Verena's Whistle: Varangian Descendants Book I by K. Panikian (essential reading txt) 📗

on the deck and saw Owen there in boots and a swimsuit, and nothing else, wiping snow off the hot tub cover. I watched him for a moment; the definition in his back was hypnotizing as his muscles stretched and released. His skin was a golden tan, though I could see creeping red across his shoulders where he flushed from the cold. I felt myself flush in turn, my insides overheating. His curling, brown hair was falling into his eyes again and I watched him toss his head back. He looked up and saw me in the glass and stopped moving, staring back at me.

I felt embarrassed to be caught ogling and moved my hand in a sort of half-wave. Then I slid open the door, stepped into my boots, and helped him pull off the cover.

As I slid my feet into the hot water, I let out an involuntary gasp. Prickles of sensation ran up my legs and my nerve endings felt like they’d been shocked. After a moment though, the sensation became pleasant and I settled all the way in to my shoulders, my back against the hot tub wall. I started to feel warm for the first time in hours. I closed my eyes and breathed in the steam, relaxing.

I felt the water move as Owen settled across from me and our knees touched. I left my leg where it was and his rested more fully against mine. His leg hair tickled. I suppressed a shiver.

We sat quietly for a few minutes and I kept my eyes closed, my held tilted back on the edge of the tub. The weak winter sunshine was warm on my face. The air smelled like chlorine and pine needles. Finally, I opened my eyes and blinked. I looked at Owen and met his intense gaze. His brown eyes were lustrous in the sunshine. I could see depths of almond and honey. Mmm.

He sat back and I snapped out of my musings, shaken, as he put his sinewy arms up on the edge of the hot tub on either side of him. “That was intense,” he said. “The way it looked and moved, the mix of the different animals; it was creepy. And when my bullets didn’t hit it, I had a few moments of feeling pretty afraid.”

“It was a psoglav. They like to eat people.” I’d never seen one in real life before either. The human torso part had been really disturbing.

“What happened with the gun?” I asked. “I couldn’t see.”

“I have no idea. I fired. I heard and felt it fire two times. But the bullets just disappeared into thin air. I’m a pretty good shot, especially at close range like that; there’s no way I would have missed.”

“So maybe guns aren’t going to work against the besy. Too much magic,” I mused.

“Looks like I need crossbow lessons,” Owen agreed. “Your whistle worked though.”

“Yeah,” I said, pleased. That had been an exciting development. “I couldn’t affect the bukavac though, remember?”

“I was thinking about that,” Owen said, “on the sled ride home. I wonder if the bukavac was sort of deaf? It had that piercing scream. Maybe it’s deaf as a defense mechanism, so if two of them get together, they can’t kill each other that way.”

“Oh yeah,” I said thoughtfully. “That makes sense.”

“If we ever see another one, we can dissect it and check.”

“Gross,” I said and splashed some water at him.

“That’s gross?” he said back. “You slit that thing’s throat with one swipe!”

“That was gross,” I agreed.

“No, I take it back,” Owen said. “It was awesome. You were awesome. I was standing there staring at my useless gun while you shot it full of crossbow bolts like some kind of medieval badass. It was beautiful.” He sat back again and said softer, “You’re beautiful.”

I let the jetted water push me a little bit toward him and he stretched out one arm and wrapped it around my waist, pulling me to sit next to him. He left his arm there; his hand felt like a brand on my hip. “Is this okay?” he asked and I nodded.

We both looked out at the view, the sunset stretching waves of purple and orange across the valley.

I turned my head to look at Owen again and then leaned in to kiss his cheek. His skin was warm against my lips. “Thanks,” I said. His eyes kindled.

Just then, a banging sound on the glass door behind us made me jump. Owen reluctantly pulled his arm from my waist, trailing his fingers along my skin. I looked and saw Theo waving and wriggling his eyebrows at me.

“We’ve got pizza!” he yelled, his voice muffled by the glass, and motioned us inside.

We climbed out and I helped Owen cover the hot tub again. Inside, wrapped in my towel, I hurried down the hall to get dressed.

When I made it back to the kitchen, the guys had two pizza boxes open and were standing around eating with paper plates. I snagged a pepperoni slice and a mushroom slice and perched on a stool.

Theo was in the middle of describing the ingredients they’d found. It sounded like they had everything they needed. The naphtha ended up being camp stove fuel. The saltpeter had been the trickiest. They talked to three different hardware store guys before deciding that the better bet was a health food store, since it could be used as a pickling and canning agent.

Theo talked to Zasha too, and got a list of lab equipment for mixing volatile materials, which they’d picked up from the hardware store as well. He was going to start messing around with everything in the morning, over the fire pit in the back, and Julian was going to be his notetaker.

Owen then shared our day’s adventure.

“One down!” was Theo’s cheerful response at the end. “Did you see its teeth? Were they really iron?”

“They’re in a bucket in the garage,” I answered.

“Sweet!”

“I think the plan to attack the cave is a good