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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."
