Sharing the Darkness

by Marilyn Tracy

  And now, on what seemed to her the very edge of the earth, she had crossed of her own accord, entered the dark domain of a man of rare power, of raw force. She had the prickling sensation of destiny taking over, of having willingly entered the twisted home of something—someone—who lived outside the laws of man, outside the governance of society.

  Dear God, what was she doing here? Why had she insisted that he take her in? This was madness, insanity. This had to be worse than the PRI. But nothing could be worse than that. Could it?

  The door shut behind her with a loud thud, and she knew an atavistic fear of being trapped within these thick rock walls, locked in with a stranger whose very touch granted life or could strip it away. She grasped Chris’s rounded little shoulder and held him tightly against her, as if by protecting him she could ward off danger altogether.

  The windowless hallway was too night-darkened to grant her vision and she felt suddenly light-headed. When he spoke, she was unable to control her start.

  “You should have listened to me,” he said. Disembodied, his voice no longer seemed harsh from disuse but rather as though it came from someplace deep inside him or from the very walls of his home. It was low and carried a note of warning, of promises long broken, of bitter disbelief and harsh resignation to the fates that guided him. In the dark, he seemed much less a man than a vehicle for the odd power he carried inside him.

  She couldn’t see him at all, but felt his eyes upon her though she knew it was impossible. Even Teo Sandoval couldn’t see in the dark. Or could he? She could feel him, inches from her, so close she could smell his heady mountain scent, warm herself from the heat radiating off his body.

  Was he waiting for her to say something? How could she speak when she couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t gauge his reaction?

  “You leave at first light,” he said.

  “My car is stuck in the mud,” she replied quickly, as if this were argument enough for her to stay.

  “Pablo will help you get it out. I’m sure he’s the fool who sent you up here. I’ll deal with him later.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, but his silence made a mockery of her protesting lie. “I—Don’t be angry with him.”

  “If I am, señora, it has nothing to do with you.”

  Melanie didn’t know what to say to this. If he was angry at the gas station attendant, Pablo, then she’d placed the man in grave danger. For Teo Sandoval was capable of doing anything. The time he’d been angry at the PRI, an entire scientific wing of a building had been smashed to bits.

  “Please,” she said again, although this time she wasn’t quite certain what she was asking of him.

  “At first light, señora,” he said, somehow giving the formal title a derisive intonation that she’d never heard given it before. Suddenly it was a threat and a promise at the same time. Not only that, but the tenor of his voice had changed as he spoke. His rasped voice seemed a caress now, and there was something else, some primal question laced in it that seemed torn from him against his will.

  Though her heart still hammered in her breast, the pounding now had nothing to do with fear of the night, fear of the rock cave that seemed to spill down a cliff side. Now all her fear was of the man beside her in the dark and it stole her breath and made her legs feel weak and insubstantial.

  She felt the dark around her as if it were a living presence. It pressed at her back, at her face, just as his scent did, as his body warmth did. Yet another shiver that had nothing to do with cold ran across her arms, and her fingertips tingled. She fought the urge to send her free hand questing for him in the dark. She wasn’t afraid of what she might find, but of what she might discover about herself.

  “I…could we turn on a light?” she asked. She half wondered if he even had anything remotely resembling electricity.

  “Afraid of the dark?” he asked, still not moving. His voice carried no trace of an accent and yet seemed foreign nonetheless.

  “Yes,” she said, but it was a lie. Before entering his home, she had never been fearful of the dark. And she wasn’t now; she was scared of the tension in her chest, the trembling of her fingers, the ache his voice inspired in her. Most of all, she was terrified of Teo Sandoval.

  A sudden clatter of objects striking the stone floor beneath her made her start and step back only to stop abruptly when she stepped on something. It rolled away from her feet, making her shiver in primal fear, only to realize almost instantaneously what the object was—Chris’s red ball.

  Somehow, incredibly, in the midst of her tension, her fear, and in this dark hallway of an even darker man, Chris had fallen asleep. Only when trying to please his mother or when asleep, did he break the focused attention on his dancing toys.

  “Give him to me,” Teo’s voice commanded.

  Melanie shrank back from him, holding Chris fiercely with both arms. She felt Teo’s large hands brush hers as he tried removing Chris from her grip.

  “No,” she said.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” he said roughly, pushing her hands from their fervent hold.

  With as great a reluctance as she had ever known, Melanie relinquished her hold on her son. It was utterly terrifying to stand there in the dark and hand her son to Teo Sandoval, a man who could render a scientist’s mind into a vegetable. But there was no alternative. Besides, if she was to gain his help, she would have to gain his trust.

  She heard the faintest of rustles, felt a hint of movement in the air and then heard him speak again, this time from a considerable distance. “Stay there.”

  “Wait—”

  “I’ll be back,” he said. “For you.”

  Melanie called out to him, but received no answer. She stepped forward, nearly tripping over Chris’s fallen toys. Moving cautiously, she stretched her hands out in front of her, but couldn’t see them, could see nothing. She couldn’t feel any walls.

