A Mermaid s Kiss

by Joey W. Hill

"You suspect your wisdom is greater? Why don't I find that surprising, my lord?"

  His eyes glinted at her teasing, but he responded with a shrug. "I'm not sure it's that my wisdom is greater, little one. It's just She created us with minds and wills of our own, and there was a wisdom to that as well, one not lightly abandoned."

  "So when you were hurt and fell into the ocean, you could have called to them for aid. But you didn't."

  "I didn't. Perhaps I should have, if for no other reason than to keep a mermaid out of trouble." He flicked at her clipped-back hair, and she pulled it out of his reach, frowning at him.

  "I, too, prefer to make my own choices regarding you, my lord. As I've said before, and maybe for the same reasons. I'm not entirely sure you're best suited to determine what's in your best interest."

  "Oh, really?"

  She gave a shriek as he lunged for her. While he managed to snag an elbow, she darted under his arm so he was forced to let go. Summoning a guise of energy she didn't feel, she jumped on his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and locking her arms around his neck and shoulders. Oh, Goddess. His flesh was blessedly cool.

  "I have you well and truly pinned, my lord," she managed. "You must concede."

  "If I throw myself backward, I can crush you like a bug." But instead of doing that, he put his arms around her calves, holding her in place. "Stay there." He freed a hand to pass it over the tips of the greasewood shrub that brushed her head. Above, white clouds floated lazily against the blue sky.

  "What might you be doing on a day like today?" She made her voice a quiet whisper against his temple. "If you were in the sky."

  "Planning the next battle. Training."

  She tugged his hair. "For leisure. Other than seeking out angel bordellos."

  He smiled. "What better leisure activity is there?" He spun on his heel, turning her in circles, and she tightened her arms around his neck. It was a blissful relief to be carried. The weariness had been closing in and she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep it from him. Or maybe that's why he was carrying her. She knew he was far more sharp-sighted than was comfortable. She didn't put it past him to have teased her into getting onto his back.

  "Studying," he said at last. "When we're not planning for battle or engaged in it, we do help with other areas. Some of the angels I command are healers, watchers. Messengers, couriers. Magic creators, through music or voice."

  "What do you do?"

  "A variety of things. Actually, not much other than the fighting anymore," he admitted. "The planning and doing, training, recovery and planning again became more of a full-time job as I was assigned more and more angels. My legion has over ten thousand, with a generous handful of captains for the different battalions, but I personally oversee the training of each and every angel, testing them frequently, drilling them. To make sure they're ready as they can be."

  So they would live for another battle, another risk. But rather than voice that sobering thought, she tugged on his hair. "Ten thousand angels. Do they salute you? Call you sir?"

  "At the moment I suspect my captains are calling me a variety of names, none of them respectful." A shadow crossed his gaze. Then he pinched her leg. "But you're being impudent now."

  "I like to see you smile, and that seems to make you smile. Maybe I should suggest that to your men."

  "I don't think that would be wise."

  "Look." She pointed. "Is that . . . a cabin?"

  Jonah squinted. In the distance, one of the craggy rock formations with its colorful layers of sandstone did in fact seem to include a rock cabin built into the side. As they drew closer, Anna was amazed to see that was what it was, with a small door to a cellar to the right of the cabin, possibly a way to keep things cooler by putting them in a storeroom belowground.

  "An old miner's cabin," Jonah mused, examining it as he let her down. "Could be well over a hundred years old. We've probably passed by other ones that look just like part of the rock face, because all that's left of them are ruins. There are whole ghost towns in Nevada, from the mining days."

  The door to the cabin was gone, though some stray threads suggested it had been used recently by someone who'd employed a blanket curtain against the nighttime desert chill. Anna glanced in and saw a dirty floor, the remains of campers who'd not observed the expected courtesy of "without a trace." The room was also hot, facing into the late afternoon sun, and she found herself drawn to exploring the cellar room. Besides which, based on their previous night's experience, going somewhere they could not be seen seemed a welcome idea.

  "Should we stay here for the night?" Jonah asked, apparently reading her thoughts.

