A Witch's Beauty (Daughters of Arianne 2)

She'd closed her eyes again and realized she was squeezing those fingers tightly. "I was so stupid to leave you alone," she said low, vicious. "You don't belong here. This is why you shouldn't be doing this. You can't understand my life. You can't protect me."

He freed a hand to touch her face. It seemed light, tentative, which of course could have been because he was still recovering, but she wondered if it was because he wasn't as sure of her as he'd been before.

Months ago, she hadn't wanted him to see her dragon form. Now he'd seen a far worse side. Fine. She shouldn't care. Maybe it would revolt him and he'd turn away. Leave her be. Best that way.

"I know I don't understand you," he said. "That's what I was trying to do by looking at your home."

She stared into his brown eyes, which were getting back that steady, intent look. She wanted to pound on him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and feel his heart beat against her chest, know the strength of his limbs around her, inhale the fresh, warm smell of him. And that deep, dark part of her wanted to rip at his wounded skin, have him fight her until he overwhelmed her, took her to oblivion.

"I don't want you to understand me." Why did he make her blurt out these things that were going to lead to further conversations she didn't want to have?

"Why?"

See? She couldn't explain that. For the answer was the same as everything with her. A paradox. He was an angel, and the angels were her enemies. But for inexplicable reasons, she didn't want to see this particular angel become repulsed by her, even though there was nothing else he could be. Shamefully, she'd prefer his tentative acceptance of her pathetic facade than his rejection of the truth, and she knew the despairing futility of that.

She shook her head. His hand slid up her arm, over the curve of her shoulder to the side of her face, his thumb finding the line of her throat. Trying to tip her face to an angle where he could see her eyes.

"Mina, tell me what that place is."

"It's a doorway, as I said. My mother created it. Opened it by accident when she was studying the Dark Ones' powers. She got it sealed again, but not before one got through."

"That was how you-"

She nodded, quick, cutting off his words.

"Why haven't you destroyed it? Do you need help? It must be destroyed. You know that."

"No." Her head came up in alarm. "You can't destroy it." She pushed away from him now, retreating into the familiar cold grip of the sea, in order to position herself between the defile and him. "It's mine. Mine to decide to destroy or keep."

Like hell. David could almost hear Jonah's voice. The water was rising around him now, a deliberate action to weaken his position and strengthen hers, he was sure. He let himself slide back into it as the air bell disappeared. As he moved, she tensed.

"Will you try to kill me over it?" he demanded. "Seal your Fate, so there are no choices left to be made?"

When something flickered in her eyes, he blinked, startled. "That's the key to it, isn't it?"

She moved back farther, so she was now directly in front of the defile.

"Mina, please don't."

"It calls to me. If I go through, you can't follow me there."

David made himself stop. That glint was rising in her eyes. Bloodlust eager to take over, force this into a fatal confrontation. "Mina." He spoke softly, and saw it bank somewhat. "Will you tell me something? What kind of day have you had?"

He couldn't see her blue eye at all now. That part of her face was shadowed in the cowl of her cloak she'd pulled back up and tied. It was just the crimson and scars, and with the emanations behind her, it was too easy to imagine he was facing a Dark One, such that his fingers again rested on the grip of one dagger, even as he moved forward. Tension thrummed off her, amplified by his own, by that ready battle stance. If one of them struck, it would be over.

She was a formidable fighter when she considered herself cornered. While he couldn't deny the spear of admiration, it came with fear-for her. No matter how formidable she was, he could defeat her if he fought her as he would fight an enemy, and they both knew it.

"See?" she said softly. "Even you feel it. All I have to do is turn it up, just a little, and I look more and more like your enemy. Until you wouldn't hesitate to strike me down."

"Is that what you want?"

Did she want the fight? The death? The end of fighting? He'd been in that state of mind for a few years. She'd been there all her life. With that startling realization came the thought that, while he might be physically more powerful, she might have him out-matched in other ways. The outcome, who would win or lose, wasn't as certain as he'd first thought, but David knew one thing. One of them would die, and the ramifications of that might take them both down.

"Answer my question. What was t

oday like? Answer it, for both of us." He forced himself to focus. He'd instinctively slipped one of the daggers half out of its scabbard. Sliding it back home in its sheath, he made himself let go of it one finger at a time. Lowered his arm to his side, though everything in him screamed at the folly. Well, it wouldn't be the first time today. His survival and gut instincts were two different animals, and with Mina he was following the latter, probably more than was wise.

"Mina, I don't want us to do this. Please answer me."

Her eye was the color of fresh blood; her scarred skin stretched too tightly over her skull. She looked like a creature of death and destruction, no trace left of the mermaid who'd eaten slices of an orange from his fingertips.

But something flickered in her face. "Confusing," she said at last. Her tentacles twitched, a quick spasm, where they'd fastened her against the rock wall to give her a good propulsion point. "Hateful. I wanted to kill those mermaids. Thought how easy it would be. Remembered kissing you."

"Well, I'm glad you chose the latter." He dared to get closer. "Did you like the orange? We didn't even get to the chocolate."

"I kept it." She made as if to search for it, then stopped, casting a glance at him.

"We can't stand at a stalemate forever," he observed.

"No. One of us has to strike, or back down."

"I will never back down from you, Mina. You don't want me to do that." And to prove it, he moved forward again. If he reached out, he could touch the floating edge of her cloak. "There is another option. Why don't we call a truce and talk about this instead? I promise I won't try to seal the doorway until we've discussed it. If that's what I decide I must do, I'll give you time to get in a position to defend it. Then we can do our best to kill each other. Sound civilized enough?"

"Like gunfighters. Ten paces and all that." She studied him a long moment. "All right. Promise me."

"I did. If I say it, it's a promise."

"Most of your kind don't consider a promise to me worth anything."