She experienced firsthand his skill with music magic when David used the wooden flute to help them realign the energies, creating a breathtaking symphony with her and Sam's magic and restoring the balance. She proceeded more cautiously after that, but with more confidence as well.
There were other days when they did things that had nothing to do with angels or great cosmic powers. Those were her favorite days. Like when David took her hiking, buying her the right kind of shoes, commenting on how small her feet were. And when he brushed her hair each night and she fell asleep to the lullabies he offered her. She took the songs with her into the dark landscape of her dreams and found she could travel without fear. Get some real rest.
Some days they walked along the rivers at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, over which the angels and Dark Ones had fought to save Jonah. Often the angels went to the more remote gorges to do their training exercises, and David particularly enjoyed watching them. His platoon was now being led by another, and this, too, didn't seem to bother him.
But it bothered her. And she wasn't stupid.
"WHAT do you want?" she asked.
David cut himself off mid yawn at the sharpness of her tone. She'd left the bed before dawn, apparently to wait for sunrise in one of the porch chairs, something she frequently enjoyed doing. Now, however, she seemed intent on other things.
Giving himself a moment to digest the question, he lifted his mug to his lips and thought how nice it was to enjoy a wake-up cup of coffee. His witch generously worked her magic on any food or liquids he liked tasting. He appreciated it, though it was a minuscule effort for her. Even now, the rocks in the backyard were forming animal shapes and small versions of people that looked like rock children doing comical somersaults.
Some of the things she could do were awe-inspiring, magnificent, more than a bit frightening. Then there was this side, where she could be... cute. Since he valued his life, he didn't make that observation, particularly since it appeared she'd awakened in a less than pleasant mood.
The swing was swinging without any visible form of propulsion, and this morning she'd added a mirage of the sea to the normal sunrise view, with dolphins cavorting in the waves. He could hear the soft, rhythmic rush of the surf. Because it was a mirage, it didn't harm any of the actual life in the arid landscape, but he knew she could create oceans. Probably could terra-form an entire planet if she wanted.
Jonah, Sam and others were speculating on just what purpose she could have. They wondered if she eventually would be too powerful for this world, her energy expanded to the point she would need a larger area, an expanse of universe that would allow her to spin her magic safely.
That was all well and good, but not until she was ready. Each day she explored more of the bizarre connection within her between light and dark, she became bolder, though the Schism near disaster had set her back a little ways. Take it slow, seawitch, David had counseled her. We don't want to irritate our neighbors by swallowing their homes. He'd won a small cautious smile from that observation. So far, he'd gotten a total of five smiles out of her, each one a rare and unique experience he kept filed in his memory, a growing treasure chest whose sparkle would never fade as he revisited them there.
He had been telling the truth. While there was an ethereal, overwhelming beauty to her now that simply stole the tongues of anyone who looked at her, he did still see the scars. Hades knew, she'd retained her irascible temper and distrust of pretty much anyone. But it was his hope, as time went on, that he could heal the scars that had remained beneath the surface. Though she didn't fully believe it, he knew the key to her control of the darkness was in her own strength, and the more her scars and fears healed, the stronger she would grow. He was already seeing it.
"David."
"Coffee first," he suggested, then winced as she shot him a searing look that scattered one stack of rocks across the porch and bounced several off his ankle. As he sat down on the top step, considering her, he noted she wore the outfit he'd gotten her in the ghost town, the colors of the desert landscape in the print. Her dark silken hair spilled down her back, held back by a pewter dragon comb he'd bought her. The crimson and blue eye focused on him, both now embellished by those soot dark, thick lashes. Goddess, she was beautiful. And ornery as a snake. He smiled into his coffee as she sent another scattering of pebbles over the bare foot he had propped against the opposite side of the porch steps.
"If you're going to be mean, I'm not going to talk to you at all. Come here." He gave her a steady look over the coffee.
