by Holley Trent
“Why would you want to give up being an angel?”
“Think about it, Sweetie. Being an angel means always being around people but not being with them. You don’t know how lonely that is.”
She opened her mouth to disagree, but he was right. She chose solitude because she hadn’t wanted a wolf, and few other creatures would make compatible mates. Mark could. She’d known that from the day she’d stumbled into him at one of Calvin’s notoriously raucous cookouts. He’d been there with Ariel and John. She’d nearly fallen on her ass being so drunk, and Mark had kept her from wiping out on that day, too.
He’d been watching out for her ever since, come to think of it. He was always there when she needed him. Always had her back.
“Don’t worry about my soul, Sweetie. Just because I’ve fallen doesn’t mean I’ve gone dark. It just means my path is different.”
“What do you want from me, Mark?”
“I wasn’t bullshitting when I said I didn’t want a pet. I didn’t pull you out of the snow because I felt pity for you and needed something to take care of. I left my position with premeditation knowing, no, hoping—” he said, and tilted her face up to his with a gentle touch to her chin, “—I would gain more than I was losing.”
She sighed and opened her eyes. The hair on his naked chest brushed hers and gave her shivers. Just how much of him was uncovered? She wiggled her toes and found his woolen sock, though the bit of his thigh and calf over hers was naked.
She shifted beneath him and felt fabric rub against her hip, not skin. Underwear. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved. If he were completely nude, she could always tell herself that the sex was accidental. Eventually, she’d believe it was true. If she had to actually work to take his shorts off, well, that implied forethought.
That would make her an angel-tainting hussy.
She groaned and closed her eyes again so as not to have to look into his hypnotizing dark brown ones.
“You can try to run if you’d like,” he said, “but just FYI, we’re snowed in. Your wolf might want to try prancing around in that shit, but it’s not safe for women.”
“Great. Freezing to death would probably be less gruesome than starving.”
“Stop. I’m not going to let you do either of those. I dragged you in here, mange and fleas and all, because I want to be your mate.”
“You’re absofuckinlutely disturbed.” She sat up and threw the covers off, but she couldn’t go too far with his damned leg pinning her down like a cast iron clamp.
He propped himself up on his elbow and arched one eyebrow daringly.
Damn, they’d make pretty babies.
Or would they? She squinted at him.
“Your mood changes are somewhat concerning,” he said mildly. “And that’s coming from a guy whose moods are way out of whack right now.”
“Uh, it’s a wolf thing. You should be used to it.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. She thought wolves were broody. Apparently the same was true for not-angels. She didn’t want to admit she kinda liked it coming from him. He’d always pushed all the right buttons for her, and apparently he’d discovered a few more while she’d been out collecting fleas. “Hey. I was just wondering something.” She cast her gaze down what she could see of his body, which was indeed far too little.
What did not-angels look like with their clothes off?
“What?” he asked.
“Two things.” She waggled the appropriate number of fingers at him. “Number one, is your woody just for show or does it function the way boy parts are supposed to?”
Even if she didn’t catch the slight reddening of his cheeks, her sensitive nose picked up on the small change of his scent. Sharp with embarrassment.
Aw, Angel.
He cleared his throat. “If you’re asking if I’m fertile, yes. Fertility comes with the fall, though it’s highly likely that any children I do have will be hellions. That seems to be the trend amongst the other fallen ones I’ve met recently. They’re a lively bunch.” He rolled his eyes. Another new habit?
“Hellions? Well, I know a little something about those. In fact, according to Mama, I am one.” Mama was probably leading the charge to put her defective child out of her misery. If Sweetie hadn’t been horizontal, she would have slumped at the thought.
“What was the second thing?” he asked as a nudge.
“Oh.” Don’t get upset about things you can’t fix. She fixed her concentration on the man in front of her. “Can you can still change forms at will?”
“No. Not anymore. This is the body I’m stuck in forever. I may be able to make some minor tweaks—eye color, hair color, stuff like that—but this is what … well, I don’t know how to put it.” He drummed his fingertips atop the sheets and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “I guess this is what my personality looks like. It’s not very showy, but I’m used to it. Don’t like it? I might be able to change some—”
She reached out and gave his chin a light swat. “No. I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I was just asking.”
Suddenly very tired, she lay her head down and closed her eyes. “I think you’ve got some wires crossed the wrong way. The lady isn’t protesting because she doesn’t like you. The lady likes you a whole hell of a lot, in fact.”
“She does?”
Was that surprise in his tone? He should have known that. It was so fucking obvious he’d had her smitten, and she’d been ashamed she couldn’t turn it off. He was a porch light, and she was a ditzy moth. She wanted to open her eyes to see the look on his face but she was so tired suddenly.
“The problem is,” she mumbled, burrowing closer to his warm chest, “the lady’s not worth falling for. You can do better, Angel. Pick someone else. Find a nice girl who won’t embarrass you and who doesn’t howl when she gets ornery.” She yawned. “You deserve better than me.”
