Dead Is The New Black

“You go, tovaritch. I will collect wreaths,” Dmitri offered, which I suppose was nice of him but not what I wanted to hear. Unfortunately for me, however, Darkheart accepted with alacrity and within minutes I was alone with Russia’s answer to Paul Bunyan, watching him de-festoon my apartment of wild garlic while I tried not to breathe in the, to me, nauseating scent of the small white flowers.

“You lie to sisters and grandfather,” Dmitri said without preamble as he deftly wound Darkheart’s garland lasso around one pumped forearm. His Siberian-blue gaze flicked to me before he turned his attention back to his task. “You have met Jasmine’s lieutenant, da?”

Now, along with the speaking-before-I-think thing I’ve developed growing up with Megan and Kat, I also credit them for my ability to lie at the drop of a hat. It’s a necessary talent, believe me, when you’re saddled with a sister who feels it’s her moral duty to force you to confess when you’ve had some unfortunate accident like breaking Grammie’s favorite Lladro figurine, and another sister who doesn’t see why she should take the heat for said Lladro breakage when she didn’t do it. So if Dmitri had thought he could startle me into the truth with his unexpected accusation, he was sadly mistaken.

“Of course I haven’t met him!” I said, putting a hefty amount of outraged virtue into my tone. “I don’t believe your nerve! What gives you the right to accuse me of lying to my family?”

“This is America, nyet? I have right to say truth when is in front of my eyes,” Dmitri replied, seemingly unperturbed by my impressive outburst. He finished winding up the garland and set it on the back of the sofa. “Besides,” he added calmly, “I cannot stand by and see future Gospozha Malkovich take dangerous risks.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in and when they did I thought I must have misheard him. “Gospozha? Isn’t that Russian for the missus?” I said dubiously.

His back toward me, he nodded as he untacked the last wreath from the window frame. “Da, is correct. From first time I saw you I had strong feeling inside me that you would lead me to my sud’ba, so must be that you and I will be couple one day. These strong feelings that come to me are never wrong,” he said, turning from the window and laying the wreath beside the garland. “My babushka was cygan and from her I inherit gift of knowing future.”

I held up a hand. “Whoa, nellieski,” I said firmly. “We’ve got a lost-in-translation situation happening here. I still think I must be wrong on the gospozha part, but forget that for a minute. What’s a sud’ba, who’s a cygan, and isn’t a babushka some kind of shawl for old ladies to wrap around their heads?”

“Sud’ba is fate. Cygan means in America gypsy, and babushka is grandmother. You are not wrong on gospozha.” His garlic-gathering completed, Dmitri stood facing me, his jeans-clad legs planted slightly apart on the cruddy carpet covering the living-room floor and his arms crossed over his chest so that his biceps came close to ripping the seams of his T-shirt’s sleeves. I was so rattled by what he’d just said that for a moment all I could think was that when he stood that way he looked exactly like the Jolly Green Giant, if the Jolly Green Giant wasn’t green, but blond and tanned and wasn’t jolly but about to stomp the tiny valley-dwellers by his feet to puree.

Then I got ahold of myself. “So when you first laid eyes on me half an hour ago, you knew you and I would do the till-death-us-do-part thing,” I clarified, “because your grandmother was a gypsy and you inherited her crystal ball abilities. Do I finally have it right?” I asked politely.

“Da, except first time I saw you was not half hour ago, but night of battle against Kane and his army,” Dmitri began, but at that point I dropped my pretence of politeness and let the fury that had been bubbling up inside me boil over in a scalding flood.

“Are you insane?” I yelled, striding toward him and grabbing him by his biceps. I tried to give him a shake, but it was like trying to shake concrete. My anger grew. “I don’t know you! I don’t want to know you! The only connection between you and me is that you’re using your family’s underworld contacts to look for my father and as far as I’m concerned, that’s no connection at all! So screw your sud’ba and the cygan it rode in on, Dmitri—not only won’t I be walking down the aisle with you anytime soon, but I want you out of my apartment right now!”

