Page 8 of Lord of the Underworld

She has no idea. She remembers nothing.

***

Bozhe moy - Russian for Oh, my God

Dedushka – Russian for Grandfather

Chapter Four

In which we learn that fine art and Vadim Turgenev have important things in common.

Oksana…

I toured the Louvre in Paris when I was fifteen, it was one of the few trips my mother and I were allowed to make without my father. I'd found an enormous painting that mesmerized me, The Abduction of Proserpine. I stood in front of it for an hour. Hades had his thickly muscled arms wrapped tight around Persephone's waist, holding her to him in an embrace, immobile. Her clothes were half off, fluttering behind her as he spirited her away on his chariot pulled by his stallions, dark as midnight, racing down into the pitch black. Her pale hand was desperately reaching up, toward the light as it faded behind them.

There was something that kept me there. My mother wasn't an art snob, she enjoyed watching my reaction. Head cocked, she eyed the painting. "Ah, Alessandro Allori," she said. "I love his work. How does the painting make you feel?"

How did I feel? Shivery inside, chilled, feeling like Persephone, with the strength of his arms around me, tightly enough to take the breath from my lungs. I didn't say this to her, of course.

I feel like that now.

Vadim is a giant. A tall, terrifying dark lord, here to drag me down to the Underworld. His ice blue gaze is searing, moving over me. I can't tell what he's thinking, his beautiful face is expressionless. Maybe a man isn't supposed to be beautiful, but Vadim Turgenev is.

I'm tall, but he still looms over me, my head barely reaches his shoulders - his very broad shoulders - and he has ink crawling up the side of his neck and past his cuffs onto his fingers. Hair as black as a raven's wing and those eyes. The first thing he says is my name. Slowly, like he's rolling it around on his tongue, testing it out. His voice is deep, slightly rusty like he doesn't use it often.

There's a short silence as his family and mine stare at the two of us.

"Why don't we go into the lounge and have a drink before dinner?" His father breaks the stalemate and I gratefully follow the rest. Vadim walks with me. Well, not with me precisely, a step behind so I'm painfully aware of him, close enough to feel the heat from his skin and the scent of burnt amber, well-worn leather and something unexplainable, maybe how darkness would smell if it was a scent.

Dinner is excruciating.

We start with stilted conversation and drinks in the lounge, which progresses to dull conversation and dinner in the Turgenev dining room. Vadim's mother, Mariya, was kind enough to seat my father next to her husband, down at the other end of the table. I cringe as I hear his voice getting louder with each drink. When my mother puts a hand on his arm, he angrily throws it off, which makes me want to break this very beautiful crystal wine glass and stab him with a jagged edge.

Nikolai and Maks shake their heads subtly, and turn to talk to Vadim's brother Stepan. I've seen Stepan around. He's rash. Feckless. He's been arrested more than once for showing up somewhere very public, naked and drunk. So, I'm sure that Mariya and Konstantin have their hands full.

Vadim sits next to me. Not eating much, sipping his drink, and watching everyone around the table intently. He hasn't said a word to me since his first greeting. My frustration's mounting. I think we're supposed to speak to each other, maybe attempt to find anything in common with the person we're about to marry.

He's terrifying, I know this.

I'm aware that most people, even in the oligarchical magnificence of the Six Families, keep their distance. Vadim is not a man who invites conversation or confidences. But if I'm going to be trapped with this man for the rest of my life, I'd like to know something.

Unfortunately, most of my questions probably aren't appropriate for the dinner table.

Like…

"Are you a serial killer?"

"Do you drink the blood of small children?"

"Do you sacrifice animals during the full moon?"

"And what kind of animals? Do they deserve it?"

I've heard the stories about him, which seem outrageous enough that they couldn't be true.

Apparently, it turns out they are.

I'm not as terrified as I expected to be. Maybe after going through what I did, it takes a lot to spook me now.