Touching Rune (11 page)

Rune looked around the beautiful suite of rooms on the top floor of the high rise hotel. She had discovered another new thing besides the helicopter, air-o-plane and huge limousine that made her feel slightly sick. It was called an elevator.

She touched her stomach and smiled at her reflection. She had squealed when it started to rise, clutching onto Dimitri’s arm in terror before she gave an embarrassed giggle and held her stomach as both men stared at her in amazement.

There
are so many new things that I’m seeing, doing and learning about,
she thought as she stared down over the glittering city far below.

“Where are we?” Rune asked Dimitri as he came to stand next to her.

“You don’t recognize Los Angeles?” Dimitri asked in surprise.

Rune shook her head. “No,” she replied faintly. “The world has changed so much. I saw some things but I never suspected anything like this,” she murmured. “The children didn’t really change that much, especially the little ones. The older ones didn’t come out to the garden as often in the past few years. When they did, they usually had some type of small box in their hands and were too busy looking at it to run, play or talk.”

“Where was this at?” Dimitri asked softly.

A faint smile curved Rune’s lips as she thought of her days and nights at the orphanage. “At St. Agnes. I came there the winter of 1889. There was a horrible outbreak of Whooping Cough that winter. The children were terribly ill. Mother Magdalene and Sister Helen had come down with it as well. Only Sister Mary and Sister Anna were still well enough to care for everyone. It was too much for them to handle alone and I knew that I was meant to be there.”

“What did you do?” Sergei asked, coming to stand slightly behind her.

Rune didn’t turn. Instead, she held his gaze in the reflection of the window. She thought for a moment, letting the memories wash over her.

“I stayed. I nursed them. And, I fell in love with the children and the Sisters,” she replied quietly. “They became my family. Things went well for the first two years until a man named Walter Randolph decided he wanted the property that belonged to the orphanage. He tried to pressure the Archbishop to sell it to him but the Archbishop believed in what Mother Magdalene and the others were doing. He had been an orphan himself and Mother Magdalene had cared for him. Once he devoted his life to the church, he swore he would do what he could to help her and the children that lived there.”

“What happened?” Dimitri asked. “What did Randolph do?”

Rune let her body relax against the warmth of Sergei as he stepped closer, drawing her back against his body when she shivered in the air conditioning. She let the memories flow as she remembered back to a time so long ago.

“I lived at St. Agnes and worked in the nearby market selling the flowers I grew in the center garden with the children. I met a lot of people there. Some of them were very wealthy. I began petitioning for their help,” she murmured before looking up at their reflection and smiling mischievously. “I was much more persuasive than Walter Randolph,” she said before her smile faded. “Randolph got mad. At first, he would just come by and say unpleasant things to me or try to ruin my business. When that didn’t work, he began sending some men to rough up the merchants around me and…”

“And…” Sergei encouraged when she stopped.

“They started roughing me up,” she whispered with haunted eyes. “I was lucky in some ways. There was a police officer who fancied my attention. Olson Myers was a nice man who visited the children at the orphanage on a regular basis. He started coming by my stand which helped some. Randolph had me watched though,” she said in a hard voice. “He came by the day before he… before I…”

Rune turned her head when Dimitri slid his hand along her jaw and cupped her cheek. She saw no judgment in his eyes. He looked at her with a touch of curiosity and something else.

“Before what, Rune?” He asked quietly, holding her gaze when she would have looked away.

“Before he set fire to the kitchen,” she said in a barely audible voice. “Before I killed him. The day before I… died.”

Sergei’s sharp hiss echoed in the room. He looked at Dimitri who was still staring intently into Rune’s eyes. He could tell from his friend’s still features that he was going to get every bit of information that he could out of her.

“How did you kill him?” Dimitri pushed in a low voice.

Rune moved restlessly but Dimitri refused to let her withdraw. There was something about the way she was speaking, the way she held herself that told them both that she was telling the truth.

“He… he and the man with the scarred face started a fire on the outer wall of the orphanage kitchen. Timmy, a young boy whose mother had recently passed away, and I were going to sneak some warm milk and fresh pound cake. Neither one of us could sleep,” she choked out as memories of that night washed over her, pulling her back to that faithful night. “We caught them. I told Timmy to wake everyone. To tell them that the orphanage was on fire. Randolph told the scarred-face man to kill Timmy.” She stared back at Dimitri with haunted eyes. “Randolph told that man to kill an innocent child! I rushed the man and grabbed his arm but Randolph pulled me off and hit me.” Rune absently touched her cheek, rubbing it as if she could still feel the sting from the blow.

“What happened next?” Sergei asked huskily.

