by Sarah Gilman
Ginger stirred and opened her eyes halfway, the green specks in her irises a sight that warmed his chest. A sleepy smile stretched her cheeks, but as her gaze searched his face, her features tensed.
“Wren, is something wrong?”
“Stay here.” He lifted his wings, then covered her with a blanket.
She sat up. “But—”
“I’ll be right back, my mate.” He stood and crossed the stone floor, the rough surface cold and damp under his bare feet. The mist cut the visibility to mere yards. Wren stopped under the main archway, unwilling to go far enough to lose sight of Ginger.
In his peripheral vision, he watched her get to her feet, the blanket draped around her shoulders. She turned in place, searching the fog, her eyes narrowed in concentration, her body tensed to react if need be. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. A Guardian’s daughter she was, indeed.
Wren focused, searching out the source of his unease. Though he couldn’t see more than a few yards, he stared in the direction of the colony, nestled in the valley below them. Sensing nothing, his healing talent assured him no one in Sanctuary had so much as a stubbed toe. He shivered and returned to Ginger’s side.
“Paranoia.” He lifted his shoulders and pulled her into his arms. “Good morning, my mate.”
She relaxed but stepped back, one corner of her lips curved up in a mischievous grin. “Good morning. I have something for you, my mate.”
He cocked his head. She stepped away from the fire and rifled around in her coat. The blanket fell from her body. Clasping something behind her back, she approached him, the wisps of mist swirling around her naked form.
“What are you trying to do to me?” He reached out and settled his hands on her smooth, bare hips.
Her grin widened and she held up an orange. As she began to peel the fruit, the sweet, spicy scent filled the air. Warmth spread to his bones.
“For you,” she said, holding up a prefect orange wedge.
He took the offering from her with his teeth as he stared into her triumphant gaze.
“That’s better,” she said, and presented another slice, and another.
Wren wrestled the second half of the orange away. An ache in his stomach, separate from his own hunger, gnawed at him. He held a slice up to her lips. “You’re starving. I can tell.”
She ate from his hand, and when the orange was gone, he led her over to their discarded clothing. “As much as I want to stay on this mountaintop with you, I won’t have you hungry. The colony will be celebrating with us today, so there will be plenty of food around.”
“But we should come back here again sometime,” she said, heat in her voice.
“Oh yes,” he said, running a finger along her chin. “Tonight, for sure, and many more nights, until we get our own house built. I intend to make your voice echo off the hills.”
She caught his wrist as he bent to pick up his pants. He paused, taking in her sudden somber expression. “What is it, Gin-love?”
“As two half-archangel, half-humans, what are our chances of getting pregnant?”
He considered before he answered. “I don’t know of a previous couple with a heritage like ours, so I can’t be sure. But I know that, assuming you want a child—”
“I do,” she said, her eyes bright.
“—if you get pregnant, I can assure our child’s survival, winged or no, just like my father did for me. I expect, however, that our chances of conception are low.” He watched her, hoping that last bit wasn’t too hard of a strike.
Her expression fell, but she nodded. “I figured the odds were against us. But I do hope for a little luck. I would love to raise a child with you.”
Wren held her, stroked her hair, and stared into the dwindling ashes of the fire. What would it be like to cover her belly with his hands, nurturing a tiny life inside with his healing talent? It was so easy to see, in his mind’s eye, Ginger with a winged infant resting against her shoulder, the child’s fluffy, down-covered wings draped over her arms.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said, letting humor creep into his tone. “During pregnancy, a winged child has six limbs to kick you with instead of the usual four, and our wings are stronger than our legs. And humans don’t know how good they have it with a teething baby. When a winged infant’s feathers come in for the first time at two weeks of age, the screams rattle the windows.”
She lifted her face and smiled. “Nothing Daddy can’t handle.”
“Oh really?”
Smiling wider, she nodded.
About to jab back, Wren paused, his healing talent crawling up his arms like flames. Ginger jerked and scratched at her arms. “Is this…”
Wren nodded. “Someone’s hurt.” He reached down and handed over her sweater before reaching for his pants. As he dressed, he studied the sensations that the energy created. The force pulled him to his right, like a magnet. “The signal is coming from the opposite direction of the colony, but is only a mile away. Someone must be out hiking. The pull is strong. Maybe a broken leg, or worse.”
Wren picked up his discarded pants and dug his cell phone out of the pocket. The Guardians had to go in first; he couldn’t fly into an unknown situation. Personal risk aside, he had a mate to think of now. A chill snaked down his spine. Thornton, after all, was still out there, waiting for someone to die, leaving him with a new mortal body. And there’d always be poachers. To become complacent would be foolish and deadly.
The phone rang before he touched a single button. Seeing Vin’s ID, he connected the call and put it on speaker so Ginger could hear. “Morning. I was just about to call you. There’s someone hurt in the forest east of the colony—”
“Whatever you do, don’t go after them,” Vin said, his voice hard.
“What’s going on?”
“Stay where you are. Don’t fly, not even back to the colony. There are poachers in the woods.”
Wren’s stomach clenched. “They have hostages, don’t they?”
“Stay put, Wren. We’ll get them back.” The line went dead.
