by Nalini Singh
Taking the cloth when he returned it, she reached out to run it over his chest. "Do you own any shirts?"
Enjoying the tender touch quite unlike those of other warriors who might have sewn up dangerous injuries in battle so he could continue to fight, he said, "Yes. For formal occasions." Though in Titus's court, even those occasions hadn't often required a shirt.
Jessamy laughed . . . right before her face crumpled. Gathering her into his arms, he stroked his hand over her back as she wrapped her own arms around his neck and sobbed. He was careful to avoid the sensitive area where her wings grew out of her back, the feathers there a rich, evocative magenta that faded into blush, then pure cream in the body of her wings. To steal that intimacy would be to devalue its worth--he would wait until Jessamy invited the touch.
Her breath, ragged and hot, blew across his skin as she tried to get even closer. Nudging his way between her knees, the gossamer skirts of her gown frothing around them, he cradled her tight. So slender was her body, so terrifyingly fragile. But not bony, he now realized, for all her appearance of painful thinness. It was as if her frame itself was so very fine that the flesh upon it need only be the gentlest of layers. There was a sensual grace to her, exquisite and beautiful.
"He can't hurt you now," he said in her ear when her sobs quieted, her hair as soft as fur under his hand, against his face.
A hiccupping breath before she sat up again, drawing her dignity around herself like a shield. "Thank you." Glancing down, she colored at the way her knees spread on either side of his thighs.
He stepped back so she could close her legs, settle her skirts. Barbarian or not, he understood that as a warrior needed his weapon, Jessamy needed her pride. "Who was he?"
"I don't know," she said, wiping away her tears until her face bore no evidence of the emotional storm that had just passed. "He came into the house while I was in the kitchen--I thought it was one of my students. They know to knock, but the littlest ones sometimes forget."
"Did he say anything?"
"That I knew too much," Jessamy said, forcing herself back into the nightmare. "They couldn't take the chance." The vampire had fallen on her before she'd realized the import of his words. Driven by instinct, she'd managed to cut him with the small knife in her hand before he hit her head against the edge of the door he'd ripped open, dazing her enough that he'd almost succeeded in shoving her out onto the unforgiving rocks below.
Jessamy was more than two thousand years old, and while not the strongest of her kind, she was in no way weak--the fall wouldn't have killed her, but it would have shattered her into so many pieces that it would've taken years, perhaps a decade, for her to recover. In the interim, she'd have lain mute and still as death. Plenty of time for anyone who didn't wish his plans exposed to bring them to fruition. "You saved me from terrible pain."
Even as she spoke, she waited for Galen to berate her for having a clifftop residence when she couldn't fly. How could she explain to him that she had the same soul-piercing hunger for the sky as her brethren, the same need to soar? Her house was as close as she could get to the clouds. However, the expected recrimination didn't come from this warrior male who'd stroked her with shockingly gentle hands, his voice low and deep against her ear. Instead, he frowned, his attention on her attacker. When he pulled away from the table, she had to bite down on her lower lip to keep from begging him to stay.
The rawness of her need rocked her. She'd been on her own for decades even before she reached the hundred-year mark that constituted adulthood among angelkind. It was highly unusual for an angel to request emancipation as an adolescent, but the constant presence of her mother's guilt had been a shroud that threatened to suffocate Jessamy. Keir had spoken for her with Caliane--into whose section of the Refuge she had been born, convinced the archangel Jessamy was mature enough to be trusted on her own.
Over the years, her aloneness had become something she'd embraced, as much a part of her as her twisted wing and brown eyes. But today, she wanted nothing more than to be held, to be protected by the big stranger who was currently going through her assailant's pockets with grim efficiency. She should've hopped down from where he'd put her, ordering her to "Stay" like she was a pet or a sack of potatoes, but the truth was, she wasn't sure her legs would support her.
"What have you found?" she asked when he withdrew something from the vampire's pocket.
