Christina Dodd's Darkness Chosen series
Scent of Darkness
Touch of Darkness
Christina Dodd's romantic suspense
Trouble in High Heels
Tongue in Chic
This book is dedicated to Roger Bell, retired Air Force pilot, with thanks for his advice and critique, and to his commanding officer, Joyce Bell, who always knows how to conjugate lie and lay, and who generously reads, compliments and corrects.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Darkness Chosen project has been a joy from the start, and a lot of people deserve recognition for their deeds and misdeeds.
To tell you the truth, most of the misdeeds have been mine, so I'd like to express appreciation for my agent, Mel Berger, for his enthusiasm and support. Thank you to Bobbie Morganroth for a clean read; to Teresa Medeiros and Geralyn Dawson for their brilliance; and to the NAL production team, art department and editorial department for their inspired scheduling, design and innovation. And to all my friends who have listened to me endlessly enthuse about this project without yawning, gasping or giggling, thank you.
The Night That Started It All
"I want you to cover my back." Konstantine handed his brother the bottle and gestured down to the encampment in the valley below. "I'm going to take the Gypsy girl."
"We're not supposed to mess with the Gypsies." Oleg took a long pull of vodka. "Remember? It is written. Any woman is ours for the plucking, but not those zalupa Romanies."
Konstantine bared his sharp white teeth in what passed for a grin. "And I wonder why that is." The Varinski family had no rules. No rules at all. They could do what they wanted—rape, pillage, torture, murder—and no one could stop them.
But one ancient law existed.
They were not to take a Gypsy woman.
"Gypsies are filthy." Oleg spft in the direction of the camp, and the warm spittle steamed as it struck the frozen ground. This autumn was as cold as a witch's tit, with an early frost that had ruined the crops and put a hungry edge on everyone's temper. "You'll get a disease."
"What do I care about a disease? The only thing that can kill me, brother, is you."
"I wouldn't kill you," Oleg said hastily.
Oleg was the same age as Konstantine, and about the same size: six feet five, heavily muscled, with huge fists. Even better, Oleg was a great fighter. But he feared pain. When he had to fight, he would, but he didn't love it.
Konstantine did love it. He loved winning, of course, but more than that, he loved everything about a brawl. He loved strategizing while on his feet, figuring who was going to attack and how, calculating which of his enemies was easiest to crush and who required extra effort. Pain acted as a stimulant, and red was his favorite color.
Tonight Konstantine wanted more action. He judged there were probably forty people in the Gypsy camp: thirty men and women from ages fifteen to seventy, and ten children. "Have we not fought hard this night? Have we not washed our hands in the blood of our enemies?"
"They weren't our enemies." Oleg stared at the campfires below. "They were just another job."
"Whoever we have been hired to kill, they are our enemies." Konstantine took the bottle and drank until the vodka burned his gut, and handed it back. He didn't underestimate the Gypsies; they defended their own, they valued the girl, and most of all, they were dirty fighters. He appreciated that. He also figured with a little strategy, he could steal the girl from under their noses. "I am negotiating with a terrorist in Indonesia. Soon we'll go to war. Until then"—he started down the hill toward the encampment, the thrill of pursuit thrumming in his veins—"I will get me some Gypsy pussy."
Oleg smashed the bottle across his head.
Konstantine saw stars.
Tackling him behind the knees, Oleg brought him down, and wrapped a crooked elbow around his throat. "If you do this, you'll have to leave the clan."
"Who would have the guts to throw me out?" Konstantine looked into his brother's eyes in challenge. "Not you, Oleg."
"No. Not me. But maybe . . . maybe the Gypsy law came not from the first Konstantine . . . but from his maker."
"From his mama?" Konstantine's lip curled. "He killed his mama to seal the pact with her life's blood."
"No. From the devil." Oleg jerked on Konstantine's hair. "Did you never think of that? Did you never think the devil might have made that the condition of the pact?"
