A Mermaid's Ransom (28 page)

She jerked her attention from that to her companion. She couldn't look beyond his gaze, windows to a hellfire furnace, but he seemed fine, for he lifted her so she was cradled in his arms, held against his chest. His voice was gruff, tense. "I am going to spank you for not listening to me. I'll take you back to your home."

She nodded, keeping her arms folded against herself. Despite the overwhelming heat before, now she was shivering from a place so deep inside her there wasn't enough hot chocolate, warm robes or fuzzy slippers in the world to make her warm.

She must have passed out, for the next thing she knew, he was laying her on her bed. Glancing down, she saw her shirt looked like it had been scorched in the dryer. One section of skirt hem was blackened, crumbling at her touch, though the rest was intact.

"Should we call your mother . . . or father?"

Some part of her wanted to, the terrible fear of being sucked back into the Dark One world far too close, but another part of her warned against it.

"If that is what you need, you should call them," he said, and there was fury in his voice. She couldn't handle anger right now. She wasn't sure what she could handle. She was so cold.

"I am not angry with you." He was, of course, but he was struggling not to be.

"What was all that?" she rasped, and put her hand to her throat.

"I took care of him. He is gone."

"But . . . how?" She saw now he was also marked with ash. The poet's shirt she'd liked so much was done for. Slashes in the shirt and bloodstains suggested the skin beneath had suffered open wounds, though none were visible now.

"Later. What do you need? There is a bath. And clothes. Are you hurt?"

"I don't know, I'm just . . . I'm so cold." Her teeth were chattering and she still had her arms folded around herself.

Muttering a curse, he drew a blanket off the trunk she had at the foot of the bed and wrapped her in it, and then the coverlet around that, so she was cocooned in both. Then he went into the bathroom and started the water in the tub, running it so hot she could see the steam rising, billowing out toward her. But still she shook. There was no amount of fabric that would be warm enough.

Turning off the tub, he came back out. Stripping off the remains of his shirt, leaving on the jeans, he unrolled her. She thought he was going to take her to the tub, but then he slid onto the bed, bringing her up against his chest before he rewrapped her, throwing the blanket ends loosely over his own body as he folded his arms around her.

The warmth of a living body.
Yes.
That was what she needed. It permeated her flesh where the blanket had been unable to do so, and her shivering became a jerking that seemed worse but wasn't. The warmth stealing in seemed to activate nerves that had become numb.

"I don't think . . . I handled b-being in the Dark One world . . . as well as I thought. I was so . . . s-scared we were going b-back there. That we were b-back there."

"It was the magic." He had his jaw pressed against the side of her head. She realized he was rubbing her back with both hands, soothing and yet probing at once, and wondered if he was checking for broken bones. She thought she was fine. The slam against the tree and Terence's punch in the face had been the worst, but thank goodness she wasn't human, not beneath the skin. She was far more resilient. And now she was a human servant as well, and Dante had said they were hard to kill.

"More primate than human," she mumbled. "Did you know monkeys can fall out of trees thirty feet high and their skulls won't crack? Not usually."

"That explains why you are so hardheaded. I told you to stay by the tree."

"I didn't want him to hurt you."

"He was not going to hurt me." The derision in the tone, the arrogance, eased something in her chest further.

"Ten feet tall and bulletproof,
hmm
?" She felt logy all of a sudden, the warmth making her tongue thick, no energy left in her body. "Well, I didn't know. Didn't get the memo." She let out a little snort. "Bet you don't know what any of that means."

"No, I don't." His lips touched her temple and she jerked again. Her throat hurt, with smoke or unshed tears, she didn't know.
Oh
,
God, don't let me fly apart.

His arms tightened, teetering her on the edge of hysteria. "You are safe." But there was something bubbling beneath the surface and it disturbed her, told her everything wasn't all right.

"
You
are all right." He tipped her chin so she would meet his eyes. But when she did, the emotion she was sensing erupted from him. "I am still . . . angry. I told you to stay
put
."

His snarl would have sent her skittering from the bed if she had the energy, but the expostulation knocked her receptors back into active mode. Of course, she didn't really need them. From a wealth of childhood mischief, she'd seen this reaction from her father plenty of times. Another kind of warmth stole into her chest, helping her even more than the blankets.

"I'm all right. Nothing a bath, a bottle of wine and a half gallon of ice cream won't fix. Really." She attempted a smile, but instead her eyes filled with tears and she started to shake again. "I'm sorry. Can you please just keep holding me?"

