From Russia With Fangs Read online

  She had to get moving. She needed to wash her hands, and shower. She should definitely remove the film of last night’s mascara from her eyelids. But first, maybe she should figure out who was downstairs, making her house smell like coffee.

  As she crept to her bedroom door, Irina tried to imagine who could be moving quietly in her kitchen. Despite growing up with full staff at each of their childhood homes, she and Sergei didn’t have a housekeeper. Sergei had insisted that Irina do the cooking and cleaning herself, to “teach her to be a proper wife to him,” though Irina had always suspected that he simply didn’t want any witnesses to his particular brand of spousal negotiations. Her father? Ilya certainly loved her, but he wasn’t exactly a hands-on parent. She got her birds and bees speech from the housekeeper, for goodness’ sake. Nikolai? He was a far more likely candidate. He would definitely be the type to show up at her door with tea and sympathy. But Nik was stuck in Chicago with their idiot brother. Franny? Her perfectly normal, Italian-to-the-bone best friend would have loudly announced her presence the moment she walked into the house. Galina would have crawled into bed with her and given her a much-needed dose of sisterly snuggling. She never would have allowed Irina to wake up alone.

  What if it wasn’t anyone she knew? What if the person who shot Sergei had snuck into her house?

  To make her coffee.

  Well, it didn’t make a lot of sense, but she wasn’t exactly operating on all cylinders at the moment.

  Should she grab something? A heavy object or something sharp? Sergei had a whole damn armory in the basement, but she couldn’t get to it because a) Sergei hadn’t trusted her enough to give her a key (with good reason) and b) the basement access was through the kitchen, which was where the coffee-making-possible-killer was currently puttering. She passed her open closet and grabbed her Black and Decker steam iron from the shelf.

  Skulking down the sweeping black staircase, she clutched the iron to her chest and poked her head past the black paneled pocket doors.

  Nothing.

  No Franny or Nik, or even Galina. No presumptuous barista serial killer. Hell, she couldn’t even see the coffee maker in her cozy white and blue kitchen. It was one of the few rooms in the house where Irina had some influence over the decorating, because Sergei spent almost no time in there. He demanded all of his meals be served in the formal dining room, with its blood red walls and black enamel James Bond villain dining table.

  “What are you doing?” a low voice whispered from behind her.

  Irina shrieked, spinning and raising her arm to backhand the intruder with her iron. Viktor easily sidestepped her swing and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her flush with his chest. He stared down at her with a bemused expression on his face, as if her attempt to pimp-slap him with a steam iron was adorable. It was the closest thing to an actual smile she’d ever seen on his face and she couldn’t help but stare at the strange transformation of his features. Instead of the expressionless statue, he seemed younger, sweet even—well, not sweet, but less shrouded in the “I’m twenty seconds from killing you with a popsicle stick” thing he usually projected.

  “Good morning,” he murmured. And the vibrations his rumbling voice sent through her chest were enough to make her nipples tighten and her knees buckle. His hand slid around her hip to keep her upright and it just happened to bring her that much closer to the denim-covered bulge in his jeans. Irina lost her grip on the iron and it careened into the floor, breaking her from her cock-addled fugue state.

  “What is wrong with you?” she exclaimed, suddenly smacking his arm with her free hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not looking the least bit so. “I heard you coming downstairs and wanted to check the blinds. There are a few reporters camped outside and I didn’t want them getting a shot of you in your pajamas.”

  Reporters. Camped outside her house. Because her husband was dead. And she was standing here ogling another man. Right.

  The jolt of adrenaline seemed to have righted the misfiring synapses in her brain, giving her just enough self-awareness to realize she was wearing kiddie jammies and day-old makeup in front of the man who’d made her panties wet the night before.

  “Thank you,” she said, inclining her head with as much grace as she could manage. “How did you get in? There’s a security system. A really expensive one.”

  “Your father gave me the codes last night when I brought you home.”

  “You brought me home?” She glanced down at her pajamas. “So you changed my clothes?”