Rising, he walked over to hand her the piece of paper. She opened it, felt her heartbeat shudder. "It's a time and a place. My house, at this time of day--I often come home to eat something before going to the library to work." It was in the mornings that she usually taught, though she did sometimes change the lessons to the afternoons, especially when the days grew dark and cold. The children never wanted to wake up.
"So," Galen said, his shoulder flexing as he put one hand on the table beside her hip, the primal heat of him unfamiliar, but not unwanted, "someone either knew, or watched you long enough to learn your patterns."
Her eyes lingered on the dead vampire's body. "What a waste."
"He made his choice." With those pitiless words, Galen looked at the body again, at the wall splattered with red congealing to black. "I'll clean that up, but first, I have to inform Dmitri. We'll fly to him."
"No." She pushed at his shoulders when he went as if to gather her up in his arms.
Galen's scowl turned the pale green of his eyes into stormy seas. "I won't drop you."
"It's not that." Her resistance to being flown had its genesis in the agony of a realization she'd had long ago--that each taste of the sky only deepened the bruise of loss. Not even the best of friends could ever take her flying for as long as she needed. "I don't fly with anyone."
"I'm not leaving you here alone." Deep voice, a wall of unyielding muscle.
"I'll be fine." Her eyes skated away from the bloody ruin of the corpse. Fighting the bile burning her throat, she said, "I'll wait in the front yard."
Galen snorted, put his hands around her waist, and picked her up so her toes hung above the ground. Grabbing onto his shoulders, the heat of him burning through her palms, she said, "What are you doing?" her voice breathless.
He answered by carrying her out of the kitchen--to her silent thanks--and to the paved courtyard she'd bordered using colorful pots spilling a wild cascade of blooms. Where he finally put her on her feet and glared. "Wait."
"Stay. Wait," she muttered to his broad back as he strode inside, doing her best to be insulted--but the truth was, he'd not only saved her from unimaginable agony; he'd made her feel safe enough that she'd cried . . . and then he'd held her with a sweet, rough tenderness. Anger was not the dominant emotion she felt toward Galen.
When he returned with her sandals and went down on one knee to slide them onto her feet, his wings a rich, dark gray against the paving stones, she started to argue that she could do it herself. But Galen, as she'd already begun to learn, was an irresistible force when he wanted something, and he had her feet in the sandals moments later, the skin of his hands callused, the touch intimate in a way that made her abdomen clench. Rising, he took her hand, enclosing it in his own. "Come."
She didn't break the proprietary hold, vestiges of the terror she'd felt as she fought not to be thrown into the serrated jaws of the gorge continuing to whisper cold and oily through her veins. "My closest neighbor, Alia, is through there." She pointed to the narrow pathway between the rocks up ahead. "I'll stay with her, while you fetch Dmitri."
Galen wove his warm, strong fingers with her own, spreading one wing protectively behind her at the same time, the feathers that made up the white striations glittering with hidden threads of white-gold.
Beautiful.
Galen spoke on the heels of that wondering thought. "Did your father take you flying?"
Pain twisted through her heart and she stepped up her pace in a futile effort to outrun the question. "Don't ask me such things."
"Should I simply ignore the fact that your wing is twist
ed?"
"Titus has manners," she said, infuriated at how easily he arrowed in on the oldest, most painful of the wounds that scarred her. "Why don't you?"
Galen's wing brushed her back, heavy and warm, but his words were merciless. "I think people here tiptoe around you on the subject of your wing, and you let them."
Trying to tug her hand from his was akin to trying to remove it from solid rock. "I can walk the rest of the way on my own." Her neighbor's house was now in sight. "Go, inform Dmitri."
Instead of obeying, he continued to walk and she had to move with him or risk getting dragged. "I thought you had more courage than that, Jessamy."
She wanted to hit him. Kick him. Hurt him. The urge was so unlike her that she forced herself to take a mental step back, draw in a deep draught of the cool mountain air. "I have more courage than you'll ever understand," she said as they came to a stop in front of Alia's home, her back stiff with pride.
