The Angel's Hunger (Masters of Maria)

by Holley Trent

  They hadn’t had a chance to get there. Barely a month together.

  “I just want to understand,” she said to the window. “Maybe I pretend that my self-esteem is better than it really is sometimes. Maybe I pretend that I don’t care about things, but what you did hurt. Do you even remember, or have you been alive too long to recount your old experiences?”

  No response, but of course, he couldn’t give one. Her fault. She hoped she was doing a little better than talking to a brick wall.

  Or maybe I’m not.

  She hadn’t seen a flash, but he may have teleported out of there while she’d been speechifying.

  She walked to the window and hopped to see inside, and then cringed.

  He was seated facing the window, shirtless, hair loose, and his dark eyes held a murderous glint.

  “Shit.”

  Back to the cement blocks she went. “I need to understand,” she said, bobbing her knee. “Did they mean anything to you?”

  The last time they’d been in each other’s company, they’d been able to use basic telepathy to communicate when they needed to be discreet but, Noelle had to be touching someone to make it work on her end. She doubted he would leap for joy at the suggestion she hold his hand for a few wee minutes.

  She heard a rip, and then the crumpling of paper.

  A small yellow projectile soared out of the window, nearly spinning her phone off the ledge.

  She leapt off the blocks and ran to grab the wadded paper before the breeze could whisk it away. Smoothing the sheet against her thigh as she returned to her seat, her heart was already in her throat and sweat was beading on her brow. The very worst thing he could tell her was, “Yes, they were as important as you.”

  Already, Clarissa’s attachment to Gulielmus had Noelle questioning everything she knew about mate tethering. She was out of sorts with knowing so little about the way the most sacred elf connection was supposed to work. Her mother had told her that the feelings would be reciprocal, but her mother had told her all sorts of white lies, she’d later discovered.

  Her air rushed out of her as if she were a balloon that had been stabbed when she read his terse missive, but not for any reason she could have predicted. It read:

  Did yours mean anything to you?

  “Mine?” she whispered, furrowing her brow. “Surely, he can’t be serious.” She repeated the sentiment louder to be sure he could hear her. “You’re not serious, are you? Who are you talking about?”

  More ripping. More crinkling. Another hurled paper bullet.

  She fetched that one, too, and didn’t bother returning to the step. If they were going to communicate in such a way, she figured she’d might as well stay put and catch what he was lobbing.

  I had no reason to learn their names. Did you learn their names?

  She growled softly and fired back, “The orgy, if you can even call it that, had ended. I left for an errand.”

  You took part of the orgy with you when you left.

  She remembered no such thing. “You’re remembering wrong,” she yelled. “You may be an angel, but your memory isn’t bulletproof.”

  Another wad of paper.

  So you don’t remember sharing a horse with a man who held the reins in one hand and your breast in the other?

  Noelle squinted at the horizon. “I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen.”

  There was a scraping sound from within the trailer, that of a piece of furniture being pushed across the floor.

  Tamatsu’s big body appeared in the window next. He pushed the window all the way open, put his forearms against the sill, and gave her an eloquent glare.

  She sucked in some air.

  It might have happened. Her memory of that couple of days was a bit spotty. It was winter, and she’d been exhausted, but she didn’t think she’d be so far from the truth.

  Maybe she was, though.

  She’d been notorious for practically sleepwalking through her days when she’d been the elf court. Supposedly, there were battles she’d fought in and couldn’t remember anything about her participation in them, except that she’d lived.

  Shit.

  Maybe there had been a man on a horse. She’d always remembered that as being Tamatsu.

  She forced her hands into her hair and dug the tips against her scalp. “Okay, so what if he did? My brain may have been mush by that point. I may not have been entirely cognizant of—”

  Buzzing. Terrible, annoying buzzing.

  She closed her eyes, balled her hands into her fists at her sides, and walked calmly to her tote as Tamatsu slammed the window shut.

  “Thanks a lot, you cad.” She grabbed her knife by the blade, and—screaming wordlessly—tossed the weapon through the descending spirit. It had saved her the trouble of forcing it into a solid shape, having already morphed.

  Sliced clean through, it fell to the ground in a splat, and her knife clattered nearby immediately after.

  “This is quickly getting old.” She took a deep breath, flicked a bit of spirit goop off her ankle, and walked to the window. Banging on the cracked pane, she shouted, “If I were buzzed on magic or in my blackout period, there may have been some touch I don’t remember.” She knocked again. “Open the window. You not responding is one thing, but I refuse to shout at glass.”

  He appeared on the other side. Arms crossed. Scowling.

  “Would you like to have a conversation like civilized adults?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay, fine. We can have the closest thing to a conversation—a monologue. Only one of us is doing the talking.”

  He squinted at her again.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. I can try to give you a better apology, but you and I both know I’ll sound disingenuous even when I mean what I’m saying. I could beg, if you like, but you need to give me a script to go on. Just tell me what to say, and I’ll say it. Or do you want me naked on my knees, pleading to you?”

  That made him tilt that eyebrow up once more.

  She groaned, and muttered, “Of course, I’d toss the suggestion of fetish to you and you’d perk right up, hmm?”

