immediately.”
Asha’s expression flickered—a flash of something dark and terrible beneath the childish facade. “Mael’s instructions,” she repeated, her voice going flat. “Mael, Mael, Mael. Everyonealways does whatMaelsays.” Then, just as quickly, the smile was back, bright and empty. “Fine. We’ll bring them to the biggest brother. But I get to play with themafter. Promise me.”
“Lady Asha?—”
“Promise me.” The words came out sweet as poison. The guard flinched.
“I… Y—yes, Lady Asha.”
“Good boy.” She patted his arm, then turned back to Raziel and Nadi, clasping her hands behind her back and swaying slightly. “Now then! Are you going to come quietly, or do I get to hurt you first?” She leaned forward, eyes glittering. “Please say you’re going to fight.Please.It’s been so long since I really got to hurt something that screams. And we were interrupted last time!”
Nadi’s hand tightened on her blade. Behind her, she could hear more footsteps—guards coming from the direction of the ballroom, cutting off their only other escape route. They were trapped. Surrounded. Twelve guns pointed at their heads and a mad vampire standing between them and any hope of survival.
Raziel’s hand found hers in the space between their bodies. A brief touch. A question.
Together?
She squeezed back.Together.
Somewhere outside, distant but unmistakable, another explosion shook the night.
Asha didn’t even flinch. She giggled once more.
“This is going to besomuch fun.”
TWENTY-ONE
Asha Rosov moved like a dancer. Silk and razor-sharp pain.
Nadi barely had time to register the blur of pale pink silk before the vampire was on her, those too-wide eyes gleaming with childlike delight as her fingers closed around Nadi’s throat. The guards scattered, apparently having learned to give the youngest Rosov room when she decided toplay.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” Asha whispered, her voice singsong and dreamy. “Ever since youstabbedme. That wasn’t very nice, you know. I’m going to have to teach you some manners.”
Nadi drove her knee up into Asha’s stomach and felt the vampire’s grip loosen—just enough. She twisted free, drawing her blade in the same motion, putting distance between them. Her throat burned where Asha’s fingers had pressed, and she could already feel the pinpricks from her nails starting to ooze blood.
Raziel was already moving. He’d used the chaos of Asha’s attack to close the distance between him and the guards, his movements brutal and efficient. Both of the human guards were quickly turned against the others with Raziel’s gift, bullets now flying as his quiet orders were heeded without hesitation.
“Kill them!” someone was shouting. “Kill them both!”
But the guards were hesitating, caught between their orders and their very reasonable fear of getting between Asha and her prey. They’d seen what happened to people who interfered with the youngest Rosov’s games. None of them wanted to be next.
Asha giggled, circling Nadi with that unsettling grace. The pink silk of her dress was already spotted with blood. Nadi didn’t want to think about where it had come from. Because it was probably hers. And that meant she was bleeding from wounds she couldn’t feel yet. “Your little vampire is busy. That means I have you all to myself.” She tilted her head. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you? I’m going to break every bone in your hands first. So you can’t hold your pretty knives anymore. Then I’m going to?—”
Nadi threw the blade.
It wasn’t a killing strike—she knew better than to think she could take down a vampire of Asha’s age with a single thrown dagger. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to make hermove.
Asha dodged, predictably, flowing aside like water around a stone. Which put her directly in the path of Raziel’s charge.
He hit her like a battering ram, driving her into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster and send fragments raining down around them. Asha shrieked—more in outrage than pain—and raked her nails across his face, leaving bloody furrows from temple to jaw. The wounds were deep, weeping dark blood that ran down his neck and soaked into his collar.