  She nodded, turning to find him sitting on the slope outside and removing his shoes. He curled his toes, wiggled them, bemused. "Strange. I suppose it makes sense, the way people wear shoes, but I've never done it."

  "Some human women have dozens. Three-and four-inch heels that make their legs look like egrets, all sleek and graceful." She lifted one foot by example in her hot pink sneaker, and humor flashed through his gaze as she rotated her foot. "It's good that the spell on those clothes make them fit the wearer, though. Otherwise your new shoes, walking this long in them, would have caused you blisters."

  "These pants and shirts could be somewhat looser."

  "They aren't too tight. You're just used to your battle skirt being open and . . ." Her cheeks pinkened and she looked away, though she had the suspicion he muffled a chuckle, as if he'd been teasing her all along.

  Jonah reflected that she had no sense of how innocently charming she was. When she wasn't worrying about him, taking his mind places it didn't want to go, being with her was like a breath of a world Jonah hadn't experienced in so long. He wasn't sure if it wasn't even altogether new, a place he'd never visited. Watching her take such simple pleasure in life, wonder at everything around her, ask him questions, drink in every bit of knowledge, it was ironic she didn't realize she was providing a similar experience for him.

  Plus, she knew what tragedy and isolation were, so her innocence wasn't naive and wearing upon his soul. If anything, he felt as if she held the key to a secret he couldn't fathom. While he suspected he was long past having the state of mind to accept the knowledge if he ever learned it, as long as she was carrying it, he thought just being around her would let him draw some sense of peace from it. And that, more than a pointless quest, was likely what had kept him with her.

  Squatting by the front of the cellar where she was in a square of shade provided by the cabin, she pulled out the gallon jug with the seawater, arranged her shells and then carefully baptized her feet, her hands. He noticed her deep sigh of relief as she leaned against the cellar door, closed her eyes and sat very still beneath the touch of the sea's blood. He also noticed the circles under her eyes seemed to get a little less shadowed. Perhaps his mermaid needed more sleep. He might be having her travel too much, too quickly.

  The sun was starting to melt on the horizon. He removed the shirt just in time as his back arched, and he made the sudden lurch forward to his feet as the wings came back through.

  Anna watched him out of the corner of her eye. She remembered the previous night, their exultant flight in the air, which had been one of the most amazing experiences of her life. But it also recalled the battle. Lucifer's frustrations, David's worry. While watching his wings return every night was a miraculous thing to witness, it was also the clear reminder that he didn't belong here, with her.

  "Little one." He squatted outside the cellar door, close to her side. "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing. I'm fine. I was just thinking about how different we are from one another."

  "We're both lonely." His observation, the steady look from his dark eyes and the way he stretched out his wings now to provide her additional shade despite the sun's descent, almost pulled her composure from her like the mask it was.

  "But you've seen so much I haven't seen," she said quickly. "Tell me something I don't know, somethin
g I can't possibly imagine ever having existed. I can imagine this cabin, because it would make sense. Tell me something totally unexpected, something that will make me smile, but will amaze me."

  Stroke my mind, she thought. Soothe me.

  "Hmm . . ." He stood and stepped behind her. As she looked up at him, he adjusted her so her back was against his denim-clad legs and he was looking down at her. "In medieval Europe, there used to be men in long black cloaks." He spread his arms, taking his wings out to a half span, giving her the impression of a cloak. "They wandered the city streets carrying a chamber pot."

  "Oh, no. I'm not sure I'm going to like this story."

  "Sshh," he admonished. "If you needed to relieve yourself when you were out doing your shopping, you could pay him a certain amount and he would set the pot on the ground, open up his cloak"--he spread his wings out further and then started to draw them around her--"and curtain it around you while you sat on the chamber pot, doing what you needed to do."

  She'd wanted a story of something she couldn't ever have imagined, something that would touch and amaze her, and he'd done both. It didn't surprise her that he'd pulled the perfect thing out of his millennium of knowledge, but she was quietly delighted all the same. She stroked her hands over the feathers closed around her, thinking about it. A stranger who provided a service for a crude bodily function, yes. But it was also one person, intimately close to another, to provide an act of care . . . like this. As he tightened the enclosure around her, she rose, turned inside the folds, shivering when his hands found her upper arms. She simply couldn't think when he kissed her as he did now, deep and thorough, holding her close to him, those wings protecting her on all sides, bringing her coolness from the sun and reassurance.

