Poisoned Kisses (20 page)

T
he dark shadows of Renata’s studio receded with the sunrise, and she was roused by an early morning phone call. When Renata told her about the break-in, her foster-mother sounded worried. “You should have never taken a studio in that part of town. Why wasn’t the boyfriend there with you?”

“Scylla turned out to be much better protection,” Renata said, deciding that now was probably not the time to announce that she and the boyfriend had parted ways. It had happened the way it always did: he accused her of keeping secrets from him, and maybe she had been secretive. After all, some pain you just couldn’t share except through art. “Anyway,” Renata said into the phone. “I just wanted to call and ask you to wish me luck at the exhibit today. I’m a little nervous.”

“Oh, Renata, your work is amazing. You’re going to be the talk of the town, honey.”

Renata would feel better if her foster parents could attend the exhibit, but they were several states away. Besides, they had already done enough for her. They had taken her in as
a child-refugee of a foreign war, and stood by her through countless surgeries to repair her scars. The art show was just going to have to be something Renata did on her own.

“Renata, I know the news is unsettling….”

Cold dread pooled in the pit of Renata’s stomach. “What news?”

Her foster mother’s silence told her all she needed to know. Renata grabbed the remote and turned on the television.

The war criminal was dead.

It was happening again. The International Criminal Tribunal had not even had the chance to pass judgment on him. He had simply died in his cell.

Perversely, the morning’s headlines made Renata’s exhibit extremely popular. Visitors flocked to see her artwork, all whispering about the mysterious way in which the accused war criminal had died. Renata knew she should be elated by the attention, but she was sad, because no matter how much critical acclaim she received, if not for her foster parents, Renata would be alone in this world.

“Don’t stare like that,” Marta, the gallery owner, chided. “You look beautiful, but it’s very intimidating. Smile, it’s your big debut! And here, let me fix your hair.”

Renata knew her exotic dark curls were impervious to the taming of a comb or barrette and they’d never submit to the sleek styles that were currently in fashion, so she rolled her eyes and said, “Never mind my hair, Marta! What are they saying about the exhibit? Do they like it?”

“Darling, they love it! And I need to introduce you to a potential buyer with very deep pockets.”

For Renata, this was the most discomfiting part about art. She loved creating, she savored the outlet, and she needed to sell her work to pay the rent. But as a sculptress, she felt an intimate relationship to every piece in her collection. It
was difficult to let them go. Still, Renata forced a smile and followed Marta through the throngs of well-wishers.

“Renata,” Marta began. “Meet Ms. Kokkinos. She’s a private collector, and a great admirer of your work.”

A private collector? Renata had assumed that any potential buyer with deep pockets would have been here representing a museum. She never expected a private collector would be interested—after all, Renata’s art was sad. Who would buy it to adorn a garden or household foyer?

Ms. Kokkinos turned out to be a woman with a perfectly coiffured helmet of silver hair and an unblinking stare. She towered over Renata and her sturdy frame made Renata’s own limbs seem willowy. But the older woman’s most arresting feature was the disquieting color of her eyes. Renata had never met anyone with eyes as gray as her own.

Before Renata could offer her hand, the tall woman thrust a business card into her palm. “Ms. Rukavina, my nephew sang your praises and I must say, he was not wrong. Your work is devastating.”

At a loss, Renata asked, “Your nephew?”

“He’s a police officer. I believe he helped you with a break-in at your studio? I hope you weren’t hurt.”

The detective. Of course. Now that she thought about it, Renata remembered the Greek cast to his features and could almost see them reflected in the severe face of his formidable aunt. “No, no, I wasn’t hurt. I’m honored by the detective’s interest in my work—and yours, too.”

Ms. Kokkinos nodded curtly. “I’m particularly interested in The War Criminal. Would you be willing to make similar sculptures on commission?”

Renata tried not to show her astonishment. No one had ever commissioned a work from her before. “What do you have in mind?”

“I’d like you to sculpt this man.”

