Fire, Fury, Faith

by N. D. Jones

  “No.”

  “But—”

  Issa shook his head, mouth nibbling, moving from fingers and hand to forearm and shoulder. If Serwa was a fighter like Nathaniel and Issa, she knew she still would have no defense against this, against him.

  Issa kissed her neck, his warm breath and clean scent tantalizing and unfair. She wanted to talk, and he needed to listen. Guilt sex—no matter how great—was still a circular bridge taking them nowhere.

  “Have you tended to your own injuries, Serwa?” he asked, surprising her when he lifted his head. “You haven’t left our home in months, tested the strength of your wings, or filled your lungs with Araceli air. I may be in need of healing, my love, but you are no different. I’m not the only one in this family of two who wants to come to terms with personal demons without the use of angelic magic.” He stroked her hair, a gallant attempt to soothe the sting of his words. “We were human once. Have we gained power and wings only to lose our ability to cope, to survive, to endure?”

  Serwa pushed against him, and he let her go. She jumped from the bed, short, broad wings swinging in a wide arc, barely missing his head.

  “Do you wish to quarrel this night, Issa?” She stomped to the bay window. The cliff on which their home perched gave her an unobstructed view of the city below. Lights sparkled in the serene darkness, reminding her of a woman-child from long ago, bent in supplication, eyes turned toward the sky, praying her father would respect the vows she and Issa had taken. The stars, birds, and trees had been the only guests and witnesses to their wedding of the heart, commitment of the soul.

  “I’ve had my share of battles of late, my love.” He had come to stand behind her, the fresh scent of him dulling her angry senses. “No, I don’t want to argue. Besides,” he said, fingers gliding over her primary feathers, sending a frisson of sexual awareness through her, “there are much better ways to spend our time, expend our energies.”

  Another glide of fingers, a slow trek from median to lesser coverts, his touch so gentle yet erotic, the hands of a mate the only ones permitted on an angel’s sensitive wings.

  “Do you want me to help you with these?” Serwa nodded, pressing her forehead against the cool pane of glass, eyes closing as Issa began to work his magic on her wings.

  All angels had the power to recall their wings, shrinking and pulling them close to their bodies. It made sleeping and dressing easier, although most angels preferred to conjure shirts with slots that accommodated their wings. It also made blending into human society easier, which was necessary for information gathering and undercover work, much of what Issa had been doing for the last few weeks.

  Wing recall also took precision and strength, both of which Serwa lacked after the attack. While she’d regained much of her strength, the magical accuracy required to direct her wings into a recall motion, without causing more damage, was often beyond her.

  Issa’s hands gripped her shoulders, fingers hooking onto spaghetti straps and sliding them down her arms until the nightgown was nothing more than a puddle of white silk at her feet. Those same firm, callused hands stroked their way back up to her shoulders, sensual and tender. Then the cool came, followed by the heat, beginning at the point of contact, flitting down both arms, around her neck, down her spine, and out toward her feathers. Slowly, very slowly, the wings began to withdraw, curling around flesh and muscles, attaching firmly to back, shoulders, arms, and waist.

  The gray mist of Issa’s magic seeped from him, massaging Serwa’s own angelic energies, pushing and urging them into motion, twining itself around the obsidian vapors, supporting and guiding. With a gentle yet nudging force, her vapors obeyed, rising up and encircling them both, a sexual telepathic spike holding them together, rooted to the present, forged in the past.

  The first time they’d learned to recall their wings, Issa had taken one look at Serwa’s back and said it reminded him of a raised-relief map. All the special indentations, ridges, folds, and depths were there in a slightly raised angelic tattoo, if one ever imagined a tattoo shooting out like a rocket from a launcher when an angel was threatened or in pursuit. Many a good shirt ruined that way, probably what had happened to Issa’s shirt. Although that still didn’t explain his missing socks, shoes, and belt.

  His rugged toes caressed her, gingerly sliding over feet, ankle, and calf. And all thought of absent shoes vanished with the gray mist and obsidian vapors.

  “I want you,” Issa whispered in her ear. But he needn’t have bothered with the words. The way his steel-hard erection pressed against her backside told the story in the ancient language of man and woman.

