A Mermaid s Kiss

  TINY warm body, soft breath at his throat. Jonah held the toddler easily in one arm as the other planted herself on the sand between his splayed legs to pick up fistfuls of sand and create a mud pie on top of his bare foot. A group of young girls a little farther away were busily creating a more complex sand castle, looking around for shells to decorate it. The boys came and offered to bury him fully in the sand, an offer he declined with mock threats if they tried, and of course they were soon quickly back in the waves, giving him the pleasure of focusing on Anna again. Sunshine, water, an innocent child falling asleep against him, foot flexing and unflexing against his abdomen. When the mother offered to take her, he noted the weariness in her eyes and told her he didn't mind watching over the two a few minutes more while she sat down nearby with a couple of the other adults.

  She studied him, hand on hips. "She doesn't take well to strangers. You bribe her with something? Candy?"

  He shook his head.

  "She does seem to know when someone's okay. If she's wrong, I'll hunt you to the end of the earth and cut out your heart, you hear?"

  Jonah blinked. "Understood."

  Satisfied, the mother moved about ten feet away and sat with the other parents, giving in to what he heard was a pair of swollen ankles, which didn't dilute her threat a bit.

  "You're not to get so much as a scrape," he muttered to the drowsy child. "Else I expect I'll be held responsible."

  Goddess willing, the baby in his arms would grow to be a young girl like those near him, then into a woman, the childish, oblong body elongating into curves, slim legs . . .

  His gaze drifted out to the water, where Anna had a bevy of children around her, teaching them about swimming safely in the waves, if her gestures and quick smiles were any indication. Though of course her more diminutive size and gender would discourage roughhousing, it moved him oddly, seeing the children demonstrate an unusual sensitivity, being careful of her back.

  He wondered if her father had held her like he was holding this toddler, then remembered it was likely she hadn't known him. As he also remembered their argument and how Anna's mother had taken her own life, he wondered at the weight of carrying that in her mind, the reflection it cast upon her sense of value. And yet there she was. Beautiful, perfect, full of love, hope and healing. If he'd ever doubted the existence of miracles, she was one.

  He did understand what she'd been trying to tell him, when her anger had been turned on him. But he also thought the idea of someone like Anna being made to suffer the type of loneliness and pain she'd been forced to endure was pointless. At one time, had he understood the cycles of sorrow and pain better? Why did she seem to grasp it so easily, when it only roused fury in him, particularly where it concerned her?

  The children were coming out of the water, being called to collect their things and head out, field trip over, disrupting his thoughts.

  But Jonah kept his eye on Anna as he turned over the little girls to their parents and bid them good-bye. She stayed in the water, in profile, apparently watching the noon sun sparkle on the water. Her palm moved just over the surface, sharing her aura with the sea's.

  Rising, he went to the water's edge. As he did, the boy's words came back to him. Your woman is fine.

  His woman. Angels could take lifemates, but he'd never thought of himself as a candidate for it. He liked the way it sounded, though. Which just proved without a doubt he'd lost his mind. His and Anna's lives . . . He had no idea how they would mesh. It was absurd to think they could. She deserved stability, children of her own. He was so steeped in blood . . .

  He was able to give these children happiness with the simplest effort, but he couldn't give it to himself or offer it permanently to anyone else. But as she turned, he saw in her eyes she didn't want to fight anymore, and he didn't, either. Not with her or with himself.

  Moving through the water to her, he felt the cool touch of the waves through the denim on his skin. Her hands stilled, her head tilting as he approached, though she wasn't facing him any longer. The swimsuit she wore was a modest bikini, but he could still see the curves of her bottom, the sweet hint of cleft, and from the side, the ripe weight of her breasts, hint of nipples, the slim line of her neck.

  He slipped his arms around her, as natural a gesture as the waves moving around them, the blue sky overhead, the sand dusting his skin and hers above the waterline.

  "I'm sorry," she said, surprising him. She continued to look out at the waves. "I guess it proved your point, that family. You see that, and you see the potential for an invasion of Dark Ones. A battle and blood. I've never looked at it your way. Maybe I'm afraid to."

