Touch of Darkness (33 page)

As she worked, she took notes writing what she recalled about each photo, until she reached the point when she'd handed Ashley her camera so she could labor with Rurik to open the tomb.

The first picture Ashley had taken showed Tasya mid Rurik from the back, and stiff and reserved, determinedly not touching. For a dozen shots, it was the same—the hole into the tomb got bigger, but Tasya and Rurik concentrated on their tasks.

Suddenly, the view changed.

Tasya had her hand over Rurik's, and the two of them were looking at each other. Looking . . . and between them Tasya saw need and outrage, anger and fear, sexual tension so high the photo blurred on the monitor.

Tasya dashed the tears from her eyes.

The emotions between them sprang forth from the photograph, a record of that moment in time before the booby trap, the treasure chest, the wall carvings, the explosion—and the truth—changed their lives.

Had they been so obvious? Were their passions there for everyone to see?

Since that moment in the cave when Tasya realized

she would die, and perhaps spend an eternity without Rurik, she hadn't cried.

Crying was not a habit she wished to cultivate.

Yet again she had to wipe the tears from her eyes, and a single sob escaped her. She covered her mouth, but another followed, and another, and hot, rebellious tears scalded her cheeks.

How dared he be dead?
How dared he?
What ruth-lessness made him hand her the icon and force her to bring it here so the pact could be broken . . . and so she could live? Her whole life had been one long stretch of loneliness, and for a brief few days, she had been alive. Not always happy, not always sure, but alive.

Now more bleak years of loneliness stretched before her until she faded into the night, and at last found her parents, and her love, once more.

Downstairs, she heard Konstantine roar.

She gave a laugh, and gave a sob.

She'd been here ten days, and discovered Konstantine roared more than he talked. It gave her comfort to hear him. He was alive—sick, but still alive. Fighting, and still alive. The old man was an inspiration . .. but then, he still had Zorana.

The thought brought another burst of tears.

My God, when had she turned into such a girl?

Easy answer.

When she'd fallen in love.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a movement, and in a reflex action she turned, fists up, ready to kill.

A ghost stood there.

Rurik, with his jacket flung over his shoulder.

She stared.

Had her parents sent him?

He tossed his jacket on the bed.

Bewildered, she watched it land.

It landed with a whoosh. It wrinkled the comforter. It looked real.

He
looked real.

Standing, she knocked her chair backward. It hit the floor with a smack loud enough to wake her and frighten the ghost.

She didn't wake.

The ghost didn't move. Instead he smiled, a sort of crooked, self-mocking smile that stopped her heart. "No man is worth so many tears."

"Rurik?" she whispered. "Rurik!"

He was sunburned and thin, with a yellowing bruise from a black eye and a weary sadness around his mouth.

She reached out a hand to his shoulder, thinking it would pass right through his form—and touched warm flesh.

He caught her hand, lifted it to his mouth, kissed it, and his breath touched her skin. . . .

She launched herself at him.

He caught her, lifted her into his arms.

Vaguely, from the doorway, she heard a sob. His parents were there. His sister watched.

Tasya didn't care.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips.

She kissed him, taking his breath into her lungs, giving her breath into his. And she remembered her vow in the tunnel. "I love you." She took his head in her hands. She looked into his eyes. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

He was another miracle in a life blessed with' miracles.

He was alive.

Rurik was alive.

Chapter 32

Firebird stood at the open window of the bedroom she shared with Tasya and gazed out into the night. "Look at that moon."

"Wonderful." Tasya sat in her pajamas, stared at the computer screen, concentrating as hard as she could. She had to, to block out the tumult in her body. Her blood sang with need; her legs trembled with desire.

And she lounged here playing solitaire.

"The stars are gorgeous, too. It is so clear and so bright, I can see
clear
to the horse barn." Firebird made that sound like a big deal. "When I was ten, I desperately wanted a horse and Papa said no. He said a horse cost too much to buy and too much to maintain, and we were poor, struggling immigrants with no money for such frivolity. I was crushed."

"Yeah. Bummer." Rurik was in the next bedroom.
In the next bedroom,
and Tasya couldn't go to him. Because the house rules didn't allow unmarried people to sleep together. They'd held hands through dinner, They'd smiled into each other's eyes. Then they'd kissed good night—repeatedly—and gone their separate ways.

Tasya couldn't believe it. She was twenty-nine years old, held to chastity by nineteenth-century morals as applied by a former Varinski.

"But Papa's word is law, so I didn't complain. And on my eleventh birthday, Papa bought himself a horse." Firebird wore a small, reminiscent smile. "He said he had discovered a use for it around the place/'

Caught against her will by the story, Tasya asked, "What use was that?"

"Giving me something to ride and care for."

"Nice."

"He has his moments. Anyway, my sweet old mare is still in the barn, so Papa keeps hay in the loft." Long pause. "You know, my brothers used to use that barn as their own private make-out space."

Tasya looked up. Firebird had her attention now.

