"Is it gone?" She tucked her feet under her and refused to take his hand.
"Yes, and in case you missed the point, it's taken the tracking device with it in its belly. Rats have fast digestive systems,, but he's not going to stop running for a while, and he's lame. There's a good chance an owl will pick him up, or a cougar, and he'll be in another belly and traveling farther than ever. . . ." Jasha must have seen her horror. "I didn't break his leg. It looks like he caught it on something . . . and why do you care? You don't like rats."
"I know, but I don't want anything to die."
"Everything dies. The point is to die in a state of grace." Jasha's lids drooped over his brooding eyes. "The Varinski believes the tracking device is in me, and he'll be after the rat, and not us. Come on. Take my hand. We've got to get going, and in the opposite direction of that rat."
She slid down the rock and into his arms. "So if he's lucky, he'll find a pile of rat poo, and if he's unlucky—"
"He'll find a cougar."
He held her for a minute and looked at her as if he wanted to probe the depths of her mind. "You seem so softhearted, and yet I think that beneath all the uncertainty, you hide a core of steel."
"Yes. But it's rusty steel."
He smiled, as she meant him to. "I don't think so. And I think, before this is over, we'll discover the truth."
The truth? She shivered.
What frightened her more? The thing that pursued them? Or the chance that Jasha wotild discover that his assistant hid a past and a secret that damned her as surely as any devil's pact?
And if he did find out, how could she explain something she didn't understand herself?
Chapter 19
Jasha was right. When Ann camped with him, it was fun.
By seven o'clock, they had reached the campsite, a small, protected grove of trees high in the mountains with a stream nearby where she could wash her face and hands. By nine, he had caught trout, cleaned them, and cooked them over a carefully built fire. By the time the northern sun was finally setting, they settled down with a feast of fresh fish, huckleberries, slightly stale sourdough bread (produced with a flourish from his backpack), and a really good bottle of Wilder Wines's 1997 Sangiovese sipped directly out of the bottle.
Food had never tasted so good, the flames warmed her hands and face while the air cooled her backside, and seeing Jasha across the fire from her gave her a thrill every time she looked up—and she looked up often.
A campout wasn't the way she'd imagined their affair would progress, but it was pretty darned wonderful.
By the time the stars had started to dimple the night sky, Ann had laughed so much she thought she might be tipsy. That was the only reason she could imagine why she made the mistake of saying, "Tell me about this deal with the devil. Who was the idiot who thought that was a good idea?"
An owl hooted. The stream burbled. A tall spiral of smoke slithered up toward the dark heavens, and the trees whispered in the wind.
Yet Jasha didn't answer, and worry seeped into her mind and stained her carefree pleasure.
Had she offended him?
Today he'd been Jasha Wilder, kind, intelligent, thoughtful, needing help, consulting her . . . yet now the fire lent shadows to his face and flame to his eyes, and she remembered, really remembered, that he'd been the wolf that chased her through the woods, held her down, and forced pleasure on her.
He took a drink from the bottle, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. His voice, when he spoke, was slow and deep, reciting the story he seemed to drag from the depths of his mind. "The first Konstantine Varinski was a bad seed, a child given to cruelty, then a man who reveled in wickedness. People on the steppes said he was the devil, and that's saying something, because a thousand years ago, life in Russia was brutish and short, and only the strongest survived. After years of vicious behavior, his father threw him out and told him to make his own way in the world."
Ann slid off her log to get closer to the fire, and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Did he throw him into the snow?"
"I can only hope so." Jasha passed her the bottle.
She took a drink, then passed it back. "He was a psychotic? Maybe a serial killer?"
"If you want to put a nice face on it. To me, he sounds like a sadistic son of a bitch. For years, he wandered the steppes, fighting and raping and pillaging, and everywhere he went, the rumor that he was the devil continued to grow." Jasha threw two logs onto the fire, and a shower of sparks rose toward the stars. "Finally the devil himself took note."
A shudder worked itself up her spine.
