Summon Lyght (25 page)

She looked at him with a happy light in those clear blue eyes.
"That wasn't a damn
compliment
!"

Her brows crimped and she looked down and stayed that way for several seconds. Then she did it. She used those damn human tear ducts. She had them wide open. Great. And why should he be moved the least? She wasn
't human.

She let out a very real human-sounding sob and it jerked Toren
's insides. "Stop it. Please. Quit that." He looked around like a guilty bully.

She shook her head and wiped her eyes but they continued to pour.
"I just…I thought sure you would like…"

"
I liked you the way you were."

"
And how was I?" she wailed.

Toren felt like demon fodder.
"You were perfect."

"
I wasn't anything. I could never decide what I wanted to be. And when we came to Earth, I suddenly knew what I wanted. To be human. A human girl. Like…like Sam."

The stabbing grief in her stole his breath and he pulled her into his arms.
"You didn't need to do that," he said softly, stroking her head.

"
I wanted to. I see how much you love her. I just wanted to make you happy," she sobbed into his chest.

A strange emotion tugged in his heart for her.
"I'm sorry I made you cry. You forgive me?"

She nodded against him.

"I'm just worried about you. And Kassie. I feel like I'm losing…control of everything. And it's not the best feeling."

She nodded again, sniffling.

Toren sighed. "I'll go in the purifier with you. Okay?"

"
Okay," she whispered.

"
And I do very much like you this way. I think I'm just worried."

She looked up, hopeful.

"Maybe you made yourself too pretty. I don't want human males to…hurt you."

She gave him a huge smile and wiped her eyes.
"Hurt
me?"

"
It's different here, Peggy. The pain they could bring you isn't anything you could fight. It's in here." He tapped her chest. "I don't want you to ever hurt that way."

She smiled and grinned up at him.
"You're acting like those amazing men I see on the pretend moving pictures."

He wondered what she meant.
"Morons?"

She giggled and shook her head.
"They call them…fathers."

That emotion he
'd felt earlier returned and tugged with a vengeance. Father. Was he really feeling that? A father's instinct? He smiled. She certainly qualified as his daughter conceptually. But having her in this form sort of brought it into concrete existence. All at once. 

"
Yes. I guess I do feel a lot like that."

"
You do?" A brilliant hope filled her face, making him long for things strange to him.

Toren suddenly realized something about her that he hadn
't before. Maybe a key into the mystery of her past. She needed the love of family. A father even. Toren smiled and stroked his thumb along her cheek, then held her chin. "Of course I do. Does that mean I can spank you if you don't listen now?"

She giggled, thrilled.
"I would never disobey." She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. Toren closed his eyes, feeling the new sensation. God. Felt…so damn right. He pressed his lips into her head, his mercury hot enough to go through the roof. Is this what Kassern felt for Francis? Dorn, for Maxwell? The ruby warrior didn't show it if he did. Nor Dorn.

"
Come on. Time to get you all clean."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Francis stared at the girl through the window. It made perfect sense that he would learn just a bit more about her before a personal encounter. Any and every detail would help. But now that only ten feet stood between him and her, he wasn
't so sure.

Why was he so nervous? She was just a girl. A human. A weak one, at that. Well, maybe not
weak
, but with a different form of strength than he was accustomed to seeing. Anyone who lived the life she did and managed to remain relatively intact couldn't be considered truly weak. But she couldn't hurt him in any way that he could think. And he'd certainly thought a lot about it. But just to be certain, he'd even changed his physique.

After looking at himself in the mirror, he realized he looked like a young teenager and kind of scrawny. Not exactly the best image for the role he intended to play. So, with amazingly little effort, he thought mass onto his frame until he resembled his father. Then he
'd pulled back when he resembled Kassern too much. It didn't seem right to look so much like the most amazing Archangel alive.

He
'd finally found a happy medium of a human male of around nineteen, at least. Now all he had to manage was the maturity to match. Surely he could do that.

He watched Abigail Faye—he hadn
't disclosed her given name to his siblings for some odd reason—walk around her apartment. The thick curtains were drawn tight, but they were nothing for him to see through. Calculated assessments ensued as he took in every detail. She moved with the confidence of a predator and the grace of silk in a breeze. How far did all those tattoos go? Did they hurt when she got them? In his limited understanding, humans generally considered tattoos quite painful.

She suddenly removed her shirt without warning. Francis
' lungs clamped shut and he tried to jerk his gaze away, but he couldn't to save his life. Shit. Thankfully, her chest was still covered with a thin snug garment.