She rose, came and stood to the right of him. And four pebbles tumbled from the roof edge into his coffee. Plop. Plop. Plop. The fourth one he caught before it hit, never taking his gaze off of hers.
"Are you angling for a spanking this morning?"
She cocked her head. "What if I-"
He was so relaxed now, so leisurely in his approach to so many things, Mina often forgot his ability to move with an angel's speed. The coffee was tossed aside and he had her seized and facedown on his lap, where he administered several quick, stinging slaps to her bare bottom, for she'd not bothered with underwear this morning.
"Ow. Stop it." But then he set things to pulsing in her as he flipped her back over in his arms and got his hands under her shirt to close over her breasts.
"Spread your legs for me." The demand was there, quick, implacable, and she did for him what she did for no one else. She obeyed.
"Now, put your hand down there. I want to watch you."
"What are you going to be doing?"
"Get me my coffee back, and I'll tell you."
She studied him, her breathing erratic, but she didn't even have to gesture, barely had to think of it, before a second mug came out the door, settled into his outstretched hand. He kept the other around her back. "I'm going to sit here, drink my coffee, watch this beautiful sunrise and you. Just that."
The way he looked at her, as if the heat and intensity of his gaze alone could hold her, was almost enough to push her over. As it was, it was no time before her own fingers, and his insistent, demanding mouth had her rocking and pleading, begging to go over, for of course he never let her go until she begged. And that, too, was part of the balance. The checks and balances.
When he finally agreed, his cock was an iron bar beneath her wriggling bottom. She exploded on him, his mouth fastened on hers, swallowing her cries until she lay panting and replete in his arms.
"That's not going to make me forget the question," she managed at last, wanting to feel him release, but his arm remained tight over her, holding her in place.
"I thought this was my answer."
Reaching up, she touched his face, his mouth, wet from hers. "Please tell me."
"You. This. Everywhere we go, the two of us together." He straightened her so she was straddling him, worked her legs around him and snugged her there with a hand on her bottom. "I served the Goddess as a platoon leader. I serve her still, by serving you. Which means protecting you, loving you," he amended, with a glint in his eye. "No way I'm giving you the impression that I'm serving you, witch. I know how demanding you are."
"Stop it. You want nothing for yourself? There's nothing I can give you, in return for all you've given me?"
David stopped then, shock flitting across his expression at the pure frustration he heard in her voice. He lifted her hair in both hands, diving deep into the thick lengths of it. "Put me inside of you," he murmured, "and I'll tell you something."
She was always eager to feel his heated length in her hands, so she didn't mind opening his jeans and having the momentary discomfort of taking him into her channel where the tissues were still ultra sensitive from her climax. "Ah..." Her breath escaped her as she sank down on him. His fingers gripped her hips, his eyes dark on her face.
"In case you haven't noticed," he said in a husky tone, "taking care of you, watching over you, that's the job I chose, Mina. Being your protector and lover forever. If there comes a day when you're no
t so much work," he teased her, though there was a catch in his voice as he wrapped her hair around his fist, "I might do some world traveling. Go to Disneyland. Learn macrame. But right now, my slate is full."
He was moving her now, slow, slower, and she could tell how insane it was making him by the clogging of air in his throat. "But what about your wings?" She put her arms around his shoulders, cheek against his temple, and held on as he gathered her in closer. She wished she'd taken more time to enjoy the soft feel of his feathers, the strangely erotic resilience of the arch of wing, curve of bone. Gods, she missed them, too. It wasn't aesthetic. It was a part of him.
Being an angel just is.
"Raphael says they may come back one day, as I mature. But right now, it doesn't matter. This makes more sense, because I can go into places humans frequent without excessive notice."
"You obviously haven't noticed how women react to you in restaurants and stores."
"I said excessive." His smile was lost as his breath got more labored, and his hands tightened on her hips. "Jesus, it's never enough. You feel so fucking good. I want you to come with me again."
