Her features were so fine, small. He put his finger up beside the line of her nose, just to judge, and it seemed the tip of his finger would almost cap it. Her lips were a tiny bow, and despite himself, he imagined what it would be like to stretch them . . .
While he knew human mythology suggested angels were above such things, that myth was not based on the warrior class of seraphim. The nourishing energy they required made carnality a vital part of their strength, one of the easiest and fastest ways to replenish their powers. Many of the humanoid races freely offered themselves, and he was all too aware that many felt they had no right to refuse an angel. While he tried not to take advantage of that, fortunately, not many had the desire to resist.
But as the years had passed, there was a lack of intimacy to such couplings that bothered him in a way he didn't care to examine too closely. He'd begun to prefer recharging by going into seclusion, drawing from the elements, a slower, meditative process, but one that met his needs on several different levels.
A twinge interrupted his musings, reminding him that he needed to be focusing on the problem with his wing. While it had reattached to his body with the magic, something was wrong. The fuse was not as strong as it should have been after such a powerful energy raising. His body possessed nowhere near the strength it needed to bear him aloft and back to the clouds, though his strength still far exceeded that of a humanoid male. And most definitely that of one little mermaid.
She had trusted him far more than he deserved. As Jonah gazed down into her face, all that waited for him outside of this cave dimmed. While he knew he was somewhat consciously choosing to push it all away, he had no problem getting lost in the contemplation of her body and ignoring whatever it was that had gone wrong with the healing.
He'd fought the Dark Ones for well over a thousand years, and they'd be around for another hundred millennia. He could take a day. Maybe two.
He wanted to savor her again, beast that he was. Joined with her, he'd felt something he hadn't felt in so long, so long he couldn't even remember what it was called. At the moment of pinnacle, he'd almost felt purified, the fires of passion burning past the crust of blood and loss on his soul to find there was still something worth saving beneath. Something worth the trust she displayed now, curled up against him.
As she started to stir, he gathered her to him and turned, putting her beneath him. Her lashes rose, reflecting a moment of sleepy confusion, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders, as light as her fins when she had a tail. He remembered their brush against his legs when she'd carried him through the water endlessly, even as her strength flagged. One of her fins had been split. Things had been hazy then, but he remembered more now. How much she had risked as the Dark Ones closed in. If they'd taken her, they would have tormented her, twisted her soul and drained it. Then they would have torn her apart. His fingers tightened on her delicate flesh.
A wistful smile coursed across her face. "You weren't a dream," she whispered.
Just like that, the softness of her breath touching his mouth, and Jonah knew he had to be inside of her again. If he didn't know her kind well, he'd think her an incubus. Except she'd helped heal him, with an amazing reservoir of power she likely didn't realize was exceptional. Or did she? He had much to learn of this one.
His hardened organ was nudging at her channel, the broad head between the tender lips of her nether mouth. A sweet, warm cunt, so wet and pleasing to him. Her eyes became wider, her lips parting to moisten, making his cock flex against her.
"Would you take me again, little one?" He'd meant it to sound courtly, gentle, but it came out as a hoarse demand. He needed her, needed to be in her with an urgency that seemed as violent as the world in which he normally existed. He was approaching this almost the way he did a battle--conquer, overwhelm, immerse himself, until the only thing he was conscious of was the goal. The blood, the slashing . . . bodies shoved out of the way to get to the next one . . . While he pushed the disturbing images away, he couldn't prevent the tremor that went through his muscles.
Her fingers touched the ends of his hair, moved down over the skin stretched taut over his shoulders. That touch soothed, even as it aroused. Steadying him, while the urgency to be inside her rose even higher. When the tremor grew, like an electric current humming between them, her brow creased, her soft eyes growing softer.
"My lord does not need to ask. He may simply command."
She was teasing him, a cautious smile in her voice, a sparkle in those violet irises.
"I . . ." He fought past the base desire to do exactly that. "I will not take that choice from you."
