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of the lodge.

    One of the Breed males on guard at the entrance came down the wide plank steps to open the back door of the sedan. Behind him a few paces stood another guard, this one holding a pair of leashed Russian wolfhounds. Their bared teeth gnashing, the big watchdogs barked and growled like savages until the moment Sergei Yakut came out of the car. The animals were as well trained as the rest of the vampire’s household:

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    one look from their master and they fell into an instant, submissive silence, massive heads held low as he and the warrior stalked into the house.

    The guard standing near the car closed the open back door and shot a questioning glance at Renata through the tinted glass of the window.

    Who the hell is that? was the obvious look on his face, but before he could motion for her to roll down the window so he could ask it, she put the sedan into gear and tapped the gas.

    As she eased the car off the gravel drive and took it around to the garage in back of the lodge, the pain and tension she’d been feeling earlier began to creep back into her body. She was tired from the whole confrontation tonight, her limbs and mind equally wrung out. All she wanted was her bed and a long, hot soak in the tub. She really didn’t care which came first.

    Renata had her own small quarters in the lodge, a luxury that Yakut did not afford any of the males who served him. Even Alexei bunked with the other guards in common quarters, sleeping on fur pallets spread out on the floor, like a garrison straight out of the Middle Ages. Renata’s room was only fractionally better than that: a narrow space big enough only for the twin bed, nightstand, and the trunk that held her meager clothing. A bathroom with a footed tub was located down the hall and shared with the only other female in Sergei Yakut’s charge.

    The amenities were rustic at best, as was the rest of the hundredyear-old log compound, and the furnishings were sparse. Not to mention a bit revolting.

    Although Yakut once told her he and his household had only been living there for the past decade, the old hunting lodge was filled with what seemed to be half a century’s worth of animal pelts, stuffed game, and mounted antlers. She assumed the taxidermy decor had belonged to the previous owner, but Yakut didn’t seem to mind sharing his home with all the morbidity. In fact, he seemed to relish the primitiveness of the place. Renata knew the Siberian vampire was older than he appeared—
    much, much older, as those of his kind often were. But it didn’t take a lot to imagine him clothed in skins and furs, armed with steel and iron, and wreaking bloody havoc on the defenseless villages of Russia’s remote northern regions. Time hadn’t smoothed away any of his edge, and Renata could testify firsthand to Yakut’s deadly nature.

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    That she could serve someone like that made her gut twist with regret. That she was pledged to protect him, to be loyal to him, both in thought and action, made her feel herself a stranger in her own skin. She had her reasons for staying—especially now—but there was still so much she wished she could change. So much still to regret…

    She pushed aside the thoughts that were too dangerous to even let form in her mind. If Sergei Yakut were to sense the slightest weakness in her allegiance to him, there would be swift, severe repercussions.

    Renata closed her door after she entered her room. She unfastened her weapon holsters and laid the guns and knives neatly on top of the old trunk at the foot of the bed. She ached all over, muscles and bones screaming from the earlier tax on her mind. Her neck was stiff, full of knots that made her wince as she tried to massage them away.

    God, she needed some peace from the pain.

    A gentle scratching noise started up on the other side of the wall. It grated in her ears like nails on a chalkboard, her head feeling as fragile as a glass bell.

    “Rennie?” Mira’s girlish voice