  The Airstream’s door creaked open, and the tin can shook as he shifted his weight to the ground. He straightened to his full height of seven feet something-or-other, and his black wings shuddered, sending dust and who-knew-what-else floating into the air.

  She sighed, though not at the dust.

  The very first time she’d seen him, he’d been wearing so many clothes—all the layers of a feudal warrior, and with his hair pulled neatly back. She’d been impressed then, by his size, his intrigue, his beauty. The strength he radiated. She was attracted to strength.

  And his voice …

  She closed her eyes on the memory. His voice used to make her body thrum. All he had to do was whisper her name, and she’d be ready.

  She’d never hear that whisper again, and that was her fault. She’d grabbed his voice away. She’d behaved like a bratty child who was angry that other children weren’t playing the way she would have liked, and she’d broken it so they couldn’t have a nice thing, either.

  He stepped closer, loose pants billowing in the breeze, feet bare and pale against the harsh desert ground.

  He was inches from her—closer than they’d been in hundreds of years, and her body craved his embrace. She wanted him to scoop her up the way he used to and let her wrap her legs around his waist. He used to hold her on his lap, rub her hair, and tell her stories about things a little mind like hers couldn’t fathom. Stories about war and friendships and the things angels did that creatures bound to the earth never learned of.

  Most angels, she’d learned, were no “angels.”

  She looked down at the ground and at her feet in ruined pantyhose and shifted her weight.

  He was waiting.

  She was stalling.

  Their exchanges had once been so much more fluid and instinctual. They’d understood each other or, at least, she
thought she’d understood him.

  Swallowing, she lowered herself onto her knees and stared forward at his thighs. “I … I still don’t know what to say besides I’m sorry. I felt betrayed.” Whether or not she actually had been would have to be an argument for another time. She still needed to try to piece the memories together. It may have been too late to even try. “I overacted because you belonged to me and you let someone else touch you.”

  Intimately.

  She didn’t see the point of getting into the nitty-gritty details. Obviously, he’d been there.

  His weight shifted.

  She looked up.

  He didn’t appear to be moved. His expression was far too neutral. Not even his eyebrows had anything to say on the matter.

  She swallowed again. “I know there are elves who have reputations for keeping several lovers, but that’s only elves who haven’t bound themselves to anyone. If I gave you any suggestion that I was open to … that beyond that one night …” She let her breath out in a sputter. Hell, it’d been fun—she remembered that much—but that was only because she’d been with him. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t like the idea of sharing you.”

  She still didn’t.

  Hundreds of years might have passed, and certainly he’d taken other lovers since their last encounter. She’d had to, being a sexual creature like most things on two legs, but those lovers had been merely a means to an end. They hadn’t been Tamatsu. They hadn’t even come close to filling in the hole he’d left in her life. They may as well have been phantoms.

  “All I can say, again, is that I’m sorry. I’ll keep looking for your voice. I’ll do everything in my power to draw the magic back if it’s out there to be found but, in the meantime, will you let me make it up to you? Tell me what you want.”

  No response, of course.

  In fact, after staring at her for several long seconds, he turned on his heel and strode back to the trailer. The feathers of his wings ruffled like the hair on the back of a hissing cat as he went.

  He slammed the door.

  She slumped.

  “Shit. Now what?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tamatsu snuck away from the Airstream that evening, leaving Noelle asleep on the step.

  He couldn’t sit idly by and wait. He teleported to Ohio—ground zero of the convention of weather gods—and waited in the lobby of Dayton’s Blue Sky Inn until the downpour goddess Coatrisquie stepped out of the fitness room.

  Spotting him, she rolled her eyes and walked over wiping sweat from her brow. “Damn. You’ve been hitting us all, huh?”

  He couldn’t deny that.

  “So, you’ve come to talk me out of this challenge, I guess.”

  He gave her a long blink.

  “Right, right. You can’t talk. The guys said that. How is it that you can’t talk?”

  He shoved his hands into his coat pockets hoped his stare was eloquent enough to deter her from the line of questioning.

  “Look, you know how these things go,” she said with a shrug. “There’s no way of knowing how out of hand they’ll get. I can’t speak for the rest of them, but I can tell you that I’m going to do my demonstration out over the ocean. If a hurricane comes out of it, hopefully it’ll die before it reaches land.”

  Hopefully.

  She shrugged again and tossed her long black hair over her sun-burnished brown shoulder. “Best I can do. I try to mind my own business nowadays, but I can’t back down from a challenge like this. If I show weakness, I’m a dead goddess, you hear me? I just adopted a baby four months ago. I’d like to not die, okay?”

  He nodded, pointed to his watch, and made an expanding gesture.

  “More time?”

  Again, he nodded.

  She cringed.

  “How much?”

  He turned his hands over. He had no way of knowing when or if he’d get his voice back. He’d barely had time to think about next steps, being so focused on the looming challenge deadline. After all, that was what had lit the fire under his ass to regain his speaking ability in the first place.

  “If it’s important, I can try to stall them a day. If you’re worried about the Mississippi, though, I can tell you know that Louisiana’s gonna get drenched around then. Not on the radar yet, but there’s going to be a storm moving north.”