If he had a response to that, she didn’t hear it. She was in a soft bed and felt safe and loved for the first time in months, so she slept.
And she dreamed.
Unfortunately, her dreams never came true, no matter how much she wanted them to. There was no way Mark would keep her. She’d need a hell of a lot more grace than he’d ever had.
CHAPTER FIVE
They had shotguns leveled at her.
Sweetie snapped and snarled, growling ferociously at the men who would harm her, but she was just one lone, weak wolf. “It’s for your own good,” they’d said, and, “It’s no way to live. You’ll hurt someone.”
Behind the guns were familiar faces. Cousins. Pack members. Her red-faced mother stood at the edge of the woods wrenching her hands and emitting the occasional sniffle.
Sweetie looked each and every one of them in their eyes and growled out a dare.
One cocked his gun’s hammer. Unnecessary, and meant to be a warning.
Mark materialized in front of her with one hand up in a halting gesture. He was calm, but ready to fight if the glowing sword he held at his side was any indication of why he’d come.
“Come on, Mark,” her cousin Jep said. “It’s better if you don’t see it.”
“I think it’d be better if you left her alone,” Mark said reasonably.
“She can’t stay this way. She’s not going to get better. Look at her.” Jep cocked his chin toward her, and a strangled barking sound left her throat. “She can’t even understand us anymore. She’s gone.”
“She’s in there,” Mark said. “I refuse to believe otherwise, and I’m not going to let you harm her because you think it’s the right thing to do. She hasn’t been out in the open, hasn’t exposed you to anyone. There haven’t been any wolf sightings around here. You’d put her down because that’s the easiest thing for you. You wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore. You can stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, right?”
Jep didn’t respond, but Sweetie’s mother did.
“It’s the way we handle our business,” Mama said. “No one likes it,
but that’s the way it’s always been. We have to consider the health of the group as a whole. She won’t bounce back from this.”
“Well, I think she will.”
Jep threw up his hands. “Well, she’s your problem then, man. Blood’s on your hands if she leaves the territory and tears up some little kid.”
Mark turned his head minutely in Sweetie’s direction and he looked at her out the corner of his eye. He nudged his glasses up his nose and tightened his grip on his sword. “She’ll be my responsibility.”
“Your loss,” Jep said. He waved his posse on, and Mark’s gaze flitted from one man to the next as if he were memorizing them. Making a list.
Mama stuffed her hands into the pockets of her rain slicker and stared at the ground in front of Sweetie’s paws. After a moment, she said, “I don’t want to lose my daughter.”
“You won’t,” Mark said. He said it as if it were fact and not just the assurance a grieving woman expected to hear.
His sword disappeared from his hand when she held out a folded piece of paper to him.
“You may have already figured it out,” she said solemnly. “She runs in a grid. I sketched it. I don’t know if it’s the human part of her that’s keeping her organized or if her wolf is just OCD. I’ve been keeping an eye on her as much as I can, but it’s hard for me now. I’ve been through the change and can’t hardly shift no more.”
He pocketed the map. “I’ll figure something out.”
She nodded, cast one sidelong glance at Sweetie, who cowered behind a wide pine tree, and walked away.
Sighing, Mark crouched near Sweetie and stared at her a long while. Then he extended a hand to her slowly and rested it on the top of her head.
Her instinct was to run, to shuck off his touch, but he pushed soothing energy into her that had her sinking down onto her haunches and relaxing atop the decomposing leaves on the forest floor.
“Why did you have to be so picky?” he whispered, but at the time, Sweetie didn’t understand. She canted her head to the side and just watched him through her wolf eyes.
“I’ll be back when I can,” he said. “Wish you were on your A-game. Lots of stuff happening in Mortonville and I know you’ll regret missing it.”
With a final pat, he stood and followed Mama out the woods.
In the cabin, Sweetie forced her eyes open, and pushed herself upright with a gasp. Was that just a dream, or had that really happened? Her cousins were going to put her down? She didn’t know why the idea appalled her so. Sweetie knew that was the way wolves handled their business, but judging by the fact it’d been summer she hadn’t even been wild all that long at the time.
They didn’t even give her a chance.
“Mark?”
Her eyes slowly acclimated to the brightness of the cabin and found Mark at the stove carving up the chicken.
He wore only a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants that sat low on his hips and a plain black apron draped around his neck, but not tied at the back.
She put her feet on the floor and slowly put weight on them. When her legs didn’t crumble beneath her, she looked up at him.
He set down the knife and long fork and cleaned his hands on the apron. “Want me to help you?”
“No. Just give me a moment. I just needed to see if I was really awake.” She padded slowly to the dresser and opened the top drawer. There she found neatly folded clothes of the softest cotton, socks, and underwear still in the package. Everything else seemed to have been pre-washed, but those … those he hadn’t wanted to touch.
Typical Mark.
She ripped the package open with her teeth, pulled out a pair, and stepped into them. They were a little loose at the waist but would have fit her if she’d been her usual size. She’d need to double up on calories to get back to it. Fuck what the wolf wanted. Her depressed wolf hadn’t even kept her fed when it mattered.
