Darkness Chosen 01: Scent of Darkness

by Christina Dodd

  Jasha was a big man. A tall man, broad and heavily muscled. She forgot that, sometimes, until he stood in front of her, as he did now, and looked down at her, as he did now. And inside her, that smoky, sexy feeling rose in her because she had run away, and he wanted her again. "I didn't run." She sounded embarrassingly breathless. "I made an intelligent de­cision to walk away because it was obvious you didn't trust me."

  "You don't walk away in the fastest car I own. You were running." He caught her arm when she would have stepped around him. "And I do trust you. I also know if they decided to put a tracking device on you, you'd never know."

  "Okay. That makes sense." She looked him right in the face. "Why didn't you tell me that?"

  "You sometimes take responsibility for too much, and I didn't want you to blame yourself if you'd led them to me."

  "Oh." Oh, great. He'd been thoughtful, and she'd thrown a tizzy.

  She would have gone back to their nest and fin­ished picking up, but he placed his hand in the small of her back and guided her toward the stairs. "That can wait. We need to get ready."

  "Ready? For what?" Did she want to know?

  "My cousin cut the tires on my cars in the garage. He cut my phone Lines. If I make a cell call, I know he'll be monitoring to see who I call and where they are." Jasha smiled, all sharp, white teeth and seething charm. "So you and I are going to give my cousin what he wants. We're going to take him on a bit of a hunting trip."

  When Jasha looked like that, she remembered whom—or what—she was dealing with. As they climbed the steps, she said, "He's going to hunt us."

  "Yes. He'll use the tracking device to follow us, hoping to find my family and eliminate them."

  She didn't understand at first. Then she did, but she didn't believe it. "Eliminate them. You mean— kill them? Your whole family? That's not ... do you really think . . . what is this, In Cold Blood?"

  "He shot me with an arrow. I think we can acquit him of good intentions." Jasha led her into his bed­room, then into his bathroom.

  "But murdering a whole family just because—"

  He turned on the water in the sink and thrust her wounded hand under the stream. "Murder is what they do best, and my family wouldn't be the first family they eliminated, right down to the smallest child."

  The water ran red. She tensed, waiting for the pain.

  She felt only a mild sting. "How will we survive?"

  "We will survive. Don't forget—I am one of them." He turned her palm up to the light.

  A red streak cut across her palm. The cut was deeper and swollen on one end. She couldn't see any­thing but pale scars on her fingers, and the lines on her skin no longer completely lined up—but the wound seemed ridiculous in comparison with the pain she'd felt when the arrow pierced her hand. "I don't understand. I really cut it. I know I did." She watched him test the skin, trying to pull it apart.

  "My blood helped you heal."

  Because he was one of them.

  She could pretend he was a friendly wolf. She could applaud his loyalty to his parents and his siblings.

  But she couldn't ignore the truth.

  When Jasha wished, he turned into a wolf. He was a predator. He was the son and grandson and great-grandson of murderers, rapists, and assassins.

  She brought the bad people. She always brought the bad people.

  No matter how much she wished otherwise, he was one of them.

  Chapter 16

  When Jasha and Ann stepped out the back door, twilight hovered in the air like an essence only they could smell.

  "Are they here?" She looked around at the trees that crowded the house and imagined eyes, shining with hunger, watching every step.

  "They're gone. I'd bet my cousin's off giving the hunter his reward."

  "Paying him off, you mean." The unprincipled rat.

  "Giving him what he deserves."

  She jerked her head around and stared at Jasha. "Is he going to kill him?"

  "I don't know. Possibly. Do you care?" Jasha locked the door, then rested his hand on it, almost as if he were saying good-bye.

  "Shouldn't I?"

  "The hunter got drunk and shot at wild wolves—

  at my pack, at my leader—and ran to the police when he was frightened. Then he joined with a stranger so he could see me shot with an arrow, and he used a rifle to shoot out the tire on my Beemer."

  Troubled by Jasha's rancor, she said, "I wasn't too easy on your car, either."