  He gave her a bow of thanks, and then stepped into a stairwell to discreetly teleport to Maria.

  He needed to be doing something other than staring apoplectically at his ex, and sifting through the possessions of the former Coyote alpha seemed a distracting enough chore.

  For an hour he worked in silence, sorting and trashing piles of paper from the disgustingly cluttered living room. Tarik loomed nearby, shooting him the occasional incredulous stare.

  “I can’t believe you left her out there,” he said after another hour had passed.

  Tamatsu shrugged and lifted a cardboard box filled with various papers onto the kitchen table.

  He’d left the trailer door unlocked. If she chose to spend the night out in the elements, that was on her. He’d had to go before he ended up doing something entirely too reckless, such as forgiving her or touching her. Anger was easier to negotiate, even when the creature he was angry with was so comely.

  And deluded.

  He’d been baffled by her statements—at her poor memory. His memory was a steel trap. He wouldn’t have forgotten that he’d had her permission to touch and be touched by others. She’d simply, apparently, changed the terms of the arrangement.

  Scanning the pages in the box, he sorted them into two piles: recycling and possibility. Willa, who was probably still fishing out papers from under the bed, would need to leaf through the possibility pile and see if any of the information would be useful to her.

  “Clarissa was getting on swimmingly with Jenny when I left.” Tarik tossed a full bag of garbage toward the open side door. Willa had hired a junk hauler, who was due to arrive within a few hours. “She may spend the night there. When I left, the women were telling Ariel and Marion stories of their days in the elf court. Clarissa’s first husband was quite the boor.”

  Tamatsu nodded. Noelle had described Lorcan’s cruel antics many times. Never—in spite of the fantastical nature of her tales—had he thought she was hyperbolizing. He’d seen enough monsters to know anything was possible.

  Tarik’s phone buzzed somewhere on his person. He set down he stack of newspapers he’d picked up and patted his numerous pockets until he located the small device. Grunting, he tapped the screen. “Lola.”

  “A hysterical elf is pleading with me to recover her friend,” she said flatly through the speaker. “Apparently, Noelle has clients to attend to.”

  Tarik raised his gaze to Tamatsu.

  Tamatsu rolled his eyes.

  “I doubt Tamatsu will have any objections to you assisting Miss Flint home.”

  “But is that what he wants?”

  Tamatsu drummed his fingers atop the table. He wanted his voice back and a Kobe beef cheeseburger, but he knew better than anyone that he couldn’t always have what he wanted.

  “What would you have her do?” Tarik asked him.

  Tamatsu set his index and middle fingers of one hand against the palm of the other and pantomimed walking.

  After all, she’d walked across much of Europe and Asia. In comparison, fifty miles wasn’t shit.

  “Perhaps I’ll teleport her home, and repair her fragmented memory in the process as a favor to you,” Tarik said.

  Tamatsu scoffed, but of course, made no sound. He didn’t see what difference making her remember exactly what had transpired that day so long ago would make. The damage had already been done.

  “I didn’t realize you were so apt to hold a grudge, my friend.”

  Tamatsu slanted an eyebrow at Tarik. Tarik couldn’t really talk. Tarik was probably the least forgiving of their angelic trio, but people simply expected that of him. He never pretended to be anything but what he was. />
  Tamatsu tapped his throat.

  “There are other ways of speaking, telepathy being one of them.”

  Tamatsu shook his head hard.

  Telepathy with Noelle was impossible without touch, and he couldn’t touch her without reigniting the sexual hunger he’d fought so hard to douse. With other angels, he technically could communicate that way, but he chose not to for the most part. The psychic energy he put off would make him more discoverable by entities eager to rip into angel flesh. Although no harassing entity had yet done him any real harm, the bastards were annoying. He hated having his time wasted.

  “Forgiving would be healthy for you. Healing.”

  Tamatsu smoothed a crumpled piece of paper against the table’s edge. The chore of sorting through the ex-Coyote alpha’s clutter was going to take far longer than either he or Tarik had anticipated. Angels were, in general, adept at finding lost items. Tamatsu was beginning to suspect that the information they were looking for didn’t exist in the house, though. They would likely have to resort to creative measures soon.

  The paper Tamatsu held was an IOU, and the name on it was someone Tamatsu knew for certain was human. No help for the Coyotes there. He balled the paper back up and tossed the wad toward the recycling bin.

  “You guys want to take a break to eat?” Willa stood in the hallway entrance with her hands on her hips and a collection of cobwebs clinging to her Maria Middle School polo shirt. “I missed my lunch period. Had a parent conference run over. I almost never get requests for conferences, but when I do, they’re from the parents who want me to do more.” She snorted. “I teach band to middle-schoolers, for Pete’s sake. A third of those kids will drop out of the program before high school. A seventh-grade clarinet player’s college prospects will not be hinged on whether or not they squeak while playing their solo in ‘A Whole New World.’”

  Tamatsu was going to have to take her word for that. He’d had the misfortune of hearing the children perform, and didn’t think any of them were bound for stardom.