Touch of Darkness

by Christina Dodd

She flinched. She wanted to vomit.

  "Second chance, sir." Sergei's voice squeaked. "Please, sir."

  Rurik let him go and stepped away. "Either my father is lying, or the training has fallen short since his day."

  The blond guy had not budged. He'd watched the

  whole thing with no apparent interest. "He's in training."

  "At what? Eighteen?"

  "I'm twenty." Sergei sat up and resentfully held his wrist.

  Had she been wrong? Hadn't Rurik broken a bone? Or were these guys so used to pain they were indifferent?

  "A bird, right?" Rurik guessed.

  "An owl," Sergei said proudly. "They brought me along to hunt you at night."

  Key-Guy muttered a harsh Russian word.

  "So your daytime vision's not too good. Thanks for the tip." Rurik shook his head in disgust. "You're going to have to do better than that, or you're going to get killed first thing."

  "Poyesh' govna pechyonovo," Sergei said rudely.

  Key-Guy and Ilya strolled forward, each from a different direction.

  "Yes, he's a young fool and says too much," Key-Guy said, "but, smart Wilder boy, you showed too much."

  They were both going to attack Rurik, Tasya realized. Two trained assassins were going to kill him— and try as she might to steel herself against him, she cared. Because she thought he would protect her at least a little . . . but also because she cared. Damn it, she didn't want to but she did.

  Rurik stood loosely, waiting, while the guys circled him.

  She watched, breathless, waiting for the first punch.

  Instead, Ilya disappeared, leaving his clothes on the ground, and in a flash of feathers, a huge, black-and-white bird took his place. With a flap of its eight-foot wing span, the eagle took to the air.

  Tasya didn't know what to do with her hands. What to do with her feet. Whether to scream or pray.

  Then Rurik exploded into a burst of feathers and rose into the air on a hawk's wings.

  "No," she whispered. "No!"

  She had witnessed the impossible.

  Someone grabbed her from behind. "Yes," Sergei whispered back at her. "It's true. You're living your worst nightmare."

  Later, she didn't know what she did. She knew her moves: elbow him in the gut, nail him in the instep, twist that hurt wrist. He was a Varinski, but she must have done something, because he was on the ground behind her.

  Maybe he wasn't completely impervious to pain.

  She stared at the pile of clothes and weapons, Ru-rik's clothes and weapons, left on the ground. She stared at the skies while the two mighty birds of prey circled and slashed.

  Their talons were like razor blades.

  The hawk was smaller, faster, dashing in, slashing, dashing out.

  But the eagle made each swipe count, cutting deep into the hawk. He slashed the wing, the chest. . . . The hawk spiraled downward.

  She thought she screamed.

  The eagle swooped down for the kill—and right before they hit the earth, the hawk became a man, taking the eagle and rolling, smashing him into the ground with Rurik's man weight on top of him.

  The eagle flapped its wings and went still.

  Rurik had won, but at a price.

  He gasped and writhed, trying to get his breath. He was naked. He was defenseless.

  As the blond man watched, his eyes turned to flame. He stripped off his clothes—my God, he was bigger and more muscular than she'd realized—and Tasya saw his transformation start.

  A wolf. He was a wolf. His snout grew long; his teeth lengthened; the pale hair on his head covered his face and neck and down his back.

  He'd used the eagle to wear Rurik down. Now he intended to finish Rurik off.

  So Tasya lifted her backpack and smashed him across the face. It must have been her heavy-soled boots hanging

  by a strap that took him out. Or maybe it was her canteen, half-filled with water. For a vital few seconds, he hit the dirt and didn't move.

  When he did, Rurik stood above him. His tattoo writhed up one arm and down his chest, and the sky blue and the vivid red seemed almost to glow with menace. "It'll be evening soon. Where's the campground? I hope to hell you had the good sense to stay well away from the holy ground."

  The guy in the dirt groaned and turned his head away.

  "That way." Sergei pointed, and his voice held a respect she hadn't heard before. "Down the path, then cut a right up into the boulders."