  Viktor nodded, pouring a cup of coffee and sliding it across the counter toward her. “You were exhausted to the point of being incoherent, but you were aware enough to complain about your dress cutting into your sides and something about Spanx? So I didn’t want to let you sleep in it.”

  “You saw my Spanx?” she asked.

  “Not if that upsets you…” he said, leaning out of face-scratching distance, just in case.

  Irina groaned. This was such an inappropriate conversation for a new widow to have. But she couldn’t help but feel that if she’d met Viktor under different circumstances…If she was just some woman he met while waiting in line at Starbucks, and he wasn’t a supernatural killer hell bent on protecting her from her father’s enemies, they might have had some storybook meet-cute, followed by sparkling conversation and dinners out that didn’t involve firearms. There was a spark between them, chemistry, lightning in a bottle. But she was a crime boss’s daughter, and he was a supernaturally gifted hit man who worked for said crime boss. She needed to wake up and smell the wolfsbane. Viktor was off-limits.

  “Has my sister been here?” Irina asked, clearing her throat.

  “She said she would come by first thing this morning,” he said, reaching into the fridge for the hazelnut creamer she kept there. She might wonder how he knew the creamer was her favorite coffee treatment, not Sergei’s, but she was sure there was an upsetting, “because he smelled it on her with his werewolf super-senses” explanation she was not ready for at this hour.

  “How are you?” he asked quietly as she stirred creamer and sweetener into her coffee.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That seems normal enough.”

  “Nothing about my life is normal,” she mused.

  Viktor cleared his throat. “Your father has asked me to stay here with you for the time being. He doesn’t trust anyone from Sergei’s circle to watch over you. He asked me to tell you that you are welcome to stay with him at the big house at any time.”

  Irina smirked. “Meaning, I am summoned to stay with Papa at the big house?”

  “Take it any way you want,” he said. “I’m just the messenger.”

  “You don’t have to stay here with me. I’m sure it will be fine,” she assured him. “We have the security system, which I will be changing the codes for when you leave. I don’t need a full-time protection detail.”

  “Well, I think we both know that’s not up to you,” he said, making her grunt in a most unladylike fashion. “I know you told the police you didn’t see anything last night, but do you remember anything odd? Anyone out of place?”

  She shook her head. “My husband made a lot of people angry and it caught up with him. It would be easier to narrow down people who didn’t have a reason to shoot him.” She took a long draw from her coffee cup. “Actually, now that I think about it, Sergei acted like he’d been injured last night. Did you notice that? Right before he dragged me off the dance floor—”

  Away from you. Out of your arms. Away from the scent that had me dripping down my thighs, her cruel brain added silently. Her brain was a jerk.

  Viktor nodded. “He had bruises on his neck and he was babying his side.”

  “I thought maybe the cocktail waitress he’d snagged had beaten him up, but maybe it was someone from one of the other families?” Irina guessed.

  “You knew about the cocktail waitress?” Viktor asked, his smooth brow furrowing.

  “I�
��m human. I’m not an idiot,” she told him. She could see a flicker of confusion cross his stark features, and she knew that he’d forgotten, for a moment, that she was human, the adopted daughter.

  Irina couldn’t remember her mother. From what she could remember of her biological father, Pavel, he had been handsome, smart, and charming. He also happened to be a degenerate gambler. Even when she was a toddler, Pavel frequently left Irina sitting outside whatever room he happened to be playing cards in, whether it was in a bookshop or bar, for hours while he gambled. Ilya frequented these establishments while collecting his protection money. As she was growing up, he told her about seeing her, sitting there on the floor, poring over a book of old Russian fairy tales. He would crouch down next to Irina and tell her how smart and special she was. Ilya promised her that he would make sure that Irina went to a good school, even if Pavel couldn’t afford to send her. He gave Irina his card with all of his phone numbers, and made her promise to keep it in her coat pocket, in case she ever needed him.

  Unfortunately for Irina, Pavel had a losing streak about a mile long. By the time she was six, he’d already sold off most of their furniture, her dead mother’s jewelry, their car. So when he had a “good feeling” about a straight flush, he bet Irina. He figured she was worth about five thousand. The other men in the game had been horrified that Pavel was willing to gamble away his little girl. But Ilya insisted that the play be allowed to continue. Even though Pavel won the hand, Ilya forced him to sign over custody of Irina—at gunpoint—that very day. He said that Pavel couldn’t be trusted with such a treasure. He knew Pavel would do something like that again if Irina stayed with him, so he took Irina away and flew her to Seattle to live with his family.

