by Joey W. Hill
It seemed out of place to be thinking of such things right now, but the way his eyes moved over her reminded her how recently she'd felt his body take hers. She found she could think of nothing else when he looked at her like this.
"Push your hair back, little one."
Anna glanced toward Mina, who ignored them and continued arranging her rocks. Anna pushed the hair over one shoulder, then the other, feeling heat expand across her skin at his expression as she revealed herself. She wore the scarves at hip and breast again, but the way he studied her, she knew he was imagining in detail what she looked like without them, though in truth it didn't require much imagining. The upper scarf was snug over her breasts, revealing the dark smudges of nipple clearly, particularly with the fabric wet as it was now.
Mermaids were not shy about their bodies, but after what they'd done earlier, she felt self-conscious. And she wasn't going to disrobe in front of Mina. Her gaze strayed to his lips, the line of his jaw . . . those dark, implacable eyes. Okay, maybe she might.
"I want you again, little one."
Goddess help me.
"It's not a bad idea," Mina said efficiently before embarrassment could suffuse Anna. "You should perform Joining Magic daily with her, or whoever's available, to help you raise the energy. It will speed your recovery and reinforce what I'm about to do to drive out the poison. It's going to need reinforcement."
Or whoever's available . . . So matter of fact . . . so medical. To Mina it was apparently that simple. Whereas Anna's reaction to Jonah's gaze and the husky words were anything but. How did he manage to do this, penetrate her mind so her thoughts clenched and shivered with the possibilities, rousing as much as her body did to his attentions?
He seemed to care little about Mina's diagnosis. While his posture was stiff and alert, betraying his distaste of her proximity, he paid no attention beyond that to what she was doing. Picking up a rock, she began a chant. She lifted it over her head, turning in a four-point circle, and then put it down to start the same process with the next stone.
Would he take her with Mina present? Did their coupling mean so little? An impersonal receptacle for his lust, his healing? But he'd said it meant more. He'd promised.
Jonah reached out a hand. "Come sit with me, Anna. As long as it won't disrupt . . . your friend."
He tilted his head slightly in Mina's direction. The seawitch merely lifted another rock. When Jonah glanced back at Anna, Mina slammed it against the back of his head.
Seven
THE green flash of the additional power she'd given the blow exploded in a shower of sparks.
Jonah toppled over, knocked out cold.
"Mina!" Anna shrieked, darting forward. "What are you--"
"Getting the two of you out of here." Kicking the rocks out of her way, Mina pulled a vial from the recesses of her cloak. "He'll stay here and let them kill him. You were right, you and your damn intuition." Mina uncorked the potion. "Hold his head up. I don't want him to choke."
As Anna hesitated, the seawitch's tone sharpened, impatient. "Anna, we don't have much time. I told you the Dark Ones are still looking for him. Well, they are looking for him. Meaning now. If he wasn't so infatuated with you, he probably would have felt them soon after I did, right when we got here."
"Why didn't you say--"
"Because I was evaluating the situation."
Anna locked gazes with the witch. "We didn't lead them back here, did we?"
"You mean, did I lead them here?" That crimson eye glinted. "Well, if he gets caught, you can assume I did. If I help him escape, then you'll have a different answer. But if you drag your anal fins and don't hold his head, you'll never really know, because they'll get us all."
Muttering, Anna bent, sliding her hand beneath Jonah's neck. "He is going to be so angry . . ."
"And alive." Mina poured the substance down his throat, massaged until she got the involuntary swallow. "But you're right. I'm glad I won't be around when he wakes." She ignored Anna's narrow look. "Come on. We've got to get him close enough to the surface that the pressure doesn't kill him when he physically changes to a human."
"What? What are you . . ."
"The potion I just gave him makes him human. Neither his own kind nor the Dark Ones will be able to detect him." Mina grunted, seizing Jonah under the arms, trampling one wing without care, and began to drag him toward the water. Anna was forced to help, despite the questions whirling in her mind.
"And what was that nonsense about performing Joining Magic every day?"