  Rurik gathered his clothes, his knives, and his pistol, and handed them to Tasya. "Hold those."

  She looked at them, then looked up at him, wanting to see his reaction when she tossed them in the dirt.

  Until he said, "Unless you want me to remain naked."

  She didn't want to look at him, really look at him, but his words were a challenge, and now he was all she could see. The setting sun shone on the muscles of his chest, still heaving from exertion, and on the knife wound that she now realized was not from a knife, but a claw or a tooth. Blood oozed from the cuts the eagle had inflicted. He was ripped; the six-pack of his belly and his massive thighs spoke only too clearly of a life lived with a regime of weights and long-distance running, of constantly preparing for the fight that might come. And now had.

  While she scrutinized him, his genitals stirred. Of course.

  He was a Varinski.

  "I hate you so much," she breathed. She'd never meant anything so much.

  "But you'll carry rny clothes."

  Yes. He'd won every battle with every underhanded tactic known to man.

  And she'd fallen for it all.

  Rurik grabbed his backpack in one hand and her arm with the other, and started for the camp.

  The blond guy, no longer a wolf, staggered to his feet. "The bitch needs to be taught a lesson."

  Rurik faced him. "What's your name?"

  "I'm Kassian."

  "Well, Kassian, I'd say she learned one. She can't kill a Varinski, but she can knock him unconscious with a swift blow to the head." Rurik turned and walked her down the hill.

  She'd learned another one, too.

  That monsters walked the earth, and through her own foolishness, she'd become their prey.

  Chapter 26

  Let go of my arm." Tasya marched stiffly beside Rurik as he strode down the hill toward the camp.

  "I have things to tell you and no time to do it."

  She tried to yank herself free.

  His grip tightened. "Stay close. Their job is to kill you. If you get away from me, they'll finish the job."

  "What a wonderful choice you're offering."

  "Do not chop off your nose to spite your face."

  "I am a fool. Just not that kind." She looked at him, trying to see the man she had known so well.

  A Varinski. My God. The man she'd worked with, the man she'd slept with, the man she'd trusted was a Varinski.

  She'd seen him change into a hawk. She'd seen it.

  Still she couldn't comprehend, and she couldn't keep silent. "But rest assured, you've proved to me I am .1 fool. In every way. You screwed me in every way possible."

  He jerked her to a stop. "Okay. First—when I met you, I didn't know you had a beef with the Varinskis. So don't convince yourself I screwed you because it was funny. I screwed you because I wanted you. I still want you, and I'm going to do my damnedest to make sure you come out of this alive."

  "Yeah, sure." He made her dizzy when he bent his gaze on her and spoke so forcefully. She could almost believe him. "That's why you told them who I am." Her hand tightened on her backpack.

  She needed to concentrate. She had the icon. He didn't know it. She intended to keep it that way.

  "I used you as a bargaining chip so they would accept me." He started forward again, dragging her along behind him. "In case you didn't notice, there's some tension between the Russian Varinskis and the American Wilders, and I'm worthless to you dead."

  "You never told me you were a Varinski."

  "I'm not
. I'm a Wilder. I'm my father's son. My mother's son." He pulled her to a stop in a grassy hollow beside the pile of Varinski duffel bags—and rifles and semiautomatic pistols. He scanned the area, then dropped his backpack beside a pile of boulders.

  Taking his T-shirt from her, he pulled it over his head. "And when you told me your story, we were already on the run."

  "You didn't have to stay with me." She watched him pull on his underwear, strap on his knives, pull on his pants. "All that crap about, 'Trust me, Tasya. I won't betray you, Tasya. I swear on my father's soul.' Your father's soul must be so stained from your swearing, he'll go straight to hell."

  Rurik looked at her. Just looked at her, and for one moment, she saw straight into the depths of grief.

  She recognized those depths. She'd lived in those depths.

  Her spine stiffened.

  She would not feel empathy for him. For a Varinski.

  She dropped the rest of his clothes and his shoes in the grass, and dusted her fingers. "Why am I holding those for you?"