  She wanted him, too. Wanted to feel. Wanted to forget. Wanted to give and receive. Wanted to convert fury and rage into passion and pleasure. Serwa could do that with Issa. He was, after all, her personal Guardian Angel.

  If possible, Issa moved closer.

  Serwa’s warm nipples pressed into the chilled window, her heated, accelerated breathing forming circles on the single-pane glass.

  He slipped inside her mind. Their telepathic link open and thrumming with power and sensual radiance. The erotic tingling emanated in the frontal lobe but soon traveled on invisible currents down her neck, over her chest, and to her breasts, her nipples.

  Issa worked his magic, creating invisible lips and teeth that sank into her breasts, sucking and eating them from the heavy fall to the soft swell. Realism didn’t exist here, not between them, not in the mystical world of angelic mate magic.

  Like always, he gorged himself, sucking with near brutal intensity, teeth scraping the upper and bottom rims, tongues swirling around enlarged areolas, making them tight, erect, and aching for more.

  She moaned his name. Her forehead jammed against the window, eyes shut tight, hands clenched into fists at her side, nails scoring her palm, legs parted but locked into place. She refused to fall to her knees from the pleasure, to allow another man to make her succumb to his will, even Issa.

  If he doesn’t wish to discuss his guilt, his fury, then this will be my seduction, not his.

  Yet the words to put a halt to her husband’s sexual manipulation refused to come. Although Serwa was embarrassingly near to coming herself. And damn, Issa still held her breasts captive, his invisible mouths doing their magic, sucking with just enough pressure, just enough teeth, just enough delicious pain. Oh, yes, just enough but never truly enough.

  But he knew that, the link making it impossible for him not to. Although, Serwa reminded herself, Issa never needed an angelic link to know her desires, her cravings, her womanly body. He’d always known, even that first night in the forest. Their joining had been a flawlessly executed love dance, no drums required. Their thrumming hearts the perfect percussion.

  “For the last month, I’ve dreamed of you, of making love to you. In those dreams you showed me how to touch you, how to give you pleasure, how to take you in my mouth, on my tongue and make you scream and flow for me. How to fill you and move, sometimes slow and circular, other times fast and forceful, but always with my name on your tongue,” he’d told her the first night they’d shared as husband and wife under her father’s roof. Her father had reluctantly accepted their union after her mother had confirmed her loss of virginity.

  Issa had forgotten nothing in the ensuing years. His mastery of her body was comparable to Thelonious Monk’s improvisational style and dissonant harmonies, producing the most wonderfully unique jazz compositions. Serwa was indeed his ivory piano keys tuned to perfection, not one unintended note drawn from her.

  She moaned in tune with the triple assault.

  A third invisible mouth and tongue had joined the fun, circling her hairless, wet folds, casually dipping in and pulling out like a swimmer at a river’s edge, wanting to make the plunge but slowly building the intensity one toe immersion at a time. Build he did. The magical tongue dove in and parted lips, mouth sucking and pulling, retreating each time she pumped forward, needing firmer contact.

  Damn Issa. He’s to
ying with me.

  The chains that bound the fury aimed at Ethan O’Leary coiled firmly inside her. Issa’s gray mist magic was beginning to weld the weakened links together.

  But dear God, the fourth mouth and tongue came out of nowhere, catching her up in its sharp talons, holding her squirming body close, the window not enough to absorb her screams. And scream she did, the invasion of her trembling form complete. Issa’s physical hands parted her buttocks, making room for his magical mouth and tongue.

  Face buried against the window, breasts heaved and throbbed from Issa’s relentless explorations. Then he licked—one long, endless tasty lap into sensual luxury. Legs wobbled and parted. Serwa felt like woven licorice. Issa sucked, slurped, and tongued her in just the right way to draw out every bit of Serwa’s intimate flavoring.

  Backside open and wide, magical tongue delving where a mouth was never meant to go. The intimacy of the insertion exploded in glowing rapturous torture. The flood of craving to have Issa, the real Issa, fill that tiny hole with his substantial length detonated the last embers of self-control and the crazy notion that this was anything other than his seduction.

