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ression requesting the full truth. "There is a great deal of magical energy in the wings," the commander said quietly. "It's possible he drew on them at the last for you, drew too hard."
That would be just like him, she knew. She closed her eyes. "Please stop staring at me," she said to the walls. It was time for her to leave. Her shields were expiring. David was healed. He would come to her if he wished. If he didn't, well, he didn't.
"Thinking of taking off on me again, little witch?"
David's voice, quiet but groggy.
Relief swept her, so strong it almost drained her of strength. When she would have toppled into him, he caught her arms and stared at her face. She waited, wishing to be anywhere else as his gaze coursed down, slowly, then back up. He lifted her hand, the one that had three fingers. Now she had almost five. The smallest finger was still missing the top half of the digit.
"I'm sorry," he said with a tired smile. "I ran out about there." At her expression, he sobered and cupped her face, his thumb passing over where her cheek had been pitted but was now as silken as the other.
"Don't worry. I still see the scars," he whispered.
She closed her eyes and he drew her in to him, held her against his heart as her body began to shake. The whole Citadel began to shake in fact, for things were welling up in her, so hard and fast, she couldn't control them. But as he tightened his arms around her, murmured to her, he contained it, held her soul and heart against him such that at last she did feel as if she'd managed to crawl inside him. The first sobs burst out of her, and she was only vaguely aware of the startled angels withdrawing respectfully.
It was everything, all of it, everything she'd had to do and be to get to this point. And somehow he still loved her. She couldn't comprehend it, and it was going to tear her into pieces. But it was okay. He was holding her. He was always holding her.
"I was so frightened," she said into his chest at last. "I was so afraid I wasn't going to be strong enough. I hear your screams when I close my eyes. I can't bear to sleep."
David closed his eyes. That terrible trek from the Dark One tower to the mountain was nothing he was likely to ever forget, either. He laid his head on top of hers. "I'm here now. And it's over. You did it. You did what we needed you to do, what was right. Mina, when it comes to inner strength, I've never met anyone stronger. And I'm sure I never will."
"I was lucky."
"Someone once told me that luck is fickle, and she has no use for it."
"I'm afraid of not having the scars."
"You don't need them. You have me." Touching her mouth, he drew her tear-streaked gaze up to his face. "I told you, angels mate for life. You won't ever have to be lonely again. Only alone when you desire it, though I hope you don't desire it too often. I tend to need you far more than you need me."
She didn't think that was true, but of course she couldn't tell him that. But she did hold him more tightly, laying her head back under his jaw.
David smiled, feeling it, then looked toward Jonah at the doorway. Felt the angels gathered in the Citadel, the strength of their connection to him. The emotion of it, of having them as well as the woman in his arms, filled him. The loss of his wings was painful, the idea that he would no longer be able to fight with the Legion, but that was as it should be, he thought.
They may come back. This from Raphael.
David lifted a shoulder. It doesn't matter. She bears a great burden. It's my task to help her with it. He shifted his thoughts toward Jonah. You've told me before it's not about what we want; it's about our destiny. Well, I got both. Mina is what I want and my destiny, for better or worse.
Jonah inclined his head, his expression saying he understood completely.
THE Prime Legion Commander drew Raphael and Marcellus outside the chamber with him. Raphael paused with Jonah as the two males looked back in, to see David had lifted himself into a sitting position so he could hold her in his lap, murmur and rock her as she cried.
"Have you ever..."
"It was like looking on the face of the Lady." Jonah wondered at it. "I felt her beauty, the power behind it, slam me all the way down to my toes."
"A mask for Darkness. A dangerous one." Raphael shook his head. "Now I understand what she was saying. I thought it was just gibberish, but everything she said... She knows how dangerous she is."
Jonah nodded. "That's why she didn't want him to heal it. But she was willing to risk her soul and our universe to heal him. She's not our enemy, Raphael. I'd bet my soul on it. The key to her is David, and it explains a great deal to me about why the Lady sent us a man who was barely more than a boy to be an angel."
"But is she an ally?"
"When the mood suits her." For the first time in several days, Jonah allowed himself a tight smile and got a soldier's grin from Marcellus. "But have faith, Raphael. After all, we are angels."