"Of course I did. Did you never wonder why? Why would the devil tell old Konstantine he couldn't have a Gypsy woman?"
"I ... don't know."
Konstantine relaxed into his brother's arms. In a conversational tone, he said, "Did you see the Gypsy girl when she was in town?" He waited. "Well, did you?"
"Yes." Oleg was reluctant to feed Konstantine's obsession, but he understood it very well. "She's beautiful. But too small for you."
"High breasts, small waist, small hips, dark hair—"
"She'll grow a mustache soon."
"What do I care? I'm not going to keep her. But did you notice those deep, dark eyes that see everything? Do you know why her eyes are like that? Because she can see the future."
Oleg's guard slipped. "They're Gypsies. They lie so they can take the money from the gullible humans."
"No, I heard her people talking—they thought I was a dog. The girl doesn't tell fortunes. She has visions. I want her to bear me a son."
"A son. You can't have a son with her. She's a Gypsy!"
Konstantine grabbed Oleg's wrist. "Think about it,
Oleg. Open your tiny little mind. Imagine a son with my gifts and her visions combined. He would be powerful, so powerful the Evil One himself would fear him. That's why we're not to breed with the Gypsies. Because my child could take the devil's place as the leader of hell."
Oleg sat back, his expression appalled. "Sometimes, Konstantine, you're crazy."
And so swiftly Oleg never had a chance of holding him, Konstantine changed.
Where Konstantine had reclined on the brittle grass, a puddle of clothes remained, and over them stood a huge, muscled, brown wolf—a wolf who was Konstantine.
Oleg scrambled to regain his hold, but the wolf caught Oleg's hand in his teeth and bit down until the bones crunched. "You filthy govnosos!" Oleg screamed. Konstantine released. Sometimes Oleg had to be put in his place.
Loping down the hill, Konstantine entered the encampment. Almost at once, he caught the scent of the girl—a young body, fresh and clean. He gave the men a wide berth, wanting no trouble until he had his quarry in sight, and no one paid attention to him, for wolves traveled in packs, and lone dogs were nothing but a nuisance. He followed his nose, and there she was, sitting with the other girls, listening and talking, laughing at the antics of another girl who modeled a fur hat, and all the while using a spindle to turn wool into thread.
He stood out of sight of her campfire, watching.
His intentions were cold and calculating, true; he wanted a son born from the psychic's loins. But the deed would be a pleasure, for the girl was very pretty.
Unexpectedly, cold crawled up his spine.
Danger.
He glanced around. The men were drinking, and hadn't noticed him.
Oleg didn't dare interfere again; he was probably still nursing his hand and cursing.
So where was the threat?
There. On the far side of the fire. The old woman.
Blin! She was hideous, a hunched crone with eyebrows so dark and wildly curled he could see them from here. She had one of those soft, bulbous, old-lady noses that drooped over her wrinkled lips. Worst of all, beneath the wrinkles and the thinning hair, he saw the remnants of beauty. It was as if some evil spell had befallen her, and that spell was old age.
He was
quite sure his brown coat and immobility hid him from human eyes, yet she looked right at him, her big, black-rimmed glasses magnifying her faded eyes. Slowly she lifted her hand and pointed her crooked finger at him.
A silence fell over the girls, and as one they turned to look.
"Varinski," she said, and the word was a curse.
"Don't be silly, old one. The Varinskis don't bother us."
"Varinski," the old woman said again.
How did she know? How did she recognize him?
Then the girl, the one with the visions, stood up, spindle in hand. "I'll go check, old one."
This was easier than he expected.
The girl started toward him.
He absorbed the wolf and once again became a man.
"No!" the old woman shouted with surprising power.
The girl turned and walked backward toward him. "It's all right. I've got to get more wool anyway."
As the old woman struggled to get to her feet, the beautiful Gypsy walked right into Konstantine's arms.
