When the wing brushed the center of her back, at first she paid it no mind, but then she realized it wasn't the creature's wing. It was the angel's hand, his arm coming inside the circle of the wing to take a sure clasp around her, bringing her close against a body that was firm, warm. Alive.
It's all right. Be still and let me think, little one.
The relief she felt, not to be alone in this empty pit, almost made her sag against him before she remembered she was holding him up. Even though the voice was wholly inside her head, it reassured, not only because of the pitched velvet of it, but because of the command. It was a thought with no fear in it. No uncertainty. And an additional quality that unexpectedly distracted her from their immediate problem.
His hand moved along her back, then down to the curve of her hip, which was layered in tight scales that felt every movement of his touch. Her sensitive side fins feathered against his fingers.
A mermaid. A young mermaid, come to my aid. His hand went up, tangled in her loose hair. A maid in truth.
So he knew her kind, enough to know that the unmated girls wore their hair down. Then he found his way around to her mouth, and that thought skittered off somewhere, forgotten.
Despite the cold and fear, nerve endings activated like the sea fans agitated by the stimulation of an irresistible current. She eagerly embraced it, because it made the terror retreat enough so she could think again.
"They're close," she managed. "If they see your light . . ." She spoke in the way of mermaids, a combination of sounds that vibrated through the water, because she wasn't sure if he could hear her thoughts. She also didn't know if he knew her language, but she needn't have worried. He didn't seem to have any problem understanding her.
She was able to feel his head nod, once. Sensed him probing their surroundings in some way. Despite that and the firm command in his mind-voice, she wondered if he would remain cognizant. While she didn't want to hear it, pain and effort were there, in a strained note underneath his thoughts. His next words confirmed it, bringing back her fear.
Another mile down, there will be an outcropping, shaped like a dragon's head. Do you know what a dragon is?
She nodded.
Good. Use it as your marker. Its mouth leads to a series of caverns. There should be light there. And warmth. But it is a long way. Far, far down into its belly. Too far.
She felt his attention on her, though she couldn't see the features of his face.
You know . . . there are no female angels.
She wasn't sure what he meant by that. "Save your strength, my lord. We will get you to safety."
You are beautiful and kind, little one. But it is best to leave me. Let me die and save yourself. There are many angels, and only one of you.
He couldn't know how true those last words were. Could he?
When she turned her head, her temple brushed his face, his jaw. At that moment, his other hand raised, and a soft blue light emitted from his palm, giving her a brief flash of dim light that almost made her sob in relief. His eyes had opened, the remarkable sweep of thick lashes now revealing his dark eyes. All dark. He had no whites, so the way he gazed at her was peculiar, animallike. She couldn't tell his thoughts from them, or if he was having any thoughts at all.
She wanted to push away the thought that she would be descending even farther into the darkness and freezing cold, and that he might be delirious. She sensed no fear in him, though he must know better than she what followed them.
I am quite conscious and rational . . . but I see you need proof.
His head descended and his lips, his mouth, were on hers. A turn of events that completely immobilized her. It wasn't kissing, not exactly. It was as if he was tasting her, for his tongue traced hers, his lips coaxing hers apart as she'd first imagined.
Had she been cold? It seemed fire now swept her. She'd been holding him in the role of protector, but now she was pressed against him, one of his arms tightly around her body, making it clear who was the far stronger of the two of them. The one most capable of taking charge, keeping fears at bay.
She soared through those clouds of distracting thoughts and into a blue sky of something else. This was wanting and feeling and needing . . . ecstasy and sorrow together in that odd way, balancing release with never-ending yearning, leaving one in a strange confusion of joy. Her fingers crept up, wondrously touching the place where their lips met. His curved, and then his teeth nipped at her, making her start. Astonishingly, she almost laughed.
A convulsion went through him, disrupting the moment, making her heart leap into her throat. "My lord--"
Consciousness deserted him once more, his lips drifting along her jaw. Anna had never felt so awake in her life.