"Yep. Because, you know, for a guy who used to have no morals whatsoever, Papa's really strict about this no-sex-under-his-roof thing."

"I noticed."

"Papa is a really traditional guy. And traditionally, lovers have to sneak around to get laid."

Slowly, Tasya pushed her chair back. "Firebird, what are you trying to say?"

"Nothing. Why do you think I'm trying to say something?" Firebird leaned out. "Look at that. That's a big bird. A hawk!"

Tasya raced to the window in time to see the huge hawk sailing across the moon toward the barn. "Rurik," she whispered.

"Papa has the hearing of a wolf." Firebird wandered over to her iPod and flipped on her speakers. "Better climb out the window."

***

Zorana listened to the music playing over her head. Groping under the covers, she patted Konstan-tine's chest. "Tasya just went out the window."

Konstantine grunted and caught her hand, and held it. "I heard nothing. Now, be quiet, woman. I'm trying to get some rest."

***

Tasya ran across the lawn, along the path through the trees, to the barn.

She pressed her hand on the door. With a creak, it swung open. The barn smelled of clean straw, of leather, of a much-loved horse. Moonlight streamed through the open windows, and Rurik stood beside
the stall. The mare had her head laid adoringly on his shoulder while he petted her nose.

There wasn't a female in the world who could resist him.

He smiled at Tasya.

Once again it struck her—he was alive. "I must have done something really good in a former life to deserve you." Her voice was husky with unshed tears, and she swallowed to contain them.

Such
a girl.

"You did something really good in
this
life." He patted the horse one last time, gently disengaged, and strode toward Tasya, his gait long and easy. "I'm the one who never dared dream I would see you again."

She wanted to fling herself at him as she had done this afternoon, but after that first, instinctive reaction, she remembered . . . the fight with the Varinskis, the way the light in his eyes blinked out. She'd thought he'd been killed. At the least, he'd been horribly injured, and she thought that not even his prodigious healing abilities could take an arrow through the chest without repercussions.

"Are you really alive, or is this another dream?" She reached out to him, her hand pale in the moonlight

He came to a halt before her, and she pressed her palm over his heart. It beat strongly, reassuring her.

"How did you live through it?" she whispered. He captured her fingers. "Come on. I'll tell you." He led her to the ladder.

She started up. "Your sister said you guys used this barn for a make-out den."

"Sure. The other guys. But not me. I'm a virgin." She paused and looked down at him.

"Liar."

"A virgin." He looked up, making her dreadfully aware that the light cotton pajamas pulled tight as she climbed, wonderfully aware that he watched and wanted.

She crawled up onto the hay-strewn floor, faced the trap, and watched him follow her up. "I'll have to see what I can do about that."

"I wish you would."

The moonlight shone through the window in a square that lit each straw and made bold shadows of the rafters, the bales, the pitchfork. It was warm up here, the heat of the August sun lingering under the eaves.

She hadn't come prepared for seduction. Her hair was still tipped with white and curled wildly. Her arms were bare; a burst of stars decorated the material over her chest and down her thigh. The drawstring on her pants was knotted, and the waistband rested low on her hips.

"You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Going to the blanket spread over a nest in the straw,

he stretched out and tucked his arms behind his head. He was a living, breathing invitation to sin.

All the times they had been together, they'd been seducing, lying, attacking, lusting.

Tonight was different. Tonight she would learn him.

She knelt beside him, the clean straw cracking beneath her knees. Unbuttoning his shirt, she spread it wide, and traced the contours of his chest. She found the shattered skin where the arrow had entered, right below his left shoulder. But there was another wound on his shoulder, larger, uglier, where the skin didn't cover the muscle and the edges of the wound glowed red.

"Rurik." She looked into his face.

He watched her face. "It's over now."

Which meant he'd suffered far more than any mere man could bear.

She unbuckled his belt, removed his pants, discovered a slice of flesh gone from his right thigh, a chunk of bone from the thrust of his hip. She kissed each injury, her lips lingering, and breathed in the scent of him, reveling in his life, anguished about his pain.

He slid his hand around her neck and brought her close, and kissed her. "It's all right. You're alive. I'm alive. That's all that counts."

"No, it's not all that counts. Those bastards almost
killed you. I thought they had. And I hope they burn in hell."

"I think you can rest assured of that." He kissed
her again.

"Did you kill them all?"

"I did."

She looked into his eyes. Smoothed his hair off his forehead. "Rurik," she whispered. "Tell me."

He sighed, and leaned his head back. "Only if I can hold you. I need to hold you while I ... while I remember. . . ."

Stretching out beside him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. "Are you warm enough? Am I hurting you?"

He crushed her to him. "This is the best I've been in three weeks."

She listened to him breathe, and even now she couldn't believe he was here. "You're a miracle."

"Not me. There are other miracles in this world— and so many horrors. I've lived through a few of both."

"I saw you. You were fighting Ilya in the air." "I shredded him with my talons. I was kicking his
ass—"