“Your act is good.” With a quick flexing of his muscles he broke my grip on him. “You shout loudly instead of answering my questions, but your anger is enough answer. You have met with vampyr called Lockridge. What I need to know now is whether he already has hold over you.” His gaze chilled to a subzero blue. “You have slept with him?”

My attempt to slap his face was a purely reflexive action, but his reflexes made mine look like I was moving through molasses. My hand was still inches from his cheek when I felt his grip wrap around my wrist. I glared at him, frustration mixing with my rage.

“Maybe it’s different in Russia,” I snapped, “but here in the good old U.S. of A. when a man deserves what’s coming to him he’s supposed to take it. Let go of my wrist, you lug.”

“Not until you answer, l’ubimaya,” he said evenly. “Is vital I know truth on this matter. Has he had you yet?”

The way he said it made it sound all earthy and raw and uncivilized, and suddenly there was something else mixed in with my anger and frustration.

Dmitri Malkovich was a pain in the butt. I didn’t want him in my apartment, I didn’t want him poking around in my life and I totally didn’t buy in to his crazy assertion that the two of us were bound together by some mystical gypsy fate. But there was no denying it, the man was incredibly hot, I thought as his gaze held mine. Every inch of him was solid muscle. His T-shirt fitted him like a glove, his jeans were taut in all the right places, and even though blond men weren’t usually my type I couldn’t help but appreciate how sexily his hair and eyes contrasted with his dark lashes and eyebrows and the tan of his skin.

A couple of hours ago I’d been drooling over the delicious Heath Lockridge. Now I was wondering how it would be with a hard, tall Russian. Not only was I turning into a vampire, I was well on my way to becoming a complete slut, I thought in selfdisgust, and it was all the fault of the man standing in front of me holding my wrist in his viselike grip.

Comrade Malkovich needed to be taught a lesson. Luckily, he’d handed me the perfect weapon for doing just that.

“Of course Heath’s had me, sweetie,” I said, channeling Kat at her most ball-breaking. I widened my baby-blues at him and gave my strawberry-blond curls a careless toss. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, seeing as how you say we’re fated to be an item, but he’s had me standing up, lying down and every which way in between. One thing puzzles me, though.” I tipped my head and scrunched up my nose adorably, as if I were struggling with a problem I couldn’t quite figure out. I felt Dmitri’s fingers tighten on my wrist, and hid my smile.

“What is this puzzling thing?” His tone was clipped. “Is it that you do not understand how you can find attraction to vampyr? Answer is easy. He uses glamyr against you to make you think you like being bedded by him. Is usual trick of undead to seduce—”

“Oh, he didn’t glamyr me into being bedded by him,” I said with a husky little laugh. “I practically threw myself at the poor man. I mean, he’s totally gorgeous and sexy and dreamy, so why wouldn’t I? No, what’s puzzling me is how in the world those Revolutionary War soldiers ever came to be known as Minutemen, because if Heath’s any example I think they should have been called Three-Hour Men. Or maybe All-Night-Long Men. Or—”

“Enough talk about vampyr who should have been dead two centuries ago,” Dmitri said hoarsely. “I show you what it is like having man with heartbeat make love to you, l’ubimaya!”

Okay, I know what you’re thinking and it goes something along the lines of, Girlfriend, how skanky can you get? You totally set up this situation so it would turn out exactly how it did, and to that my answer is, I did not. Not consciously, anyway, although I suppose somewhere in the murky depths of my mind I knew I was striking a match and tossing it into a big, exciting pool of gasoline. I will admit this: when Dmitri pulled me to him with a hoarse Russian oath and his mouth came down on mine, little Tashie Crosse sure wasn’t complaining for the first few minutes.

He kissed with the same single-minded determination he probably gave to bench-pressing small cars, and if that doesn’t sound all that sexy, just think about it. Here was this strapping hunk of blond male and every fiber of his being was concentrated on bringing me to miniorgasm with just his mouth and his tongue. And when I say his tongue, he didn’t use it merely to kiss me.