  Irina had been grudgingly accepted by Mama Katrina, and even less so by the Organistaya. But Irina’s handling of the tragedies the Sudenko family had suffered over the years eventually won the reluctant respect of the women of the first circles. To some degree, she would always be an outsider. But on the other hand, she was stronger for having to use her wits to survive the treacherous waters of her family’s world without relying on super-senses.

  “I didn’t need a werewolf nose to smell what his skanks left on him. But I also knew that there wasn’t much I could do about it. I had no illusions about my marriage, Mister—Ugh, I don’t even know your last name.” She groaned and scrubbed her hand over her eyes.

  “It’s Zhukovsky,” he told her. “But considering everything that’s happened, why don’t we stick with Viktor?”

  Irina cleared her throat. “About that,” she said. “I wasn’t exactly myself last night…or this morning, so my reactions weren’t exactly…”

  Viktor’s full lips twitched into a smirk. “I was talking about you trying to smash my head in with an iron. What are you talking about?”

  She lifted an eyebrow. But before she could respond, she heard the security system beep and the front door open. “I’m here!” Galina called. “And I brought Franny! And cinnamon rolls! But mostly, Franny!”

  Irina’s gorgeous, golden baby sister bustled into the kitchen, wearing a green sweater, jeans and high-heeled boots like it was haute couture. Still, it was a step down from the slick power suits and designer stilettos she favored while working as an assistant curator for the Seattle Museum of Art. Franny was dressed for working at her dental office, with Dr. Francesca M. Valenti, DMD stitched carefully over her heart. Her pale blue scrubs sparked uncomfortable reminders of Irina’s previous evening at the hospital.

  “It’s good to know where I rank compared to breakfast pastries,” Franny muttered, wrapping her long arms around Irina. “How are you doing, kid?”

  Irina glanced at Viktor, who excused himself to the living room. Franny shot Irina a significant look, which Irina ignored. “Would it be wrong to say ‘relieved’?”

  “Not to anyone who’d met Sergei,” Galina deadpanned, pouring coffee for herself and Franny.

  “Galya,” Irina admonished. “We can’t talk like that. It’s too soon.”

  “Why the hell not? Do you think Viktor’s going to tell on us?” Galina snickered, glancing toward the living room, where Viktor stood. “Look, Irina, whoever shot Sergei did you a big favor. I know you have to put on a proper public show and be the tragic widow for a while. But in private, here with us, we expect you to actually have feelings. Sergei was horrible to you. You were miserable. Now he’s dead, and you have the chance at being happy. If you waste that because you’re feeling guilty, I’m going to have to beat your ass like I did when we were kids.”

  “Okay, first of all, you had werewolf strength on your side,” Irina sniped, pointing her finger in Galina’s face. Galina gave a half-hearted snap of her teeth, as if she was going to bite off Irina’s fingertip. Irina flicked her nose. “And second, I don’t feel guilty right now. I feel sad and numb, like I shouldn’t feel anything. Not because I’m in mourning, or because I’m going to miss Sergei. I’m sad because the last few years of my life seem like such a waste. Scared because I don’t know what my role is now and I’m afraid of how that might change. But mostly, I’m grateful because it’s over…wait, no, I lied, there’s the guilt.”

  Galina reached casually over the counter and smacked Irina’s arm. “Ow!”

  Franny nudged the cinnamon roll on Irina’s plate in front of her. “Eat.”

  Irina glanced at the pastry with a grimace. Her stomach rebelled at the thought of food. But she began the process of picking it apart to make it look like she’d consider the idea.

  “It’s all over the news, Rina,” Galina said, digging into her second cinnamon roll. “Papa’s beside himself, worrying about you here alone. So if you’re not willing to move back into your old room, you better just accept whatever muscle he sends your way.”

