“Just tell us who sent you and what was in the statue that was so important?” Dimitri had asked as he opened the door to the room.
Rune had looked at them both with such sad eyes that they would have forgiven her anything if she would have just responded to Dimitri’s question. Instead, she had turned in silence and walked over to the window where she stood silhouetted against the dim light filtering in. They had stood at the door for a moment longer, willing her to be honest with them. When she refused to say anything, they had quietly instructed one guard to remain in the room with her while the other remained outside.
Sergei opened his left hand and looked at the crushed red petal that he had picked up off the floor outside the door. He took another sip of his brandy. His mind churned with possible explanations for the gap in the video feed they had reviewed.
He turned when the door opened and Dimitri came in. His face was grim. Sergei stepped over to his desk and touched his computer to minimize the image of Rune on it. It was of her standing in the center of the platform looking up. She was saying something but there was no audio to go with the feed. From the furious expression on her face, she didn’t look very happy about being there.
“I need to go to Los Angeles,” Dimitri said with a dark frown. “The leak is bigger than we first suspected. My man has a person of interest. It is best I speak with him myself.”
Sergei nodded. “We will go with you,” he said, pressing the button on his desk. “Make arrangements to have a helicopter pick us up in one hour and have the jet prepared to leave for Los Angeles, California,” he ordered.
“What about Rune?” Dimitri asked stiffly. “We cannot both go and leave her here.”
“She will go with us?” Sergei said with a shrug.
“She will need a passport,” Dimitri replied.
Sergei smiled darkly. “Since when has that ever stopped you or me? Have an emergency one drawn up here,” he said with a shrug. “Perhaps there is a connection between the person stealing from us and Rune. I think an introduction between the two of them might be in order.”
“Sergei,” Dimitri said. “What if she was telling us the truth?”
Sergei’s eyes hardened. “She was. She said the statue was gone and that she worked for someone by the name of Loki. Obviously not his real name. We will find out who he is when she and her partner discover we do not tolerate anyone who steals from us,” he replied coldly.
“Let us hope for her sake, one of them talks,” Dimitri said with a sigh of resignation. “I’ll have one of the maids pack her a bag.”
“Dimitri,” Sergei said as Dimitri turned. “Make sure the nightgowns I told Cheri to bring are part of the items packed.”
“Do you think this is wise?” Dimitri asked stiffly.
“Let us see how far our little thief will go to get herself out of trouble,” Sergei suggested grimly.
“I hope you know what you are getting us into, my friend,” Dimitri replied. “I know I will not be able to resist her if she decides to seduce us.”
“Neither will I,” Sergei murmured as Dimitri walked out of the office. “Neither will I.”
Chapter 12
Rune looked out the small window of the jet. She had slept for most of the trip back to the United States. They had landed briefly several times but they never departed the jet. She stretched and rose to freshen up in the elegant lavatory. A sigh escaped her as she saw the dark circles under her eyes. Even though she had slept, dreams from her previous lives refused to let her rest.
“Good, you are awake,” Sergei said from the doorway. “We will be landing within the next half hour.”
Rune stared at his reflection in the mirror for a moment before looking down. A low curse was the only warning she received as she was turned and pinned between his hard body and the vanity. She raised her hands to push him away but found both of her wrists captured in his hard grip.
“Let me go,” she gritted out.
“I think not, маленький огонь,” Sergei said huskily. “Things could go much better for you if you cooperate with us,” he said. “Tell us what we want to know, Rune. I will double whatever you are being paid.”
Rune angrily jerked on the grip holding her. “I don’t want or need your money,” she bit out. “Now let me go.”
Sergei studied her defiant expression. She was beautiful. She had washed the makeup off her face and changed into a pair of black jeans and an oversized red sweater that fell off one of her slender shoulders. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the smooth skin. A shuddering hiss escaped her and she tried to pull away from him again.
Sergei pulled her arms down, trapping them behind her. The move brought her up against his hard body. He pressed his hips against her.
“Do you see what you do to me, маленький огонь?” He muttered as he nipped at the curve of her neck. “I want you.”
“You… you…,” Rune tried to argue but her body was doing things on the inside that she had never experienced before and she couldn’t seem to think straight. “Ah!”
Sergei pressed a hard biting kiss to her neck as he rotated his hips. A sense of triumph flooded him when her hips moved against his. He released her hands and gripped her around the waist.
“Open your legs and put them around my waist,” he demanded huskily right before he captured her lips.
*.*.*
Rune didn’t think, she opened her legs as demanded and wrapped them around his waist. He pressed her against the vanity. The angle pressed his throbbing cock against the vee of her jeans. His hands roamed over her as he rocked against her. Heat built inside him as her hands moved over his shoulders and curled in his hair, pulling him closer.
“Sergei,” she whimpered as she pulled back and rolled her hips faster. “I… I…”
“Come for me, маленький огонь,” he demanded as he pumped his hips faster. “Come for me.”
Her loud cry echoed in the small room as she splintered in his arms. She leaned forward to bury her face in his shoulder but he would have nothing to do with that. He wanted to see her face as she came for him. He gritted his teeth as he continued to press up against her, prolonging her orgasm. Her legs squeezed him as she came. She melted against him as small breathless whimpers escaped her as he stilled his hips.