Three
EVEN as she wondered if there'd been a deliberate magic in that kiss, given to bolster her courage, she chose to believe his words, because to do otherwise was to lose her mind. Still, she felt a wave of relief when she found by touch the outcropping he'd described, though she ripped her palm open again on the sharp rock edges of the "dragon's" fangs. She entered its mouth into a blind nothingness. Keeping her arms around her angel's body as if she were moving a broad barrel, she swam onward anyway, glad the broken wing had curved around her shoulders and hip so she didn't have to worry about holding on to it. It was still emitting a separate warmth and reassurance, but as the fissure narrowed until she could put an arm out and feel the rock on either side, things became somewhat cumbersome, negotiating the direction with one severed wing and one attached one, the large male unable to aid her as she tried to keep him from getting knocked against the walls.
She almost screamed her frustration when the tunnel turned downward again. At first it was a gradual slope, but then it became harrowingly steep, until they were descending as if down a hollow tube going to the center of the earth. The water got cold again. Colder. At one point, she was barely moving, her limbs so weighed down with him and the freezing temperature. Her fingers and tail scrabbled against the sides, helping to push him downward. Did he realize that if it got too cold, she could die? They would remain here, a wall of bone and decaying flesh warning anyone else foolish enough to do something like this. Goddess, what a horrid thought.
He was wounded, gravely so. How could she be sure of him?
I am quite conscious and rational . . . but I see you need proof.
The fiery warmth in her belly, kindled by that kiss, reignited just in memory, spurring her onward.
The Abyss was mysterious, uncharted. So were angels. Certainly they'd used the honeycomb of caverns, right? After all, while it was filled with unknown dangers to the rest of them, what in the sea could hurt an angel?
Of course, the truth of that had nearly caught them. She prayed they'd successfully thrown his enemies off their trail, for contemplating a confrontation with them down here was just more than she could handle right now. When his body tried to slide out of her arms once again, she braced herself against the wall, holding him. She was sure her blood was staining his perfect wings. When tears pricked her eyes, Anna closed them, trying to focus.
Far, far down into its belly. Too far.
Whenever she'd had to face the unthinkable, she'd told herself if there was no way to retreat, then she had to make the unthinkable possible. This was one of those times. She couldn't go back. She could do this. She would do this. There was no going back.
He would die without her. Let me die . . .
No, by Neptune's Trident. She would not. And she wasn't dying here, either. This wasn't how she was going to go, damn it.
When her tail encountered a flat surface, and moving water pushed against her face, telling her the tunnel had become horizontal again and was widening, she sobbed in relief. She was able to switch arms and swim forward, using the additional propulsion offered by a wider sweep of her tail. And then, the darkness began to have shapes. Rock formations in the walls, the curve of the tunnel on all sides. Light. There was light coming from somewhere. Sea
fans with waving tendrils and myriad corals began to blanket the walls again, scraping at her knuckles. Bless the Lady, the water was getting warmer. Much warmer. As the tunnel directed her up, she pushed against the wall with her free arm as well as pumped with her tail, suddenly desperate to know that what she was seeing, sensing, was true and not some odd type of mirage in this watery desert devoid of any familiar navigation marks.
As her head broke the surface of the water, she drew a deep, shuddering breath in the airbell, using her lungs instead of her gills. It was an open cavern. The closer walls were lined with rivulets of orange, silver and blue, like the inside of a creature's body--the mysterious multicolored strata of the earth. Imprints of small fossils of fish thousands of years gone were embedded in the rock. There were flat ledges above the waterline here, places to get dry.
But it was the far wall that made her draw in her breath and hold it. On one wall, stretching as far as the wall reached, was a dragon. She stared at the skeletal remains preserved perfectly in the rock. His head was thrown back as if in a defiant roar; the forest of widespread wings forever pressed into the strata. While she knew the position had to be how the animal had lain when he died, the impression of him frozen in a moment of terrible beauty and power could not be discarded.
