‘Sword?’
‘Yes. A wicked scimitar or a deadly katana. Whatever you like.’ His fangs scraped her skin, and she shivered with pleasure.
‘Very well.’ She thought of the hefty two-handed blade her former husband, Malkolm, had once wielded in his mortal occupation as a headsman. She’d always admired that weapon. She should have used it on him. She sniffed. Now was not the time for burdens of the past. She focused on the image in her head.
Tingles of sensation shot up her arm from her new hand. She held it up toward the light. What was happening? The tingles became pressure and her fingers fused together.
She inhaled, the bitter air of Zafir’s laboratory clogging her throat. ‘What the—’
‘Just wait,’ he urged. His grip tightened, as if he thought she might bolt. Or turn on him. Wise boy.
Her fingers melted into a solid shaft as they elongated into a polished knife, then longer still until the blade replicated the image in her head.
‘Unholy hell.’ She went utterly still, very aware that her mouth hung open.
He laughed softly, sending vibrations through her skin. ‘You should not doubt me in the future, my sweet.’ His hands slipped lower, only to climb again once he’d breached the hem of her blouse.
She pushed him away with her elbows and broke out of the embrace, all without taking her gaze off the sword extending out from her wrist. She slashed it through the air. Perfectly weighted. ‘Bloody amazing. How is this even possible?’
‘Does a magician tell his secrets?’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, such magic comes with a price.’
The blade glinted like sunlit water, but she managed to pull her gaze away to stare him down. ‘We discussed no price.’
He whispered something in Arabic as he pulled her into his arms again. The sword shrank back to a hand.
She arched a brow, warm tendrils of suspicion growing along her spine. ‘How did you do that?’
‘I am not a fool.’ He kissed her cheekbone.
Neither was she. The fact that he’d built in his own controls angered her beyond the point of reason. Red tinged her vision. Had Lord Ivan put him up to this? If so, they both deserved to die. No one dictated what she did. No one. ‘What is this price you speak of?’
‘The only payment I require is more of what you’ve already been paying me.’ He cupped her body against the hard lines of his own. ‘If Nasir could see me now, he would be very jealous indeed.’
Barely restraining the urge to tear his throat out, she tipped her head back to let him kiss her neck. How dare he think to control her? ‘Does Nasir know what you’ve done for me?’ She’d insisted their relationship remain a secret, telling him she wasn’t ready to be scrutinized by the rest of the nobility until her hand was restored.
‘Mmm,’ he hummed against her skin. ‘And give him a chance to tell me how I should be doing things? Laa, my darling, I’ve kept you for myself.’
‘Good.’ In that much, Lord Ivan’s assessment had been correct. Her metal fingers stroked Zafir’s chest, drawing circles over his unbeating heart. ‘There’s something you should know about me.’
‘What’s that?’ His hands strayed to her rib cage.
She straightened. ‘No one controls me.’ She’d had no control of her life as a mortal and had fought too hard to wrest control of her vampire life to have it taken from her now, no matter how small a thing it might be.
His face stayed buried against her neck, his mouth hungry on her skin. ‘Of course not, my precious.’
‘Remove the controls you built in.’
He laughed. ‘You think I’m a fool? To give you such power freely? No.’
She threaded her fingers into his hair and jerked his head back to look him in the face. ‘Bad decision.’ Her metal fingers stilled, pressing against his chest. She whispered, ‘Sword.’
Zafir’s eyes shot wide as the blade pierced him. He jerked once, then disintegrated into a small heap of ash.
Tatiana turned the sword back into a hand and shook her head at the sooty pile on the laboratory floor. ‘Let’s hope your brother’s not as stupid.’ She liked intelligence in her male companions, but not so much that their ambitions ran roughshod over hers. She needed devotion, not competition.
She tipped over a few Bunsen burners, staying long enough to be certain the blaze would devour all traces of her actions. Vampire law stated that killing another noble was an unforgivable crime. She’d come to believe the only real crime was getting caught.
She slipped out the door and pulled up the hood of her cloak, staying in the shadows of the small overhang. This part of Corvinestri was deserted as far as she could see down the cobblestone streets. Zafir was not a wealthy, high-ranking member of the St. Germain family, and his neighborhood reflected that, something that suited her purposes rather well.
Ensconced in a dark alley, she waited a little while longer until tongues of flames licked the windows. Lights came on in the house next door. Perhaps the stone wall adjoining the two buildings had already grown hot. From her hiding place, she scattered into a cloud of black wasps and resettled herself with great dramatic flair on Zafir’s doorstep.
She made a show of knocking. ‘Zafir? Zafir, are you home?’
After a moment of restless waiting, she banged on the door. ‘Zafir, you must get out!’
Neighbors began to trickle out of their homes.
Satisfied with the amount of witnesses, Tatiana tipped her head back and yelled, ‘Fire!’
‘I didn’t get anything. You?’ Mal leaned against the rusted railing of the old freighter. His gaze followed the silver ribbon of moonlight on the water, beyond the other abandoned freighters crowding the decaying port, past the expensive electric lights twinkling on the curve of shoreline where the wealthy mortals lived, and out into the great black sea.
