There was an almost excited gleam in his eyes as he spoke. I recalled Sydney describing him manipulating others, and I got the feeling this was what he lived for—negotiating, striking trades to get what he wanted.
“No,” I said. “I’ll leave when I’m ready. And there’s nothing you or whoever you’re working for can do about it.”
Hoping I appeared bold, I turned around. He reached out and grabbed my shoulder, jerking me back, nearly causing me to lose the groceries. I started to lunge forward in attack mode, but his guardians were right there in a flash. I knew I wouldn’t get far.
“Your time is up here,” hissed Abe. “In Baia. In Russia. Go back to the U.S. I’ll give you what you need—money, first-class tickets, whatever.”
I stepped out of his reach, backing carefully away. “I don’t need your help or your money—God only knows where it comes from.” A group of people turned the corner across the street, laughing and talking, and I stepped back further, certain Abe wouldn’t start a scene with witnesses present. It made me feel braver, which was probably stupid on my part. “And I already told you: I’ll go back whenever the hell I want.”
Abe’s eyes lifted to the other pedestrians, and he too retreated back with his guardians. That chilling smile was on his face. “And I told you. I can be a very good friend or a very bad enemy. Get out of Baia before you find out which.”
He turned around and left, much to my relief. I didn’t want him to see just how much fear his words had left on my face.
I went to bed early that night, suddenly feeling antisocial. I lay there for a while, flipping through another magazine I couldn’t read, and amazingly found myself growing more and more tired. I think the encounters with Mark and Abe had exhausted me. Mark’s words about staying had hit too close to home after my earlier conversation with Viktoria. Abe’s thinly veiled threats had raised all my defenses, putting me on guard against whoever was working with him to make me leave Russia. At what point, I wondered, would he truly lose patience and stop trying to bargain?
I drifted off to sleep and the familiar sense of an Adrian-dream settled around me. It had been a long time since this had happened, and I’d actually thought he’d listened to me when I’d told him to stay away before. Of course, I always told him that. This had been the longest time span to go by without a visit, and as much as I hated to admit it, I’d kind of missed him.
The setting he’d chosen this time was a piece of the Academy’s property, a woodsy area near a pond. Everything was green and in bloom, and sunlight shone down on us. I suspected Adrian’s creation didn’t match what Montana’s weather was really like right now, but then, he was in control. He could do whatever he wanted.
“Little dhampir,” he said, smiling. “Long time no see.”
“I thought you were done with me,” I said, sitting down on a large, smooth rock.
“Never done with you,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and strolling over to me. “Although . . . to tell the truth, I
did
intend to stay away this time. But, well, I had to make sure you were still alive.”
“Alive and well.”
He smiled down at me. The sun glinted off his brown hair, giving it golden-chestnut highlights. “Good. You seem very well, actually. Your aura’s better than I’ve ever seen it.” His eyes drifted from my face down to where my hands lay in my lap. Frowning, he knelt down and picked up my right hand. “What’s this?”
Oksana’s ring was on it. Despite the ring’s lack of ornamentation, the metal gleamed brightly in the light. The dreams were so strange. Even though Adrian and I weren’t together, exactly, the ring had followed me in and kept its power enough that he could sense it.
“A charm. It’s infused with spirit.”
Like me, this was apparently something he’d never considered. His expression grew eager. “And it heals, right? It’s what’s keeping some of the darkness from your aura.”
“Some,” I said, uneasy about his fixation on it. I took it off and slipped it into my pocket. “It’s temporary. I met another spirit user—and a shadow-kissed dhampir.”
More surprise registered on his face. “What? Where?”
I bit my lip and shook my head.
“Damn it, Rose! This is big. You know how Lissa and I have been looking for other spirit users. Tell me where they are.”
“No. Maybe later. I don’t want you guys coming after me.” For all I knew, they were already after me, using Abe as their agent.
His green eyes flashed angrily. “Look, pretend for a moment the world doesn’t revolve around you, okay? This is about Lissa and me, about understanding this crazy magic inside of us. If you’ve got people who can help us, we need to know.”
“Maybe later,” I repeated stonily. “I’m moving on soon—then I’ll tell you.”
