Diamonds Shatter

Chapter 2

2. Past. Present. Future.

Anna stood in the entryway of the tiny kitchen with a tray of tea and fruit in her hands, waiting for the two werewolves to stop arguing. As it was werewolves terrified her, but when they were angry? Forget it! She was not about to go near them just yet. That was until a tiny elder woman came up to her, clad in too much jewelry and a heavy velvet wrap.

"What are you doing? Just standing there like some kind of pretty Barbie?" The old woman snapped. Her accent was so heavy it seemed like she had only arrived from Russia hours ago.

"Go give those men their tea!" She continued pointing to the group of men seated at the dining table, as Anna tried not to choke at the heavy stench of her old perfume. Anna was so terrified that her voice only escaped in a whisper.

"But there arguing. I don’t want-"

"It doesn’t matter what you want. And yes I can see that they are bickering, I'm not blind yet you know."

"But-" Anna tried again, but was stopped by the steely eyed look that the older woman was giving her.

"If you would have been quicker to give them something to stuff their faces with, then they would have been too busy chewing to argue! Instead you wasted time giggling in the kitchen with Natasha, now if those wretched dogs break into a fight it will be all your fault. Is that what you want?" The old woman continued her lecture in a fierce whisper that few would dare to oppose. Anna suppressed the urge bubbling up inside her stomach to tell off the old woman, to yell and argue back because she and Natasha were not giggling away, they were prepping the tea service. However, Anna did not want a slap across the face, so she kept her mouth shut until the lecture was over.

"Now this will reflect badly on me, so you better go fix things before they get any worse. Be a woman for once and take some responsibility!" Again Anna wanted to yell back at her, because she was only fifteen. It was still a while before she would be considered a woman, but instead all Anna said was,

"Yes grandma, I apologize."

"Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to them." Her grandmother said, pointing a shaky finger towards the dining room.

As much as werewolves terrified Anna, they were no match for granny Yevdokia. Anna would rather face an angry horde of dogs then the old woman any day. She turned back towards the dining room and saw thankfully that the werewolves had calmed down, but now Borris was there standing in front of two boys and he did not look very pleased to see them. Anna hurried over, her china set clanking against the tray, before more problems could unfold.

Borris took a seat in Viktor’s abandoned chair and murmured something to Dimitri about dealing with him and Nick at another place and time. The three of them smoothly went back to business, looking around to see if anyone had taken notice of their little tiff. Luckily everyone else was too absorbed in their own hushed conversations.

A young girl came from behind a decorated wall and immediately started setting out a fancy tea service, complete with fruit and aged cheeses. She silently made her way around the guests, setting the fine china for everyone seated at the table. When the girl finally reached Dimitri he noticed that she was not so young after all, maybe only a year or two younger than him, but she was wearing a dress that hung off her, two sizes too big, so that she seemed slight and childlike. Dimitri also could not help but to take notice of her eyes. They were such a dark shade of green that they seemed almost black, and yet they sparkled. Such strange pretty eyes, he thought to himself. But already his thoughts were trailing off; he shook his head, trying to shake out his incoherent state of mind. It was however a simple side effect of his lifestyle that he had gotten used to.