"Legend has it that the Evil One came to destroy the impostor. But Konstantine knew what he wanted. He offered to do the devil's work for him, and after some negotiation, the devil agreed. To seal the deal, he demanded that Konstantine destroy the Varinski family icon.” Jasha stared into the heart of the blaze. "I told you about Russians and our icons, and how an icon of the Madonna is considered a miracle."
Jasha was an American. He'd been raised here. He said his family had no ties to the Old Country. Yet he'd said our icons. "Yes. You told me."
"The Varinski icon was not one painting of the Virgin, but four, each portraying a different stage of her life."
"Not one miracle, but four." Ann touched her pants pocket where the icon of the Virgin Mary and her family resided, warm and heavy.
"Exactly. So Konstantine went back to his parents' house to steal the icons. His father was dead. His mother lived alone, and she was a stem old woman. She wouldn't give up the icons to Konstantine, to the man who committed such atrocities. She ran to the church, the icons clutched to her breast. He stalked her like a beast, trapped her in the church . . . and killed her."
Ann had known what the end must be, but still she hunched a little tighter. "He murdered his own mother." She had never had a mother. She'd wanted a mother, she'd dreamed of one, every night she'd wished for one on the evening star—and Konstantine had slaughtered his.
"That is one of the greatest sins. Konstantine knew it."
"He didn't care." Cold air tickled the back of Ann's neck, and she pulled her collar close around her ears.
"More than that, he reveled in the act. His mother's blood would seal the pact with the devil." The flames reflected a red glow on Jasha's skin, and his eyes . . . his eyes looked like a wolf's. "Then he set the church on fire."
"But..." In a sudden hurry, Ann unbuttoned her pocket and pulled the icon free. She looked at the cherry red robe of the Madonna, at her serene eyes, at the family that surrounded her.
"Only one thing escaped the fire."
Ann knew. Of course she knew. "The icons. The miracles."
He inclined his head. "Konstantine found them in the smoldering ruins, the four still joined, the colors pristine, the Madonnas serene, the wood and paint hardened by the flames into an unbreakable substance."
Goose bumps rose on her skin.
"But the devil wouldn't be thwarted. If he couldn't destroy the icon, he could diminish it. So while Konstantine drank to celebrate the deal, in a flash of fire the devil divided the Madonnas and hurled them to the four comers of the earth, never to be seen again."
"Is that true?" Turning the icon over, she looked at the back, at the burned, broken edge. The devil's work?
It couldn't be true. Yet Jasha sat before her, his eyes glowing with a rim of red.
"I don't know. That's the story my father told us." Jasha shot her a rueful, very human grin, and took a drink from the bottle of wine. "Adrik always said it sounded like something the Brothers Grimm would come up with while they were smoking mushrooms in the Black Forest.”
She laughed, a nervous outburst of laughter that sounded too loud in the ponderous silence of the woods. Quickly, she smothered the sound with her hand.
Up here, it was far too easy to believe that just beyond the reach of the fire, demons watched and danced.
"But the Brothers Grimm never looked far enough into the wild and wonderfu
l. Because I can be a wolf, and my brothers can be a hawk and a panther, and my father is a wolf, I guess, although I've never seen him turn." Jasha looked at the bottle as if he didn't remember that he held it. "I guess I never will now." His grief was visible in the droop of his mouth, his hunched shoulders, his sad eyes.
She wanted to go around the dying fire and hug him, but she'd never learned how to offer that kind of easy affection without having it mean too much to her, and when she got intense, other people tended to get uncomfortable.
"Konstantine Varinski founded a dynasty of men—
Varinskis breed only sons—who turn into animals of prey who hunt humans, and laugh as they kill." Jasha almost sounded as if he were talking to himself. "They're demons who can't be killed except by another demon, and each man remains hale and hearty into old age. If they're hurt, they heal quickly."
Ann flexed her hand. Today, impatient with the bandage, she'd removed it, and found the wound almost healed. Healed, except that deep inside her palm, she felt a heat that rippled outward, up her arm, toward her heart.
