A Deep Dark Call Page 9

  “Are the villagers upset because of something your father did?” Lucy inquired.

  She was beginning to fear the worst. Boyar Marcu was, after all, according to the laws of this country, absolute lord and master over his villagers. He seemed an enlightened man, but she did not know him at all. Perhaps he had been unnecessarily harsh or cruel to the people.

  “They used to like us,” Alexandra sighed. “But not anymore.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “It’s the priest in the village and the monks in the monastery across the valley. They say the devil is inside Papa and won’t come out. And that everyone who joins him in his wicked ways will go to hell.” She paused, unwilling to say more.

  The child was obviously frightened. “This is utter nonsense. You shouldn’t let such nonsense upset you,” Lucy told her firmly.

  At first she thought it would be better to abandon the idea of going to the village, since the child was so frightened, but she thought better of it when she later saw the wistful look on Alexandra’s face. The girl obviously wanted to go, but felt too worried to do so. Maybe it would be better to confront the child’s fears now and be done with it. She would most certainly see that there was nothing to be really frightened about, only superstitions.

  Lucy’s decision was made. She called Mitru and asked him to make arrangements concerning their visit. She expected opposition from him or some kind of previous order from the master, expressly forbidding her to visit the villagers. There was none. Mitru just cocked an eyebrow and sighed. He did not voice any kind of protest, though.

  “To the village we shall go then, mistress. I’ll set the sledge ready to take you there,” he told her.

  He accompanied them, together with no less than five of the able-bodied men who had attended the wedding.

  The day was cold but bright, the snow glistening in the rays of the sun. The houses and clothes of the villagers looked exotic and unfamiliar to her. But the place seemed cheerful and prosperous, and she was relieved to see that the peasants on her husband’s lands did not live in grim poverty. Still, she remembered, they and their priest resented him. She decided to find out why.

  Her thoughts were soon diverted by a spectacle of children and youths dancing and singing around a bonfire. It was, Alexandra explained, the time before Christmas when something similar to English carolling was taking place. Later on, for New Year’s Eve, there’d be even more carolling. The children would then use their sorcova to bring good luck to the adults.

  “What’s a sorcova?” Lucy asked.

  “Here. I’ve already brought mine, although it’s not New Year’s Eve yet,” Alexandra said proudly, showing her a little wooden stick, decorated with multi-colored ribbons and paper flowers. “Papa and I made it together.”

  Lucy examined the toy. It looked like a miniature tree, but not a Christmas tree, really. One that, strangely, reminded her of that drawing with the tree of life. The tree of life...but she did not want to dwell upon this. Instead she concentrated on what she saw and heard around her. The people were staring at her, but they did not seem hostile or unfriendly, and it seemed normal that they should stare. She was, she thought with a smile, the boyar’s strange English wife, after all.

  The visit passed without incident. They ate nuts and warm pretzels with the children who came to talk to Alexandra. It was a relief to finally see her more animated and it was plain that some of the children were playmates the girl hadn’t been able to see lately. She’d obviously missed them.

  While Alexandra was with her friends, an old woman approached Lucy smiling, gesturing to the bonfire the children had been dancing around earlier.

  “What does she want me to do?” Lucy asked, when the woman placed a long switch in her hand.

  Mitru smiled. “Just switch into the fire with it, mistress. You’re newly married—it’s good luck for a young bride to do this.”

  Hesitantly, Lucy did as she was told, conscious that many villagers’ eyes were upon her. The old woman nodded in approval, beckoning Lucy to throw her switch into the fire when the switching was done. She then sang what seemed to be a couple of verses, in a soft voice.

  “She’s singing to the fire.” Mitru answered her unspoken question. “Asking it for sheep to shear, cows to milk, horses to ride.”

  “A Romanian Christmas custom?”

  He shrugged. “An old custom. The boyar says it’s older than Christmas.”

  “Many old customs in this place...” she murmured.

  “We—the people here, I mean—there are things we haven’t forgotten,” Mitru said, and his words reminded her of what her husband had told her about pre-Roman times.

  Clearly there were ancient things that would always be honored and remembered here. Perhaps this Christmas would really bring prosperity to the villagers. Maybe the magic in the fire would make sure that the New Year would bring more joy than the past one.

  Lucy fervently wished that all the dreariness she’d been feeling of late would go away. Watching Alexandra with her friends made her hope that the girl had forgotten her anxiety. All would be well, Lucy thought, attempting to reassure herself. She did not dare to think of her husband, though—she didn’t feel ready yet to make him part of this wishful thinking.

  It was when Lucy decided that it was high time to go home that she scented the dark priest. Dark—because it seemed a shade that suited the scent. She smelled him before she was able to see him. Since she came here, her ability to discern scent had become far more acute than in England.

  When she raised her eyes, she saw a bulky man with a long beard that looked unkempt, dressed in a black robe, with a large wooden cross hanging by a chain around his neck. The people around them had fallen silent and the music had stopped. The priest was accompanied by a gaggle of old women dressed in somber black who kept muttering under their breath and making the sign of the cross.