Putting her head down on his chest, she let herself cry. Though she wasn't sure what his reaction would be, he embraced her uncertainly, then with more confidence as she clung harder. He began to rub her back in circles again, slowly fondle her nape. Stroking the side of her wet face with his knuckles, he held her so close to his warm body she felt almost like he'd pull her inside of him if he could.

Her hands crept up his chest, her fingers whispering along the silver band around his throat. The way he'd accepted her putting that collar on him had felt like a declaration that he was hers. He would give her his trust. As misguided as she knew that belief was, she held on to it as a comfort for right now.

Time passed, for when her eyes opened next she saw it was just past midnight. He was still holding and stroking her, murmuring to her, fragments of sentences. Amazed, she realized he was trying to sing to her, broken pieces of a lullaby. Something revived from his memories of his mother?

Tilting back her head, she looked into his face. He'd loosed his hair from the braid she'd made, and it brushed her hand as she raised it to twine in the strands. He watched her, eyes like embers of starlight in the waning dark, his sensual lips firm. The light showed him as beautiful, but it was in shadows that his face became too mesmerizing to look away, everything perfect about it etched by the mysteries of the darkness. It made her wonder if the truth of what Dante truly wanted lay somewhere between Mina's cynicism and Alexis's optimism.

"Everyone keeps asking me this question: 'What do I want to do here?'" Dante took his gaze to the window. "I know the answer to the question, but I will not give it to them."

"Will you give it to me?"

He looked down at her. "Perhaps. But for right now . . . I've never had anything I wanted to take care of. I want to take care of you, keep you safe. Touch your face, know you are well." When he furrowed his brow, examining his own thoughts, she closed her hand over his, her throat thick from more than smoke. "I like that humming noise," he added.

"The refrigerator?"

He nodded. "It's . . ."

"Soothing?"

Dante's regard on her mouth and the line of her cheek was a physical stroke. His hand tightened against her back. "Yes. Exactly."

"Will there be other vampires, do you think?"

"Lady Lyssa told Mina she would notify the territory overlord I am here. He was to instruct the vampires in this territory that I am to be left alone for the next thirty days. There was likely not time to . . . send the memo?"

Her lips curved. "You learn fast."

"Your mind is a good teacher. If they obey her, I expect we should have no further problem. Not that he was much of one. You worry too much."

"Your confrontation management skills take some getting used to," she said, holding the smile with effort. "I think you're right though, that we won't have more trouble. After seeing her and Jacob, I can't imagine anyone going out of their way to piss them off."

"You have your own confrontation management skills." He studied her. "You avoided one by bringing up their child, even though you placed yourself at risk by drawing their attention."

"Sometimes people get caught up in defending their particular boundaries. Children don't care about boundaries." Her fingertips found his collarbone and caressed it, though she continued holding on to his hair, reluctant to let go. Her other hand gripped his waist.

Dante wondered if she realized how tightly she was holding him. Even after her sleep, he could feel the struggle within her to contain her nerves, the emotions disturbed by the vampire's attack. Sliding his fingers into her curls, he began to stroke through them, following the line of her skull. When he reached her throat under her ear, she tilted her head into his touch.

The lullaby
had
come from his mother. He hadn't remembered it for over two decades. It had not served him when he stopped being a scavenger and became the hunter, so he'd buried it. But wanting to ease Alexis's fears had unearthed the memory, a gentle, terrible gift waiting in his subconscious.

Though his mother's wrists had been manacled against rings embedded in the stone, they were placed low enough that when he pressed against her leg, her fingers could touch his head. Those few times he could be near her without Dark Ones, she'd stroked him, slow, unsteady. That song had caught in her throat, a rough music disrupted by her pain. The notes had come through, though. After she was gone, sometimes he'd curl up in whatever hole he'd found for the night, pretend the hand stroking his head was hers instead of his own, and hum that tune.

Adjusting his back against the headboard so Alexis lay against his chest, he let her doze again. She would still want a bath, though the water was cooling. He could heat it again, using a more low level version of what she'd call his confrontation management skills. As his fingers drifted over her body, his gaze traveled her room. The stuffed animals and sheer curtains, the gleam of a parking lot light giving the panels a silken moonlight look. The softness of the mattress under him, the ticking of a clock.

His mother had tried to offer him comfort in a world that mocked it. This world overflowed in comforts in comparison, but to him that made its dangers even more hazardous, because it was harder to see them coming.

Hatred and rage, pain and darkness. They had those things here, but in a random dispersal, like a handful of sand thrown into the wind. Whereas they'd
been
the air of his world. He'd been suckled on them for over sixty years. It wasn't a new thought, but for the first time, he did wonder if his soul was still trapped there, on the other side of the portal. Alexis had pulled his body across, but he wasn't all the way in. She seemed determined to hold on to him, though, no matter what it cost her.

