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PAIN was a strange entity It could live and breathe, existing in every cell in one's body It could cripple, rob one of breath, of dignity, of quality of life Pain could be the first thing one felt aking and the last thing one felt when falling asleep It was an insidious enemy Silent Unseen Deadly Gavriil Prakenskii had decided soo to make pain his friend

If he was going to survive, if it was even possible with pain as his companion, he would come to terms with it--and he had Until this moment Until pain wasn't about the physical or the mental, but all about the emotional That was an entirely different kind of pain, and one he was completely unprepared for

His life was one of absolute discipline and control He planned his every ency plans There was never a moment that he wasn't ready for There was never a ti shocked or surprised hiht of everyone he encountered as an enemy The few people he had ever allowed himself to feel even a drop of friendship with had eventually betrayed him, and he simply counted those painful moments as important lessons to be learned

He was used to deceit and betr

ayal To blood, torture, pain and death He was used to being alone He was most comfortable in that world because he understood it He was thirty-seven years old and he'd been in that world since he'd been a child He knewthan he could count It was instinctive, automatic and a natural part of hiht carry their identities, because he was death If he came out of the shadows, even for ablow

Few ever saw hih it like a phanto dead bodies in his wake He wasn't real, was nothing limpse of Insubstantial Without substance He hadn't been hu, dawn streaking long rays of light through the velvet black of night with his well-ordered world cru around him so that he felt the earth actually move under him

His pal itch, but a full-blown do-so-this-htly into his thigh and held it there, his heart suddenly beating hard in his chest Life sometimes threw curves at the ht happen

He had walked into a place of power Energy rippled in the air and caround It was in the wind and in the very water he felt flowing beneath the ground This place, this farerous and yet he hadn't heeded the warnings--hadn't expected the danger would be to him or what form it would take He had come, and now someone would pay the price

A young woh a field of corn, the stalks taller than she was Sheto pull one of the ears down and inspect it

He couldn't take his eyes from her or the way the plants leaned toward her, as if she were the sun, not that bright ball beginning its clie blue jeans, frayed, full of holes and faded light fros, and a carelessly buttoned dark blue plaid shirt He knew she'd buttoned it carelessly because the top and bottoe to slip them into the closures for her--or maybe open all the rest

Her auburn hair was very long, probably past her waist, and very thick, but she had it pulled back away from her face in a careless ponytail Her face was oval and rather pale, but her eyes, as they surveyed the cornstalks, were a striking cool, forest green Even in the di eyes, surrounded by long dark lashes Her mouth was full and luscious, her teeth white and small

Even dressed in her working clothes, there was no hiding her figure Full breasts and a s of her hips She was a pixie, ethereal, just as unreal as he was, and she was so beautiful it hurt

He knew her He had always known her He'd known she was so, and the itch in his paled to him and only him How completely unexpected and unacceptable was that?

He'd come to the small town of Sea Haven off the northern California coast to warn his youngest brother, Ilya, that he was on the same hit list as the rest of the family and to see his other three brothers who had settled there Seven brothers, stepping-stones, their parents had called them, torn apart when they were children They'd been forced to watch the murder of their parents, and then they'd been taken and kept separated in the hopes that they would forget all about one another Now, all seven were on a hit list Gavriil had known it was co, he just wished they'd had more time to prepare

He watched the woman as she continued toward him He was deep in the shadows and utterly still so that there was no chance of drawing her gaze She had just changed his entire plans His entire existence As she stepped out of the cornfield and the light bathed her face, he could see her flawless skin, the curve of her cheek and high cheekbones

She looked far too young for ato do ho and what he was Still His palm itched, and that sealed her fate He wasn't about to throay the only thing in the world he could truly call his own He didn't have much to offer her He was hard and callous and damned cynical when it came to the world around him He could be ruthless and merciless as well and he would be, he knew, if anyone tried to stand between this young woman and him

He didn't even care in thata fire of red into all that glorious hair, that he didn't deserve her Or that he didn't even know her or she himHe didn't care that he was far older and as lethal as hell and had no business with a woman like her or that his body was in pieces and he looked like a rag doll sewn together None of it mattered to him