“Anything else?” I asked.

“You’re wasting your time,” he said at last, gesturing to the people behind me. “With them. With this place. You should come with us to Novosibirsk. We’ll help make your life worthwhile.”

“I’m the only one who can make anything of my life.” I pointed down the street. “You were asked to leave. Now go.”

I held my breath, still bracing for a fight. After several tense moments, the group retreated. Before turning around, Denis gave me one last piercing look.

“This isn’t what you want and you know it. When you change your mind, come find us at 83 Kasakova. We leave at sunrise tomorrow.”

“You’ll be leaving without me,” I said.

Denis’ smile sent another chill down my spine. “We’ll see.”

CHAPTER 14

The encounter with Denis left me even more confused than before. It was a shocking illustration of Mark’s warning, an omen of what I too might become if I wasn’t careful. I wasn’t really the same as Denis, was I? I wasn’t aimlessly seeking danger. I was seeking danger… well, for a reason. I had to fulfill the promise I’d made to find Dimitri. Maybe it was suicidal and I was only deluding myself into thinking it was noble.

Viktoria left me little opportunity to ruminate. Later that evening, as the family was settling down in the living room after way too much food, she glibly asked Olena, “Can I go over to Marina’s? She’s having a party before we go back to school.”

Wow. It looked like Abe and the Alchemists weren’t the only ones keeping secrets around here. I glanced between Olena and Viktoria’s faces, curious as to how this would play out. Olena and Yeva were both knitting, but Yeva didn’t look up. Viktoria had spoken in English. Olena’s face turned thoughtful.

“You have to leave early tomorrow to go back to school.”

“I know. But I can sleep on the bus. Everyone else will be there tonight.”

“‘Everyone else’ isn’t a convincing argument,” scoffed Olena.

“They’ll all be tired tomorrow too,” replied Viktoria, grinning.

“You’ll miss your last night with Rose.”

“I’ll hang out with her after I get back.”

“Great. And stay up even later.”

“Not that late. I’ll be back by two.”

“Absolutely not. You’ll be back by midnight.” Olena returned to her knitting. But that had been permission if I’d ever heard it.

Viktoria looked at the clock. It was almost eight thirty. Her face told me she wasn’t happy about the curfew, but she apparently decided to take what she could get. Karolina gave us an odd look as we left the room but remained silent. Sonya and Paul, engrossed in TV, barely noticed our departure. I had to find out what was going on.

“Okay,” I said once we were heading upstairs, “what gives? I thought you weren’t going to Marina’s.”

Viktoria grinned and beckoned me into her bedroom. I’d recently learned her bedroom used to be Dimitri’s, and every time I was in here, I had to resist the urge to go bury myself in the bed, even though I knew the sheets had been washed countless times since those days. Somehow, I could imagine them smelling like Dimitri and feeling warm as though we were both lying there together.

“I’m not.” Viktoria began rifling through her closet and pulled out a short, sleeveless red dress with lace around the straps. The fabric was stretchy — the kind that looked like it’d show everything. I was shocked when she began putting it on. It was pretty trashy.

“Is this a joke?”

Nope. Viktoria took off her shirt and jeans and pulled the dress on. She had no trouble with it, but it was every bit as clingy as it had appeared. She wasn’t as filled out as I was on top, but in a dress like that, it didn’t matter.

“Okay,” I said, catching on at last. “What’s his name?”

“Rolan,” she said. “Oh, Rose. He’s amazing. And this is the last night I’ll get to see him before school.”

I didn’t know whether to feel happy for her or sad for Nikolai. This Rolan guy must have been the reason she couldn’t give Nikolai the time of day.

She was totally in love with someone else. Still, that dress…

“You must really like him,” I observed dryly.

Her eyes widened. “Do you want to meet him?”

“Er, well, I don’t want to interfere with your date…”

“You won’t. Just stop by and say hi, okay?”

It felt pretty intrusive, yet at the same time… well, I was kind of curious about a guy who could get her to leave the house in that kind of outfit, particularly when she started applying really heavy makeup: extra-dark eyeliner and bright red lipstick. So I agreed to meet Rolan, and we left the house as quietly as we could. Despite wearing a coat over her dress, Viktoria still didn’t want to run into her mother.

We headed downtown, following a few twists and turns until we ended up behind what looked like an ordinary warehouse in an abandoned part of town. All was quiet, but a tall, tough-looking dhampir stood by a door leading into the building, his arms crossed in front of him. Viktoria brought us to a halt nearby, saying we had to wait there. A minute later, a group of Moroi men of mixed ages wandered up, chatting and laughing. The dhampir gave them a once-over and then opened the door for them. Light and music spilled out until the door shut-and all went silent again.

“So this is Baia’s secret dhampir world,” I murmured. She didn’t hear me because suddenly, her face lit up.

“There he is!”

She pointed to two approaching guys. Both were Moroi. Well, who knew? Viktoria’s secret boyfriend wasn’t a dhampir. I guessed that wasn’t too shocking, really, though the way she’d dressed tonight still bothered me. She gave him a fierce hug and introduced us. His friend was named Sergey, and he smiled politely before hurrying inside where he was apparently meeting a girl too.

I had to give Viktoria credit: Rolan was hot. His hair was dark auburn, soft and wavy. The green of his eyes reminded me-painfully-of Adrian’s.

And when he smiled at Viktoria, it was dazzling. The look on her face was exactly like Nikolai’s whenever he was around her.

Rolan took a hold of Viktoria’s hands and brought them to his lips, kissing each one. Those green, green eyes gazed at hers, and he murmured something I couldn’t hear. She blushed and replied in Russian. I didn’t need any translation to know the content was sexy and flirty. Still smiling, he glanced over at me, and although she’d introduced us, it was like he was noticing me for the first time-and was interested.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” he asked.

Viktoria wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. “Rose is visiting. She’s a friend of the family.”

“Ah,” he said. “Now I remember hearing about you. I had no idea such a fierce Strigoi killer would be so beautiful.”

“It’s part of the job description,” I said dryly.

“Will you be returning to school with Viktoria?” he asked.

“No. I’ll be staying here a little longer.” I still had no clue, though, if “a little longer” was one hour or one year.

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. He looked back down at Viktoria and pressed a kiss to her hair, running his fingers along her throat. His next words were to her. “I’m glad you were able to come here before you left. I don’t know how I’ll get by with you so far away.”

She beamed. “There was no way I could leave without seeing you one more time…” She trailed off, too overcome with emotion, and as he leaned down, hand still on her throat, I thought for an awful moment that they were going to start making out then and there.

Fortunately, the appearance of an approaching dhampir girl interrupted them. Viktoria broke from Rolan and embraced the other girl. They apparently hadn’t seen each other in a while and chatted rapidly in Russian, ignoring Rolan and me. Free of her for a moment, he leaned toward me.