“First time I saw you, I thought you were warrior princess from Russian fairy tale,” he muttered against my lips. “You were staking vampyr during battle against Kane’s army. Your hair was like Siberian gold and that night you come to me in my dreams.”

He broke off to cover my mouth with his again, his tongue moving masterfully into me while his wide-spread hands slid over my arms to the buttoned vee-opening of my sweater. Before I could say, “Don’t snag the cashmere,” I realized he’d deftly slipped open the first three flower-shaped buttons and was using the same impressive sleight-of-hand to push the pink lace straps of my La Perla push-up bra off my shoulders. I broke off our kiss with a gasp.

“Tell me what happened between us in those dreams,” I said breathlessly, my knees turning to jelly and my top teeth sinking into my lower lip as a kaleidoscope of sensations swirled through me.

Call me psychic, but I bet I know what you’re thinking this time, too. Yes, asking Dmitri to get me all hot and bothered with the details of his wet dream about me didn’t exactly jibe with the fact that I’d been furious with him a few minutes ago.

Confession time, ladies…except if one word of this ever leaks out to Meg or Kat, I’m totally denying this conversation ever took place. So where was I? Oh, right—confessing. Well, the truth is that I’ve never really seen what the big deal is with sex.

And now I’ll give all of you a minute to pick yourselves up off the floor.

Everyone over their shock/hilarity/pity-mixed-with-a-smidge-of-revulsion? Good, because there’s an explanation for my lack of enthusiasm for the horizontal mambo, and that explanation can be covered in two words.

Word one: Todd.

Word two: Whitmore.

Okay, maybe it should be three words: Dr. Todd Whitmore, because even as I stood over the dust pile that had been Toddie on the night before Megan’s wedding-that-never-happened, holding the bedpost I’d just used to stake him with, I realized I’d never really been in love with him, I’d been in love with the idea of marrying an up-and-coming cosmetic surgeon.

And part of the reason I’d never been in love with him was that he was an absolute yawn in bed. He didn’t think so, of course. On the two dismal occasions we did it, Dr. Todd flailed away with all the spasmodic jerking of a landed small-mouth bass on a fishing dock until he sweatily collapsed on me. When he finally rolled off me he shot me a confident smile, told me I was one lucky girl and headed for the shower with an over-the-shoulder observation that he’d heard there were classes in oral sex for women these days, and had I ever thought of supplying myself with a couple of bananas and signing up for one.

Shortly after my second mind-numbingly boring encounter between the sheets with my fiancé, I informed him I’d decided our upcoming union was too sacred to be tainted by premarital sex. I realize now that he only let me have my way on that point because he was dropping his trousers for every nurse and female lab technician under the age of fifty in Maplesburg Hospital, and not getting it from me didn’t cramp his style in the least.

So anyway, with the late and unlamented Dr. Todd as my only experience with the wonderful world of carnal knowledge—I’m not counting the few inept episodes in the backseats of cars I had in high school—is it any wonder that lately my most fulfilling sexual encounters involved a vibrating bunny with purple vinyl ears?

Which brings me back to the epiphany I was having while Dmitri’s tongue brought me to the edge of something I’d previously dismissed as an urban legend, at least if we’re talking without Mr. Love-Bunny. That’s right, the Big O.

“Tell me what you did to me in those dreams, Dmitri, and don’t leave anything out,” I gasped. “I want to hear every X-rated detail.”

“X-rated is like Americanic movies with violence or sex, da?” he muttered as he bent his head to the hollow between my breasts. His tongue left a trail of heat where it touched me.

“Da,” I managed to say as I felt myself being swept closer to total surrender. With his head bent in front of me as it was, I could see the muscles of his back rippling beneath his hide like strong underwater currents. A smudge of something dark broke the even tan of his skin just past his hairline at the nape of his neck.