  He halted in front of her and spoke in a booming voice.

  She instinctively wrapped her arms around Alexandra, prepared to protect the child if necessary. Oddly, she felt ready to lunge at the clergyman’s throat.

  “What is he saying?” Lucy asked, realizing that she felt angry rather than astounded or afraid.

  “Mistress, let us go,” Mitru whispered in her ear.

  She noted that he and the other men accompanying them had rallied around her and Alexandra, as if to guard them. The villagers started muttering and she felt horribly frustrated that she was unable to understand what they were saying. She would have to learn this language one day, she realized.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I would like you to translate what he’s saying.”

  But it was not Mitru who complied with her request, but Alexandra herself, who told her in a quivering voice, “He’s saying that you’ve married the devil. That he’s going to rip your throat and leave you in a pool of blood...the same way he did with his wife...with my mother...”

  The last words were spoken in a barely audible whisper and Lucy clutched the child firmly in her arms. She had been wrong to come here. So wrong to have exposed the child to this.

  “Take us away from here. Right now,” she told Mitru.

  She lifted Alexandra in her arms and almost ran for the sledge, not letting go of the child even when they were safely within the vehicle. She started speaking soothingly, not really knowing what she was saying, but assuring the child that what that hateful man had been saying was not true. Not true at all.

  Chapter Eight

  It was with relief that she entered the safety and warmth of the manor. She had been afraid after all—afraid for the child, and angry. And afraid of her own anger.

  As they stepped into the hall, Alexandra gave a cheerful cry, which, reassuringly, suggested she was somewhat recovered from her earlier shock. “Papa!”

  She jumped into her father’s open arms. As they st
arted an animated discussion in Romanian, Lucy could not take her eyes off the lovely image of Ioan with the child in his arms. They looked very much alike. And it was then that a different kind of scent invaded her nostrils, one that she had only faintly felt before. It was a scent that she was beginning to recognize only now: love. A father’s love for his daughter. Whatever else he might be, he was a man who deeply loved his daughter, and that was unmistakable.

  He seemed cheerful. She saw that when he finally raised her eyes to meet hers, still holding his daughter in his arms. “I’ve brought a tree,” he said in English, including her in the conversation.

  “Can I see it?” Alexandra said excitedly. Then, without waiting for further prompting, she ran through the exit and to the yard, where she must have guessed that the tree already lay.

  He smiled watching his daughter, a sunny smile she had not seen before. But it changed when he looked at her. It became wicked and lingering. Predatory. He crossed the distance between them in three quick strides.

  “Missed me?” he asked, and he captured her lips without waiting for an invitation.

  His cheeks were still cold, but his lips were quite warm. He smelled of snow and frozen earth and fir. A Christmas smell, really. And there was a further smell, potent and intoxicating, of deep desire mixed with something more.

  “I’ve chopped the tree myself,” he told her, breaking the kiss. “There, you can be proud of your brawny Wallachian husband.”

  A bubble of laughter rose in her throat, in spite of her distress. She scarcely knew him, but she could safely say that he did have a sense of humor. There was however so much that they should discuss, now that she was thinking more clearly.

  “Listen,” she told him. “We’ve been to the village.”

  He narrowed his eyes and the cheerfulness in them was suddenly gone. “You should not have done that,” he said calmly, but she could feel anger seething beneath his voice.

  “I should not have taken Alexandra. For that I am very sorry, but—”

  His fingers which had earlier held her gently suddenly seized her arm in a painful grip. “I want you to tell me what that madman told you. I want you to tell me every filthy word he uttered in front of my daughter,” he snarled, a feral glint in his green eyes.

  He was angry, and she could scent his anger with every inch of her being. And suddenly she also was angry and found herself savagely snarling at him in return.

  “You know too well what he said!” she countered.

  “And you already believe him!” he growled back.

  He did not wait for an answer, but swiftly slung her across his shoulder, in the same effortless manner as he had done on their wedding night. This time she wouldn’t submit without a fight, she snarled within herself.

  She squirmed and tried to bite him, but it was to no avail. He carried her to their bedroom and dropped her on the bed, that same bed they’d first shared a few days ago.

  Oh, so what was he going to do? Spank her for her transgression? She already cursed herself for the shameful sensation of anticipation and burning this thought brought to her sex. Yet again her lust was clouding her judgment. At this moment, yet again, everything else had disappeared from her mind. There was only him, and anger, and the intoxicating thought of angry sex.

  With strange clarity, she knew that he could smell her desire just now, just as keenly as she could smell his.

  He wasn’t considerate this time—he lunged for her. But he did not pin her on the bed and drive into her, as she’d thought he would. He dragged her toward him so that her back was on him and she could feel his engorged cock pressing against her buttocks.

  “Get on your hands and knees on the floor,” he growled.

  She instantly obeyed him; it was not a command that she found humiliating. Instinctively, in spite of her lack of experience, she knew precisely what he wanted, and she kneeled on the floor, thrusting her bottom toward him, as a she-wolf would do for her mate.