Wren cursed. He knew the danger would never cease, but couldn’t it give them a few days to recover now and then?
§
Wren paced about, flicking his wings, the wind he created fanning Ginger’s hair into her eyes. The new psychic energy, unlike the bone-deep chill of speaking with a spirit, crawled over her skin like warm insects. She rubbed her arms. No wonder Wren was so agitated. Besides the fact that poachers held someone captive in the woods, the healing talent, unused, could drive a person insane.
“Stop that.” She spat hair from her mouth, searching her mind for a way to distract him. “How about a lesson on these talents of ours? We’re safe up here, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Without wings, you’d need climbing equipment to get up here.”
Wren folded his wings and cocked his head. After a moment, he went over to the wood pile and picked up the hatchet that lay there. He hooked an arm around her waist and led her out of the crumbling structure.
The thick morning fog had thinned. The temperature dropped outside the granite walls. Wren wrapped a wing around her as they walked. The village ruins made Ginger’s lips part in awe. Elaborate designs were carved into the stone archways, granite pavers formed a path under their feet, a central fountain sat covered in a wild grape vine…all the sights made her twist her neck to see.
Near the largest and most weathered building, Wren stopped in front of a young tree, about their height. All the tree’s leaves had dropped for the winter, leaving the plant looking forlorn. Wren ran the sharp edge of the axe down the trunk, exposing bright-green wood under the thin bark.
“Plants and animals don’t give off detectable signals the way humans, demons, and archangels do, but we can still heal them. The talent will work on any living thing. Go ahead. Put your hand on the tree.”
Ginger pressed her fingers to the green wound and heat rushed to her fingers.
“It should only take a little concentration,” Wren said. “Healing is easy, you’re just inciting the tree to do what it does naturally. You’re speeding up the process.”
Ginger focused on the tree, visualizing smooth, gray bark in her mind. The tree knit under her fingers, and she ran her hand along the gash, closing the wound like a zipper.
“That’s incredible.” She stared at her hands.
“The talent has limits,” Wren said, leading her further along the path. “As I said, you’re only speeding up the natural healing process. You cannot force the body to do something it isn’t capable of doing. You can’t re-grow severed limbs or restart a stopped heart. You cannot save someone poisoned by a demon’s bite. You cannot heal yourself. And always remember, anyone you heal will have to sleep it off. The more serious the injury, the longer they’ll sleep.”
Wren stopped walking and frowned at the tree line that encroached on the ruins. He lifted a hand and broke a twig off a scraggly bush. “This shrub isn’t native to Vermont and crowds native plants. Are you okay with killing it?”
Ginger nodded. “I’ve pulled weeds before.”
“Yes, but this is a little more disconcerting.”
She swallowed. “Okay. Show me?”
Wren reached into the branches and wrapped his fingers around the main stem. The plant, all of it, every one of its dozens of branches, turned black and crumbled to the ground in pieces. After less than a second, the bush appeared no different than the ashes in the fire pit. But there had been no flames.
“It was similar when I killed Thornton,” Wren said, his voice quiet. “His hands were severely burned where they’d touched me. No flames, but a fast death. Curious to see what I had done, the demons did an autopsy. All of Thornton’s internal organs were burned beyond recognition.”
Ginger kept her chin up, hoping Wren wouldn’t see the shake to her hands. She prayed he was right, that there was no way she could accidentally hurt him or anyone else. She trusted him with this talent, but could she trust herself?
He directed her to another invasive bush. “It’s all right. You need to experience how hard it is to do this, even to a plant. You’ll feel better. It’s impossible to hurt someone by accident.”
She stepped forward and grasped a branch, the wood cold and wet under her fingers. Nothing happened.
“See? You have to want to. It’s easy to want to heal. To truly want someone or something dead is much different.”
She clenched her teeth and gripped the branch harder, as if that would help. Still the bush sat there, unchanged.
Wren grinned. “That’s my girl. You care even about an invasive weed. What if I told you the berries were poisonous, and these plants have decimated the local squirrel and songbird populations?”
Ginger held that thought and focused again on the bush. Heat gathered at her fingertips, much hotter than the healing energy. With a final mental shove, the plant blackened before her eyes and crumbled to ash at her feet.
She dropped her arm. “Not easy.”
“Feel better?” He took her hand. “Imagine how hard it would be to kill someone.”
She met his gaze and squeezed his hands. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry for my unfortunate dowry.”
She kissed him. “Nothing about you is unfortunate, least of all the talent that saved your life when you were ten. I wouldn’t have you right now, if you didn’t have this gift.”
Wren drew back, surprising her. His eyes darkened. “But if I had died that day, my mother would still be alive, and my father wouldn’t have spent the last eighteen years in a hole in the ground.”
Knots formed in her core, and Ginger wondered if it was his emotional pain reaching her through the mating bonds. Before she could conjure words to respond, rustling sounds drew her gaze to the trees. Wren narrowed his eyes in the same direction, and she was reminded that although she was also half archangel, Wren had inherited sharper senses along with his feathered endowment.
Color drained from Wren’s face. “No.”