  He leaned against the boulder and put on his socks and shoes, then picked through the pile of Varinski weapons and chose a semiautomatic pistol. He loaded a clip into the handle. "Let's get out of here."

  "Sounds like a good idea to me." She leaned down to pick up a pistol.

  He caught her hand. "Do you shoot?"

  "I've had training."

  "Well, then." He sounded grimly amused. "While I would love to know you could defend yourself against the Varinskis, I'm afraid I'll have to err on the side of remaining alive myself."

  He was wary. Good. "According to you Varinskis, I can't kill you."

  "That's true. But if you shot me, you could certainly slow me down."

  "Good to know." She fixed her gaze on his.

  "Slow me down and piss me off." He looked right back at her. "How about this? I'll explain first, then give you the pistol."

  "Sounds like a deal." She didn't want to be the one to break eye contact, but the way he looked at her, so knowing, so determined, made her turn her gaze away.

  He thought since he'd seduced her once—well, more than once—he'd be able to sweet-talk her into believing his lies again.

  Why wouldn't he? She'd been a sucker all the way.

  "Come on." He tried to take her backpack.

  She balked, her fingers tightening on the handle, her heart pounding with sudden alarm.

  He was a supernatural thing. Did he sense the icon inside?

  "What are you doing?"

  "We're leaving stuff here so they know we're coming back." He tugged again. "Where we're going, you don't need your backpack."

  No. He didn't know about the icon.

  Face it, Tasya, if he knew about the icon, he'd take it and run—no, fly—and leave you for the Varinskis.

  The bitterness of that truth made her lift her chin and stare him right in the eyes. "Then I'm keeping it. It's . . . got my camera in it."

  He looked back, just as angry, just as hostile.

  As if he had the right!

  "Fine." He tossed his leather duster down beside his stuff and took her arm again.

  She shook him off. "I can walk."

  "Fine." He let her go and headed up the hill.

  She shrugged into her backpack and, fueled by her anger, hurried to catch up. "Where are we going?"

  "To the other side of the mountain where we can talk in peace."

  Across the narrow rock path that cut across the cliff, he meant. It wasn't a walk she cherished making twice in one day. Or ever again. "How do you figure? At least one of those guys are birds. If they want to fly over and poop on us, they will. They're Varinskis. They can do whatever they want." She shuddered. "And so can you."

  "No, I can't."

  "I saw you."

  "You saw me turn into a hawk for the first time in five years. I broke my vow because—" He took a breath and gathered his thoughts. "The two young Varinskis are hurt. They're going to need to recover—which they will, and quickly, because that's part of the deal with the devil. You humiliated Kas-sian, and that's going to take a longer recovery, be-cause he's going to have to reestablish his authority over the kids. We've got a couple of hours before they come looking for us."

  "Because they know that now they've found us, we can't get away." It seemed as if the icon made the backpack weigh more.

  "That's exactly what I intend."

  "Or maybe they didn't find us. Maybe you brought me here to deliver me to them." It hurt to even say the words.

  "If that was the truth, why would I go through the trouble of lying to you now?" He had the guts to snap at her.

  Her frustration boiled over. "I don't know, I don't freaking understand why you did any of this— excavating that site, following me around Europe."

  "I did it for my family. I did it for my father."

  "Isn't that touching? I did it for my family, too! Only I want to take the icon to the National Antiquities Society, and you want to take it to ... ?" She raised her eyebrows at him,

  "To my parents in Washington State." He added bitterly, "But what's the point of fighting about that? We didn't find the icon."

  She stumbled.

  He caught her arm.

  She'd almost betrayed herself. She'd almost let slip that she had found the icon, that she had it in her possession, and if she could, she'd take it away. "So all this—the excavation, the race through Europe after a Hershey bar—was about your family and your father?"

  "The legend is true. The devil did divide the icons. He flung them to the four corners of the earth." Rurik flung out his arm as if he were the devil—and right now, to Tasya, that seemed a fair description. "My family has to reunite them to break the pact with the devil."

  "How touching."