“I understand,” he said hoarsely, his breath against me sending minishockwaves through my nerve endings. “Increases pleasure, nyet? Is also same with me when I think of dream I had. You and I were in forest at dusk making love. I had taken off all your clothing and was standing over you…

“And then what?” I panted.

Dmitri lifted his head, his gaze like blue fire. “And then sun went below horizon and horde of vampyrs set upon us. I snatched up broken branch and used it as stake against them and when I had chance to look I saw you were doing same thing. Your hair was like gold crown around your head and your naked limbs were like palest Karelian marble, and you staked vampyr after vampyr with terrible mercilessness. You were magnificent, l’ubimaya. I woke up with sheets thrown off bed and great throbbing in—”

“What?” I asked, easing my grip on his shoulders and frowning at him.

“I wake up with great throbbing in my heart from knowledge I must see you again,” Dmitri said, his tone low and charged with emotion. He began to bend his head to my breast again, but I yanked up my La Perla bra straps and took a quick step back.

“No, the other part,” I said. “That’s what gets your rocks off about me—that I kill vamps?”

“Da.” He nodded, his eyes still lit with blue fire as he gazed at me. “You are not ordinary woman. You are brave, you are warrior, you are—”

“I’m a vamp,” I said flatly. “Or turning into one, at least. Since you’re so much in favor of staking them, I should be the last woman you’d be attracted to.”

“When time comes sister can perform Heal on you,” Dmitri asserted. “Will not interfere with our destiny, l’ubimaya. Is in your blood to kill vampyrs, just as is in mine. After we destroy Jasmine and her lieutenant we will look for others to wipe out. You and I will be perfectly matched team—both of us strong, both brave, both great fighters.”

“Well-matched, maybe,” I informed him, taking another step back. “Not a perfect match, though.”

He frowned. “I do not understand.”

I widened my eyes. “Well, if the two of us faced off, I doubt the fight would end in a draw. I mean, either you’d beat the crap out of me or I’d beat the crap out of you, right?”

The granite planes of his face relaxed into a faint smile. “We would never be on opposite sides, l’ubimaya. But if such impossible thing did happen, would not be fair fight. You are warrior princess, but I am big and strong man.”

“I guess you’re right, it wouldn’t be a fair fight,” I said, batting my baby blues at him. “Unless you even up the odds with a stake or some holy water, a contest between a vamp and a big Russian lug never is, but I’m still kind of eager to see how badly I can kick your ass, Dmitri.”

Even as his ice-blue gaze narrowed in sudden comprehension, I hauled off and socked him a good one on the side of his chiseled jaw.

Chapter 5

“Fuck!” Dmitri swore as he rocked back on his heels from my blow. I spared a split-second to note that he seemed to have at least one English word down pat before I pivoted sideways on the balls of my feet and slammed my elbow into his solar plexus. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

From the jarring impact I felt in my elbow he’d obviously had time to tighten his abs to steel-plate rigidity, but I could tell from the hiss in his tone that I’d knocked the air out of him. He lunged for me. “If it was something I said, let’s talk, but—” A shutter slammed down behind his eyes. As I dodged out of his reach he went on swiftly, “But this is complete bezumnyj! I do not even know what I have done to anger you. Did I misunderstand? Did you not want me to make l’ubov to you?”

“Oh, I wanted you to make loo-bov to me, all right,” I said tersely, bringing one leg in close to my body and then kicking it explosively toward him in a nifty maneuver I’d learned during the Unarmed Combat 101 classes Darkheart had put Megan and Kat and me through when he’d been teaching us to fight vamps. Sometime in the past few seconds I’d slipped out of my strappy Gina sandals, which was just as well for Dmitri because their wicked stilettos would have turned him into a man-size block of Swiss cheese within minutes. As it was, having my bare foot crash into his ribs like a piledriver merely sent him sprawling to the floor. “But let’s not talk about that right now. Tell me, comrade, what happened to the borscht-and-black bread accent a minute ago?”

