Free Thirteen Years Later by Jasper Kent

lips fall on hers. They kissed deeply, not even breathing, lip dragging across lip, tongues circling one another in a silent waltz.
    Eventually, it was Domnikiia who separated their embrace. She squatted down and spoke to Tamara. ‘Are you ready for bed?’ Tamara nodded. ‘Well, run into your room and get changed. I’ll be in in a bit.’
    Tamara scurried off, but before reaching the door to her room, turned. ‘Will you still be here?’ she asked Aleksei.
    ‘Oh, yes. I’ll be here.’
    She turned again and ran into her room. Aleksei sat on the couch. Domnikiia sat down beside him, but immediately turned and leaned backwards, her shoulders in his lap, her eyes staring up at him. He clasped her hand. She was thirty-two now, but even more desirable than when he had first met her. She had been nineteen then, and he had been struck by her similarity to Bonaparte’s second wife, the empress Marie-Louise. With Bonaparte’s downfall, Marie-Louise had, thanks to her father’s position as Emperorof Austria, been fortunate enough to be appointed Duchess of Parma. Aleksei had not seen any recent portrait of her, and did not know whether her appearance had diverged from Domnikiia’s. He doubted she could be more beautiful.
    ‘Yelena Vadimovna said you were coming,’ she said.
    ‘I’m sorry it’s been so long.’
    ‘I know you are. You have “business” to attend to, I’m told. You still think of it as “business” with me?’
    Aleksei smiled. For the first months of their relationship, money had changed hands each time they met. In all honesty, it still did, but now he had the pleasure, and pleasure it was, of paying out even when they were apart.
    ‘I have to go to Desna,’ he said.
    ‘Desna?’ she asked, the concern showing in her voice. ‘Isn’t that where . . . ?’
    ‘That’s right,’ interrupted Aleksei. Of those who knew of Maks’ fate, only a few would remember the name of the place where it occurred thirteen years on. Only Domnikiia would make the association immediately. She knew his mind. He corrected himself. There was one other person who made the connection – whoever had summoned him with that message.
    ‘I’m guessing that’s not a coincidence,’ she said.
    Aleksei shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I was sent a message. It was signed by Maks, ostensibly.’
    ‘My God. You don’t think . . . ?’
    ‘Thankfully, no. I saw Maks’ corpse, two months after he died. Vampires don’t rot.’ That was speculation, but it fitted the facts he knew. The image of Maks’ putrefying face – the rim of his spectacles sinking into his yielding cheek – filled Aleksei’s mind. But there was more than that. Aleksei had been told that only a willing human can become a vampire. Maks would never willingly have done that. He looked into Domnikiia’s eyes and remembered another occasion when he looked down upon her. He chose not to mention the idea of a human volunteering to become a voordalak .
    ‘So who else?’ asked Domnikiia.
    Aleksei shrugged.
    ‘You never saw his body, Lyosha.’ Domnikiia did not use the name, but he knew who she was talking about – Iuda.
    ‘He drowned, or froze.’ Aleksei pictured his left hand forcing Iuda’s head beneath the icy surface of the Berezina, his three fingers entwined in the long blond hair. He recalled feeling the body writhe and spasm as the freezing water hit Iuda’s lungs, but realized that he had never in truth experienced that feeling – his own hand had been too numb. He’d kept the few strands of hair that were all he found when he pulled his hand from the water.
    ‘Those were a long six months,’ she said. She was referring to the time between his departure from Moscow to pursue Iuda and his return in 1813, after the Russian defeat at Lützen.
    ‘There was a war,’ he said. ‘And I did write.’
    ‘I know.’ This was not the first time they had discussed it. All his explanations were reasonable, and yet between the Battles of