  He thought of the way she'd splashed in with the children, laughing, her joy as unfettered as a bird's outstretched wings, and the dark history he'd seen in the pictures on her wall. A stone statue staring into shore at one fixed point, never seeing anything else. A black square locked within a gray-walled prison.

  "It's been a long time since I've been able to look at it the way you do." Bending his head to her temple, he laid his jaw there and held her closer, feeling the soft give of her body. He wouldn't want her to look at it his way, wouldn't want her to become that statue. "I liked the pie."

  "The apple pie?" She tilted her head so she could glance up at him. "It's impossible not to like apple pie." Her gaze drifted then to his shoulder, and the smile in her eyes deepened, a pleasure he could sink into like soft, fragrant grass. Turning in his arms, she reached up and brushed a wet hand over his shoulder, at the curve where it met his neck. She dipped her hand in the water and did it again, dousing the skin with a shivery trickle of water as she massaged the muscle there with her fingers. "Baby drool," she informed him.

  The way she turned toward him, leaned into his body, made him instantly aware of every curve. His reaction didn't surprise him. What surprised him was her desire.

  "My lord. I . . . I want you again." She adjusted so she was standing on his feet in a most charming way to get closer to his wet lips. However, she paused a breath from them, such that he developed a terrible thirst. That light, playful look came into her eyes, for she was certainly aware of the hardening in his groin, which grew noticeably at her words, at the press of her body. "If I'm not taking advantage of you."

  A glance toward shore showed him the children were gone and the beach was theirs again. A part of him wanted to simply hold on to this moment, but it was impossible to deny his body's reaction to the mounds of her breasts as she pressed up against him, the slide of her thigh against his leg.

  "I'm like a rutting beast," he muttered, trying to back away, but she moved with him, holding him and stilling him at once.

  "I want you, too," she reminded him softly.

  What an understatement that was. Anna was still sore from their first time in the caves, but it hadn't stopped the ache that seemed to begin the moment he wasn't Joined with her, and built until all her thoughts became about this. If he was near, but out of touching distance, it was even more excruciating. Watching him in the waves, wrestling with the boys, his broad back flexing, haunches tightening as he tossed them into the waves, the dark hair stranded across his tan shoulders. Or on the shore, sitting with his legs bent up, somewhat splayed, feet dug into the sand so she could drink in the curve of testicles beneath the denim, the long line of thigh. Then holding the little girls, the different expressions on his face. He watched them with the wisdom of the ages carved in the depths of his eyes. But he had never tried pie.

  Even now, he looked at her as if he hadn't ever had the pleasure of sinking into a woman's body on a wave of pure, uncalculated desire. He was the miracle, not she.

  He was here, and within touching distance. She couldn't think beyond wanting him with the same hunger for which he was admonishing himself. Tentatively, she lifted onto her toes. At the moment he was unyielding. She was laughably sure he thought himself taking advantage. Taking, period. She wanted him taking advantage, for she certainly was going to. She was his. She n
ever wanted to suffer the delay of him thinking he had to ask for this.

  Catching her fingers in the wet strands of his hair, she tugged hard to bring him down to her and yet still climbed halfway up his body, catching her legs around his hips.

  With an oath, he let go of his restraint. She whimpered a relieved gasp into his mouth. Reaching behind her, he released the clasp of the suit against her abraded flesh, guided the top down her arms, leaving her upper body bare, the water deep enough it lapped at her tight nipples. When he lifted her beneath the arms to bring her up higher, her legs automatically locked around his waist as he brought one taut peak to his mouth, sucking it into wet heat. His other hand slid inside the back waistband of the bikini bottom, squeezing. He so easily took command of her body, as if he knew everything about how it would respond to him.

  When he laid her back in the water, letting it cushion and soothe her skin, she floated, her arms out to either side. She tightened her legs, rubbed herself in slow, dragging strokes over the hardness beneath his jeans. She'd not done anything that forward before, but she was aching. He'd awakened her body, and watching him on the beach, knowing it was all temporal, how could she not take her fill of him as often as possible?

