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He would die without her. Let me die . . .
No, by Neptune's Trident. She would not. And she wasn't dying here, either. This wasn't how she was going to go, damn it.
When her tail encountered a flat surface, and moving water pushed against her face, telling her the tunnel had become horizontal again and was widening, she sobbed in relief. She was able to switch arms and swim forward, using the additional propulsion offered by a wider sweep of her tail. And then, the darkness began to have shapes. Rock formations in the walls, the curve of the tunnel on all sides. Light. There was light coming from somewhere. Sea
fans with waving tendrils and myriad corals began to blanket the walls again, scraping at her knuckles. Bless the Lady, the water was getting warmer. Much warmer. As the tunnel directed her up, she pushed against the wall with her free arm as well as pumped with her tail, suddenly desperate to know that what she was seeing, sensing, was true and not some odd type of mirage in this watery desert devoid of any familiar navigation marks.
As her head broke the surface of the water, she drew a deep, shuddering breath in the airbell, using her lungs instead of her gills. It was an open cavern. The closer walls were lined with rivulets of orange, silver and blue, like the inside of a creature's body--the mysterious multicolored strata of the earth. Imprints of small fossils of fish thousands of years gone were embedded in the rock. There were flat ledges above the waterline here, places to get dry.
But it was the far wall that made her draw in her breath and hold it. On one wall, stretching as far as the wall reached, was a dragon. She stared at the skeletal remains preserved perfectly in the rock. His head was thrown back as if in a defiant roar; the forest of widespread wings forever pressed into the strata. While she knew the position had to be how the animal had lain when he died, the impression of him frozen in a moment of terrible beauty and power could not be discarded.
Managing to get the angel to a sloped ledge, she hooked her elbow on it, shuddering as she tried to get her breath back. She didn't dare take too long, however. The temptation was too great to simply hold on to the ledge and lay her head down, give in to her fatigue. The wounded wing still curved around her shoulders, so that her hand could rest on the slope of his back. Great Lady, but he was just so many beautiful lines of muscle. It made her fingers itch, the desire to stroke him.
Anyone she knew would have gasped at her thought. But they hadn't been on the other side of that kiss, which had created a wealth of very irreverent thoughts. He could only blame himself for tempting her to sacrilege.
Now that they were partially above water, his wing seemed to be trying to reconnect to that wounded area again. A shudder ran through his unconscious body, a sign of pain.
"Sshh . . ." She stroked the line of his shoulder blade next to the wound, though she wondered if she was talking to him or the wing. "Wait until we can figure out what to do about that. Just wait. You're hurting him."
While he'd shown no discomfort with his environment, he was wounded, and she couldn't imagine a creature of the skies would prefer to stay immersed in water indefinitely. He needed to be out of the wet.
Getting him up on the ledge proved to be enormously difficult, however. In the water, he'd been unwieldy but buoyant. Rolling him out onto the ledge required bringing him out of the water, and that transformed his body into more than two hundred pounds of heavy muscle and limp weight. Did she just a moment ago admire that smooth muscle? Now she cursed the pounds it added. And then there were those wings. One attached, one not, though the latter was clinging fast to both him and her, impeding progress so she almost also cursed the very thing that had helped her so much until now.
At last she got him onto the rock by awkwardly shapeshifting into her human form. Holding on to him precariously, she scrambled onto the rocks, scooted backward on her bottom and heaved him up with unfeminine grunts and swear words. But when it was done, he lay on the flat shelf, only his feet and calves still dipped in the water.
Since he was turned halfway on his side, that awful wound was now fully visible, making her heart thud faster. It was a jagged tear from his shoulder blade down to the base of his rib cage, revealing the gleam of bone. He needed healing. No wonder he'd been unable to maintain consciousness long.
But in the attempt to escape his pursuers, she'd taken him far beyond where healing help might be found. That realization swept her exhausted mind with renewed desolation.
She would have to catch her breath and figure that out. For now, she dragged herself closer and tried to study him without getting distracted by his great beauty or unnerved by his wounds. Or the enormity of what he was, what she'd done.
Hesitantly, she reached out and arranged his severed wing next to him. It seemed to be having more difficulty moving when fully out of the water. The feathers were at least waterlogged. The wing still attached seemed to have some shedding ability that was allowing it to dry quickly, perhaps some type of internal warming mechanism of his body the other one could not utilize. Not sure what she was doing, but wanting to do something, Anna used her fingers to stroke the wet from each feather of the detached wing. Since one feather was layered over the next, it became a slow, methodical exercise, almost meditative. She let it guide her, help her steady herself so she could figure out what to do next.
