by C. L. Wilson
She looked past him to the old farmhouse, with its snow-covered yard, immaculate hedges, and barren trees reaching skeletal branches towards the sky. Inviting wrought-iron lanterns flanked the front door, glowing warmly in the twilight. The thick blanket of pristine snow made it look beautiful, but she knew better. Beneath all that pristine white snow, that immaculately groomed yard, that inviting, picture-perfect Hallmark Card warmth, was evil masquerading as goodness.
“No,” she said. She stepped back, away from the house, head shaking. “No. You’re asking the impossible. I won’t forgive them. I can’t.”
“It isn’t for them.” Micah stepped between Kat and her grandparents’ house, blocking her view of her childhood chamber of horrors. “If it was, I would never ask it of you. They don’t deserve forgiveness, and if it were up to me, they’d never receive it. I’m asking you to forgive them for your sake, not for theirs.” His blond brows drew together. Turquoise eyes darkened, lightning flashing in their depths. “Never for theirs.”
She flinched a little from the fury in his eyes, and his lashes swept down, shuttering his gaze. When he looked at her again, he was calm.
“Hate in your heart is a burden, Katrina. A shadow where there should be only light. It feeds the other shadows—fear, pain, insecurity—all the things that hold you back. You were born to be a light in this world. That’s why what is not light has worked so hard to vanquish you. Don’t let it.” He gripped her shoulders, looking down at her, his face earnest, intense. “Fight what would weaken you. Cast the darkness out of your heart. Forgive your enemies—not for their sake, but for yours, and for the sake of the people who need your help. Free yourself, Katrina. There’s so much good you could do—so much more than all the good you already do—if you can just let go of your pain and forgive the ones who caused it.”
She stared up at him. Part of her wanted to do what he asked because the need to soothe his distress was so strong. But another part of her knew that was the wrong reason. It wouldn’t be real forgiveness. Not from her heart.
“I can’t,” she told him.
His shoulders slumped a little. His head bowed. “Then the ones who hurt you have won. And so have the Darkseekers.”
CHAPTER SIX
Long after midnight, Kat lay in her bed, staring at her ceiling. After returning to her apartment, she’d made a beeline for her bedroom and had been there ever since, noise-cancelling headphones on, meditation files playing. She’d ignored Micah’s numerous attempts to talk and refused the dinner he’d made to tempt her out of her room.
He knew. He’d seen it all. The worst, vilest, most degrading years of her life the shameful, painful secrets she buried deep and never let see the light of day: he’d witnessed them all.
It wasn’t long after her parents died before she’d realized the bad things were real. Every bit as evil and monstrous as Daddy had ever claimed. Oh, not the bad things no one but he could see when he was off his meds, but the others. The monsters. The true monsters.
The ones who lived in human bodies and preyed upon the innocent.
The sick, twisted, evil monsters with names like Grandmother and Grandfather.
Katrina flung an arm over her eyes, willing the memories—the nightmares—to go away, but they would not be silenced.
Some evils were too powerful to be beaten.
Some wounds too deep to be healed.
With a muffled cry, she ripped off her headphones, flung herself off the bed and began to pace. The memories crawled over her like spiders, making her claw at her own skin. She wished the memories were spiders. Then she could pluck them off her and squash them under her heel and that would be the end of it.
Instead they were with her always, part of her. A virus embedded deep within her own cells, attacking her whenever her guard was down.
On your knees, girl. On your knees, now!
Katrina sobbed and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, nails digging into her forehead. She welcomed the sting of pain. Deserved it. The things she’d done. Let them do.
“Katrina.”
She whirled, flinging herself away from the door, pressing her back against the wall. The tall, imposing shadow stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from the hallway. Her heart slammed against her chest wall. Bile rose in her throat. Her whole body broke out in a clammy sweat.
“Get out!”
“Katrina—”
“I said get out!” She reached out blindly, hand searching for a weapon. A lamp, a vase, anything.
“Katrina, it’s me. Micah.” The light switch clicked, and darkness fled, taking the monsters of the past with it. It was Micah standing in her bedroom doorway. His eyes were fixed on her, so calm, so serene, beckoning her just like those warm, oft-dreamed-of oceans that had taken her away from the pain, soothing her with the rhythmic crash of their waves tumbling gently upon sand. “You are hurting. I can feel how much you’re hurting. Please, let me help you.”
“You can’t help me. No one can.”
“Won’t you at least let me try?”
He glided into the room, his steps soundless on the carpeted floor. He wore no shirt, his chest bare and gleaming, his strength so obvious in the breathtaking muscle that sculpted his broad chest and arms. A pair of white cotton shorts hugged his lean hips.
A fresh surge of terror had her squeezing further into the corner of the bedroom. The wall to her back had seemed reassuring at first. Now she realized it only left her trapped, with nowhere to go.
At her sudden distress, Micah stopped and held out his arms. “I could never hurt you, Katrina. You are mine to protect, even from your own fears.” His voice was low, melodious, a calm, entrancing murmur that soothed the frayed edges of her nerves. He could have been speaking gibberish, and the cadence of his rich, lush baritone would still have worked to set her at ease.