While I was posing my question I reached down, intending to pull him up so I could take another punch at him, but this time he was ready for me. Bounding quickly to his feet, Dmitri struck my blow aside with one big hand. “I do not understand what you mean,” he said, scowling. “Natashya, this is total ridiculous and I will not fight you. Why are you doing this?”

“Good question,” I said, feinting a sudden movement to his left. He reacted as I’d hoped. As he stepped quickly to his right I brought my clasped fists up under the point of his chin. His head snapped back, and for a moment I saw anger flash behind the fake bewilderment of his gaze.

And he was faking—I knew that as unquestioningly as I’d suddenly known a couple of minutes ago that he was my enemy and had gone into attack mode on him. There was a difference between those two pieces of knowledge, however. The first had come to me when he’d slipped up and dropped his “must kill Moose and Squirrel” way of talking for a fatal second while he’d still been off-balance from my unexpected punch, but I didn’t have a clue as to what had set off the sudden alarm bells in my head while he’d been kissing me.

All I knew was that I hadn’t been able to ignore them.

“Enough!” When my clasped fists had made contact with his chin Dmitri had staggered backward a couple of steps. Now he steadied himself and his mouth drew into a grim line. “I have told you I will not fight you, l’ubimaya, but I cannot allow you to continue this foolish—”

“What does that mean, looby my-ah?” I interrupted. “No, don’t tell me, let me guess. Bitch?” My foot lashed out again, this time catching him squarely on the upper thigh. He inhaled sharply. “Is it another word for vampire? Or as you and Darkheart pronounce it, wampeer?” I said sarcastically. “Of course, you only say vampyr when you’re pretending to have trouble with the language, don’t you? Know what, handsome? I wouldn’t be surprised to learn you’re not even Russian.”

“Was born in Stalingrad, city of heroes,” Dmitri said stiffly. “Is insult you suggest this is lie, but I will forgive. L’ubimaya means sweetheart, and since this is how I feel for you I cannot let you continue doing things you will regret later. I am sorry, Natashya, but this is for own good.”

Why is it that when people tell you it’s for your own good, it always turns out to be something bad? I should have been expecting Dmitri’s sudden move but I wasn’t, which kind of bothers me when I reflect that “Shit, why didn’t I see that coming?” is probably the last thought a lot of vamps have before they’re swept into the big dust bin in hell.

And even though his plan was to immobilize me, not dust me, when the wild garlic lasso dropped over my head and shoulders and cinched tight around my upper body, pinning my arms to my sides, I still would have been in deep doo-doo…if it had worked.

“Nausea you feel is regrettable but unavoidable,” Dmitri said as he began walking toward me, reeling in the slack end of the garlic garland like a cowboy walking toward a roped steer. “In moment you will lose consciousness, so will not be so bad for you. Then I will call Darkheart and he will decide if is time to attempt Heal.”

“Is that Plan A?” I asked curiously. “Because if the whole thing hinges on the me-feeling-nauseous-and-blacking-out part, you’d better hope you have a Plan B, comrade.”

“What do you—”

I didn’t let him finish. Even as he took his next step toward me I grabbed hold of the woven strands of garlic that bound me and ripped them apart. Dmitri froze and his gaze met mine.

“It’s not possible,” he said tonelessly. “You’re a vamp, or near enough. Garlic’s your fucking kryptonite.”

“I know.” Deliberately I took a half step toward him and saw wariness flicker across his hard features. “I can’t explain it, either, especially since I felt like I was dying when Darkheart used it against me earlier this evening. But now…” I held up one of the tiny white flowers and inhaled deeply. Wrinkling my nose in distaste, I tossed the blossom aside. “Okay, I still think it smells yucky, but I never was all that crazy about garlic. The point is, it’s not kryptonite to me anymore. No wonder you’re worried enough to have forgotten to keep up your act, comrade,” I added, taking another step toward him.

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