"You're not objecting, surely." Mina gave her an arch look as they heaved together. "It will help. He'll likely have a tantrum about this, so you'll have to convince him. Dance for him, sing for him, touch yourself to draw his desire."
"I'm not . . ." Anna had never blushed this much front of Mina before, and it just added to her irritation. "I don't know how to act that way."
"For him, you do. It's in your eyes. Each time you Join with him, the magic will rise and you can channel it. You know enough to do it even if he won't. While it would be better if he'd participate, I wouldn't rely on his cooperation or participation. If you value him, you'll have to seduce or trick him into it."
They'd reached the water's edge. "You're right," Mina gasped. "He's a bloody ton of muscle. Mind me, now. Dawn to dusk, he'll be human. Dusk to dawn, an angel again. The potion will last about a week, enough to get him inland."
Dropping Jonah unceremoniously, the witch grasped Anna's arm to clap a hand over her forehead. Mina never touched her, so Anna was too startled to immediately react. Heat flashed across Mina's palm, and suddenly Anna was jumbling a set of images that rolled into the front of her mind like a bag of marbles scattered pell-mell there. "Mina--"
"It will settle in a moment. That's a mindmap. He needs to go to Desert Crossroads in Nevada. It's a place, not a town, and it's not on any human map. There's a man there, living on a magical fault line called Red Rock Schism. He can help heal your angel's deeper hurt, if your angel doesn't do it for himself."
"Mina." Anna planted herself, gripped Jonah when Mina started to roll him in. "Stop. Look at me."
The witch scowled. "We don't have time--"
"Tell me what in the name of Neptune is going on, damn it all." Anna managed, barely, not to shout. "Or . . . I'll hug you."
Mina drew back, horror flashing through her eyes. At another time, it would have made Anna laugh, but not now. She meant it, with all the grimness of a death threat.
"Fine. Just remember when the Dark Ones catch us, it's because you wanted to waste time chatting. When the Dark Ones first invaded the waters, I consulted my scrying mirror to find out what was happening. Your angel was isolated during a battle, and his wing was severed on purpose. Not just because he's any angel. Because he's Jonah."
"I know that. He told me his name."
Mina rolled her eyes. "Be quiet and listen. Jonah is what's called the Prime Legion Commander. He leads the angels that fight Dark Ones. The only angels more important than him are Full Submission angels, and I don't have time to explain what those are."
"He told me--"
"Shut up, for Neptune's sake. Do you know this place, this Nevada?"
"It's a state. Inland." As far as Anna knew, Mina had never left the sea, despite her own shapeshifting abilities. One of the many things the witch had never explained to her.
"This man . . . he's something like me," Mina continued. "Something called a shaman. Like a wizard. If the angel can't find a way back to himself, it appears he can help."
At Anna's look, Mina shrugged. "I know. It makes no sense to me, either, why a landlocked human wizard instead of the angel's own kind can help. But as I said, maybe what he needs can't be found among the angels. Now, let's go."
"I know there's more you're not telling me. I'm not--"
"That's enough for now. I mean it, Anna. We're out of time." Leaning over Jonah's body, Mina seized Anna's arm, shocking her with the grip of her hand, the bite of
nails like claws in their sharpness. "This angel probably has the power to incinerate the world with barely a thought. Remember what I said. If the Dark Ones catch him alive, take his heart, they can enslave him. Do you want that?"
"No. But you don't care about that. You've never cared about what happens to anyone."
Anna knew Mina wasn't lying about them being out of time. The urgency coming off of her was palpable. But the answer she'd always wanted from the witch was behind this--she was sure of it. "Except me," she pressed. "You're doing this because I'm tied up with him somehow in this vision, aren't I?"
Mina started shoving at the unconscious angel again. "I can see the way you look at him. You're going to do that stupid thing you do, risking everything for one of your ridiculous compulsions. I'm duty bound to protect you, aren't I? Our shared curse and all." Mina's lips pulled back from her teeth, an unattractive feral snarl.
"You're duty bound not to cause me harm," Anna persisted. "That's different."