“She is beautiful when she comes,” Dimitri said from the doorway where he had watched them. “We will be landing in fifteen minutes. The pilots have asked that we take our seats,” Dimitri said tightly.
Sergei bowed his head in acknowledgment. He rested his chin on the top of Rune’s head where she lay pressed against his chest. His eyes met Dimitri’s in the mirror. He could see the flush of desire darkening his friend’s face. He knew his own was a mirrored copy.
“Take her,” Sergei said. “I will be along in a moment.”
Dimitri nodded, stepping into the narrow space and lifting Rune easily into his arms. She whimpered as she released Sergei. Her dark eyes opened to stare back into his in bewilderment as Dimitri stepped out of the small lavatory.
“Sergei?” She whispered in confusion.
“Take her, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Sergei said, closing the door on them.
“It will be my turn next, Rune,” Dimitri warned her quietly as he turned and carried her out into the main compartment of the jet.
*.*.*
Rune didn’t say anything as he lowered her into her seat and strapped the belt around her waist. She looked out the window at the thick clouds. She had been terrified when they had first lifted off in the helicopter from the landing pad at their home.
She hadn’t known what the huge metal machine was or that it could fly. When it had started to lift off, she had freaked out. It had taken both Dimitri and Sergei to hold her down in her seat as she fumbled to remove the strap they had put around her. They had frowned when she had pleaded for them to put the odd shaped bird back down on the ground.
She had breathed a sigh of relie
f after the huge beast had landed. That is until they led her to another one. This one was different. It was bigger, longer, sleeker and even more plush and had only two wings on the sides instead of the top. She had tried to run but Dimitri had his thick arm around her.
“Let me go,” she begged. “Please, tisn’t natural for a body to fly through the air,” she choked out. “I thought we would travel by ship. Ships are good. Man was meant to take the seas to other lands. My father said that the Gods favored those who knew the waters. Surely there is a ship we can take back to America. I saw huge ones anchored in the harbor!”
“Rune!” Sergei had snapped out in irritation. “A ship would take weeks to travel to America. We can be there in a day by flying.”
She had frozen and looked at him in disbelief. That pause gave Dimitri time to pick her up in his arms and climb the stairs into the belly of the beast. She had turned dark, frightened eyes up to Dimitri’s dark blue one.
“And they accused me of witchcraft?” She whispered.
She turned her head and looked at Sergei when he came into the cabin and sat across from her and Dimitri. She flushed when he looked at her with a dark hunger and turned back to the window.
She didn’t understand any of this. Her body tingled with awareness and a strange restlessness. Faint memories of hearing moans coming from her parent’s small alcove rushed back. She flushed when she thought of what it must have meant. She had seen the animals on the farm breed but she had never really thought of a man and a woman doing it. She had been interested in other things when she had lived so long ago. After that, she had been too busy trying to figure out what was going on and learning the changes of her new life to be concerned with it.
Rune bit her lip and turned to look at Dimitri when he reached over and threaded his fingers through her clenched ones. He continued talking to Sergei in Russian and she soon lost interest as they made their approach.
Her breathing sped up as they tilted and all she saw was water at first before land appeared under them. Dimitri’s thumb stroked her trembling hand as they dipped and bounced. She didn’t breathe normally again until the jet slowed and moved toward a distant hanger.
*.*.*
“I could kill you,” Dimitri said as calmly as he could. “Do you have any fucking idea how beautiful she looked coming apart in your arms? I am so hard I could take her here and now.”
Sergei grimaced as he thought of why he had been delayed. He had been so hard and horny he had to relieve some of the pressure or he would have taken her right there and then in the lavatory. Instead, he had closed his eyes and imagined he was pumping into her instead of using his own hand. While he had relieved the pressure, his desire still remained.
“Trust me, it almost killed me to tell you to take her,” Sergei admitted. “Tonight, Dimitri. She will become ours tonight. I don’t care what we find out tomorrow.”
“I won’t force her,” Dimitri said, stroking Rune’s hand soothingly with his thumb when she trembled again. “She acts like she has never seen a helicopter or been on an airplane before.”
“I assure you, there was no force applied in the lavatory,” Sergei said, glancing at Rune’s pale face. “And the keyword is act. She hopes to make us still believe in her ridiculous tale. Think, Dimitri! It is something out of a fictional book or movie.”
“She is scared, Sergei,” Dimitri insisted as another tremor shook Rune’s body. “This is not an act. I know the difference between what is real and what is not.”
“She is probably terrified because she knows we are on to her little game,” Sergei said stubbornly.
“I hope you are mistaken,” Dimitri replied in a low voice.
“It won’t matter, Dimitri,” Sergei said quietly. “I could not let her go now even if I wanted to,” he admitted.
Chapter 13
Rune looked around the beautiful suite of rooms on the top floor of the high rise hotel. She had discovered another new thing besides the helicopter, air-o-plane and huge limousine that made her feel slightly sick. It was called an elevator.
