Touch of Darkness (21 page)

Tonight he'd let those appetites slip the leash. He was an animal, a stranger to civilization—and he made her an animal, too.

Pressing a foil-wrapped packet in her hand, he said, "Put it on me."

"I will not!"

She couldn't see him. She couldn't see anything, only a black so dark it pressed against her eyeballs and threatened to break her will. But she could smell him as he leaned close to her ear, and as he spoke, she felt his breath against her neck. "I would like to impregnate you, Tasya. I want to see you with my son in your belly, and know you suckle him at your breast. If I could, I would make a dozen sons with you, and my pleasure would be increased a hundredfold when I filled you with my come, over and over and over again. So you decide, Tasya Hunnicutt. Condom or no?"

She feared the darkness as much as ever . . . but he made her forget everything except him, and the fury and delight he aroused.

Her hands were shaking as she tore the foil. Taking the small roll, she slid it over the tip of his penis, then eased it down to the base.

He didn't move. He remained so still, he might have been a statue.

When she finished, she still held him in her hands. She thought about the many self-defense moves she knew. She'd used them before, and without hesitation; a woman who wandered the earth alone sometimes found herself in a dangerous situation.

But this was Rurik. He didn't doubt her story about her parents' assassins, and he had come with her every step of the way of her journey.

Unhurriedly she caressed his thigh.

She felt as if he'd seen her yield. She was sure he knew he'd won.

Sliding his arms around her, he lifted her.

She groaned, knowing what would happen now.

"Trust me." He thrust inside. "Trust me now. Trust me forever."

***

When at last Rurik lifted the shade, morning was well advanced and Tasya barely remembered what it was like not to have him inside her. He'd kissed her lips, filling her with his tongue. He'd taken her
with his mouth, with his penis, with his fingers. He'd knelt beside the bed, held her in his lap, and entered her. He'd taken her so many times, and every time he was strong and full, larger than any man she'd ever imagined, tireless, determined, and a man with a mission.

Trust me.

He'd said it over and over.

Trust him? She had made it her policy to never trust anyone, and that policy had stood her in good stead.

So why now was she tempted to discard a lifetime of hard lessons? Why did it seem possible that at last she could dredge down to the bottom of her soul and come up with emotions she thought vanquished?

Love and trust . . . how bright and shiny those emotions looked this morning.

Slowly she sat up, pushing her hair off her forehead. She glanced at Rurik, stretched out beside her, still naked, still large, still watching her as if he would never stop wanting her.

She didn't know what to respond, what to say, how to be the woman he adored.

So she looked out the window.

They'd reached Ruyshvania.

She recognized the mountains, rugged, rock-strewn, shadowy.

She recognized the valleys, filled with rushing rivers and occasionally a farming hamlet.

She recognized the ruins of medieval castles and the Bronze Age standing stones that crowned the peaks.

She recognized this place because, for the first time in twenty-five years, she was home. Home.

She looked down, and she recognized Rurik, too. Recognized him from the days of travel, from the night spent entwined with him while the train rolled along beneath them. My God, she could never forget him now, although she half wished she could.

If only ... if only it didn't seem as if Rurik was willing to risk his life for her and her mission.

He was beginning to assume the proportions of a hero.

He watched her now, his eyes alive with some ear- nest emotion . . , the kind of emotion that made her far too uneasy. Taking her face between his hands, he pressed a kiss on her lips.

"Trust me, Tasya," he said again. "Trust me forever. I will never hurt you. I will never betray you. I swear it on my father's immortal soul. Trust me."

Chapter 21

"Talk about terminally quaint." Rurik stood out-side the old-fashioned railway station and looked around.

Time had left Capraru behind. Crumbled remnants of its medieval walls snaked through the town. Not far away, a massive clock tower loomed over the square. Bavarian-style scroll decorated the two- and three-story buildings, and cobblestones lined the narrow streets. A few of the cars were new, but he saw well-kept sixties and seventies and eighties models threading through the pedestrians that thronged the
streets.

"Ruyshvania lived under the hammer and sickle until the Soviet Union fell. Then their puppet leader, Czajkowski, seized power and kept it until nine years ago. After a cruel reign, he was deposed and exe
cuted, and since then, the people have struggled to join the twenty-first century. In the end, the quaint-ness has paid off—Americans like the clean streets, and the old-fashioned hospitality, and tourism is doing well." Tasya sounded like a guidebook, cool and well-informed, and her expression couldn't have been more undemonstrative.

That surprised him. At every stop, Tasya had been enthusiastic about their surroundings, interested no matter how many times she'd visited before.

Perhaps the tension of seeking the icon and failing was getting to her. Or after last night, perhaps she felt awkward as she tried to fathom what it was he wanted.

And he'd told her so many times. . . .
Trust me,
"Let's see if we can find someone to take us up

to the convent." Rurik put his hand on the base of
her spine.

Tasya adjusted her backpack, moving her shoul- ders as if she couldn't find a comfortable position for the straps.

