The Angel's Hunger (Masters of Maria)

by Holley Trent

  Tamatsu reached for his katana at the exact moment Gulielmus pulled his sword out of thin air.

  “Drat.” Gulielmus clucked his tongue with disapproval. “I thought we were better friends than this.”

  “So did I. Don’t toy with me. This blade is as sharp as you remember, and my patience didn’t increase any in the time your memory was gone. Where. Is. She?”

  “I’m appalled that you’d assume I know.”

  “You must. I don’t doubt for a minute that you wouldn’t know where your son is. You put a demon’s mark on him. You can track him.”

  Gulielmus’s smile shrank in as fast as a snipped rubber band. “In case you’re the one who’s suddenly developed memory issues now, here’s a reminder. I’m no longer counted as a demon. I don’t have a demon’s power. The marks that I put on my offspring are gone, and any magic they may have been granted, from me being what I was, has been stripped away in varying degrees. If I want to find my children, I have to do it the mortal way.”

  Tamatsu cocked his chin. “Then perhaps I’ll ask his wife.”

  “You could certainly waste the breath and frighten poor, skittish Ariel, but she knows nothing. So you’re angry right now? She is as well. He vanished on her without a word, and apparently that’s quite unlike him. In spite of his genetics, John actually prefers to be at home with his family.” Gulielmus made a moue of disgust, and then shook like a duck ridding its feathers of extra water. “I’d aid you if I could, but I know nothing.”

  “Bullshit. You know something.”

  Gulielmus shrugged, and the ambidextrous bastard passed the hilt of his sword to his other hand. Still pointing the tip in Tamatsu’s direction, he turned to his bed where several fine suits were laid out at the end. “Always so precise, aren’t you? All I did was told her that there was a solution. Everything else was up to her.”

  “An incubus’s solution, right? Is that what’s inside me right now?” He pounded his chest. “Part of what makes her heart tick? Part of her will and magic?”

  Gulielmus shrugged again. “Sue me. I learned some useful things when I was a scourge.”

  “You still are one. You had no right to meddle,” Tamatsu spat.

  “No?” The corners of Gulielmus’s lips tilted upward as he rubbed his chin with his free hand. “So I imagine that like Clarissa, you’re going to go on, spouting that nonsense.”

  “Clarissa is a wise woman. Far too good for you.”

  Gulielmus narrowed his eyes to slits. “Who said she was for me?”

  “I’m not playing this game of words with you. Tell me how to find Noelle.”

  “I can’t, which isn’t to say that I won’t, only that I lack the ability to do so. If John shows himself, you may ask him, but being the disgustingly noble sort he is, he may choose not to speak.” On his guard again, Gulielmus thrust his sword closer, forcing Tamatsu to deflect with a turn of his own. “You’ll not bother my son,” he said.

  “Since when did you care about any of your sons beyond what they could do for you?”

  “My relationship with my sons is none of your concern.”

  “Truly? Because I seem to recall Tarik and I constantly running to the rescue of the oldest of your offspring when you had your back turned.”

  “I have no idea what you’re referencing.”

  “Of course you don’t.” Tamatsu scoffed. He had no room to judge Gulielmus for his past when his own wasn’t spotless, either. Insolent creature that he was, he still had time to change. Immortality was useful that way. “Give me your word that if you learn where she is, you’ll tell me.”

  Gulielmus’s lips stretched into that smile again. “An oath between friends?”

  “Are we friends?”

  With their swords touching and gazes locked, Tamatsu didn’t doubt for a second that if either were insulted enough, they’d try to make mortal wounds. Few things could kill fallen angels. Their most common enemies were each other.

  “Don’t be like that,” Gulielmus said. “Our history is too long for this petty squabbling. Do you doubt that my mind is as good as it was? Do you doubt that I thought through every action when I put this mess into play? All I did was gave her the ability to make a choice, and don’t you feel wonderful that she did?”

  “I feel fine, and that means she probably feels like hell.”