"If I don't protect you when I know you're in danger, it's the same thing. Now, stop arguing and get in the water before I turn you into a sponge."
"Nevada is a desert state," Anna said. "Far from the shoreline."
"Well, it's good you can become human, isn't it? Now, quickly, there are other rules. You must travel by Fate alone. You can't rent a car, or however you move around among the humans. Someone must pick you up."
"Or else what?"
Mina gave her a look that could have speared a fish. "Magic doesn't usually have the patience to explain itself, Anna. But ignore it at your own peril. Trust me."
At last Anna joined Jonah in the water, held on to him while the seawitch prepared to shift back to tentacles and gills. "I guess, at the very least, it makes practical sense," she considered doubtfully. "If I want to keep him safe until he recovers, he needs to go where they don't expect him to be. Why would they expect him to be on land, on his way to Nevada? It sounds ludicrous to me, so it may be beyond their imagining as well."
Mina nodded. "Neither the angels nor the Dark Ones know his whereabouts. But they all know he went into the sea. Nothing is farther from the sea than the desert. Even so, travel only by day, when he's human. Even that's going to be a risk, because his power signature is strong. The Dark Ones will track that signature. They won't be able to pin it on him during the day, but if they're in his vicinity when night falls, they might be able to find him. So stay undercover at night. No traveling.
"Now, mind me on this as well. Two days." She gave Anna a sharp look. "You head back toward the ocean after two days. I don't care if you've gotten there or not. You promise me."
"Do you care for me at all?" Anna asked abruptly. Reaching out, she snagged the witch's cloak, careful not to touch her skin, since she knew Mina hated that. "Tell me true, in case we never see one another again. Is it just the curse between us?"
"Anna, stop it. We don't have time for this."
"Yes," Anna said steadily, gazing at her. "We do. I'm twenty years old. You know we may never see one another again. Tell me, just this once. What is the truth between us?"
Mina drew back, and for a moment Anna saw both of her eyes. One red, emanating the dangerous malevolence of Mina's Dark sire. The other a sapphire blue, equally disturbing in its intensity, reminding Anna that Mina's mother had been one of the most feared seawitches in the ocean.
"As long as you insist on helping him, you're a target. I care not whether an angel lives or dies. But there's only one of you."
Anna stared at her. "Those were almost the first words he spoke to me. 'There are many angels. There is only one of you.' "
"Maybe he's not an idiot, after all. Stay safe, Anna. You're important."
Important to Mina? Or to this vision?
However, before she could ask another question, Mina shoved her under the water and dumped Jonah all the way in, on top of her. Anna thrashed beneath the weight of his body, sputtering and cursing, before she managed the transition back to mermaid and could use the balance of her tail to help her seize a portion of the unconscious angel. By that time Mina was in the water with her.
The seawitch watched Anna get her arms around the angel until she was holding him securely, as if she thought her world would end if she let him go. She told herself it didn't matter that she hadn't told Anna everything. The mermaid had an irritatingly overblown sense of responsibility as it was.
And Anna was right--her time was running out. Mina should be glad the mermaid would no longer be her responsibility.
Instead, one of the seeds of the vision came back to her, disturbing the seawitch more than she cared to admit.
She is the only one who can save him.
AS Mina predicted, they'd talked too long. They weren't quite to the surface when the physical transformation began.
Anna was forced to a stop, her arm latched around Jonah's upper body as it writhed, convulsed in the grip of the potion's effect. As Mina held his legs, the wings slowly dissolved, a few handfuls of feathers drifting away on the current.
Like a sudden explosion, overwhelming desolation detonated through Anna. This plan would not work. It was going to fail. She was going to fail Jonah, and he would die.
Her gaze shot to Mina, frightened. Her friend's eyes had become wild, mouth taut. She gestured upward. "Ignore it. Keep going. I'll draw them off. Two days inland, Anna. Don't forget."
"But what if he won't go on without me?"
"That's his Fate. You can't make his choices, can you? Now promise me--"
Despair closed in, knocking Anna back like the blow from a strong wake. Only the fierce hold she had on Jonah's body kept him with her.
