"Fight you as the enemy you are."
He stared at her for a long moment. Her upturned face, thinly held lips. The intriguing map of depressions on her face, both the beautiful and destructive sides. The light flutter of her gills at her neck, as if she was holding her breath, stilling herself.
"Even after my body was in yours, my mouth on you, you would see me as an enemy," he said quietly. "You would fight me to the death."
"As you would kill me if I proved myself a Dark One in truth. I won't betray who I am for ten minutes of fleeting pleasure."
MINA saw the flicker of hurt. Maybe she would have missed it, for he was good at not showing his feelings, but she'd spent her life studying and paying attention to the details. Setting her jaw, she willed herself not to react to that, though gods, it was getting difficult. His human qualities could disturb her more than the angel ones.
"You don't know me," she said, the silence grating on her nerves. "You don't get inside of who I am just through my cu-"
"Don't." The word was sharp enough to stop her. Suddenly he was close enough for his hand to clamp on one wrist. "Don't do that."
"Let go of me, then."
David surprised her by complying, though she felt the loss of his touch. The water's coolness was settling into her bones, and the spell with the Dark One had taken strength from her. Magic in this world was barely a passing thought to her, but working against Dark Ones was draining, because there was a resistance to it, as if it tore pieces of herself away as she fought them. It was why preventing the archery attack on Anna had nearly killed her.
"All right," he said at last. "Here's what we're going to do. You make sure your wards are in place. I'm going to ask three of my platoon to guard the entrance to your cave. I'll tell them that I'm expecting Dark Ones to try and scope it periodically for your presence. I'll tell them not to go beyond the first cavern, where you met with Gerard."
"What if they don't listen?"
"They follow my direction."
"So they're better at that than you?"
"Don't push it," he warned. "In exchange, I want you to do something for me."
"Why should I?" she demanded.
"Christ, you're a pain in the ass," he said with an exasperated sigh. "Because all I have to do is communicate with Jonah, and that doorway is gone."
"So you're blackmailing me."
"I'm trying to negotiate a temporary solution we can both accept." He crossed his arms, hovered in front of her, giving her a raised brow.
"What is it you want me to do in return?"
"Wear pink, put ribbons in your hair and kiss puppies."
"I look horrid in pink, and I have no sense of humor," she said without missing a beat. "I've never met a puppy. What do you really want?"
David found he wanted to touch her then, but he didn't. Because she was right about what would happen if he told Jonah. He needed time for her to trust him, and the hourglass on that would run out if he followed that course.
"I want you to go to the Citadel with me."
Nine
HE anticipated she'd say no. Absolutely no, and by the way-hell, no. But he got her wary acceptance of an interim step. After they took care of dispatching the Dark One remains properly and posted the guard from his platoon, he would take her to the surface, though their agreed-upon destination was a tiny strip of sand under a night sky. A sandbar that existed when the ocean tide was lower. It was where they'd had their volatile first meeting.
So he'd sent the message about guarding her home to his three most trusted soldiers, via the mental communication angels used. They were only minutes away from the cave when he and Mina departed. While it still bothered him, he didn't feel he was sending his men in blind, for he'd communicated the strong possibility of Dark One attack on the cave holdings to keep them vigilant.
But not telling Jonah about an engineered doorway to the Dark Ones' world, hidden beneath the ocean's surface, was a different matter. He could delay on that only a day or two at most, and even that made him uneasy as hell. Hopefully he'd make adequate progress toward winning her trust by then, such that she'd react more calmly to the idea of telling the Prime Legion Commander. Maybe they'd even figure out an alternative to destroying the door. Though he doubted it, for his own gut said it needed to be done.
Well, he was an angel. He was professionally required to believe in miracles. And he hoped the Citadel would provide answers. He'd told her he needed to make a face-to-face report to his battalion captain, a daily requirement, and he refused to leave her unguarded. The latter was true.
Yeah. Lying. That's a great way to build trust.
It wasn't lying. He was putting off telling her the truth for the exact same reason he was delaying his report to Jonah. A strategy to gain more of her trust.