  "I'm not sure he was aiming at the tire. He might have hit you." Jasha looked right at her, his mouth a flat, thin line. "I break out in a sweat every time I think of what he might have done by accident—or on purpose."

  "I didn't think of that." She clutched the pocket where she kept the icon.

  Was death stalking her . . . again?

  "So do I care if my cousin makes him suffer? If he kills him?" Jasha answered his own questions. "No. No, I don't."

  But Ann did. Didn't she? She hated cruelty . . . but whose cruelty should she hate now? That of the hunter, the man who preyed on beautiful, sleek beasts who ran wild in the forest? Or the predator who preyed on the hunter? Neither of them was a good man, and perhaps . . . perhaps what happened was nothing more than justice. Certainly there was nothing she could do about it.

  "That'll keep the Varinski busy, and no one else will see us go. Do you have the icon? Do you have your cell phone?" When she nodded yes to both questions, Jasha strode off down the driveway into the woods. "Come on, then. We're going to have an adventure."

  Before she took the final step into the cover of trees, she stopped and looked back at the castle.

  Had it been only yesterday that she'd driven up to the front door and stepped into this legend? Since that moment, there hadn't been one instant when she could have turned back. She knew, because she'd desperately looked for the sign u-turn al­lowed here.

  Or, more fittingly, I'D turn back if i were you. Be­cause she was the Cowardly Lion.

  She glanced at Jasha, waiting for her in the shadows.

  Yes, the Cowardly Lion seemed a very sensible character to be. But Jasha said that wasn't one of her choices.

  Bait or dead meat.

  She trudged after him.

  At once twilight became night. At night, the forest smelled richer; the earth exhaled the scent of last au­tumn's leaves; the trees groaned and spoke, spicing the air with pine. She couldn't see anything, and she stumbled and cursed.

  Of course, what did she expect? She wore Jasha's hiking boots padded with three pairs of socks, and her feet were big, but not that big. She wore a wide-brimmed camouflage hat. She wore his wide-sleeved silk T-shirt, which on him would be tight and on her flapped loosely, and over that, his camouflage shirt. His camouflage pants were held up by a belt cinched tightly around her waist, and bungee cords cinched the bottoms of the legs against the boots.

  She'd wanted in his pants, but not like this.

  He'd wrapped a bandage around her hurt hand, then put his gloves on her to protect the bandage. He'd turned up the cuffs on his shirt, and he'd buck­led a hunting vest, filled with things like compasses and flashlights, tightly around her. Because no matter how tall she was, he was taller. His shoulders were broader. She looked like a little girl wearing her big brother's clothes, and when she thought of her plans for long evenings lounging by the fireplace, wine­glass in hand, an adoring Jasha at her feet, she wanted to throw something. The canteen that hung on her shoulder strap, perhaps, or the knife he in­sisted she carry strapped to her leg.

  The most humiliating part was—she wore his un­derwear. All she'd brought from Napa were lacy thongs, and he had said, "You are not traipsing through the woods in butt floss. Here." He'd tossed her a pair of serviceable cotton briefs.

  She'd let them fall at her feet while she stared re­proachfully at him.

  "It's either that or you're going commando," he'd said.

  So she wore the briefs—and cursed the fate that had sent her here.

/>   Of course, she knew fate was innocent. Ann had acted on her own dreams and desires; she was the one responsible for the men's underwear, the trek through a midnight forest, and the realization that merging with a man involved more than flowers and romance. With Jasha, the merging meant that she had adopted his family. She'd longed to be adopted, not adopt! And she'd had to save his life; the Chinese said that when a person saved a life, she was respon­sible for it. So if they were right, then she faced re­sponsibilities she had never imagined.

  She stumbled again.

  "Your eyes will adjust to the darkness pretty soon.” He put his arm around her.

  "The middle of my back feels . . . itchy." Uneasily, she shrugged her shoulders. "No one's watching us, are they?"

  "Unless all of my senses have deceived me, there's only one cousin in the vicinity. He thinks he buried a tracking device in me—-and hey, I do have it right here in this plastic bag—and that he's got the upper hand. He thinks my father is weak and my mother is a harlot. He thinks my brothers and my sister and I are all happy, bloated fools." Ann heard Jasha's teeth snap together. "We will show them fhe truth."