He seized her around the waist as he spread his wings. Gunfire erupted, the percussions so loud she thought the barrage came from all sides. Thrown off balance as pain exploded in her legs, she fell to the ground. Wren went down hard at her side, face first, his extended wing covering her.
Her legs refused to move. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air. At ground level, two pairs of heavy boots stomped into Ginger’s view.
“That’s more like it, eh, Trent?”
Ginger’s blood ran cold. She knew that voice; it belonged to one of the poachers who’d attacked Wren at the abandoned Victorian.
Wren held perfectly still, but he held her gaze. Blood seeped from wounds in his legs and wings.
“Just don’t let either of them touch you,” a female voice chimed in. Bare feet stepped into view, framed by the tips of mahogany flight feathers.
Ginger lifted her head. A tall female archangel stood between the two poachers. Dark eyes stared down from a heart-shaped face. Brown hair matched her feathers. Every inch of her oozed beauty in a stereotypically angelic way.
“Hello, Wren,” the archangel said in a sweet voice.
Wren’s tone sent a chill along Ginger’s spine. “Trinity.”
Ginger clenched her jaw.
“It appears congratulations are in order,” Trinity said, kicking dirt toward Ginger’s bandaged hand. Ginger jerked her hand away.
Wren fisted his hands and spoke again in that cold voice. “What the fucking hell are you doing?”
Trinity’s face remained an emotionless mask. “One does what one must do to survive. It’s me, or it’s you and the others. I am sorry about this, Wren. Truly.” She turned away and disappeared into the trees, her flight feathers swaying behind her.
“Thornton?” Ginger whispered.
Wren shook his head, hatred in his eyes. “I doubt it. She hasn’t changed a bit.”
“Let’s do this,” a poacher said. A heavy, brown leather case hit the ground. He knelt down and lifted the lid. Inside were bone-cutters and two large blades that would have been effective at taking the head off a bull.
Wren cursed and lifted his wings, but one bent at an unnatural angle, broken by a bullet.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Ginger screamed at the poacher who approached Wren with one of the heavy blades.
The poacher from the café knelt and stared at her. He spoke in a condescending tone. “Oh, don’t worry. He won’t suffer…for long. He’ll bleed out fast.”
Ginger flung a fistful of dirt at his face. She tried to move her legs, but below her waist numbness spread, rapidly replacing the pain and any other sensation. Damn it, she’d been shot in the back.
The armed poacher knelt near Wren’s head and gripped his wing. Her mate struck so fast she sucked in a surprised breath. Wren seized the poacher by the leg and shoved a hand under the cuff of his jeans.
An unholy scream filled the air, as did the scent of burnt flesh. The poacher collapsed to the ground, silent and still. The blade landed in the dirt out of Ginger’s reach.
“Fuck! Fuck!” the remaining poacher hollered. “Fucking devil!” He cursed some more, staying well out of reach, and drew a gun.
“No!” Ginger shouted, but the gunshot drowned out her voice.
Pain erupted from Ginger’s shoulder, but the blood poured from Wren’s. He screamed and panted into the ground. The poacher bent over and picked up the blade.
With his good hand, Wren reached out and gripped Ginger’s arm.
“I can’t let you watch this, Gin-love,” he whispered.
“Wren—”
The healing heat spilled over her skin, and the wounds in her legs and back started to mend. Darkness flooded her vision, and though she fought it, unconsciousness claimed her.
Chapter Twenty-five
Ginger summoned every ounce of control she possessed and stayed still; she didn’t want her captors to know she’d woken. She clenched her tee
th together to hold in the screams and tensed her muscles to subdue the shaking. Wren… What had they done to her mate? Was there any chance he was still alive?
Hands tied behind her back, she lay on her side in a fetal position, her eyes closed. Cold, damp leaves cushioned her cheek. She’d woken to an argument and recognized the poacher’s baritone voice and Trinity’s cold alto.
“What did I say about speaking without my permission, Devil?”
Trinity cursed. “She’s human. One of you.”
“Like I give a shit. Why the sudden bleeding heart?”
“I…” Trinity’s voice hitched.
The poacher’s voice grew chilly. “Are you hiding something from me?”
“No.”
“Bullshit!”
Trinity gasped, a panicked, choking sound. Ginger cracked open her eyelids. The poacher had the brunette by the throat with one hand, a sharp blade against her ribs with another.
“What are you hiding?” the poacher demanded, giving Trinity a good shake by the neck. “Does this girl have talents other than killing and healing?”
“Not that I know of, you greedy fuck.” Though strangled, Trinity regained her controlled, indifferent voice.
“What then?”
Trinity screeched as the poacher drew the knife across her skin below her halter top. The archangel twisted at the waist, her wings giving her momentum, and threw the poacher off her. He crashed into the bushes.
Ginger’s eyes widened. Trinity seized the poacher’s knife from the ground and dashed over. The archangel lifted her wings, dropped to her knees, and dug the knife into the rope that secured Ginger’s hands.
“Run back to the colony,” Trinity hissed through her teeth. “Don’t stop. The poacher wants to keep you to sell your healing talent.”
Ginger stared, dumbstruck. “Why are you—”