That feels good.

Something low in his gut tightened at the sleepy thought. He'd ask her what emotion he was feeling later, maybe after they washed off the ash and blood, the smell of the magic he'd unleashed. Or perhaps he'd do it, take the washcloth and soap to make her skin slick and fragrant, turn lingering shadows of fear in her gaze to desire.

At least he understood that feeling. Or he thought he had. In the Dark One world it hadn't been a feeling but a physical compulsion, a need no different from eating or relieving oneself. With her, it was a way to go beyond confusion and decision, something clean, simple, right. But he was finding she gave him that even when he wasn't inside her body.

She projected peace, safety, warmth, things he'd never had but somehow understood when he felt them from her. She'd helped him from the beginning. Not just with the painting and sculpture, but how she'd stood up to her father's will.

He dwelled on that one. Her father was obviously stronger, more powerful. But he'd allowed it. He'd
respected
her decision. This was a world full of peculiarities. A powerful angel who let his daughter make a decision he did not believe was wise, rather than forcing her to obedience, was just one of them. Power was handled differently here, like the varying direction of the wind, rather than a mallet that kept others hammered into their place.

He looked at the woman sleeping in his arms. She'd ignored or disobeyed him several times now, and it wasn't because of the despised metal collar around his throat that he hadn't punished her as he would a Dark One who disregarded his commands. The Dark Ones were always seeking ways to take his power away, claim it for themselves. Their lives were a struggle for dominion. Alexis's motives were different. He remembered her hurt when he implied her fate was of no concern to him.

That was no longer true, if it had ever been true. He'd been prepared to battle the vampire, prove his strength was greater, and then allow the creature the opportunity to submit or die. But the way his gaze had crawled over Alexis's flesh, and then his fist striking her, sending her hurtling back into a tree, had sealed the vampire's fate. The red rage that had covered Dante's mind tolerated only one outcome. Death to the one who dared touch her, cause her pain.

But what did that make him? Who would punish him for harming her, for planting the fear that was still making her cry out in her sleep? Disturbed by his thoughts, he pushed them away as her fingers tightened on his thigh, her face pressing into his neck.

Resuming his stroking, he stumbled through the lullaby once more.

Twenty-three

MARCELLUS settled on the roof of Alexis's town house and folded his wings, glancing at Jonah and David as they came in next to him. "Cleanup wasn't too difficult," he reported. "They'll think it was a cigarette fire that burned itself out on the trail. I scattered the ashes so the bone shards wouldn't catch a park ranger's eye. Vampire and definitely Dark One energy readings. Dante was involved, whatever happened."

David looked toward Jonah. "Alexis?"

"Is fine, as far as I know," her father answered. "She sent me the message that a vampire attacked her and Dante. Dante handled it, which explains the Dark One fire."

"It took out a hundred-foot swath, very uniform," Marcellus supplied. "He had to have doused it himself, else it would have had a more erratic pattern. Did the vampire queen not honor her promise?"

"She confirmed Jacob talked to the territory overlord shortly after we left," David explained. "So this appears to be a matter of timing only. The attacking vampire hadn't been informed Dante wasn't an unprotected loner in the territory. There should be no other aggressive moves toward him, at least not during his thirty days. Hopefully he'll be intelligent enough to accept her offer for guidance after that," he added. "If nothing else, it will spread the word among the vampires here that he can hold his own."

"That won't matter," Jonah said flatly. "He'll be back in his own world then."

"It's not his world, Jonah," David responded. "It was where he was born when his abducted mother was raped there."

Jonah's mouth tightened. "You were there, David, when Lex came back through, bruised and covered with blood. You've seen the way he looks at all of us. He's more Dark One than anything else."

"Marcellus once said the same thing about Mina." A hardness entered David's voice. "You weren't so ready to agree with him then."

Marcellus shifted uncomfortably, readjusting his wings, but Jonah held his lieutenant's gaze. "I had some evidence that Mina's fate was undecided. I haven't seen that in Dante."

"Perhaps because you don't want to see it."

Jonah's dark eyes sparked. "You don't have a child. You don't understand."

"No, I don't have a child. Which is why I'm seeing this from a different perspective." David shook his head. "Jonah, every one of us wanted to take him apart limb from limb when they came back through that portal. But you can't miss how she looks at him. She sees something no one else sees. I do understand that, quite well."

"Which may mean both of your perspectives are distorted," Marcellus ventured, hoping to defuse the sizzling tension. Sometimes he thought the two were more like father and son than they realized. "One of you sees him as evil, the other as misunderstood good. Perhaps I should go check on her and report a balanced perspective?"

