by Joey W. Hill
"No--you didn't."
"Well, it was during a time when it was mostly women escaping hard circumstances or who'd been confined there by husbands or fathers who wanted to be rid of them, so it wasn't as if their vows were a calling. And of course, we were servants of God. In a sense. Ronin was the one who came up with the idea." He said it with amused defensiveness and then she saw his eyes darken at the memory. When she pressed her fingers into his skin, he looked down at her hand, the shadows clearing somewhat.
"By the Goddess, they were so hungry for a man's touch . . ." He focused on where her hand clutched the front of his shirt. "As women who are not permitted physical contact often are."
When she would have drawn away, he simply held her closer.
"You loved him very much," she said into his chest. "When did he . . ."
"About two years ago." At her surprised look, he shook his head. "Time doesn't mean much to an angel, little one. And yet it can be more interminable to us than those with less."
"Yet you remember so many things, so many details."
"Not as many as I expected. I'd forgotten how delicate the inside of a shell is, how sweet a flower lying against a woman's flesh smells." Bending his head, he inhaled beneath her ear, making her shiver, her body feeling so warm in the embrace of his.
His proximity helped her keep her mind off of her back, but the damage and the swimming with the children had sapped her energy, nonetheless. As she listened to his human heartbeat, noting it sounded not much different than an angel's, she let the rock of the truck, the rhythmic sound of the breaks in the asphalt bumping under the wheels, relax her. Enjoying his touch, she imagined she was one of the water nymphs, surrounded by a laughing group of angels, tall, beautiful men including Jonah, their hands gentle, their desire fierce. The energy was so strong it became a large pair of wings in her mind, enfolding her in the scene of that painting forever. It was easy to doze, turn it into a dream where she was still close to the water, not getting farther from it.
"Great Goddess, that's frightening."
She opened her eyes in time to see a passing battered-looking van garishly covered with painted flowers. It was speeding along like a fugitive from the 1960s, trying to stay ahead of the grasp of time that might yank it back into its proper decade.
"It's very colorful." She smiled against his chest.
"Do you ever say anything negative about anything?"
"Not about things like that." She yawned. "They liked it enough to do it. If they see me making fun of it, it's like I'm somehow destroying what makes them feel good, chipping away at it. Their joy in it becomes a little less."
When she tilted up her chin to look at him with sleepy eyes, she found him gazing quizzically at her. "My lord?"
"It has been a while since I've been properly chastised, little one. I'm adjusting to the shock of you being right."
She grinned into his shirt, succumbing to sleep with his chuckle tucked warmly around her mind.
Jonah held her over the next hour, watching her fitful rest. He could tell her back was making her uncomfortable, but she'd made not one complaint. The wife of the migrant worker occasionally glanced back at him, her arm around her son, and she smiled, apparently moved by the picture they made.
He didn't like to think how good it felt, to simply hold her. How he wanted to just keep rolling along this highway forever with no destination. He wondered what it would be like to pick fruit or do whatever job the migrant worker was headed toward.
It was astounding, watching the world go by like this. Vehicles passing in different directions, a group of deer grazing on the side of the road, flirting dangerously near traffic. Endless numbers of cell towers, exit signs tempting motorists with fast food, gas. A group of girls in a sports car went by and gave him an open appraisal, casting flirtatious looks that turned harmlessly envious when they registered the sleeping woman in his arms.
The silky head of a smaller boy now emerged up front, large dark eyes blinking at Jonah. Like his mermaid, he'd apparently been sleeping.
"Mano!" The mother's sharp admonishment came too late, for the small boy had already wriggled halfway out the cab's back window, tumbling onto the mattress and sprawling across Anna and Jonah's legs with an unrepentant grin.
"Esta bien." Nodding to the mother, Jonah hauled the boy up on his other thigh to keep a firm hand around the small body, making it clear he'd be fine until he was ready to return to his exasperated mother.
Anna opened her eyes at the jostling, blinked at the boy. He reached out, touched her face and laughed. He had a marker in the other hand, and while she sat docilely, he drew a tiny, somewhat crooked smiley face on her cheek. Then he considered Jonah.