  “Now, Issa, before I—”

  “Before you what?” he growled with sensual deviance, his self-satisfied smile floating across their linked minds. But it was just a rabbit of a shadow before he pulled her away from the window and down to the floor.

  Positioning Serwa on her back, he knelt in front of her, raised her legs, and placed one on each hard, muscled shoulder. Legs pointing up, resembling a straight-growing pine tree, Serwa quickly caught on and deftly held Issa’s hips just when he placed his hands around her waist and gently penetrated her anus. Not the first time they’d done this but good God…

  And damn if Serwa could remember the ending to her last sentence. A threat? A warning? Ah, no, it was an unspoken request for this. Yes, this, the perfect rear-entry position for hard, fast thrusts. Issa the sexual mind reader giving her what she desired, the intensity of his smooth movements and hard but reassuring hands secured her in place, settling Serwa down when all she wanted to do was roar, lunge.

  The caged, hurting, and vengeful Serwa banged against the prison of her mind, fighting to get out. But Issa was having none of it.

  She writhed, bucking her hips, sending Issa’s eyes into another color dimension. His back arched toward her. Face contorted in a grimace that had nothing to do with pain. “Not yet,” he warned, removing her legs from his shoulders. Instead of releasing Serwa, he situated her into a turtle position—knees raised and pushed to her breasts. Firms hands held the back of them, his torso upright, face inches from her upturned feet.

  “Issa, please.”

  “Not. Yet.”

  Unhurried dog-paddle motions followed. His thrusts were slow and deliberate, pulling out completely before moving in for the next delicious slide of hard steel into silky slick woman. Long withdrawals and a firm grip shattered Serwa. The spectrum of telepathic colors skidded across her magical plane, twirling in a vortex of indescribable hues, echoing through her overheated body and out her parted, gasping lips.

  “Now!” The single word from Issa was a feral command. “Give it to me now!”

  The vortex exploded. Psychedelic colors attacked the wretched image of Ethan O’Leary, barreling through the demon in all its vaporous forms, plucking at eyes, hair, and flesh, releasing the chained Vultures of her mind. Issa’s Guardian Angel magic and mate link kept Serwa rooted to her body, to her soul, to sanity itself, until there was nothing left but the bliss. The wild rush of bare feet running across the prairie, nostrils flaring, ears alert, toes digging in, unstoppable and free.

  Then the rolling knolls ended, miles of crisp, clean air held its breath and beckoned Serwa forward. She went, lengthening her strides, the grass giving way to power, to control. The edge loomed before her, and she jumped.

  Fell.

  He caught her.

  Then she flew. Yes, flew, wings supporting, holding, spread wide, polished onyx in the incandescent sky.

  Issa was there, her Guardian Angel--indomitable, brave, true.

  Serwa fell again, her rippling orgasm turning her inside out, jolting her mind from the metaphysical plane, her body demanding and urgent, exploding with electrical crackles of release. And release. And release.

  Legs set free, they fell limp to her side. Issa’s heavy body crashed to the carpet beside her. They lay unmoving, deep, gulping breaths a musical cadence in the hushed room. The gray mist of Issa’s angelic powers hovered above her, and she reached for it. The mists curled around Serwa’s fingers and purred like a housebroken feline. It felt warm, protective, and powerful. Three words she often used to describe her husband.

  “I was supposed to seduce you.” Serwa turned her boneless body onto her side to face Issa, who was still facedown on the carpet, body saturated with sweat.

  He turned on his back. One leg bent the other flat. Issa’s eyes sparkled with arrogant, male satiation and privilege.

  “You seduced me a long time ago, invaded my dreams, making me yours in mind, heart, and soul long before I claimed your luscious body as my own. But,” he said, a lascivious look forming as his eyes languidly scanned her naked form, “feel free to take your pleasure. As your husband, it’s my job to serve and protect. And you know how much I enjoy servicing…I mean serving you, especially in the paired feet position.” He licked those sinfully full lips of his, and she shivered, remembering the feel of them on every intimate inch of her body. “God, the way your pressed thighs constrict your kuma and squeeze my mlingoti to the point of—”

  Laughing, she mashed his face with a gently chiding hand, effectively silencing his vulgar sexual taunt. The man was wonderfully infuriating with his distractions but as resolute as Mount Kilimanjaro.