Mina gave her a searing look, seized an armful of glowing feathers, and flipped backward. She shot back down through the water like an arrow, away from Anna. Toward the source of those dark and hopeless feelings.
"Mina, no!" Anna fumbled her burden and began to sink.
No. They weren't getting him, not this way. She wouldn't let them compel her to surrender. Gritting her teeth, she seized Jonah under the arms and started pumping upward as fast and hard as she could. Without the wings, it was actually easier.
Ten strokes later, her heart choked her as she realized he was now human. He had to breathe. Frantic, she stopped, hovered and closed her mouth over his, breathed. Gave him air from her lungs. Then stroked upward again. Up fifteen strokes, breathe for him, drop five.
And each time, despite the circumstances, she couldn't help but feel desire at the touch of his mouth. She had to focus to make sure she breathed into it instead of nibbling, tasting. By the time she made the surface, she was gasping, her vision gray. Her mermaid form allowed her to breathe with gills or lungs interchangeably, but she'd had to use her lungs to keep air in him. Now she drank in oxygen greedily, floating a moment and holding him to her side before she rolled him to his back and began to navigate toward the distant shore. They were a couple miles out, but she knew that shoreline, had swum toward it before. Cradling his jaw, she held his throat as she moved, keeping his mouth and nose above the waterline. His hair brushed her arm, and she hoped he wouldn't wake before they reached land. She didn't want him to realize his form had changed and he'd been betrayed while they were still in the water. He might just be piqued enough to drown himself. Or her.
The sense of the Dark Ones faded, telling her Mina had been successful in drawing them off. She swallowed over a jagged ache in her throat. Please let her be all right. Even while praying for that, she knew her bond with the seawitch was pathetic. Her one enduring relationship was with someone who despised the sight of her most of the time.
She kept on, fiercely focusing on her destination. While Mina had said as a human he would not be detectable as an angel, Anna didn't want anyone investigating why a mermaid was rescuing a stranded human out as far as this when there were no capsized boats in the area. She swam as fast as she could, pushing herself, holding on to him, praying for Mina.
JONAH surfaced slowly, fe
eling as if he were swimming through sand. Weighted down, but curiously weightless as well. Hazy. Nauseated. Nausea?
Though he was on his back, he managed to roll to his side before he started throwing up, an altogether astounding and unpleasant first-time experience that felt like his insides were being squeezed by a large, punishing fist. Fortunately, he was at the tide line. He convulsed, fighting against it as he would an enemy, but his body would not be denied.
When he finished, he rinsed out his mouth with seawater and rolled back, passed his hands over his eyes. The sun. He was above the water. But something was wrong. Everything seemed muted, as if his finely tuned senses had been stuffed with cotton. As he tried to struggle back to a sitting position, he found himself still off balance. He straightened out his wings to steady himself and . . .
He had no wings. No wings. Groping at his back, he twisted, turned and found out that not only were his wings gone, but he was wearing human clothes. A black cotton T-shirt, and a pair of jeans, both too snug over the musculature of his shoulders and thighs.
Then he became aware he was being watched.
She sat nearby, her back against a large piece of driftwood, hands tightly clasped in one nervous ball on her knees. He vaguely registered she also was wearing clothing. A light, gauzy top that stretched over her breasts, outlining the sweet points of her nipples. Slim straps over her shoulders. A skirt of similar fabric brushed her ankles in her bent-legged position, the hem rippling over the tops of her bare feet. Her golden brown hair was tied back, but of course it was so long the curly ends had blown forward, caressing her wrists, tangling them like restraints, holding her in that spot as if she were a captive awaiting his punishment.
"It's okay," she said quietly, as he made it to one knee and stared at her. "It's disorienting at first. When I go from legs to a tail and back again. But you adjust to it in time. And you won't have to get used to it for long--"
In two steps he was on her, seizing her shoulders, though he stumbled and fell to one knee again, his head spinning. She caught him, and they ended up tumbling together, her on top as he hit the sand. Cursing, he rolled to his side, taking her under him, holding her with bruising hands.