  "I'm sure the Privy Man didn't do much of that," she managed in a thick voice when Jonah raised his head. He smiled.

  "Unless he was very clever. And handsome, like me."

  "Modesty so becomes you, my lord." She chuckled and ducked out of his wingspan, trying to mask the stagger she decided to assume his dizzying kiss had caused. "Let's go look at the cellar. It might be the perfect place to spend the night."

  She tugged on the cellar door, whose padlock had long ago broken, leaving a rattling, rusty chain. Jonah helped her pull it open. The creak of the hinges was like the groan of an old man's bones, and the odor that drifted up was of trapped air, damp cement . . . and something else.

  He studied the dark interior. "Something's down there."

  "Unfriendly?" She turned serious eyes on him.

  "Not dangerous," he responded cryptically. Putting out a hand so he could precede her, he took the top two steps down.

  Jonah studied the shape of the darkness. It was not a large area, though roomy enough for two people to spend the night. Or more. And it was cooler, being belowground.

  "We mean no harm if you cause us none," he said firmly. "May we share your cellar?"

  There was a shifting, then the darkness moved. Anna drew in a breath, at his shoulder now.

  "An earth spirit. A cellar dweller. I didn't know they still exist."

  He was surprised she knew what he was seeing, but then his little mermaid was constantly surprising him.

  "They do, but it's unusual to see them close to active human habitation anymore."

  There was a chitter, and then the shadow became still again, as if there was nothing there at all and they'd imagined it. But now that Anna was looking where Jonah was, she saw it, the brief gleam of eyes. "Oh," she breathed softly, and the tiny slits of light became defined small orbs. The shadow moved forward a few inches.

  "I've never met a cellar dweller," she admitted.

  Another chitter. "They prefer cellar inhabitants. They feel the rhyming is undignified," Jonah said dryly.

  Anna cocked her head. "You understand him?"

  "Of course."

  She smiled. "Do you understand all languages, my lord?"

  He considered that. "In a sense. Angels don't hear the words, exactly, just the meaning. It's why you can't deceive an angel for long. We hear the lie in the tone. It's like listening to a piano concerto, and hearing how all the individual notes make the whole have meaning. So whether you speak or he speaks, I understand what you're saying."

  "So that's how you speak any language."

  He nodded. "I can communicate through the method of speech of whoever is speaking."

  "So what you just said to him, he heard in his language, even as I heard it in mine? Then it's not necessarily that you know a million languages; you just hear everything's meaning, not the words." She gave him an impish smile as she slid around him. "You're not as clever as I thought you were."

  He caught her arm, keeping her close, and gave her a mock admonishing look. "I can also block your understanding of what I'm saying to him and his of what I'm saying to you. So I can tell him you're likely to be trouble and he should chase you away."

  "Of the two of us, I think he seems more concerned about you."

  "I think he particularly likes your voice," Jonah agreed with some amusement, watching the creature come out farther as she spoke.

  "Should I sing to him to calm him?"

  "Well, if I do it, he'll die of fright." He loosened his grip, albeit reluctantly. "He doesn't necessarily mean us harm, but he's unsure of us yet. Take it slow."

  Nodding, she began to hum. The creature studied her, eyes bright, then rose on hind legs, swaying to the tune. It gave her a sense of his form, which reminded her somewhat of a hairless, slender bear or an oversized ferret. His skin appeared to have a soft, rubbery appearance. She sang to him of reassurance, that they meant no harm, and infused it with calming magic. When she was done, he was settled back comfortably in his shadowy corner, watching them, but now with more curiosity than anything else.

  As she sang, Jonah prowled around the cellar. There was ample room for his wings, which he liked, but there wasn't much in the way of a comfortable bed for Anna. Anna assumed they would just make the best of it, but he wanted her to have a deep sleep.