“Why are you always so difficult?”
“Because you like me that way.”
“At the moment? Not so much.”
It was the kind of joking comment Adrian usually made, but just then, something about it bothered me. For some reason, I got the tiniest,
tiniest
feeling that I suddenly wasn’t as endearing to him as usual.
“Just try being patient,” I told him. “I’m sure you guys have other stuff to work on. And Lissa seems pretty busy with Avery.” The words slipped out before I could help it, and some of the bitterness and envy I’d felt watching them the other night laced my tone.
Adrian raised an eyebrow. “Ladies and gentlemen, she admits it. You have been spying on Lissa—I knew it.”
I looked away. “I just like to know she’s alive too.” As if I could go anywhere in the world and not know that.
“She is. Alive and well, like you. Er . . . mostly well.” Adrian frowned. “Sometimes I get this strange vibe off of her. She doesn’t seem quite right or her aura will flicker a little. Never lasts long, but I still worry.” Something in Adrian’s voice softened. “Avery worries about her too, so Lissa’s in good hands. Avery’s pretty amazing.”
I gave him a scathing look. “
Amazing
? Do you like her or something?” I hadn’t forgotten Avery’s comment about leaving the door unlocked for him.
“Of course I like her. She’s a great person.”
“No, I mean
like
. Not like.”
“Oh, I see,” he said, rolling his eyes. “We’re dealing with elementary school definitions of ‘like.’”
“You’re not answering the question.”
“Well, like I said, she’s a great person. Smart. Outgoing. Beautiful.”
Something in the way he said “beautiful” bugged me. I averted my eyes again, playing with the blue
nazar
around my neck as I tried to parse my feelings. Adrian figured things out first.
“Are you jealous, little dhampir?”
I looked back up at him. “No. If I was going to be jealous over you, I would have gone crazy a long time ago, considering all the girls you mess around with.”
“Avery’s not the kind of girl you mess around with.”
Again, I heard that affection in his voice, that dreaminess. It shouldn’t have bothered me. I should have been glad he was interested in another girl. After all, I’d been trying to convince him to leave me alone for a very long time. Part of the conditions of him giving me money for this trip had involved me promising to give him a fair shot at dating when—and if—I returned to Montana. If he got together with Avery, it would be one less thing for me to worry about.
And honestly, if it had been any other girl except Avery, I probably wouldn’t have minded. But somehow, the idea of her enchanting him was just too much. Wasn’t it bad enough that I was losing Lissa to her? How was it possible that one girl could so easily take my place? She’d stolen my best friend, and now the guy who’d sworn up and down that I was the one he wanted was seriously considering replacing me.
You’re being a hypocrite,
a stern voice inside of me said.
Why should you feel so wronged about someone else coming into their lives? You abandoned them. Lissa and Adrian both. They have every right to move on
.
I stood up angrily. “Look, I’m done talking to you tonight. Will you let me out of this dream? I’m not telling you where I am. And I’m not interested in hearing about how wonderful Avery is and how much better than me she is.”
“Avery would never act like a little brat,” he said. “She wouldn’t get so offended that someone actually cares enough to check on her. She wouldn’t deny me the chance to learn more about my magic because she was paranoid someone would ruin her crazy attempt to get over her boyfriend’s death.”
“Don’t talk to me about being a brat,” I shot back. “You’re as selfish and self-centered as usual. It’s always about you—even this dream is. You hold me against my will, whether I want it or not, because it amuses you.”
“Fine,” he said, voice cold. “I’ll end this. And I’ll end everything between us. I won’t be coming back.”
“Good. I hope you mean it this time.”
His green eyes were the last thing I saw before I woke up in my own bed.
I sat up, gasping. My heart felt like it was breaking, and I almost thought I might cry. Adrian was right—I had been a brat. I’d lashed out at him when it wasn’t really deserved. And yet . . . I hadn’t been able to help it. I missed Lissa. I even kind of missed Adrian. And now someone else was taking my place, someone who wouldn’t just walk away like I had.
I won’t be coming back
.
And for the first time ever, I had a feeling he really wouldn’t be.
