Page 97 of Of Flame and Fate
“Are you crazy?” I glance at Breasha. “She’s a child!”
Breasha, who initially covered her face in horror brings down her hands, glaring at me with tremendous indignation. “I am fifteen,” she tells me in a thick Eastern European accent.
Misha’s shaking body forces my attention back on him. The bastard is straight up laughing. He rights himself in one easy move, leaving me holding the collar from his silk shirt.
“My son will not be born for another decade,” he says, like that’s supposed to excuse this.
“Or perhaps sooner,” Breasha adds hopefully.
I blink back at them, allowing the remains of Misha’s collar to fall to the floor. “Please tell me you’re not claiming this little girl as yours,” I demand, my temper rising.
Misha stops laughing and steps toward me, his expression absent of humor. No way. No freaking way is he doing this. “Celia is going to lose her shit when I tell her you’re hitting the middle schools for dates.”
“I amnothitting the middle schools—”
“I hope she shows up here and stakes your ass, you creepy bastard.”
“Taran, you will not tell her anything—”
“Oh, yes, I will.” I turn away and storm toward the exit.
Jeffrey– a newlyturnedvamp—steps in my path. “The master is not done speaking with you.”
I scream, my knees buckling when his hand clamps down on my shoulder. That same hand sizzles to a crisp when I release my lightning and shoot it across the length of his arm.
Jeffrey shrieks, as does Breasha, and the creepy woman dressed in black, when he smokes.
He wobbles backward, collapsing and kicking his feet in agony.
Misha, bless his heart, is kind enough to haul him up by the face. “I thought I made it clear the Wird sisters are not to be harmed,” he tells him, his voice calm and deadly.
Breasha and her guardian’s screams are only slightly overpowered by Jeffrey’s howls. Misha’s fingers dig deep, crunching the bones and caving in Jeffrey’s face.
“Misha, let him go,” I say.
He holds tight, not bothering to look at me. “No. He must answer for the insult.”
For touching me as Misha’s guest, and for threatening the mate of the Second in Command to the Pack. I understand the rules. It doesn’t make Jeffrey’s re-death easier to stomach.
Horrible plopping—Jeffery’s brains hitting the slate floor, I presume—precede the eruption of ash. I’m not watching, my concentration so fixated on the giant windows, I start to singe the glass. Jeffrey, being as young as he is, doesn’t need his heart destroyed to die, not with the force of his master bearing down upon him.
Instant silence is followed by two very hard thuds. I cringe, knowing no one bothered catching the future Mrs. Aleksandr or her escort when they fainted.
I lurch away, gagging at the lingering smell of Jeffrey’s cooking brains. Misha catches up to me in the garden. One minute I’m alone, the next he’s in front of me with his arms crossed.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I ask, glaring.
“I told you. Jeffrey must be punished for the disrespect he showed you,” he replies coolly.
I throw my hands out. “I meant Breasha. Damn it, Misha. She’s practically a little girl.”
“I’m aware of what she is, as well as how it appears. Don’t think I haven’t given her age any thought.” He watches me closely. “I’m a patient vampire, at almost three-hundred years of age, and with an eternity still ahead of me, years have become mere breaths to take. It’s for this reason, and more, I’m in no rush. My plan is to wait until Breasha is well into womanhood before I ask she bear my son.”
My heart thuds in sickening beats. “And how long will you wait to ask if you can deflower her?”
Misha’s gray eyes flash with anger, only to soften when he regards my features. “I don’t take women against their will,” he tells me. “If you must know, I’ve never bedded anyone younger than twenty-seven.” His eyes flash for a different reason. “Although I would have made the exception for your sister.”
Yeah, you would have. “Celia isn’t an option, Misha. She never was.”