She looked down at her crumpled black dress. "All right." She headed into the closet, stripped off her dress, and dropped it on the floor.
"My plane is waiting at the airport," he called. "You can fly, right?"
"You know every other thing about me. Donat you know that?" She pulled out her stack of tough clothes, the kind she had worn when she was building hotels.
"Your pilotas license is up-to-date."
He really did know everything about her.
"Iall call and tell them to get it ready to go. Iave filed a flight plan for California."
"Whatas in California?" She dressed so swiftly, she pulled her black T-shirt on inside out. She didnat take the time to correct it.
"My brother. He owns Wilder Winery. Smart guy. Powerful. He can protect you. When you get to the airport, search the plane. Make sure you havenat got any extra baggage in the form of another Varinski."
She walked out wearing jeans and a heavy belt, her inside-out black T-shirt, her hiking boots, and a light jacketa"and, beneath the long sleeves, her gold bracelets.
She couldnat bear to leave them behind.
"Whatas a Varinski?" she asked.
He nodded toward the snake. "Thatas a Varinski."
She shuddered, grabbed the comforter off her bed, and flung it over the long, twisted body.
Warlord continued, "Iall call my brother. When you land at Napa County Airport, heall take care of everything."
"Like I would trust your brother?"
"You have to trust someone sometime, Karen Sonnet." Sweat broke out all over Warlordas body, and he shuddered and grimaced in pain. "Youave got no choice. Now go."
She knew how to walk away without a backward glance. Once before, shead walked away from him. Shead walked away from her father.
Now she grabbed her bag and her backpack, strode to the door, opened it wide, stepped through, and quietly shut it behind her.
Chapter Twenty-one.
Warlord watched Karen disappear out of his life.
Good for her. He was glad she took the Varinski threat seriously. He was glad she was willing to do anything to protect the icon.
He deserved this, to die alone, half-blind, and in agony.
But . . . after all that had happened, he didnat want to bite it here on the floor of her cottage. She needed him to survive.
He needed to know that she did survive. She was his light in this world, and she had to go on.
Thin threads of agony shot through every nerve in his body, and he breathed slow, deep breaths until head vanquished the pain.
During that year head spent in h.e.l.l, head learned to control his pain. In fact, head learned a lot. Head learned to survive eternal darkness and stifling heat, a lack of air and constant beatings. More important, head learned patience, head learned to plan, head learned self-discipline.
Self-discipline. The one thing his father had yammered at him to learn, and Warlord finally had it. Except when it came to Karen.
Head planned this whole operation: Get close to her, alleviate her fears, seduce her, show her that he was a different man, then gently explain the danger that stalked her and get her the h.e.l.l out of there and to his parents.
Only one thing had thwarted him.
Karen. Karen, with her professional distance and her pink toenails and her wary courtesy. Karen, with her black dress and her upswept hair that bared the nape of her neck and her willingness to sleep with Rick Wilder while she wore Warlordas bracelets around her wrists. Karen, and her one moment of high-octane, head-on, pa.s.sionate kissinga"right before she knocked his d.i.c.k in the dirt.
She was the only woman who had ever managed to hit him, and shead done it twice.
He wasnat bragging about it. But that said a lot for the way she affected him.
The cobra, that stupid f.u.c.king cobra, had spit poison at him, bitten him, and filled him with death. The Varinskisa pact with the devil was falling apart, and they would do anythinga" sabotage, torture, murdera"to prevent that from happening. Warlord was pa.s.sing into the next world. And all he could think about was Karen and how much he wished he could have loved her once more.
So, dumbs.h.i.t that he was, he would do everything in his power to live. He had to struggle. He had to fight. He wouldnat simply lie down and die.
He set his sights on the pair of his dress trousers crumpled on the floor eight feet away from hima"the trousers head shed when head thought, incorrectly, that he was going to get lucky tonight. Keeping his breath even and his blood pressure down, he slowly pulled himself along the floor until he touched the cuff of one leg. He pulled it toward him, crumpling the material until he could reach into the pocket and pull out the switchblade he kept there.
With the touch of a b.u.t.ton the short, sharp blade sprang out. It glinted in the light, his savior if anything could save him. He twisted around, trying to see the puncture points where the snake had bitten him. He couldnat; the fangs had pierced him in the upper thigh on the back of the leg. Nevertheless, head give a poke and see if he could spill the venom out, along with a lot of blood. What had he to lose? He flexed his wrists and prepared to blindly operatea"when Karen opened the door and walked back in.
She was gorgeous. He wanted her. So he said the only thing that made sense: "Get the h.e.l.l out of here."
"Donat tell me what to do." She lifted both of her bags as high as she could, dropped them, and slammed the door with her foot. "Give me that stupid knife."
"You have to leave."
She marched over and extended her hand, and her eyes sparkled with outrage. "Iall leave when you can leave with me. Now, are we going to get this done before another of your stupid, slimy friends pops out of the woodwork, or are you going to loll around on the floor and whimper?"
She was furious with herself for returning. And the fact that she had returned warmed his heart and strengthened his resolve.
He would live.
