Creche (Book II of Paranormal Fallen Angels/Vampires Series)

by Karin Cox

  “You heard Shintaro. You must wait.”

  “A month.” I raised my voice. “Do you know how many corpses they might turn in a month?”

  “Still it is so. What good would the riddle be to you here while that month passes? No good at all, even if you knew how to interpret it.”

  “I deciphered the other.” I sat on a boulder and frowned.

  “With my help.”

  “Fine. With your help.” I folded my arms across my chest.

  After dropping the empty bucket back down into the well, Skylar put her hand out to me. “If you would flee me and Silvenhall, I cannot stop you. But you are tired, as am I. Let us rest.”

  “Who will watch me while you sleep?”

  “None but me and my trust in you.”

  I climbed to my feet. “Brave—to trust one such as I when no one else will.”

  “Yes, or foolish,” she answered. The words were another echo of my past.

  You are brave, came my thoughts. I was the foolish one: for following her here and for already caring for her too much to flee.

  “Where shall we sleep?” I asked. Nowhere had I seen huts or shelters, villas or houses. I glanced at the treetops, but there was nothing there either but sunlight filtering through leaves.

  “Let me show you the Eyries.”

  Skylar turned away from the glade toward the cliff and then flew upward to where spurs of rock shot skyward to lonely heights. Caves formed faces in the stone. Carved into the cliff face were staircases and slides, all intricately functional. Stone deer, their antlers mossy with age, leaped from the staircases. Fauns and centaurs cavorted on the bannisters and lintels. I searched for the lithe, winged beauty of a Sphinx, but there were none.

  “Here.” Skylar alighted on a cedar balcony garlanded with vines and clinging honeysuckle. A film of silk covered the entrance to the cave beyond.

  Only more stone pillars, jutting heavenward, broke the blank blue of the sky.

  “It is magical.”

  “The Eyries,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Where we make our nests.”

  I laughed. “You sleep in nests?” As soon as I said it, I wondered why it seemed so odd to me. I had curled up with owls as a lonely boy. I had plucked out my own feathers to shield me from the cold stone floor of Sezanne’s tower.

  Skylar’s laugh could almost have been the call of a songbird, the way it rang through the Eyries. “Of course,” she said when it stopped. “How do you sleep? How do you dream if not in a nest?”

  “In a bed.”

  “You have been too much around mortals, Amedeo.” She tugged at my hand. “Try a nest. You might find it to your liking.”

  Inside, the room was not so dark that I could not tell it was an antechamber. Its stony walls were carved too. Gryphons and fairies and crosses, embracing angels, and necking swans. It must have taken eons.

  “Time is something we Cruxim have on our side.” She gestured to the sculpture.

  “Stop that!”

  “Sorry. You think me rude, but in Silvenhall, if your thoughts are not masked, we think nothing of hearing them.”

  “I do not know how to mask them.”

  Again her laughter. “Yes. It is an unceasing wonder.” She raised an eyebrow.

  “For you, perhaps.”

  “For me, yes.” She moved away from me to a recess in the wall at the far side of the room, where she slipped off her kidskin boots.

  “Show me how to mask my thoughts.”

  “Why would I?” When she faced me again, her eyes were merry. “I like to hear them—the better to know you.”

  “To prove you trust me,” I offered aloud, flushing. I already knew Skylar was no fool to fall for such a stunt.

  “You know I trust you, or I would not have brought you here ... to my nest.”

  “Well, out of courtesy.” I examined the intricately carved feathers of the swans for a minute.

  Skylar squinted, light from the doorway striking her face and enhancing her fine bone structure: high cheekbones and arched brows, the pale, smooth expanse of forehead above her extraordinary eyes.

  “Very well. When you think of something you wish to remain private, you must first wrap your wings around it, very tight, like a cocoon,” she instructed.

  “Wrap my wings around thoughts?”

  More laughter. The close quarters of the room gave her laugh the effect of an echo in my head. “Visualize it,” she added and pointed at my wings. “Not so that your wings quiver like that—it is too easily seen. Just in your mind.”

