A Witch's Beauty

by A Witch's Beauty (lit)

  Her arms tightened around him as his pace picked up, since he was no longer modulating it to hers. But he didn't go too fast as he ascended to the surface. While that was partly for her peace of mind, he rather enjoyed the lazy sensation of his wings moving like those of a bird, the wing strokes steady, gradual, using the water currents to adjust his upward movement. "The statue in your cave. With the dress and the wig. Will you tell me what that is?"

  Mina turned her unsettling gaze to him. "It was the dress the seawitch Ceruleah wore when she visited Arianne on land, the day the prince said he would marry another. You're familiar with the tale?"

  "Probably a couple different versions of it. I read it when I was human, but Anna told me the fairy tale wasn't accurate to the true story. Like it didn't mention that Arianne was turned to stone by the witch initially."

  Mina nodded. "Arianne knew as soon as the prince wed she would die and become foam on the sea, just as my ancestor had promised. But then Ceruleah donned the beautiful sapphire dress and came to her at the palace." Mina dropped her head back, inadvertently laying it on his shoulder so she could study the changing patterns of the light above the water as they drew closer to the surface. David felt the ends of her hair whisper across his bare back. "She walked into the palace unimpeded, for no one had ever seen a woman so beautiful. She even crossed the path of the prince. When he could not take his eyes from her, she toyed with the idea of changing the direction of his heart to inflict more cruelty on Arianne, but that was not her purpose.

  "Ceruleah brought Arianne an enchanted knife and told her if she would slay the prince with it, she would break the curse and allow Arianne to live her full three hundred years, like all mermaids. Arianne refused her. For as much as the prince had hurt her, repaid her sacrifice and devotion with pain, she loved him still. The witch was enraged. She told Arianne that love was an illusion and turned her to stone, so she would have neither the release of death nor the hope of an immortal soul. Just the interminable agony of staring at the palace, watching the prince live out his life with his princess and their children, generation after generation.

  "Eventually, of course, Neptune forced my ancestor to release Arianne from the stone, though the statue remains."

  As Mina spoke, David remembered the feel of the filmy material, the hair floating over his fingertips as Mina's was now. "Why did the witch despise Arianne so much?"

  "Arianne had everyone's love." Mina shrugged. "She was a kind-hearted princess, beautiful as well. Neptune's favorite. Yet for all the love she had, she wanted more-the prince's heart. Such greed offended my ancestor, who didn't have love-just en-vied beauty and feared power."

  She looked toward David with her unsettling red eye and scars. "Can you imagine being given something everyone loathes you for having? They're willing to take it, borrow from it, reap the benefits, but they hate you for having it, wondering why they weren't the special one. But the ironic thing is, it was no different for Ceruleah. She hated Arianne because she hadn't been given what the princess had. It's a never-ending cycle. I understand why in the end they felt a connection to each other, even though it has always been a destructive one."

  "Until you and Anna."

  "Anna broke free of it, through luck and an angel's love." Her grip shifted to his nape after that remarkably matter-of-fact statement. The increasing light and lessening pressure indicated they were getting close to the surface.

  David paused a moment, not wanting to break the thread yet, sensing he was getting close to something important. "So you don't share your ancestor's view, that love is an illusion?"

  "If your beauty and power shine so brightly that no one can see through it, the love is an illusion. Because if love is offered, it's only offered to the beauty and power, never to the woman behind it. A sham of whatever true love is."

  "But true love can see through anything."

  Mina made a derisive face, a disturbing effect with the scarring. "Like any weapon, it's only as strong as the wielder. And no one was strong enough to prove otherwise to Ceruleah."

  "The hair-"

  "My mother's," she said shortly.

  "Hmm." He resumed his ascent, thinking about the dress, the witch who wore it. Thinking about Mina painstakingly weaving her mother's hair into a wig so she could reach out and touch it. Having lost her at such a young age, had Mina ever pressed her face into the strands, imagining her mother leaning over her, letting her hair cover her daughter's face? His mother had done that. He remembered it from when he was perhaps four, or five, still in a small child's bed.

