"Until recently, we didn't know where to find him, let alone know about his extracurricular activities. Even if we had, he was Gen One, and as much as we hated it, the Order wouldn't have been able to move on him without a lot of bureaucratic bullshit standing in our way."
Renata's thoughts grew dark, spinning back across the time she'd spent under Yakut's control. "There were times when Sergei drank from me...when he used me for blood, that I saw something monstrous in him. I mean, I know what he was - what all of your kind is - but once in while, I would look in his eyes and I swear there was no humanity in him. All I could see in his gaze was something truly evil."
"He was Gen One," Nikolai said as though that should explain it. "Only half of their genes are human. The other half are something...else."
"Vampire," she murmured.
"Otherworlder," Nikolai corrected.
He stared at her as he said it and Renata had the abrupt impulse to laugh. But she couldn't, not when his expression was so completely serious. "Lex loves to boast that he is grandson to a conquering king from another world. I always assumed he was full of shit. Are you telling me what he said is actually true?"
Nikolai scoffed. "A conqueror, yes, but not a king. The eight Ancients who arrived here thousands of years ago and fathered their young on human women were bloodthirsty savages, ra**sts...deadly creatures that decimated entire communities. Most of them were wiped out by the Order in the Middle Ages. Lucan led the charge against them after his mother was killed by the creature who fathered him."
Renata just listened now, too astonished to ask all the questions churning in her head.
"As it turns out," Nikolai added, "one of the Ancients survived the Order's war on them. He'd been placed in hiding by one of his sons - a Gen One vampire named Dragos. We have good reason to believe the Ancient is still alive today and that Dragos's last surviving son, his namesake and the bastard we intend to shut down, is just waiting for his chance to unleash him on the world." "Two years ago I was sure that vampires didn't really exist. Sergei Yakut changed my mind. He proved to me that vampires not only existed, but they were scarier and more dangerous than anything I'd seen in books or movies. Now you're saying there's something even worse than him out there?"
"I'm not trying to scare you, Renata. I just think you should have the facts. All of them. I'm trusting you with that."
"Why?"
"Because I want you to understand," he said, the words too gentle.
As if he were apologizing to her in some way.
Renata lifted her chin, a coldness settling in her chest. "You want me to understand...what? That the life of one missing child means nothing in light of all this?"
He cursed softly under his breath. "No, Renata - "
"It's okay. I get it now, Nikolai." She couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice, not even when she was still struggling to absorb all of the staggering things she'd just heard. "Hey, no big deal. After all, you never actually agreed to anything with me and I'm used to being let down. Life's a bitch, right? It's just good to know where we both stand before we let this thing go any further."
"What's going on here, Renata?" He stared at her, his gaze too penetrating, as if he could see right through her. "Is this really about Mira? Or are you upset because of what's been happening between us?"
Us. The word stuck in her brain like a foreign object. It felt so unfamiliar, so dangerous. Far too intimate. There had never been an "us" for Renata. She'd always depended only herself, asking nothing of anyone. It was safer that way. Safer now too.
She'd broken her own rule when she went after Nikolai to enlist his help in finding Mira. Look what it had gotten her: a festering gunshot wound, crucial time lost, and not a single step closer to locating Mira. In fact, now that word was certainly out about her abetting Nikolai in his escape from Fabien's custody, she stood little hope of getting close to the vampire on her own. If Mira was in danger before, Renata might have just made things worse for the little girl.
"I have to get out of here," she said woodenly. "I've lost too much time already. I couldn't bear it if anything happens to that child because of me."
Worry and frustration made her push off from the bed. She stood up - too quickly.
Before she could take two steps away from Nikolai, her knees turned to jelly. Her vision went dark for a second and suddenly she was sinking, pitching forward. She felt strong arms cushion her, Nikolai's voice quiet beside her ear as he scooped her up and lifted her onto the bed.
"Stop fighting, Renata," he said as she came out of her faint and blinked up at him. Poised over her, he smoothed the backs of his fingers along the side of her face. So tender, so calming. "You don't need to run. You don't need to fight...not with me. You're safe with me, Renata."
She wanted to close her eyes and shut out his gentle words. She was so afraid to believe him, to trust. And she felt so guilty accepting his comfort knowing that a child could be suffering, probably crying for her in the dark and wondering why Renata had broken her promise.
"Mira's all that matters to me," she whispered. "I need to know that she's safe, and that she always will be."
Nikolai gave a solemn nod. "I know how much she means to you. And I know how hard it is for you to ask for help from someone. Jesus Christ, Renata...you willingly risked your life to break me out of that containment facility. I 'll never be able to repay you for what you did."
She turned her head on the pillow, unable to hold his piercing gaze. "Don't worry, you're under no obligation to me. You don't owe me a thing, Nikolai."