I arranged my face to look surprised at such an idea. "I think that's stretching things a little, don't you?"

"Perhaps," Frederic said, moving quickly to my side. Before I could object, he swept back my hair and examined the side of my neck. "But not so unlikely as you might imagine. You are aware of the mark you bear here, Zorya Pia?"

"A mark? She bears a mark?" Kristjana said, half standing.

"It's just a hickey," I protested, pushing Frederic back and getting to my feet. "A love bite, if you will. Not a vampire bite."

"She does! She bears the mark," Kristjana said, throwing down her pen and starting toward me.

Suddenly worried, I backed up, holding out my hands as if to ward them off. "You people are blowing a little bite way out of proportion—"

"Pia Thomason," Frederic said, cutting across my protest as the three of them closed in around me. There was something in his voice, some indefinable note that held a compulsion with it. Despite my desire, I found myself meeting his gaze, my eyes locked to his as he stalked toward me. "You will answer my questions truthfully."

"I… I…" I reached out behind me, part of my mind screaming for me to run, the other part calmly agreeing that whatever Frederic wanted was for the best.

The three people stopped in a semicircle around me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Magda beyond them, her face pinched with worry.

"You will answer my questions," Frederic repeated, his gaze pinning me back like a bug on a board.

The hairs on my arms stood on end as I fought the compulsion that washed over me like waves of pounding intention.

"Yes," I said against my will.

"The man you were with last night, he was a Dark One, was he not?"

"Yes," I heard myself answer, as if from some great distance. I wanted desperately to get away, to run from the suddenly scary man, but he held me prisoner with just the force of his will.

Magda gasped.

"You knew he was a Dark One and you provided him access to the Zorya Anniki," Frederic said, more a statement than a question.

"No." I shook my head. "I didn't know until this morning about him being a vampire."

"Why did Anniki come to your room?" Frederic asked.

"I don't know. I really don't know. Maybe because I was the only one she'd talked to last night?"

Frederic was silent for a moment. I was aware of the others, but couldn't seem to drag my eyes from his to look at them. "Where is the Dark One now?"

"I don't know. He left just like I told you—sometime in the night."

His gaze bored into me with a sensation of stripping away all my thoughts and revealing my innermost self. I wanted to squirm away, to stop the examination, but was powerless against his will.

Suddenly he turned away, evidently satisfied with what he'd seen. I slumped against the wall, sliding to the floor in a boneless heap as he returned to the desk, absently picking up one of the sheets upon which Kristjana had been writing. "I believe that will be enough. We will hold the marriage ceremony immediately, so as not to delay your initiation."

Magda rushed to my side and squatted next to me, her face filled with concern. "Are you all right?"

I nodded, my arms and legs feeling shaky in the aftermath of Frederic's display of power.

"You will allow this to go forward?" Kristjana asked, storming over to the desk and slamming her hands down on it. "She is tainted by a Dark One!"

"Tainted? No. Used, yes. but perhaps that can be to our advantage. She has a knowledge of the one who killed the Zorya. We will use that to find him."

"I will not allow this!" Kristjana declared, anger crackling off her. "I will not allow her to pollute the office of Zorya."

"You have no right to refuse her," Frederic said calmly. "She was chosen by the Zorya. A blood pact was created between them. That must take precedence over the fact that she was soiled by a Dark One."

"Gee, thanks," I said wryly, getting to my feet with Magda's assistance. "You really know how to make a girl feel special."

No one paid any attention to me until my stomach growled so loud it was audible to all.

"My word is final," Frederic said, leveling a stern look at Kristjana. "Unless you wish to challenge it?"

I thought for a moment that she might do just that, but after a few moments of her jaw working tightly, she fisted her hands and jerkily shook her head. "It shall be as you order."

Frederic smiled, and I was amazed at how ordinary he appeared. A few minutes before, he'd held me prisoner against a wall, using nothing but his own personality, and now he looked like a perfectly normal middle-aged accountant. "I would suggest you feed your bride before the ceremony, Mattias. We wouldn't want her fainting away before the vows were complete, would we?"

Chapter 10

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Magda asked an hour later as I hoisted myself onto the windowsill of a large house that sat directly behind the church used by the Brotherhood. "I don't think your husband is going to like you missing your wedding night. Your second husband, that is, not your first."

I grimaced and let myself drop to the ground, oofing as quietly as I could. Magda's feet appeared next to my head. Hurriedly, I moved out of the way so she could climb out. "My husband has nothing to say about it. Either one of them. And as far as the latter one goes, I told him I was too tired to play house tonight, and wanted to sleep."

"He bought that?" she asked in disbelief.

"He had no choice." I gave her a quick smile. "One of the perks of being Zorya is that he pretty much has to do what I say."

"Hrmph."

"I will say that I'm glad the Brotherhood folk were content with their version of a marriage ceremony rather than a civil ceremony, because I really would have hated to explain to them why they couldn't take out a marriage license in my name. You really want to do this? Audrey and Ray must be worried about where you've been all night."

Magda brushed off my concerns and led the way out of the tiny yard to the street, being careful to stick to the shadows. "I called them while you were chatting with your hubby, and told them I'd see them in the morning."

"Can we drop references to Mattias as my husband? It makes me feel… I don't know, uncomfortable somehow. As if I'm doing something underhanded. Which I realize is silly because that's exactly what I am doing."

"Except you're doing it for a good reason," she said, completing my thought. We paused at an intersection, carefully eyeing the streets for signs of police, tour members, Brotherhood people, or incredibly handsome vampires. "So it really doesn't count as a sin, if that's what's worrying you."

We hurried across the street, heading toward the section of town where our hotel was located. Luckily, at that time of night, there wasn't much traffic, either pedestrian or vehicular. "I'm not overly concerned about sinning—I just don't want them to find out the truth and hack off my head or burn me at the stake, or whatever it is they do to people they think have signed on with the enemy. Which is just one more reason why I wanted to get away tonight—if something happens to me, I don't want them coming down on you."

"Pfft," she said dismissively, giving me a friendly little shove. "What's a friend for if not to face almost certain death with, eh?"

"A worthy attitude, but you don't know to what lengths these guys will go," I answered, rubbing my arms. "That little chat I had with Mattias after the ceremony wasn't just to discuss the sleeping arrangements. Did you know that even though Anniki picked me to be her successor, and I have ghostly charges and such, I'm still not officially recognized as Zorya? Evidently they have to conduct some sort of recognition ritual where the Brotherhood people assemble to acknowledge me. Only after that is over will I be able to take the ghosts to their destination."