Immanuel's Veins by Ted Dekker Page A

table.
    Lucine spent the night tossing. Images she couldn’t later remember ran circles around her sleep. She almost got up in the middle of the night to find Toma because she felt unsafe. But the idea of running to him again, finding him in his room without a shirt, bothered her. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.
    She did like the man. Who wouldn’t? But she didn’t want to send him mixed signals. He was a stallion. A lion among wolves. Still, he was a warrior who killed men for a living, not a lover who could be a father to her children.
    Natasha and Mother both said that he was struck by her, and that might be. Though really, Natasha and Mother saw love in the slightest of movements. It was no wonder the Cantemir women had such a reputation throughout Europe.
    So then, all the more reason for caution. She didn’t want to encourage Toma or hurt him.
    Lucine woke late the next morning. Far too late, well past breakfast, she thought. Natasha had locked her door and didn’t respond to any amount of pounding.
    She went to fetch Toma, but he was already out, for a ride likely. She hurried to find Alek, still groggy, in his room. When they returned to Natasha’s room, they found the door unlocked. The bed had been stripped and her sister was in a bath.
    A soapy red bath.
    â€œMore blood?”
    â€œPlease, Lucine! Stop all the fuss with the blood. I feel positively divine. Would you like to check for cuts? You won’t find any.”
    The soap hardly covered her nakedness, and she bathed with no shame as Alek watched from the door. “Come, dear, give me a kiss and tell me we had a blissful night. Because I don’t recall a moment of it.”
    He came in, leaned over the bath, and kissed her. “It’s your loss, then.”
    â€œWas it? Blissful, I mean?”
    â€œYou’ll never know now, will you?”
    She flicked bubbles at him and laughed. “Naughty boy.”
    Alek winked. “Naughty, naughty girl. Did you mean it?”
    â€œMean what?”
    â€œYour proposal last night?”
    â€œFor marriage?” She gasped and covered her mouth with a soapy hand. “No!”
    â€œWell, no.” He smiled and winked again. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t show all the world how to love.”
    Lucine rolled her eyes and turned to leave. “Please, before I throw up.”
    Alek and Natasha spent most of the day planning for and then taking a picnic on the property’s north side. As long as she remained with Alek, no other protection was needed. They were a sight, those two, walking about with as much grace as they could manage, but in reality they were two lovebirds, chasing each other with twirls of laughter.
    Lucine’s heart ached to watch. To be loved and to love like that—why couldn’t she abandon herself to love like Natasha? It did not matter that Natasha would likely be dead in ten years as a result of her extravagant passions; that she would likely never be the proper mother of many children; that she was likely bound for hell itself.
    Natasha wrung pleasure from every cord, every fiber, every man, every moment, and if she died in ten years from a broken heart, she would be buried with eyes etched with crow’s-feet from all her laughter.
    But even all that was nonsense, Lucine thought, the temptations of wickedness. Still, she longed to be loved so.
    Toma was gone to the nearest real town, Crysk, to meet with the church—that Russian Orthodox bishop Julian Petrov. The Russian army had an arrangement with the church to provide intelligence when needed, and introductions were overdue. Perhaps Toma wanted to know more about the residents at the Castle Castile.
    â€œBut the bishop will know nothing of them,” Lucine explained in the kitchen as Alek and Natasha placed fruits and breads into a small satchel. “The Russians are far too secretive.”
    Alek’s brow arched. “Which