"I can put an illusion spell on you so you can go wherever you want, with or without wings. I've gotten really good at them so you-"
"Hush," he said. And he lifted her away from him and put his mouth on her breasts, suckling the nipples. He took his time, running his tongue up the cleft between, squeezing them together until the combination of stimulus had her writhing on him and unbelievably going up the edge of a climax again.
"Just you, Mina. I'm here for you. I love you. Believe it, and stop doubting. What is it that you want?"
"Oh, Goddess, please..."
"Come for me."
He released at the same moment, sending her over, their bodies moving together in sinuous rhythm. She put her mouth on his flesh, then her teeth into his shoulder, holding her grip there, drawing blood, until they slowly came to a stop.
"That's the real question, isn't it, Mina?" He spoke when he had breath again, but continued to hold her close, her head pressed down on his shoulder. He brushed his lips over her hair. "What is it you want?"
"I was thinking about Anna." She traced the area in between the shoulder blades where his wings used to be. "Her baby. Is it a symbol of hope or of sacrifice? I mean, she wanted to have the baby. So, if she does die because of the curse, Jonah will have a daughter to love, for however long he's given. But I think she's also having the baby in order to say to that curse, 'You have no hold on me. On what I want to do or be.'"
Raising her head, she looked at him. "You do take care of me, David. You always will, because you told me so. But you're also a soldier. You fight the Dark Ones in a different way."
She put her hand on his heart. "Give this back to yourself. You can be more than one thing. I'm not afraid of losing you that way, not anymore."
David stared at her, felt the energy gathering under her fingertips. His energy. She was summoning energy from him, calling it forth, twining it with her own. "Mina, how did you-"
But in the next moment it was gone, the words ripped away as he caught hold of her body with both hands to keep from toppling her. The wings surged forth from his back, the architecture of vertebrae and skeleton altering in a smooth transition that nevertheless rocked him forward as they stretched, spread out to dry their afterbirth in the sun. He looked at one, blanched, then looked at the other.
Until he was fifty, the wings would have been the wings of a fledgling, white with tips of brown. But apparently, his timetable had been accelerated, for he was looking at a solid black wing on his left, a solid white on his right, a wholly unique pattern he'd never seen before.
Mina reached over his shoulders, stroked through them with both hands with childlike delight. Coming away with one small feather of each color, she pinned them into the comb pulling her waist-length hair from her face. "I think they're holding afternoon drills if you want to go join them."
At his look of indecision, she cradled his face in her hands this time. "I'm right here. I'm yours. You can be at my side in moments. What I need is help to protect the world from me, and you help me do that, David. By loving me. But you need to keep being the warrior you are. We can't keep growing together if we aren't growing separately. The nature of all things is to change," she reminded him. "And so we will change. Always growing stronger."
"Okay," he said at last. "Okay." He kissed her fingertips, one by one, then pressed his forehead to her hands, the significance of what she'd just done sweeping over him. "Thank you."
"I knew you missed them. I missed them, too. I'd been working on it, and I'm glad it worked." She shot him an arch look. "Would have been terrible if I'd gotten mixed up and you ended up with bat wings. Marcellus would have been so jealous."
He snorted as she slid down next to him on the porch step. After he watched her rearrange her clothes, making her feel warm under his regard, he retrieved his coffee once more. He restored his own clothes as well, though Mina thought she might have liked it if he'd kept that top button carelessly undone, as he did sometimes when he first pulled the jeans on.
"I'll think about the drills," he said. "Don't nag. Let me just sit with you here for a while."
She accepted that, though plucked a feather for the nagging comment and earned a tug on her hair in return. They sat together for the next few minutes, looking out at the desert, one of his wings pulled around her so she could enjoy stroking her fingers through the feathers again. "I've been thinking about Dante," she said at last.
"Really."
She gave him a curious look. "What?"
"I didn't much care for how he looked at you."
"You were jealous?"