“I heard Timmy yelling. Randolph reached for me and I threw dirt in his eyes. When he backed away, I stood up and charged him. I wrapped my arms around him and we tumbled through the burning door of the kitchen. By then, I could hear the alarms and people yelling. I knew the water wagon would be there soon. The knife that we had used earlier to cut the cake was on the table. I reached for it but Randolph grabbed my arm and took it away from me.” This time she absently rubbed at her wrist, as if it still hurt from where she had been grabbed. “A… a beam from the ceiling collapsed behind him, startling him. I pushed him as hard as I could into the flames. It was so hot but all I could think about was that he wanted to kill the children,” she said, tilting her head sideways as if she could still hear the sounds of the fire around her. “Another beam fell on top of him, trapping him.”

“What happened? How did you get out?” Dimitri asked in a voice thick with suppressed emotion.

Rune’s hand dropped to her flat stomach. A slight, sad smile curved her lips and a single tear coursed down her pale cheek. Her eyes clouded and Dimitri could swear he saw the reflection of flames burning within their brown depths.

“He stabbed me with the knife as he fell,” she murmured. “I knew my time was up but I didn’t want to leave. It was the first time in centuries that I felt like I had found a home.” A sweet smile curved her lips as she remembered her last moments. “I stumbled out to the garden. Mother Magdalene held me. I had never been held before
as I died,” she murmured in a distracted voice. “I remember looking up at the stars. They were very bright that night. I could see them through the smoke and the glow of the fire,” she whispered lost in her memories. “I wouldn’t leave. I promised her I would watch over and protect the children and I kept my promise.” Silent tears slid slowly down her cheeks as she looked up at Dimitri. “I kept my promise until… until…”

“Until?” Sergei said turning her slightly in his arms so he could see her face. “Until what, Rune?”

“Until they said I wasn’t needed any longer,” she sniffed. “Until you bought me and took me away from my garden and the children I swore I would watch over and protect.” Her voice broke on the last word and she buried her face in Sergei’s chest and cried for the second time in over a century.

*.*.*

“She is telling us the truth,” Dimitri said, standing with his back to the room as he looked down over the city. He turned when Sergei didn’t reply. “I mean it, Sergei,” he said harshly. “She is telling us the truth.”

“I know,” Sergei said as he sat on the couch with his head back so that he was staring up at the ceiling. “What does it mean?”

“It means I’m here to help you,” a soft voice said from the doorway leading from one of the bedrooms. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to help you with yet.”

Sergei rose from the couch as Dimitri walked across the room. Dimitri pulled Rune into his arms and buried his face in her neck. A shudder ran down his body as she timidly wrapped her arms around his waist and held him back.

“You are beautiful, Rune,” Dimitri said thickly as he pulled back and caressed her cheek.

“Thank you,” Rune said with a shy laugh. “This… this is all new to me. I’ve never told anyone about me before.”

“Why not?” Sergei asked as he grabbed one of her hands and led her toward the couch. “Tell us about yourself. How did this happen to you?”

Rune bit her lower lip, unsure what the rules were. She had never had any instructions. She just sort of knew what she should and shouldn’t say. Now, she was at a loss of what or how much she should tell them.

She looked around the elegant room before glancing out the windows. In the distance she could see the lights of a huge flying bird as it flew over the colorful city. How could what she had to say be any more amazing than what she was looking at.

“I was born Runa Bogadottir in the year 814,” she said shyly. “It has been so long since I’ve called myself that it sounds strange.”

“Why did you change it?” Dimitri asked brushing her hair back over her shoulder. “It is a beautiful name.”

Rune’s eyes grew sad as she looked back out the window. “The world is a strange and dangerous place. The
third time I came back it was in 1120. I was in southern England. Not a good time to have a Viking name.”

“Why did you choose August as a last name?” Sergei asked curiously.

“It was the month in which I died the first time,” she replied with a shrug.”

For the next several hours, Rune told them the many different things that had happened to her. She laughed when they asked her questions about what life had been like and expressed amazement that she had survived at all. They grew somber when she told them about how she had died each time though she never mentioned how she died the first and second time. Those times, especially the first, were still too painful for her to share. She assured them that she was not in pain for long, for her death was never drawn out.

“I think it is more of a way to transition away when my assignment has been completed. I don’t really know what else to call them,” she explained. “I can sense when my time has ended.”

“How?” Dimitri demanded.

“Where do you go? Do you ever know where you will go or for how long you will be there?” Sergei asked at the same time.

Rune broke a small piece off the roll that came with the dinner they had ordered. She rolled it between her fingers before dropping it back onto her plate. She was full from the wonderful meal they’d had of lobster, fresh steamed vegetables and rice pilaf. She thought of their questions, trying to think of how to answer them.

