Petro. Misha’s so-called brother. The so-called weakling.
Good God. Never underestimate the underdog.
Petro carved into Misha’s body with an arc of his hand, appearing more an artist painting a masterpiece than a monster cleaving into a being who breathed and hurt.
Petro glanced over his shoulder. The polite smile he usually demonstrated was gone, replaced by one so filled with malice, I wanted to cringe from it. Except the growing need to make hamburger out of his throat kept my gaze locked on his jugular. No, Petro wasn’t weak. He was simply a master manipulator and one hell of an actor.
“Good evening, Celia.” He stepped aside, giving me a full view of Misha. My heart clenched. I tried to look away, but my captor yanked my head back so I could take in the state of my guardian angel.
Misha’s head drooped against his chest, draping his blood-soaked hair against his knees. Droplets of red fell like rain against the dark marble floor. He wheezed with every ragged breath. The hilts of two gold daggers protruded from his thighs, anchoring him into the large wooden throne and sending the cursed gold to poison his blood. Like the damn gold chains wrapped around his open, nonhealing wounds weren’t enough.
Misha slowly raised his head—a miracle, considering Petro’s efforts should have killed him by now. Petro had made mincemeat of Misha’s once beautiful face. His strong gray eyes were fogged over from pain. But when he fixed them on me, they cleared like the sun breaking through an ugly storm, showing me his fury and the strength that remained. I couldn’t hear his thoughts, but his unsaid words rang clear. He wasn’t ready to die. And I wasn’t ready to let him.
Petro drove his dagger into a side wooden table and removed the thick rubber gloves he wore. He extended his arms so his servants could circle him and lick Misha’s splattered blood clean from his body. “What’s the matter, Celia? You don’t look well, my darling.”
I always look this way before I kill someone. “Don’t call me your darling. I felt sorry for you!”
Petro smiled, his familiar gentle demeanor returning, although this time I knew it was all a lie. “Everyone did, darling. That’s what made my coup that much easier. All I needed was time, and a little patience.” He glanced over at Misha in a strangely adoring manner. “Time I likely wouldn’t have had if my brother hadn’t spared me from our grand master’s destruction.”
I closed my eyes tight, trying to calm my raging beast. The whip would crush my larynx before I finished changing. But my increasing fury made it hard to focus. Petro had used Misha. Hell, he’d used all of us. Prick. “Tell me, Petro. Was it you or your witch who discovered how to magic the bloodlust into viral form?”
I opened my eyes to catch Petro’s frown. He didn’t like my putting a damper on his big reveal. “The theory was mine. I just needed to find the right enchantress strong enough to work the spell.” He approached the witch, who continued to regard my sisters and me with loathing, calming only slightly when Petro kissed her lips. He whispered against her mouth, “My love uses her blood and magic to create the virus. Thus a part of her lives inside the infected vampires, permitting her to control them.”
Petro’s witch refocused her dark, hateful stare on me, but otherwise said nothing. Petro stepped away from her and took a breath just to flex his supersize vamp mojo. Sheer waves of vampiric force rippled across the room, rattling the windows and shoving us back. I grimaced. I didn’t like the feel of Petro, and neither did my inner beast. The power that pampered and played around him dug needles into my skin and pushed them out through my pores. Damn it. Petro had never been weak, but was rather freakishly strong. Strong enough to hide the true extent of his power. No wonder he shook and resembled an ad for Right Guard; concealing that much power must have been like trying to brace back a crumbling dam. Now he held nothing back. Not that he could have. After all, he’d absorbed the power of three ancient vampires after we’d killed them for him.
“Where’s the fourth judge?”
Petro scowled. He didn’t like my interrupting his show of force either. “Upstairs, waiting like a good little puppet for slaughter.”
“The judge isn’t with them?” Shayna asked. Her voice trembled and stayed low; she didn’t want to attract attention to herself, but still wanted answers.
I shook my head. Big mistake, seeing how the whip had rubbed my skin raw. “No. Just Zhahara…until they no longer needed her.”
The corners of Petro’s smile lifted. “You have it all figured out, don’t you?”