"I am not a wall for graffiti," he informed the dark-eyed child, who smiled and began to draw on him anyway.
"You don't dislike human children." Her voice was a quiet murmur into his chest.
"Of course not. The young are new . . . no matter what they might become, what soul they're carrying. Until they discover self-awareness, they're pure, unsullied." He glanced down, studied her face. "Are you all right?"
Anna nodded. She'd started awake from a bad dream. Jonah, in a dark, tumultuous sky, his red studded battle skirt matched the red of the blood dripping over his shoulders, streaming across his skin from the bodies he'd vanquished. His eyes fierce, deadly . . . empty. He'd been magnificent, fearsome . . . disconnected from her, from everything but that turmoil. She'd been afraid that he would not recognize her when his sword turned in her direction.
It was an abrupt but welcome transition to wake from that to an innocent child drawing. Leaning forward, she touched the image Mano had drawn high on Jonah's chest. A stick figure with wings and a halo. "Angel," the boy pronounced in Spanish.
She'd never noticed the Spanish pronunciation made the last syllable into "Hell." She shivered, recalling Jonah's words, that the earliest references to angels called them demons.
Sitting up, she sought his face, needing to see him. She even reached out with her fingertips to touch his lips, see the response to her in his eyes. Jonah. Angel. Servant of the Goddess.
"Bad dream, little one?"
He saw far too much, of course. But when she nodded, he brought her closer, putting his lips over hers as the little boy was held between them. Then Jonah deepened the kiss, tasting her mouth, teasing her until the dream began to melt into something different.
"You've had a brush with the Dark Ones," he murmured. "Don't let them chase you in your dreams. I'll chase them out for you."
She wanted that to be true, but she was also afraid for him. Despite his bumping along in an old pickup truck in such mundane surroundings, he looked as if there should be voices raised in heavenly song limning his every movement. Wouldn't he laugh at that thought?
But not songs composed with gentle harps. Instead, fierce battle songs beaten out on Celtic drums, foretelling the forces of good triumphing over evil. She held on to that thought, even as the darkness of the dream made her shiver, made his eyes turn back to her in concern and his arms tighten around her again.
Thirteen
THE Hispanic father dropped them in a small town just over the Nevada border. After purchasing some food and making an inquiry, Anna took Jonah to a large park that closed at sundown. However, without a car, they slipped in during the late afternoon without notice, losing themselves in the woods and looking for the creek she'd been told would be there.
It was approaching twilight. Nevertheless, Jonah muttered a vile curse as he stumbled over a root, and Anna reached out to steady him.
"We were in the truck a long while," she observed. "It's hard to get your land legs back. Particularly when you didn't quite have them to begin with."
"I'm a clumsy oaf without my wings and you're trying to be kind. How did you do it?"
"Do what, my lord?"
"Learn to be graceful, switching so often between fins and feet."
"Oh." She was amused at the descri
ption. "Dancing. I saw a couple dancing on the beach and it looked like swimming, how you can get lost in the rhythm of it and start doing it unconsciously once you have the way of it."
"Hmm."
Anna barely muffled a sigh of relief at the sound of the creek. A moment later, they were there. The meadow leading to it was populated with wildflowers, and behind the creek was a backdrop of one of Nevada's many mountain ranges. Trees hung over the gurgling ribbon of water, and she spied several soft places that would make a good bed for the night.
First things first, though. She was already moving toward the water, kicking off her shoes. Wading in, she breathed another sigh as the water swirled around her calves. Her skin craved the wash of salt-flecked foam, the rolling advance of a tide, but this would do. It was a natural body that flowed into something bigger, which she could pretend eventually would reach the ocean. Later tonight, she would use a sparing amount of her seawater to bathe her hands and feet, spread some of the vital moisture thinly over her torso. If nothing else, Jonah might get some pleasure out of watching her do that.
Another snarl, the sound of stumbling, and she broke out of the arousing image to see Jonah staring balefully at his now bare feet as if he were considering the biblical suggestion of lopping off offensive appendages.
