The Siren's Dance. Amber Belldene

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СКАЧАТЬ her good-bye sweetly--she was really a nice girl--and helped her gather her things. Then she’d announced she was too exhausted to drive home and wound up sleeping over. When his alarm sounded at five AM, he’d invited her to run with him, but she’d declared she needed coffee first, rolled over, and begun breathing deeply. He’d run, showered, and eaten breakfast, waking her again before he’d headed downtown to meet Lisko. Still deep within his bed, she’d yawned, stretched, and promised to see herself out.

      Getting the clingy vibe from Iryna was weird. They’d both agreed they weren’t much good together, which was par for the course of his pathetically shallow love life.

      He unlocked the door and slammed it behind him to warn her of his return. But to his enormous relief, she was gone, the kitchen light left on, and a note tucked under his shiny, stainless steel baby--the juicer.

      Sorry I was so tired. Long week at work. Thanks for a good evening. I’m looking forward to just being friends. Xs and Os. Iryna.

      He knocked on the tabletop twice for good measure. That note felt like a win, the first of the day. He took off his suit and tossed it on the bed in favor of jeans and a T-shirt. If he had to spend the afternoon in a car with Anya Truss, the chances of another win were unlikely. At least he could be comfortable.

      Chapter 4

      He’d left her in the car. Anya was starting to really hate Inspector Putz. If she could feel her teeth, she would have clenched them. Instead, she unleashed a little vila fury, swirling the air inside the sedan until the whole vehicle shook.

      After years of idle isolation, it was tantalizing that people could actually see and feel the wind she controlled. A boy of ten or eleven stopped to stare, and she ceased raging and sank into the space under the dash. She didn’t want to cause a panic in Yuchenko’s quiet, tree-lined street in the Sviatoshyn district.

      Well, she kind of did. But not at the expense of getting separated from Yuchenko and her chance to find Demyan.

      So she watched the fall leaves drift downward onto the road. At her riverbank, she’d known where the small currents would carry each autumn leaf, depending on where it fell into the river. She’d had nothing else to occupy her attention for all that time. No matter how beautiful the russet and gold colors were, she really hated autumn. And spring. And summer. And more than all that, she hated being trapped.

      She could have escaped the car, of course. In her early days as a ghost, she’d experimented with floating through tree trunks and even the wall of an old shed near the riverbank. It had been a horrid feeling--loose, like being squished through a sieve to become a hundred million tiny individual particles with no connection to one another. Each time, mustering the nerve to do it again had required another round of courage, like jumping off a high dive. What if that time she wouldn’t come back together on the other side?

      Still, she could escape Lisko’s car if she had to. The problem was, if she floated out, Gregor’s solid gold signet ring would stay inside, and then Yuchenko wouldn’t be able to see her or talk to her. If he drove off with her slipper in the shoebox, she would be dragged behind him like a pet on a leash.

      When she’d been stuck at the river, she’d lost her sense of time. Minutes, hours, and days had stretched and then collapsed under the constant and urgent need to find Stas before he died, taking her chance at freedom with him to hell. Waiting for Sergey in Dmitri’s car, she had no idea how much time had passed before he sauntered down the sidewalk, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. It wasn’t a cocky walk, just the strut of a man comfortable in his own skin.

      A pair of ragged blue trousers hugged his muscular thighs. She’d always had a thing for a fit man’s thighs, those graceful vastus muscles curving about the knee. Yuchenko would probably be a beautiful specimen in a pair of tights. Beneath his black leather jacket, his white knit undershirt was pulled snug over the ridges of his chest.

      The athlete in her recognized the man took care of himself, trained hard, ate well. She understood those things--they had driven her to become the best ballerina. Which begged the question, why did Yuchenko do it?

      Probably to garner all the heads that seemed to be turning his way. Several women angled back to appreciate him a second time. Envy drifted through her. No one had looked at her with desire like that, except Stas’s twisted version. She’d entirely missed out on this part of life--flirtation, attraction, connection, intimacy--Demyan demanded a devotion that left no time for such frivolities.

      She let her fury unfurl beyond the confines of the car. Outside, a gust stirred the autumnal leaves, instantly turning the fall day blustery and blowing urban detritus--paper receipts, candy wrappers, cigarette butts. Everyone on the street hunched over against the blast.

      Good. Yuchenko’s admirers could keep their eyes to themselves.

      He glanced up, the wind barely ruffling that flat top of dirty-blond hair. When he leveled his gaze at her, she met it head-on, hypnotized by his golden-boy good looks.

      Suddenly, whatever she was made of seemed to buzz with a different kind of energy, hotter and mellower than fury, like the electric heater Papa had used to warm the jewelry shop from under his desk. Yuchenko turned up his palms as if asking what she was looking at, and then he shrugged and continued to the car.

      Thank God, he didn’t seem to realize she’d been more or less leering at him, along with every warm-blooded woman who’d passed on the street. The puppy probably couldn’t muster up a smug look to save his life.

      He tossed his bag in the trunk and then dropped into the driver’s seat.

      “The drive is easy. We’ll be in Odessa in under five hours.”

      Great. Five hours trapped in a car with Inspector Putz of the perfect thighs.

      “Which is plenty of time for you to tell me what you want with Demyan.”

      “In your dreams.”

      “Is it business? Personal? Is it related to your death?”

      “Wow, is this your interrogation strategy? With you on the case, all of Kiev’s criminals must be behind bars. And the police can kick up their heels and drink green juice.”

      “Pretty much.” He chuckled.

      She waited for a retort, a cruel parry that she certainly deserved.

      Instead, he grinned at the windshield, accelerating to pass a delivery van.

      How irritating--a man who could laugh at himself. He was just too easy and comfortable being himself. Anya had never once laughed off a joke at her own expense. More often than not, she’d clocked Sonya or the neighborhood boys, or anyone else who’d made the gibe.

      “You came to Odessa with Demyan?”

      “Yes.” She wasn’t giving him anything, wouldn’t make another damn thing easy for him. “And that’s quite enough chitchat, thank you. I’ve gotten used to silence, and you’re just annoying me.”

      As if she hadn’t said a thing, he asked, “When did you go?”

      “A long time ago.”

      They’d stopped at a red light, and he took his gaze off the road to glance at her. Then he nodded once and faced the car ahead of them. Whatever he’d heard in her СКАЧАТЬ