She didn't scream; he didn't give her a chance. With one hand over her mouth, he wrapped his arm around her waist, lifted her, and walked toward the edge of the camp. He was naked. She wore a skirt.
This would be easy.
Then the bitch used her spindle to stab him in the side.
He dropped her and roared.
She screamed at the top of her lungs and scrambled to escape.
He caught a glimpse of the surprised men coming to life and charging toward him. Grabbing her arm, he spun her around toward him, and as she raised the spindle once more, he yanked it out of her hand and threw it at her rescuers.
"Poyesh' govna pechyonovo!" He laughed, took out the lead man, punching him into the middle of the charging mass of men. Tossing the tiny Gypsy girl over his shoulder, he ran into the darkness.
They couldn't catch him, those Romanies. They didn't have his stride, his lungs, or his instincts.
After a few attempts to knock him off-balance, the girl went still, but he didn't make the mistake of thinking she was resigned. She was simply waiting. Waiting until he stopped and she could fight him with all her breath and all her spirit. She made him want to laugh, this tiny thing who stabbed him with her woman contraption. She would be a pleasure to tame.
A half hour later, he stopped at a motel outside Poltava. He had an understanding with the innkeeper
there—the innkeeper kept one cottage available for Konstantine, and Konstantine let the innkeeper live.
The girl was limp now, shivering with cold, and breathless from being knocked against Konstantine's shoulder. He shoved his way through the door and into the warmth of the room. He let her slide down his body and held her while she regained her balance, and waited while she examined him.
She didn't bother with the head-to-toe trick; she zeroed right in on his genitals and indifferently inspected them.
Most women either fainted or made cooing noises. Then she scanned the rest of his body. Her gaze lingered on the bloody evidence of her spindle attack. She said, "So you can be hurt," and smiled.
She wasn't afraid. She was furious, and ready to attack. She was only five feet tall, containing eight feet's worth of defiance. She couldn't be slapped into submission; that would never work. So he did something out of character. He kissed her.
He didn't know why. He'd never kissed a woman before. Coitus didn't require that kind of intimacy. But something about this girl made him want to touch her lips with his, and he wasn't a man who deprived himself of his desires. It was a lousy kiss.
He mashed his mouth on hers.
She puckered her lips tightly to repel him and, at the same time, pinched his arms with her fingers.
Yet. . . when her breath touched his face, sensation swept him. He didn't recognize it; it felt like a fire kindling in a stove that had never known flame. He slipped his arms around her back, seeking the source of the feeling.
She stopped pinching him and stood motionless. Then, oh God, then her lips softened and opened. She was like a ripe plum waiting for him to take a bite— which he did, the most gentle nip on her lush lower lip.
She jumped, and when he licked the place, she jumped again.
Her tongue touched his, and as swiftly as a forest fire, heat roared out of control. Their kiss became an exchange of tastes, touches, passions, souls. Their kiss consumed him, blinding him to danger and taking him to madness.
Never again would he take another woman. He wanted her, the Gypsy girl. No other woman would do.
When at last they pulled apart, breathless and amazed, he looked into her dark brown eyes, and he saw his destiny. That was why he had to have her.
That was why the devil had forbidden it.
When she spoke, her voice was husky and passion-filled. "My name is Zorana."
"Zorana," he repeated. He knew very well the magic held within a name, knew, too, that she had gifted him with a piece of her soul. He, like a wild beast giving its trust for the- first time, answered, "My name is Konstantine."
"Konstantine." She nodded. Taking his hand, she led him toward the bed,
To him it seemed as if the universe had shifted, become a place where the old rules no longer applied and fresh bright hope, long snuffed, now sprang to life.
He was right.
But no mere man flouted the devil's authority without fearsome consequences. . . .
Chapter 1
"I've got the plane," Rurik shouted as he grabbed the controls.
A stark mountain face loomed before them.
The missile was almost on them.
He drove the plane up and to the side.
They weren't going to make it.