  They reached the ledge that clung so precariously to the cliff.

  He offered her his hand to help her along.

  "Do you want to hear this or not?"

  She did. She wanted some explanation. "Sure. It beats hanging around with the Varinskis." She walked forward without fear. How could she fear a fall when she'd slept with her greatest enemy?

  Rurik followed close behind, out onto the stone path.

  She couldn't stop—didn't want to stop—the sarcasm that bubbled from her like an endless spring. "Oh, wait. I forgot. You are a Varinski."

  He caught her arm and halted her, right there on the narrow path. He didn't do anything. He just waited.

  She wouldn't look down. She wouldn't look down. She would not. . . . She looked down. All the way down to the jagged rocks below.

  Tearing her gaze away, she looked back at Rurik.

  Clearly, the son of a bitch could stand here all day. Yeah, because if he fell, he could fly.

  She surrendered. "Please tell me your story. It beats—" No. No more scorn. "Just talk."

  He let her go and followed her as she edged along with more caution this time. "My father is one of Konstantine's descendants, his generation's leader of the Varinskis—and the first Varinski to fall in love."

  "With your mother?"

  "With my mother. When they ran away to be married, his family and her tribe went after them. To say the least, neither group approved. In the fight, Konstantine killed his brother. The Varinskis would never forgive him, so Konstantine and Zorana escaped to the United States, changed their name to Wilder, and made their home in the mountains of Washington. They had three sons." His voice grew reverent. "And then a miracle happened. My mother gave birth to the first girl in a thousand years."

  Clearly, Rurik adored his sister, and unfortunately, his affection plucked at Tasya's sentiments. "I feel as

  if I've wandered into Monsterpiece Theater," she said, but as they reached the end of the path, and safe ground, she could feel her anger cooling.

  Which was exactly what Rurik intended, for he walked beside her, his long stride confident and relaxed. "My parents hoped that the pact had been broken, but when Jasha passed through puberty, he ch
anged into a wolf. Adrik changed into a panther. Firebird . . . well, my sister, Firebird, doesn't change into an animal, but she's strong and smart, and dear to us all."

  "And you're a hawk." Tasya didn't want to go near the entrance to the cave. So she headed for the top of the hill.

  Rurik joined her. "When we boys were teenagers, it was so cool. We couldn't let anyone know about us, of course, but we'd sneak off and run or fly, and we thought we were the hottest guys in town. I'm the only son who can control the transformation. My father says I'm the only male ever to be able to do that. I can turn an arm into a wing, or a foot into a claw, or change my eyes to see with the acuity and distance of a hunting hawk."

  "You're swaggering." He was. Swaggering at the memory of a youth spent with a freedom and a power Tasya could never have imagined.

  "Yeah. I was really hot shit. My father claimed each transformation brought us closer to the yawning

  pit of hell, but I was sure I could make the shape-shifting work for me." As he spoke, his gait changed infinitesimally. "Bad things happened. When Adrik was seventeen, he got in trouble and just . . . disappeared. We traced him to Asia, but . . . nothing. Still 1 thought I could handle the hawk thing without any repercussions. Flying was just so glorious!"

  She watched him and knew—these memories were bittersweet. "So you became a pilot."

  "Then everyone knew I was the best pilot in the Air Force, the guy who got to fly the experimental airplanes and train the best recruits."

  She heard the longing in his voice. Told herself she didn't care. And found herself asking anyway. "What happened?"

  "I used my hawk vision when I was flying recon and scared my WISO so much he ejected into enemy territory. Before we could get back to him, the enemy had caught him and tortured him to death." He spoke with a low intensity that made her look at him, really look at him.

  Guilt hung on him like mourning clothes. Regret choked him like a noose.

  She felt . . . she felt almost sorry for him.

  "My father was right. The devil's gift can't be used for good, and it cost a good man his life for me to learn that lesson. So I made a vow to never turn again."

  She did not want to feel sorry for him, and she

  refused to feel an obligation because he'd broken his vow to save her life. "Did anything good come out of the flight?"