Renata already had the woman’s business card in one hand,
so she had to reach with the other for the sketch. In so doing, she glanced at the drawing and her heart lurched.

She knew the face.

This was the face of the soldier who abducted her mother. And upon seeing him again, Renata’s knees threatened to buckle beneath her.

Ms. Kokkinos must have seen the horror writ plain on Renata’s face, because she eyed Renata owlishly and said, “You needn’t haggle over the price. I’m an heiress to a vast fortune, so you’ll be generously compensated.”

Renata didn’t want to be rude, but she felt bloodless and unsteady. “Would you mind—would you mind terribly if I took a moment to get some air?”

Renata didn’t wait for a reply. Clutching the drawing and the business card, she hastily withdrew, navigating her way around the velvet gallery ropes and pushing through the crowd. Renata headed straight for the exit that led to the fire-escape balcony. She just hoped she could get there before her knees gave way.

She found the door and flung it open. Without looking at the sketch again, she folded it into a small square around the business card and tucked both inside her bra, close to her heart. Then Renata took deep, comforting gulps of air. It had always been like this when someone triggered an unexpected memory. Even after her surgeries, when the doctors helped find a way for her to stay in the country, news from Bosnia panicked her. Even when she was safe in an American school, loud noises, such as a bell signaling the end of class, sometimes froze her heart within her chest.

Now as the fresh air calmed her jitters, Renata sighed with relief. The scars on her back were bothering her, but when she reached behind to adjust her dress, she realized that it wasn’t the fabric irritating her. Something hard and unyielding dug into her, and as she brushed it with her fingers, she realized it was the barrel of a gun.

“Don’t scream,” a man said from behind her. His arm wrapped around her, hard as iron, and he clamped a hand over her mouth.

Renata tried to decide if she should kick him or impale his foot with the stiletto heel of her golden sandal. But before she could decide, he hauled her towards the rail. “We’re going down the fire-escape stairs.”

This was the second time in two days that someone had tried to abduct her at gunpoint, but unlike the lumbering intruder, this man had a graceful strength that prevented her from raking at him with her fingernails when she tried.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, sighing deeply by her ear. Suddenly, she smelled acrid smoke and charred flesh, the horrible stench of war. The stink of the explosion, the sensation of being on fire, and the sizzle of her own skin as it burned. Then came the blinding pain and the screaming, and remembering, she was overcome.

Paralyzed, she let her attacker pull her down two steps at a time. In Bosnia, when people were kidnapped, they were forced into the woods and shot, so why wasn’t she fighting him? Behind her, the gallery was crowded. If only she could scream, surely someone would help her, but his fingers were clamped securely over her mouth!

Her captor pushed her down another stair, and though she fought down her fear long enough to struggle, it only resulted in her shoe falling off and dropping like a golden teardrop to the ground below. Frustrated, the villain hauled her into his arms and dropped to the landing, which groaned under their combined weight.

Thankfully, people on a lower floor of the gallery must have heard the noise or seen Renata’s shoe fall because someone called out “Call 911!”

Her kidnapper growled, dragging Renata as she flailed. She was fighting to catch the wrought-iron bars with her hands to stop their descent. Her heart thundered in her ears, louder
than the sound of sirens on the streets below. If only she could delay him, the police would rescue her.

Desperate, Renata bit down hard on the fingers over her mouth, and knew she’d drawn blood by the familiar metallic tang on her tongue. Blood was an unmistakable taste, and it sickened her.

Her abductor hissed in pain, but showed no signs of slowing. Together, they dropped the last few feet from the ladder of the fire exit into the alleyway below where a van with darkened windows waited. A side door opened, and Renata was thrown into the vehicle. She landed hard underneath her assailant as two goons slammed the door shut and the van screeched out of the alleyway.

H
er kidnapper used the weight of his body to keep her subdued on the floor of the van while he pushed his bleeding fingers from her mouth and replaced them with a gag. The heart-thumping ride in the darkness gave Renata time to conceive of every possible way he might kill her, and she didn’t even realize they had arrived at the airport until they were dragging her onto the charter jet.

