by Rush, Jaime
Hmm, he didn’t move closer when she felt a little happier.
“Where did you have the memory?” he asked.
She nodded for him to follow her into the small, cluttered office that she and her father shared. As soon as Archer stepped inside, it felt even smaller. “We were here, and I was looking up a number for Kirin.” She stood in front of the blotter, her fingers at the edge of it.
“Close your eyes and go back to that memory. From the moment you came into this space.”
She had relived that time over and over again, punishing herself, wishing she could change it. If only she hadn’t bumped the blotter, which revealed a corner of the note. If only…
“Focus, Lyra.”
She turned to him. “I think that’s the first time you’ve said my name. At least you don’t call me ‘Dragon Girl’ anymore.”
“Don’t make too much of it. Focus.”
“Bossy…”
She let the other words drift off and braced her hands on the edge of the desk. Her fingers grazed the blotter as her eyes closed. It came back like a scene from a movie: she, Kirin, and Ellie all crammed in here, Kirin reaching for the address book on the shelf and Lyra bumping the blotter. Something compelled her to pull out that colorful paper and turn it over.
“What’s that?” Kirin asked, peering over her shoulder.
Ellie looked, too, and in that moment, Lyra saw Tara’s signature, along with a heart to signify love. That would not only substantiate everyone’s suspicions about an affair, but it would also incriminate Pop. She thrust it over the scented candle burning on the desk.
“Hey!” Ellie said, “that was my mom’s notepaper. Her handwriting.”
“Stop.”
Archer’s voice. Not audibly but in the memory. Ellie and Kirin froze, and Lyra turned to see Archer leaning against the open doorway. He was transparent as he walked over.
“This is so weird,” she said.
“Stay focused or we both go poof. Go back to when you held the note in your hand, before you shoved it in the flame.”
She rewound the memory several seconds.
“Hold it right there.” He moved up behind her, and she could feel him close to her. “Now you can read it.”
She was afraid to see what it said. Which was ridiculous, because she wasn’t afraid of much, and she believed in her pop’s innocence with everything in her. But this note could change everything.
Archer didn’t move away from her agonizing emotions this time.
She forced her gaze to the colored paper.
S,
You have taken a big risk in helping me. I know this. You are a good friend. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
She turned to the memory version of Archer. “He was helping her. Not having an affair, but helping.” A little twine of doubt unfurled inside her, one she didn’t know she had. Pop’s evasiveness had only been about keeping Tara’s secret.
She and Archer were face-to-face. She glanced at Kirin and Ellie, still frozen. “They look solid, but you don’t.”
“Because I wasn’t in your original memory.”
She reached out to touch him, her hand going through his image. “I hoped maybe it wouldn’t bother you if I touched you here.”
“Why?”
“You weren’t bothered by my trepidation just now. Or my gratitude that you helped me solve a mystery.”
“I can’t feel emotions in a memory.”
“So you can feel them.”
They snapped back to present, standing in the same position as they had been in the memory. His expression was shuttered.
“You feel my emotions, don’t you?” she asked. “That’s why you back away whenever I feel something. Good or bad.”
“It’s the angel side of us. We pick up feelings.”
“But it’s more than that.” She stepped closer. “They’re painful. When my emotions are strong, you wince.”
His mouth tightened, as though he were going to refuse to answer. But his eyes took her in with a softness she hadn’t seen yet. “Yes.”
She put her hand to her solar plexus. “That’s…horrible. The man who connected me with you said Caidos had good reason for being reclusive. No wonder you stay in your ivory towers. I’m probably hurting you right now.”
Archer didn’t step back, but the tendons in his neck corded. She remembered his remark about her being a yellow Dragon, the most emotional type.
“No one is to know, Lyra. If you tell anyone, you expose us to great harm.”
She shook her head, the reality still bombarding her. “I won’t say a word.”
He brushed the back of his hand against her cheek. “I know you’re trustworthy. I wouldn’t have told you otherwise. But you must understand the need for secrecy.”
“I do.” She started to reach for his hand but stopped. “Is being touched painful, too?”
He hesitated. “It’s not the touch itself but the emotions behind it. If you touch someone, it’s often out of anger, comfort, or desire.”
“Desire hurts, too?”
“It hurts the most, your desire—for example—and my own.”
Her desire. Gawd, he’d been feeling it all along. “That’s what Kye was talking about, pleasure and no pain. What cruel irony, that women are drawn to you, and it hurts when they are. Who relegated you to this existence of pain and torment? Luca?”
“Luca punished the angels by making desire painful so they would never be tempted by humans again. Unfortunately, it carried through to their progeny. The rest is, I think, a result of the opposing natures of angel and human.”
Could he feel her compassion, the ache flowing through her? “So you shut off your desires.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth for just a second. “Out of necessity.”
“You do feel desire? Can feel it, anyway?” She struggled against the pull to move closer. “When you see a beautiful woman, like those at the club, you must have to fight it.”
“I have spent the last fifty years unaffected by any woman.” Chagrin was clear in his voice when he added, “Until you, Dragon Girl.”