  “Shan’t you hear me thinking that then?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then it is courtesy only.” I shook my wings, relaxed them, and tried again. “You could hear it anyway, if you wished.”

  “But I would not wish. It would be rude. And it would dishonor me.”

  I was unsure whether I believed her. Much as I listened for her thoughts in my head, I could hear nothing but the rustle of wind, rippling the silk screen at the cave’s entrance.

  Shyly, she led me through an elegantly carved doorway that resembled the twisting roots of some giant tree and opened into another, more spacious room. A film of water cascaded down one wall into a pool. Filigrees of steam drifted up from the milky blue surface.

  Skylar nodded toward the opposite corner, where a mound of down was piled into a nest. Silken cushions in silver and pure white furs sat upon it, and a candelabrum above was garlanded with peonies and a draped silk canopy. Within the voluminous folds drifted tiny flickering orbs of gold and silver-green, no bigger than the tip of my finger. Fireflies, I recognized. They made the feathers, the flowers, and the fur dance with light.

  “The nest,” Skylar said.

  Her look of pride informed me she had noticed my eyes widening.

  “I spent many years preparing it.” She walked to it and smoothed down an errant feather. “All female Cruxim do.”

  Putting a finger up to the canopy, she waited for one of the bobbing lights to land upon it. “Some prefer candlelight, but these are my friends.” She blew on the insect gently, and its light hummed out more strongly.

  The glow on her upturned face made her eyes gleam like mercury, and once more I felt a strange tightness in my chest. She is exquisite, I thought. Had I overlooked her beauty before, or had I been too angry with her to notice? Impassive as she was, she stirred something in me, some anger or desire or fear or intrigue? I could not tell which, only that I trusted her and that I knew her and did not know her simultaneously, a strange feeling that sat in my chest like a lump. What trouble if she knew my thoughts? She was harmless surely. Beautiful and harmless.

  She blushed to rose. “You find me beautiful.” Her voice was breathy. “You did not mask that.”

  “No,” I said aloud. Damnation!

  Skylar hid her smile, plumping a cushion. “You meant to mask it.”

  “I meant to.” My wings moved again with my efforts at concealment, sending her into a peal of embarrassed laughter.

  She tapped her head. “Up here only, Amedeo. Like this.” Holding her arms out from her sides at right angles, she drew her shoulders and arms forward until they wrapped around her torso and the tips of her wings kissed. Then she pulled them in closer still, as if a drawstring controlled them. They shimmied as the feathers settled around her, until only her head and neck could be seen above the film of feathers, and her legs below. “Like this, except with your mind.”

  I stared at her, my wings shivering as I tried to mentally copy her. She moved slightly within the screen of feathers, and with a rustle of fabric her gown slipped to the floor to pool at her ankles. My eyes traveled up the slimness of her calves, loitered on the sheen of her skin, the curve of her thigh, and then met the wrap of modest wings.

  Dimples danced in her cheeks as she grinned at my inability to mask my thoughts, my inability to conceal desire for whatever lay behind the tantalizing screen of her wings.

  “Think me beautiful, Amedeo.” He
r eyes glittered, and the points of her fangs caused beads of blood on her lip as she smiled. “But never think me harmless. Not to anyone but you.”

  I woke at dusk, still tired. I had refused the nest, even after Skylar, surprised by the modesty I’d learned from so long spent in human company, had clothed herself in a robe of moon gray. It served to make her eyes shine even more luminously as she sat perched on the edge of the nest.

  “It is big enough for two,” she had insisted, moving a cushion out of the way and smoothing a wisp of down. “We would not even have to touch.” Hurt strained her voice.

  Had my refusal to climb in with her insulted her as a host? She had even offered me the nest to myself, but I had declined that too. Instead, I spent the night propped against one wall, clutching a pillow and covering myself with a single fur and with the gray silk wrap Skylar had thrown at me in frustration when she eventually crawled into the nest alone.

