Touch of Darkness (34 page)

"I saw you. You had him on the ropes, and
then—"

"Kassian shot me with an arrow." Rurik touched

the spot where the arrow had pierced him. "The Varinskis are poor losers."

Tasya swallowed over the anxiety in her throat. "I saw that, too. I thought you'd been killed."

"Pretty close. Really close." Tenderly, he smoothed his hand down her bare arm as if he needed to touch something warm and alive. "I knew I was done for it. The injury was too massive for the hawk's smaller body mass—"

"Wait a minute." Tasya half sat up. "Are you saying the arrow would kill you as a hawk
_/
but not as a human?"

"Not exactly." He struggled to explain the fine points. "I didn't know if I could survive as a human, either—the arrow went right through my lung—but I had a better chance in my human form. Unfortunately, I was up high, and I can't fly as a human. I was too injured, and with the arrow in me, too off-balance to fly, anyway, and I was headed for the ground way too fast. I caught a glimpse of you." Taking her hand in his, he kissed her fingers. "I saw you turn and leave."

"I hated to run. I hated it so much." She huddled next to him.

"Do you think I don't know that? I also knew that if anyone could make it here with the icon, it would be you." He tilted her head up and looked into her eyes. "Only you, Tasya. Only you."

"Because of the prophecy?"

"No. Because no matter what the odds, you won't quit."

At his avowed faith in her, she half smiled.

"I wanted to give you time to get away. I figured I didn't have a lot of choice—die of the wound, or take a chance, soar until the last minute, then change into human form, and hope I didn't break my neck." Rurik's hand crushed the material of her top. "I didn't break my neck."

She knew what that meant. "What did you break?"

"I cracked a few ribs, did something really bad to my shoulder joint." Rurik shrugged in a way that looked more like a test of the joint than an expression of insouciance. "But with what happened afterward, that didn't matter."

She ran her hand over him, reassuring herself, offering comfort to him.

But she had begun to realize he had no time for sympathy. Rurik and his family were involved in a fight to the death—and beyond.

And Rurik . . . Rurik wanted only to win. He wanted justice. He continued. "While Kassian and Sergei ran over, I yanked that arrow out of me and stuck it right through Sergei's throat."

"Good," Tasya said.

"Bloodthirsty girl." Rurik pressed a kiss on her forehead. "But that arrow trick really pissed off Kas
sian, and he picked up his walking stick—my father says those guys use everything as a weapon, and he's right—and slammed the pointed end through my shoulder. He pinned me right to the ground."

Tasya recoiled, dug her fists into her eyes, trying to shut out the vision.

"I looked up, and Ilya was diving, talons out, right for my eyes—when he exploded in this burst of black-and-white feathers."

Tasya took her hands away from her face. "I used their rifle and shot him."

"That's my girl!" Rurik chuckled, and she heard the sound deep in his chest. "I thought that must be what happened."

"I knew I couldn't kill him, but I didn't care. I hoped I could hurt him badly. The lousy little weasel;"

"Eagle, honey." He stroked under her top, finding the soft skin along her waist. "Not a weasel, an eagle."

"I know a weasel when I see one," Tasya said.

"All right," he conceded. "A weasel."

"Keep going."

His hand slipped below the waistband of her pants.

She caught his wrist. "I didn't mean that. Keep going with the story."

He groaned. "We can talk later."

She looked down his body, and saw why he'd lost interest in telling his story. And as his hand skimmed lightly along the skin of her buttocks, she recognized a distinct diminishing of her curiosity.

Yet he'd left too many questions unanswered, and thin slow rise of passion could be held off for a little while longer.

She wanted to know, and she had things to say.

"Did he fall on you?"

Rurik sighed, but softly, content ... for now . . . to touch her. "Barely missed me, which was a good thing, because by then I was half-dead. I could have suffocated under him and not been able to push him away. That ass Kassian turned the color of borscht. He leaned over me, grabbed me by the throat, and laid,
'I'm going to finish you. Then I'm going to hunt down the woman and make her suffer.'" Rurik smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. That smile made Tasya very glad she was not Kassian. "You know that trick I told you about, the one where I can will myself to change only one part of my body?" "Yes?" She wasn't sure she wanted to hear this. "I changed my hands to talons and sliced his throat wide open." Rurik gestured widely with his free arm. "Then I took out his eyes. Then—Tasya?" Tasya realized her head was buzzing and her vision blurred. It wasn't that she was squeamish. It was that mental picture of Rurik pinned to the
ground, yet fighting for his life—and hers. "You killed him," she said.

"Yes. I killed him." He sat up, leaned over her, his body a protection, his face shadowed in mystery. "All the time I was fighting, all I wanted was for you to get away. Don't cry for me. Don't feel guilty for running. You did the right thing. You brought the icon here, and I'll never forget . . . that you trusted me."

"I did trust you. I do trust you. I'm sorry about the icon." She smoothed her palms down his cheeks. "I should have told you I had it."

"While I was recovering, I had a lot of time to think." He leaned his forehead to hers. "You found it in the chapel, didn't you?"

"When you first walked in, I was holding Sister Maria Helvig's hand. She was still warm. . . ." Tasya's shock had battled with her grief, and above that, she was glad for the nun. Glad she'd gone on to be with her sisters.

"What could you say?" He sounded briskly practical, putting the memories in the past. " 'The nun is dead, but hey! I found the icon.' "

"True. But I just didn't
think
to tell you about the icon. Then we buried her, then the Varinskis appeared, and then—"

"Then you didn't like me anymore." He leaned close and breathed in the scent of her hair.

"No, but I still loved you, and that made me
madder."