  The truth. She shivered. What truth could she show anyone? She didn't have extra-special senses or a clever strategy or unique abilities. All she had was a birthmark, a birthmark she managed to forget about . . . most of the time.

  Except now. Right now, for the first time ever, she could feel a faint sizzle under her skin.

  Why? What had changed? What had Jasha done to her while she slept?

  What had she done to herself?

  "You're looking forward to a fight.” she said.

  "I'd rather fight than wait, but I can do both."

  "I'm more of a Let's negotiate kind of person." She cursed the hopeful tone of her voice.

  "No one negotiates with a Varinski," he said flatly.

  "What's a Varinski? Some kind of gun?"

  "The family name is Varinski. When my parents fled Russia, they changed their name to Wilder. They wanted a new start in a New World." He sounded frustrated. Angry. "And they got it, but the Old World has followed us here."

  "At least you're not a happy bloated fool." She was really working to find the silver lining.

  He chuckled and hugged her. "I am happy. Can you see better now?"

  She could. Still not well, but well enough not to fall on her face. "Not yet." She liked walking with his arm around her. "Why aren't you a happy, bloated fool?"

  "The children of immigrants don't dare become bloated. Our parents have plans for us, and heaven forbid we not fulfill them. Talk of the Old Country is enough to motivate any of us."

  "So you're successful because your parents de­manded it"

  "No, because they expect no less. What about you, Ann? Why are you successful?"

  His light tone didn't fool her. He wanted to know who she was, where she'd come from, who her peo­ple were.

  And she had no intention of telling him. "I'm suc­cessful? I don't think so. I'm just an assistant.”

  ''You're not just anything. With the right staff, you could expand Wilder Wines into a worldwide corpo­ration. That's the kind of brain you have. So why didn't you go to business school? Why are you work­ing for me?"

  Now she was sorry she walked with his arm around her. It was dark; probably he couldn't see her expression. But it was equally possible he could smell her discomfort, and she feared he could feel her re­serve in the stiff set of her shoulders. "I'm looking for a rich husband, and I thought you were promis­ing. Now I'm not so sure-—I'm allergic to pet dander and I don't like camping trips." That came out more curtly than she'd intended. But she wasn't sorry.

  She'd told strangers about her past before. Their reactions were always extreme—pity and curiosity. Usually they thought her background gave them the license to interrogate her, and then they edged away, as if bad fortune was contagious, or as if she'd done something to deserve her past.

  Perhaps it was true. Perhaps, just perhaps, she had been marked by God as a warning to others to stay away.

  Perhaps Jasha wouldn't care. But perhaps he would, and it seemed smarter, or at least safer, to keep her secrets. "I can see now.” she said, then told herself she was relieved when he let her go and walked beside her.

  The Douglas firs were massive chunks of darkness blotting out the dim light, and the cedars scented the air. When she looked up, she could see the pine tops waving at the chilly stars. Funny, how often she mar­veled at people who imagined the stars were friendly, concerned with human destiny. As a child, far too often, she'd wished on them and had her wishes ignored. The stars were far away and indiffer­ent, and anyone who believed otherwise was a fool.

  She only wished she were still that kind of fool.

  "As far back as I can recall, I have memories of walking in the woods." Jasha kept his tone conversa­tional, and he seemed unfazed by her detachment. "Before I could toddle, my father took me in his arms and walked the perimeter of our lands to show me the places where bad people could hide. The next year, I walked our lands all by myself, holding his hand while he carried my brother Rurik. The year after that, he carried Adrik. And finally, ten years later, we took turns carrying Firebird."

  She couldn't help but respond to the affection in his voice. "Your dad sounds like a great guy."

  "He is. He's from the Old Country, and he's a stern disciplinarian who held us to high standards, but he loves us and never for a minute did he let us doubt that."

  When jasha had told her they had to go out and be bait so he could save his family, she'd realized she should have been grateful to be an orphan.

  But when he talked like this, giving her bits of family life that sounded so Brady Bunch, an undefined hunger clawed at her insides, and she had to bite back her envy.