"I will look in on my own daughter," Jonah said. "But thank you, Marcellus, for offering."

"It's late." David's tone was now neutral, though Marcellus noted the tension hadn't left his shoulders. "Since she indicated she was all right, wouldn't tomorrow be soon enough?"

In answer, Jonah gave him another searing look. He left the town house roof in one easy leap, which they knew would land him on the ground before the front door. When Marcellus raised a brow, David shrugged. "Where do you think Dante is sleeping, if he sleeps? And do you think Lex is wearing flannel footie pajamas?"

"Goddess save us." Marcellus shuddered. "I don't have a child or a female, and I'm beginning to think an angel's mind stays clearer without either one."

"Perhaps." A smile crossed David's face, easing it. "But a smooth journey is rarely an exciting one, Marcellus."

"Yes, my life is full of boredom," he snorted. "Since I fight for . . ."

"You fight for the Goddess," David finished firmly when he stopped. "You protect her world, as all of us do."

"Just not on the front lines of the Legion any more." Marcellus gave his scar a disgusted look.

"Would you get over it? I swear, you're worse than an old woman."

"An old woman who can whip your subordinate lily-white buttocks halfway across the galaxy."

David's smile spread into a grin. "There's the captain I know. Sir."

Marcellus snorted and went to a squat, his wings holding him in that position. Though David said nothing, he did notice the strain to the effort in Marcellus's left wing. Thank the Goddess, when Mina shut down the rifts from the Dark One world, the need for large scale actions or fierce fighting had been curtailed for a while. But battle practice continued, and in competitions where Marcellus had excelled, he'd now fallen into the middle of the pack. Despite David's teasing, he knew it weighed on Marcellus's mind, as it would any of them. The angels of the Legion lived for their service to the Goddess.

David tactfully turned the topic in a different direction, looking down toward the parking lot. "I admit, I expected you to be more of Jonah's opinion on all this. Since it's Dark One blood that has kept you from fully healing."

Marcellus didn't immediately answer. Instead, he watched the cat crossing the quiet parking area. He'd returned Timeshare Cat, or T, to Lex, but while she was chaperoning Dante, she'd given his care over to Clara. The cat, despite Lex having responsibly neutered him, lived up to his name and tomcat nature. He seemed to have no problem sauntering up to Clara's town house instead of Lex's. Marcellus couldn't blame the cat.

Goddess, he was being an idiot. The girl was a child, and Lex's friend. Feeling David's regard, he switched his mind to the topic at hand. It was time to give the young angel the answer he deserved. Marcellus reflected that he'd probably withheld it for far too long.

"In centuries past, I watched angels fall in the face of greater numbers of Dark Ones. They could have retreated, perhaps, and fought another day, but they held the line so other angels could have that honor. They fought darkness despite the weakness of their bodies, and knowing the consequences of doing so. But they also knew they had the reward of serving the Goddess, and that their life energy would rejoin hers."

He met David's gaze. "Your witch fought the darkness inside of her for years, with no justification other than her own stubbornness. She stood strong, even when we reviled her. No one promised her any reward for her courage and endurance. No one championed her. Not until you. When she eventually did what she did, closing down the Dark One world, she did it believing she would lose you, the only thing she'd ever needed or valued, or that had needed or valued her. I was ashamed."

David's brow creased. "Marcellus."

"She didn't lose you, though it was a near thing." He cleared his throat, lifting a hand so David would let him finish. "And I realized then there can be a spark of light in the darkest night, but we can be too blind to see it if we cling to what we've always known and believed. On better, less selfish days"--his hand went to his chest, brushed the scar--"I think this is a reminder of that. Dante may be the evil he seems to be, a lost soul who cannot be saved. Or, like your witch, he may be something different. I will not make the same mistake again."

"You know, you guys keep coming around, they're going to cite you for loitering."

Glancing left, they found Clara leaning on the low wall running the roof perimeter of the adjacent town house. She cocked her head, her bright eyes focused on Marcellus. "Nice evening to take a girl out for a flight, don't you think?"

David coughed over a chuckle as Marcellus scowled. "Your ability to see us is irritating," he informed her.

"You're not really irritated. You're mad because you almost smiled when you saw me. I know these things. I'm clairvoyant. Hence the name
Clara
." At their expressions, she laughed. "You guys are too easy. My mom had no clue, she just liked the name. It's a little annoying though."

"You should be asleep," Marcellus grated.