The Varinski blood was in her.
Jasha continued. 'Tor centuries, the Varinskis have been rich, respected for their cruelty, and feared, first in Russia, then in Europe and Asia, and with the twenty-first century, their influence has spread across flie globe. How my family has remained hidden so long, I do not know."
Ann examined the story Jasha had told, and picked at the loose thread. "I don't understand. You said Varinskis breed only sons. But you have a sister."
His gaze flashed to hers. "And I have something else no other Varinski has—a mother," Lifting the wine, he saluted Ann with it, then offered the bottle to her.
She took it. The fire could no longer beat back the night. Perhaps the wine would do the job. "Are Varinskis born out of the mud?" She wouldn't doubt anything now.
"The women wish they were. Varinskis take the women they want—noblewomen, gifted women, artists, and courtesans—get them pregnant, and when the women deliver, they bring the child to the Varin-ski compound, put it on the turnstile, ring the bell, and run away."
"The women abandon their children?" Ann put the bottle aside, her lovely intoxicated glow completely evaporated.
"What is a woman going to do with a child who turns into a beast when he goes through puberty? Why would a woman keep the child of a man—or men—who cruelly raped her?" When Ann would have argued, Jasha emphatically shook his head. "What woman wants to face the violence of an adult Varinski who discovers she's hidden his son from him? No, the women have to get rid of the children."
"That's unspeakable."
"Wherever they go, the Varinskis leave a trail of blood, fire, and death."
"And they're hunting us," Ann whispered. For her, raised in sunny California, where the worst thing that could happen was a bad boob job, the whole story was absurd.
"Only one of them. He may have experience, but this is my territory, and I have the most to lose." Jasha smiled, a cruel flash of teeth, and while he gazed at her, that sensation of being stalked returned in force.
A wolf. She was in the forest with a wolf.
"I am honored to be the first to face the test," he said, "and I will not fail."
"What test?"
Her quavering voice seem to wake him to the night. He glanced around, stood, and stretched. "That's a story for another campfire. Itrs late now." He smiled whimsically and began to undress. "Want to hit the sack?"
But it was too late for whimsy and seduction. She huddled close to the ground. "No, I'm going to sit here all night with my eyes wide open."
He stripped off everything. Everything. Then casually, as if she wouldn't notice his nudity, he offered her his hand. "The original Konstantine lived a long time ago, and his evil has been in the world since long before your birth."
"But I never knew about it before." She had known only her own horrors, and she'd been careful to keep them at bay.
"You couldn't do anything about it before. Now you can." Reaching down, he forcibly pulled her to her feet and into his arms. "Come on. We'll sleep together. I'll keep you safe."
But he was a Varinski. Who was going to keep her safe from him?
Chapter 20
Abruptly, Ann woke from a light doze, tense and straining to hear . . . something.
What?
Jasha held her in his arms, his long, bare body pressed against hers, and any other night that would have been a seduction. But tonight, although they were so close, she was so alone. Alone with her fears and the inescapable knowledge that what she had done could never be undone.
Alone in the woods where nothing—not a single creature—moved.
The hair stood on the back of her neck.
Something was out there.
Jasha put his hand over her mouth to signal the need for quiet. When she nodded, he slipped from the bag.
As he did, she took a long, slow breath, taking in the scents of the night. She could smell the rich odors of humus and pine, but beyond that, it almost seemed as if she sensed a wildness. . . .
And just beyond the ring of trees, a wolf lifted its voice to the stars.
In the light of the crescent moon, she could barely see Jasha—but she knew he smiled.
"Leader," he breathed, and vanished into the night.
Another wolf joined the first, and another, until Ann knew she was surrounded.
A single knife strapped to her leg seemed like a small defense if they decided to take Jasha out.
But his beloved wolves wouldn't do that. Would they?