How dare he say that to me? How dare he?
This time when she tugged, he released her hand, and she made her way to the door. It knotted up her spine that he had such a perfect view of the wing that had forced courage on her when most angels were laughing babes, but she didn't falter, didn't hesitate. And she didn't look back.
*
Dmitri glanced at the body, then at the red-black spray of blood on the wall. "How is Jessamy?"
"Fine." So angry with him that her bones had cut sharply against gold-dusted skin he wanted to taste with his mouth, the urge primitive. As primitive as the craving he had to stroke his hand over the lush sweep of her wings, the softness of her feathers an exquisite temptation--until he'd picked up one silken feather from her home, hidden it carefully in his palm. "Once the shock of the attack wears off, she'll want to know the reason behind it."
"That's the question, isn't it?" Dmitri focused on the dead vampire's face. "He's not one of Raphael's, but someone will recognize him. I'll have a sketch circulated."
Galen nodded, walked outside with Dmitri. "Jessamy will want to return to her home." From the waterfall of flowers, to the thick cream of the carpets, to the children's drawings framed and hung with care, this place carried her imprint--a woman didn't easily walk away from a place she'd made so much her own. "I promised her I'd clean it up."
"I'll take care of that, but it won't be ready for her until tomorrow." Dark eyes flicked to Galen. "She needs a watch on her."
"Yes." There was no need to volunteer for the task when they both knew he'd allow no other warrior near her when she was so vulnerable. "Aren't you afraid I might be behind all this?" He was the unknown element, the stranger.
"No." A single, resolute word. "You aren't the kind of man who would ever assault a vulnerable woman. And," the vampire added, "if you had orchestrated this, she wouldn't still be breathing--she'd be in torn, bloody pieces on the wall of the gorge."
Galen flinched inwardly, but Dmitri was right on both counts. "I'll make sure no one reaches her." Whether she welcomed his protection or not.
4
Sunset was whispering on the horizon when he returned to Jessamy, a small bag of her things in hand. "My aerie," he suggested, "would be the safest place for you." The openness of her current surroundings made the back of his neck itch.
Shaking her head, however, she said, "Alia has already offered me a room."
"She has a child." He'd glimpsed the toys scattered on the roof, where a curious young angel might choose to play.
Comprehension ran swift and dark across Jessamy's face, infiltrated the deep brown of her eyes. "Yes, of course. I would never put a child in harm's way."
"Adults are fair game?"
She sucked in a breath, holding a fisted hand to her abdomen. "You really believe there will be another attempt on my life?" It was couched as a question, but he knew she was already aware of the probable answer. Her next words confirmed it. "There's a small room in the library equipped with a bed. I can stay there."
He gave a curt nod. "Very well."
Jessamy didn't trust Galen's immediate agreement, but he didn't push at her to change her mind as he escorted her back to the library, a silent, battle-ready presence by her side. His gaze took in every tiny element of their surroundings until his protective watchfulness was a pulse against her skin.
"See," she said when they reached the room in the library, her chest tight, as if her breath had been stolen, "no large windows and only one door." No one would be able to get to her once she bolted that door from the inside.
Giving a silent nod after checking the walls to ensure their thickness and stability, he allowed her to close the door behind him. Trembling, she collapsed on the narrow bed meant for scholars who wanted to find a little rest. It had to be the lingering shock of the attack, she thought. She was too old and too sensible to react with this strange mix of fear and exhilaration because of a man. Especially a man who had left her all but blind with anger not long ago.
Relieved at the explanation, she picked up a book from the table beside the bed, opened it to the first page. It was but a fraction of a moment later that she heard the scuff of Galen's boot as he shifted outside and belatedly realized he intended to stay at her door through the night. Because that was the only way to protect anyone in this room--the library had too many exits and entrances for him to keep watch at any other location.