It wasn’t until after the plane had taken off that her kidnapper finally spoke to her again. “I’m going to take the gag out of your mouth, but you mustn’t scream. No one who could help you would hear it anyway, and if you scream you will only frighten the pilot and endanger the mortals.”

Renata feared he was a Serbian thug sent to ensure she never testified about the war crimes she had witnessed. But her captor looked Greek and—what had he said? Mortals? What madness was this? Even so, Renata felt safer with this madman than she did with those chillingly sane soldiers in her past, so she nodded her head in agreement.

It was only now that he was so close, that she looked at his face and startled. “Wait, I know you… Detective…”

Why couldn’t she remember his name?

“Ah,” he said, narrowing his dark, terrifying eyes. “So you’ve met my brother.”

His brother? Yes, Renata could see it now. The chiseled cheekbones and the lines of his jaw were the same, but whereas the detective sported stubble and a messy mane, her captor’s dark hair was short and slicked away from his clean-shaven face. They were twins.

“Who are you?” Renata demanded.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t remember unless I permitted it, but for now you may call me Damon.” He dismissed two of the goons with a single look, as if he were used to being obeyed. His men retreated to the back of the plane and closed the curtains. When they were finally alone, he said, “You’re prettier than I thought you’d be, Renata.”

So, he knew her name.

Now that her fear was subsiding, anger rose to take its place. “I don’t know why you’ve taken me, but I want to go home. Right now.”

“And where exactly is your home?” Damon asked.

She knew where home was. Home was her studio, with Scylla. So why did she pause in answering the question? “Why do you want to know? Where are you taking me?” she asked, resurgent dread choking her words. She couldn’t go back to Bosnia. She wouldn’t go back. Not now, not ever.

“I’m taking you somewhere my brother and the war gods can’t find you,” he said, as if it were the most sensible thing in the world. Then he took a crystal decanter from the nearby minibar, poured two glasses, and handed one of them to her. “I must remember my manners.”

Renata reflected that it was exceedingly unmannerly to abduct a woman from an art gallery. But she’d learned from her therapist that deranged men needed to feel validated, so
she took the glass warily and tried to earn his trust. “So you think you’re a god—a war god—like your brother. And there are others?”

His sensual lips curved into a sardonic smile. “Don’t try to manage me, young lady,” he said, though he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than she was. “I’m not a psychotic or a sociopath and as long as you do everything I tell you, you have nothing to fear.”

Renata needed a stiff drink, and since her captor was confidently sipping from his glass, she decided the drink he’d given her from the same decanter probably wasn’t poisoned. She took a mouthful, and swirled the unfamiliar spirit over her tongue. It bolstered her. It made her feel warm, all the way to her toes. But she was still angry. “Why have you kidnapped me?”

“Because your art is dangerous,” he said. “I can’t allow anyone to use you. When I learned that my aunt was seeking you out, I knew I had to take you before she did.”

“Your aunt?” Renata asked, remembering the business card and sketch she’d tucked into her bra. The detective had been unusual and his aunt more so, but neither of them had seemed deranged. Did they know about Damon’s mental illness?

“Do you mean Ms. Kokkinos? The patroness at the art exhibit? She’s your aunt?”

“Ms. Kokkinos? Is that what she’s calling herself these days?” The plane was now above the clouds and Damon seemed to relax. “In Greek, Kokkinos means red. Red like blood. Red like battle lust. It’s fitting, I suppose, because my aunt is the gray-eyed daughter of Zeus.”

Renata tried, in vain, to keep the incredulity off her face. “I’m sorry—she’s what?”

He drained his glass and set it aside. “She wants you to sculpt for her, doesn’t she?”

Renata didn’t have to answer. “Look, I don’t want to be involved in your family squabbles. If you don’t want
me to sculpt for her, just take me home, and I’ll refuse her commission.”

