A Witch's Beauty (Daughters of Arianne 2)

He pulled her back, until he was farther off the ground and so was she, but not so far. About fifteen feet, just enough to thrill her. Then he let her swing free and forward, the ground rushing up and by, the sky coming fast at her from the opposite direction.

It was a simple childlike pleasure, and David waited to see if it would trip off a negative reaction from her Dark One blood. Her eyes widened in amazement, that tight mouth easing as she got the feel of it. When she started anticipating each push he gave her, the blue eye had softened, the crimson one going to a dormant stillness. A small proof that his theory about a different way of balancing her darkness might be right. Quiet pleasure gripped him, held him in the moment with her, carrying his heart up into the sky with hers.

He'd told her she could find a sanctuary here. It was unexpected to glimpse the possibility of one for him as well.

As her slim fingers gripped the rope, keeping her body close to the tire, he thought how resilient and fragile she was at once. It made him understand how loving a female could tear a male to pieces and make no logical sense. There was nothing lovable about her, but there was nothing about her he didn't love. He sensed so much inside her, a complexity that could hold even an angel's attention for the length of his immortal life. One moment she was coming at him with the venom of a harpy, and the next she was riding a tire swing, figuring out that its entire and unfamiliar purpose was play. And as she warily accepted that, he got to see the click of a miracle when she gave it to herself as a gift.

Eventually, when he sensed her tiring, he let the swing wind down to a gentle sway, holding the rope above her head to keep the tire steady. They stayed that way, side by side, her on the swing, cheek laid against the tire, while he stood next to her, both watching the sunbeams play over the rocky hills. A hawk passed over with a piercing shriek that echoed, and she watched it until it moved out of sight.

"I know it's hard to contemplate," he said at last, keeping his voice a soothing murmur. "But what if you did live here? Could you do that? Would you like that?"

"I've been alone my whole life, David." She tilted her head, laying her cheek on the tire to study him. And surprised him when she reached out absently to play with the ends of his hair lying against his shoulder, her fingers stroking his skin. The way she did it, it was as if she wasn't even conscious of it, just following a nameless desire to touch something that was only passing through her personal space, something that wouldn't remain.

"And that doesn't just mean being without family. It also means no place in an ordered society. No friends. Being invulnerable and indifferent aren't quirky personality traits. They're survival tools. I've created things to talk to, like the cat you saw in the boat, so I'd remember how to communicate. I've depended only on myself to survive. I don't know what feeling safe or secure is, and as fearful as I've been at different times, nothing frightens me more than being offered a chance to live my life differently, because I might forget how to just survive when it's all taken away." She tilted her head toward him. "Not if. When.

"You've taken me several steps away from just surviving over the course of a couple days. Those steps can be lost in a blink, and when you lose them, it knocks you back twice as far, makes you question why you even risked it to begin with. If you don't risk it, the question will never be there."

"If you don't risk it, there's nothing worth living for. Life is supposed to be about more than survival."

"Not for me. I've lost control twice. As the dragon, I could have killed you."

"But you didn't," he reminded her. "Every new skill takes time to learn, and it can be risky. You have courage, Mina. As much courage as anyone I've fought beside. You take the risk to reach for something better, I'll be here. At your back."

She swayed in the tire, holding his gaze, the two of them resting on that thought in silence until she broke eye contact, looked toward the sky again.

What would it be like to live here? Watching the sky, knowing that the storms that cloaked the skies, the forks of lightning, could be David in a battlefield above. She'd read a book about a wife who waited for her husband to return from battle. If you loved anyone that much, would you let them face a fight alone? What if she was with him in the sky, fighting the same battles? Watching his back as he watched hers?

Her thoughts, besides being irrational, were based on the assumption he was telling her the truth, that he wanted to be with her.

"If I was the type of being who allowed myself to need someone, and permitted myself to tell that someone they were needed"-Mina cocked her head-"then I'd tell you-maybe-that I need you."

His expression spread warmth across her skin and down into her chest, making it tight. He had his head tilted, the wings folded, strong body leaned against the tire, so close and touchable. His thigh brushed the side of hers, his arm muscles within brushing distance of her lips, where he grasped the rope.

"I need to lie down in the big bed with you," she continued, holding his eyes with her own. "Have you inside me. And not leave me until I'm asleep, so I don't have to say good-bye. Not ever. Every time you come and go, that's what I'd need. I wouldn't ever have to say good-bye."