  “Where are you taking him?” she called out, but again received no answer. He had gone, taking Chris with him. This was pure torture, she thought. She was not only in a strange place in the dark, but an even stranger man had removed her son from her custody.

  She stopped trying to follow when she ran into something, a table or possibly a tall chair. She wished she could feel a resurgence of that anger that had infused her veins earlier, but she didn’t. All she felt was small, alone and very, very frightened.

  She clung to the awareness that he said he’d be back for her, and then realized for the first time how he’d said it, not simply that he’d return for her, but that he’d return…for her. She had only been thinking of Chris then, but now, by herself in the blackness, she heard the curious emphasis that had been in his final words.

  It seemed hours before she heard any indication of his returning, time that stretched into insanity, filling her mind with horrible visions of what he might be doing to Chris, how Chris might have wakened and been frightened to be with a stranger, away from his mother.

  Straining her ears, she heard a dull thud somewhere far away, followed quickly by his light footfalls. For a large man, he moved remarkably quietly. And suddenly she knew he was in the hallway—or whatever she was in—with her. She couldn’t see so much as a glimmer of him, but she felt him nonetheless.

  That blessed anger she’d missed earlier returned slightly, attempting to override the terror she felt at being alone in the dark with him. She was furious with him for making her feel this way.

  “Where did you take Chris?” she demanded to know.

  He didn’t answer her, making her wonder if she’d misunderstood her own conviction that he was even there with her.

  But almost immediately his hand encircled her forearm, making her jump in galvanized reaction. She jerked herself free. “Tell me where Chris is,” she commanded.

  To her discomfiture, he chuckled and again took hold of her arm. His grip was gentle enough, but the heat from his fingers seemed to burn through her dripping parka, the damp blouse beneath it. She felt she might as well have been
naked, the way his touch seared her skin.

  She held herself perfectly still, trying not to even breathe. His chuckle deepened, but without being able to see him, only hearing that husky laughter that somehow conjured images of smoke and fire, and feeling that burning touch, Melanie didn’t believe Teo Sandoval was even slightly amused. The tenor of the chuckle underscored tension, cruelty and anger, nothing so simple as humor.

  Oh, God, what had she done by bringing Chris to this man?

  “Come,” he said, pulling her closer to him. Her hand brushed his chest, his own knuckles pressed against her breast.

  “No,” she said, her voice ragged with her fear of him and her intense awareness of his knuckles against her breast.

  His hand tightened and he pulled her even closer. Both her hands were crushed to his chest now, and she could feel the heavy thud of his heart beating against her trembling touch. His hot breath teased her, danced across her temple.

  “You came to me,” he rasped, his voice the roughest of raw silk. “You’re the one who begged to stay. Not the other way around.”

  Melanie told herself that remaining perfectly still was her best defense, though, if she were perfectly honest, she couldn’t have moved. Then she tried assuring herself that she couldn’t move because he held her too tightly, too forcefully. But while true, it wasn’t the whole truth, because she liked the way he held her, relished the feel of his heart pounding against her, his fiery touch burning her.

  Branding her, his free hand stroked the wet hair from her face, caressed her cheek and moved lower, trailing a delicate, sinister graze along her sensitive throat. Her breath caught and to her dismay, instead of trying to escape that touch, she found herself arching her neck, allowing him greater purchase.

  With a low, evil laugh, he bent his head and followed with his lips the trail his fingers had blazed.

  Melanie felt her knees buckle in reaction, though whether that reaction was due to fear of him or sharp acceptance of his scalding kiss, she didn’t dare explore. But she realized her fingers weren’t flat against his chest any longer, but had curled, as if by their own volition, and now clung to his flannel woolen shirt.

  He pressed his lips against the hollow of her throat, against the madly throbbing pulse in her neck. His tongue slowly tasted her, making her moan in fearful acknowledgment. Blind to everything but his touch, she could only think of him as incorporeal, a phantom without substance other than his lips, his tongue, his roaming hand.

  What had he said? You came to me…not the other way around. It was true. She had crossed the threshold of the home of the mountain king and now he was exacting his penance, claiming his due. She murmured some protest, which he silenced with his kiss, covering her mouth, invading her with his scorching tongue.

  His fingers were bands of iron, strong and forceful, and he dragged her to him in harsh need. His kiss deepened even more, and his body was as solid as the earth itself, his grip as strong as the jagged rocks of the cliff they were standing upon.

  The blood was pounding in her ears, and her heartbeat seemed a timpani. Part of her mind screamed at her to put a halt to this, to pull away and cry a denial of the chaos he roused in her.

  His scent filled her nostrils, the firm, bold touch of his roaming hands sent shock waves of sensation through her, his ragged breathing formed an odd counterpoint to her too rapid heartbeat.

  He tasted of mountain herbs and soon passed the taste to her. Their breaths mingled and fought, their tongues quested and sought, and Melanie didn’t believe there had ever been a moment in her life she had felt quite as alive as this. Every pore on her body seemed to open and drink him in. The very blood in her veins felt effervescent, eager. It was as if that magic in his hands was performing a different kind of healing now, a healing that was long overdue, a curing more of her tortured senses than any overtly physical ailment.