  Jasha continued. "Before we turned—"

  "Before you turned? What do you mean, before you turned?"

  "Ah. Well." He sounded as if he was gearing up for a lecture. "When a Varinski's a child, he's just a child. It's puberty that brings out the, urn-"

  "Beast in you?" she suggested wryly.

  "Exactly what my mother calls it." He spoke with humor. "like adolescence isn't hard enough. Pimples, inappropriate hard-ons, and excess body hair. Lots of excess body hair. And a tattoo that appears out of nowhere—and let me tell you, when Miss Joyce got a glimpse of that, she was one cranky teacher."

  They were walking inland and uphill at a steady rate, and she thought if they kept going in this direc­tion, they'd have to cross the highway soon.

  "From the time we could toddle, my father taught us woodsmanship. He taught us to be suspicious of strangers. He taught us to track and to know if we're being tracked. He taught us everything handed down from generations of Varinskis, and man, was he tough! He was our Boy Scout leader—the guys in our troop could survive on nothing. And prepared! We were always prepared. He used to set traps for us. One time my brother and I were coming home from school, and I stepped into a snare. It grabbed my feet and swung me in the air upside down. I hit the stub of a branch on the way up. That's what gave me this scar." Jasha stopped, took her hand, and guided it to his cheek.

  Ann was well familiar with that pale scar—she had made up Don Juan-type fantasies about that scar— but she couldn't resist inching her fingers along its length, and knowing at least the last day's ordeals had earned her the right to touch his face, feel the texture of his skin and the smooth burr of his just-shaved chin. "It could have taken your eye out!"

  "My mother said that, too. She was mad at my father. I never saw her so mad. She laid into him— he let her, too, and then he said, 'Ruyshka, better me scar his face than the demons of hell cast his soul into the pit/ "

  "That's . . . sort of over-the-top." But she wasn't surprised. When she'd spoken to Konstantine on the phone, he'd had a deep baritone and a way of mak­ing every phrase seem sensational and dramatic.

  "That's the trouble. It's not. He told us over and over the Varinskis would come
, and we had to be prepared." Jasha's voice got gravelly. "He would say I wasn't prepared enough. He would say that the long peace had made me complacent, and that I got what I deserved. And I guess he was right."

  Shyly, Ann put her arm around Jasha's waist and hugged. She knew he was thinking about his father in the hospital.

  "But I'll never forgive myself for the hurt my negli­gence caused my family. And you." He hugged her back. "And you."

  "You didn't—"

  "Don't lie to soothe my feelings. You came dressed to seduce me, and you got . . . this." She felt him gesture at their surroundings.

  "The stars are very romantic," she said.

  As if she'd caught him by surprise, he choked, then chuckled. "Papa's the reason I have clothes stashed in the forest. Everywhere I'm going to take you, there's provisions and blankets. You'll be warm. You'll be dry. You won't go hungry."

  She was surprised he even brought it up. "I know you'll provide for me." That he wouldn't had never occurred to her.

  He stopped. He kissed her. "There isn't another woman I'd want with me on this journey. And— here's the highway."

  They stepped out onto Highway 101.

  "We'll go south for a few minutes, then turn in­land," he said.

  "South? That's great." South to her meant towns and freeways and civilization and, eventually, California.

  "For now"—he walked back into the woods and came out pushing a small motorbike—"let's give the Varinski a workout."

  Chapter 17

  Six hours later, when the motorbike ran out of gas and the feeble headlight died, Ann didn't know where they were. She knew only that she was sick of hanging on to Jasha's waist, her butt vibrating as the roads turned to trails and the trails turned to tracks, all leading upward.

  "That should do it." Jasha sounded satisfied as he helped her off and dropped the kickstand.

  She rubbed her rear and stomped her feet, trying to get some feeling back into her legs, and looked around. It was still night, the longest night in the history of the world, and this place looked like all the other places they'd been: wild, forest covered, and dark. Really, really dark. As in never-seen-an-electric-light dark. Her eyes hurt from staring, and she didn't know whether they were open or shut.