She knew he'd come to no harm. He was an angel. A powerful one, regardless of his age--some angels never grew in power after reaching adulthood, while others, like Jessamy, gained it incrementally. Galen, by contrast, was one of those who was escalating in huge surges, part of the reason he made such a good candidate to be weapons-master for an archangel--a night on his feet without sleep would cost him nothing. Yet guilt twisted inside of her, a hard-edged blade. He'd saved her life, bled for her, and she was being childish about sharing his living quarters, where he could rest easier, because she had never lived with a man in any sense.
More than two millennia, and she had allowed no male so close.
It hadn't been a choice at the start. It had simply happened. She'd been shy and self-conscious about her misshapen wing, had hidden herself in the library. Later, when she'd gained enough confidence in her abilities to walk taller, she had been approached. There hadn't been many of course, but there had been enough that she'd had more than a single option.
At the time, young and still unbearably sensitive about her wing in spite of her outward confidence, she'd believed the men had asked her out of pity, that each would play the part of a kind suitor only long enough to assuage his conscience. So she'd repudiated them before they could do the same to her.
She knew she'd been right about the motivations of at least one of those who had attempted to court her. But the others . . . perhaps she had been wrong. But one thing was indisputable--it had soon become "known" that Jessamy preferred her peace, that she was a scholar and a teacher. Everyone had forgotten she was also a woman, with hopes and dreams of a mate, a family, a home that wasn't always so silent when night fell in a soft hush. She'd tried very hard to forget the truth herself because it hurt so much less.
"I thought you had more courage than that, Jessamy."
Her nails cut into her palms. Hating her life at that moment, a life she'd built brick by brick, until she'd entombed herself in it, she stood, picked up the little bag Galen had packed with her things--such an unexpected, bewildering thing for him to do--and pulled the door open. "Your home," she said, before her courage deserted her, "would be easier to guard?"
Galen gave a small nod, the pure red of his hair sliding over his forehead before he shoved it back with an impatient hand. "It's on the wall of the gorge. One entrance. No steps."
So she would have to permit him to fly her down in his arms.
Continuing to watch her, Galen added, "It's not far," the wild sea of his eyes telling her he saw too much. "A heartbeat or two of flight."
Sweat broke out along her spine and she had to swallow twice before she could
get the words out in a husky rasp. "All right."
Galen said nothing until they were on the very edge of the cliff overlooking the magnificent danger of the gorge. "Hold on," he murmured, picking her up and tucking her against him with one arm bracing her back, the other under her thighs, "and think of all the bad words you know you want to call me."
Surprised delight filled her with laughter . . . just as he stepped off the cliff and angled down toward his aerie, his wings a stunning creation of light and shadow above them. The wind tugged at her gown, played with her hair, had her stomach falling for the infinitesimal amount of time they were in the air. When they landed, she glanced up with her lips still curved to find Galen looking down at her, a slow smile dawning on his face. "You aren't afraid."
"What?" Dropping her bag to the ground, she waited for him to put her down--even as she barely resisted the urge to use their proximity to push back that too-long hair of his, the strands once more brushing his eyelashes. "No. That's not why I don't fly."
Galen continued to examine her with those eyes of ice and spring, until she had to answer, to confess a secret so terrible and deep, she'd never before spoken it to anyone, not even to Keir, who had known her for millennia. "It's because I want it too much."
Vulnerability hit her on the heels of her confession, a punch to the gut that would've had her crumpling if she hadn't been held in arms of heated, living iron. "Put me down." She couldn't bear to see pity mark the hard lines of his face.
"Since I already know your secret," Galen said instead, nuzzling his chin against her hair, "do you want to go flying?"
Jessamy's heart stopped. "It would only make the hunger worse," she whispered, lifting a hand to brush back that thick, silken hair the color of the brilliant heart of a mountain sunset.
"I can fly for hours without faltering." He settled her even closer, the wild heat of him burning into her skin, infusing her blood. "And," he murmured, holding her gaze, "you'll be far safer in the air than anywhere else."
