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It seemed out of place to be thinking of such things right now, but the way his eyes moved over her reminded her how recently she'd felt his body take hers. She found she could think of nothing else when he looked at her like this.
"Push your hair back, little one."
Anna glanced toward Mina, who ignored them and continued arranging her rocks. Anna pushed the hair over one shoulder, then the other, feeling heat expand across her skin at his expression as she revealed herself. She wore the scarves at hip and breast again, but the way he studied her, she knew he was imagining in detail what she looked like without them, though in truth it didn't require much imagining. The upper scarf was snug over her breasts, revealing the dark smudges of nipple clearly, particularly with the fabric wet as it was now.
Mermaids were not shy about their bodies, but after what they'd done earlier, she felt self-conscious. And she wasn't going to disrobe in front of Mina. Her gaze strayed to his lips, the line of his jaw . . . those dark, implacable eyes. Okay, maybe she might.
"I want you again, little one."
Goddess help me.
"It's not a bad idea," Mina said efficiently before embarrassment could suffuse Anna. "You should perform Joining Magic daily with her, or whoever's available, to help you raise the energy. It will speed your recovery and reinforce what I'm about to do to drive out the poison. It's going to need reinforcement."
Or whoever's available . . . So matter of fact . . . so medical. To Mina it was apparently that simple. Whereas Anna's reaction to Jonah's gaze and the husky words were anything but. How did he manage to do this, penetrate her mind so her thoughts clenched and shivered with the possibilities, rousing as much as her body did to his attentions?
He seemed to care little about Mina's diagnosis. While his posture was stiff and alert, betraying his distaste of her proximity, he paid no attention beyond that to what she was doing. Picking up a rock, she began a chant. She lifted it over her head, turning in a four-point circle, and then put it down to start the same process with the next stone.
Would he take her with Mina present? Did their coupling mean so little? An impersonal receptacle for his lust, his healing? But he'd said it meant more. He'd promised.
Jonah reached out a hand. "Come sit with me, Anna. As long as it won't disrupt . . . your friend."
He tilted his head slightly in Mina's direction. The seawitch merely lifted another rock. When Jonah glanced back at Anna, Mina slammed it against the back of his head.
Seven
THE green flash of the additional power she'd given the blow exploded in a shower of sparks.
Jonah toppled over, knocked out cold.
"Mina!" Anna shrieked, darting forward. "What are you--"
"Getting the two of you out of here." Kicking the rocks out of her way, Mina pulled a vial from the recesses of her cloak. "He'll stay here and let them kill him. You were right, you and your damn intuition." Mina uncorked the potion. "Hold his head up. I don't want him to choke."
As Anna hesitated, the seawitch's tone sharpened, impatient. "Anna, we don't have much time. I told you the Dark Ones are still looking for him. Well, they are looking for him. Meaning now. If he wasn't so infatuated with you, he probably would have felt them soon after I did, right when we got here."
"Why didn't you say--"
"Because I was evaluating the situation."
Anna locked gazes with the witch. "We didn't lead them back here, did we?"
"You mean, did I lead them here?" That crimson eye glinted. "Well, if he gets caught, you can assume I did. If I help him escape, then you'll have a different answer. But if you drag your anal fins and don't hold his head, you'll never really know, because they'll get us all."
Muttering, Anna bent, sliding her hand beneath Jonah's neck. "He is going to be so angry . . ."
"And alive." Mina poured the substance down his throat, massaged until she got the involuntary swallow. "But you're right. I'm glad I won't be around when he wakes." She ignored Anna's narrow look. "Come on. We've got to get him close enough to the surface that the pressure doesn't kill him when he physically changes to a human."
"What? What are you . . ."
"The potion I just gave him makes him human. Neither his own kind nor the Dark Ones will be able to detect him." Mina grunted, seizing Jonah under the arms, trampling one wing without care, and began to drag him toward the water. Anna was forced to help, despite the questions whirling in her mind.
"And what was that nonsense about performing Joining Magic every day?"
"You're not objecting, surely." Mina gave her an arch look as they heaved together. "It will help. He'll likely have a tantrum about this, so you'll have to convince him. Dance for him, sing for him, touch yourself to draw his desire."
"I'm not . . ." Anna had never blushed this much front of Mina before, and it just added to her irritation. "I don't know how to act that way."
"For him, you do. It's in your eyes. Each time you Join with him, the magic will rise and you can channel it. You know enough to do it even if he won't. While it would be better if he'd participate, I wouldn't rely on his cooperation or participation. If you value him, you'll have to seduce or trick him into it."
They'd reached the water's edge. "You're right," Mina gasped. "He's a bloody ton of muscle. Mind me, now. Dawn to dusk, he'll be human. Dusk to dawn, an angel again. The potion will last about a week, enough to get him inland."
Dropping Jonah unceremoniously, the witch grasped Anna's arm to clap a hand over her forehead. Mina never touched her, so Anna was too startled to immediately react. Heat flashed across Mina's palm, and suddenly Anna was jumbling a set of images that rolled into the front of her mind like a bag of marbles scattered pell-mell there. "Mina--"
"It will settle in a moment. That's a mindmap. He needs to go to Desert Crossroads in Nevada. It's a place, not a town, and it's not on any human map. There's a man there, living on a magical fault line called Red Rock Schism. He can help heal your angel's deeper hurt, if your angel doesn't do it for himself."
"Mina." Anna planted herself, gripped Jonah when Mina started to roll him in. "Stop. Look at me."
The witch scowled. "We don't have time--"
"Tell me what in the name of Neptune is going on, damn it all." Anna managed, barely, not to shout. "Or . . . I'll hug you."
Mina drew back, horror flashing through her eyes. At another time, it would have made Anna laugh, but not now. She meant it, with all the grimness of a death threat.
"Fine. Just remember when the Dark Ones catch us, it's because you wanted to waste time chatting. When the Dark Ones first invaded the waters, I consulted my scrying mirror to find out what was happening. Your angel was isolated during a battle, and his wing was severed on purpose. Not just because he's any angel. Because he's Jonah."
"I know that. He told me his name."
Mina rolled her eyes. "Be quiet and listen. Jonah is what's called the Prime Legion Commander. He leads the angels that fight Dark Ones. The only angels more important than him are Full Submission angels, and I don't have time to explain what those are."
"He told me--"
"Shut up, for Neptune's sake. Do you know this place, this Nevada?"
"It's a state. Inland." As far as Anna knew, Mina had never left the sea, despite her own shapeshifting abilities. One of the many things the witch had never explained to her.
"This man . . . he's something like me," Mina continued. "Something called a shaman. Like a wizard. If the angel can't find a way back to himself, it appears he can help."
At Anna's look, Mina shrugged. "I know. It makes no sense to me, either, why a landlocked human wizard instead of the angel's own kind can help. But as I said, maybe what he needs can't be found among the angels. Now, let's go."
"I know there's more you're not telling me. I'm not--"
"That's enough for now. I mean it, Anna. We're out of time." Leaning over Jonah's body, Mina seized Anna's arm, shocking her with the grip of her hand, the bite of
nails like claws in their sharpness. "This angel probably has the power to incinerate the world with barely a thought. Remember what I said. If the Dark Ones catch him alive, take his heart, they can enslave him. Do you want that?"
"No. But you don't care about that. You've never cared about what happens to anyone."