Managing to get the angel to a sloped ledge, she hooked her elbow on it, shuddering as she tried to get her breath back. She didn't dare take too long, however. The temptation was too great to simply hold on to the ledge and lay her head down, give in to her fatigue. The wounded wing still curved around her shoulders, so that her hand could rest on the slope of his back. Great Lady, but he was just so many beautiful lines of muscle. It made her fingers itch, the desire to stroke him.
Anyone she knew would have gasped at her thought. But they hadn't been on the other side of that kiss, which had created a wealth of very irreverent thoughts. He could only blame himself for tempting her to sacrilege.
Now that they were partially above water, his wing seemed to be trying to reconnect to that wounded area again. A shudder ran through his unconscious body, a sign of pain.
"Sshh . . ." She stroked the line of his shoulder blade next to the wound, though she wondered if she was talking to him or the wing. "Wait until we can figure out what to do about that. Just wait. You're hurting him."
While he'd shown no discomfort with his environment, he was wounded, and she couldn't imagine a creature of the skies would prefer to stay immersed in water indefinitely. He needed to be out of the wet.
Getting him up on the ledge proved to be enormously difficult, however. In the water, he'd been unwieldy but buoyant. Rolling him out onto the ledge required bringing him out of the water, and that transformed his body into more than two hundred pounds of heavy muscle and limp weight. Did she just a moment ago admire that smooth muscle? Now she cursed the pounds it added. And then there were those wings. One attached, one not, though the latter was clinging fast to both him and her, impeding progress so she almost also cursed the very thing that had helped her so much until now.
At last she got him onto the rock by awkwardly shapeshifting into her human form. Holding on to him precariously, she scrambled onto the rocks, scooted backward on her bottom and heaved him up with unfeminine grunts and swear words. But when it was done, he lay on the flat shelf, only his feet and calves still dipped in the water.
Since he was turned halfway on his side, that awful wound was now fully visible, making her heart thud faster. It was a jagged tear from his shoulder blade down to the base of his rib cage, revealing the gleam of bone. He needed healing. No wonder he'd been unable to maintain consciousness long.
But in the attempt to escape his pursuers, she'd taken him far beyond where healing help might be found. That realization swept her exhausted mind with renewed desolation.
She would have to catch her breath and figure that out. For now, she dragged herself closer and tried to study him without getting distracted by his great beauty or unnerved by his wounds. Or the enormity of what he was, what she'd done.
Hesitantly, she reached out and arranged his severed wing next to him. It seemed to be having more difficulty moving when fully out of the water. The feathers were at least waterlogged. The wing still attached seemed to have some shedding ability that was allowing it to dry quickly, perhaps some type of internal warming mechanism of his body the other one could not utilize. Not sure what she was doing, but wanting to do something, Anna used her fingers to stroke the wet from each feather of the detached wing. Since one feather was layered over the next, it became a slow, methodical exercise, almost meditative. She let it guide her, help her steady herself so she could figure out what to do next.
Each feather gleamed after her passage, the water beading on her fingers. She kept trying to straighten the whole wing, but the more she stroked, the more it curled toward her, until she was coiled in the thing again, wrestling with it. Absurdly, she found herself almost laughing despite the seriousness of the moment. It was like it was trying to make her not worry, wrapping her up, teasing and tickling her with the feathers.
"Enough," she admonished at last, shrugging free. She turned her attention to the angel himself. Tentatively, she reached out and stroked the wet hair out of his face. Anna noted again how strong a face it was, a countenance that showed, even in unconsciousness, that the scope of his world and responsibilities was far, far beyond hers.