"But you said I belong to you. And if that is true"--that tempting voice again, and by the Resurrection Trumpet, he was drowning in her eyes, in the light moisture of her lips, the hint of her tongue as she spoke--"then you can command me. I submit my will to your care, and trust you fully with it." Her eyes were serious now, her young face wholly intent. "It is my wish for it to be so."
Holy Mother, where had such a creature come from? Without need of magic at the moment, he was Joining with her for pleasure only. His sense of honor whispered that he needed to make that clearer, give her the chance to demur at least. But at her tremulous smile, he let his honor be damned and the gentle light of her eyes be his consent.
"Then lift your legs, little one, and lock them around my body. Grip me hard, for I wish to plunge deeply. Are you sure?" At her shift of gaze, he put a hand to her face, made her look at him. "If I am your master, then you will not lie to me or hide your pain."
"I am somewhat sore, my lord."
"Then my plunge will be gentle." Still holding her face so he could keep her clear gaze upon him, watch every shift of her expression, he started to ease in. Finding her tissues moistened, he was reassured at the proof their words had aroused her the way his hands and mouth could and would do again.
Deeper. Deeper. Like the Abyss, only this was an oblivion he would welcome. He knew his size and knew he'd gone far enough when she tensed, but then she startled him by tightening her legs, lifting and trying to impale herself to the hilt, her hands digging into his shoulders, her features taking the pain, her eyes closing as she held on to him. Increasing the grip of her arms around his shoulders, she buried her face into his neck, her lips against his skin. He felt the feathers of her eyelashes, like tiny wisps of down.
"Sshh . . ." His lust was nearly unbearable, but her desperation was greater. Easing her back, he settled his hand on her throat to hold her there, stroking her, making her chin lift. "It's not a race, little one. Not a challenge." Turning his hand, he ran his knuckles over her breast, watched the nipple tighten, watched her bite her lip. She contracted on him, and he groaned.
When she reached up to him again, he couldn't bear it. He had to pin her wrists above her head. Still she arched, pressing her open mouth to his chest, taking bites and licks, and her wetness increased. Gliding deeper, he slid home, and there was no stiffening this time as her body took him with a croon of pleasure from her lips.
Her tissues rippled around him, the more frenetic and unfocused press of her mouth against his chest warning him.
"That's it, little one . . . Let me hear you . . ."
Gasps became soft noises that built in volume until she was crying out, her head back and mouth open, eyes glazed in a way that pushed him toward release quickly. She was not climaxing . . . She was far too sore for that. But it was as if the pleasure of feeling his every stroke was giving her tiny spasms she responded to with her voice, the writhing of her hips, and in turn shoved him harder and faster toward climax. As his thrusts pushed her along the flat rock that was their bed, he knew it couldn't be comfortable, but he was driven by the thought that if he plowed deeply enough, he could find the center of himself. As if somehow she held it deep in her womb . . .
In the end, he made sure she did climax, holding himself back until her release, reaching between them to find that tiny but powerful clitoral flesh, stroking and t
easing until she was writhing, her eyes wide and wondering, mouth opening with satisfying gasps. The searing liquid heat of it arched her up further, produced a scream he swallowed in his mouth, letting it reverberate in his throat, the tightness in his chest. He sucked her voice into him like breath.
When they came down, he had her face framed in his hands and her tears were on his thumbs, tiny jewels. Pressing his lips against each one, he breathed hard on her flushed skin, trying not to crush her, but needing to feel the full length of her beneath him, every ripple and shift.
"You're all right?"
"Yes," she whispered. "I'm just happy."
For once.
The young woman didn't say the words, but Jonah read them in the quivering of her body. Again he felt a sense of shame for taking advantage of her innocence. Her tears humbled him to the point that he couldn't speak.