  “Why won’t you let me help you? God, Issa, why must you always be so bullheaded?” She rolled onto her back, eyes going to the cracked, opal ceiling instead of her husband, who, she knew without looking, was frowning. He always frowned whenever she mentioned using her Healer powers on him. Except that first night, when Ethan O’Leary nearly crippled Issa, his leg requiring two treatments to replace the loss of blood, flesh, and feeling.

  And really, what a double-standard oaf he was being, using sex magic to get his way, his Guardian Angel mists calming her, curbing her lust for Ethan O’Leary’s blood, his very painful death.

  Issa sat up. Midnight eyes peered down at her, the sheen on his body beginning to dry. “Healer Angels can’t heal themselves, sweetheart.”

  Their eyes met and held. “No angel can use their own magic on themselves.” One of the first angelic facts Serwa’s mentor had taught her. “It’s one of the things that keep us humble and reliant on others for our survival.”

  “Yes, but Guardian Angels can keep the fear of their charges at bay, instill calmness into their minds and hearts, enough to allow them to think clearly, find a path out of the emotional maze they’ve found themselves locked in. Until today, you denied me access, built a psychic wall, limiting our telepathic link.”

  He leaned over and kissed her. The gentle touching of lips expressed his gratitude louder than the words, “Thank you for trusting me,” that followed. “I can’t help you much with your wings, but at least you now have a firmer hold on your fury and fear.”

  “What about your own fury and fear?” She raised a hand and smoothed away a dreadlock from his face. Issa said nothing, only stared at her until she thought he wouldn’t answer.

  “You can take away my anger, my fear, my fury, even my pain, but I could never live with myself if I’m not the one to bring that demon to justice. You’re all the family I have left, Serwa, and I pledged myself to you when I was a man-child of twenty-one years. Now, as a man of centuries, that responsibility hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s only gotten stronger.”

  Yes, Serwa knew that, had always known. Issa, her tenderhearted warrior, had only ever wanted peace but had known far too much bloodshed, too muc
h pain, and too many losses. God, so much loss, so many tears, his soul drowning in the liquid pools of grief, spirit wading in the icy depths, ignoring the life preserver Serwa had repeatedly tossed out to him.

  Her magic.

  Her gift.

  Her love.

  Yet he wouldn’t take it. Such men rarely did. She didn’t fully understand but loved him anyway. His resolve. His unyielding strength.

  But she hated the shadows haunting him. The ghosts of their pasts that wound their way into their lives, into Issa’s heart, keeping him hostage, making him unwilling to accept the ransom Serwa so desperately wanted to pay.

  A warrior’s fate.

  A Guardian Angel’s sacrifice.

  A Hunter Angel’s duty.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her again, an unapologetic fierce kiss of need and ownership. “With the dawn of the twenty-first century, I may have adopted a few modern sensibilities, but when it is all said and done you’re my wife, my woman, my eternal mate, and I’ll kill anyone who threatens or harms you.”

  “You’re a caveman,” she said, rolling her.

  “Yes, but you love me anyway.”

  Yes, I love you anyway.

  Serwa sighed and accepted another kiss, a longer, deeper one this time, confirming his win, his dominance. Not over her, however, but some unknown foe trapped inside her husband’s mind, perhaps even his heart.

  “How long will you be gone this time?” She knew Issa would be leaving. The moment he’d landed in the middle of their bedchamber, Serwa knew his return was temporary. His restless spirit would be unable to find peace until Ethan O’Leary became a permanent resident of Inpu, Issa’s unforgiving Sword of Judgment having sent him there.

  “As long as it takes.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  August 2012

  Hephzibah, Georgia

  “How much longer?” Serwa’s words, an insistent question, an unspoken plea. “How much longer?” Good question. Unfortunately, Issa’s answer was always the same. “Until I catch the bastard. Make him suffer.” That would lighten his heart, release the shackles from his charred soul, or so Issa repeatedly told himself.