  He unceremoniously lifted her skirts and petticoat, then made short work of her pantaloons. She felt so wet for him that she could weep. Belatedly, she remembered the horrible pain the first time he’d claimed her. There would probably be pain now too. No matter. She would do anything just to have him inside her. She needed to be filled.

  She felt the tip of his cock tantalizingly brush against her buttocks, and then against her already inflamed sex.

  “Tell me you want this,” he told her cruelly.

  She was silent. Her desire was already killing her, but for once she would have him admit he wanted her just as much.

  “You tell me you want this,” she countered, hoping she would have the strength to resist her urges for a couple more seconds.

  He growled, and there was nothing human about that growl. “Damn you!” he shouted, and entered her in one powerful thrust.

  She had expected pain, but there was none. His entry was slick and his punishing thrusts brought only excruciating pleasure. There was nothing more around them, just him and his rigid cock driving inside her. Just that. It was hard and fast, but she collapsed at the same time he did. Her body exploded into a million shiny leaves. The leaves of the tree of life. The essence that made her what she was.

  But there was one more image that she saw when she closed her eyes. Soft fur. Sharp fangs. Golden and green eyes. Accompanying it, the unmistakable scent of predator and prey. And blood.

  When she opened her eyes to look upon him as he lay near her, spent and panting hard, she realized how beautiful he really was. She also identified the scent that she had sensed clinging to him earlier. Something which had been unfamiliar and confusing. A smell that she herself found delicious and intoxicating.

  Blood. Blood. Blood.

  She was disgusted. Not with him, but with herself, for finding him so beautiful and so enticing, for finding blood so intoxicating.

  They found Alexandra’s mother in a pool of blood. The dark priest’s words. The villagers’ fear. Ana’s muttered words. Superstition. Unfounded, untrue rumors. And yet...

  He rose and gave her a cold look. His warmth was gone, spent along with his ardor. She felt further angered and humiliated by his next words.

  “You can call upon me when you’re in heat. I’ll mate with you. But nothing more than that,” he told her harshly. “I shall make my bed elsewhere.”

  “Fine,” she snapped back. “It is not as if I already know how it is to wake up in your arms.”

  She was bitterly referring to his desertion of her on the first morning after they’d made love. But it was not as if he would care. And he did not. He closed the door without sparing her a single glance.

  * * *

  Anger seemed to seep through Ioan’s skin. He’d almost shifted in front of her.

  He laughed hollowly. Well, if he had turned, she would have been able to see him for the beast that he really was.

  He had behaved like a beast in heat. But they were both in heat, and angry with each other. How good angry sex had felt! As he thought of it, he felt himself grow hard again. Hard and ready to thrust into her warmth. And he was still angry with her. Furious.

  He restrained himself from going back to claim her again, because he was too angry, and this time he was afraid he might end up really hurting her. That would be intolerable.

  Damn you, Lucy Cross! He repeated her last name, fully knowing that she was no longer called that. She supposedly shared his. But she didn’t realize the full meaning of the name, nor the bond they now shared.

  She did not understand. Suddenly he wanted to claw and bite at that English veneer that clung to her. To cut it away from her, as if it was not her own skin, but just a borrowed pelt she’d garbed herself in.

  He swore viciously, not caring that the sound of his voice was loud enough for the servants to hear. He felt disgusted with himself. He’d always prided himself o
n his self-control, and now, because of his wife’s behavior, he’d come close to losing the last shred of it.

  He willed himself to be calm. Cold. Controlled. She had not known, and the rumors about him must have come as a shock. He should have talked to her about his past.

  Still, he was incensed with her for exposing Alexandra to this. But, in truth, he was to blame. He should have expressly told the servants to prevent Lucy from going to the village. But he hadn’t done so, out of a sense of wrongness. He was her husband now, but he hadn’t thought it would be proper for a husband to forbid things to his wife.

  All his life he’d wanted to be free, so he understood too well how cruel it would be to deprive another of freedom. He knew that if he started giving orders for her to follow, she would feel just as imprisoned as he himself had felt for so long.

  Still, he should have prevented her from going, even if it was wrong to do so. It had hurt Alexandra.

  But when he went down to the yard, he found Alexandra still marveling at the Christmas tree he’d brought.

  “How long have you been outside, really? You’ll catch a chill,” he chided.

  But truth be told, he felt relieved. She seemed cheerful, and lately he hadn’t had much opportunity to see his child so carefree.

  As they went inside for a mug of Ana’s hot tea, he decided to talk to her about what had happened. He tried to take a stern tone, which hid the fact that he was still worried about her. “You were not to go to the village, and you should have told Lucy so,” he said.

  “I did. But Lucy wanted to go anyway, you see.”

  He sighed. Yes, he could see very well. He was already getting to know Lucy better. And he’d already learnt she was a stubborn woman.

  “The priest was there, wasn’t he?” he asked, already knowing that it had been so.

  She nodded.

  “And he said vile things about me,” he went on.

  She nodded again. He took her in his arms, and he hugged her very tight.