  I stood, rubbed my eyes, and made my way to the pool, removing my shirt to wash. When I glanced in, I pulled back suddenly. I had become so thin that for a moment I thought my face had aged. I had slept poorly, but surely my eyes had not always been so large and dark and sad. My hair was too long; it curled over my forehead and wanted cutting. I raked it with my fingers and cupped a handful of water to smooth the unruly strands back.

  When the ripples subsided, I looked again. Better. Still sad, but handsome and not so old—or older ... centuries older ... but still. I cupped another handful and lifted it. Throwing my head back, I let it run over my face and neck. It felt deliciously warm and fresh. I wanted to climb in and wash myself, to sluice off the scent of the sea. Silvenhall was so bright, so clean; I felt gritty by comparison.

  The fireflies shone even brighter now that night was falling, and I could make out the tips of Skylar’s wings, rising and falling above the nest. Abandoning the pool, I tiptoed closer, struck by the sudden desire to watch her sleep, but at the nest’s feathered edge—close enough to see her naked limbs and wings curled around herself, her head pillowed on her hands, her knees drawn up—I felt suddenly like an intruder. Moved by her innocence, I returned to the pool.

  “Bathe, if you like.” I heard her stir and the feathers with her. “I promise not to spy.” It was a rebuke, but there was only humor in it.

  Her serene face protruded over the edge of the nest, and her eyes lingered momentarily on my scarred, bare chest, on my biceps, my flushed face and wet, loose curls. Then she lay back down and said, “When you are finished, let me know.”

  Embarrassed, I made no reply, just stood and began to undress.

  “Or I could join you.”

  “Skylar, you did not mask that.”

  “No. I had not meant to.”

  Her laughter sent the fireflies fluttering from the room out into the night.

  When she did not join me, I found myself strangely disappointed, and then ashamed. She is nothing to you, I told myself when she had removed herself to dress in the antechamber. I was careful, this time, to hide my thoughts, or at least try to. I had a man’s appetite for beauty, but where Sabine was fierce and courageous, Skylar was coy and closed. It is no match. Sabine gave her life for you. She gave you everything.

  When Skylar returned, smiling and bearing cheese and wine, I saw in her the vulnerable, naked, sleeping angel, and I was glad the blue depths of the pool hid my arousal, even if they could not expunge my shame.

  “Just merlot.” Skylar inclined her head towards the goblet and set it on the polished stone floor. “It is like the old days, without Haemil.”

  “And the other Crèches, will they give it up too?” I followed a bite of sharp cheese with a sip of wine. It tasted good. Uncomplicated.

  “Dusindel will likely refuse to forgo Haemil. Perhaps Jiordano will be the next rift in the Council. Hiltenhall may consider it. Willendel and Kindamor are so small that they can send out hunting parties to fulfill themselves, but even they will probably be reluctant.” She sighed. “Three weeks from now, the Feast of Remembrance will be held. Cruxim from all of the Crèches attend. No doubt they will decide then.” She peered at me curiously, and I noticed her eyes linger again on the cross carved into my chest. “It is hoped that, by then, they might trust you enough to initiate you too.”

  “Skylar, I...” I was unsure of myself, afraid of how Silvenhall was making me feel. Was it the place or Skylar that was softening me, drawing me away from my purpose, making me forget Sabine and Beltran and even Joslyn? As each hour passed, I thought less of them and more of Skylar, less of my sorrow and more of my happiness. To tell her that the warmth of her nest, the timbre of her laugh, stirred something in me—something I both craved and wanted to beat down, needed to beat down—would be unwise. “Perhaps it is best that I leave. I should remain with Sabine’s stone.”

  “You think Beltran will search for it among ruins?”

  “Maybe.” It was weak, and I knew it.

  “Perhaps I can convince Shintaro to have it sent for earlier.” She sat on the edge, sliding her feet into the pool.

  “It ... it would be better if I went to it.”

  “You cannot. The Council is in turmoil. The Sibylim pore over the Cruximus. You brought nothing with you but so much uncertainty. They will not let you leave. I cannot force you to stay, except that you know that if you leave, I must leave with you.”