  Gulielmus rolled his eyes and lowered his sword. “She’s probably not feeling anything. She’s asleep and will be for the foreseeable future. That’s why you can’t sense her—why you can’t home in on her well enough to teleport to where she is. When she wakes, you’ll be able to find her, but by then, it’ll be too late for you to reverse what she’s done.”

  “Why would you do this to her?”

  Gulielmus shook his head and pushed down Tamatsu’s extended sword arm … or rather, Tamatsu let him. “I didn’t do anything to her. I didn’t compel her. I doubt a woman such as her could be compelled to do anything she doesn’t want to do.” He scoffed. “Of course you’d find yourself an elf who can’t be manipulated.”

  As had Gulielmus, whether he wished to admit that or not.

  “This was her choice,” he said, squeezing Tamatsu’s shoulder. “Why does that bother you so much? She only gave you back what was yours.”

  “By divesting something that’s hers.”

  “Apparently, she …” Gulielmus grimaced. “Loves you.”

  For a moment, Tamatsu’s brain tried to defy the word because it was so potent—too powerful to be applied to him—but he already knew it was true.

  She’d better. She had fucking better.

  Balling his free hand into a fist, he calmed at the sting of his nails against his palm. “You choke on the word,” he said, trying for a less hostile tone, but there was so much tightness in his chest. Shaping the words was difficult. “Have you stopped understanding love? Have you forgotten what you are?”

  If Gulielmus heard the question, he didn’t respond. He’d turned to face the garments on the bed again and rubbed his chin. “Back to work tomorrow. I mean, work-work managing my businesses. I’m sure Charles did a fine job in my absence, but I really need to get back and see what hasn’t been done in the past two years. Which of these suits do you think will lend the best impression?”

  Tamatsu stared at the angel, waiting for the rescission of the trifling question.

  But he was talking to Gulielmus. The things that were important to Gulielmus weren’t always so important to Tamatsu, but they made him who he was. They made him his friend.

  “The dark blue would be most flattering on you,” he murmured. “As if you needed any help with that.”

  “The blue it is, then.” Gulielmus grinned, the cocky bastard, but then the grin fell away.

  He’d always been a mercurial sort, prone to flitting from one emotion to the next without fully processing the previous one. “I should leave, right? This …” He gave a demonstrative sweep of his hand to the room and ostensibly the property beyond it. “This place? I have an apartment. I should be safe enough there.”

  “There are few places as safe as this property. Your sons would remind you of that.”

  And his mate was there. Had Tamatsu been him, he wouldn’t have left. He would have stood his ground and claimed what was his … in spite of how pissed Clarissa might have been at him. But the fact that Gulielmus even had to ask hinted to Tamatsu that, for the first time, his friend didn’t really understand why he was there.

  Tamatsu sheathed his katana and sucked in a bracing breath. “You named her as the chief contact on all your emergency information and gave her power of attorney authority should anything happen to you. Why do you think you did that?”

  “I did it because in spite of her being insufferable, she’s fair.”

  “She’s a queen.”

  Gulielmus shrugged. “Was.”

  “Is.”

  “Fine,” Gulielmus demurred softly. “Is.”

  “Don’t make the mistakes I made. Don’t fool
yourself into believing you can do without the person Fate put into your path to unhinge you.”

  “I don’t need her.”

  “Mmm. No, you don’t need anyone, and certainly not the woman who’s become a surrogate parent for many of your children. She could have hardened her heart toward every one of them, but she didn’t. Why do you think she would do that?”

  “You want me to make sense of an elf’s folly?”

  Tamatsu grunted and jammed his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You’re a piece of work, you know that? You’re a selfish, despicable bastard, and you have your head so far up your ass you could see your heart beat, but I love you, and I hurt for you.”

  “Don’t pity me.” Gulielmus scooped up the two rejected suits by their hangers and walked them to the closet.

  “I do pity you. I’ll pity you until you have the decency to pity yourself. Then, you’ll be getting somewhere.”

  “Go away.”

