A Mermaid s Kiss (Daughters of Arianne 1)

"Of course," he said with a derisive snort. "No wings, no healing power . . . Then there's these wretched shoes."

"You haven't lost your most important powers. You did something to him in there. I saw it through the window."

"So you weren't merely fuming at me," he observed. Anna gave him a pointed look and he sighed impatiently. "I took him back a few years, to where he could remember wanting to be better, wanting to love her, wanting a child. The choice to walk the same path or not is his. And he'll also remember what he became. If nothing else, it will give her a breather for a little while."

Her gaze softened. "So you do care."

"No," he said shortly. "Don't think well of me on this, Anna. I don't care about them."

"So while all of us were helplessly restrained by our embarrassment and standards of public behavior, you were just apathetic? I don't believe that."

He lifted a brow. "Why should angels help them? Humans harm each other every day."

"Because angels are like the police." She squatted by him, her skirt pooling around her ankles, even as she registered his growing irritation with the topic. "Humans are supposed to be able to trust them, count on them. The police aren't supposed to be apathetic."

"That's just idealism."

"Yes," she agreed. "Something to hope for, like Heaven. Maybe the Goddess has angels to protect humans because it gives humans the time to overcome their weaknesses to discover . . . enlightenment. She's exercising compassion, helping them find their right path, like a parent to a child."

"They're definitely like children," he snorted. "But you're right about one thing, little one. They have an abundance of the Lady's compassion. Though only She knows why."

"You have compassion, my lord. It's just spoiled with contempt. I'm not trying to make you angry. I'm just trying to understand why."

He muttered an oath and got to his feet. "Some topics are best left alone, Anna. But since I can tell you're not that sensible, let's talk about spoiled. Do you know where Dark Ones come from?"

She shook her head, rising as well. Something ugly took over his handsome features. Something close to hate, like what she'd felt from him this morning when the magic had rebounded on her. He was toe-to-toe with her, so she had to tilt her head. Goddess, but he was intimidating when he was like this. But he wouldn't hurt her intentionally. He wouldn't. She was sure of it. So sure her fingers itched to lay a hand along his face, stroke a soothing hand across his temple, even if he kept that forbidding expression and the hard line of his mouth.

"They come through rifts in time and space, caused by human evil," he continued. "Human darkness. Whenever there's a massacre, a war, enough women struck by their husbands' fists, there can be a tear, a puncture. The stars are the holes angels have sealed. The vast darkness left is the possibility of rifts to come.

"Given any opportunity to do so, humans will destroy Creation," he said decisively, his mouth taut. "They lack the necessary respect or understanding. And yet, they embrace their ignorance and they have free will, Goddess only knows why."

The frustrated resentment in his expression was another puzzle piece falling into place, but any foolish idea she might have harbored to pursue it further was interrupted.

The sound of grinding gears and the knocking cacophony of an overworked engine coming over the dunes heralded the ironically timed arrival of a school bus full of laughing, excited children, glimpsed through the opening for the nearest public access.

Twenty children of mixed races poured out, herded by their chaperones, who apparently gave them the freedom to make an abrupt dash for the water. They exploded with energy, pounding across the narrow channel of sand between the dunes to charge down to the beach just below where Anna and Jonah were.

Seeing the two of them at the last moment on this otherwise deserted stretch of beach, one of the chaperones called out, but it was like calling back an infantry charge. Jonah drew Anna to his side, putting his arm around her to hold her in place as the class ran past them, shouting, taking little notice of the two of them against the excitement of seeing the vast ocean.

Anna turned to watch them, bodies formed of the various colors of the earth flashing past, arms pumping, white teeth flashing. There were screams as they plunged in and registered the first cold. Some hung back, coming to a halt and venturing forward far more slowly, getting used to the temperature. Some of the chaperoning parents had brought younger children, two or three little ones they settled in one of the tidal pools with buckets and plastic shovels, as well as a tiny red float that looked like a lobster. The claws were armrests, the whimsical face forming a headrest.

