by Lisa Hughey
“Where you live.” And there was his scowl. “In the desert. How did you chose that specific area?”
She thought about it. Her method was sort of embarrassing and nothing she really wanted to share. “Why do you need to know?”
“Because that’s how I want you to determine where we should go first.”
Shasa flushed but didn’t answer.
“How?”
“I used a pendulum over a map,” she answered quietly.
His eyes were the deep, dark brown of ancient bark and filled with a swirling surprise. “How did you choose that method?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You instinctively used an ancient technique for dowsing without any guidance?” Zach questioned her slowly.
“I guess so.”
“Unbelievable. We need a map and a pendulum then.” Zach rubbed his hands together. He glanced toward the front door. “However, I don’t want to do it here.”
“Uh,” she said. He couldn’t possibly mean that the way it sounded.
A flush spread over her cheeks as her mind went straight to the gutter. Every time he got close to her, that mark, the one he’d caressed with his lips, tingled. Her sex softened, swelled, plumped, at the memory of his head buried in the open fly of her jeans and the inherent suggestion in his words.
“We’re going to have to go somewhere more private.” Zach shifted his stare to the rushing river reluctantly, then sighed. “I guess there isn’t any hope for it.”
“What?”
“Take hold of my hand.” Zach wiggled his fingers. His hesitance was obvious, his frown annoyed.
When she placed her hand in his, his face lightened for a moment. She was transported back to that almost laugh. It wasn’t the laugh so much as the surprise on his face when he’d sort of chuffed that got to her. Shasa had the uncontrollable wish to make it her goal to get him to laugh again.
“Word of warning.”
She pulled her thoughts back to the here and now. “Sure.”
“Sometimes this is disorienting.” Zach curled his fingers around her palm.
“What?”
“Translocation,” Zach said calmly.
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is in my world.”
Suddenly she was tumbling, falling, reeling. Her head spun, but not like when she was sick. This was completely different.
Shasa nearly fell to the floor. They were no longer on her mother’s front porch. They were in a cheesy motel room with matted down shag carpeting, a faded bedspread in an orange and brown geometric pattern, and flat pillows that looked about as soft as a brick.
The motel room had that musty smell, as if the dampness had seeped bone deep into the wood and wallboard. The walls were a dingy off white and the laminated furniture had seen much better days. The dark, fake wood grain was overlaid with a film of gray from thousands of applications of industrial strength cleaner.
Zach tugged her over to the bed.
Shasa stumbled, still slightly disoriented. “What just happened?”
“I told you. We translocated.” Zach paced the room impatiently.
“Explain.” Shasa rubbed her temple trying to recover from the dizziness.
“We traveled from the porch to this room by rearranging body matter through disintegration and materialization.”
“You can do that?”
“I just did,” he said arrogantly.
Shasa’s eyes widened.
“We need to get started.” He gestured toward the bed. She tried not to think about what far more interesting things they could be doing on this bed. Still she sank gingerly onto the tattered bedspread and waited.
Zach suddenly had a map of the Pacific Northwest in his hands and a fancy state of the art pendulum.
He really was serious. “I don’t think—”
“There’s no time to think,” he said. “We need to do.”
That quickly churlish, brusque Zach was back.
“You might want to try some anger management classes.” She held out her hand for the pendulum.
He slapped the warm metal into her palm. “Why would I care about managing my anger?”
Shasa drew back. There was absolutely no expression on his face. He seemed to embrace his fury like an old friend. His anger a shield between him and everyone else.
“Don’t you…want to be happy?”
“Happy is for others,” Zach said abruptly.
Her soul wept at his bleak response. “Everyone deserves to be happy.” She wanted to lay her hand on his forearm to comfort him in some way but he was so closed off, so remote that he could have been carved from stone.
“Not everyone,” Zach said. “You’d best leave it alone.”
“Why don’t you deserve to be happy?”
“Leave it, Shasa.” Zach growled. “Some sins are too grievous to forgive.”
She couldn’t let that statement lie. He was the Archangel of Forgiveness. How tragic that he couldn’t forgive himself. “The past cannot be changed, forgotten, edited or erased. It can only be accepted.”
He just glared at her.
She wanted to keep arguing with him but his expression told her it would be futile. She didn’t even know why she cared. He’d practically kidnapped her. And yet, something about him compelled her to try to ease his suffering. Perhaps it was the residual memories from her dreams. While he hadn’t been all lighthearted charm back then, he’d had a lightness of spirit that was missing now.
Apparently acceptance wasn’t on the table yet. Shasa would let this drop now but she vowed it wasn’t the last time she would talk to him about his happiness.
That decided, she plopped down on the bed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Whatever you did to determine where you live.”
Shasa nodded. She sat cross-legged on the faded bedspread and held the pendulum over the map. With a deep inhale, Shasa closed her eyes. Then she slowly exhaled, pushing away all the conflict and confusion from the last few hours, and focused on her breathing.