"When you put it that way . . ." He handed her the knife, handle first, and hoped she wasnat mad enough to take the opportunity to stick it in his heart.
She rolled him onto his stomach. "Gonna sting," she said.
"Already stings." He could feel the venom dissolving the cells, the threads, the strength of his muscles in his leg.
With two sure strokes she sliced his skin and into his muscle.
The pain made him arch in agony.
Blood spurted and ran down his leg.
"Did I hurt you?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Good." She reached up to the end table beside the bed and flipped on a reading light. "Remember what the venom looks like?"
"Thick, silvery, beads together like mercury." When it hit his cheek and eye it had burned like acid, ripping his skin and . . . well. He could do nothing about his eye. No use thinking about it now. But head been able to shake the venom off onto the floor, and outside head rubbed his face in the flower bed. If anything had saved his vision, that had, but he could still feel the remaining molecules eating away at his skin. . . .
"The poison is nestled in there, clinging to the strands of your muscles. So roll back onto your side." Karen gave him a shove.
He did as he was told. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because Iam sick of worrying about you and when youare going to pop up again."
"So youare going to take care of me so I donat surprise you anymore?"
"Also, I need help living through the night, and youare my best bet."
"Not in this shape."
"Shut. Up." She used the tip of his knife to push first one drop of poison, then the other out onto the floor.
They rolled and beaded like mercury.
"Not good," she muttered.
"Because?"
"They left a silvery coating along the strands of your muscles. Stay here." She ran for the bathroom. He could hear her slamming through the drawers.
Karen made him feel almost . . . hopeful.
She came back with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, rolls of gauze and first-aid tape, and a bottle of Listerine.
He didnat even want to know what she intended to do with the Listerine.
"I havenat got a snakebite kit. Or a suction cup. So weall try this." She knelt at his side. She tilted him onto his stomach and poured the hydrogen peroxide into the wound.
It hurt like a son of a b.i.t.c.h.
She tilted him back and let it drain out.
"No change. The silveras still hanging in there. Letas try it again." She did, and all the while she talked to him, trying to keep him focused.
He knew it. He appreciated it. But she was getting increasingly frantic, and finally he gasped, "Iam no good to you. Go on now. Remember, my plane. My brothera""
She rolled him onto his stomach. "I know perfectly well how to walk away." She sounded livid that he dared suggest she didnat.
Thank G.o.d. If he p.i.s.sed her off enough, shead do her disappearing act and maybe save herself and the icon and his family.
Instead, in the most courageous act head ever witnessed in his lifea"and the stupidesta"she stuck her knee in his back, put her mouth to the bite, and sucked the poison out of his wound.
Chapter Twenty-two.
Karen spit the blood and venom onto the floor.
Warlord knocked her off, shoved her away.
Dimly she heard him shout, "Are you crazy?"
The poison hit her first, ripping into her senses like acid.
Then she tasted his blood, anda"
The Varinski wore a helmet and a Kevlar vest. His earlobes hung low, each pierced by a three-eighths -inch countersunk bolt. He had a knife in a holster strapped to his side, and steel covered his knuckles. His arms were muscled and ma.s.sive, and he had a face like a Neanderthala"wide jaw, heavy brow, and one cheekbone that had been broken and shoved up toward his eye. He waded through the battle, throwing Warlordas men aside as if they were toothpicks. He was ma.s.sive, indifferent to pain, fast as lightning . . . and his gaze was fixed on Warlord.
A fight to the death. Warlord deserved this.
He rushed to meet him.
They met in a clash of cruelty.
Warlord slashed at the Varinski, ripping him with tooth and claw, but this was no ordinary demon. This guy had a flair for killing. He didnat bother with his knife or his pistol, but pounded on Warlord with his metal-clad fists, taking pieces of flesh with each blow.
Warlord slashed with his knife, ripping the Varinskias neck, his legs, his face, but the Varinski shook it off and kept coming. He moved quickly, used his hands as well as his fists, showed the kind of technique only a self-defense master should know.
Warlord panted, his breath heaving in his lungs. He was losing. For the first time since he was a boy with his brothers he was losing a fight. Quickly, he weighed the options. If he changed, became a panther, perhaps he could escape, but . . . his men were overwhelmed, wounded, dead, or prisoners.
No. He would stay with them. He would get them out.
The Varinski circled him; then, at a shout from the field, he looked away.
Warlord made a lunge for the Varinskias bellya" and one mighty fist slammed him in the chest.
Warlord blacked out, woke to find himself flying through the air, blacked out again as he bounced down the cliff . . . and hit the rocks.
The brisk, antiseptic taste of Listerine splashed in Karenas mouth. She sputtered and spit, shoved Warlordas hand and the bottle away. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h!"
Warlord held her in his lap. He shook her shoulders. "Are you all right? Do you know how potent that poison is? Are you crazy?"
"Yes. Yes. Yes." Launching herself out of his arms, she ran to the bathroom. Her stomach heaved, and she tossed her cookies in the toilet. She hung there for a moment, her mind whirling as she tried to think, to comprehend what was happening to her.