When she dashed them away self-consciously, he rose off her, taking her hand to draw her up to a sitting position. Easing down beside her, he was careful of the juncture of his wing, which was still tender to movement. Her brow creased in concern at his grimace.
"Are you all right?"
"It's healing."
"But didn't the magic we raised . . ."
"Yes," he assured her. "It just needs more time."
Again, he noted his own curious ambivalence about that. But if he couldn't fly, there was no reason to leave this place.
"Do you . . . eat?" Anna didn't like the sudden bleak distance in his expression, as if he were walking alone in an empty place where no soul should have to walk. So she blurted out the question, bringing him back to her.
At his odd look, she gave an awkward smile. "I wasn't sure if I needed to bring you food. I know little of angels, my lord, except that they rule the sky."
The angel considered her a moment. "The only food we eat is what this world would call manna, but I absorb energy in various ways." A flicker of his gaze over her still-flushed body told her one of the ways, made the flush deepen.
He smiled, reached out and twined a lock of her hair around his fingers, tugging on it. "If you tell me more of what you know of angels, I'll tell you what I know of mermaids. We'll find out if we've both been misinformed."
Anna lifted a shoulder. "I don't want to offend you with my ignorance, my lord." Actually, she just wanted him to keep talking so she could drink her fill of his voice, his expression, the long length of his body lying bare before her. There was an accent in his words, one she'd never heard. The syllables were rolled, but drawn out with a rich slowness that made it a sensual pleasure just to hear him talk. And wouldn't he think her mad if he heard that thought?
"Anna." His dark eyes drew her gaze reluctantly to his face. "I've been inside your body. I've kissed your breasts, felt the wetness of your lovely cunt on my fingertips. Goddess willing, I'll taste it on my lips sometime in the near future. So far, your ignorance has brought me nothing but intense pleasure."
She cleared her throat and tried to look like she'd taken his words in stride. When in fact her skin quivered from the spasm of sensation rocketing through the very area he'd just described putting his mouth on. "All right, then. I've heard angels can seduce any species to do their will."
"That one is false. Angels have no more seductive abilities than the males of any other species." He gave her a lofty look. "So I must be exceptional."
She opened her mouth, shut it. "My lord," she said stiffly.
He lay back on both elbows with a chuckle. His long, muscular body was still gleaming with sweat from their coupling as he rested inside the curve of one wing to favor the other. Despite his arrogance, she couldn't get enough of looking at him. Even as she had an outrageous desire to pinch him.
"You're not used to guarding your tongue, are you, little one?"
"No," she offered that easily enough. "Nep--my great-grandsire says I tend not to think before I speak."
"So what were you going to say, before you had your rare moment of reticence?" When she shifted her gaze to study the cave walls, the lines of the dragon's wings, he drew her attention back to him by reaching out and caressing her thigh, trapping the ends of her hair between his fingers. "Anna, if you don't tell me, I shall proceed to tell you, in great detail, many other reasons why you don't offend me, until you turn the color of a rose."
She narrowed her glance at him. "I was going to say you're exceptional only in your arrogance, my lord."
Oh, Goddess, she should have known better than that. The smile that spread across his features, which took away the shadows in his eyes and some of the pain lines around his mouth, was enough to make her lose the capacity for speech altogether.
"Let us make a pact, you and I. You will speak your mind to me, and I won't be offended. In fact the only way you could offend me was if you submitted to me because you felt overwhelmed, as if you had no choice." His expression sobered then, his mouth setting in the hint of a stern line that perversely ran shivers through her lower belly.
"I did feel overwhelmed, my lord. As if I had no choice. But when you looked at me, even the way you're doing now . . ." I didn't ever want free will again. Only you.
Oh, heavens. She'd said that directly to him, hadn't she?
"Little one." He stroked her skin with his fingertips so she had to look at him, despite her self-consciousness. "You only make me desire you more when you say and think such things. Come, stop worrying so much. It's just us here. We don't have to be who we normally are. Tell me something else you've heard about angels."
