"No." He shook his head. "Of course not. He assumes if you're here, under our protection, you'll do us the courtesy of continuing your current efforts to keep the Dark One blood you carry away from the use of your power. As to whether you might consider using your power to help protect the Lady's interests on occasion, that's something you'll have to decide on your own. But you have time before it becomes an issue." He took a breath. "Mina, I'm asking you to look at me this time."
She ground her teeth, her jaw flexing, but in the end she raised her lashes. She didn't necessarily like this, having an argument with their faces so close, where she could see the reflection of her scarred face in his irises, so she shifted to stare at his cheekbone and tried to ignore it, even as she crossed her arms more tightly across herself.
"As long as Anna and I have any say about it, Mina," he said, "you'll be left in peace. You can be safe here. Have a life."
"It's too much. Too soon. I can't..." She shook her head, turned away to look around the porch, back into the house. This time he let her, probably because he did know her. Well enough to know when to get in her face and when not to, maybe better than she did.
Two days ago, she'd not thought beyond the daily routine of her life, the need to survive, to struggle through each day. This house, the energy here, the way it was embracing her in a manner that was devoid of threat... it resurrected a part of her she'd thought she'd long ago destroyed. The wishes of the child were still there. The child who'd been abandoned, tortured. Who'd grown up in the cold and darkness, never expecting or daring to hope for anything. Determined to survive, enough to fight for it every moment she'd breathed, never questioning why she was fighting, for the answer would have been so desolate she would have lost the battle. For the first time, she might have an answer she could bear to hear, and the gift of it, after so long, might crack her into a million pieces.
"Mina."
"Don't tell me things like this, David. I can't believe them, you understand?" She turned and stared up into his eyes, trying to convey what she herself wasn't even sure she knew how to say. "I can't afford to believe them. I can only take it moment by moment, okay? You tell me I have this place for the next few moments, that I can consider it mine for just this little bit of time, I can do that. Okay?"
"Okay." He nodded, even as she began to repeat herself, then bit her lip, cutting herself off. He ran his hands up the outside of her arms. "It's all right. Okay."
She closed her eyes, and they stood that way a long moment. He just held her lightly, not pushing. Just reminding her he was there. He was there. And he'd said he'd continue to be there. "I want to go sit in the tire thing," she said.
"Then let's go do that." He stepped back, but retained her hand so they walked down the back porch stairs hand in hand. While her own cooperation flummoxed her, she nevertheless went with him. She stopped at the bottom, though, realizing she'd left her shoes inside, wanting to feel the texture of the wood, the energies moving through it, through her soles. Before she could turn to retrieve them, he made a noise, positioned her a couple steps up and then guided her to take a little hop to ride on his back, her arms looped around his neck, her chest comfortably mashed against his half-spread wings, the tips of the secondary feathers tickling the skin on the insides of her thighs.
"Don't your feet hurt?" Then she glanced down and saw his feet weren't touching the ground, which was scattered with various prickly forms of vegetation and heated sand. "Oh."
There was a cobbled path that intersected from the side of the house, so he let her down when they reached that, and they walked the remaining few steps to the tire swing.
"You sit in it with your feet dangling, and hold the rope, like this." Lifting her by the waist, he directed her to grasp the rope and guided her feet in through the hole with that effortless strength that never failed to impress her, though she tried not to show it. "And then you hold on."
He pulled her back, until he was farther off the ground and so was she, but not so far. About fifteen feet, just enough to thrill her. Then he let her swing free and forward, the ground rushing up and by, the sky coming fast at her from the opposite direction.
It was a simple childlike pleasure, and David waited to see if it would trip off a negative reaction from her Dark One blood. Her eyes widened in amazement, that tight mouth easing as she got the feel of it. When she started anticipating each push he gave her, the blue eye had softened, the crimson one going to a dormant stillness. A small proof that his theory about a different way of balancing her darkness might be right. Quiet pleasure gripped him, held him in the moment with her, carrying his heart up into the sky with hers.
He'd told her she could find a sanctuary here. It was unexpected to glimpse the possibility of one for him as well.
As her slim fingers gripped the rope, keeping her body close to the tire, he thought how resilient and fragile she was at once. It made him understand how loving a female could tear a male to pieces and make no logical sense. There was nothing lovable about her, but there was nothing about her he didn't love. He sensed so much inside her, a complexity that could hold even an angel's attention for the length of his immortal life. One moment she was coming at him with the venom of a harpy, and the next she was riding a tire swing, figuring out that its entire and unfamiliar purpose was play. And as she warily accepted that, he got to see the click of a miracle when she gave it to herself as a gift.
Eventually, when he sensed her tiring, he let the swing wind down to a gentle sway, holding the rope above her head to keep the tire steady. They stayed that way, side by side, her on the swing, cheek laid against the tire, while he stood next to her, both watching the sunbeams play over the rocky hills. A hawk passed over with a piercing shriek that echoed, and she watched it until it moved out of sight.
"I know it's hard to contemplate," he said at last, keeping his voice a soothing murmur. "But what if you did live here? Could you do that? Would you like that?"
