In the safety of the Romanov home, Gregori made his way unerringly to the papers crudely hidden beneath the floorboards. Mikhail took the old photographs and the bundle of papers without even glancing at them. “Tell me everything in his mind.”
Gregori’s silver eyes glittered dangerously. “A man named Slovensky, Eugene Slovensky, is a member of a secret society dedicated to wiping out vampires. Von Halen, Anton Fabrezo, and Dieter Hodkins are the so-called experts who investigate and mark victims for kills. Slovensky recruits, and confirms and records kills.”
Mikhail swore softly, eloquently. “Another vampire hunt will destroy our people.”
Gregori shrugged his massive shoulders. “I will hunt and destroy these men. You take Raven and go far from this place.
I feel your protest, Mikhail, but it is the only way, and we both know it.”
“I cannot trade my happiness for your soul.”
The silver eyes moved over Mikhail, then sought the night. “There are no other choices left to us. My only hope of salvation is a lifemate. I no longer feel, Mikhail; I fulfill my needs. There are no longer desires of the body, only of the mind. I cannot remember what it is to feel the things you feel. There is no joy in my life. I simply exist and do my duty toward our people. I must have a lifemate soon. I can only hold out a few more years; then I will seek eternal rest.”
“You will not seek the sun, Gregori, not without coming to me first.” Mikhail held up his hand when Gregori would have protested. “I have been where you are, alone, the monster in me struggling for dominance, the stain on my soul dark. Our people need you. You must remain strong and fight the monster crouching so close.”
Gregori’s silver eyes glittered dangerously in the darkened room, pale and menacing. “Do not overestimate my affection or loyalty. I must have a mate. If I feel something, anything—lust, possession, anything—I will take what is mine and dare anyone to take her from me.” Abruptly Gregori’s large frame shimmered, dissolving into water crystals, and streamed from the house out into the welcoming arms of the night. Let us leave this house of madness and death. Perhaps it is the tainted blood I took into my body speaking.
With a sigh, Mikhail followed Gregori into the night. The twin ribbons of vapor glinted in the moonlight, joined the tendrils of fog rippling several feet above the forest floor. Anxious to return to Raven, Mikhail streamed through the trees toward the clearing that separated the houses from the deep forest. As he flowed past the priest’s cabin and into the meadow, his mind rippled with uneasiness. The warning jarred enough that he retreated back to Father Hummer’s home and, in the shelter of the trees, took back his human form. His mind touched Raven’s. Nothing threatened her.
“What is it?” Gregori materialized beside Mikhail.
They scanned the immediate area for danger. It was the soil that told of violence—trampling boots, droplets of blood.
Mikhail raised stricken eyes to Gregori’s pale ones, and they both turned simultaneously to look at the cabin of his old friend.
“I will go first,” Gregori said, with as much compassion as he was capable of interjecting into his voice. He stepped smoothly between Mikhail and the entrance to the priest’s home.
The neat little cabin, so comfortable and homey, had been destroyed, ransacked. The simple furniture was broken, the curtains askew, old pottery dishes smashed. The priest’s precious books had been torn, his pictures slashed to ribbons. Father Hummer’s herbs, so carefully kept in tins, lay in a heap on the floor of the kitchen. His thin mattress was in scraps, his blankets shredded.
“What were they looking for?” Mikhail mused aloud, wandering around the room. He stooped to pick up a rook, curling his fingers around the familiar chess piece. There were bloodstains on the floor, on the old carved rocking chair.
“There is no body,” Gregori pointed out unnecessarily. He reached down and picked up a very old leather-bound Bible. The book was well worn, the leather shiny where the priest’s fingers had so often held it. “But where there is stench, there is a trail.” Gregori handed Mikhail the Bible, watching as their prince wordlessly slipped the book under his shirt, against his skin.