  “I will. I need to find my woman.”

  “You won’t, but good luck anyway. Leave.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Growling quietly, Gulielmus turned slowly on his heels and set his deep blue gaze on Tamatsu.

  He didn’t say anything. Neither did Tamatsu. He stared for a minute or two in the way he had when he’d been newly Fallen—back when nothing made sense to any of them except how to find each other. Back when they were trying to figure out whether or not Earth was the angel version of hell.

  “Gulielmus. What is it?”

  His friend looked out the window. “You’ll return? I don’t … know these people here.”

  Ah.

  “Yes. I will return.”

  Tamatsu headed toward the hallway. He’d talked to Jenny first and Clarissa. If they had no ideas of where their friend might be, he’d teleport back to Noelle’s. There’d have to be clues there of where a woman with extensive knowledge of real estate might hide herself. He was counting on it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Noelle.”

  Something beckoned her. The sound was like a whisper in the fog, but she couldn’t be quite sure of the noise because the wind over it was too loud and her ears were plugged or something.

  “Noelle? She’s not waking. Why isn’t she waking?”

  Not just sounds, words, spoken by a deep and stately voice.

  “… so close to winter.” Another voice. A female.

  Where am I?

  “This is normal, then?” he asked.

  Noelle’s arms hurt. She thought someone was gripping them, but how could they be? She was made of mist and rainbows. No one could touch her.

  “Normal? No-o,” the woman’s voice said.

  Noelle knew that voice. That voice was Jenny. Jenny … did things for her? The best Noelle could remember, she was a friend—or at least not an enemy.

  “I think she’s a bit more out of it than normal,” Jenny said.

  “Because of what she did,” returned the deeper voice. “Noelle?” the male asked.

  She put a hand up to shield her eyes from the bright moonlight that suddenly appeared and squinted toward the horizon. Who the hell was that calling her?

  Shrugging, she heaved up her bag, slid her sword of daisies into its scabbard, and got moving toward the castle. She’d been away too long and she’d left a dim bulb in charge of Clarissa’s security. Shaking her head, she clucked her tongue. Unacceptable. She’d be happy she even had a job when she got back to the castle. She’d left to …

  Noelle stopped.

  There was no castle anymore. So why was there a castle in the distant heath?

  Setting down the bag, which wasn’t actually a bag at all, but just air, she dropped onto one knee and rubbed her eyes.

  Come on. Get it together. Where am I?

  She’d been dreaming of steaming hot coffee and those little balls of cake on sticks that were rolled in frosting and sprinkles. They were so good, and she could handle a few calories. She was a long-lived thing. She had time to exercise off the fluff.

  Or do I?

  She’d … done something. Given something away.

  There was no castle in the distance when she opened her eyes, just darkness.

  She felt that punishing grip on her arms again.

  “Noelle?” That was Jenny’s voice. “Wake up, Noe.”

  Noelle kept blinking, but the darkness didn’t abate.

  “Give her a minute,” Jenny said. “Takes a bit to shake off the murk.”

  “Can she see us? She looks like she can’t see us.”

  That was Tamatsu’s voice. Noelle furrowed her brow, remembering. She’d hidden from him so he couldn’t give her back his—their voice.

  She pulled in a breath and put her hand to her throat.

  Is it really gone?

  “No, she probably can’t see us yet. Have to wait for the veil to pull away. When we go into our heavy sleeps during the winter, our minds often slip back.”

  “Back to where, Jenny?”

  “Into the Otherworld. I mean, we can’t stay there. It’s not sustainable and everything there seems absurd, but when we’re asleep, we can’t help if our consciousness drifts there. After all, we were born there.”

  “Is the place dangerous?”

  Jenny didn’t respond.

  Noelle squeezed her eyes shut, rubbed them hard, and let out a breath.

  Need to wake up.

  “Jenny,” Tamatsu warned.

  “Dangerous? Well, no, not for someone with magic as assertive as Noelle’s or Clarissa’s. The rest of us have to take special precautions.”

