A Mermaid s Kiss (Daughters of Arianne 1)

He'd had the hostess direct them to a booth in a far corner where he could watch all angles of approach. The automatic decision comforted him, for it told him his training was not affected by his human form. He had a limited ability to defend and protect, even if he did not have an angel's extraordinary strength and maneuverability.

He also discovered he could still read a human soul at a glance. The family that had come in behind them had a grim, gray aura which made the occupants of the tables nearest them glance up uneasily. While they wouldn't recognize the aura, it wasn't too difficult to pick up on the situation.

The man's soul was well compromised, for he was beating his wife. Hers was dangerously teetering, because she knew it wouldn't be long before his fist would find their child, now just a toddler. She moved stiffly, telling Jonah the man was one of those who left his marks where they weren't obvious. Nothing could conceal the wariness of her body language, however, the way she kept her body between him and the toddler, a mother's protective instinct not beaten out of her--yet.

When the waitress brought Jonah's plate, sliding it before him, he shifted his attention away from that table to examine his meal. He'd studied human behavior, so eating like one of them was not difficult, but he wondered if this meal would be rejected if not fully digested when he resumed his angel form. If so, he might just need to accustom himself to his stomach growling during the daylight hours. However, for now, maybe because some part of him was hoping there was an element of truth to Anna's words about the comfort of a full stomach, he dug in. Eventually he coaxed a bite of the apple pie she'd ordered with her own breakfast, enjoying it enough she had the waitress add a second piece to their ticket.

When at last he came up for air, amazed at how satisfying it was to fill a hungry stomach, she'd finished her breakfast and was studying the family herself.

"Looks like they're tourists, here for the week." She said it quietly, as the toddler started fussing and the woman hastily worked on quieting him.

Jonah nodded. Anna brought her attention back to him. "Look at all of us. We look away. We all know what's going on, but we don't feel like it's our place to interfere. Humans have such a strange, isolating culture. In the sea, it would be brought to Neptune's ears immediately, and he and some of the other merpeople would bring the male before them and tell him his behavior would change, or he would be expelled, forced to leave his family behind."

"And yet, he does nothing about their ostracism of one of their own. Two, if you count the seawitch."

"Oh, I think he would . . ." Anna shook her head. "It's different. No one is physically hurting me, or threatening me. It's just . . . I don't want merpeople to be forced to accept me. In that type of situation, people accept when they're ready to accept. If you force them, it may work out in the end, but it's always best for them to get to know you and then accept you, if you can do it that way."

She switched direction, obviously having no desire to speak about her own situation. "What would you do about that man? I mean, as an angel, if you could. Well, I mean, of course you could . . ."

"I know what you meant." He paused, studying the trio of humans. The man was detached, drinking his coffee, but it didn't affect the wary alertness of the wife's gaze, the tension in her shoulders. "Kill the child," Jonah said at last.

Anna's head whipped around. "What?"

Jonah shrugged, added more of the sweet-smelling stuff called syrup to his last pancake. "Earth is the karmic field for humans, Anna. So the man must stay here and be punished to learn from his brutality. Even if he was removed, the woman's soul is weak. She would simply hook up with another abuser. The child is innocent. His soul is not that of a former abuser, so he's most deserving of returning to a Hall of Souls for reincarnation to a better situation."

Something shifted behind Anna's eyes, something raw and unreadable. "I'll take care of the check and wait outside," she said, rising and leaving a few dollars on the table for the tip before proceeding with her awkward gait to the cash register by the door.

Of course she had money. Neptune would have seen to that. But he didn't like the feeling of her providing for him any more than he liked seeing the stiffness in her walk, the obvious comparison it drew for him to the gait of the beaten woman. There didn't seem to be much he could do about either right now, however. Jonah swallowed the last bites, which went down like sawdust.

Maybe that's why he did what he did next, interfering in something he knew was like taking one raindrop out of a flood.

As he passed the table, he stopped when he was aligned with the man, laid a hand on his shoulder. Shot a full measure of light energy into him as he glanced at the toddler, forced a smile that made the child gurgle and gave the mother a startled moment, a passing ease to the fear in her features.

The man stopped eating, placed his hand over his mouth and erupted from the table, dashing for the bathroom. Once he'd retched out the darkness, Jonah knew, he might have half a chance of seeing things in a different light.

He could do something like that, but he couldn't heal Anna until he had wings. Stifling an oath and leaving the diner, he found Anna following the sand on the ocean side. She'd apparently known he'd catch up to her painful walk in no time, if he'd a mind to follow.

When he reached her, he tried to take the weight of the backpack from her. She stubbornly held on to it. "I'll manage."

"Tell me what's wrong. I thought you'd be glad to think of the child out of harm's way."

She whirled on him. "Is that what my mother was thinking, when she said, 'I don't have the courage to kill you'?"

As understanding dawned, he cursed his carelessness. "Anna--"

"I have the right to try to overcome the challenges in my own life," she continued fiercely. "Who's to say that's not what makes us strong and decent? How much character and strength do you think someone who's never had any sorrow or loss or hardship possesses, my lord? Everyone should be able to command his own destiny. You don't get to make that decision for me, or for that child." She poked a finger in his chest, startling him. "If I'd had that taken away from me, I wouldn't know Mina, have flowers . . ."

I wouldn't have met you.

He knew she wouldn't immediately realize he'd caught that direct thought, but he grabbed her hand and refused to let go. She pulled against him hard enough she sat down on her backside in the sand so that he followed her down, dropping to one knee between her splayed feet. The wind whipped her hair across her angry eyes.

He sought for something to say, and could only come up with what was at the forefront in his mind. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking about it the way you were."

She blew out a breath through her nose, shook her head. "Why would you say something like that?"

"I don't know." Jonah shrugged, examined her fingers in the grip of his. "An abuser like that feels helpless, angry about something outside his control. He lets darkness close in around his soul. Striking out at something weaker makes him feel more in control, more powerful."

While it had a bitter taste, he made himself face the simple truth, say it aloud. "I hurt you in the pool because I was feeling out of my element, out of control."

Shock coursed over her features, replacing the anger in a blink. "No, my lord. You are nothing like that man. You had no intention of harming me. There is pain in your soul and you were protecting it, until it's ready to heal."

The simple words, the touch of her hand, balanced him, even as the sense of shame didn't abate. Regardless, he wouldn't add to his crime by making her expend energy to assuage his guilt. "You would pull a thorn from a lion's paw, Anna," he said with forced lightness.

Anna gave him a disparaging look, then let him help her to her feet, take the backpack. They resumed their walking silently, and when they left the causeway, they crossed over to the main beach, a wider stretch where the road disappeared behind a dune ridge.

As Anna thought about what he'd said, she realized it wasn't his assessment of the family's situa

tion as much as the dispassionate way he'd said it that bothered her. Of course he'd have a different perspective on such matters, for he saw a far wider picture of such things, whereas she had demonstrated quite embarrassingly that she saw things in perspective to herself and her own experiences. But there'd been something . . . unsettling about his analysis. The more they walked, the more the question burned into her brain, until she had to ask it.

"Why do you hate the humans so much, my lord?"

"I don't hate them," he said. Turning away, he sat down on the sand to pull off his shoes as she had already done for herself. He added them to the backpack.

Almost an automatic response, she noted. As if he'd had to answer it before. "But you hate this human form," she persisted.