They weren't going to—
"Excuse me, sir, we'll be landing in a few minutes. You need to return your seat back to its full upright position."
Rurik Wilder jerked awake, heart racing, sweat sheening his body.
The stewardess stood in the aisle, giving him that phony half smile that said she didn't care whether she woke him up, that the seven-hour trip from Newark to Edinburgh had kept her on her feet the whole time, and had he even heard the kids rampaging up and down the aisle while their parents snoozed and everyone else complained?
He stared at her, bewildered, trying to orient himself.
"Excuse me, sir, we'll be landing in a few minutes. You need to—"
"Right!" He tried to look normal, grinned apologetically, and brought his seat back forward.
She walked off with that snap in her step that said she was not appeased.
The old woman on his left glared at him through eyes so dark brown they were almost black.
On his right, he felt someone's stare, and when he glanced over, the American girl averted her gaze.
Panic hit him, and he ran his hands over his face.
No, he might be a little wide-eyed, but his heartbeat was slowing and more important, his features were human.
He tried a smile. "Was I snoring?"
"You were sort of thrashing around. That must have been quite a nightmare." The girl was probably nineteen, with wide, soft brown eyes, a natural tan, and breasts that would win her fans around the world.
Too bad the only breasts that appealed to him were attached to a woman with big blue eyes, short, black, curly hair, a Nikon SLR digital camera always around her neck, and an ego-bruising way of disappearing when he least expected it.
Damn Tasya Hunnicutt. Damn the fascination she had exerted over him from the first moment they'd met. Damn her for being oblivious, and damn him for wanting her more, now that he'd had her, than he did before.
Tasya was his fate—and she didn't even know it. "I always get that nightmare when I fly. Usually I won't sleep, but I left Seattle twenty-three hours ago and between layovers and a late plane going into Chicago . . ." He shrugged, playing it casual, pretending the dream was nothing but a nightmare concocted of jet lag and exhaustion.
The girl bought it, too, nodding sympat
hetically. "Is this your first trip to Scotland?"
He expertly interpreted every sound the jet engines made. "What? No. No, actually I've lived here for the past ten months."
At once she grew animated. "Cool! I've always wanted to live in a foreign country. I feel like it would broaden my horizons, you know?"
"Yeah, I've got very broad horizons." And a dead ass from sitting so long. "What do you do there?"
"I run an archaeological dig in the Orkney Islands off northern Scotland." The girl's eyes got huge and round. "Isn't that a coincidence? I've always wanted to be an archaeologist!"
You and everybody who ever read about the discovery of gold in King Tut's tomb. "That is a coincidence."
"What are you digging up?"
"Until we actually open it, we won't know for sure"—although he knew in his bones, and had always known—"but I believe it's the tomb of a Celtic warlord." He strained to hear the changes in the wing as they descended.
Man, he was pathetic. It had been five years since he'd sat in the pilot's seat, five years since he'd vowed never to fly again, and he still couldn't relax and trust the commercial pilots. If he could see out the window, he'd be better able to judge how the guy was doing, but Rurik was in the second seat in the middle section.
When he'd got the call from the dig, he'd grabbed the first flight out, and this was his punishment—a seat too narrow for his shoulders, knees up under his chin. But at least he was getting back in time to open the tomb.
"I know who you are!" The girl sat up straight, her eyes sparkling. "I saw you on CNN."
"Didn't everyone?" He'd seen the news coverage in the airport, too, and it had confirmed his worst fears.
"Mr. Hardwick was talking about you."
"Good old Hardwick." The foreman at the dig and, Rurik now realized, a grandstander with a thirst for publicity.
"You're the guy everyone thought was crazy who started digging around on the tiny little island and now they've found a huge stash of gold."
With the innate caution of an experienced archaeologist, he said, "Actually, I got funding from the National Antiquities Society, so I always had a team, and there's something that looks like gold, maybe, inside what looks like a tomb, maybe, but until I get there and we can finish opening it, we won't know what's really going on."