"Are all angels so surly, my lord?"
She quelled the urge to chuckle as he sent a narrow glance her way. Then she thought of what had led them to this moment, and what might still be following them, and her amusement fled.
"Here, my lord." Emerging from the water, she came to him, affected a curtsy. "Can I interest you in a dance?"
Before he could decide, Anna put her hands on the hem of his T-shirt and lifted it. First, because she wanted to take his mind off things she saw weighing heavily behind his eyes. Second, because she knew it was getting near sundown. Third, because he'd be more comfortable that way. And finally, because it pleased her. She stretched the cotton over his upper body and he raised his arms, let her take it over his head, helping when it exceeded her height. Putting it off to the side, she traced the child's drawing of an angel, the lines of which had blurred somewhat in the heat.
Then she looked up at his serious, troubled eyes and moved into his armspan, putting one hand on his shoulder, her wrist resting on the angel drawing, and placed her hand in his other.
"A waltz is three beats, my lord. Once you get them, you can start twirling like you're flying, and you'll realize they aren't so different. Well, they are"--she dimpled--"but the spirit of the movement is similar. You can swim, fly or dance in your mind and it all feels the same, in a way."
She walked him through the steps slowly, engaged by his concentration, the way his hair fell over his forehead, such that she had to reach up, finger the silk of it and throw them off step. Even as she laughed and got them back on course, she was amazed that only a couple of days ago she would have trembled at the idea of being within ten steps of an angel, let alone touching one, dancing with one, teasing one.
He made her think of all the things she wanted. She couldn't accuse him of doing it deliberately, but it didn't make her any less helpless before the power of it, any more than when he commanded her sensual submission to him.
She noted her touch seemed to distract him as well, so she kept doing it, matching steps with him, stumbling and laughing a little at them both until he was smiling, too, because her determination to tease his hair, his lips, was causing the majority of the missteps. Then he was kissing her, his lips coming down on hers as they moved. It was no surprise that was the moment he got it perfectly, the dance steps flowing like the water behind them. She was the one holding on to his upper arm as he increased their pace, shifting his balance back and forth, foot to foot, swirling. Turning while he touched her mouth, drew her in closer, feeling the way of it while he felt his way inside of her mind, invaded her to the tips of her toes with that long, drawn-out kiss.
"We need music, little one," he murmured. "Sing to me."
She found her voice with effort, modulating it so instead of sending him into dreams as she'd done the other night, she kept this waking dream alive and active, weaving its way around them like mist, keeping them in its grasp. She infused it with reassurance and joy, things she knew he needed and which did her no harm to feel as well. The words spun a silly tale of a foolish mermaid who fancied herself a shepherd and tried to herd a school of flounder home to her mother. An old, old children's song about the joy of being that innocent, of believing one could do anything. A child could believe that he or she was a fearless hero or a shrewd villain. Whichever was more fun, no harm done.
"You're getting it," she said, trying not to turn into a complete idiot because his hand was on her waist. The frown line between his eyebrows as he concentrated made him so . . . irresistible.
As they moved through the glade, he became confident enough to twirl her under his arm and then bring her back to him again. She locked both hands around his neck, feeling the tickle of feathers as the wings began to materialize with the sunset.
Abruptly her toes were barely brushing the ground. She gave a pleased cry as he made the turn with an extra lift . . . and a grimace. Anna brought them to a halt. Jonah tested the wing again, stretching it. She could tell by how swiftly her feet came back to earth for a second, more abrupt time, it was too tender to bear their combined weights.
If they did the Joining Magic, it would help. Mina had said they needed to do it daily. But he'd refused to let her do that, twice now. Her lips thinned. Stubborn male. Obstinate angel. Well, she'd just have to figure a way around that, wouldn't she? Mina had suggested . . . well, it was best not to think about what Mina suggested. Maybe there was another way she could try first.
"Can you fly with it, my lord?"
"We've got more important things to do first." He guided her to a rock. "We're going to heal your back."