Her heartbeat skipped. “Why me?”
“Your emotions, while painful, are pure and true. Not convoluted with ego and noise and lust.” He nodded toward the desk. “Watching your agony over your decision to protect your father, your belief in him despite the evidence, your bravery while fighting the wraiths…it touches something inside me that hasn’t been touched in a long time.”
He wanted her. Only her. The realization throbbed through her, making the need to touch him ache even more. Not the Thrall. She let out a soft sigh and walked to the front door. Archer stepped out first, scanning the darkness between the glow of streetlights.
“Do you think there will be more wraiths?” she asked.
“We must be prepared for anything. Whoever sent them might try something else.”
They got into his car, and his hand gripped the top of the steering wheel as he started the engine. “Three missing people.”
Lyra put her finger to her mouth. “Four. Kirin told me that Tara’s husband, Huff, has been missing for the same amount of time as my pop. What the heck is going on here?”
Archer seemed to consider that. “Tara is the common denominator. But how a woman who’s been gone for over five months can cause three men to go missing now is beyond me. We have a lot more questions than we do answers.” Archer put the car into drive.
“That’s how I felt when I first discovered Pop was missing. So I went back to his house and looked closer. That’s how I found the feather. We could go to Jeremy’s and do the same. Did you find his cell phone?”
“I did. I suspect he had it on him when he got Stripped, because it was singed.”
Speaking of phones, Archer’s rang. He answered. Lyra could hear a woman’s hysterical voice but not her words. Archer’s face tightened at whatever she was saying. “I’ll explain what that means when we meet. If I can go into the memory of wha
t you saw, maybe we can figure out where he is. We’ll be right there.” He disconnected. “That was Anika. She finally felt Jeremy. He’s in a lot of pain and physically trapped in a house.”
“Which at least means he’s not one of those wraiths.”
He nodded. “I suppose there is good news in that.”
“She sounded pretty freaked out.”
“She just saw the wing dust.”
Chapter 7
Archer walked right behind Lyra as they approached Jeremy’s door, guarding her back, she suspected. They found Anika in Jeremy’s bedroom, staring at the perfect depiction of angel wings made of dust. She turned and opened her mouth, but before a sound could emerge, a shadow appeared at the corner of the room. Something that looked like a huge snake thrust through the wall and bound Anika in a tight grip. It looked as though it were made of solid light, making no sound at all. Anika did, though, screaming and creating jagged arcs of magick that stabbed the thing. It didn’t budge.
Archer bowed his shoulders, and wings tore through his shirt. He roared in pain as they pushed out to their full width. “Don’t go Dragon, Lyra,” he growled, launching toward the snake.
It and Anika disappeared.
“Hell,” he said, turning to Lyra. He pulled her to his chest as he threw himself back against the wall. “It will likely come back if it sensed we were in the room, too.”
“Why shouldn’t I Catalyze?” she whispered.
He leaned close to her, his breath fanning her ear. “If it senses your Dragon, it will go after you. Now, be quiet.”
His wings folded over her, cocooning her in his cool embrace. A light as fine as mist shielded them seconds before the snake thrust through the wall again.
What in the holy hell could Caidos do?
Archer’s wings tightened over her, his arms crossed over her stomach, a full shield. The snake was blind, or so it seemed, feeling around the room looking for them. Her Dragon strained to come out. But Archer wasn’t fighting the snake, and he wasn’t afraid of much.
No, he’s afraid for you.
She shivered, then realized he’d feel everything she did. She swallowed her fear as the snake hovered a few feet in front of them. Archer’s fingers pressed into her stomach now, his body rock hard and ready to fight. The snake sensed them, all right. Archer’s shield kept it from being sure, apparently, because it didn’t grab them. It touched all around the shield. It pulled back finally and searched the room, even under the bed. Then it disappeared back into the wall.
Archer didn’t release her. Did he think it would return again? A minute passed. Then two. She felt his chest rising and falling, pressing against her with each breath.
“Will it come back?” she whispered at last.
“I don’t think so.” He hadn’t whispered, so he must be pretty sure.
“Then why are we still here like this?”
“I’m processing.”
Well, okay, then. She was too curious to let that pass, though. She turned her head slightly, seeing that his face was still rigid. “Processing what?”
“How it felt when I thought you might be grabbed.”
She turned now, staying in the cocoon he’d created. “How did it feel?”
His arms released her but rested on her shoulders once she was facing him. His eyes shimmered frantically, staring at nothing in particular. “Like dying.”
Those words clamped around her heart. She wanted to touch his face the way he’d touched hers. “I’m okay. I tried to hold in the horror of what I saw, of Anika being taken. And my fear,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you.” She understood how dangerous that knowledge was now. Someone could torture him on purpose.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Sorry, my thoughts—and feelings—ran away from me. Do you want me to move back?”
His fingers tightened, and she expected him to push her away. Instead, he pulled her against him. “No.” She could hear his breathing, long deep breaths, his hands splayed on her back. “Your heat…,” he murmured.
“You’re so cool.” Her hand hovered over his bare chest, wanting to touch him.