A firm, square jaw, held resolute even against oblivion. His lashes fanned his cheeks, drops clinging to them, so she brushed those with her fingertips, too. Most mermen didn't have beards, and apparently neither did this angel. There were fine dark threads of hair on his chest that formed a gleaming arrow down his belly to where the waist strap of the half tunic held the brief garment belted on him. Now out of the water, the red silken fabric clung to his upper thighs and groin area, nearly transparent. Angels had . . . well, they apparently had sex organs, just as most males. She didn't know why that should surprise her, after that kiss and the spiral of feelings it had detonated. A man didn't kiss like that if he didn't have a reason to want to kiss like that.
At the silliness of the thought, she had to suppress a hysterical giggle. She snatched her hand back when he shifted. What was she doing? This was an angel. A terrible warrior of the sky, one to whom they all owed absolute obedience and allegiance, awe and respect. Servants of the Light, whose will was not to be refused. She was touching his hair like some lovesick girl, feathering through it with her fingers, letting her thumb graze his temple, the prominent slope of his cheekbone. She'd just had her hand on his chest, fingering the dark, fine covering of hair, wondering what it would be like to let her fingertip follow that silken line, trace the diagonal ropes of muscles angling in the same direction at his waist.
She couldn't help but wonder, though. Did anyone touch him this way? He'd said there were no female angels. Surely someone loved him. Or did angels share love with another? Perhaps all their love was for the Creator, but there was something so virile about him, so . . . Her cheeks tinged as her thoughts strayed into earthy areas. He seemed made for such things. Did he mate in the skies? Was that what rainbows were, the consummations of angels? Or perhaps it was the flashes of heat lightning, the cleansing touch of fresh rain in the spring. Who knew how the love of angels would manifest itself? She was dazzled by the possibilities.
Except for the wings, anatomically her charge was a large, muscular, very impressive humanoid male form, most of it revealed by the half tunic skirt despite an overlay of hardened straps like leather lying over the fabric, which made her think of it as a uniform of sorts, a battle skirt.
Daring again, she touched his mouth. She was aware of the curve of his wing around her, the feathers touching her calf, that warm, sensuous feeling.
"Mine." She said the word softly, wondering what it would be like if it were true. Perhaps, for just this little span of time, while she could claim the excuse of needing to build her strength again, she could pretend he was. The
re was no one around to be offended or laugh at her astounding presumption, the ridiculous nature of even entertaining such a thought. Mine forever.
She well knew she would never have anyone to call hers, let alone something like an angel. Aunt Jude had said angel lore claimed everyone had a guardian angel. As she'd said it, she'd stroked Anna's hair, smiled and said, "I think yours must be very busy."
Perhaps this unexpected attraction and devotion on her part was the involuntary effect the proximity of angels created in living creatures. Maybe that was the reason for all the forbidding stories. They had to keep mere mortal creatures at a safe distance. Otherwise, angels would be mobbed by all manner of amorous creatures, like human rock stars. Anna muffled a snort.
All right. Enough was enough. The humor died out of her, an effort at bravado, she knew, because there was only one she knew who had the healing skills to help an angel. Once she'd taken a brief rest, she would have to face the harrowing fact that she must brave the Abyss again, alone, try to retrace her steps and retrieve the seawitch.
Mina alone could help him.
Four
WHEN had he stopped feeling? How many had died? Diego, Alexander . . . Ronin. Valiant, foolish Ronin. When had he started wondering if the cause, not the symptom, should be their focus? The Lady's focus. When had he started nursing the poison of betrayal in his breast, locked himself behind a mask of loyalty that no longer fit well, and so had brought upon himself the curse of utter loneliness?
My Lady, why have You forsaken my heart? Or have I forsaken Yours? Have I bathed in the blood of evil so long I understand nothing? Am I becoming as lost and unclean as what I fight?
In his dreams as well as his reality, he was buried in their filth. Flashing, brown saliva-stained fangs, empty red sockets for eyes. The stench of death and despair emanating from them, for their flesh was always rotting, hanging on the protrusions of jagged bones. Like scarecrows made out of the cadavers of angels. It was an image he couldn't shake, particularly after it had become one of his nightmares. The men he'd lost over the centuries, rising and becoming that which he fought, over and over again.