She listened to the sound of her breath and tried to let go of everything but serenity. But other scents and sounds intruded on her concentration. The rustle of Zach’s clothing as he removed his jacket. The bedsprings squeaked as he lowered his big, tough body onto the mattress to her left and evoked other more salacious memories. Even with the heat that emanated from him, Shasa shivered in the chill air of the shabby motel room. She tried to relax and focus on the process but his presence was like a super-powered magnet drawing her attention to him even without the benefit of her sight.
The light scent of man and sea permeated her consciousness. How could he smell like the ocean when they were deep in the woods?
She sighed. Tried to clear her mind again.
Zach shifted.
“Do you mind?”
“What?” he barked.
“Sit still.”
There was silence. She still hadn’t opened her eyes but she could feel him looming closer. “You do realize time is of the utmost importance?”
“I’m trying.” Shasa clenched her fingers into a ball to stop from taking a swing at him.
Her gaze popped open when his large hands closed over her fists. She stared at his thick, scarred fingers, his solid wrist, and the veins that snaked up his forearms. Power radiated from him in commanding waves.
The contact should have been no big deal. Should have been a simple clasp of his hand over hers, but her body reacted as if he’d stripped her naked and touched her bare skin. Another shiver shimmied over her. This time it had nothing to do with the chill in the air and everything to do with the dark brooding Archangel beside her.
“Relax.” His voice was low, rough, like the heated whisper of a lover in her ear. She wasn’t even listening to his words, her attention had snagged on the soft, near brush of his lips against her skin. She realized her body had gravitated toward his without her permission.
Fuck. Her brain ke
pt returning to her recurring dream and the heady, intoxicating kisses in the ocean. She went liquid when she remembered how she melted in her dreams. She’d never felt that way in real life. How could a dream kiss turn her insides to a warm flowing river?
Something about his gruff manner sparked an answering chord within her. Shasa wasn’t known for her warm, welcoming personality. She hid her weirdness and discomfort in standard societal situations behind a gruff exterior. If people were willing to work to see the real her then fine, but she wasn’t going to go out of her way to be overly nice.
What did nice get you? Nothing.
Look at her mother, always taking in strays, always finding that person who was going to take advantage of her. It drove Shasa nuts.
Zach’s unique ozone scent seeped into her senses acting like an aphrodisiac and calling to her. As if Shasa’s body had awakened from a deep slumber and said, ‘oh there you are.’
Shasa snapped to attention. She’d spent the last few minutes staring at his mouth. She shifted her focus to his heavy-lidded gaze, a heady fascination burned in the deep mysterious depths of his eyes. What had he said? Oh, yeah. Relax.
“I’m trying.” Her voice was husky, revealing the arousal that never seemed far from the surface when he was near.
She closed her eyes to block out the sexy vibes coming from the Archangel beside her. She could still feel his presence, big and overwhelming. With difficulty Shasa pushed everything out of her mind. Her worries about her mother. Her worries that she was losing her mind. Her worries that she was somehow connected to the brooding, oddly familiar stranger. Her unexpected yearning to be part of something larger than her own small isolated world. Her amazement that she was in a hotel room with the man from her dreams.
Shasa vacillated between hope and disbelief.
She let everything go and focused on the sensation of the cord between her palm and the heavy ponderous weight of the pendulum hovering over the map. She could sense the metal at the bottom swinging. Yet, she was holding perfectly still.
Shasa continued to meditate on her third eye purposely trying to keep her mind free. With slow measured breaths, her body relaxed and her mind emptied.
“That’s it.” Zach broke her concentration. Shasa opened her eyes to see him stab at a specific location on the map. “Let’s go.”
“You’re so sure I’m right?”
“Only one way to find out.” Zach curled his arm around her shoulders and she was falling. Again.
Ten
A vortex.
Shasa’s dowsing had identified a vortex, a swirling mass of energy flowing on several dimensions. In this case, the vortex was created by the intersection of several known ley lines in central Oregon, in the forest near Crater Lake.
Although Zach had been tempted to leave her in the hotel, he couldn’t justify it. In case she needed to dowse again to pinpoint the exact location, he had decided that she had to come with him. Zach translocated them to the specific area she’d identified. As soon as they were on the ground, he let her go.
Quickly. Before the compulsion to circle her, to give in to the lure of her embrace was too much. The temptation of her body was a primal drumbeat in his blood.
But that way lay disaster.
Interestingly enough, her dowsing had identified an area near the strange fire.
The acrid scent of smoke surrounded them, the air thick with gray ash. The conditions had created an odd effect, with patchy snow on the ground while the air smoldered with residual heat from the fire. Zach stood still and closed his eyes searching the air, searching the atmosphere for anything out of place. Searching for any sign that the Grigori were here.
Her scent, lavender and pinon, invaded his senses, slithering through his mind like the serpent through Eden. How was it possible to smell her over the fire retardant chemicals and sulphur laden air?
Zach tried to block her scent from his consciousness, but the more he tried, the more her unique perfume expanded in his awareness. He recalled the soft skin of her belly so wonderfully smooth against his lips. The little contraction when he’d pressed his mouth to her mark. The sudden hitch in her breath that she’d tried to disguise. And the reaction of his own traitorous body as his cock rose in eager anticipation.
