“What are you doing?” I asked clutching at his arm.
He looked down at me with a quirky little smile on his face. “Are you scared?” he asked.
I nodded pressing my face in his chest clutching him ever so tighter. I heard the rumble of laughter in his chest and said, “It’s not funny.”
His hand took my chin and lifted my face so we were eye to eye. “I would never let anything happen to you,” he breathed. I nodded because I believed him.
He didn’t give me time to wonder and what he was about to do, he simply stepped out and pulled me with him. My mind could not comprehend what happened. He twirled me out the window and back in his arms, never letting go of my hand. A flourish and a dip and the knowledge that we were dancing mid air struck, has me open my mouth to scream. But his mouth was there to capture the noise.
Snaking a firm arm around my waist, he said, “Don’t be afraid.”
It didn’t matter that I was part demon, I was raised human with human instincts. “How?” I managed to say.
Twirling me again as my eye grew wider, he didn’t answer me. Hesitantly, I looked down at the air wondering how it was solid against our feet. Finally, a small cry escaped my throat. I tucked myself against his body again with my eyes shut tight. I heard the rumble in his chest. He was laughing at me again.
When I felt the uneven ground underneath my feet, I opened my eyes again. He had brought us down. But we weren’t as close to the house as I’d expected. We were closer to the pool. The lights in the basement were out and I had to wonder how Flynn had now gotten everyone to leave so quickly. But that question was for later.
“So you can fly?” I asked staring into his gorgeous blue eyes. He chuckled again. “Why are you laughing at me?” I asked halfway angry he was mocking me.
“It’s just a wonder how little you know,” he said, trying to hold back more laugher.
“Really,” I said sarcastically. Now I was getting mad. “I mean, you know I know nothing.”
Trying to tug away, he pulled me tight against him and nuzzled my hair. Giving into the warmth of him, I wrapped my arms around him. He knelt to the ground and pulled me to sit with my back against his chest.
“We don’t fly Mercy,” he said sounding more serious this time. I relaxed against him believing he was going to give me answers to questions I hadn’t thought about until now.
“So what do you call that little demonstration?” I asked. But before he could answer I threw another question at him. “Do you have wings? Can I see them?”
Sighing so loud, it was almost as if he was wielding patience to a small child with a gazillion questions. Is that how I sounded?
“It’s all hard to explain,” he began.
“Try me,” I said, looking out at the calm water of the pool. “Do you have wings or not?”
“Not really,” he said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
He stood and pulled his shirt off. “We don’t have wings, but” he began.
“So why are you taking off your shirt?”
“Mercy, humans have been conditioned over the years to assume we have wings. The human mind can’t accept something it can’t explain. So if I show you, you will see what your mind wants you to see.”
His skin seemed to glow in the moonlight. His chest muscles all defined. When he cleared his throat my eyes raised from his abs and all the defined muscles of it, back to his amusing face. “I took off my shirt because it will make the visual confusing with it on. I didn’t mean to mesmerize you,” he added teasingly. I smiled back because I had been mesmerized.
“Okay, let’s see then,” I said, eyes a little brighter.
My heart stopped when wings of pure golden sunlight appeared at his back. I had no breath to speak for a few moments. They radiated through the darkness making me think of heaven while I gazed upon him. Suddenly, I truly didn’t feel worthy of him.
“If they aren’t wings what am I seeing? What are they?” I asked, in awe of the vision before me.
“They are not what they appear,” he said. I stood on my feet and began to move towards him. “I have,” he stopped speaking when I reached him and held my hand out. “All of my kind has a connection to the one who created us all.” There was a long pause where I didn’t breathe. “This connection allows us to perform minor miracles.”
Not touching him yet, I waited for him to give me confirmation it would be okay to do so. “Like walking on air?” I asked, still waiting for his ok.
He nodded and my hand brushed over something I can’t describe. It wasn’t a feathery touch I expected. It was like energy that vibrated the air.
His hand reached out to caress my face and it brushed against my hair. “Yeah, or like walking on water,” he said. And the unspoken reference was there. I wasn’t religious but I’d heard the story sometime in my childhood. “Or like healing,” he said.
Turning my eyes away from whatever I was seeing, I looked at him. Dropping my hand, the world around us seemed to fade. He became my focal point. “You can heal people?” I asked.
The way he looked at me, I could tell he was pondering his next words. Lucky for him, he spoke, otherwise I was about to accuse him of holding back on me again.
“I healed your ankle at the lake house,” he said, holding my gaze. I guess he wondered what I was going to say next.
In answer I turned around. “I guess I’m the stupid one then,” I muttered, because I had been. The signs had been all there, Luke coming in with his angel light. His warm hand on my ankle and then it felt better. Boy was I foolish.