“I just know,” she finally said with a small shrug. “I don’t know where I go or when I will awake. The place I go to is similar to here but different. It is more colorful, vivid… peaceful. Time has no meaning to me. I don’t see the things that happen here. It is always a bit of a shock when I come back, especially this time as so much has changed.”

“Do you know how long you will be here this time?” Dimitri asked quietly.

Rune smiled sadly at him before looking up at Sergei who had frozen at the question. She couldn’t lie to them. She knew they had said she belonged to them and maybe, for just a very, very short time, she could. It would be nice to be held, to be wanted for who she really was for the time she had left.

“I think I only have a few weeks at most,” she finally replied.

“A few… When will you return?” Sergei asked in a hoarse voice. “Are you sure?”

Rune looked down at her hands that she had folded in her lap and nodded. “This time is different from any of the others,” she said into the silence that had fallen at her words. “I’m pretty sure after this I won’t be coming back ever again,” she added.

Rune stood inside the door to her bedroom and bit her lip. Her hand hovered over the doorknob. She had excused herself and left after the silence stretched out into minutes. She had hurried out of the room, closing herself in her bedroom. She took a long hot shower and prepared for bed as turmoil churned in her stomach. She had needed to escape the frozen silence that had followed her last statement.

She could hear the men quietly talking in the other room as she leaned her head against the door. She bit her lip again and gathered her courage. She didn’t want to be alone any more. She wanted to be held. She wanted to be loved.

For once in her many lives, she wanted to know what it was like to be a woman. What Sergei had shown her on the metal bird had awoken something inside her. She felt hot and achy. She wanted more and if it meant asking, she wasn’t above that. She fingered the beautiful sheer white robe that covered the silk and lace gown underneath it.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself. “You want this. They have said they want me. They won’t turn me away.”

Not giving herself a chance to talk herself out of it, she gripped the doorknob, pulled it open and stepped out. She drew in a deep breath when the room suddenly fell silent. This time the silence didn’t feel frozen. If anything, she swore that someone had turned on the heater to full blast.

“I want you,” she said in a trembling voice, raising her head proudly as she looked at them. “I want you both.”

*.*.*

Sergei clenched his fist against the window as he stared down at the city with unseeing eyes. He hurt. When Rune had said she only had a few weeks at most to… an explosive curse ripped from his lips and it took every ounce of self-discipline not to try to put his fist through the glass.

“We won’t let it happen,” Dimitri said from behind him in a voice that would have sent shivers of fear down lesser men. “We will keep her safe. She said she was killed protecting others. I will double the number of bodyguards. We will keep her safe until she feels the time has passed when she might be taken again.”

Sergei turned and looked at Dimitri with tortured eyes. “I can’t lose her, Dimitri,” he admitted brokenly. “Why? Just the thought of what she has gone through over and over. How could any God curse someone as innocent as Rune to such an existence?”

Dimitri walked over to Sergei and placed his hand on his shoulder. They had both done their own share of cursing at God when they were younger. Their bellies had been ravaged by hunger and their bodies so cold they were surprised that they hadn’t frozen to death.

“I am the wrong person to ask that question of, Sergei,” Dimitri reminded him quietly. “My relationship with him has never been on the best of terms even when I did try to believe. What we have to do is make sure we do everything we can to protect her.”

Sergei nodded. “One of us must stay with her at all times,” he said. “I won’t leave her care or protection to another.”

Dimitri chuckled. “I am in full agreement. I…” he glanced over his shoulder when the door leading into the bedroom Rune had chosen opened.

Sergei drew in a deep breath. His eyes glittered with emotion as he stared at the slender figure posed in the doorway. She looked terrified but determined. It took a moment for his mind to catch up with what she was saying. When it did, the breath he had drawn exploded out of him. Fierce need and desire washed through him as her words washed over him.

“I want you,” she said in a trembling voice, raising her head proudly as she looked at them. “I want you both.”

“Rune,” Dimitri said, thickly.

She raised her hand but quickly hid it in the long skirt of the sheer robe when she saw how much it trembled. She licked her lips and turned her pleading eyes on Sergei. Taking a tentative step forward, she determinedly held her hands out in front of her.

“Please,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be alone anymore. What you did with me on the metal bird… I’ve never felt anything like that before. You said you wanted me. You both said I was yours,” she said looking at Dimitri with a pleading look. “Please don’t turn me away. I know what I told you sounds crazy, but it is true. I swear on my heart that every word was the truth,” she added, placing one delicate hand over her heart. “I want to feel alive… for just a little while.”

