“Stop it,” I said to him again.
Alex smiled at me. “Wait, you really are scared, aren’t you?”
“Well, look at it. It’s a big, mysterious mist and it’s coming right for us.”
Alex took a step closer to me. “Why are you so scared of a little bit of mist?”
“My grandmother,” I said. “She used to tell me these terrible, terrible, awful Russian folktales when I was younger. And they scared me for life. So yes, I am terrified of mist.”
“Oh?” He raised a curious brow. “Like what?”
“The bloody Baba Yaga for one. This evil ogress who comes and takes disobedient children to her little wooden house in the misty woods where she cooks them and eats them,” I said.
“Sounds terrible.”
“It is. And don’t get me started on Koschei the Deathless. She’s not great either.”
“Awful,” Alex said.
“They are!” I said, keeping my eye on the creeping mist that was now rolling down the street towards us. In a few moments, it was sure to climb up onto our balcony and then plunge us into its whiteness. “She used to tell me them in Russian, which made them even more creepier.”
“Do you speak Russian?” Alex asked, looking at me strangely now.
“A little. Why?”
“This might sound strange, but I’ve never thought French was the sexiest-sounding language.” He paused and stared at me.
“And you think Russian is?” I was amused by this. “Russian sounds like Klingon.”
“Not when spoken by a beautiful woman.” Alex took another step towards me. “Say something,” he said slowly and softly, gazing at me intently. His gray eyes seemed darker in this light. They were mesmerizing and I felt myself being pulled into them.
“Chto ya dolzhen skazat?” I said softly. It meant,What do you want me to say?
Alex’s eyes widened and a small smile crept over his lips. “Okay, I have no idea what you said, but it was . . . wow . . .” He looked at me seriously. “You’re a really interesting woman, Valeria.” It was said slowly and purposefully.
“I am?” I asked. My stomach tightened.
Alex nodded and raised the glass of wine up to his lips again. I watched him closely as he sipped. The blood-red liquid ran down the side of the glass and then flowed into his open lips. He swallowed, and then the very tip of his tongue came out to lick the tiny red drop that was clinging to the side of his mouth. Suddenly, I forgot about the mist and all I could see was Alex and his lips and the wine. I let my eyes drift up from his lips, drift up his face until I reached his eyes. He was already looking at me. His eyes were an even darker gray now, it never ceased to amaze me how the colors changed so much. Like a chameleon, changing color with each and every emotion.
I suddenly shivered. Something cold nipped at my ankles. I looked down. “It’s here,” I said. The first white finger of mist crept up onto our balcony. I took a step back as more seemed to move in, like the smoke of dry ice moving across the floor, it soon pooled and danced around my feet, as if it were ready to swallow me.
I looked back up at Alex. Right behind him, almost like a solid wall moving towards us, the mist came. It moved over his shoulders and around his torso, as if it had hands that were reaching out. We both looked down at the space between us, as the mist pushed its way in and began to smother us. Alex put his hands into it and swatted, the mist reacted immediately, swirling and coiling as if it were angry. And then, it was everywhere.
I shivered again as the moist cold droplets completely surrounded us. I looked over at Alex, he was soft around the edges as the mist blurred him.
“God, it’s freezing,” I said. A moment later, I felt something warm and firm on the side of my face. It took a second to realize what it was. Alex had reached out and put his hand on my cheek. Without so much as a second thought, I reached up and placed my hand over his. I slipped a finger between his and he tightened his grip on it.
“You have nothing to be afraid of,” he said with such care and sincerity that I think I wanted to cry, but I pushed that feeling away.
“What, will you fight off all the evil creatures when they descend from the mist?” I said teasingly instead.
“For you . . .” His voice was even slower and softer now. The warmth from his hand radiated out across my cheeks and into my lips. “I’ll fight them to the death.”
My first thought was to burst out laughing at this, but something stopped me. Even though Alex had said this with the slightest smile in his voice, there was something so sincere about his comment too that I felt truly touched by it.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it entirely. The mist suddenly got even thicker, swirling around us now and causing his face to blur even more. “We should probably try and get back to our rooms before we can’t find them,” I said, feeling a genuine sense of worry that we might never be able to make it out of this mist.
“Good point,” Alex said.
