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Except for that one picture. The one that said she hoped for something better.
As he came back up her body and sheathed himself again, pushing them both over the edge they needed, he knew he was going to embark on this journey with her. Not because he believed the seawitch, or that the darkness in his heart needed healing, but because suddenly the most important thing was that his little mermaid knew that someone believed in her.
And hellfire, he still couldn't bring himself to go back, reach out to Lucifer or the Lady. Or any of them. What would a week matter? Time was relative, when one was an angel.
SHE woke alone. The thunder was shaking the house, coming close together, flashes of lightning illuminating the cottage so she could see him standing on the deck, the sliding glass door open to the driving rain. His hair was plastered to his head, his face tilted to the sky, the wings a heavy weight on his back.
She didn't dress, but moved down the stairs, stood in the open door, stepped out behind him.
"Is it a battle?"
He shook his head, put his hand back without looking at her. When she took it, he drew her forward, tucking her under his wing so she could stand before him. He spoke in a quiet murmer despite the rain because his jaw was along her temple as they looked up together. "It's just a thunderstorm, little one."
She could feel it from him, a thrumming tension. Anna turned, tilted her face to him instead of to the sky.
Every line of his face was taut, his eyes . . . haunted. Something moved there, something that reminded her of what Mina had said. He leads the angels that fight Dark Ones . . .
"Tell me of the other angels." She sought for something to draw him out, not wanting him to dwell alone in the darkness of his thoughts. "Your friends. Those you command."
A quiver ran through his muscles. "I can't." Bowing his head, he brushed her temple and closed his eyes, even as her arms came up around his neck. "When I think of them, I only hear their screams. See the blood."
It took her a moment to digest the meaning behind his words, and realize where his thoughts were. Not with the living he'd left behind to be here tonight, but with the dead who'd left him.
"Choose one." Guided by intuition, she whispered it, as it might come to him in a dream, where it was safe to remember. "Something simple. Tell me the color of his hair."
He opened his eyes and stared at her, so intently he jumped when the lightning flashed again. His fists clenched, but she put her hands over his arms to remind him she was there when the snarl of the thunder came, as it always did.
"Ronin had bright gold hair," he said in the thunder's aftermath, the rush of the rain closing them into a still space where she was conscious of his breath on her cheek, the mist on his lashes that might not be from the water dripping from his brow. He shook his head, his lids squeezing shut again, then reopening. "He was inordinantly proud of it."
"Gold. Was he handsome?"
"He seemed to think so. When he sought a female to ground himself, he'd boast that she just had to see his hair to fall into his arms." He gave her a light squeeze, seeming to recall himself. "Unlike my darkness, which I have to compensate for with my charm."
"I am glad to tell you your darkness is most handsome, my lord." She threaded her fingers through the wet raven strands. "And it's a good thing, for your charm is rough around the edges."
"You wound me, little one."
She smiled as more of the tension eased from his shoulders. "Are the others all like you? Handsome and intolerably arrogant?"
Something glimmered in those ebony eyes. "No, they are worse. And ugly. You would not like them at all."
His upper body was beaded with the falling rain. Impulsively, she placed her lips on a drop high on his chest, rising to her toes, and she tasted it, his skin with the rainwater. The absence of salt in the water, the taste of salt from the skin. The way the ocean and the earth came together, sharing the salt. The same way the two of them came together, an angel and a mermaid.
His hand came up, cupped the back of her head. He held her like that, the rest of his body so still, restrained power. She didn't even think he was breathing as she let her own hands glide like birds down the slope of his back, that shallow indentation, over convex sets of muscles to the rise of his buttocks. She rested there, feeling the smaller feathers on the undersides of his wings touch her.
"I miss them. So fiercely I want to hurt someone when I think of them." Jonah felt it within him, the violence simmering, and hated that it rose up in him now, when he held a creature in his arms who was the antithesis of it all. He pressed his forehead to hers, wishing he could just absorb her calmness, the tranquility he felt in her young soul.
Earlier, he'd taken her body with passion and strength. She'd bitten him, clawed, responded in kind. But this, this bare brush of contact was somehow even more powerful, standing out here in the rain, just the two of them.
Had the battlefield, painted in blood, become his true home? Had his enemies, as much as those fighting with him, become his family, if only for those moments of utter violence, when there was room for nothing else? The thought was abhorrent, but here, where he finally, after so many years, felt a
quiet connection, it reminded him of how disconnected he'd felt for so long. Purposeless, except when he was killing.
"Goddess, I've told no one I missed them. What magic is in your arms, little one? Your touch? You shouldn't be anywhere near me."
"I can sing you to sleep, my lord." She seemed unconcerned by that warning. Instead, she looked out toward the sea and Jonah knew, whether or not the house was protected by the power of Neptune, she was worried about the Dark Ones finding him as they exposed themselves to the forces of the storm.
"Will I sleep for days?" He could think of nothing else to say when she looked up at him with her large violet eyes.
"No." Her small pink mouth curved. "The destructive power of my ancestor is different in me. But I can weave dreams. As I sing you to sleep, I can bring you whatever you wish, in your dreams. If you tell me of their faces, their voices, I can give them back to you. Ronin, all of them. For a night."
His thumb moved across the full bottom lip, collecting rainwater. "And do you ever sing yourself to sleep, little one? Give yourself someone in your dreams?"
She shook her head. "No, but the Lady had pity on me. She brought me an angel instead."
He stared at her. She'd revealed herself to him earlier. Maybe that was the key that had unlocked his trust, his willingness to give to her parts of himself he'd given to no one else. She was innocent and far removed from what he was supposed to be to others, but she did understand what evil was.
"I'll go with you, Anna. We'll go see the shaman. Perhaps there will be answers on this journey for both of us."
Anna swallowed, disbelieving for a moment that he'd agreed. But when she leaned into him and saw desire rising in his eyes, her pleased surprise was replaced by a different anticipation. She knew he would have her again this night.
"I am glad to hear it, my lord. But at least for this evening, I think all the answers we need are here."