Which would drain his energy. Even if they did Joining Magic, he would not get the full benefit of it, because some of it would be to refill the well of energy he was about to use.
"I've a simpler way, my lord." She stopped and faced him. "I have another form I can assume. It will make the healing easier." Before he could question her, she shrugged off her clothes and the swimsuit beneath, leaving her completely naked. Blissfully, for the cooling night air soothed skin that had been raw and burning all day long, though she'd managed fairly successfully not to make too much of it. She hadn't wanted him to berate himself further. Faith, but the male ego was a fragile thing.
"You're smiling, little one. I suspect you're up to mischief. How many shapes can my shapeshifter take?"
"No mischief, my lord. And I have four. Mermaid, human and this one." She gave him a quick smile. "The fourth is a surprise. I will tell you that one another day."
As her body began to shimmer, she stepped onto the rock, using his shoulder to get there, so she stood tall above him, which was disconcerting as she realized she'd just displayed the most private parts of herself right before his eyes.
"I've no objection to this so far." But he watched her closely as the shimmering increased and her form began to waver. Just like when she made the transformation to mermaid, she was self-conscious, but for a different reason this time. Transforming with the burns was painful. If she could just get the process started . . . There.
Oh, Goddess. It was as if she were being scalded anew, only this time she'd known it was coming, had to sit still and mark it as it grew larger and larger. While, perversely, her size went in just the opposite direction.
Her hands closed into fists and Jonah stepped forward. "Anna, stop."
"Can't . . ." she gasped, and her form dissolved before him, folding in on itself, her hair whipping around her as if weaving into a cocoon. Pinpoints of light sparkled over her skin, giving it a sheen before her body disappeared into a flame-infused shower that flew out in different directions, a whirling spiral of sparks shaped like water drops, which funneled down to the surface of t
he stump in a vortex of misty smoke that had the unexpected aroma of seawater.
The mist began to float away. Jonah reached out his fingers to it, suddenly fearful. "Anna?" Was he holding the essence of her? What--
"I am here, my lord." She stepped out of the mist, and while he heard a strained note in her voice, he was riveted by this newest side of his little mermaid. His very little mermaid.
Who was no longer a mermaid, but a pixie fairy, no taller than the length of his hand.
Her wings were translucent and had the wavering texture of water-streaked glass, as if they were made of water in truth, with touches of pink and blue glimmerings, the colors the early rising sun often gave ocean waves. Her body was slim, much like her human body, only more elongated. Long and curling hair still the same, her eyes just as violet, so large in her delicate, pointed, almost foxlike features.
"I can fly with you like this and not overburden your wing," she pointed out. "I can't fly as high as you can, but I can keep you company for a time. And in this form, the area for you to heal is much less. If I stay this way for a couple of hours, when I shift back to human or mermaid, the full area will be fixed."
Her voice was a soft whisper of sound like the wind, swirling and coming together around the syllables as they emitted from her throat, embossing them for his ears to detect.
"Then turn around, little one."
Though she smiled at the irony in his voice, she obeyed. Jonah studied each step of her tiny feet, the way she gathered her hair and brought it all forward, her wings quivering as she increased their spread so they pressed to the outside of her arms and displayed his earlier handiwork, no less shameful to him now that it had been reduced so significantly in size.
He put that aside and focused on the skin, opened himself to feel the heat from the injury, the throbbing nerve endings. Reaching out toward her with two aligned fingers, he pointed them just below her nape. Not touching her, but so close the heat of his skin and the heat of the inflamed flesh touched, a cool blue aura meeting red.
He'd used his ability to heal frequently after battle, to shore up wounds sustained by his Legion, until they could get to Raphael's corps for more in-depth work. He was relieved he'd not hurt her beyond what he could handle on his own, though he quickly realized there were some murky layers to that statement. Uneasy things that had nothing to do with the wound she bore, but having to do with things he could inflict upon her later. He was a walking nightmare right now, and anyone in proximity was likely to get more than burned. She was a simple, pure soul that had absolutely no idea the level of power he was capable of wielding.