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I squeezed his hand, feeling the slickness of the blood, and I knew that wasn’t his either. I didn’t know what he’d been doing while I’d been having my spiritual awakening with the Bear Mother, but she and I approved. Blood meant food, blood meant survival, blood meant we had won against any that opposed us. We had protected what was ours.
“I’ve seen the Ulfric fight and I am not afraid of him,” Mischa said.
“I’ve got two men with me, not just one.”
“Goran is already mine, stupid girl.”
I squeezed Goran’s hand and I said a prayer, not to the BearGoddess inside me, but to the God I knelt for in church, the one I prayed to every day. Mother Bear didn’t mind that I prayed to him, she had no problem with my God, and I prayed that my eyes would be full of my own power, and the Mother of All Darkness would be banished from my eyes and every last bit of me.
I looked up at Goran and he smiled, the fear fading away as he stared into my shining brown eyes, cognac diamonds sparkling in the light—sunlight, moonlight, firelight. “You are light in the dark and nothing she can do will change that.”
Mischa screamed, “There is no light for you, bear. I will keep you in the dark with me forever!”
“You wanted a bear priestess, not Goran. She forced you together,” I said, and my voice was calm in the face of his anger, because the Mother of Bears was still with us. Her calm was my calm.
“I obeyed my queen.”
“Why are you the only vampire up, Mischa?”
“My queen woke me with the sun still in the sky, that is how powerful she is, still.”
“You felt Anita messing with your animal to call, that’s what woke you,” Richard said.
“Come to me, Goran,” Mischa said, holding out his hand.
Goran went very still beside me as if waiting for Mischa’s energy to pull at him, but I knew it wouldn’t work, because I could feel Goran inside me. I could feel our bears curled around each other and two wolves circling around us, Richard’s big cinnamon and my white with the black markings on her back and head.
“Call another bear, for this one no longer answers to you,” Goran said.
“Did she fuck you, too?”
“She gave me back my goddess and my faith.”
“I really must get in line for a taste; for you to turn Goran this easily you must be a goddess of love indeed,” Mischa said.
“You’ll never know,” I said.
“Once Deimos wakes for the night, you will do anything he says. He has no interest in sex, so I shall ask for you.”
“There is only one master in Deimos’s kingdom, and he does not share anything.” It was Ru, limping into the hallway to join us. He was shirtless, covered in blood, one eye already swelling shut. I was betting I knew who Rodina had been carefully torturing before Demolition Man interfered. I wondered where Rodina was, but not enough to leave this moment and check.
Then I heard a sound down the hallway in front of us. Mischa turned sideways so he could keep an eye on us and look for the source of the noise. “Is the blond vampire a good guy?” It was Edward. He was out of sight using some bit of cover in the hallway.
“Bad guy,” I said, and relief filled me like its own kind of magic.
The gunshot was loud and echoing in the hallway, and Mischa’s head exploded in a red mist. The body had started to fall when Edward stepped out of hiding dressed in full U.S. Marshal tactical gear. He gestured and the hallway was full of men in tactical gear. The cavalry had arrived.
48
Some of thepeople riding to my rescue were St. Louis SWAT, but one of them was nearly seven feet tall and that had to be Marshal Otto Jeffries, aka Olaf. Normally seeing him scared the hell out of me, but today I was happy to see him.
Richard kissed me on the cheek and said, “Go, I don’t have the training for this, I’ll help Ru.”
I loved him for acknowledging it and just telling me to go, that he’d help the wounded. It made me go up on tiptoe and kiss him on the mouth. It was sweet copper pennies and the taste of him. Then I led Goran forward, because he did have the training.
Then Deimos was inside my head whispering, “That was the master vampire…” and he kept talking in my head.
The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them, “You just got the master vamp. Great shooting, as always.” I was even smiling.
