Scent of Darkness Read Free Page B

icons."
    "Four . . . sons?" Konstantine looked at his children. At his two sons, at his daughter . . . and he thought about the only son left, his Adrik.
    "Only their loves can bring the holy pieces home." Zorana's eyes were black—and wild. "A child will perform the impossible. And the beloved of the family will be broken by treachery . . . and leap into the fire."
    Zorana was in a trance.
    Before she married Konstantine, she had been the One, the female of her tribe who saw the future. But from the time he had seized her and taken her from her people, she had never had a vision.
    Now it was as if all the repressed prophecies had overtaken her.
    Zorana raised her hand and, one by one, pointed at her children.
    "The blind can see, and the sons of Oleg Varinski have found us."
    Jasha straightened and as if he could command the tides, he said, "Mother, stop this at once."
    Foolish lad.
    She didn't hear him. She was not now of this earth. "You can never be safe, for they will do anything to destroy you and keep the pact intact."
    Her finger steadied and pointed at Konstantine. "If the Wilders do not break the devil's pact before your death, you will go to hell and be forever separated from your beloved Zorana. . . ."
    "Mama, why are you saying this? Why are you talking about yourself as if you're not here?" Firebird's voice tottered on the edge of hysteria.
    "And you, my love —" Zorana's eyes filled with tears, and for the first time, Konstantine realized that she was not gone, but here, and she knew exactly what she was saying. "You are not long for this earth. You are dying."
    Answering tears sprang to his eyes. He couldn't breathe for the weight of his sorrow. like a feral cat, the nagging pain in his chest dug its claws into his flesh and tore the flesh from the bones. Bright colored lights flashed in his brain.
    And like a great felled oak, he crashed to the ground.

Chapter 2
     
    All her life, Ann Smith had followed the rules. When she laughed, she covered her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound. When she cried, she cried in the privacy of her apartment. She didn't use the /-word except for that time when she dropped the casserole and spread lasagna all over the kitchen floor, and even then, she had been alone.
    Of course. She was single, and always alone.
    She dressed appropriately, first for a typist, then for a secretary, then for the executive assistant to the president of Wilder Wines.
    So what was she doing driving from California to Washington, on her own initiative, adorned in her new, inappropriate clothes, to deliver important papers to her boss's vacation home on the coast?
    What else? She was in love. In love with Jasha Wilder.
    Yeah. Who wasn't?
    He was tall, six three and a half. Which was good, because she was six feet in her stocking feet. Or her stalking feet, as her friend Celia Kim said. He had the face of a fallen angel: dark hair, dark brows, long, dark, curly lashes that framed eyes a most peculiar shade of gold, and a tattoo that rippled down one arm from his shoulder to his wrist. The tattoo twisted like two snakes twining together, dark and mysterious against his tanned skin; silly, but it made her feel as if they had something extraordinary in common. Not that she ever wanted to explain to him what it was—or even could.
    The eyes, the tattoo, and the height made him look dangerous, which he wasn't, at least as long as you didn't oppose him in business.
    Then he got his way, every single time.
    He had a jutting nose, and a smiling mouth with the most beautiful, gleaming white teeth Ann had ever seen.
    Most important, at least for her, was his body. It was perfect. Broad shoulders tapered to a sculpted butt that made her fingers itch to squeeze it. Or them, depending on how one viewed the matter.
    She saw his bare legs every day when he came into tine office, sweating from his run, and she could testify that his calves and thighs deserved to be licked. Repeatedly. She would, too, if she had