THIRTEEN
T
HE NEXT DAY WAS EASTER. Everyone was up and around, getting ready to go to church. The whole house smelled delicious, filled with the scents of Olena’s baking. My stomach rumbled, and I wondered if I could wait until this afternoon for the huge dinner she’d prepared. Even though I wasn’t always sure about God, I’d gone to church a lot in my life. Mostly, it was a courtesy to others, a way of being polite and social. Dimitri had gone because he found peace there, and I wondered if going today might offer me some insight on what I should do.
I felt a little shabby accompanying the others. They’d dressed up, but I didn’t have anything other than jeans and casual shirts. Viktoria, noticing my dismay, lent me a lacy white blouse that was a little tight but still looked good. Once I was settled with the family into a pew, I looked around, wondering how Dimitri could have taken solace in the Academy’s tiny chapel when he’d grown up with this place.
It was huge. It could have held four chapels. The ceilings were higher and more elaborate, and gold decorations and icons of saints seemed to cover every surface. It was overwhelming, dazzling to the eye. Sweet incense hung heavy in the air, so much so that I could actually see the smoke.
There were a lot of people there, human and dhampir, and I was surprised to even spot some Moroi. Apparently, the Moroi visiting town were pious enough to come to church, despite whatever sordid activities they might be engaging in. And speaking of Moroi . . .
“Abe isn’t here,” I said to Viktoria, glancing around. She was on my left; Olena sat on my right. While he hadn’t struck me as the religious type, I’d kind of expected him to follow me here. I hoped that maybe his absence meant he’d left Baia. I was still unnerved by our last encounter. “Did he leave town?”
“I think he’s Muslim,” Viktoria explained. “But last I knew, he’s still around. Karolina saw him this morning.”
Damn Zmey. He hadn’t left. What was it he’d said?
A good friend or a bad enemy
.
When I said nothing, Viktoria gave me a concerned look. “He’s never really done anything bad when he’s around. He usually has meetings and then disappears. I meant it before when I said I didn’t think he’d hurt you, but now you’re worrying me. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Excellent question. “I don’t know. He just seems interested in me, that’s all. I can’t figure out why.”
Her frown deepened. “We won’t let anything happen to you,” she said fiercely.
I smiled, both at her concern and because of her resemblance to Dimitri in that moment. “Thanks. There are some people back home who might be looking for me, and I think that Abe is just . . . checking up on me.” That was a nice way of describing someone who was either going to drag me back to the U.S. kicking and screaming—or just make me vanish for good.
Viktoria seemed to sense I was softening the truth. “Well, I mean it. I won’t let him hurt you.”
The service started, cutting off our conversation. While the priest’s chanting was beautiful, it meant even less to me than church services usually did. It was all in Russian, like at the funeral, and no one was going to bother translating it for me today. It didn’t matter. Still taking in the beauty of my surroundings, I found my mind wandering. To the left of the altar, a golden-haired angel looked at me from a four-foot-tall icon.
An unexpected memory came to me. Dimitri had once gotten permission for me to accompany him on a quick weekend trip to Idaho to meet with some other guardians. Idaho wasn’t any place I was keen on going, but I welcomed the time with him, and he’d convinced school officials that it was a “learning experience.” That had been shortly after Mason’s death, and after the shock wave that tragedy had sent through the school, I think they would have allowed me anything, to be honest.
Unfortunately, there was little that was leisurely or romantic about the trip. Dimitri had a job to do, and he had to do it quickly. So we made the best time we could, stopping only when absolutely necessary. Considering our last road trip had involved us stumbling onto a Moroi massacre, this one being uneventful was probably for the best. As usual, he wouldn’t let me drive, despite my claims that I could get us there in half the time. Or maybe that was
why
he wouldn’t let me drive.
We stopped at one point to get gas and scrounge some food from the station’s store. We were up in the mountains somewhere, in a tiny town that rivaled St. Vladimir’s for remote location. I could see mountains on clear days at school, but it was a totally different experience being in them. They surrounded us and were so close it seemed like you could just jump over and land on one. Dimitri was finishing up with the car. Holding my sub sandwich, I walked around to the back of the gas station to get a better view.