“Feels good.” His voice, low and ragged, melted into her.
He seemed to be drawing her heat inside him, and she wanted to give it to him, to warm him. Such pain, so cold. Was this how human females had tempted the angels?
“It wasn’t the humans’ fault,” she whispered. “We’re drawn together, each giving a part of ourselves to the other. Needing each other.”
Lyra was weakening him. Somehow, in her haze, she realized this. The tremors running through his body, so apparent as they pressed close, had to be pain. Pain at his desire. It took everything inside her to step back.
He blinked, as though coming out of a spell. His hand rubbed across his bare chest, where she could see his heated skin.
“Thank you,” he said, but she didn’t know whether it was for giving him heat or pulling it away.
“Is this part of the Thrall, Archer? That I want to go inside you and yank out the curse that makes desire hurt?”
“Not that I’ve heard of. Is that how you feel?”
She nodded, and their gazes locked. It seemed difficult for him to tear his away. He did, going to the wall where the snake had come through. He ran his hands all along the surface. “I don’t feel anything, no portal or even residual magick. The power contained in that snake was tremendous. I could have fought it, and maybe won, but I didn’t want to chance your safety. I’ve heard of Caidos who hold dark power, but I’ve never seen one.”
He knelt down and began scooping the wing dust into his palm. His wings shimmered with his movements. She did the same, until none remained on the floor. The dust felt electric. She poured it into his hand. The glow that surrounded him made her feel as though she were in a dream. He seemed bigger, though he hadn’t physically grown.
Lyra found a dish filled with coins, dumped them out, and handed it to him.
He poured the dust in and set it on the dresser. “Whoever is behind this has taken too many people. We have to get them back.” Then he bowed, planted his hands on his thighs, and retracted his wings. It didn’t look as painful as when they’d come out. He released a breath, his dark gaze on the bowl of dust.
“Could that happen to you, too?” she asked.
“Yes. Sometimes I think it would be sweet relief to die and be free of the pain.”
“Don’t ever do that,” she said, the words tumbling out.
He considered her for a moment, a Mona Lisa smile on his face. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of dying anytime soon. I have a good life when I’m isolated in my world.”
“When you’re not working with an emotional Dragon,” she said.
He took her in with a measure of amusement. “You were trouble. I sensed it from the start.”
“That’s why you were so cold and awful to me?”
“Yes.”
Not a whiff of apology either. The man who’d answered the door in a towel and nearly closed that door in her face seemed different from the one in front of her now. Definitely not cold and uncaring.
Kye’s words about “issues inherent in such a union” came to mind. Now Lyra knew what those issues were. “Kye said something about an Essex. What is it?”
“It’s an essence exchange.” Archer leaned against the dresser, mindful of the bowl. “Our own emotions aren’t painful, but they are uncomfortable. Unnatural. Most Caidos find that repressing them is easier than dealing with them. But as always, our human side wants to experience joy, desire. We can exchange our essence with another Crescent’s essence, which temporarily relieves the pain of feeling. Or so I understand.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? I can give—”
“For that very reason. From what I hear, that relief is like a drug, the same as OxyContin is to Mundanes. Once we taste it, we want it again. And again. We get addicted.”
“But if a Crescent wanted to giv
e you her power to sustain you—”
“It will weaken you. Eventually your Dragon will wither, the same as if you moved away from the Field that sustains our god essence. I would need more, more, never enough. Only the weakest Caidos are tempted to do that with one person. Only the most selfish.”
Archer wasn’t selfish. She let out a long breath. “It really is impossible.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you. You have a good heart, Lyra. I knew you would offer.” He brushed his hand across her cheek. “I understand why Jeremy craves that feeling now.”
She ran the toe of her shoe across the carpet, leaving tracks in the fibers. “Have you ever been in love, Archer?”
He hesitated before answering. “No. Have you?”
“Lots of times, but only in a superficial way. In an I-can’t-wait-for-him-to-call way, not in an I’ll-give-you-my-power way. Never that way.”
When he winced, she pushed the thought away, hard as it was. “Tell me what it felt like just now.”
“A pulsing pain, like someone twisting my insides. And when you make that face and feel pity, it’s like fingers jabbing me.”
“Sorry.” She took a breath, trying to clear away her emotions. “Now what do we do?”
“When Jeremy and Anika did the Cobra, it triggered something that sent him to your father. That something must have been about Tara. Maybe it involved her husband, too.” He rubbed the back of his head. “If we can’t figure out what that something was, we have to find out who has the power to use his Light in a way that can create a giant snake.”
“This Caido would also be powerful enough to, say, change a fetus’s orientation. There has to be a connection.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. I need to find out who Jeremy knew with that kind of power. Then I go after him.”
“We, Archer. We go after him. It’s my father among the missing. I’m not sitting around worrying about you.” Another glance at the dust, even scarier now because she thought of Archer being incinerated. “My Dragon is strong, you know.” She felt it stir in pride and rubbed the place where the tattoo tingled. Another more horrifying thought twisted inside her. “You could be turned into a wraith. If something happens to you, what do I do?” She cleared her throat. “With your remains?”