His mouth tightened, along with his groin. Dammit.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered as if afraid to disturb the quiet stillness of the ancient woods. She stepped closer to Zach and he wanted to groan as his body reacted.
“Nothing.” Everything.
Zach shut out the temptation of her body and pressed his feet into the spongy ground, thick with moss. He closed his eyes again and imagined power from beneath the surface flowing through him. There, just out of reach, was something…familiar.
“Are they here?”
The Grigori should have energy signatures just like the Archangels. They were after all descended from the same original stock. That familiar feeling…could it be the Grigori shielded by the energy of the vortex? The reason he was feeling the energy now was because they were practically on top of the ancient intersection of ley lines.
He reached within and opened himself up to the power surging below him.
“Can you feel it?” Shasa whispered again, and pulled him away from his intense concentration.
The area seethed with energy. It pulsed and throbbed in the thick ash-filled atmosphere in an insistent rhythm. Almost a literal sound on the air waves, the energy battered and rocked them, pushing at his consciousness.
“Yes,” Zach gutted out.
“Is it them?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“I am…not sure.”
Shasa wrapped her arms around her waist and hunched her shoulders. “It hurts. As if someone or something is silently screaming. Do you feel it?”
She’d pinpointed exactly how he was feeling. Something was very wrong here. The air seethed with anguish.
“Someone is in a lot of pain.” Shasa ground out. The psychic overload was getting to her.
Her empathy was amazing. Zach felt like he was missing something crucial but he didn’t like the menace that hovered in the air. He didn’t want Shasa anywhere near whatever was happening here. The sense of danger wouldn’t leave, and he wanted to remove her from its radius, but she’d just proven that he needed her.
He clenched his fists in impotence. He was bound by his oath to the Angelic Realm and Michael, his leader, to find the Grigori, but he was also constricted by his need to keep her extraordinary soul safe.
“Anything else?” Zach had to use her perception, use her. What had she said? Someone was in a lot of pain. “Someone? Or more than one?”
They were looking for the hiding place of the unionized Grigori. Not just a single but where the banished race was cowering and conspiring.
Shasa frowned, her stunning violet eyes shadowed with a residual pain. “It feels like just one.”
Zach listened to his inner voice. One. That’s what he thought too.
“The heat,” she said.
“What about it?” Even though technically the season on Earth was Spring, it was still winter conditions in this area of the globe. This time of year the ground should be covered with frost or even several feet of snow. There were patches of what used to be mounds of snow. But the ground was mostly bare. The moss was damp and warm, bordering on hot. Forget that the fire was raging not far from here. This spot in the ground should not be this hot.
That’s when everything clicked into place.
“It’s Uri.”
“What does that mean?”
“Not what. Who.”
Zach stared hard at the ground. Wondering. Thinking. Uri had been here. Or was he here beneath the Earth’s crust?
Zach dropped to his knees and pressed his palms to the hot surface. “Uri!” he shouted.
Nothing but heat returned his call. The ground seared his palms and he had the random thought that Uri would be thrilled that he’d burned Zach.
With an uncanny knowing, he knew that Uri was somehow beneath them. Which meant that the Grigori could be hiding below the surface too. The energy signature was muddled. Maybe they could only sense Uri because he was trying to communicate with them?
“Who is Uri?” Shasa asked.
“Archangel of Birth and Renewal, his weapon is fire.”
She glanced around the wooded clearing, noting the fine gray ash that coated the evergreens in a lacy, otherworldly layer.
“Fire.” She had twisted around until she was facing the plume of dark smoke that rose above the treetops off in the distance. “So, did he have something to do with this fire?”
Unexplained circumstances, the news anchor had said on the television. Was it possible that Zach had been correct and Uri had been trying to communicate with them? To tell the Archangels where he was. The last time Uri had been seen he’d been on the trail of Remiel the leader of the Grigori. Perhaps the Grigori had somehow trapped and imprisoned him and this was his way of garnering attention.
If that were the case, that meant the Grigori could also be close.
The need to find Uri punched at him like meaty fists. He could finally atone for one of his mistakes.
“You are very smart.” Zach only wished he’d connected the fires with Uri sooner.
Shasa snorted. “It’s not that much of a reach. But I thought we were looking for the Grigori. Not your friend.”
As if Uri heard her, there was a sudden blast of heat beneath their feet. “We are not friends.” Zach ignored that small ache in his heart, the one that had grown the longer Uri had been gone.
She raised one eyebrow.
Uri had no wish to be his friend. Which was true. “I wronged him.”
“Are you sorry?” she asked curiously.
“More than he will ever know.”
“Then tell him,” she insisted.
“It’s not that simple.” Her innocence was a powerful draw, an even more powerful indulgence.
“You’ll never know unless you ask.”
Zach didn’t say a word.
“Forgiveness is a two way street. There is no peace without it.”
All things he was intimately aware of but he also knew that some transgressions were far too grave to forgive. And he had many he’d perpetrated that were even worse.