She touched her stomach and smiled at her reflection. She had squealed when it started to rise, clutching onto Dimitri’s arm in terror before she gave an embarrassed giggle and held her stomach as both men stared at her in amazement.
There are so many new things that I’m seeing, doing and learning about, she thought as she stared down over the glittering city far below.
“Where are we?” Rune asked Dimitri as he came to stand next to her.
“You don’t recognize Los Angeles?” Dimitri asked in surprise.
Rune shook her head. “No,” she replied faintly. “The world has changed so much. I saw some things but I never suspected anything like this,” she murmured. “The children didn’t really change that much, especially the little ones. The older ones didn’t come out to the garden as often in the past few years. When they did, they usually had some type of small box in their hands and were too busy looking at it to run, play or talk.”
“Where was this at?” Dimitri asked softly.
A faint smile curved Rune’s lips as she thought of her days and nights at the orphanage. “At St. Agnes. I came there the winter of 1889. There was a horrible outbreak of Whooping Cough that winter. The children were terribly ill. Mother Magdalene and Sister Helen had come down with it as well. Only Sister Mary and Sister Anna were still well enough to care for everyone. It was too much for them to handle alone and I knew that I was meant to be there.”
“What did you do?” Sergei asked, coming to stand slightly behind her.
Rune didn’t turn. Instead, she held his gaze in the reflection of the window. She thought for a moment, letting the memories wash over her.
“I stayed. I nursed them. And, I fell in love with the children and the Sisters,” she replied quietly. “They became my family. Things went well for the first two years until a man named Walter Randolph decided he wanted the property that belonged to the orphanage. He tried to pressure the Archbishop to sell it to him but the Archbishop believed in what Mother Magdalene and the others were doing. He had been an orphan himself and Mother Magdalene had cared for him. Once he devoted his life to the church, he swore he would do what he could to help her and the children that lived there.”
“What happened?” Dimitri asked. “What did Randolph do?”
Rune let her body relax against the warmth of Sergei as he stepped closer, drawing her back against his body when she shivered in the air conditioning. She let the memories flow as she remembered back to a time so long ago.
“I lived at St. Agnes and worked in the nearby market selling the flowers I grew in the center garden with the children. I met a lot of people there. Some of them were very wealthy. I began petitioning for their help,” she murmured before looking up at their reflection and smiling mischievously. “I was much more persuasive than Walter Randolph,” she said before her smile faded. “Randolph got mad. At first, he would just come by and say unpleasant things to me or try to ruin my business. When that didn’t work, he began sending some men to rough up the merchants around me and…”
“And…” Sergei encouraged when she stopped.
“They started roughing me up,” she whispered with haunted eyes. “I was lucky in some ways. There was a police officer who fancied my attention. Olson Myers was a nice man who visited the children at the orphanage on a regular basis. He started coming by my stand which helped some. Randolph had me watched though,” she said in a hard voice. “He came by the day before he… before I…”
Rune turned her head when Dimitri slid his hand along her jaw and cupped her cheek. She saw no judgment in his eyes. He looked at her with a touch of curiosity and something else.
“Before what, Rune?” He asked quietly, holding her gaze when she would have looked away.
“Before he set fire to the kitchen,” she said in a barely audible voice. “Before I killed him. The day before I… died.”
Sergei’s sharp hiss echoed in the
room. He looked at Dimitri who was still staring intently into Rune’s eyes. He could tell from his friend’s still features that he was going to get every bit of information that he could out of her.
“How did you kill him?” Dimitri pushed in a low voice.
Rune moved restlessly but Dimitri refused to let her withdraw. There was something about the way she was speaking, the way she held herself that told them both that she was telling the truth.
“He… he and the man with the scarred face started a fire on the outer wall of the orphanage kitchen. Timmy, a young boy whose mother had recently passed away, and I were going to sneak some warm milk and fresh pound cake. Neither one of us could sleep,” she choked out as memories of that night washed over her, pulling her back to that faithful night. “We caught them. I told Timmy to wake everyone. To tell them that the orphanage was on fire. Randolph told the scarred-face man to kill Timmy.” She stared back at Dimitri with haunted eyes. “Randolph told that man to kill an innocent child! I rushed the man and grabbed his arm but Randolph pulled me off and hit me.” Rune absently touched her cheek, rubbing it as if she could still feel the sting from the blow.
“What happened next?” Sergei asked huskily.
“I heard Timmy yelling. Randolph reached for me and I threw dirt in his eyes. When he backed away, I stood up and charged him. I wrapped my arms around him and we tumbled through the burning door of the kitchen. By then, I could hear the alarms and people yelling. I knew the water wagon would be there soon. The knife that we had used earlier to cut the cake was on the table. I reached for it but Randolph grabbed my arm and took it away from me.” This time she absently rubbed at her wrist, as if it still hurt from where she had been grabbed. “A… a beam from the ceiling collapsed behind him, startling him. I pushed him as hard as I could into the flames. It was so hot but all I could think about was that he wanted to kill the children,” she said, tilting her head sideways as if she could still hear the sounds of the fire around her. “Another beam fell on top of him, trapping him.”