“As if that were possible,” Damon said, straightening the crease of his expensive dress pants with a slow languid motion. “She won’t let you refuse her, Renata. You’re her aegis.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Renata snapped.

“Don’t you know your Greek mythology?” he asked, arching his brows. “Not all of it is myth.”

Suddenly, Renata tried to stifle a yawn, without success. He certainly wasn’t boring her, so why was she so tired? “Did you put a sleeping pill in my drink?”

He scowled and a little turbulence shook the plane. “No, Renata. You’re probably sleepy because you were up long after midnight last night after setting your serpent on one of my men.”

So he’d sent the would-be kidnapper to snatch her from her studio. And when the first attempt had failed, he’d returned to do the job himself. “I didn’t set Scylla on anyone,” she whispered sleepily, “but if I could have, I would have.”

“Oh, you would have, certainly,” Damon said.

Renata bit her lower lip, wondering what had become of Scylla and her prey, but she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to ask. As it was, Renata’s eyes were drooping and her limbs felt weak.

“Come,” Damon said, reaching across and unbuckling her seat belt. In the sweep of the motion, his fingers brushed the tops of her thighs and Renata felt herself grow warm. “Come lie down on the couch, Renata. You can put your head in my lap and rest. We have a few hours before the pilot will flash the seatbelt light again.”

“I’m certainly not putting my head in your lap,” Renata snarled.

“Oh, I imagine you’ll put your head wherever I tell you to,” he said.

As if at his command, she felt inexplicably pliant. “Why? If it wasn’t a sleeping potion, what was in that drink?”

“It was laced with ambrosia. It’s a…restorative,” he said, guiding her to the couch and drawing a blanket around her shoulders as she slipped off to sleep.

Damon stroked her curls as she slept, twining his fingers in her magnificent tangle of dark locks. It’d been a long time since he’d last seen Renata, longer still since he’d touched a mortal woman, even chastely, and now he couldn’t resist the silken sensation of her hair.

She was so beautiful, he couldn’t help but want her. From the elegant arch of her eyebrows to the Slavic planes of her face, she was perfect in every way. He hadn’t expected that. He’d been sure her powers would have made her ugly—at the very least, he’d been sure the explosion would have left her with hideous scars.

After all, he’d been there that day alongside the war gods, goading the warriors to fight. But war had changed greatly since the old days; modern warfare had surprised him. It was just as brutal, but colder, more efficient, and utterly inglorious. There were no more challenges between brave Hector and fierce Achilles. It was all war machines now.

The dishonor of modern warfare changed him—changed his very nature—perhaps even before that fateful chariot ride in Bosnia. He hadn’t known the soldiers would launch grenades at civilian homes. He hadn’t known that the terror he inspired would give excuse to explode the little girl’s house. He hadn’t known how these weapons could tear at the flesh and spray body parts across neatly tended gardens.

That day years ago, Renata had been playing in front of the house with a jump rope, and had turned away from the blast just in time. Still, the flames had lashed at her back, throwing her to the ground and melting the dress from her body. A hand landed beside her, severed and slimy with gore. It had
been a child’s hand—her little brother’s hand—and seeing it, she’d screamed that terrible scream. Her scream had been so bottomless, he couldn’t have gorged upon it even if he’d wanted to.

He’d known then what she would become.

But Renata wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was a woman grown and what was he to do with her? He could secret her away, but she was smarter than he’d hoped. Once he told her what she was, how long would it be until she discovered her power and wanted to use it? When that happened, she would fight him with more than the token resistance. And what then? Would he have to chain her to some faraway mountain and set fearsome monsters to guard her? Would he be forced to hurt her? To kill her?

No. For now, they’d have to keep moving and he’d have to keep her with him always. One moment of inattention and she’d run; one moment of weakness and the war gods could snatch her away.

They wanted to use Renata to create more conflict—more horror for their appetites. But what Damon feared most was that they wouldn’t have to use her—that deep down, Renata was angry enough to wreak destruction on her own.