  He kneaded and caressed her body, rousing her to insanity, slipping his hands behind her, pulling her body even tighter against his, running them over her shoulders, her arms, the curve of her waist, coming forward, sinuously stroking her rain-dampened thighs, she knew she had to stop this, that he would misunderstand, that anyone would, that she was. But she also knew that if she stopped this now, she would never, ever, feel this deliriously alive again. She could no more have called a halt than she could have turned away from watching him perform that seeming miracle at the garage.

  His hands strafed her body, cupped her buttocks and they roamed her back, beneath her parka and higher. He ruthlessly shoved her blouse aside and captured her breasts with his hands. Without stopping his kiss, he groaned, and with a dim shock, she realized he was trembling as greatly as she.

  As if this awareness snapped her from a spell he’d woven around her with his tongue, his touch, she suddenly pushed at him, frantic to be free.

  “No,” she protested raggedly. “No.”

  Her words seemed to splash on him like acid on silver, harsh and corrosive. He pulled back his hand immediately and stepped back from her. She could hear his fast breathing, could almost feel his fierce attempt for control. She heard other rustling in the dark corridor and, from outside, several tremendous claps of thunder.

  “I told you not to come,” his voice rumbled from the darkness. And with that, Melanie knew what the rasp in his voice really sounded like now—fingernails scratching velvet. Were his words an apology of sorts? An accusation? Or the simple truth?

  “I had to,” she whispered back.

  He didn’t say anything and Melanie found herself remembering all the nights she had awakened screaming from a recurring nightmare, a dream in which Teo Sandoval had figured prominently. She had a face to go with his name now. Was the terror yet in store for her? Could she expect to be so terrified soon that she wouldn’t be able to control the screams of fear? Though she could never remember exactly what had transpired in the dreams, the residue of the nightmare was always the same—the taste of tears and terror on her tongue, the sense that something stalked her in the woods and the sight of a red ball lying too still on a bed of pine needles.

  He touched her again, his fingers lightly grazing her lips, her throat. “Come,” he said. His hand slowly lowered to take hers. When she would have pulled away, he tightened his grip, but this time, pulling her forward, he guided her down the long, stone corridor.

  “There are stairs,” he said, and she felt him step down.

  “Why isn’t there any light?” she asked, amazed at her own temerity.

  He didn’t answer but continued to wind his way down a curving flight of stone stairs. Gratefully, Melanie clung to his hand and pressed one shoulder against an arched wall. She knew now what it was to be truly blind, grateful for the whisper of his feet upon the stairs, the touch of his hand, the solidity of a rock wall, even as she was frightened to death of him.

  It seemed like hours before he stopped, and she heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening. A crack of blessed light appeared. Melanie had never felt so glad to see anything in her entire life. She instinctively rushed toward it, only to be blocked by one his of muscled arms.

  “You’ll leave in the morning,” he said again harshly, his voice filled with grim command.

  Numbly, Melanie nodded.

  “You understand me?” he asked, but it was less a question than a bald statement of truth.

  Melanie wasn’t certain that she did understand, or was, perhaps, afraid that she understood too much. If that kiss in the entry hall of his mountain cave was any indication, she might understand him very well indeed.

  “I—yes. I’ll go in the morning,” Melanie said, feeling resigned to the matter now, nearly indifferent to those that would eventually come looking for her. Almost anything they did would be easier to comprehend than what she’d felt in that dark corridor.

  Now, seeing that crack of light, recognizing in it a salvation of sorts, as if mere light could dispel the sensations Teo Sandoval had awakened in her, Melanie pressed forward, pushin
g his arm out of the way. She shoved the door open fully, crossing into the light.

  And froze.

  Beyond her stretched a softly lit cavernous room. It was a cave. And wasn’t. Its rock ceiling must have stretched some thirty feet overhead, and the two walls on either side of the doorway were rough and formed from the inside of the mountain itself.

  Melanie realized then that, from the forbidding wooden doors to this, they must have traveled down a tunnel, a volcanic hole perhaps, and had passed through the very mountain. Instinctively, she drew back against him, aware that this room hung over the abyss she’d sensed outside. They were, literally, on the other side of the mountain.

  The far wall of the cavern didn’t exist; at least, it was not made of rock and inner mountain. It was formed entirely of enormous lengths of glass encased in massive beams of wood. Windows, she thought half hysterically. They were windows. No one with vertigo or acrophobia could ever stand anywhere near those monstrous windows.

  In the daylight they would probably capture every nuance of the sun’s rays, but at night, like now, they had become huge, monolithic mirrors that stole the light from the kerosene lamps and reflected the room. She could see herself pressed against the dark man, two seemingly small figures in a distant doorway.

  “The boy is in there,” Teo said after Melanie could finally drag her gaze from that black window and her own mirrored terror. She followed his jutting chin and saw a small doorway set into the stone walls. It was on the far righthand side of the room, flanking a huge fireplace. The carved wooden door stood open. A subcave, she thought with near hysteria. Would one wall of that room also hang over the abyss cutting through the mountains? The notion made her feel ill.