  Jesus. Not going there. Fortunately, Mina's fingers, pressing urgently into the cords of muscle at the juncture between his neck and shoulder, distracted him.

  "Go slow this time," she said. There was a tremor to her voice he could tell she tried to mask. His brow winged up.

  "You really are afraid of heights. How can you have the ability to shapeshift to a dragon and-"

  "Welcome to the irony of my life," she said stonily.

  While he tried to keep to a steady, non-alarming pace, he did have to increase his speed to make a smoother transition from water to air. As he did, he realized she'd made her own transition. What was twined around his body now was a pair of slim legs. When he'd first taken her to the spit of land, he'd done it so quickly there was no time to switch to human form before he speared her tentacles. Then, after she was freed, unable to shift to legs because of the wounds, she'd had to drag herself down to the water. Maybe she was remembering that, wanting to be able to stand on her feet on the land and not be hampered, or forced to crawl before him as she had then.

  "I'm sorry about that day," he said.

  She rotated her head toward him, her movements jerky. The way someone moved who was trying to deal with being nervous by appearing calm, the result being a slightly more animated form of rigor mortis.

  "Sshh..." He rubbed her back, his other arm tightening on her waist. "You're fine. I've got you."

  "You dropped me that day," she reminded him.

  "Yes, I did. But you'll remember I caught you before you hit the ground. In my defense, you were still fighting me, not a smart idea when someone's got you five hundred feet or so in the air."

  "The island's over there," she said, worriedly.

  "I know. I want to do something else first. Hey." He eased a hand under her hair to cup her cheek, force her to look away from the land. "It's all right. I'm not going to drop you, I swear. If I did, I could catch you."

  "Unless you got a cramp or something, and couldn't go as fast. Or maybe a stray missile shoots you out of the sky. Or a flock of birds gets between you and me."

  "You are giving this way too much thought."

  "We're still going higher. Why are we going higher? I want down."

  "Can you let me try one thing first?"

  Mina only had two alternatives. Stare directly into his face, confronting those vibrant and intent brown eyes, or look elsewhere, which would emphasize that they were not in the nice, solid net of her ocean.

  "Aren't I a little exposed to Dark Ones here? Aren't you shirking your duty?"

  "Mina."

  "Fine. Do whatever it is and be done with it."

  "Do you ever float on your back in the water and look up at the stars and moon?"

  "Every once in a while. A long while."

  "Okay, then. I need you to let go of me. I'll hold you, I promise. I just want to shift us."

  Mina looked at him in alarm, her legs and arms automatically clamping, irrespective of the fact she had one injured hand.

  "It's all right." He pried one hand off and brought it to his mouth, nuzzling her palm with his lips, stroking his thumb over it. "Trust me for just this moment. Just this one moment, remember?"

  "I don't think I can let go."

  "Okay. Let's do this, then." He shifted the daggers he wore from the front sheaths to the back, securing her with one arm throughout. Holding himself in the air during the process was effortless, and he
was hoping she was noticing that, to help her confidence. Then he altered the angle of his wings so he was leaning back, back, taking her with him as he went to a horizontal position, floating. Instead of hanging in his arms, feeling like her life depended on how tightly she could cling, now she was lying on top of his body, her one arm still around his neck, the other still in his grasp, her fingers grazing his jaw. Her body was stretched full against his, breast to chest, hips nestled in the cradle of his, one leg still twined around him, only now her foot dangled over the bracing strength of his calf.

  "How are you doing that? Birds can't do that."

  "I'm not a bird. For angels, flying isn't entirely about aerodynamics."

  Of course. Mina steadied herself with that thought, with any damn thing she could grasp. Angels weren't necessarily explained by the laws of science, any more than certain things about her were.

  "Angels achieve lift not just based on their wings, but on their own powers," he explained further, as if reading her mind. "But the wings are vital to that lift. Controlling direction, hovering, things like that. And the repository of that lift magic is in the wings, which means if they're cut off, we don't have access to that power. Or if they're injured, it limits us. Now," he said, his tone lowering as he looked into her face, his lips so close, "turn over on your back. I've got you. Don't worry. Feel me under you. I'm not going anywhere."