Each feather gleamed after her passage, the water beading on her fingers. She kept trying to straighten the whole wing, but the more she stroked, the more it curled toward her, until she was coiled in the thing again, wrestling with it. Absurdly, she found herself almost laughing despite the seriousness of the moment. It was like it was trying to make her not worry, wrapping her up, teasing and tickling her with the feathers.
"Enough," she admonished at last, shrugging free. She turned her attention to the angel himself. Tentatively, she reached out and stroked the wet hair out of his face. Anna noted again how strong a face it was, a countenance that showed, even in unconsciousness, that the scope of his world and responsibilities was far, far beyond hers.
A firm, square jaw, held resolute even against oblivion. His lashes fanned his cheeks, drops clinging to them, so she brushed those with her fingertips, too. Most mermen didn't have beards, and apparently neither did this angel. There were fine dark threads of hair on his chest that formed a gleaming arrow down his belly to where the waist strap of the half tunic held the brief garment belted on him. Now out of the water, the red silken fabric clung to his upper thighs and groin area, nearly transparent. Angels had . . . well, they apparently had sex organs, just as most males. She didn't know why that should surprise her, after that kiss and the spiral of feelings it had detonated. A man didn't kiss like that if he didn't have a reason to want to kiss like that.
At the silliness of the thought, she had to suppress a hysterical giggle. She snatched her hand back when he shifted. What was she doing? This was an angel. A terrible warrior of the sky, one to whom they all owed absolute obedience and allegiance, awe and respect. Servants of the Light, whose will was not to be refused. She was touching his hair like some lovesick girl, feathering through it with her fingers, letting her thumb graze his temple, the prominent slope of his cheekbone. She'd just had her hand on his chest, fingering the dark, fine covering of hair, wondering what it would be like to let her fingertip follow that silken line, trace the diagonal ropes of muscles angling in the same direction at his waist.
She couldn't help but wonder, though. Did anyone touch him this way? He'd said there were no female angels. Surely someone loved him. Or did angels share love with another? Perhaps all their love was for the Creator, but there was something so virile about him, so . . . Her cheeks tinged as her thoughts strayed into earthy areas. He seemed made for such things. Did he mate in the skies? Was that what rainbows were, the consummations of angels? Or perhaps it was the flashes of heat lightning, the cleansing touch of fresh rain in the spring. Who knew how the love of angels would manifest itself? She was dazzled by the possibilities.
Except for the wings, anatomically her charge was a large, muscular, very impressive humanoid male form, most of it revealed by the half tunic skirt despite an overlay of hardened straps like leather lying over the fabric, which made her think of it as a uniform of sorts, a battle skirt.
Daring again, she touched his mouth. She was aware of the curve of his wing around her, the feathers touching her calf, that warm, sensuous feeling.
"Mine." She said the word softly, wondering what it would be like if it were true. Perhaps, for just this little span of time, while she could claim the excuse of needing to build her strength again, she could pretend he was. The
re was no one around to be offended or laugh at her astounding presumption, the ridiculous nature of even entertaining such a thought. Mine forever.
She well knew she would never have anyone to call hers, let alone something like an angel. Aunt Jude had said angel lore claimed everyone had a guardian angel. As she'd said it, she'd stroked Anna's hair, smiled and said, "I think yours must be very busy."
Perhaps this unexpected attraction and devotion on her part was the involuntary effect the proximity of angels created in living creatures. Maybe that was the reason for all the forbidding stories. They had to keep mere mortal creatures at a safe distance. Otherwise, angels would be mobbed by all manner of amorous creatures, like human rock stars. Anna muffled a snort.
All right. Enough was enough. The humor died out of her, an effort at bravado, she knew, because there was only one she knew who had the healing skills to help an angel. Once she'd taken a brief rest, she would have to face the harrowing fact that she must brave the Abyss again, alone, try to retrace her steps and retrieve the seawitch.
Mina alone could help him.
Four
WHEN had he stopped feeling? How many had died? Diego, Alexander . . . Ronin. Valiant, foolish Ronin. When had he started wondering if the cause, not the symptom, should be their focus? The Lady's focus. When had he started nursing the poison of betrayal in his breast, locked himself behind a mask of loyalty that no longer fit well, and so had brought upon himself the curse of utter loneliness?
My Lady, why have You forsaken my heart? Or have I forsaken Yours? Have I bathed in the blood of evil so long I understand nothing? Am I becoming as lost and unclean as what I fight?
In his dreams as well as his reality, he was buried in their filth. Flashing, brown saliva-stained fangs, empty red sockets for eyes. The stench of death and despair emanating from them, for their flesh was always rotting, hanging on the protrusions of jagged bones. Like scarecrows made out of the cadavers of angels. It was an image he couldn't shake, particularly after it had become one of his nightmares. The men he'd lost over the centuries, rising and becoming that which he fought, over and over again.