Her eyes pricked with tears. She sat up, wrapped her arms around her legs, and propped her chin on her knees. She was such a coward, but his story tonight haunted her. He was right; she knew he was. The Varinskis and their evil had been in the world since long before her birth. Yet ignorance was bliss, and not knowing exactly what hunted her had saved her immeasurable anguish.
Or maybe what had saved her anguish was loving Jasha from afar.
Because sleeping in his arms, moaning with the rapture he induced, running with him, knowing his secrets—those things made her frightened for him.
She heard her name, whispered in Jasha's husky voice, a second before he appeared.
He was human. He was naked. He slipped in beside her, wrapped his arms around her, and slid with her down into the bag. "They ran hard to catch us. He's worried. I think he senses a disturbance in the earth."
"What does that mean? A disturbance in the earth?"
"I don't know." Jasha shifted his cold feet to cover hers, to siphon the warmth from her as if they'd been married for years. "I just know—Leader thinks we brought the trouble. He wants to make sure we leave."
"He's a real wolf—and you can speak to him?" His skin was chilly, and she suffered as he turned her to snuggle against him spoon-fashion.
"No. Not . . . no." He spoke softly against her ear, and his breath ruffled her hair. "But I sense his thoughts, or perhaps his feelings, by the way he looks at me, the way he reacts to me. I think he understands me the same way. Do you know what I mean?"
"I guess." She thought of her old tomcat, the way he made his demands known with his loud yowls and the way he slept on her head when he was cold. But for all the long evenings she and Kresley had spent together, their communication never managed to express anything as complex as a disturbance in the earth.
Jasha yawned and relaxed, every muscle lax. "I feel safer with the pack watching our backs. If it was just me, I wouldn't worry, but protecting you, the chosen one, makes this more than a game. This is war, and I've got to win." He hugged her to him.
She listened to his breathing as he slid into sleep.
He'd expressed her thoughts exactly. She was no longer responsible for herself. She held the safety of him and his family in her hands, and the Virgin Mary held her responsible.
Ann had wanted to love wholeheartedly. She just hadn't realized the price love would demand.
Jasha knew
he'd screwed up last night. He'd carefully planned Ann's seduction. He'd gathered good food and wine, led her to the most romantic spot in the whole world, and zipped their sleeping bags together.
Then what had he done?
He'd scared Ann half to death with stories better told in broad daylight.
Then the wolf pack had come, and that frightened her, too.
So much for that bullshit that girls would cling when they were frightened. Ann didn't cling. She shivered. And when the sun rose, her eyes were wide open. He wasn't sure she'd slept at all.
So today he would regroup, make her feel comfortable again—or as comfortable as a woman who was raised in a Catholic orphanage could be when she traveled with a demon.
He gave her breakfast, another cookie, chocolate chunk this time, and sat down close to her—but not too close. In a deliberately casual voice, he chatted about stuff his mother and sister thought was important. "See the little red flowers right there? The ones in the shape of a heart. That's bleeding heart. Easy to remember, huh?"
"They're very pretty.” Ann nibbled on the cookie and smiled at the flower, but her eyes looked worried.
"The ferns are sword ferns, and they're all over western Washington."
"They're in California, too, but there are really a lot of them up here." Her voice sounded calm, level . . . tense and frightened.
"The little birds you see fluttering around are finches. Can you hear the woodpecker?"
"There sounds like more than one." Her gaze shifted between her and Jasha, measuring the distance.
"He's just a busy guy." Ann had always had that wide-eyed gaze of an onlooker. In conflicts, she was quick to step back out, afraid to be caught in the cross fire, fearful of true emotion. She contained her anger, her tears, her joys, in the slender bottle with too tight a cork. Right now, Jasha held that bottle in his fist. He could shake it up, or try to pry the cork loose, but such rough measures might break her. So he tamed his impatience, his need, and said, "Ann, there's no sense in being afraid of me."
She drew a quick alarmed breath. "I'm. not!"
Darkness Chosen 01: Scent of Darkness Page 14