Then she removed the thin something too.
Shit.

He vaguely noticed his mouth hung open in a mixture of shock and shame. And awe. She undid her pants next and Francis
' gaze zeroed in with an eagerness that had to be wicked. "Turn away, turn away. Oh God, please turn away." Who was he begging? Himself, or her?

She slid the jeans down and turned. Oh God. The back view was only more…not traumatizing, but something with as much punch. He gazed in rapture, finding his answer about those tattoos. There was no end to them.
This is wrong. This is wrong. Turn away.

Francis growled and threw himself into the brick wall next to the window, gasping in relief even as he struggled against the temptation to turn back and continue watching her. He covered his mouth for a few amazed seconds and forced himself to wait. When he figured she
'd had plenty of time to dress again, he turned and peeked into the window.
Oh.
He slammed his back against the brick wall with bruising force. Note. Subject sleeps without clothes. 

He stood there for several seconds, wondering what to do now that his human specimen was naked. In all his grand scheming, he
'd never considered he might encounter a nude female subject. Especially not one so fascinating he had to force himself to turn away. He had no doubt the images of her in various states of undress were seared into his mind forever.

Standing there trying to catch his breath and recover, the most amazing sound he
'd ever heard caught his attention. Singing drifted through the night and bounced off the brick and glass of the crowded buildings, then reached his ears. Angelic. 

He forgot about her nakedness and looked in the window. The second his eyes landed on
her, he realized his mistake. Felt it, rather. His body no longer belonged to him, nor did it care about what he thought was right and wrong. It cared and belonged to what he saw. To what he heard. It cared and belonged to Abigail, sitting on her bed, unbraiding her hair. Singing the most haunting words of darkness and despair. Of life with no hope. Agony's rain. Agony's pain. Agony's gain.

His ruby nails grew and dug into the brick wall. His power became violent with the urge to break the neck of Wrong, and driven to heal with the passion of Right.

Without thinking, his ruby misted into a tendril of soft air and floated toward her. To comfort. He had to comfort her. He closed his eyes, focusing the energy softly around her aura, stroking the dense darkness. 

The evil lies in her midst suddenly fell away and the singing stopped. Francis held his breath in the silence, feeling an avalanche building in her. A heart wrenching sob plunged straight through his chest like a hot blade and he gasped when she suddenly threw herself into the comfort of his shadowy embrace. He pulled her close, so very close. He
'd never felt anything so soft. Fragile. And broken. He sat there and allowed those horrific sobs to crucify him until her pain was his. Her despair was his. Her longing was his. 

Until this woman, forged from the womb of Darkness... was his. 

****

Abigail woke up feeling…refreshed? What the fuck? She threw off her covers and sat at the edge of the bed. What had she done the night before that would bring such an amazing aftermath? No drug she
'd ever done had made her feel this good the day after. None of them made you feel good the day after. Shit. She stretched her limbs, feeling the honeyed energy humming through her muscles. She even
moaned.
Wow! Almost like she'd had great sex. Not that she'd know what that was, but she'd heard about it. In books.

Fairytales. Sex was nothing more than the scratching of an itch. No fireworks. No earth moving. No meeting of souls. But if it was any of those things, it would make her feel like she did right then.

She focused on her agenda for the day. The homecoming. Fuck, it was that night. All the good feelings drained out of her pores. This one wasn't going to be easy for her. She had to play the badass with a kid she'd sworn to look after. Antione, AKA Kool A, was being jumped in during the party to welcome Jackie Wayne home from two years in jail.

Jumping in was procedure. They
'd all gone through it. So why the fucking hard time? She shook her head still unable to unify the concept of pain and gain when she was the one dishing out the pain. Any other time, she relished being the deliverer of agony and humiliation, but not with that kid. Not
that kid.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. And there was no getting out of it.

The familiar rage that came from the pit of her being launched her off the bed. Nearly blinded with it, she stumbled to the bathroom and managed to start the water and get herself into the shower. She stood in the stream of hot spray and braced her palms on the cracked tile and let the past harden her. She needed to be hard.

She thought of all the times she
'd been raped by her loving father. And brother. Ah yes. That was her war hammer memory. Didn't take long for it to crush all things living inside her, make her into the animal she'd become. The animal that got things done, the fuck-me-all-night-long-because-I'm-not-home animal, the you-can't-reach-me animal, the not-of-this-fucking-world animal.

She slammed her palms, pissed. Stupid shit.