  "Why are you doing this?"

  "You ask that a lot. Hasn't anyone ever just wanted to do something to make you happy?"

  "If that was the case, you'd take me down to the land. Or back to the ocean."

  "Mina." When he let go of her hand, he quelled her instant alarm by smoothing a thumb over her lips, slowly enough that he made them part and traced the wetness just within. Grudgingly, she found that was also an effective distraction.

  "No," she said. "They haven't."

  His eyes darkened. "Then let me be the first to do that as well."

  Reminding her that he knew he'd been the first male inside her body. She could tell that knowledge pleased him deeply, in a way that made her swallow.

  "Turn over for me," he urged. "No leap of faith. Just a turn."

  Her limbs were quivering so much she couldn't stop them, but she made herself turn. It would be necessary to let go of him as she executed the maneuver, but she should have known he would make it easier. As she rocked to her side and thought she couldn't let go, not with all this sky around her, his hand closed on her upper arm, steadying her. Her fingers released, the cool air touching the nervous perspiration on her palms, and then he helped ease her to her back. Her bare feet pressed against his calves, her toes curled on his shin bones. When he wrapped his arm over her chest, she hooked her hands into reassuring hard sinew, taking care with her splinted finger. He overlaid her crossed arms with his other one, fitting his fingers in the available spaces between those of her uninjured hand. Her head was on his shoulder, temple rolling inward and braced against his jaw, which moved as he murmured to her.

  "Now, imagine you're in the water, and you're floating, watching the moon and stars, the occasional comet. The lights of an airplane. Shooting stars. The breeze on your face. And the ocean is just rocking you to sleep. The wind is singing to you, touching your face..."

  He was moving the same way, a slight, gentle rock. Only instead of floating in the ocean, where inattention could result in a slap of water in her face, it was like sailing across the sea in a small boat.

  She knew they were far up in the night sky. Her stomach was a ball of tension, but he had caught her that day; she couldn't deny that. He would catch her if she fell. He'd promised, after all. She could say that promises meant nothing, based on their earlier discussion, but in all honesty, no one had ever promised her anything.

  This was his element. His body rested as easily in the grip of the wind as if he lay in a mother's arms.

  "What would the wind sing to me?" she ventured.

  He began to hum. Mina had already seen how he employed music magic in his fighting, and Anna had told her he could play any instrument. She'd also said that while he had a passable voice, his true gift was in his fingers. Mina certainly couldn't argue with the latter, but she found herself entranced as he switched to words.

  He sang a poignant ballad about a boy's soft pledge to never be a burden to his girl. Instead, he would make sweet love to her, creating a quiet, dark world where there was just the embrace, the promise. And when he sang a chord about how pretty his girl was, his pretty, pretty, pretty girl, his arms tightened around her further, his fingers tangling in her hair, lips brushing her temple.

  With each chorus she relaxed a little more, though she kept her hands firmly on his arm. His body was solid and strong, their respective hollows and curves fitting well. The breeze moved through his still wings, which had slowly adjusted downward and curved up such that she could lift a damp palm and rest it on the edge of one-if she was that brave-like on the lip of a boat. With the wings positioned like that, she could only see up, not down. The wind made a soft whisper of sound behind his voice.

  She wouldn't have believed it, but it was as if she were under the comforting weight of a blanket. She was charmed into a dreamlike lassitude. His voice was against her ear, the vibration of it in his chest, while his arms held her, warm, strong. With her hips nestled into the cradle of his, the sensual enticement of his cock fitted between her buttocks under the silken kilt, the strap of his belt pressed against her back. His wings were still wet from the ocean, droplets shimmering off the tips, making them look jeweled in the moonlight, bringing her the faint fragrance of salt and enhancing the sense that they were in the sea.

  "What is that?" she asked sleepily.