  There was an old bookcase in the corner, suggesting this cabin had been a more permanent habitation for someone in the last twenty years, perhaps a researcher studying the volcanic history, and he'd brought out the bookcase to hold tools or water stores.

  Lifting out the shelves, Jonah laid the piece of furniture on its back on the floor, blowing out the dust with a puff of enhanced breath. He lifted his head and sent another puff her way, making her giggle as it rippled through her hair and across the front of her T-shirt, making the angel cartoon on it shimmer comically, its wings fluttering.

  "Tired?" he asked. Anna shrugged.

  "A little." She was fatigued, but now that night was descending, she needed his closeness more than sleep. It was something she couldn't explain, but there was no way she was going to give in to her weariness before she could grasp that closeness, pull it into her, pull him into her. The physical proof that she wasn't alone, that he was here and that she was doing what she was meant to do. Moistening her lips, she drew his gaze there. As he registered her desire, flame flashed in his eyes, kindling the same heat in her lower belly as well. The fact she was getting weaker and wouldn't be able to hide it from him much longer hit her anew, increasing the yearning as well as the heat.

  "Come here, then."

  When she got to him, he lifted her T-shirt over her head. Slowly, making her feel the heavy weight of her arms as she lifted them over her head and then let them drop, her palms on his broad, bare shoulders. Staying there, she kept her fingertips in his feathers as he slid the loose cotton shorts and panties down her legs, worked off her sneakers and socks, letting her hold on to him. She watched as he put the pair of shoes off to the side, lined up next to each other. One long finger whispered over them in a way that made her toes curl into the ground as if he'd touched them instead.

  "Such small feet."

  A quiet chitter, and one seven-toed, clawed foot extended out of the shadows and drew a shoe
into the darkness. "Do not eat that," Jonah admonished. "She has to wear those tomorrow."

  He looked back up at her, him on one knee as she stood, and she ran her fingers along the strong planes of his face, through his hair. "Goddess, you are so beautiful," she murmured.

  His eyes, already so dark, deepened into obsidian as he turned his head to kiss her wrist, nuzzle her hand. When he rose and lifted her by the waist to touch her breast with his lips, it made her breath leave her. He held her that way, with effortless strength, showing that his wings might not be capable of bearing her additional weight, but his arms were another matter. Her toes curled again as he put his mouth over her nipple, including some of the tender breast flesh in the moist heat. Suckling her deep, he sent liquid tendrils spreading out from her belly through the rest of her vital organs as if a living creature were unfurling inside of her, primal and needy, and perhaps it was.

  With some effort she brought her legs up and around his hips, which brought her in closer. Obliging, he cupped his hands under her bottom, moving them toward their makeshift bed. He stepped in it, sure-footed. Heat shimmered through him and then . . .

  Her eyes opened wide when his wings tucked in close to him, and all his feathers released at once, dropping as a heavy, pillowy mass into the frame of the bookcase.

  Anna gasped, watching the smaller feathers float back up from the impact, landing in her hair or lightly tickling against her skin.

  "Oh," she said, amazed. "You did mean to do that, right?"

  Jonah smiled, mysterious and sensual, his mind apparently on things that didn't encourage conversation, increasing the longing within her exponentially. Lowering them into the bed he'd created for her, he put her beneath him. Arching his denuded wings over them like the sleek branches of a black tree of bone, he displayed the intricate, delicate network capable of carrying him powerfully through the air when layered with feathers.

  She lifted her chin as his fists curled into her hair and he took command of her throat with his mouth. The touch of his lips on that sensitive area was enough to arch her up into him as if she'd been shocked by a delicious burst of heat lightning. It was the perfect angle for him to slide into her body.

  His charged silence, everything conveyed through the heat of his wholly dark eyes, the passionate grip of his hands, the urgent movement of his body between her thighs, spreading her open wider, had more impact than a stream of seductive words. She didn't feel like some nymph or woman he'd seduced in the past. He considered her his, someone who meshed with his body so easily and completely, it was bringing together two halves that already fit, no adjustment or conversation necessary.