She picked out a pair of black lounge pants that thankfully had a drawstring and paired them with a plain red shirt in honor of the occasion.
Once dressed, she sat at the table and Mark unfurled a cloth napkin onto her lap.
“We’ll have days of leftovers,” he said. “The guy on the radio said the blizzard is going to move off overnight and we should have a warm-up in the morning. We might be able to dig out of here and drive somewhere by Friday. I can still teleport, but it takes a lot of energy now, especially if I have to carry someone.”
“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere you want.” He set a plate in front of her, and automatically, she picked up a fork to dig in.
Realizing how she must have looked, she set it back down and looked at him. “Sorry. I do have some manners. It just smells so good. Looks good, too.”
“Go on and eat. No pretenses here. I’m going to as well. Being locked in this body has activated my appetites.”
She caught the plural reference, but didn’t acknowledge it. She’d probably heave herself into the snow and run back to her cave if he suggested that perhaps they retire to the bed and take care of certain hormone issues. Damn, she’d wanted him to “take care of” her, and soundly, but in her mind, there was still a barrier she needed to get around that said that he was a sacred thing that couldn’t be touched.
“Do you need to eat? I mean … in the past, you didn’t need to.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know if need is the right word. I only know a few other angels who have fallen and didn’t go the demon route. I talked to one of them a while ago. He said from a physiological standpoint, we all respond a bit differently. We all have different powers, but none of us have been stripped of everything. I don’t know why we’ve retained some of our angelic gifts, and I suspect it isn’t meant for me to understand. No one really knows their purpose until they die. Depends on how we’re being punished for our defiance, I guess. I do get uncomfortable if I go too long without eating. I graze a lot. I haven’t let myself go so long without eating that I’ve ever felt actual hunger, though. It’s an experiment I’m not interested in.”
“Oh.” She picked up a roll and pulled it apart.
He made a plate of his own and sat across from her. “You were moving around a lot in your sleep. I thought about waking you. I was about to, in fact,” he said. He’d put his glasses back on, and she noticed there was a new concave to the lenses that distorted the sides of his face. Those weren’t just for play!
He must have noticed her staring, because he chuckled and slipped them off.
“They’re real.” He turned them around and held them an inch from her nose. Her eyes nearly crossed from looking through them.
“Another physiological oddity. It’s a pretty weak prescription, but I guess the glasses are part of me just like my height and bone structure.”
And she liked that height and bone structure very much. It was part of that whole “making pretty babies” thing. The wolf in her agreed.
Odd. The wolf in her was far pickier than the woman. She was more to blame for Sweetie’s relative old maid status than the human being part of her. No one looked right or smelled right.
She discreetly scented the air on the wolf’s whim and appreciated the aroma of good food and … and Mark.
He smelled perfect. He smelled like home.
He put the glasses back on and nudged the gravy boat across the table. “There might be some lumps in it. It’s my first time making it on my own. It tastes good, but the texture might be questionable.”
She just stared at him. His calming energy kept washing over her and filling her up. Every time she felt that wild spark, he tamped it back down. Whether he was doing it purposefully or whether it was some automatic thing due solely to proximity, it was everything she needed.
He gave her everything she needed, but what was he getting in return?
The delighted grin he wore as he spread butter onto his bread reminded her.
Passion, he’d said. But, was she included in that or just the means for him gaining it? Maybe she s
houldn’t care. He was doing her a favor no one else would have, and she should be thankful. She should just give herself to him. It wouldn’t be a hardship.
“I had a dream during my nap. Or at least, I think it was a dream,” she said. She speared a bit of chicken and dragged it through the gravy, in which she could see not a single lump. He could give Mama lessons on gravy making because the woman was way too heavy-handed with the flour. She should have had her Southern lady membership card revoked. “My cousins were there and Mama. They were going to shoot me and you stopped them.”
“Oh.” He set down his fork and rested his elbows on the table as he blew out a long breath. “That really happened. I think the memory resurfaced because your mind was clear.”
“You’ve been watching me all this time?”
He nodded.
“Why? You could have been like Jep and just gotten rid of me.”
“You gave me a purpose. I needed one, remember?”
“I don’t think you understand what you’re getting yourself into. Maybe I can understand a little why you’d give up being an angel so you could pursue things that brought you joy, but not why you’d tether yourself to me for the rest of my life.”
“Rest of my life,” he said, “which as you know the span of which is more or less open-ended.”
All she could do was blink.
“I can’t think of a single person I’d want to be so intimately connected to for all the years to come. I’m not just looking for someone to take care of, and let me tell you that having a woman of my own to protect and comfort is an incredibly enticing thing to a man like me. I also want someone to take care of me.”
“You don’t need taking care of.”
“Don’t I? I’m not an angel anymore, Sweetie. I’m not easy to kill, but there are people who’d like to try. I’m not neutral. I’ve picked a side in this whole supernatural political fracas, and I’ve made lots of enemies in a short time.”