  "It's an old rock ballad. Rolling Stones. Pretty, pretty, pretty girl," he crooned, his lips pulling in a smile against her temple.

  "You're still so human. You know that?"

  "I'm here with you now. That's all there is."

  Raising her five-fingered hand, his own came between the digits, splitting them open to run along the spaces in between. It made her think of him lying between her legs so she couldn't close herself off from him. He was doing the same thing here, in an inexorable manner that turned apprehension into an unsettled yearning.

  Gently, he stretched her arm out to her side and up. Coaxing her to release her hold on his arm across her chest, he moved past her breast, over the aching nipple and the phantom one to lay his forearm across her stomach. His hand molded to her bare hip bone beneath her cloak, while her fingertips brushed his elbow.

  She'd hardly steadied herself from that sensation before he had her other hand lying in the cup of the upper arch of his wing, her knuckles resting in soft feathers. He stroked her wrist with his thumb, while keeping it lightly manacled, a sense of support as well as a quiet command to remain there. Trusting him to hold her without her having to hold on to him.

  "Oh," she breathed, as a thrum of sensations tingled and ran down the tender underside of her arm and through her chest, doing a liquid, warm slide to her belly, lying beneath his other arm.

  "Look at the stars," he reminded her, a whisper against her ear.

  Stars and a moon, so bright and heavy in its lopsided crescent state, like that feeling low in her stomach. When his hand on her hip moved, her nervous hand followed. His fingertips grazed her thigh, the sensation jolting her. For all that her cloak had always provided her a versatile disguise, she was learning it did little to prevent a determined angel from accessing her lower body.

  When he traced the crease between thigh and sex, her legs trembled.

  "Open for me, Mina," he said. Quiet. Not to be denied. "Spread your legs so they're over my calves. Feel the air on your skin."

  "I don't want to fall."

  His arm immediately returned to her waist, his other fingers tightening on the wrist he had resting in his wing's concave shape. "Do you think I'd let you fall? Look up. See the stars in the sky. Feel the air moving over us, a body beneath
you. There's no fear of falling. I've got you."

  She could definitely feel his body, one quite hard part of him. When at last she moved, which necessarily meant her buttocks clenched, he contracted against her. Curious, she shifted again, felt him push back from the shift into a single, dragging stroke.

  "Now, Mina. Spread your legs for me."

  Why that commanding tone could compel her in moments like this, when so often his authority tempted her to turn him into plankton, she didn't know. But gods, it did.

  As she tentatively shifted one leg, he slid down her thigh to grip her just above the knee. He pulled it over his leg, easy and steady, so the ball of her foot brushed the outside of his calf.

  "Now the other. That's a good girl." It rubbed her against his turgid cock further and she registered his stifled moan. Hundreds of feet in the air or not, she was getting a strong desire to keep rubbing, to see if she could make him groan like that again.

  But he had his own plans. As he shifted, tilting, her heart stuttered up, making her clutch his arm again.

  "Sshh..." he whispered. "You're okay. Can you put your arms up, around my neck? Trust me to hold on to you?"

  Inching her uninjured hand up first because it was closest, she found the side of his throat, the line of his jaw. His arm low on her belly shifted carefully beneath the hold of her three-fingered hand. He had a marvelously strong forearm. Roped with muscle from his knife skill, she assumed, and she let the thought of that tangible strength bolster her. He was here, solid, real. He wouldn't let her fall. She couldn't believe in anything for long, but he'd said if she could, just for a moment...

  He helped, guiding the other hand into that harrowing arc over her head. Her upper body lifted as if seeking his touch. His fingers whispered over the broken finger.

  "I wish you'd let me heal at least that."

  When she shook her head, he sighed, pressing a kiss to her temple, putting her hands around his neck.

  The sky was vast, a jeweled dome around them, everything for her to fear far below. She'd never seen so many stars, and realized they must have ascended above the cloud cover, for her breath was short, as if the oxygen was thin. At least that was what she told herself. The immensity of it all was overpowering, and yet somehow reassuring.