  Jonah's jaw tightened, a muscle flexing there. He opened the jeans. Wet and constricting, the denim was stubborn, but before he tore them trying to get them off, she anticipated. Anna surged up, her stomach muscles contracting, and found his sex, filled her hands with the steel bar of it. He caught his hand under her bottom, pulling the bikini fabric out of the way, his other hand at her neck, and let her position herself over him, their eyes locked, inches away from one another, all of her resting in his hands.

  She guided his broad head to her opening, the slickness of her flesh below the waterline, ready to accept him, take him deep.

  "No magic, Anna. I forbid it."

  Darkness coursed through her gaze, but Jonah brought her up to him for another rough kiss, plundering the softness of her mouth, and increased his grip on her buttock to sheathe himself in her welcoming heat. "Just us," he muttered, even as he knew part of it was a flatterer's lie to avoid the truth of why he didn't want her to use the magic.

  She moaned against his mouth, her body spasming against him. Goddess, he couldn't bear it. He drove into her, harder, harder, knowing she was delicate but needing to lose himself, needing to just shatter into flecks of foam on the waves. Reduce his life to the simple, uncomplicated pleasure of sliding along the sides of her body as she passed his way, caressing and teasing the pink tips of her breasts, getting trapped in the salty, wet crevice of her sex, playing with those lips as she rolled beneath the ocean's surface.

  From the clutch of her hands on his forearms, he could tell she was close. He kept that rhythm and bent his head to her breast again, taking the nipple in, sucking on it hard, and was rewarded. Her hands seized his hair, tugged ruthlessly and she came, her legs clamped over his hips, heels digging into his buttocks.

  When she cried out, he moved up to her throat, bit down like a possessive animal and let himself go, wishing the darkness of his thoughts wouldn't follow him over the edge. But as she held on to him with her fists, like the little girl who had held on to his hair, he wondered if the fiercest gestures were desperate ones. The hope that something solid wouldn't slip away, leaving them yearning. Girls learned early there were no guarantees.

  As his climax ebbed, the vision of the broken woman in the diner came again, as well as the black desolation her husband's soul had become. One night, that woman had turned over and found the face of her lover had become that of a stranger.

  Her angel had become a monster.

  Eleven

  DAVID paused, hovering. The Abyss yawned below, murky and forbidding, as he was sure it was intended to be. Lord Lucifer took pains to discourage sea creatures from stumbling into the graphic realities of redemption, which could certainly sear a memory forever.

  However, there was something here. Close by. Watching. It wasn't the careful but benign curiosity of a sea creature. Not exactly. He waited, listening.

  He'd kept returning to this yawning crater, for it was the most likely place for Jonah to have sought refuge from a pressing enemy. But the maze of caverns was limitless, also making it impossible to find Jonah. And if he'd been strong enough to make it into the caverns, why wouldn't he keep going until he reached Luc's realm where he'd be protected, his wounds treated?

  But still, David knew he wasn't off base. Even Luc, before other responsibilities called him away, had sensed there was something to the theory and left David to pursue it.

  There. A shadow. He would have missed it if he hadn't been looking in that direction at a lucky moment. He didn't twitch a muscle, his whole energy and concentration tuning him in to the exact position of . . . there. He had it.

  Angels of Jonah and Lucifer's caliber could move beyond the speed of light if they chose, circumnavigating the world in a blink if it was needed. David couldn't achieve that speed and remain in control yet. He'd hurtle out of orbit and bounce off an asteroid. They'd teased him about the bumps and bruises before. That was all right. The teasing of the angels never bothered him, because their love and protection of him and each other was absolute. They were connected in a way that kept him from feeling lonely. Many times he needed to draw from that energy to forget his mortal life and what he'd had to leave behind, unprotected. But he wondered when was the last time Jonah had drawn on that energy. David had an uneasy feeling that at some point Jonah had cut himself off from it and lost the vital reassurance.