  “Such as?”

  “Wearing certain charms and amulets to sleep. They stink like hell, but at least I don’t scare myself to death, right?”

  “I imagine living is preferable.”

  At the press of a warm hand to her cheek—a large one—there came a gasp.

  Mine?

  Noelle put her hand over the flesh, nuzzling it.

  “Why is she so cold?” Tamatsu asked.

  “She’s conserving energy. She hasn’t eaten in, what, three weeks?”

  “Get her something.”

  “I’ll see what I can find. My, I haven’t been to this place in ages. I didn’t realize she owned property right here. Tricky of her. This is near where we all came out of the realm.”

  “Is it?”

  “The portal between the realms opened in that large mound out in the field.”

  Soft footsteps retreated, and Noelle felt herself propped up, and then warmth behind her.

  A body at her back. His.

  He pulled covers up over her hips and leaned her head against his chest. “Can you not wake up?”

  She moved the hand she had pressed against her neck to her lap. She tried forcing some air down and activating her diaphragm, but no sound came out. Even touching him, she couldn’t speak.

  “I’m trying,” she said via the telepathic route. “Hard to shake it off.”

  “Why did you do this?”

  “Don’t ask me questions you already know the answers to, my stōr. You’ll just get annoyed with me, and I’m too tired for you to be annoyed with me.”

  “Noelle, you didn’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I did. The scales had to be balanced, and I’d much rather balance them myself than wait for karma to do it for me. I wanted it to be my choice. Choice makes losing things easier.”

  She blinked some more and made out the silhouette of Jenny on the other side of the cottage. She must have been fussing with the stove.

  “You should never be left alone again,” Tamatsu thought at her. “You can’t be trusted.”

  “True.”

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  “You mean me, the elf who can’t talk? That would be the ideal partner for most knowledgeable people.”

  “But I liked the sounds you made, and all your words, too. You took your sounds away from me.”

  “I had to. Maybe one day you�
�ll understand.”

  “I understand perfectly well already. I just don’t believe you should have done it.”

  “My choice. You’re stronger now.”

  “And you’re far weaker. Where’s my warrior?”

  Am I still that?

  Noelle had no way of knowing yet how much she’d given up, but whatever she’d given him had been necessary and overdue. She’d had to make him whole. “I’ll adapt.”

  “But you shouldn’t have to. Raising our children will be quite a spectacle with you lacking the ability to properly yell at them.”

  “Our … children?”

  He twined his fingers through her hair and played with it, stopping her from jerking around to look at him the way she wanted to. “You don’t mind, do you? We’ve never discussed this. Or much of anything.”

  They certainly hadn’t. They’d have to and soon because that was how relationships worked—by not making assumptions and punishing without discussion. They required communication and … forgiveness.

  Children, though.

  They were a kind of battle she hadn’t trained for, but she thought she was ready. She wasn’t getting any younger, after all.

  She emitted a silent bark of laughter. “I suppose I’ll have to learn modern parenting techniques. Perhaps I’ll master Clarissa’s queenly glare, and that’ll be enough.” Rubbing her eyes again, she had a thought. “Where’s John? I do hope you didn’t hurt him. He was only doing what he was told, and he didn’t harm anyone.”

  “John went home to his wife. I’m certain we’ll be having a … conversation later.”

  Oh dear. I’d better warn him.

  After Noelle blinked several times more, Jenny came into view carrying a brown bowl toward the bed.

  “Ah, I think she sees me now!” Jenny said gleefully. She set the bowl on the little table beside the bed. “We couldn’t find you until about an hour ago. Not until you started to stir in your sleep and his psychic radar, or what-have-you, went off.”

  Noelle raised both eyebrows at her old friend and let them fall.

  “Well.” Jenny plopped her hands onto her hips and clucked her tongue. “We’ll figure something out, won’t we? You’ll be the strong, silent type, and I’ll do all the talking.” She added in a mutter, “I’ve always been good at that, anyway.”