AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The dark gaze hardened and Anna took a step back, swallowing. "However, the unfortunate thing is we need Jonah now. If he isn't with us, preparations to do without him must take precedence over his state of mind. For good or ill, you seem to be the only one able to reach him at the moment. You should be terrified by that, Anna. It does not bode well for any of us, and we could sorely use him. I wish you the blessings of the Lady and as much luck as She can spare you."
Then in a blink, he was aloft, leaving them with a last look of frustration and disgust. He went into the sky so far and fast, the backwash from his launch blasted the leaves up into a brief, spiraling whirlwind around them and ruffled David's feathers.
Anna let out a breath. Okay, so she really hadn't lost her fear and awe of angels. Lucifer was terrifying. Magnificent, yes, but he seemed even more formidable and frightening in his quiet reserve than Jonah in a temper, such that she was glad they had not come to blows.
"They're a lot alike, the two of them. Things never go well when they disagree," David remarked, as if reading her mind.
"Is that why we have tsunamis and hurricanes?" she asked.
David almost smiled. "No, but they certainly could whip those up, if they didn't have the control they have. They can push Earth off her axis, completely alter the tides and destroy life as we know it. They just can't seem to figure out how to agree on certain points. They have some of your witch's stubborness, come to think of it."
"You didn't hurt Mina, did you?" Her question took him off guard. Something flashed across his face. Apprehension and anger flared in her. "My lord, you didn't--"
"She is well, as I have said," he said firmly. "I thought she was an enemy. Now I know better." There was an inflection to his voice that caused Anna some curiosity, but he continued. "Anna, do you think taking him to the healer will help him?"
Anna found herself a bit flustered to be asked her opinion. "I hope so. He's not allowing me to help him heal in other ways. At least not as much as I'd like." Mortified at his shrewd glance, she blushed.
David chuckled, a pleasant male sound despite the dark worry in his eyes. "Then he is insane." He gave her an appreciative but inoffensive look before he sobered. "The lives of angels are determined by Fate and the Lady's will. We accept this. It's part of who we are, as much as breathing. I know that acceptance is still inside him, no matter what he says. Would you agree?"
She nodded. "At the core of him, he still serves the Goddess. He just seems . . . angry at Her?" Biting her lip, she added, "No offense to Her intended."
While a disturbed look flashed across his face, David nodded. "I suspected as much, but it's a hard thing for angels to discuss, let alone contemplate. So while it hurts me to leave him like this, it's obvious our presence will not help. Luc is right. We must go prepare for both the best and the worst that may happen."
The things that crossed his gaze made Anna uneasy, confirming that Jonah's defection was having more far-reaching implications than she could know in the limited scope of her world. "Can you tell me--"
"I need to go," he said, albeit gently. "Mina knows how to find me if he has immediate need of us. Remember that. Don't hesitate to use your link with her. Focus on him, Anna, and let us worry about the rest. He's very important to us. To all of us."
"I'll remember." She hadn't even known she had a link to Mina, one of many things she didn't know, but she didn't feel it necessary to share her ignorance of that with the worried-looking lieutenant. "He'll be okay. He just needs time."
She wanted to believe that, so she did.
"Let's hope Fate will provide it," David responded. "Good-bye, Anna."
Fifteen
THE darkness is growing in you, Jonah. Lucifer's words, her dream, David's worried look . . . She couldn't stop the shiver from running over her skin as she looked at her now human angel, squatting naked by the creek, tossing in pebbles, the line of his muscled back taut with the things fighting within him.
Though she'd shrugged off Mina's concern at the time, she had wondered why he hadn't contacted other angels to come to his aid. It had also surprised her, as it had Mina, that the vision pointed them to a human shaman, rather than back toward the heavens. Now two angels had come to their immediate physical aid, but both believed whatever ailed Jonah was not within their power to fix.
Of a sudden, she felt very alone. She'd been going forward only on feelings . . . Goddess help her, nothing but optimism. It had never occurred to her what larger things might be at stake.
The unfortunate thing is we need Jonah now . . .
He just needs time . . . Let's hope Fate will provide it.
Lucifer and David's warnings made it clear that an angel of Jonah's power wasn't supposed to be traipsing the countryside aimlessly. Lucifer had called Jonah a petulant child.
But Anna wasn't in the habit of letting others do her thinking, even if it was a creature as old and terrifying as the Lord of the Underworld. She studied the man crouched by the stream. His face was tilted up toward the touch of the wind; his eyes were closed. With features as perfectly sculpted as the Lady could make them, it was no wonder the wind kissed his face, caressed him. But there was no easing to his brow, no sense it brought him any comfort.
She had the sudden and disturbing realization that he had looked more at peace fighting a losing battle against the Dark Ones amid the forest of tree limbs.
He bowed his head now, an arm bending along the side of his skull, one fist clenched on the back of his neck.
When she stepped forward, he made a noise of warning.
"I'm a stranger to myself, Anna. Lost. Don't come near me."
The sound of his voice, so determined and yet so broken at once, wrenched her heart. What could she possibly know that could ease the heart of an angel like Jonah? Nothing. But then, neither Lucifer nor David knew the answer any more than she did.
She bent, started picking flowers. There was a variety of small white ones all through their little glade. Taking her time, thanking the plants for their sacrifice, she collected the petals, working her way closer. She could sense his attention drifting over her, while the rest of his thoughts dwelled in much darker realms.
When she was next to him, she hesitated, then opened her hand over the crown of his head. The petals floated down, landing on his clenched fist, in his hair, tumbling down his shoulders and back. Despite his warning, she followed their descent with her own fingers, stroking his blood-stiffened hair. There were crimson and brown streaks down his back, oblong patches of clean skin where his wings had been. She bent, placed her lips against his body there.
She'd always simply
been who she was, a shapeshifter with no real place, no requirement to be anything except what she herself demanded. She'd not had anything to define her but herself. She could even reinvent herself if she wished. In contrast, she sensed Jonah struggling with the very core of who he was, and that battle was happening in such markedly fetid waters she wondered how he could see his sure path anymore. How anyone could.
She knelt, stroking his hair, still following the curve of his ear. "My lord?"
It was little more than a whisper, but his head snapped up as if she'd shouted. His eyes were unfocused, wild. The blood on his face made him look like a primitive savage. "What can I do to help you?" she asked.
Jonah stared at her. He could make no sense of his thoughts, but there was a part of him that knew she shouldn't be this close to him. His blood was charged from the battle, his body pulsing with the latent rage from it. He was angry at Luc for disrupting the numb mind-set he'd been in before it all happened. And David . . .
Ah, Goddess. He wanted to split out of his skin, leave everything he was behind, and knew he couldn't do it. The memories would follow him, haunt him still.
To escape those ghosts, he reached out and curled a hand in Anna's hair, winding it over his knuckles, watching the overlap of the thick, lustrous curls. The Goddess could create such a marvelous thing. Anna's shining mane of hair, her fragile face, those violet eyes and soft breasts . . . So perfect, it fueled the fire within him, the unreasoning anger.
He was filthy. He stank of Dark One, and he knew he had no business touching her, but her arms were winding around his neck . . .
"Goddess help you," he said.
He took her flat onto the ground, his hand on her throat, holding her still, staring down at her. You could snap it with barely a thought.
But she had no fear, not of him. She was quivering, yes, but she lay docile under his hold, trusting he would not harm her.
Will she be your concern, when she's dead?
With a near sob of despair for the conflict of his thoughts, he yanked the skirt of the dress out of his way and shoved into her with the precision and violence with which he'd skewered a Dark One.
