She jerked back on her knees, so quickly she would have toppled if he hadn't caught her wrists. Jonah's tension ratcheted upward, because it looked as if Dante had frightened her and she'd startled away from him. Though Dante could read her mind, she was sure the unfamiliar images and terms confused him. His expression went wooden, his jaw muscle flexing in anger . . . or perhaps another feeling.
No, it's not you, Dante. We don't do things like . . . what I was thinking, not in front of other people. It's private. Especially when the other people are parents.
In my world, Dark Ones couple wherever they wish, when the urge strikes them. Shadows flickered through his gaze. A feeling, here then gone, touched her with a chilling horror, but she was distracted from that by the hot surge of lust that overrode it.
In this world, we don't, she reinforced hastily.
Then send them away.
She swallowed at the look in his eyes, the demand. Two weeks. Two weeks they'd been apart. The quivering need from him wasn't nearly as shocking to her as her own matching desire, despite her body's debilitating weakness. Trying to collect herself, she got one foot under her, then the other. Dante had stepped back and didn't touch her again. She wondered if he was following her direction, or if he'd removed his touch because he thought she wouldn't welcome it, when in fact her skin was burning for it, craving the flame.
No, he could read her thoughts, couldn't he? She wished she could read his as easily. When he spoke, her gut clenched, terrified he might say baldly what he wanted to do. Her father would murder him right there, leaving a smoking hole in the polished wood floor, boots still standing where his feet had been. Or worse.
"You still haven't answered me. What is the matter?"
She wished she was wearing something different. It might seem illogical, since Dante had seen her in shambles in his world, but she'd wanted the first time he saw her since his arrival to be different.
You are always beautiful, you should know that. His tone was impatient. Are you going to answer my question?
"I can't keep up with everyone's thoughts and my feelings at once," she responded, glancing toward the steps. Anna had returned, standing on the stair just below Jonah, leaning into his hip and the curve of his wing. Lex didn't see any other angels with him, so she assumed he'd been the one to bring Dante from Lucifer's realm. That was a distracting image, because of course Jonah would have had to hold him in some fashion to carry him through the sky, and she couldn't imagine either male relishing that. Knowing Jonah, he'd been sorely tempted to drop him several times just to hear him scream. Knowing Dante, he wouldn't have offered that satisfaction, crossing his arms and glaring until he hit the ground with a bone-shattering thud.
She suppressed a giggle, a sound close enough to hysteria to increase everyone's alarm. Biting her lip, she struggled for control, hoping her head wasn't going to explode from the emotional overload. Unlike her parents, however, there was no way to hide her state from Dante. His eyes were narrowed, mouth tight as he watched her.
"I'm still a little bit disoriented. I'm sorry. I don't mean to worry everyone."
"You owe us no apologies, Seabird," Jonah said. His tone was sharp, but the familiar endearment was reassuring.
"I'm still sorry." She straightened to her feet, took a deep steadying breath and gazed at both of them. "I'm all right now, truly. Myel, if you could leave me the clothes you brought, I'd like some time with Dante, to start acquainting him with our world, to talk to him a little while, without . . . an audience. I think it will be easier for him. For both of us." She lifted a shoulder. "I admit, I feel a little self-conscious. I've been out for two weeks, and I'd like to try to get back to being myself."
In fact, she'd never felt so awkward, torn between two loyalties. She didn't like the vague sense she was betraying their love. They'd nearly lost her, and here she was, shooing them out of the cottage she'd just acknowledged was Anna's, because she was terrified Dante was going to leap on her . . . or perhaps eager to find out if he would.
"If you feel strong enough, we'll do that." When Anna spoke, Alexis let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Jonah didn't move. Anna tugged at his arm, drawing his gaze. "Mina has tested the restraint. He will do no one any harm. As you said"--her blue eyes found Lex's again--"all she has to do is call. One of you can quickly come to wherever she is."
"Instantly," Jonah corrected.
Dante's gaze darkened, but he said nothing, just stood, silent and still. While they'd been talking, he'd moved so his back was to the wall and he had Jonah clearly in his sights. His gaze kept moving, gauging his surroundings. She suspected he'd already scoped out exit and entry points, but he also seemed interested in the array of items here. The lamp on the night table and the light it threw out. The ocean through the large expanse of window to his left.
"There are ways to hurt someone without inflicting a single scratch," Jonah said at last. He altered his glance from Dante to her. "You call if anything frightens you. Don't think about whether it's important or not. We'll come a thousand times if needed."
Lex crossed the room, aware of Dante's tension, the weighted scrutiny. He was as good at it as Jonah, so that with the two of them in the room the air nearly crackled. Her head continued to pound. Nevertheless, she laid a hand on Jonah's wrist guard, curling her fingers to touch his hand. "I would like to spend more time with you both. I'll come to visit you in the next day or so. And I'll check in with you often in my mind. You already know you can talk to me in my head whenever you need to do so. All right?"
Jonah's dark eyes searched her face. "All right. I'll leave you alone with the male who kidnapped you and almost left you in his world to die, since you prefer his company."
"Pyel--"
Withdrawing from her touch, he descended the stairs. Her mother gave her a steady look, reassuring but not revealing, and followed him. As Lex watched them, her heart ached, the pain behind her eyes intensifying. She needed to strengthen her filters, but blocking their emotions seemed another betrayal.
Before she left out the back deck entrance, Anna glanced up, meeting her eyes. Though her face remained somber, Anna blew her daughter a soft kiss. Then she turned away, shutting the door behind them.
Fourteen
ANNA didn't try to keep pace with her mate. When he took to the skies without a word, she shed her human clothes, folded and placed them somewhere she could retrieve them. Then she transformed and dove into the ocean, swimming deep and fast, surfacing far from the shore to view the late afternoon sunset. There was a coolness to the air t
hat gave an edge to the dying of another day, underscoring her own uneasy state of mind. Jonah was likely streaking through the sky at a harrowing pace for the same reason, pushing himself up into the firmament where the thinner air could steal the breath.
She'd seen the hurt in Alexis's eyes at his abrupt departure, but there was nothing to help that right now. Because of how different Lex's life was from others', Anna knew her daughter sometimes forgot her youth, even more than most her age. But her parents never forgot, and perhaps that was what made this complex. Lex was a woman now. In the cavern, amid all the dangerous tempers and energy, Anna had been sorely tempted to convince herself Lex was a child who didn't know her mind. But she'd known from the look in Lex's gaze, the set of her chin. It would have been the height of hypocrisy to deny it when Anna had recognized her own destiny at age twenty, the first moment she'd seen a wounded, unconscious angel, poised to fall into the deepwater Abyss.
Alexis's heart was in her eyes when she looked at Dante, his for the taking. There was no telling what he would do with such a gift, when destruction hovered so thick around him. The angel somewhere in the skies above had dedicated the last twenty years of his life to protecting his daughter. Letting her have scraped knees and bounce out of trees on her fledgling wings had been hard enough. He'd been the first one to tell Alexis that some suffering was necessary for growth, so she wouldn't unwisely apply her gift, but he himself had struggled with the lesson throughout her entire life.
It was no easier for Anna, but she understood a woman's love for a male plagued by demons. All Jonah saw was an enemy, something far worse than a scraped knee or a fall, because Dante might very well turn out to be every bit of the nightmare that he'd so far proven to be.
"Self-conscious."
She rolled to her back to see him hovering above her, wings keeping him in place. Despite the seriousness of her thoughts, she couldn't help but smile a little at the sight of him, his arms crossed and expression dark as a storm cloud.