As she watched him register the creature the float was supposed to represent, she felt some of her own tension ease when his lips twitched. "Now, my lord," she managed with a straight face, "a species that can come up with something as useful as that can't be all bad."

The inner-city schools sometimes had field trips out here, she knew, bringing kids who'd never seen anything but the bleak vista of their gang-torn neighborhoods to a different view. She loved watching the children, their exuberance, their discovery of a place she knew as well as her own beating heart. While she also knew she and Jonah should keep moving, in a day's time they would be out of reach of the ocean.

So she cast off her dress, carefully pulling it over her head to reveal the swimsuit beneath it she'd decided to put on after her cool bath, before they'd left. She always wore it beneath her clothes in case the pull of the water got too strong when she was in her human form, and despite the discomfort the straps caused to her back, today was no exception.

"Let's go swim with them, my lord. The adults can use our help to keep an eye on all of them."

As Jonah dragged his gaze from the float and registered her intentions, he wondered if it was possible to hold on to anger around such a creature. He was already sick of his rudderless anger. Her fingers whispered along his arm, her eyes acknowledging the seriousness of what lay beneath their argument even as she left it floating behind like foam in the water. She splashed in, catching up with one of the teachers and introducing herself as an off-duty lifeguard before being accepted in a matter of moments by a short staff, grateful for the help.

"Your woman is fine."

Jonah looked around, then down, at a young boy who didn't quite reach his waist. The boy's cocky assertion had Jonah's lips twitching again. "Thank you," he said gravely, then incited a shriek of alarm which quickly turned to laughter as he caught the boy up under his arm and turned him upside down to toss him into the surf with the ease of a football.

THAT was all the invitation the boys needed to accept Jonah. Anna had anticipated the teachers' wariness, particularly of a man with Jonah's intimidating size and presence. However, she'd underestimated the underlying, instinctual recognition of what he was, and so except for the occasional careful sweep to ensure he was staying close with the boys, the teachers accepted him.

When they saw him wrestle their fellow into the waves, the children needed no other encouragement to hurl themselves on him, en masse. He went under, taking six or seven with him, arms and legs tangling with his. While it was mostly boys, there was at least one girl.

Anna couldn't blame her. She wou

ldn't mind tackling him herself, though she'd have far less tomboylike motives. Unlike her, he wasn't wearing a swimsuit beneath his clothes, so he'd simply stripped off his wet shirt and tossed it onto the beach, where some maternal parent had laid it out over some dune vegetation to dry and dislodge the sand.

When he wrestled in the shallows, the water and sunlight glinted on the muscles of his upper body, the wet jeans clinging to his hips and legs. She couldn't help herself. She salivated. It was ridiculous. Of course he was beautiful. But lust alone shouldn't make her heart hurt like this. She told herself it was fine to dwell on the physical, but not if it mired her in more dangerous emotional waters. Damn Mina for planting the idea of a daily prescription of Joining Magic. Damn him for choosing it in the first place. She could hardly finish getting mad at him for one thing before she wanted him touching her again. She must be losing her mind.

When he emerged onto the beach a while later to wipe his face with a borrowed towel, he shook his dark hair like a dog, amusing the parents. Anna was holding the hands of two of the more timid children, having coaxed them into the water. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him sit down in the sand near the toddlers in the tidal pool.

Drawing his knees up, he linked his hands over them. There were two little girls, both with tiny, sausage-shaped bodies, arms held carefully at their sides for balance when they walked. One waddled over, falling against his legs. The other took a fistful of his hair to climb up his chest. They were like puppies nestling on the alpha of the wolf pack when he was in a benevolent mood.

Daylight, human form and bad temper--he was still an angel. No one sensed that better than children. It radiated from him. Forcing her attention to her charges again, she immersed herself in their simple joy, rather than the confusing complexity of her own emotions and apprehensions.