"I've been alone my whole life, David." She tilted her head, laying her cheek on the tire to study him. And surprised him when she reached out absently to play with the ends of his hair lying against his shoulder, her fingers stroking his skin. The way she did it, it was as if she wasn't even conscious of it, just following a nameless desire to touch something that was only passing through her personal space, something that wouldn't remain.
"And that doesn't just mean being without family. It also means no place in an ordered society. No friends. Being invulnerable and indifferent aren't quirky personality traits. They're survival tools. I've created things to talk to, like the cat you saw in the boat, so I'd remember how to communicate. I've depended only on myself to survive. I don't know what feeling safe or secure is, and as fearful as I've been at different times, nothing frightens me more than being offered a chance to live my life differently, because I might forget how to just survive when it's all taken away." She tilted her head toward him. "Not if. When.
"You've taken me several steps away from just surviving over the course of a couple days. Those steps can be lost in a blink, and when you lose them, it knocks you back twice as far, makes you question why you even risked it to begin with. If you don't risk it, the question will never be there."
"If you don't risk it, there's nothing worth living for. Life is supposed to be about more than survival."
"Not for me. I've lost control twice. As the dragon, I could have killed you."
"But you didn't," he reminded her. "Every new skill takes time to learn, and it can be risky. You have courage, Mina. As much courage as anyone I've fought beside. You take the risk to reach for something better, I'll be here. At your back."
She swayed in the tire, holding his gaze, the two of them resting on that thought in silence until she broke eye contact, looked toward the sky again.
What would it be like to live here? Watching the sky, knowing that the storms that cloaked the skies, the forks of lightning, could be David in a battlefield above. She'd read a book
about a wife who waited for her husband to return from battle. If you loved anyone that much, would you let them face a fight alone? What if she was with him in the sky, fighting the same battles? Watching his back as he watched hers?
Her thoughts, besides being irrational, were based on the assumption he was telling her the truth, that he wanted to be with her.
"If I was the type of being who allowed myself to need someone, and permitted myself to tell that someone they were needed"-Mina cocked her head-"then I'd tell you-maybe-that I need you."
His expression spread warmth across her skin and down into her chest, making it tight. He had his head tilted, the wings folded, strong body leaned against the tire, so close and touchable. His thigh brushed the side of hers, his arm muscles within brushing distance of her lips, where he grasped the rope.
"I need to lie down in the big bed with you," she continued, holding his eyes with her own. "Have you inside me. And not leave me until I'm asleep, so I don't have to say good-bye. Not ever. Every time you come and go, that's what I'd need. I wouldn't ever have to say good-bye."
The wind whispered across the plains, the sun slipping down another notch, turning the sky a new, more brilliant hue of violet. Letting go of the rope, David leaned down. "Put your arms around my neck. I think we should practice. A few test runs, where you wake up and I'm still here."
She complied, her courage expired, even under the guise of speaking hypotheticals. Lifting her, he cradled her in his arms, carrying her back to the house. His gaze went up and then they were aloft, landing on the upper verandah that had been built all along the second level of the house, the flight done before she could get apprehensive.
Still, she'd tightened her arms around his neck in reaction, which gave her the excuse to press her face into his throat, brush her lips on the pulse there. She saw the desert stretching behind his shoulder, those still rock formations. It was the ocean, the clouds forming the shadows that water could create, but no cold and darkness. Not until the sun set. And then there would be warmth in here.
He'd known that for her to feel comfortable on land, to consider something different from what she'd always known, she would need a protected place like this, that felt open and yet hidden at the same time. She'd just given him an insight into her life she'd never given anyone, but now she wondered, when it came to David, did she even need to expend that effort?
She'd never dared to consider anything permanent except her physical limitations. So wanting something to be permanent would be a fruitless pursuit. But for just a tiny second, with him carrying her, she imagined, in the deceptive safety of her own mind, what it would be like if this were permanent. The wind, how it whispered in a way that had the tranquility of silence in the ocean. The sun's brush, its different colors embedded in rock and earth formations, colored there over centuries, now reflected against a blue sky. His broad shoulders, the smell of his throat and hair against her lips, the movement of his body against hers.
What would it mean if it was real? Enduring. For more than a moment.
But she knew better than that. All the blessings of the angels couldn't disrupt the curse of fear and revulsion that had affected so many generations of her family. She let the image slip between her fingers in the same way she let his hair slip between her knuckles as he laid her down on the bed, leaving the pair of glass doors swung open onto the terrace so she could smell the wind and desert, hear the lonely cry of the hawk.
"I can change. Like at the saloon, so you don't see the scars." His hands had closed on her shirt, obviously intending to remove it in the light of day, when things were slow and gentle between them, not volatile and violent like the first time, where there was no time to pause or feel apprehension. Or the second, where she had used fantasy and illusion to heighten the intensity.
She couldn't believe she'd said it, offered such a thing. But he was so beautiful. He deserved something beautiful. She'd closed her own hand over his, stopping him. Afraid, remembering the reflection of her face in his brown eyes, so close. Like now.
In answer, he bent to her clenched fist, parting his lips just enough to make her attention stutter, stumble, her breath a hard object in her chest as he caressed the tender areas between her fingers with his tongue.