For some inexplicable reason that bothered her, as if this was simply an illusion to him, an interlude with no connection to reality. But of course, hadn't she herself thought this could be just a dream? She pushed it away. "There are no baby angels."
"True and false. Reproduction is important, but not the essential purpose of sex. Creation is, whether it's creation of a spiritual connection, dissemination of energy, a healing ritual to remake flesh, or creating new life. Angels often use Joining as a way of grounding ourselves after battle. And that's just a few of its purposes. There are no baby angels, no. But there are necrilim, those born of an angel and another species, usually human. They are rare, but exist."
Carry the child of an angel. An astounding thought. One she didn't even dare entertain.
"It is purposed when it is done," he said, a gentle tone to his voice. "An angel may choose to release his seed or not, when he reaches pinnacle."
"And you . . . ?" She blushed. "Forgive me, my lord."
"It's your body and your right to ask. No, I didn't. It would have been poor gratitude to take advantage of you like that, wouldn't it?"
In fact, it might not be unpleasant at all to have something to call her own, that might love her back and be a permanent memory of this amazing day. A day that would mean nothing at all to him the moment he left this cave. The darkness such a thought brought to her also brought to her the significance of what it would have meant to her if she had found herself with child. The beginning of the end. But the end was coming regardless, wasn't it? Some things were within her control; many things were not. The challenge of her life had always been figuring out which was which.
He studied her. "Little one." When she looked away, he grasped a tendril of her hair, started wrapping it around a knuckle, tugging her body inexorably forward. "Look at me."
Anna couldn't. Wouldn't, but he was going to make it impossible, for he was winding, winding. She was going to have to wrap her hair up when she was around him--she could see that now. She tried bracing her arms, but then he simply reached out and pulled one of her wrists from beneath her, toppling her onto his chest. His hand still tangled in her hair, that arm still around her back, he used the other to cup her face, her chin, lift it.
She noted the cut on his face was gone, as was the mottled bruising on his skin. Only the worst wound, the wing, seemed to be causing any tenderness to him. His healing ability was astounding. When she finally stared into his eyes, they burned, an
d suddenly she knew angels could shatter something mortal. Burn out their eyes, take their tongues. Take their very will to live with just the power of their presence. His gaze was so dark, she felt she could fall into the heart of him; only it wasn't like the fearful cold of the Abyss. This was the darkness of being wrapped in something warm and safe, something one would never want to leave again.
"It was magic, little one. But it was not just magic. You understand?"
"You promise?" It was out before she could call it back, knowing it for what it was. The question of an innocent, a child. But the woman could handle whatever came, if the child got the right answer to that one question.
It seemed to startle him, for something flickered in the depths of his eyes, but then his grip tightened on her face and he leaned in, so close she had to close her eyes, her lips quivering as he brushed them with his own.
"I promise. And an angel does not promise what is not true. Ever."
She nodded, eyes still closed. She could live with that. Over time she'd learned that small things could actually be big things, like a rock randomly coming to rest where it would anchor a much larger boulder. Those two words were what counted. Not what came after or changed later. This moment in time was inviolate, that one small gesture locking its truth in place for all time.
So she made herself smile against his fingers, opened her eyes to look at his mouth, his face. "I knew angels joined with other creatures for energy. I didn't know they did it for pleasure as well."
The amusement that remained in his gaze made him appear mortal. Approachable. "All creatures feel desire, and love. Even arrogant creatures like angels. There are a few . . . They take Full Submission. It means they completely submit to the service of the Lady, and they pledge everything to Her. Their bodies, minds and souls. They don't eat, drink or seek carnal pleasure. She is the sum total of all they want, serving Her."
"Like priests, or monks."
He nodded.
"But I thought all angels serve Her."
"We do. But it is much like . . ." He frowned, thinking a bit, but then Anna got it.
"Like the knights of old, who fought for the Church, versus the priests. They serve in different ways."