Daria felt her entire life shifting on its foundations as she sat next to Ukrainian combat medic Nik Morozov in an ancient Spanish church in Aguas Caliente, Peru. This was where she had been ordered to meet this man, her assigned black ops partner, in order to complete this coming, deadly mission. She felt the heat of his tall male body, more than a little aware of his powerful shoulders that she knew bore such heavy loads. His profile was divided by light and darkness, the shadows emphasizing the high cheekbones of his oval face, of his full, pursed mouth, and scribing the sharpness of his strong jawline and chin. There was such a steadiness and grounding energy around him that Daria could only sit in silent awe of it. Maybe that was what had gotten Nik through five long years in this green hell, as Alex Kazak, his Ukrainian friend and brother combat medic, had termed Peru’s jungle areas. There was such a quiet strength in his face. He wasn’t handsome. His face showed the ravages and stresses of his life; slashes on either side of his mouth, fine lines at the corners of his eyes, horizontal wrinkles across his brow, as if he frowned a lot. There was no joy in his face. But why should there be, given his past and present? All Nik knew was work and bone-crushing responsibility. Not only for Kir, his chronically-ill brother but also to survive, and remain a CIA mole burrowed inside the Russian Korsak’s drug team in the Peruvian jungle. He was doing all this to make enough money to help Kir.
The first time she met his eyes, she felt her entire lower body quiver, like a doe that had been spotted by a stag during mating season, that palpable sensation vibrating through her like a tuning fork. Those azure-colored eyes of his, with their huge black pupils, saw so much more than most people realized. Daria acknowledged this and, for whatever reason, did not try to shield herself from his intense, almost x-ray-seeming gaze as his eyes caressed hers. And it was a caress… not a threat. That was the defining difference as their glances briefly met to acknowledge each other’s connection in this dance with death. The CIA had given Nik a photo of her, and she felt every cell in her body vibrate with the awareness that he knew who she was.
Daria put great stock into looking deeply into another person’s eyes. They were the mirror to a person’s soul, no question. And, as she intuitively plumbed the depths of his eyes, she felt a terrible, wrenching sadness embrace her. She could feel the grief he carried so darkly and deeply within himself. He had seen too much, lived through so much, and was a survivor. Much like herself, she realized. They were two badly-wounded animals, heavily scarred and yet, still ambulatory, still able to survive in a world that was never friendly or safe. Daria didn’t know what safety felt like. She never had.
In this moment, when Nik’s gaze met hers, Daria recognized him as one from the same herd of humans who had shared similar life experiences with herself. It wasn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, it sent a frisson, a sensation so sweet and unexpected through her, that her breath jammed momentarily in her tightening throat. The sadness she saw in his eyes made her tear up and she turned away, swallowing several times, pushing her reaction deep down within herself. She did not want to cry. She would not cry! All her tears had been spent on that unnamed hill in the Hindu Kush Mountains as she, the sniper, had sat there cradling Melissa, her spotter, dead in her arms. Her own life had been flowing out of her as she’d waited, praying that the Black Hawk medevac would get there in time, before they found her dead, also. In the darkness, she’d cried so hard, the sobs ripping out of her as she held onto the friend who had fought so bravely and fiercely to save her life. And Melissa had. She’d stood up and had taken the brunt of the initial attack; two curved daggers penetrating between the plates of her body armor, finding her lungs, tearing into them. It had given Daria time to pull her own knife and fight off the other Taliban soldier coming to kill them.
All those horrifying moments unrolled slowly in front of her as she no longer saw the church she and Nik sat in, nor its other inhabitants, nor could hear the priest, dressed in his white and gold robes, droning away in Latin. She saw nothing but those long, tortured moments as they fought off the Taliban group who had accidentally stumbled upon them in the darkness, whose intent was to murder them without remorse.
As she looked into Nik’s large, intelligent blue eyes, she saw and sensed similar horrors that he’d witnessed in his life. Maybe more than once? He was a mirror-reflection of her and that gut-punching knowledge staggered her. It was just too much pain for one human soul to absorb, much less carry by itself. And, in that moment, she realized that Nik would become her ally. He was someone who had experienced similar horrors in combat. She saw it in his gaze, even though he fought to recess it, to keep it in the background, just like she did. Daria wondered if he saw the same thing in her eyes as they made that second connection with one another that would be needed if they were to complete this deadly mission together.