Magic by Moonlight (12 page)

He's like a child, she thought, watching him.
Like a big, lost child in a strange new world. Except that he was a
dangerous child, one she needed to handle carefully.

She took the glasses from him and slipped
them into her pocket. She pointed to his chest and said, "Ulf?
Svein?" So far she only knew him as The Plague of the North.
"Hvað,
um, your name..
.heitir þu?"

"Rolf Magnusson." His voice was clearer now,
and decidedly louder. He nodded, indicating the empty glass.
"Water."

"More?" She took his wrist in her free hand
and drew him carefully from the room and into the adjoining control
room. He gazed curiously all around, eyes widening at the bank of
monitors with their flat white lines and the rows of buttons and
dials and switches. He was more amazed, though, when she turned on
the faucet and water flowed into the sink. He watched her, and a
second later, he moved her aside to stand where she'd been.

Setting his sword aside, he turned the knobs
first one way and then the other, making the water flow, hot then
cold, and finally making it stop. He studied the stream, following
it to the drain. Dropping to his knees, he next examined the pipes
beneath the sink.

He frowned, nodded slowly, and rose to take
the glass from her hand. She willingly let it go, and watched as he
filled it on his own. He held the glass beneath the faucet until it
was spilling over his big hand. Then he reached again for the knob
and turned it off. For a long moment, he regarded the glass in his
hand. Finally he brought it to his lips and tilted it up as if he'd
down it all in one gulp as he had before.

This time she put a hand over the one holding
the glass. "Slow," she told him. She pushed her other hand in a
downward sweep and repeated, "Slow." Placing a palm on his stomach
to try to show that he'd give himself a stomach ache if he drank
too quickly, she quickly realized it was a bad idea. Too intimate
and personal a touch. His abs were hard as rock and warm beneath
her fingers, even through the thin tunic he wore and the shirt
beneath it. She looked up quickly. His eyes seemed to darken. He
held her intense gaze for a long moment, and it was Miranda who
finally looked away, baffled by her sudden shortness of breath and
the odd tension coiling somewhere within her.

He studied her as if she'd done something
unexpected, then he drank, slowly this time. It was remarkably easy
to make him understand her, she thought. When he finished, he set
the glass carefully on the counter. "Rolf." She tested the name.
"Rolf Magnusson." What now, she wondered.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs alerted
her, and when Rolf saw the way her eyes flew wide and her body went
rigid, his powerful hand closed around her upper arm, pushing her
behind him as he lifted his sword and sent a fierce glare through
the doorway, into the darkened basement.

"No, Rolf.
Nei!"
she whispered
urgently. She tugged on his arm until the sword lowered, then
reached around him to close the door until it was only open a
crack.

"Miss O'Shea?"

"Who is it?" She clung to Rolf's tensed
biceps, praying he wouldn't decide to behead the man with a single
swipe of Vengeance before he could answer.

"Officer Phillips, Professor. I was knocking
for quite a while. Got worried when no one answered, since the
lights are still on. Everything all right?"

Rolf emitted a low grunt and his expression
told her what he thought of her restraining hand. "Fine,
everything's fine. I'm afraid I can't talk to you now, though. Some
of the controls got knocked out of whack earlier and I have to get
them back in order. Sorry to be rude."

"No problem. Anything I can do to help?"

"No, thank you. Good night, Officer
Phillips." She sighed in relief when he responded in kind and she
heard his steps retreating up the stairs, and listened until the
door slammed. Then her entire body sagged at the close call. She
hadn't realized until this very moment what she was going to do
with Rolf. It shocked her now that she had. Her entire life had
been devoted to science. The decision she'd made, though, was the
opposite of the one the scientists of the world would wish for. It
was more like the one the romantics of the world would approve. But
there was only one decision she could make. She couldn't allow Rolf
to become the hottest new guinea pig in the world. She just
couldn't. She had to hide him from everyone. She didn't know how,
but she had to do it.

Rolf's hand closed on her shoulder and she
winced, but not because of him. He’d touched a sore spot. He turned
her toward him, his frown deeper than ever. His fingers closed on
the collar of her blouse and he pulled it to one side, snapping the
top two buttons and baring the shoulder he'd inadvertently hurt.
There was a deep purple bruise she knew there, the one she'd
received from the intruder. Rolf’s face turned thunderous when he
saw it, and he spewed a stream of words she didn't understand. As
he spoke he motioned with his sword toward the stairway and the
last phrase sounded as if it might have been a question.

She wondered if he were asking whether
Officer Phillips had given her the bruise, or whether she'd like
the man dissected for his crime. Either way, she knew she had to
disabuse him of the notion. Funny, she thought, that he would pull
her hair the way he had, shove her around like that, yell at her
for whatever this Adrianna had done, and then get so angry at the
knowledge that someone
else
had harmed her. But he was from
another time, and his morality, his ethics, were too. She had to
remember that. Touching his face, she brought his gaze back to
hers.
"Nei,
Rolf. It wasn't him.
Nei."
She touched
the hand holding the sword, putting a slight downward pressure on
it, and he lowered the weapon, looking none too pleased about
it.

She nodded in approval and smiled. His gaze
dropped to her bruised, exposed shoulder and softened. Gently he
touched the purplish skin with two fingers and murmured something
low and soft.

She pulled her shirt together hastily,
feeling the blood rush to her face at his show of tenderness. It
was an odd feeling, having someone so angry on her behalf, one she
didn't remember ever having experienced before. Of course Russell
would have been upset if he'd known the intruder had harmed her,
but not like this. Rolf had been ready to do battle...all over a
little bruise. All right, not so little from the way it ached, but
still... She shook herself and took one of Rolf's hands, or as much
of it as she could grasp.

She looked up into his eyes. "I'm not going
to hurt you, Rolf. I'm your friend.
Eg er vinur þinn.
You're
going to have to trust me."

He watched her closely, his eyes going from
hers, to her lips as she spoke, to her throat and back to her eyes
again. He licked his lips after a moment, pressed two fingers to
his thumb and tapped his lips three times.
"Eg er
svangur."

"Hungry? I'm hungry, too." She touched her
lips as he had. "I am hungry. Say it, Rolf. I am hungry."

"I am hungry." His mimicking ability was
astounding.

She nodded encouragingly. "Now say my name.
Miranda.
Endurtakið.
Repeat it, Rolf. Miranda." She had no
doubt he understood what she was asking of him. He seemed keenly
intelligent.

He studied her for a long moment, his eyes
narrow with suspicion. At last, sneering slightly, he gestured,
lifting one hand, four fingers touching the thumb. He flicked the
fingers open with a sarcastic little snap and whispered,
"Adrianna."

"Can't pull one over on you, can I?" She
shook her head, rolled her eyes to show her displeasure, but still
gripped his hand and drew him through the basement and up the
stairs.

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