He was whispering her. The same way she whispered the shattered young victims she helped in the shelter.
“Please, Katrina, dulcea mea, let me hold you, let me calm you.”
She couldn’t drag her gaze away from his. Against her will, she could feel her terror fading. Serene turquoise seas, so warm and deep, enveloped her. Waters closing around her like an embrace.
Let me hold you, Katrina Rose. Let me wash away all the pain. Surrender all your fear, all your pain to me. Let me bear it for you. Let me be your strength.
How many times had she given herself up to that dream when whatever was happening to her became too awful to bear? Floated on an imaginary turquoise sea beneath a tranquil blue sky? Listened to the pulsating roar of the ocean beating like a strong, steady heart in her ear. Her deep love of sultry tropical seas had come from those hypnotic dreams she’d used to escape the worst hours of her life.
She’d dreamed of visiting those beaches, swimming in those seas, and letting the warm waters wash away all the pain and degradation. She would surrender up her nightmares to the sea and be reborn, pure and shining and bright as once she’d been so long, long ago.
And now, here was Micah. Holding out his arms, whispering to her in that same, lulling voice of the sea, his eyes hypnotizing her. Tenderness. Strength. Security. Everything she’d every wished for as a tormented child trapped in a living hell. Calling for her to give in, let go, sink into his arms as if they were the waves she’d so often dreamed of.
“Let me hold you, Katrina Rose. Let me be your strength.”
She could feel his warmth, heat radiating from him like a furnace in the dark cold of the room. The tension in her body changed. The icy, ugly razors of remembered nightmares receded, replaced by something different. Something warm and tingling. Not spiders but waves lapping over her skin like caressing fingers. Drawing her out of the corner, pulling her towards him one inexorable step after another.
“Let me be whatever you need.”
God help her. She wanted to. She wanted it to much it was a knife clawing her belly from the inside out.
It was that stab
of desire that dragged Katrina back to her senses.
Lust was the one emotion she’d never known until Micah. Never wanted to feel. Never thought she could feel. Clearly, she’d been wrong about the latter.
But how could she live with herself if she let him touch her, wanted him to, begged for him to do what the others had done. Proving they’d been right about her all along.
She backed away from him, shaking her head.
“You can’t help me,” she whispered. “No one can.” Her eyes burned with unshed tears. She hadn’t cried in years. More than a decade. The day she broke enough to cry again would be the day the last pieces of her shattered beyond all hope of recovery.
“I can. If you’ll let me.” He moved closer and tilted his head to one side, regarding her as if she were some priceless, awe-inspiring treasure. “You are so strong, Katrina. So much stronger than the Darkseekers ever gave you credit for.” He lifted a hand as if to touch her face.
With any other man, she would have flinched away from the contact, just as she would have backed away from his nearly-naked form. But with Micah, she just stood there, waiting. Her lack of reaction more of an invitation than she’d ever given another person.
She wanted him to touch her. That warm tension tingling through her body now hummed across the cheek so close to his outstretched hand. If she leaned just a little, her face would press into his palm. She could already feel the warmth of his hand upon her skin, so gentle, so reassuring, so strong. Her eyes would close in bliss.
So long. It had been so long since she’d let anyone touch her. Even the hand of a woman—of her friends—made her flinch back in instinctive revulsion. Only with children did she let her guard down, and then only with those as battered and wary as she’d once been. Still was in so many ways. Small fingers reaching for comfort. Babies seeking love and warmth and security the only way they knew how. Those were the only touches she permitted.
She stood there, unable to move that tiny bit forward, to let her skin touch his, unable to ask him to do it even though every cell in her body ached for the feel of his hand against her skin, his warmth seeping into her. She kept her eyes fixed on his, willing him silently to cross that brief final distance between them. To take what she could not give.
But he didn’t. After a few moments, she drew back away from him, lashes dropping to cover her eyes, head turning away from the temptation and terror that was Micah.
She heard him give a tiny, shuddering sigh, a quiet exhalation that made her heart ache. She knew she had disappointed him. The unearthly light glowing in his palm extinguished.
“Sleep, Katrina Rose. I will watch over you. Nothing will harm you tonight.”
She crawled back into bed, let him draw the covers up over her and tuck them in at her sides. No skin to skin, which was good because the nightmarish memories were still too fresh in her mind, her nerves too raw. She kept her eyes closed, afraid to look at him and see his disappointment. He must think her such a coward.
“I don’t think any such thing. You are one of the bravest, strongest women ever born. You’ve had to be, Katrina, to survive what you did with a soul still strong enough, pure enough, loving enough, to save all those children you’ve helped over the years. Never doubt that.”
He hovered over her just long enough for her to suspect he wanted to brush his hand against her hair, maybe even brush his lips across her forehead like her parents used to do. But he didn’t. In silence, he stepped back and exited the room, taking all his lovely warmth and comfort with him.
When he was gone, Katrina lifted her lashes and stared at the empty spot of darkness where he’d been. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.
Micah was wrong. She was broken. So broken she would never be whole again.
What Micah needed from her, she couldn’t give. He would have to find some other Lightkeeper to strengthen the Seal. Tomorrow, she would make him understand that once and for all.