Sergei strode across the living room. He cupped her face, staring down for a fraction of a second before he kissed her with a burning hunger. Rune’s hands moved up over his shoulders, gripping him tightly as she rose on her tiptoes to meet him half way. The feel of a second pair of hands on her hips drew a soft moan from her. When she felt a second pair of lips on her neck, she arched backwards into the hard body.

“Tonight,” Dimitri began in a voice husky with need.

“Forever,” Sergei said, breaking the kiss to look at Dimitri before he looked down into Rune’s dazed eyes. “This is for more than tonight or a few weeks, Rune. This is forever.”

Rune melted back against Dimitri as his arms swept her up against his broad chest. She looked over Dimitri’s shoulder as he turned to carry her back into her bedroom. Her heart ached that she could not give them more than a few weeks. She might not be able to promise them forever but she would give them everything she had as long as she could.

“I promise to stay as long as I can,” she whispered.

Sergei’s eyes flashed at her evasive response to his demand. He followed Dimitri into the bedroom and stood to the side as Dimitri gently set her down on her feet. His fingers went to the buttons of his shirt. He held her eyes as he undid each one. His eyes darkened to a deeper blue in answer to the heat in her eyes as she followed the path of the undone buttons.

“You are sure of this,
маленький огонь
?” He asked thickly as Dimitri’s hands went to the belt of her robe.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”

She looked at Dimitri’s strained expression. Unable to resist, she reached out and tenderly touched his cheek. She would never get tired of touching him or Sergei. They were both different and yet the same. Her fingers traced a small scar that ran near his temple before moving down to the one near his left eye.

Dimitri’s hands froze on the belt to her robe as she gently touched him. “Rune,” he warned thickly. “I do not have much control right now.”

She gazed up at Dimitri. “So much life is told in your face,” she murmured tracing the faint scar under his eye.

“My life has not always been one of wealth,” he replied, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “I have had to kill before, Rune. You should know what type of man I am.”

Rune smiled tenderly. “You are a warrior and a warrior will kill to defend those who cannot defend themselves. I have killed before as well. I am my father’s daughter and I am not ashamed of it. You are a warrior, Dimitri. There is a difference between that and one who kills because they can,” she assured him.

“You are not frightened?” Sergei asked, stepping closer.

“I am not from your time, Sergei,” she reminded him. “I have lived during times when it was kill or be killed. I would never judge one who did what was necessary to survive.”

“I am falling in love with you, Rune,” Dimitri groaned out hoarsely before pulling her into his arms and capturing her lips with his.

Sergei watched as Dimitri ravaged Rune’s lips. He watched as Dimitri’s large hands ran down her body to cup her ass, pulling her up against him. He was surprised at the emotion he felt rushing through him. He would have thought he would be jealous. Instead, he felt intense satisfaction. This was right. This is what they had always dreamed of finding. A woman who would complete them.

He shrugged his shirt off before stepping up beside them. He reached out his hand and threaded his fingers through Rune’s long, curly hair. With a slight tug, he let her know that he wanted her attention. The moment she broke the kiss, he turned her face to his and captured her lips.

“Sergei,” Dimitri muttered roughly under his breath. “She is made for us.”

Sergei reluctantly released his grip on her. “You bet your ass she is,” he replied hoarsely as she fell against him when Dimitri stepped back to remove his clothes.

“Take her gown off of her,” Dimitri demanded as he pushed his pants down and kicked them aside. “You better not be wanting to take her slowly this first time because I have to tell you, I don’t think I will last long.”

“We will take it as slow as Rune wishes,” Sergei said, brushing his knuckles along her cheek. “You will tell us if we do anything that frightens you or if you need more time, yes?”

A rosy blush covered Rune’s face as she glanced at Dimitri who stood proudly in the nude. Her eyes roamed his broad form. He wasn’t handsome in a classical way. There was an air of danger, of untamed violence, that surrounded him.

He wasn’t as tall as Sergei and his body was thickly muscled. He had numerous scars across his smooth chest from the battles he had faced during his lifetime. Rune knew enough of battle scars to know that several had been grievous wounds. She ached to explore each and every one of them.

Her eyes hungrily roamed his figure. A small smile of feminine satisfaction lit her eyes when she saw how his manhood stood out, evidence of his desire for her. She looked up at him, pleasure darkening her eyes to a richer shade of brown as she returned his challenging stare.

“Rune wishes for her men to take her as a warrior would take his mate,” she said, straightening her shoulders and tossing her hair proudly behind her. “I am the daughter of a Viking warrior. I would expect nothing less.”

“You have until the count of three to get undressed, Sergei, or you are going to be watching me take
our
mate,” Dimitri growled out as he reached over and ripped the silky gown down the front.