Oceans of Fire by Christine Feehan Page B

world. She couldn’t escape him this time. She’d returned every letter he’d painstakingly written. He’d put his heart and soul into those letters and she’d rejected them without even opening them. Some of the letters had traveled to several countries to reach her. He still had every one of them, smudged with half a dozen postmarks. He’d told himself he was a fool, but he couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t forget about her. Couldn’t stop the way she crept into his mind a hundred times a day and remained in his dreams night after night.
    He took a cautious step onto the property. Clouds spun across the moon, casting an eerie mix of shadows and flickering moonlight over the landscape. Trees and shrubs swayed as if something guarded the hillside hidden beneath the dense thicket of leaves and branches. Some branches were raised toward the sky while others bent in twisted, sweeping shapes toward the ground, long arms bent on deterring intruders. It was as if the property itself wanted to keep out intruders.
    Once again he went still, getting a feel for the rhythm of the night, uneasiness creeping into his mind and body so that he felt the hair on his neck rise. He shrank down instinctively, his body aware there was more than fog and moonlight in the trees almost before his brain registered the information. He was tuned to every night sound, every cricket and frog. The tendrils of fog shrouding the house reached out like macabre snakes, twisting through the dense foliage, further obscuring vision, but he was relying on instincts, not sight.
    Aleksandr slid deeper into the shadows and went motionless again, his senses heightened and on full alert. He heard nothing, saw nothing, yet he knew he was not alone. He waited patiently, shifting position only when he had full cover. Finally he caught glimpses of a dark shape moving stealthily through the trees. The fog and shrubbery obscured his vision, but he heard the scuff of shoes on rocks and dropped to the ground. Aleksandr was a big man and needed stealth to move in close to the hunter. He drew his gun and slithered through the brush. A man stood in the shadow of the trees staring up at the house through a pair of binoculars. Aleksandr’s heart jumped when he realized the binoculars appeared to be trained on Abigail’s room.
    The drapes on the French doors swayed and Aleksandr tensed when he saw Abigail walk out onto the balcony and face the sea. She was wearing a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms and a thin spaghetti-strap tank that didn’t quite cover her flat belly. She leaned her elbows on the railing and stared out over the ocean. The wind tugged at her long mass of bright red hair and pushed her thin top across her breasts. Her hair fell below her waist in a long bright red cascade, the wind sweeping it across her pale skin. He remembered the feel of the silky strands, soft and sensual, sliding over him.
    It took all of his self-control not to call out a warning to her. He inched his way toward the man in the shadows. The man turned his head slightly and Aleksandr’s gut clenched and rolled. Prakenskii . He was considered a violent killer and a termination order had been out on him for years. What was he doing in the small town of Sea Haven? Aleksandr crept within striking distance. He could not afford to leave Prakenskii any room to maneuver. His entire world narrowed to his task. Kill Prakenskii and keep Abigail safe. Nothing else mattered at that moment, or could matter.
    “Just keep your hands right where they are, Ilya Prakenskii,” Aleksandr ordered, his voice low. “Stay where you are.”
    Prakenskii stiffened, raised his hands slightly. “Aleksandr. I had no idea you were in the vicinity. We meet in the strangest of places.” A small smile touched his mouth. “Have you recovered from our last little ‘talk’?”
    “Completely,” Aleksandr said pleasantly. “A few weeks of recuperation.” He shrugged. “Such is life. And you?”
    “A little