Good. Maybe last night had exhausted her, made her ache in every sinew and muscle. Maybe every time she moved today and her bones protested, she would think of him and his dedication to her plea-sure.
Trust me.
"Let me carry that for you." He reached for the backpack. She jerked aside. "No, I'll carry it."

And maybe his plan had backfired. Last night she'd
clung to him, yielded to him, let him take her beyond
fear and into passion. Perhaps now her irri-tating and compulsive independence had caused her to panic . . . but that was all right. She couldn't flee. She had an icon to find.

"I like the way the people look here. I like the way they act." Almost everyone on the street had dark hair and strong features, and they moved purpose-fully, as if they held their fates in their own hands. "They remind me of my mother."

She gasped softly, as if he'd surprised her. "They remind me of my mother, too."

Her mother? She spoke of her mother? Perhaps she was coming to trust him, after all.

He listened closely to the dialect. It sounded similar to the Russian his parents had taught him, much like Portuguese and Spanish. ... He couldn't quite understand it, no matter how hard he tried. "Do you know any of the language?"

"No! Why would I?"

"I don't know. I've heard you speak French—"

"Badly!"

"—German, and Japanese to those tourists—"

"1 don't know every language there is. Okay? I'm just a photojournalist, not the Tower of Babel."

"Okay! I thought you might know a few words of Ruyshvanian." Man, she was snappish. When his
mother and his sister got like this, he and his brother knew better than to tease them—about anything. PMS was no joking matter . . . well, except he and; his brothers used to say it stood for "Pack My Suitcase," and they'd use it as an excuse to run for the hills. There they'd camp and fish, and feel sorry for their father stuck at home with two really cranky women.

But Rurik couldn't run from Tasya. She wouldn't be safe, and anyway ... he didn't want to.

Maybe that was why his papa stayed home instead of joining his sons for some recreation. No matter what her mood, he still wanted to be there for Zorana.

No wonder people claimed that love was three parts glory and one part suffering.

"Shall we try the visitors' center?" he teased.

She relaxed and grinned. Briefly, but she grinned.

He found a policeman who spoke English, and that policeman directed them to the hotel on the square.

As they walked, Tasya glanced over her shoulder.

Rurik glanced, too.

The policeman was watching them. Watching her.

She turned to face front, and she looked . .. uneasy.

"It's all right," Rurik said. "You're a pretty girl. Men gawk at you all the time. Haven't you noticed?"

"You're right, I am a pretty girl." She clutched the
straps of her backpack. "This place is just creepy,
that's all."

Rurik glanced around. "Twenty thousand people, nice and clean, lots and lots of restaurants. So what's creepy?"

"Nothing."

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Really. Nothing!"

He held the hotel door for her and followed her inside. Nice place. Small, clean, and there was a woman behind the counter.

She was about his mother's age, and she smiled at him like a woman smiles when she sees a man
she likes.

Good. He'd been chasing Tasya so hard, and she'd been running so earnestly, this woman's appreciation was balm on his wounded ego.

"You're swaggering," Tasya murmured. "And I'm good at it." He glanced at the woman's name tag, leaned across the counter, smiled his most charming smile at the desk clerk, and asked, "Bela, can I hire a guide here?"

"You have come to the right place." Bela picked up a form, placed it on a clipboard, and held her pen at the ready. "Do you want to go any place in particular, or would you like a tour of our lovely countryside?"

"We want to go to the Convent of St. Maria," Rurik said.

Her pen ripped the paper. "The convent? Oh, but there is nothing up there. It was not a rich convent to start with, and Czajkowski stripped it of everything of value. The countryside around it is not attractive. The relics are long gone, as are the nicest of the holy objects. Can I interest you in Horvat?"

"No," Rurik insisted. "The convent."

Bela's smile faded. She put down her pen, leaned on the counter. "I can't get a guide to go up there."

"Why not?" Rurik asked.

She led them to the window. "See that hill?"

It looked more like a mountain to Rurik, looming over the town, craggy and forested, rising toward the sun, catching wisps of clouds as they whirled past.

"People say that hill is bad luck. Not me, of course, but people. They say it's haunted. They say it's no place to be at night, and since the road is in such bad shape, it's almost impossible to get up there and back in one day. The convent's on that mountain. The convent and—" Bela shivered. "That mountain is not a good place."

Tasya apparently couldn't stand to be silent any-more. "We have to get there." Bela seemed to notice her for the first time. Eyes narrowed, she considered Tasya, then nodded as if, for the first time, she understood their resolve.

"Of course. The stories are superstition, but this is Ruyshvania. Superstition is difficult to overcome here. You understand."

"Yes," Tasya said. "Yes, I understand."

"May I suggest a rental car and a good map?" Bela was the desk clerk, travel agent, and car-rental counter. She got out a different form, put it on the clipboard, and pushed it across to Rurik. "There is still one nun left alive, but I hear she's a little batty."

"One nun?"

"Sister Maria Helvig." Bela shook her head. "She refuses to come down and live in town. Well, she has lived up there since she was eighteen, and she's watched all the sisters pass away or be—well, they're dead, and she's alone."

"That's enough to make anyone crazy," Rurik agreed.

"She is harmless," Bela assured them. "As is the mountain, I am sure."