  “If the muscle looks like that one, I would just say thank you and send your father a gift card or a fruit basket or something,” Franny said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the living room.

  “Franny,” Irina whispered. “Werewolf hearing!”

  “Oh, come on, a man like that knows he’s hot. With his werewolf nose, he can probably smell the pheromones rolling off of us.” Franny rolled her eyes, digging into her cinnamon roll.

  Irina sighed. Sometimes, she questioned the wisdom of letting Franny in on her family’s secret.

  “Anyway,” Galina interjected, glaring at an unrepentant Franny. “The next couple of days are going to be a circus. The funeral will be held on Friday. Mama Anya has already called Papa to let him know the arrangements have been made at Kandinsky’s.”

  “Wow, she works fast,” Irina murmured. She thought about the potential loss of face in the circles, if she were seen being usurped in her widow’s role. But honestly, she couldn’t give less of a damn at the moment. “Let her have it. A man should be buried by someone who loves him, even an asshole like Sergei. I’m not going to fight it.”

  “I figured you’d be all noble about it,” Galina huffed, though there was warmth in her exasperation. “And it does give Nik and Alexei time to get home. Nik says he loves you and as soon as this shitstorm passes, we are going to party like it’s New Year’s.”

  “That seems so wrong,” Irina sighed. “But I have the feeling I’m going to need it.”

  “Well, now that we’ve discussed the trivial stuff, let’s focus on what’s important.” Franny sniffed. “What are you going to wear to the funeral?”

  Irina giggled and thought about the contents of her closet. With the exception of the pajamas and yoga pants she bummed around the house in, everything in her closet was red. Sergei had insisted, even though red clashed with her strawberry-blond hair. The first year they were married, he’d slowly weeded anything that wasn’t red from her work and social wardrobes. He said it would be her signature, and by that, he meant it would be his signature, the pretty wife in the show-stopping red clothes. And she wasn’t about to fight through the throng of reporters just to shop for a damn funeral dress.

&
nbsp; Irina grinned, a hint of the wicked girl Galina and Franny had once known peeking past the proper volk zhena shell. “Well, Sergei always did like me in red.”

  3

  Cinderella Dressed for the Funeral

  GALINA AND FRANNY had been just a little too supportive of her “wear a red dress and dance on Sergei’s grave” plan. They’d spent the morning selecting the perfect dress from her wealth of slinky red numbers. Their final choice was a low-cut raw silk sheath that ended at the knee, with just enough tailoring at the waist and back to cling to Irina like a second skin. Galina promised to make an emergency shoe run to Nordstrom after a meeting she had planned with Papa, and returned the next day with sparkly red Steve Madden platforms. And Franny insisted that if she was going to wear sparkly shoes, jewelry would be an essential component of her funeral ensemble. So they’d shanghaied poor Ivan, one of Irina’s employees from the jewelry store, to bring Irina a few “understated” ruby bracelets and earrings that went with her diamond collar. It was like being dressed by a pair of evil fairy godmothers.

  Even if the color did clash with her hair, Irina was a knock-out, strolling calmly into Kandinsky’s Funeral Home on her father’s arm, with Viktor trailing behind them. Galina and Nik were already there, trying to manage a twitchy Alexei, whose face went shell-shocked as his sister walked in. In fact, conversation and movement among the mourners stopped as Irina entered. Galina grinned evilly and gave her sister a wink, while Irina fought to keep her face impassive.

  The werewolves present were a Who’s Who of the supernatural underground. The Volkovs, of course, were out in full force. They weren’t particularly bright or bold. They had made their money in the most predictable manner—drugs, protection money, stolen electronics—and kept it by brute force. But, over the years, they’d lost touch with the more innovative ways to steal and were going into decline. The sly, but generally ineffective Oniayevs always seemed to be on the verge of making a move on some other family’s territory, but never quite worked up the nerve. The Demenskys tended toward more cerebral pursuits like fraudulent werewolf mail-order brides and selling stolen artifacts from ancient supernatural civilizations. They were always perfectly polite, but Papa considered them condescending and one step below the pseudo-intellectuals that plagued the local open mic poetry nights.