  I set down the goblet and turned away, my wings a barrier between us. Shintaro punished me well, I thought, to make me forever in Skylar’s company, knowing that I would not hurt her.

  “Are you sure that you will not?”

  Damnation! “No.” I answered aloud. “You should not trust so blithely, Skylar. Remember I have fled you once.”

  She laughed at that. “Are you sure that I trust you?”

  It was a game, I knew.

  “I hope not,” I lied. Her trust seemed such an easy thing, another innocence. “Trust this book of yours if you must. The Cruximus. Your faith.”

  “Faith,” she whispered. “Or fate?”

  “By your reckoning they are the same.”

  “Maybe.” She nudged my ribs with her foot. “Arise. There is much to do. Tomorrow night is the Cygnus Amoratus, the night we celebrate love. But tonight is for pain. Tonight I will teach you how to fight. ”

  I looked at her shining eyes and the straight, white gleam of her smile, and I thought, Love and pain—why are the two so inextricably linked for me?

  “So you know that love is worth fighting for,” her thoughts answered as she stood.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I watched Skylar fight, trying to focus on her actions rather than the suppleness of her thighs as she kicked or the slim strength of her shoulders as she struck out. Her hair, tied into a plait at the nape of her neck, bounced as she moved.

  Our warzone was a firm, grassy patch surrounded by Greek firs and pines. A gap beyond the trees revealed the Eyries, pointing toward the full moon. Moonlight turned the woods around us to quicksilver, shone on the faces of night-blooms, and made the long shadows of Skylar’s body flit gracefully over the ground.

  “The snow lilies are out.” She pointed to the blooms and inhaled. “They smell of Cascadia. Soon I will teach you the names of all of the flora; some are useful for healing wounds.”

  She wore short trousers of leather, a shift of white linen, and no shoes. I had been instructed to remove all but the linen trunks she had given me.

  She flexed the muscles in her arms and raised her eyebrows. “After this, you may have many.”

  I laughed at the joke. “Many flowers?” I retorted.

  “No.” She smiled and winked at me. “Many wounds.”

  “I thought you were teaching me how to fight, not how to lose.”

  “I shall teach you both.” She bent to pick a snow lily and tossed it at me.

  I picked another bloom, a sprawling, soft-scented flower the moon had silvered, and threw it to her.

  “Elfskiss,” she identified. “Good for the heart. And t
his...” She found another, a tubular, delicate flower with the fragrance of coconut mixed with honey. “Angel’s trumpet.”

  “For the digestive system.”

  “No,” she scoffed. “That is roseapple. Angel’s trumpet is an aphrodisiac.”

  “You learn this from childhood?”

  “Not about Angel’s trumpet.” She winked and returned to her routine.

  I marveled at the precision of her movements. She had already shown me several times, but each time it looked more graceful, more difficult.

  Skylar pulled me up from my position on the grass. “Enough watching. It is time to learn. How have you fought them all these centuries without knowing Itsomai?”

  “It is called Itsomai?”

  “Yes. It is an art form, more dance than fight.” She set her feet and moved only her arms. Lifting one leg, she struck upwards so swiftly and spun, her wings corkscrewing her up, and I jerked my head back in surprise. It was graceful, mesmerizing, and deadly—like Skylar herself. Despite its elegance, I knew its application. I had seen how quickly she could kill.

  “The mortals practice something similar in the East, I am told. Here.” She put a hand on my stomach, and I tensed my abdominal muscles reflexively.

  One of her eyebrows quirked up. She smoothed her hands over the muscles with the palm of her hand. “Not like that. Not tense, not tight. Relaxed. At ease. You must move freely to fight quickly.”

  At her touch, my muscles felt even more knotted.

  “Breathe.” She slid her hands down, over my abdomen. “Breathe deeply into here, and then hold it. Let the breath travel around your body like a blood-beat. Feel the energy feed your veins and muscles.”

  I closed my eyes, listening to my own ragged inhalation of breath.

  “When you breathe out, strike out. Feel the power like a release. Let it fill the air around you. ”

  I tried to keep the smile from my lips. It seemed so foolish, but I did as she asked.