Tomorrow, she would send the angel away.
###
Sleep eluded her for hours until sheer exhaustion dragged her down. But after Micah’s visit, instead of the constant nightmares, she dreamed of the ocean. With a grateful sigh, she surrendered to the embrace of the sea as she had not been able to surrender her waking flesh into Micah’s open arms. The waves swirled around her, enveloped her, rocked her back and forth, back and forth, the way Mama used to do when Katrina was so small.
And the rest of the night, she slept in peace, dreamless except for the ocean.
When she woke, the sun was shining through the bedroom window. She lay there, listening to the unusual quiet of the ice-bound city. Usually there were horns, cars, the constant hum of humanity, good and evil, flowing without cease on the streets below.
“I hope you’re hungry.”
Katrina gasped and shot up in bed, clutching the covers to her chin.
Micah stood in the bedroom doorway, whisking something in a bowl. The tiny white shorts from last night were gone, replaced by the jeans that rode low on his slim, tanned hips.
Katrina bit her lip and dragged her gaze up the long, devastatingly sculpted length of his torso to the broad chest, arms and shoulders that looked like they could bear the weight of the world. Once again, her breath went shallow and her heart started pounding a frenetic beat.
“Can’t you mojo up a shirt, for God’s sake?” she snapped.
Micah merely raised a brow. “Waffles in ten.” He turned one bare foot and walked— sauntered!—back down the hallway towards the kitchen.
Kat scowled at his disappearing back. Were waffles his idea of a peace offering? Or perhaps a bribe? Did he think he could tempt her into forgiving her grandparents and agreeing to sing by making a few of her favorite things?
The aroma of cooking waffles wafted into her bedroom. Despite herself, she breathed in the scent and nearly shuddered with pleasure. Her mouth started to water. She remembered last night’s decision to send her gorgeous but unwelcome visitor packing this morning, and she was still determined to see it done. But maybe the actual ejection of him from her apartment could wait a little while.
At least until after breakfast.
###
She waited until breakfast was over and the kitchen was clean before working up the courage to send the angel away. It was so much harder than she’d thought it would be. She’d spent the last ten years alone, happy in her solitude. Yet after little more than a day in the angel’s company, she was not looking forward to being alone again.
“Sending me away is not the answer.”
“Stop reading my mind.” She scowled at him as she wiped down the countertop with a paper towel and pink-grapefruit-scented spray cleaner.
He persisted. “If I could have come to you…if I could have saved you from your grandparents without putting your life in greater danger, I would have. Please believe that.”
“Whether I believe you or not makes no difference. I’ll never forgive my grandparents. And since that apparently means I can’t strengthen the Seal, I would think you’d be better of spending your time finding a different Lightkeeper.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Katrina,” Micah said. “You are the Lightkeeper for this Seal. There is no other. Even if there were, the Shadowhounds are on your trail now. If I leave, they will find you. Trust me when I say you don’t want that to happen.”
She believed that, all right. She remembered her father’s terror too well to think otherwise. “That may be true, but sooner or later you’re going to have to leave, which means sooner or later, I’m going to have to figure out how to ditch the Shadowhounds on my own. Dad managed it for quite a few years.”
“Is that what you want for yourself? A life on the run?”
Not by a long shot, but what choice did she have?
“Just give me a few days.” Micah said. “Everything has been happening so fast, and I know it’s been a lot to take in. Let me stay the weekend. Give me until Monday. Angels have been known to work miracles
in less time than that.”
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
“I’ll run that risk.”
She frowned at him, wondering what the catch was. “So if I let you stay the weekend, and you can’t convince me to forgive my grandparents before Monday, you’ll leave?”
“Yes.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes. I swear it before God and the archangel Ramiel, whose soul gave me life.”
Kat gave an inward groan. She was going to regret this. She just knew it. He was temptation on the hoof. But, truth be told, she wasn’t ready to be alone again just yet—or face those Shadowhounds on her own.
“All right, then. You can stay.” She fixed the angel with a firm, no-nonsense look. “Just until Monday.”
He smiled, and it was like sunlight pouring into a darkened room. “Until Monday,” he agreed.
###
With the roads still iced and her car still in the shop, Kat and the angel were stuck with one another in the confines of her small apartment. It didn’t seem right to hide out in her bedroom after she’d spent all yesterday evening and all night in there, so she forced herself to join Micah in the living room. The cable TV was still out, thanks to the ice storm, so that left them with little to do but talk. Kat decided now was as good a time as any to get answers to a few of life’s burning questions. She was, after all, stuck in her apartment with an honest-to-God angel.
“So what’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
“You know.” She rolled her eyes. “Heaven. Are there really pearly gates, roads of gold? A bearded old man in a dazzling white robe?”
White teeth flashed, and the beauty of the angel’s smile nearly scrambled her brains. “No, Katrina,” he said. “There are no pearly gates, and no bearded old men.”
“So what’s it like then? Seriously.”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “Different.”
If she wasn’t haphephobic, she would have punched him in the arm. “Micah! Tell me. I really want to know what it’s like.”