The wind whispered across the plains, the sun slipping down another notch, turning the sky a new, more brilliant hue of violet. Letting go of the rope, David leaned down. "Put your arms around my neck. I think we should practice. A few test runs, where you wake up and I'm still here."

She complied, her courage expired, even under the guise of speaking hypotheticals. Lifting her, he cradled her in his arms, carrying her back to the house. His gaze went up and then they were aloft, landing on the upper verandah that had been built all along the second level of the house, the flight done before she could get apprehensive.

Still, she'd tightened her arms around his neck in reaction, which gave her the excuse to press her face into his throat, brush her lips on the pulse there. She saw the desert stretching behind his shoulder, those still rock formations. It was the ocean, the clouds forming the shadows that water could create, but no cold and darkness. Not until the sun set. And then there would be warmth in here.

He'd known that for her to feel comfortable on land, to consider something different from what she'd always known, she would need a protected place like this, that felt open and yet hidden at the same time. She'd just given him an insight into her life she'd never given anyone, but now she wondered, when it came to David, did she even need to expend that effort?

She'd never dared to consider anything permanent except her physical limitations. So wanting something to be permanent would be a fruitless pursuit. But for just a tiny second, with him carrying her, she imagined, in the deceptive safety of her own mind, what it would be like if this were permanent. The wind, how it whispered in a way that had the tranquility of silence in the ocean. The sun's brush, its different colors embedded in rock and earth formations, colored there over centuries, now reflected against a blue sky. His broad shoulders, the smell of his throat and hair against her lips, the movement of his body against hers.

What would it mean if it was real? Enduring. For more than a moment.

But she knew better than that. All the blessings of the angels couldn't disrupt the curse of fear and revulsion that had affected so many generations of her family. She let the image slip between her fingers in the same way she let his hair slip between her knuckles as he laid her down on the bed, leaving the pair of glass doors swung open onto the terrace so she could smell the wind and desert, hear the lonely cry of the hawk.

"I can change. Like at the saloon, so you don't see the scars." His hands had closed on her shirt, obviously intending to remove it in the light of day, when things were slow and gentle between them, not volatile and violent like the first time, where there was no time to pause or feel apprehension. Or the second, where she had used fantasy and illusion to heighten the intensity.

She couldn't believe she'd said it, offered such a thing. But he was so beautiful. He deserved someth

ing beautiful. She'd closed her own hand over his, stopping him. Afraid, remembering the reflection of her face in his brown eyes, so close. Like now.

In answer, he bent to her clenched fist, parting his lips just enough to make her attention stutter, stumble, her breath a hard object in her chest as he caressed the tender areas between her fingers with his tongue.

He hadn't chosen her unmarked hand. His mouth followed the length of the three fingers, carefully around the splint and then over the rough amputated stumps where two fingers used to be. Mina shut her eyes, something powerful breaking inside her chest, robbing her of speech, almost of breath. This might be dying, because she certainly felt that everything she was and knew was ending.

"David..."

When he lifted his head and looked at her, it left no room for doubt, even in her uncertain mind, that everything in him was focused on this moment. On her.

"Why?" she whispered.

Instead of answering, he lifted the shirt over her head. Freed the string tie holding the skirt and worked it downward through methodical exploration, his hands moving with slow, easy movements. Sure, no hesitancy or indecision that would have spooked her. What flesh he found, he explored with a long-fingered, sensitive touch, a stroking that made her tremble even harder.

Her rib cage, a section of hip. The tender crevice of her arm-pit, the shoulder blade behind.

Then he'd pulled it all free, dropping the garments to the floor, and he was curved over her, sheltering her with the spread of his wings, his eyes intent, mouth a sensuous line.

He touched her neck first, one hand on each side, the warmth of him spreading down her body, over her sternum, liquefying over her chest, tightening the nipple on one side and even the other, though there wasn't one there. It occurred to her, hazily, that when he touched her, it was like it was all still there. She was whole, with no illusion magic necessary.

When he let his hands drift down, fingers spread, thumbs overlapping as if he were pantomiming a bird, gliding down her flesh, she drifted up toward that touch before she even had a coherent thought of it. As his hand at last closed over her breast, the other stroking the uneven mound beside it, she sucked in a hard, aroused breath, her lower body clenching as if he'd touched her there. It was as much his expression as his hands that made her react, for in his eyes she saw proof she couldn't deny, at least at this vulnerable moment. She was the most wondrous discovery he'd ever made.