He winced, his mind invaded by a fleeting memory of his mother. "David, I know you're only seven, but I'm going to teach you another word for a lie. Rationalization." Her hands on his shoulders. Soft, loving. Motherly.
"David?"
They'd been swimming toward their destination. Or rather, she'd been swimming, and he'd been moving in the way angels traveled through water. He'd curtailed his speed for her, because of course the seawitch hadn't been willing to let him help her. Now she'd been dropping back. Reluctance, he'd assumed, so he'd kept a steady pace to keep urging her along, holding her in his peripheral vision. Now he turned to see her hovering. Well, sinking. The contours of the seafloor were rising like hills under a watery sky, signaling that they were drawing close to the spit of land.
"I want to stop a moment."
He pushed aside his own thoughts, not without relief, for they were going places he didn't want to visit. As he gave her a more thorough appraisal, he realized with shame her slowing pace wasn't due to orneriness.
She was capable, yes. A hell of a fighter. But while her magical skills were uncharted, her physical body had limitations, though she did a damn good job of covering them. She was just too damn proud to tell him what he could now see-she was worn-out.
"Here." Sliding an arm around her waist before she could attempt to slither away, he guided her hands to his neck. "Hang on and I'll take us the rest of the way. What do you say to a short flight?"
"I think I'm against it."
The first smile he'd had in the past couple of hours twitched at his mouth. He had to admit he was a little frayed at the edges himself. Up to his ass in Dark Ones, then an ethical dilemma that could impact his integrity with his Legion Commander, followed by a flashback to his mother. All that after he'd had one of the most powerful experiences he'd ever had with a female. Which she'd crossly told him meant nothing more than a ten-minute release of tension and bodily fluids. It had been a busy day.
He knew it meant more than that to Mina. It was part of her enigma, how she kept him at arm's length and yet he could feel a desperate need emanating from her to do just the opposite, an unstable and unseen force.
Focus on the primary objective, be ready for the unexpected and everything else would work out. It was a soldier's strategy he'd lived and followed, from the first moment Jonah put a wea
pon in his hand and pointed him toward a battlefield. He used it now. Protecting her was the most important thing. Caring for her. He viewed the two as one and the same, in a way her other guards hadn't. Guardian, not just guard.
Her arms tightened around him as his pace picked up, since he was no longer modulating it to hers. But he didn't go too fast as he ascended to the surface. While that was partly for her peace of mind, he rather enjoyed the lazy sensation of his wings moving like those of a bird, the wing strokes steady, gradual, using the water currents to adjust his upward movement. "The statue in your cave. With the dress and the wig. Will you tell me what that is?"
Mina turned her unsettling gaze to him. "It was the dress the seawitch Ceruleah wore when she visited Arianne on land, the day the prince said he would marry another. You're familiar with the tale?"
"Probably a couple different versions of it. I read it when I was human, but Anna told me the fairy tale wasn't accurate to the true story. Like it didn't mention that Arianne was turned to stone by the witch initially."
Mina nodded. "Arianne knew as soon as the prince wed she would die and become foam on the sea, just as my ancestor had promised. But then Ceruleah donned the beautiful sapphire dress and came to her at the palace." Mina dropped her head back, inadvertently laying it on his shoulder so she could study the changing patterns of the light above the water as they drew closer to the surface. David felt the ends of her hair whisper across his bare back. "She walked into the palace unimpeded, for no one had ever seen a woman so beautiful. She even crossed the path of the prince. When he could not take his eyes from her, she toyed with the idea of changing the direction of his heart to inflict more cruelty on Arianne, but that was not her purpose.
"Ceruleah brought Arianne an enchanted knife and told her if she would slay the prince with it, she would break the curse and allow Arianne to live her full three hundred years, like all mermaids. Arianne refused her. For as much as the prince had hurt her, repaid her sacrifice and devotion with pain, she loved him still. The witch was enraged. She told Arianne that love was an illusion and turned her to stone, so she would have neither the release of death nor the hope of an immortal soul. Just the interminable agony of staring at the palace, watching the prince live out his life with his princess and their children, generation after generation.