Epilogue
THEY went back to the house in the Schism. David didn't have to ask her. He knew that was what she wanted. He politely asked for a lift from the Citadel, which seemed to confuse her until she remembered and shifted to dragon form. He could tell she was worried about his reaction to the loss of his wings, so he made sure to show little concern about it.
Mina, on the other hand, knew how much it bothered him. Felt the guilt of it, but she also understood they were both fragile, both needing time to get used to the changes the past few weeks of monumental events had wrought. She left it at that. For now.
He spent his first few days acclimatizing himself to the house, making sure their surroundings were comfortable, going to the store to get a wide variety of foods that interested her. It required him to drive, something she remembered he'd promised to teach her. It was the first laughter she heard from him, when she insisted he change places with her in the driver's seat on the way back to show her how to handle the vehicle on the dusty and mostly deserted road.
She had many things to occupy her, but her favorite was watching him while she sat on the swing or porch. Seeing him rummage through the workshop in back, finding tools to make simple repairs that were needed, finding other chores she could do and showing her how to help, another way to occupy her energy while she learned to manage her power.
Then there was the music. When he'd picked them up some clothes-and she intensely liked the jeans and snug T-shirts he wore-he'd also picked up a secondhand guitar, drums, and a flute, accumulating a variety of instruments to keep his music magic skills sharp. On the porch swing at sunset, she listened while he sat on the top stair and strummed out the chords to "Beast of Burden," playing the music while humming the song he'd sung her on that magical flight together. Studying his intent profile, the soft strands of hair falling over his forehead, those fingers moving over the strings, she understood the lurch in chest and loins experienced by every girl who'd been a rock band groupie.
While he could still perform tasks as rapidly as an angel, there were times he seemed to like a mortal pace, talking to her while she sat on the porch steps, watching him hammer or paint. Until she couldn't bear watching him anymore and instead came up behind him, sliding seeking hands beneath the T-shirt to the muscled tension of his back. She'd follow that curve, damp with sweat, up to his shoulder blades and then let her hands slide around to the front to his chest even as he turned and tossed his tools aside to give her more direct attention.
Perhaps it was the overflow of magic, or just the lingering horror of the way she'd almost lost him. Or the fact that for the first time in her life she could reach out to another and seek pleasure, intimacy, but she really couldn't get enough of him. Fortunately, an angel's limitless well of carnality was completely unaffected by his injuries. If anything, like hers, it seemed to have increased as a result of them.
He might lift her in his arms, take her no farther than the hammock swinging on the side of the house before he'd slide the panties off her silken legs and put his mouth on her until she was writhing and clutching at him. He seemed to love putting his mouth on her t
here, and she'd no objections to his expertise. But in the end, what she most wanted was to strip him of the jeans and feel his body settle on hers, his hard cock pushing inside her, filling her, making her whole, balancing their universe.
Sometimes they'd take it even slower than a mortal pace. She'd wake in the middle of the night, find his face with her questing fingertips, and he'd hold her, no space between them as he kissed her, over and over, until she was pressed so tight against him, tears gathering in her eyes as he slowly, so slowly, slid inside her, keeping their bodies intimately twined together, coupled close in the darkness so she felt she could never get lost there, except in a way she wished would go on forever.
Sam the Shaman, as she caustically referred to him, didn't immediately visit, though he sent a greeting in the form of a flock of buzzards, which she found somewhat amusing. She was fine with that delay. For now, she was learning a new terrain in herself, and a good portion of her day was spent working with it, plumbing the depths of what it was inside her, all the new corners she had to explore, particularly with the reassurance of David now around. She'd brought her cave stores here, so she expanded her grimoires and potion lists, noted different spells and their effects, tested them benignly on her outside landscape, creating rainbows, storm clouds, summoning up tornadoes and dust storms and containing them. She made one tornado lift the pickup truck to ensure she could safely spin it through the spiral and bring it back down to the ground again. An experiment that David requested she not perform on the house, which led to an explanation about foundations, plumbing and electrical connections she found fascinating.
Every boundary she pushed just opened up another, or suggested another avenue she could pursue, though she knew there were places she had to be more cautious about exploring than others. Always that balance. Darkness could rise up in waves when she tried something that didn't work as she'd hoped. Like when her power got hopelessly knotted with Schism energies and she nearly caused a fatal rupture that could have swallowed fifty miles of land into a sinkhole. But Sam the Shaman made his first appearance on that day, guiding her, and David was at her back as always.
