A Mermaid s Kiss (Daughters of Arianne 1)

He should heal her, take her for a flight and then send her sternly back home. He'd travel on to this shaman or not . . . Whatever happened, she would not be part of his destiny or downfall.

"My lord . . ." That soft whisper of sound rippled over him, made him have the conflicting and yet equally fierce sudden desire to scoop her up, keep her close to him. He would let her travel in the soft nest where his wings met between his shoulders and never let her come to any harm. Devote himself to her care.

But he couldn't protect her from himself. That much was obvious, right before his eyes.

She probably thought she was helping a lost soul, her woman's heart turning the wounded lion into an injured house cat in her mind. As he recalled what he'd said about her ability to remove a thorn from a lion's paw, the terrifying thought occurred to him that maybe she did know she faced a lion. Yet stayed within range anyway, as if daring him to do his worst.

Focus, damn it. A fledgling could handle something like this. What was the matter with him? Closing his eyes, Jonah called forth the source of light in his soul, built it with brutal force, feeling like a human using a knife to scrape at the last bit of mustard in a glass jar. Clatter, clatter, clatter, like he'd seen one of the humans do in the diner.

There. A pathetic trickle, but it was there. The light came from his fingertips, a healing balm that spread out on her skin, sinking down to the nerves, cooling, numbing, repairing. As he saw it happen, the light strengthened within him, gained power, even as his mind castigated him for what was initially a weak flow. Thanks to her magic, you have less area to heal. Otherwise you might not have been able to do a damn thing for her.

For a while now, he'd turned more and more of the postbattle tri-age over to his lieutenants and wing-soldiers, using the time to assess the next strategy. To clean and sharpen his weapons, until the slightest pass over his skin would draw blood, mesmerize him with how it ran down the blade . . .

You need the Joining Magic. To heal you. He could almost see the words in the set of her shoulders, the underlying admonishment that raised his hackles.

No. I don't. Though he couldn't deny something was broken within him. Every time he thought of trying the healing rituals, making their lovemaking into that, he turned away from it, sickened by the idea of letting that pure white light fill him. He'd stood in the Lady's presence before, and oh, by all the gods, what a feeling that was. So . . . complete. And yet, it seemed to escape him now. If She summoned him to Her presence, he wasn't sure he could stand before that white light without screaming in agony.

Like a Dark One.

It wasn't just that he didn't want the Joining Magic. He didn't deserve it.

"My lord?"

Opening his eyes at a brush of wind on his face, he found Anna was at eye level with him, hovering before his face. An iridescent, magical butterfly, one small hand brushing his nose like the passing touch of a spider's web. Though her eyes were far too knowing, and worried, he saw her offer him that shy smile. For some inexplicable reason, he took it as a gift, the small tendril of reassurance it unfurled in his belly. "I'm good as new," she said. "Better, in fact. Will you fly with me now?"

Anna was fairly sure for an angel of his standing, what he'd just done should have been as easy as a child's trick. But he was sweating and trembling. She wanted to demand he perform the Joining Magic right then and there with her for his well-being, but she'd boxed herself in with the shift to her pixie form. If his healing was going to transfer to her larger form, it had to have time to sink into her core. Besides that, he had that obstinate look that told her he would still resist. So she would try something else. Be creative, as Mina might suggest.

Before he could answer, she floated backward several feet, did an elegant somersault. "You see? I'll bet I can even outfly you. Old bird."

Jonah blinked. "I know you did not just call me that."

"Positively ancient." Her violet eyes danced. "You might not want to go above the tree line, in case you dodder right out of the sky."

"Anna, you are trying my patience."

Her eyes widened, all innocence. "Patience? You have patience?"

When he made a playful grab for her, she slipped out of range. However, instead of starting the chase that Jonah expected, she floated down into a bed of purple wildflowers and rolled there, partially disappearing as she delighted in them.

A smile tugged at his lips as he looked at her, lolling about in the flowers, still demonstrating her ever present grace as a mermaid with her sinuous movements. Then she was airborne again. When she twirled, she made a very fetching display of gossamer wings with the pink and blue markings on them. Her body had some of the same markings like the tattoos of her mermaid form. And not a bit of red, angry skin.

When he made another mock grab for her, she spun away deftly. In this tiny form, he was too worried about hurting her, and he knew it gave her the maneuvering advantage. So did she.

As she ascended so she was quickly above his reach, she was joined by several butterflies, a couple of pale gray moths. A dragonfly.

"They tend to come when I transform," she explained, dancing among them, rubbing playfully against a butterfly, somersaulting over it as it flitted back. "I don't know why."

He knew why. She drew life in its lightest, most fragile forms to her, with the matching lightness of her heart. He stretched out his wings, testing, getting ready to join her.

Seeing his intent, happiness shone from her face, a sense of triumph that felt shared.

As he launched, he balanced the weakness of the left wing with the right while still giving the left the opportunity to move, stretch, work the muscles. Wind ruffled through his wing tips, sparking along the nerve endings where the feathers joined to his flesh, his bone and muscle. He saw her look back, turn and rest in the grip of the air, displaying her open amazement at the unfurling of his wings, stretching out so far to either side of him. He liked her pleasure. Liked pleasing her. So he took off after her.

She spun in her cloud of butterflies, sending the dragonfly darting off in a mad zigzag pattern she followed, turning and twisting. While she had to move quite fast to stay ahead of Jonah, he kept to an easy pace, following her maneuvers, even duplicating some to amuse her, spiraling up in the air with her, diving down, dropping a few feet, then catching himself. He felt the strain on the injured wing when he hovered or held the weight of the air beneath it, but he managed it without much pain, just a cursed weakness.

She didn't let him linger long with his darkness. Darting beneath him, she tweaked one of his chest hairs, yanking it out with sharp, pinching fingers.

"Ouch--" He flipped backward and managed to come up beneath her in a flash of movement.

She altered course and skimmed down his leg, using one of his toes to swing around in an arc and shoot upward again, tickling the bottom of his foot with her wingspan.

He was laughing now as he gave chase. He could have caught her several times, but chose not to, enjoying the wild, spiraling, tangled dance they did in the air, until a much larger group of butterflies was with them, a flock that made it feel as if they were in a multicolored cloud. Their many colors in the twilight sky blended with the wildflowers in the meadow below, even in the fading day's light, like a watercolor tapestry. At times she blended with them all so he had to find her laughing face, look for the paleness of bare skin.

With some sense of embarrassment, he realized she was no less alluring to him in this form. When she dove down, skimmed across the creek and came back up to join him, water ran down her breasts, her stomach and thighs, the ends of her hair silken points against her skin. The tiny, round breasts were high, the nipples tight from the water. He was fascinated by the curved perfection of her bottom. The way the creamy white cheeks shifted with her maneuvers was only enhanced by the silver and pink markings that scrolled along them, etching the delectable shape. Her breasts wobbled with her efforts. Perhaps he couldn't have caught her as easily as he thought, for not on

ly was she quick, she was damned distracting.

And intuitive. She paused briefly in the air, considering the direction of his heated glance. That mischievous look came into her face again. "These poor humans, thinking angels have all these virtues. Chaste, sexless, patient, tranquil . . ."

"Why would chastity be considered a virtue? The Lady wants us to enjoy one another."

"I believe it's the idea of doing without something we want, denying ourselves for spiritual clarity," she said primly.

"You're baiting me."

Spinning up in the air above his head again, she soared higher, but as they passed the top of a bristlecone pine, at about sixty-five feet, he could tell she was reaching the limit of her flight altitude. The butterflies veered off and she was soaring straight up, up, up.