He hadn't chosen her unmarked hand. His mouth followed the length of the three fingers, carefully around the splint and then over the rough amputated stumps where two fingers used to be. Mina shut her eyes, something powerful breaking inside her chest, robbing her of speech, almost of breath. This might be dying, because she certainly felt that everything she was and knew was ending.
"David..."
When he lifted his head and looked at her, it left no room for doubt, even in her uncertain mind, that everything in him was focused on this moment. On her.
"Why?" she whispered.
Instead of answering, he lifted the shirt over her head. Freed the string tie holding the skirt and worked it downward through methodical exploration, his hands moving with slow, easy movements. Sure, no hesitancy or indecision that would have spooked her. What flesh he found, he explored with a long-fingered, sensitive touch, a stroking that made her tremble even harder.
Her rib cage, a section of hip. The tender crevice of her arm-pit, the shoulder blade behind.
Then he'd pulled it all free, dropping the garments to the floor, and he was curved over her, sheltering her with the spread of his wings, his eyes intent, mouth a sensuous line.
He touched her neck first, one hand on each side, the warmth of him spreading down her body, over her sternum, liquefying over her chest, tightening the nipple on one side and even the other, though there wasn't one there. It occurred to her, hazily, that when he touched her, it was like it was all still there. She was whole, with no illusion magic necessary.
When he let his hands drift down, fingers spread, thumbs overlapping as if he were pantomiming a bird, gliding down her flesh, she drifted up toward that touch before she even had a coherent thought of it. As his hand at last closed over her breast, the other stroking the uneven mound beside it, she sucked in a hard, aroused breath, her lower body clenching as if he'd touched her there. It was as much his expression as his hands that made her react, for in his eyes she saw proof she couldn't deny, at least at this vulnerable moment. She was the most wondrous discovery he'd ever made.
When Mina reached out, David paused to watch her while she touched his wing, followed the curve. She tugged on a handful of feathers. Though his desire was a simmering fire, he let himself be drawn to the side, back on his elbows, stretching both wings to half-mast, since the full six-foot stretch on either side would have knocked lamps off the night tables. He laced his fingers behind his head when she guided them there, squeezing his wrists once as an apparent request to keep them there so she could continue her play with him.
Or perhaps it wasn't a request. His witch could get somewhat imperious herself. Perhaps she didn't know that she and Jonah had that in common.
She'd sat up to give him room, and now his humor was swallowed by something more powerful as she leaned forward to run both her hands down the primary and two sections of secondary feathers again, as well as the inner wing layer. She did it slowly, repetitively, almost as if she were playing a harp, strumming down them, one hand following the other, down then across, tracing the arch.
He watched her eyes, the set of her mouth as she stretched out her arm to see how it lay against it, the comparative lengths. Then she turned her attention to his arm, following it from where the elbow bent, down to the crease of shoulder where arm joined to the upper torso. As her fingers lingered on the tautly bunched biceps, her tongue touched her lip, an entirely unconscious move that made more of his blood churn in a downward direction. Noticing his response, she let her hand drift that way as well.
But she paused on the now scarred-over burn mark on his chest, laying her palm over its mirror image in his flesh. That touch almost broke his control. He wanted to take her over, put her b
eneath him, but then she slid down. Pushing the half tunic out of the way, her thumb hooking on his belt to tease his stomach muscles, she curled her fingers around his heat.
"Mina, look at me." He put his hand up against her face, drew her gaze to him. "Come down here. Let me feel your body lying on mine."
She came to his mouth eagerly. While so little about her was innocent, her complete lack of self-consciousness because of her sexual inexperience was, and it made him crazy for her at the same time it stirred things in him which held him back, wanting to prolong the sweet torment of watching her discover what pleased her.
Mina knew what she wanted. As she slid over his body, straddled him, his cock was there, beneath her thigh, pressed against the outer lips of her sex. She rocked against him, physical coordination difficult during the kiss. God, she loved his mouth. She could admit it to herself. He made every part of her body sing, but his mouth... If she had to choose her eternity, it would be one filled with those long, drugged kisses that drove away everything in her mind.
He was taking his revenge, teasing her with his cock now, bringing her channel down snugly on it and sliding her wetness slowly up and down its length with a firm hand on her backside, his fingers parting the cleft between her buttocks in a way that had her squirming, taking over the movement herself, building her own response.
"Want you inside," she gasped.
"Beg, sweet witch. Ask."
"I can't..."
He nodded. And then, using that effortless strength again, he brought her up his body and sat her fully upon his mouth.
Gods, shouldn't she have taken this lesson to heart earlier? She cried out, would have gripped the headboard, but he had both her wrists, held them pinned against her hips as he suckled her into his mouth, did with his mouth what she so needed another part of him to do. She rocked, bucked, but his hold was immovable. And the higher she got, the further away any resolve got until she was gasping his name.
When he moved her back down, he held her fast on his cock, which had gotten harder, so that when he split her lips with it again, pressing the engorged head against her clit, she screamed.
A Witch's Beauty Page 26