"You're a powerful, beautiful Dark Spawn. He's Dark Spawn. I suspect he would find you very intriguing, if you're the only other one he's met that's reached maturity."
She tilted her head. "I don't think you have to worry so much. He's a little psychotic for me."
"Oh, sure, that's what girls always say. Then they go for the bad boy. Look at me, I'm an angel. Harps and haloes, purity and goodness. What chance do I have?"
"Good point," she agreed. "You did have the Dark One blood in you, though. If you remember how, you could cultivate a sexy kind of broodiness. Jonah broods on occasion. Anna says she finds it very stimulating."
"On that note," he observed, amusing her by ignoring that topic, "your shielding has improved. And you said the Schism buffers you as well. We could test it out by spending time with Anna and Jonah, if you'd like to see Anna more. Maybe start by having them to dinner one night. We've been working on our cooking. She'd probably like to try some of the things you've made."
Have Anna and the Prime Legion Commander for dinner? "You are a frightening man," she responded, when she could make her tongue work. But as disconcerting as the domestic picture was, what was more disturbing was it had some appeal. Despite the glint in his eye which suggested he'd also brought it up to shock her. However, she also knew it was likely his continued attempt to prove that the more they strengthened the positive reasons she had to fight the Darkness, the easier the balance might become.
Easy had never been a word she'd applied to any part of her life. But only a couple of days ago, she'd dropped ice cubes down David's shirt and he'd chased her around the yard and the swing. As she ran, she'd felt the absolute glory of it. Running without pain in her muscles or joints, such that she'd forgotten the teasing and just run. He'd picked up on her needs as always, so that he'd abandoned the game and simply matched her pace and let her run until she ran herself into exhaustion.
Mina.
Surprised to hear the object of their discussion in her head, Mina's head jerked up. At the same moment, apparently getting the same alert from Jonah, David surged to his feet. A second or two later, Jonah landed in the yard in a skidding dust cloud, carrying his pregnant wife in his arms. "She's gone into labor," Jonah said unnecessarily. "And she said she had to have the babe here
, with Mina."
DESPITE the alarm that announcement caused, Mina managed to mask it. "Raphael's on his way," Jonah added, giving her a surge of relief.
As her attention shifted to Anna, Mina thought that, while David's healing had given her what could be considered beauty beyond what any woman would long to possess, Anna's beauty was simple goodness, and being pregnant had made her more radiant.
Those violet eyes could soften the heart of a demon. But her soft, loving nature was persistent and courageous, such that it was impossible to get her to back down from her intentions, whether it was to save a Prime Legion Commander from an army of Dark Ones, or refusing to consider a seawitch with the ability to destroy the world anything less than her best friend. Or deciding at the spur of the moment that she wanted her as a midwife.
Right now, she was in mermaid form, for of course during her pregnancy she could not shift. Purple and blue tattooing swirled in intricate patterns along her biceps. The gleaming purple and deep blue scales of her tail shimmered down to tinier pieces until reaching the delicate pink, pearlescent edges of her featherlike tail fin. She was still wet from the ocean, her golden brown hair dark and slicked back on her skull, and she smelled of the salt air.
While mermaid was only one of four forms Anna could take, Mina knew it was still the best choice, for a mermaid pregnancy and birth were much shorter and easier than a human experienced.
Now Anna's eyes fastened on her as she reached out, grabbing Mina's hand. "I'm so sorry. I should have told you," she blurted out. "But I was afraid you'd say no. Ah, heavens, here comes another." The rush of words expired on a gasp as her belly contracted before their gazes.
"Come inside," David said, looking a little pale.
Anna's hands had clutched Mina's fingers and Jonah's muscular shoulder, her face tightening, eyes turning inward to concentrate on what was happening inside of her body.
"We'll take her in the cellar, to the spring," Mina said, and instead of taking her hand away, she let it be held, moved inside as the commander carried his mate and David followed, guiding Mina's body so she wouldn't trip on the stairs.