"It's three a.m. It's hard for any clairvoyant to sleep during that time. Too many otherworldly things moving about." She lifted a Tup perware bowl. "I've got some great pound cake Mom made. If I eat it all I'll be far too heavy for you to fly around. It tastes like manna from Heaven, so honestly I think that's the recipe she uses. Want to share?"

"We don't really eat," David explained. "Not in this form. We can, but it all tastes like sawdust."

"This won't taste like sawdust, I promise. There's no way." When her gaze turned to him, Clara paused, studying him. Abruptly, she beamed at him. "Congratulations. You must be really excited. I didn't know angels . . . well, I guess they can, because Alexis has never said she couldn't have babies."

David's brow creased. "Excuse me?"

Clara blanched. "Oh, crap. She hasn't told you yet. Sometimes, when it's late or I'm flustered"--she shot a self-conscious look at Marcellus--"I get confused. I think she was getting ready to tell you pretty soon, else I wouldn't have confused it. If your wife or girlfriend is scary, don't tell her I was the one who told you."

"You have no idea," Marcellus said dryly.

David was staring off into space, his expression torn between shock and sudden light-headedness. "Excuse me," he said all of a sudden, and vanished.

"Wow," Clara blinked. "Did he just--"

"No. He flew, but faster than your eyes could follow."

"Oh. It was still freaking impressive. Damn it, I hope I haven't caused trouble."

"I expect you're quite practiced at that. But it will be joyous news to him." Though he privately wondered if Mina's reaction would be far different.

"Good." Taking a step onto the ledge, she cocked her head, her gaze passing over him with a blatant appreciation that would have amused him if she didn't inexplicably get under his skin. "Well, I didn't plot it or anything, but looks like we've got the rooftop all to ourselves." She glanced at the starry sky. "Romantic night,
hmm
?"

Marcellus gave her a narrow look. "I am four hundred years old."

"Cool. I'll keep that in mind when I bake you a birthday cake. Okay, in about three seconds, I'm going to jump over there. I assume you'll grab me out of the air if I fall short."

Marcellus straightened. "You will not. We are not circus animals, to perform for your--"

"Three." Clara leaped into open space, the cake holder hugged against her body.

FROM his enhanced hearing, Jonah knew both occupants of the room were sleeping. He knew David was right, that he should come back. But the explosion of energy so close to his daughter's home, the obvious use of Dark One power, had been unsettling, to say the least. He wanted to confirm she was all right, for Anna as well as himself.

The key she kept in the planter next to the door always irritated him, but she'd rightly explained that humans held no danger to her. The cloud of tranquil energy around her neutralized any random threat of theft, rape or murder. "It's a chicken and egg thing," she'd explained to him. "There has to be a reason to want to harm me, Pyel, and most people want to be near me so they can feel good. Wanting to harm me would be because I'd made them feel bad."

No, the type of enemy who would attack her would be otherworldly, one not deterred by locks on windows or doors. For instance, the kind who would pull her through a dream portal.

Jonah wasn't completely oblivious to David's point, or Marcellus's. He just wasn't ready for them to be right. His daughter's heart was like her mother's, pure feeling. She had the key not just for Clara, but for all manner of people she'd befriended and granted refuge. He knew about all of them. A young, single mother who occasionally needed someplace to nap on her lunch hour, close to her office. A teenage boy who lived in a bad neighborhood and came here to study after school. There'd been a plethora of stray dogs and cats she'd placed in homes, though she'd kept the big buff-colored tomcat, saying he was meant to be here.

Whereas Dante, her latest stray, shouldn't be in the same dimension.

Sliding into the town house, Jonah closed the door. His nostrils flared, scenting the blood drops on the floor, but it was only a small splattering. She was fine, she'd said so. Still, he moved through the living area with silent caution, taking in the usual comfortable arrangement of sofa, easy chairs, coffee table. She liked open spaces and simple decorating, for practical as well as aesthetic reasons. Bric a-brac on tables could be swept off by a wing, the same way a golden retriever would do it with an enthusiastic plume of a tail. A faint smile touched his lips, recalling the saucy remark when she moved in, anticipating visits from him and other angels of the Legion. She was so different from him and Anna, and yet so alike as well. He marveled at the miracle of it every day.

A flash of movement at the window caught his startled gaze. Marcellus winged by in a sharp banking maneuver. He caught a glimpse of a woman's flailing arms, her body securely caught in his grasp, just before his captain's reassurance came into his mind, letting him know whatever the situation was, it was under control.

When he stepped to the bedroom door, Jonah braced for the likelihood she was sharing her bed with the Dark Spawn. If they were in a bare, postcoital state, he might put his eyes out with a hot poker.