  Now was not the time for distracting thoughts like that, however. He could move faster across a few hundred yards than any mortal creature, and he used that now. He flipped back, his wings arcing over him in the water for balance and propulsion and shot toward where he'd seen the motion. He arrived directly before the creature, intercepting its retreat into the recesses of a cave to seize a bundle of rags that exploded in his face, striking at him with sharp nails, shrieks and . . .

  He sucked in a breath. Dark One. It was a Dark One . . . wasn't it?

  As he took the precious second to process the confusing signals, a serpentine tail coiled around his thigh, spinning him into a nasty bed of fire coral. Leaving him cursing and holding the rags, the creature hurtled away from him.

  Dropping the garment, David pursued his quarry into the cave and caught it again, slamming it up against the wall. It earned him a shocking, feminine cry of pain.

  There were no Dark Ones with female energy. But their energy was pulsing off her, making it hard to fight down his automatic reaction to kill.

  Focus. If she was connected to the Dark Ones, she might have knowledge about Jonah. By the Goddess, if she did, she would tell him, even if he had to cause more of those terrible shrieks to tear out of her throat.

  He had one of his daggers out and against her neck, holding it close enough the creature could not move forward without decapitating herself. All he could see was a dark swirl of hair, a pale chin, a bare shoulder. Without the bundle of rags, the creature wore nothing but raven black hair that almost hid her features as she leaned against the shadowed rocks of the wall. But her Dark One energy outlined her to him like the illumination of a nightmarish sunrise.

  "Show your face."

  "Kill me and be done with it. I do nothing at your command."

  David grasped a handful of hair, pulling it from her face, and yanked her head back.

  A girl. Younger than him. One side of her face was severely scarred and embedded with one red eye, the crimson signature of a Dark One. Which only enhanced painfully how beautiful the other side was, so much so it stunned him for a key moment.

  What he now recognized as a tentacle lashed around both of his ankles, slammed them together. She struck him across the face with a piece of pipe she'd had hidden on a ledge in the shadows, likely scavenged from a shipwreck.

  Yes, Jonah would say he deserved that. David managed to hold on to her, fought past
the throbbing pain and flipped her, breaking free of the hold of her unusual appendages with the flex of his legs. She scrabbled for the dagger he'd dropped, which had fallen on a lower outcropping. It got kicked off and disappeared in the murky waters as he yanked her back against him, arms pinned to her sides. Sleek as an eel, she slipped out of his grasp again, tangling his arms in her hair of all things, a more effective net than expected, leaving him holding a handful of strands and nothing else.

  It might be a holdover from his days as a human, but he knew he would not live it down with the others if he had his ass whipped by a girl. Catching the slender whip of one tentacle around his wrist--Christ, she had stingers--he yanked hard, jerking her off balance and making her flail. As she tried to recover, he propelled himself out the cave entrance and up, jolting her body back into his arms as he did so, spinning up, up, up, knowing her mortal equilibrium couldn't handle it the way his could. Churning through the water like a rising tornado, he heard her garbled cry as she realized what he was doing, where they were going.

  Time to take this one out of her element. It was an acknowledgment he grudgingly gave her--she was a hell of a fighter.

  Emerging into a world domed beneath a night sky, he shot up in an arc over the sea as she snarled and shrieked, raked him with her nails, taking a stripe of skin off his neck. When he dropped her at that height, she howled in surprised fear, cut off a second later as he caught her in his arms, floating them down onto a narrow sandspit that existed only at low tide, about a mile out from the nearest substantial landmass. She scrabbled back toward the water, and he caught her again, flipped her to her back.

  "Stop," he commanded. Then any sense of indulgence disappeared as he registered what was caught in her hair. A pure white feather, limned with silver.

  Jonah. Every angel had a unique color pattern to his wings upon reaching maturity. David's wings still had the cream color and brown tips of a fledgling, as all angels had in their first fifty years.

  Rightly sensing his change of mood, she made another attempt at the water. David drew a second dagger from the strap across his chest and speared flesh and muscle, pinning one tentacle to the sand and rock beneath.