“You’re not stupid,” he said.
“Gullible then,” I retorted.
“Neither,” he said. “It was a crazy night with Bernadette trying to kill you. Sebastian trying to take you from me.” His voice had grown deeper with menace. “I was hoping with all the distractions you wouldn’t notice.”
He was right. It had been crazy. I hadn’t known much about full demons or shifters then. So many things happened at the lake house. When I turned back, the wings were gone. It was just him and I in the darkness again. “What else can you do?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said trying to sound humble. “We have more strength than your average human, we can move quicker, the angel light,” he said drifting off.
“Anything else,” I asked. I wasn’t going to let this go. I was tired of being in the dark about everything.
Hesitating, he said, “My father was once an archangel.”
Yeah, I’d figured his father was the angel in the family. But nothing prepared me to know he was an archangel. I didn’t have to be religious to know that was a big deal.
Luke reached for my hand and entwined our fingers. It almost felt like he was trying to ensure himself I wouldn’t run.
“He fell because he was in love with my mother,” he said. “He’d known what he was giving up to be with her, but now he resents her.”
His grip around me held firm. I couldn’t move to turn to face him. That is what I wanted to do at this very moment. Luke’s dad fell in love and fell from grace. Luke’s love for me could cause him damnation. Just when I was about to press that point he spoke.
“It wasn’t my mother’s fault for his decision. I hate him for what he’s done to her. That will never happen between you and me,” he said, with sheer determination.
“How do you know?” I asked, silently because really I didn’t want him to let me go.
“Because I accept all the decisions I make and their consequences,” he said. He moved forward with his words. “And because there is nothing I haven’t already done that wouldn’t lead me to damnation on my own.”
I wasn’t mollified by his words. He wasn’t finished. “My father seeks to use me in some grand plan of his.” He looked away, but not at anything in particular. “I’ve been doing my best to make sure I wouldn’t be worthy of him to use long before I met you.”
Well if that statement didn’t make me leery
of our relationship, I don’t know what would. “So you decided to add to your list of crimes by dating a succubus,” I said, with bitterness.
“No,” he said vehemently. The disgusted look on his face almost had me convinced. “I didn’t even know what you were when I pursued you.”
“Well, I guess it didn’t hurt when you found out,” I added sullenly. “Now I know why your father hates me.”
“My father is an asshole,” he said. “And you are better than all of us, me, my dad, Flynn, Sebastian. You are what is good and you’re good for me.” There was pleading in his tone as he bent towards me.
Wanting to believe him, wasn’t enough. I had a more important question to ask. “Why do you like me?” I questioned.
Okay, it wasn’t just out of lack of confidence I asked. I asked because I still wondered why I was worth the risk to him.
Feeling the gentle pull, he tugged him into his embrace. He kissed the top of my head before pulling back just enough to look in my eyes. “There are so many things I love about you,” he said with utter sincerity. “Besides the obvious beauty you are, you are the most amazing girl I’ve ever met. Your intelligence is highly attractive. I love your independence and quiet resolve to do what needs to be done. Your innocence shows in this little dimple,” he said touching a spot close to my mouth. “When you are truly happy, that dimple pops out.”
Unable to help it, I smiled. His face warmed and his thumb brushed over the spot where he said I had a dimple. “There it is,” he whispered right before he kissed me.
The heavens exploded behind my closed eyes. That sensation of flying in space zooming past stars filled my closed eyed vision. When he pulled back, the light went away and I felt lost.
Confused by everything he said, I suddenly felt a little reckless. All my life, I’d been the good little girl. And what had that gotten me. I had Luke, but what if I made a mistake like with Paul. Would I lose him again? All this time he was bubble wrapping me up like I was too fragile I’d break. Maybe it was time to do something he didn’t expect.
Moving fast I peeled off my top and bottoms, left in a bra and panties I saw his eyes roam every inch of me for the very first time. His look was predatory. Something in me on a primal level smiled.
“Mercy,” he said barely audible.
I grinned at him and turned. I ran. I hopped. I dived into the heated pool. When I reached the bottom, I held there as all the sound of the outside world were lost in this place of peace. The only sound was the water settling back from my explosive entrance.
When my lungs began to burn, I still didn’t surface. Just when I was about to exhale my final breath of air before I’d make a decision to surface or pass out, a mass hit the water. I felt the tug and didn’t fight it. Breaking the surface of the water my lungs screamed with satisfaction from oxygen.
“What are you doing?” he asked me. His eyes were narrowed and he looked quite perturbed.
Darkly, I looked up at him. “I don’t know.”
His eyes softened on me. Quietly, while the water rippled all around us. I noticed that I wasn’t moving my legs to keep afloat yet here I was. He must be using his power to keep us steady, I thought. “You don’t have to take your clothes off for me to want you,” he said.