A warm feeling slithered through her and she shut the water off and jerked open the shower curtain. What the fuck? Her heart pounded like a cannon in her chest as she remembered that feeling. Last night. What had happened?

She stood, thinking. Remembering. She
'd been singing…and then…

She yanked the robe from the peg and slid it on. She
'd felt arms around her. Warm. So strong. Comforting. And she'd given
in
to it.

She stormed out the bathroom to pace, confused as hell. What else? Her body remembered more. What was it? Oh God. She touched her lips with trembling fingers. The memory came finally. Warm soft lips. On hers. Pressing gently. Comforting. Adoring. Longing. 

She'd been kissed?

Fucking impossible.

****

Francis walked up and down in his room. He
'd kissed her. It was with his spiritual lips, but that was… God, that was nearly real. It
was
real.

For exactly the three hundredth thirty-seventh time, he relived it. She
'd turned her face up. Her warm breath hit his mouth. It's what he was supposed to do. What she needed him to do. That was the only reason, the only logical explanation for his lack of shame. He tried to feel shame again, and as usual it refused to come. No matter what he told himself, how he rationalized its necessity, nothing. Nothing but his heart racing and his body aching for…more.

Much more.

Her lips had trembled against his. Timid and soft, willing. More than willing. He paced, finding names for what he'd understood in that brief meshing of lips. She was also unsure. He'd sensed uncertainty. No, not uncertainty. Fear. She was afraid. He raked agitated fingers through his hair. But she wasn't afraid of him, she was afraid of…him not being real. She had desperately
needed
him to be real, to rescue her from her life even if only for a little while.

He hit his fist against the wall.
I am real!

He collapsed onto the couch and cradled his head in his hands. And now he had to go
fight
with her! Tonight!

And yet.

He straightened. The idea of being touched by her, in
any
way, was beyond thrilling. The problem was, the plan called for defeating her gang without touching so as to keep his secret. He and the others couldn't reveal what they actually were. Or actually weren't. Not that he couldn't manage the winning part.

But now he
wanted
to touch her. Keeping himself from her would be the real battle.

Understatement of the Universe.

****

Robert shoved dark shades close to his forehead.
"So, we're just going to go right into the devil's lair and announce we're the new fire in the den?"

Good God. Francis had just spent the last two hours learning how to act, and Robert
's vocabulary did
not
fit the culture. "I see you didn't really study." Francis rubbed the bridge of his nose. "How about you not talk this time around?"

Peggy slid her hands over Francis
' arms. "I love, love, love what you did with the biceps, baby."

Francis smiled.
"You studied."

She winked at him.
"No shit."

Francis looked over her clothes. Pure white was the decided color for their so-called
gang. And matching. They all wore a white leather trench coat, leather pants, and boots. Except Peggy's boots reached her thighs and were shiny. They'd decided on not flashy. White was bright enough, but nothing shiny. He also noted flesh showing beneath the trench-coat. If Toren had reacted badly over her last outfit, he didn't want to see his reaction over this.

"
You let Toren know we're headed out?"

Peggy flustered a little.
"I told him yesterday when we were leaving."

Francis shook his head a little.

"What!"

"
You know damn well what. It's your ass if he catches you dressed that way."

"
Oh, he doesn't care." She waved a hand.

"
You're a pathetic liar, sis."

She smiled at him.
"I like when you call me that."

He grinned and rolled his eyes. But he liked it too. It felt good to be doing things together. Felt like a family. All those thousands of years together, but not. Occupied with helping their individual Warriors, but not actively helping each other regularly or spending time together. This felt like the way it was supposed to be.

She flicked her white fingernails up and down at his body. "You look devastating in that, by the way. A spitting image of your father. Are you ready to kick ass?"

Maxwell sauntered over.
"We done shooting the shit? The night's howling for blood."

Francis grinned at hearing his brother talk that way. It was all rather fun, actually.
"You studied too."

Maxwell held his fist up and Francis instinctively tapped his knuckles on it before they both leaned in for a ritual-style brotherhood hug. More a banging of shoulders.

Robert snorted a little. "I studied. And I'll say my lines when it's time to say my lines."

Francis tried to hide his cringe at how unauthentic he sounded. It
'd be truly amazing if Robert could manage the diamond prince
out of himself.

Francis looked at all of them.
"So, we're called Lords Krue. We go into their little welcome home party and claim the neighborhood. That starts a fight, we agree to duel and wager for the boy, kick their asses without touching them, and claim our prize."

Robert perked up.
"Without touching?"