A Witch's Beauty (Daughters of Arianne 2)

David dropped down until he was in front of the rock. She studied him in the same dispassionate way she'd just dispatched the Dark One, but if he still felt the reverberations of the sudden battle thrumming through his nerves, he suspected she did, too.

"All right?"

She blinked. "As beautiful as ever."

David ignored the caustic tone. "What did it say to you, right before you killed it?"

"The usual name-calling."

"You're lying."

"Yes, I am." While her face quickly shifted back to dispassion, he saw the weariness.

"You're tired."

"I'll manage." She looked around the cavern, the remnants of Dark One ash still floating about like lost plankton. He noticed none of it approached her protected books, veering off as if directed away by current.

"I'm sorry your home was invaded like this."

"I hate this place. I've always hated it. But all the answers about who I have to be are here. It protects and destroys me at once. Does that make sense?"

While he wasn't sure of her motive in sharing such a remarkable insight, David settled down next to her and considered their surroundings. Though they should get moving, he couldn't do it yet, watching her pale face, her bicolored eyes staring at the items representing her life. He also admitted he needed a mental breath to deal with how effectively she'd just handled herself. "Yeah. I understand that. It's part of who you are, and you have to accept that to be more. But in some ways, it also tries its best to make you less."

Mina turned her head then, looking at him. He thought he saw surprise that he understood. Giving her a sidelong glance, he offered her what he couldn't deny she'd earned. "You fight well. I knew that from the first time we met, but you can hold your own against Dark Ones. I apologize for doubting your skill."

"So you'll go now?"

He wished he could tell if there was regret in the flat tone, and then chided himself for acting like a lovesick teenager. "No. I said you can hold your own. You couldn't have taken all four of them." When she started to open her mouth, he turned, just put his over hers to silence whatever sharp thing was going to come out of it next. He wasn't surprised when she bit him, but he put a hand on the back of her neck, held her firmly to deepen the kiss, letting her taste the blood she drew, even as he teased her so that one hand fastened itself to the strap of the weapons harness across his chest, her fingers caressing his skin.

It brought back all the things they'd been doing just before the Dark Ones arrived, but it didn't dispel the upper concern in his mind. When he drew back, he had a cut lip. The blue and red mix of his blood, a small stream of it, wafted away in the water, seeming to distract her, but he flexed his hand on her neck. "You couldn't have held your own against all four of them. Admit it."

Mina shifted her grip, and had the dagger out and beneath his throat. "What do you thi-"

He knocked it from her hand in a movement so swift, Mina didn't see it, but he still captured the blade in its flip through the water, bringing it back so the tip was pressed to the left of her sternum. A tiny prick, one that drew blood.

He was apparently tired of her forgetting what he was. He was different with his human mannerisms, disarming in many ways. But it was an abrupt, oddly thrilling reminder that, just like any angel, he would only suffer so much defiance.

Staring into her face, the brown eyes dark as battle lust, he closed his fingers on the cloak's neckline. While he pulled it a mere inch to the side, the way he did it, as if daring her to stop him, felt like he'd ripped it away, baring the scarred area entirely. Bending his head so his chestnut hair wafted across her face, teasing her flesh, her throat and gills, he put his lips to those areas and tasted her. Rivulets of sensation shot through the other thin lines she'd inflicted on herself from his weapon.

She was glad for the reminder, for gods, she couldn't deny she hungered for this side of him. It was simple, violent, overwhelming her mind and will. The strength of the angel with the balancing darkness of the human-that made it all right to want him, for now. But even as she had the thought, she thought of the orange and chocolates and knew there was a larger part she was denying herself, a part she feared. For if she came too close, her Dark Blood would jealously destroy the carefully crafted part of herself that wasn't total darkness, sear that away and prove that darkness was her true soul.

But he was dangerous to her on other levels as well. Since she'd dedicated herself to study most of her life, she knew the puzzle of him was intriguing to her. As a human he'd dealt with something so hopeless he'd taken his life over it. Yet there was something so strong about him the Goddess had recognized his potential and made him an angel. He was light and dark, his power possessing a flip side, a vulnerability that would draw her ever closer as he used his own darkness to bind them together this way. Whether he realized it or not, it could give her the key to destroying him.

Pushing that away, she touched his hair as the thick strands drifted in the water and wound around her fingers. His lips at her breast went from hunger to worship, moving over to the mound of cratered flesh to kiss and tease her there when she laid her chin against his temple. Letting some of her weariness have her, she gave herself a quiet, stirring moment to just feel his movements, marvel at how it translated into her body's response.

"I don't know if I could have taken all four of them, any more than you know if you could have," she said at last, watching the way his wings held his balance to let him lave her body, the feather tips trembling in the water's movement, glowing white with the tips of light brown.

David lifted his head. "Mina, we surprised them. They didn't expect us to be here, and they were moving with purpose. They were headed for this chamber. That's the access to your portal."

"They don't know of it. This cave is warded."

"Those wards discourage earthly creatures from venturing in here. They're a disguise, not a weapon, right?"

She lifted a shoulder, refusing to answer, but he continued. "What if the Dark Ones can feel that portal if they get close enough? They've been trying to pin you down since the Canyon Battle. It's possible they did some reconnaissance on this cave and found it. These four might have been a contingent sent to try and use it as an escape route from the angels."

"I may have benign wards on the cave, but those are complicated protections over the portal itself. You just unraveled them because you're an angel, and the only magics that work on you are non-earth-based."

"Oh." He considered her. "So that's what it is. The spells you've used to blast me, they're using your Dark One blood?"

"Yes. But your Inert spell neutralizes even them. For now." Mina shot him a withering glance, which he returned with a challenging one of his own.

"But is it possible the Dark Ones could unravel those complex protections?"

"They have some high-level magic users," she admitted grudgingly. "But I would know if they'd done it, if anyone had passed through."

"So no one has. Yet. It needs to be shut down, Mina. Destroyed."

"No."

Sighing, David reached out and pried open the hand she'd balled into a fist. "At least, I need to let Jonah know about it."

"And once he finds out, he'll order you to destroy it, and you will." She moved back from him, her tentacles unfurling. "Don't be a coward about it. If you're going to just destroy it, try it, and let's be done with the fight. Don't put me off with an evasion about going to Jonah."

His jaw firmed, those brown eyes now snapping with temper. "Damn it, I'm trying to make you understand without using force. Mina, we can't-"

"This is my life, who I am. You can't just turn that upside down and change everything. What about free will? Aren't you all so devoted to that concept? Yet you'll just-"

"I'm not taking away your choices-"

"Just something that helps me make them, every day."

"Find something else that helps you. I can help you. Anna can help you."

She scoffed, sneering

at him with an unattractive curl of her lip. "You say you want to understand me, but you don't. You just want to make me into something you can comprehend." She pointed toward the doorway with the three-fingered hand. "That's a part of who I am. Like your wings."

"And the items of dark magic down here. What are they?"

"Years of dedicated study and experimentation by me, my mother, and her mother, and so on." She shrugged. "I use what will work. Dark magic is a danger for humans who are taking steps too far from the light. I'm already part of the darkness, so it's rather pointless for the magic to try to corrupt me."

David frowned, but bit back his automatic protest. He was dealing with a creature with a different relationship to evil, and before he went with his instinctive desire to try to dissuade her, he would think it through.

"If I destroy the door, what will you do?"