"Just like that," Yakut replied, a slow smile teasing at the corner of his mouth. "One look at Mira, and the coward fled." Niko swore under his breath. "You were damn lucky," he said, finding it hard to reconcile that the sight of a mere child could cause such a distraction for what had to be a highly trained, expert assassin. It just didn't make sense.
Before he could point that out to Yakut, footsteps approached from the other end of the long room. Walking in ahead of the guard Yakut had dispatched was Renata and a delicate waif of a girl. Renata had shucked her weapons somewhere, but she strolled alongside the child protectively, her cool gaze wary as she brought Mira farther into the room.
Nikolai couldn't help staring at the girl's odd attire. The pink pajamas and bunny slippers were unexpected, but it was the short black veil that covered the top of her face that he found most jarring.
"Renata was reading me a story," Mira supplied, her soft voice chiming with a bright innocence that seemed so out of place in Yakut's crude domain.
"Is that so?" the Gen One asked, a slow reply that seemed directed more at Renata than the child. "Come closer, Mira. There is someone who wants to meet you."
The guard stepped back once Mira stood before Yakut, but Renata's booted feet held steady at the girl's side. At first Niko wondered if the child might be blind, but she moved without hesitation, walking the few remaining steps to where Yakut and Nikolai now stood.
The small head pivoted toward Nikolai without error. She definitely was sighted. "Hello," she said to him, and gave a polite little nod.
"Hello," Nikolai replied. "I heard what happened the other night. You must be very brave."
She shrugged, but it was impossible to read her expression when just her small nose and mouth were visible beneath the hem of the head covering. Nikolai looked at the young girl - the impish, three-and-a-half-foot waif who had somehow driven away a Breed vampire on a mission to kill one of the most formidable members of their kind. It had to be a joke. Was Yakut jerking him around somehow? What could this child possibly have done to thwart the attack?
Nikolai looked to Yakut, ready to call him out for what had to be a line of pure bullshit. There was no way in hell the attack could have gone down the way he'd described.
"Remove your veil," Yakut instructed the girl, as if he knew the line of Niko's thinking.
Her small hands reached up to grasp the edge of the short black strip of gauze. She swept the veil back off her face but seemed careful to keep her eyes downcast. Renata stood very still beside the child, her expression placid even while her fingers curled into fists at her sides. She seemed to be holding her breath, waiting with an air of wary anticipation. "Lift your eyes, Mira," Yakut commanded her, his mouth curving into a smile. "Look at our guest, and show him what he wants to know."
Slowly the fringe of dark brown lashes came up. The girl raised her chin, tipping her head up and meeting Niko's gaze. "Jesus Christ," he hissed, hardly aware that he was speaking at all as he got his first glimpse at Mira's eyes.
They were extraordinary. The irises were so white they were clear, as liquid and fathomless as a pool of colorless water. Or, rather, a mirror, he amended, looking deeper into them because he couldn't help it, drawn closer by the startling, unusual beauty of her gaze.
He didn't know how long he stared - couldn't have been more than a couple seconds at most - but now her pupils were getting smaller, shrinking down to tiny pin-pricks of black within the endless circle of silvery white. The color shimmered, rippling as though a breeze had skated across the tranquil surface. Incredible. He'd never seen anything like it. He peered deeper, unable to resist the strange play of light in her eyes.
When it cleared, Nikolai saw himself reflected there.
He saw himself and someone else...a woman. They were naked, bodies pressed together, sheened with sweat. He was kissing her heatedly, burying his hands in the dark glossy strands of her hair. Pushing her down beneath him as he thrust deep inside her. He saw himself baring his fangs, lowering his head and placing his mouth to the tender curve of her neck.
Tasting the sweetness of her blood as he pierced her skin and vein and began to drink -
"Holy hell," he ground out, tearing his gaze away from the startling, all-too-real reflection. His voice was rough, his tongue thick behind the sudden emergence of his fangs. His heart was racing, and farther down, his c**k had gone stiff as stone. "What just happened?"
Everyone was staring at him except for Renata, who seemed more concerned with helping Mira replace her veil. She whispered something in the girl's ear, soothing words, by the soft tone of them. Sergei Yakut's low, rumbling chuckle was echoed by a few amused chortles from the other men.
"What did she just do to me?" Niko demanded, not the least bit entertained. "What the f**k was that?"
Yakut leaned back in his chair and grinned like a tsar making a public joke of one of his subjects. "Tell me what you saw." "Myself," Nikolai blurted, still trying to make sense of it. The vision was so real. As if all of it were truly happening just then, not the mirage it had to be. God knew his body was convinced it was real.
"What else did you see?" Yakut asked blithely. "Tell me, please."
Fuck that. Niko mutely shook his head. He'd be damned if he was going to lay the whole salacious thing out for everyone in the room. "I saw myself...some vision of myself, reflected in the girl's eyes."
"What you saw was a glimpse of your future," Yakut informed him. He motioned for the girl to come to his side, where he wrapped his arm around her thin shoulders and pulled her close, like a prized possession. "One look into Mira's eyes and you see a vision of events in your life that are destined to come."