Shame colored my cheeks, so I turned away from his gaze. “Did you have sex with Lexi?” I asked. The question just popped out my mouth. But I turned back to look at his face. His expression was frozen with questioning. I wasn’t quite done yet. “Nina or Adelina?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Lexi is a lost soul,” he said.
“That isn’t an answer,” I said.
“I know,” he said defensively. “I…, I showed her attention but not the kind she wanted.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means I let her know that her value wasn’t in her pants. It means I let her feel beautiful because she is. It means I hope she will see from my kindness that not all guys think the only thing she can offer is when she is on her knees or horizontal,” he said stoically.
A part of me wanted to say that was the angel in him speaking. But I knew if he was only human, he would still be that same. And even though I heard what he said, I focused on one thing. “You think she’s beautiful?” She was very pretty, even I had to admit that.
“Yeah, but I think your beauty surpasses hers.” The warmth his eyes had lacked earlier filled in as he held my gaze, I had no choice but to accept the truth in his words. “Plus, you were with that guy avoiding me all night. Then when you need help, it was Flynn who was there for you.”
“I,” I started to say.
“And don’t think I don’t see the way he looks at you, the way he’s been trying to block our relationship from the beginning. I’m the fool,” he said.
Acrimony filled his face now. This was something I didn’t want. I did not want to be the cause of their friendship ending.
“There’s nothing going on between us,” I said.
Warmth gone, his stare was cold and maybe a little frosty. The glacier blue reminded me of Flynn’s eyes and my heart sank. I didn’t want that heat to be gone.
“Flynn and I are barely friends,” I said.
He laughed but it wasn’t friendly. “When I saw the two of you on the ground staring at each other after playing in the water the other day, the look on his face was less than friendly.”
Feebly, I said, “We weren’t a couple.”
He nodded. “I know that’s why I can’t be mad. But if he doesn’t back off and stop poaching we won’t be friends. I don’t share.”
“You have,” I said referring to how they’d played numerous games of spin the bottle and who knows what else with previous girlfriends.
His face tightened. “Not you I don’t.”
There was a noise from the back of the house. Luke reached a finger to cover my lips. Flynn walked down to the pool and turned towards our abandoned clothing. I hadn’t even noticed Luke wasn’t wearing his jeans. It must have been his bare chest that distracted me. My head began to dip to see when he made a slight movement to shake his head. Flynn turned back and looked at the spot we were at. I moved my eyes to see that the water was not moving. I held as still as I could.
“Luke, Mercy, I know you’re out here,” he said walking towards our clothes. “Luke you can turn that invisibility shit off.”
So that explained why he looked right through us. We were invisible. Luke had a cache of abilities.
“Well, let’s see how you do without these,” Flynn said scooping our clothes up and holding them out like a prize. He turned back to the pool but then he headed back inside the house with our stuff.
When the door closed, I exhaled. “What are we going to do now?” I asked.
Luke’s smile returned and we ascended into the air. Not over my fear of heights, I kept my eyes on him. “Can anyone see us?” I asked. He shook his head. “Good,” I said. Next thing I knew we were laughing back in my room.
Turning, I saw myself in the mirror. I was reminded that I wasn’t wearing any clothes other than my bra and panties. I turned back to Luke and saw his boxer briefs for the first time.
“Go get dressed,” he said pointing to my bathroom.
But I didn’t listen. Boldly, I walked over to him. “Why are you always trying to save me?”
He searched my eyes like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. “We have forever. There is no need to rush anything. This isn’t something you should take lightly,” he said.
When my words to Maggie were flung in my face by my hot boyfriend, for the second time tonight I felt stupid. Why was I being stupid?
“You’ll be leaving to go to college soon,” I said when something in me broke. I felt the hot tears seer down my face.
Leaning in, he gave me his famous airbrush kiss letting his lips press against my cheek before his mouth was close to my ear. “Is that what this is about?” he whispered.
Nodding, I gave a feeble, “Yes, and I wan
t you to be the one.” No, I wasn’t sure I was ready this exact moment, but I knew deep down inside when I was ready I wanted it to be him and nobody else.
“I’m not leaving tomorrow,” he said softly. “We have time.”
Feeling a bit stupid that’s he’s turned me down again, I nodded. I turn from him and walked to my bathroom closing the door as silently as possible. Tears welled in my eyes for being irrational. He didn’t want me, my subconscious tried to tell me. Even though I knew better than that, the reality was that rejection stung.
After getting myself together, I’d come out of the room to Luke. He sat on the bed. I curled in his arms still ready for a whole lot more.
Waiting for Mercy (Cambions) Page 16