"You loved me." His warm, deep voice lingered over the words. "Tell me again."

"I love you."

He kissed her, his breath mingling with hers, his tongue exploring, his warmth pressed against her. Each motion was heat and life and heart, and when he slid his hand under her shirt, up her belly, to cup her breast, she wanted to die from the sweetness— and live the rest of her life in his arms. She placed her hands on his shoulders. "Are you going to tell me the rest of the story?"

He unknotted the drawstring at her waist. "Tomorrow. I'll tell you tomorrow."

Chapter 33

With great ceremony, Zorana placed the immense pork roast basted with a mustard rosemary sauce on the table in the Wilder kitchen, then stepped back and smiled while her children and her husband applauded and praised.

Tasya joined in; one asset her years as a foster child had given her was the ability to observe a family's traditions, learn them quickly, and blend in without a hitch.

Sometimes it was a matter of being one of the crowd.

Sometimes it was a matter of staying under the radar.

At the Wilders', it was something she did because here, at last, she was home.

This family had taken her to their bosom without

reservation; just as Rurik promised, Konstantine and Zorana opened their home to her, not just because she'd brought them the icon, but because she had loved their son. During those dark days when they'd thought he was dead, his parents had talked about him, asked her about his last days, shown her his baby book, cried with her.

Now that he had returned, they didn't claim him as their own. Instead, they paid tribute to her with the place of honor at their kitchen table.

Rurik sat on the bench beside her, dressed in a loose black T-shirt and jeans, and an old pair of running shoes, making sure she had all she wanted on her plate before he dug into his welcome-home dinner.

Firebird had taken the evening off from her job down at Szarvas's art school. She sat beside Rurik, her skin radiant with that special glow only pregnant women possessed.

Jasha and his fiancee, Ann, had flown up from Napa for the reunion. Now they sat across the table from Rurik, opening more bottles of Wilder Wines and keeping the glasses full.

"All right, Mama, the food is on the table.
Now
can Rurik tell us what happened?" Jasha looked as impatient and annoyed as only the oldest son could look when deprived of the information he viewed as his by privilege.

Zorana glared at her son. "Rurik should have meat. He's still weak."

"Weak from what? What ordeals did he undergo?' Jasha gestured at his brother. "I haven't heard the story yet."

"So weak," Rurik dramatically whispered.

His mother patted his shoulder and gave him thi end cut of pork.

"You are such a piece of work." Jasha sounded aggravated, but his fork went to work on his full plate, and never slowed.

"Waiting makes Jasha irritable," Ann confided to Tasya. "If it were up to him, all the icons would be found, the pact would be broken, and we could go back to the business of growing grapes and creating wines."

"And you and I would have time for a honey-moon," Jasha said.

"I haven't agreed to marry you, yet," Ann shot back.

Jasha slid his arm around her shoulders. "But you will."

She turned her head away, a woman sure of her man. "Maybe."

"I would die without you."

She turned back to him, touched the fading scars on his throat. "You almost died for me. That is enough."

The screened kitchen door let in the warm, scented nir of a summer evening. Zorana served the pork with roasted red potatoes and carrots tossed in olive nil, and a massive Greek salad. Everything in the Wilder household seemed so normal . . . yet Tasya never forgot that she dined at the table of her enemy.

Somehow, that seemed to be the right thing to do.

Konstantine sat in his wheelchair at the head of the table, his IV bottle dangling from a hook, and poured enough vodka to fill the Black Sea.

Jasha looked enough like Rurik that Tasya would know they were brothers, yet they were very different. Where Rurik had brown hair and golden brown eyes, Jasha's hair was black, and his eyes were an odd color, like ancient gold coins.

Ann was very tall and very slender, with a shy demeanor that kept everyone at a distance—until she smiled. Then the whole world fell in love with her. Certainly Jasha adored her; he waited on her as if she were the queen and he her most devoted courtier.

Tasya leaned to Rurik, seated at her right hand. "I like the way Jasha treats Ann."

Rurik put a piece of potato in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. "He is so pussy-whipped." She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. "Not that there's anything wrong with being whipped," he added hastily. Tasya took an olive from the appetizer plate. She

fait into it until her teeth struck the pit, used her tongue to strip the flesh away, then slid the bare pit out of her mouth.

Rurik's color rose, his eyes grew hot, and he leaned
close. "Later, I'll make you pay for that."

"But you're weak from your injuries . . . and from our reunion last night," she murmured. "You should rest."

"I'm fine," he snapped.

She smiled. "Then I'll count on it."

"Ma, Rurik says he's fine." Jasha grinned at his loudmouthed brother. "So he can tell us what happened."

Zorana started to shake her finger at her oldest, but Konstantine said, "He's almost done eating, and I, too, would like to know how Rurik survived the Varinski attack."

Rurik put down his fork and knife.

The table grew quiet.

Rurik began, "Tasya told you that she saw me fighting Ilya in the air. . . ."

Just as it had last night, the story had the power to horrify Tasya. Rurik had come so close to death, and as he told of slashing at Ilya, of the arrow piercing his breast, of turning human to reach the ground alive, she alternately flinched and applauded. She still could scarcely comprehend who and what he was, and how he'd escaped death.

When he got to the part where Tasya shot Ilya, Konstantine poured himself a vodka and passed the bottle. "Everyone! A toast! To Tasya, our new daughter."

Everyone raised their glasses and drank vodka.

Except Firebird, who toasted with water.

"To our three daughters." Zorana dipped her glass lirst to Firebird, then to Ann, then to Tasya. "They hold our hearts."

Everyone drank again.

"To Rurik!" Jasha said.

"To Rurik!" everyone echoed.