A Witch's Beauty (Daughters of Arianne 2)

"There's a portal to the Dark Ones' world in Mina's cave. It was created by her mother many years ago. Recently, I believed the Dark Ones might have discovered it, though I wasn't certain. I had three of my platoon guarding it. They're dead."

"And why didn't you didn't tell me about this earlier?"

I will vanquish you for breakfast. Yes, that was an understatement for the expression Jonah had on his face now. David squared his shoulders. "It was a calculated risk. I was trying to win her trust. My intention was to come to you about it when she felt she could trust me more. It was a mistake." He dropped to one knee. "My apology, Commander. If you wish to relieve me of my command-"

"Have you seen to your dead?"

"No." David shook his head, feeling the usual dull weight in his chest that such a loss created there. "I felt my duty was to report here first."

"See to them, then. If the Trumpet is in Dark One territory, there is little that can be done." Jonah spoke brusquely. "No angel can follow it there. But we must prepare for its return. Now that they have it, it's certain they will try to use it."

"We can't anticipate where they will emerge. All they have to do is have the time to blow it." This from Marcellus, who, David noted, had two glossy dark green wings again. "Though why didn't they do that when they grabbed it?"

Gabriel stepped forward to answer. The angel had pure white hair, features so graceful and refined that on first glance he could almost be mistaken for female. He spoke softly, but the resolve in his face, the tension in his body, belied any impression of mildness. "The magics associated with it are complex and must be unraveled. It will take time to figure them out, and even then, only a Full Submission angel or an extremely powerful magic user would be able to use it."

"Like the witch," Marcellus pointed out.

The angels shifted back toward David, Gabriel's gaze pinning him, bringing the weight of a Full Submission angel's attention on him. "And she was here the day Gabriel brought it for tuning," the captain continued. "She could have affected it in some way, made it easier for the Dark Ones to take it."

"Where is she?" Jonah asked, pinning David with his gaze.

"She is not a part of this."

"Was that the question I asked you, Lieutenant?"

He was not afraid of Jonah, but he was not the only angel that jumped as the commander thundered out the words, making the walls of the Citadel shake, the skies above cloud uneasily over the sun.

"No, sir." David steeled himself to meet that dark gaze, which was sparking with fire. "She was with me, at the Schism house. I asked her to stay there until I returned."

"You have a blood link with her. Is she there now?"

David focused, and felt fear clutch his vitals. Mina, no. Of all the times not to obey me... But then, he thought despairingly, when had she ever?

Jonah was waiting. For one desperate moment, David thought of lying, and knew if he did, he would be going down a road from which there would be no return. The road to Hell. A Hell of his own making.

There was no avenue to persuade Jonah in this, David knew. The Prime Legion Commander would brook nothing less than absolute obedience this time. While he knew he would have fought to the death to protect Mina that day, he was facing the angel he respected the most, the one who had in fact been the father for him his father had not been. The being he trusted, more than any other, even at this moment.

"She didn't feel comfortable staying there alone. She's gone back to the ocean."

"To that portal," Marcellus snapped.

"To her cave. Her home."

Gabriel glanced toward Jonah. "If she has the power you say, she could use the Trumpet."

"She has no desire to do that. She is not part of this plan," David repeated sharply.

"Because you don't want her to be? Because you lust after her? David, you're not the first angel or male of any species to be thrown off track by a sorceress's wiles. You're young and-"

"So is she," David shot back at Marcellus. "She's a twenty-nine-year-old mermaid who has been tortured and tormented since she was born. Been treated as an outcast by everyone, and the only thing that has saved her life is the power she has to protect herself. She has used that power for that purpose. She hasn't had the leisure time to hatch a plot to destroy the world. Her greatest desire is to be left alone, not rule the universe."

He turned his gaze back to a silent Jonah. "Commander, I made a mistake, but it was not a lie. I have not lied to you. I have been inside her head. Her heart. Her body." He swallowed. "I would wager the life of the Goddess she is not a part of this."

"You will take great care in how you speak of Her."

Lucifer. The dark-winged angel had landed on the upper turret and gone to a squat, his long fingers tented on the stonework, his scythe balanced in his other hand. The ebony lengths of his hair fell forward, covering his forearms and the carved shaft of the lethal-looking weapon. As the only born angel of the Seraphim with color in his eyes, red flame flickered among the coal depths.

David bowed. "My apologies, my lord. My choice of words is not idle, however. It is to prove how certain I am."

"It is best never to use such words. Whether you are certain of her intent or not, your witch is already a part of this."

Jonah met Lucifer's gaze, nodded and turned to Marcellus. "You and ten of your battalion will come with me. We go to that cave." He shifted his glance to David. "You go ahead of us. We will set our strategy for patrolling the rifts first. I'm giving you a half an hour to see what you can find out from her, because I know she will not speak in front of us without difficulty. And to see to your dead."

David knew he was being dismissed. It was not a shunning, but it was clear that, beyond his knowledge and connection to Mina, Jonah felt he had nothing to offer to this strategy session. Not until the inevitable battle occurred and his platoon would be called upon-as would the whole Legion-to defend the world from the destruction that the Trumpet could bring upon it.

ELI. Mark. Vincent. Those were the three angels he'd left to defend the cave. He was certain they'd accounted themselves well, but as he flew swiftly toward his destination, he thought of them, felt their loss. He could not be grateful for what might be ahead, but he didn't know an angel in the Legion who didn't eagerly embrace anything, even battle, to avoid the sharp pain of losing one or more of their brethren. And the Legion lost them often.

Based on his assessment of his three men, he knew it would have taken a raiding party of at least ten Dark Ones to take them. When he posted the trio, he hadn't anticipated a group that large coming to the cave, because he hadn't thought of the Dark Ones having a higher purpose to their discovery of the relatively small portal than routine escape by small clusters. But of course his and Mina's battle had alerted them to the presence of angels, so they'd come back prepared. Rift openings left by Dark Ones were typically guarded by no less than a platoon until they were sealed. He might as well have thrown out a welcome mat.

I'm sorry. He knew he would find only the physical shell of them in the cave, so he offered his useless prayer to the winds and sky now, where their energy would be, rejoining the Lady. I'm sorry,

to all three of you.

He felt a savage desire to howl, rage against nothing but the still air, the lap of water against the rocks far below as he cut across a shoreline. Things of the Earth that simply went on, indifferent to everything else that happened.

He'd been an idiot, and maybe for reasons more than he'd first thought. He'd been focused only on Mina herself, and how she was handling her powers. As he sped through the sky, Jonah's words rolled through his head, along with Mina's dreams, her life, the Dark Ones' interest in her...

They'd assumed all along the Dark Ones' intent was to take her, use her power. But they hadn't considered the fact they might be recruiting her for a specific, strategic purpose. How would she feel, knowing that all the years she'd spent studying, increasing the range of her abilities, was something they'd monitored so eagerly, for something like this?

David's head start was giving him time to think, regroup and be able to contribute something more to the recovery effort than he'd first thought. He'd like to think perhaps that was Jonah's purpose, but he wouldn't be surprised if the commander just wanted him out of his sight for a while.

It calls to me... All I have to do is turn it up, just a little, and I look more and more like your enemy. Until you won't hesitate to strike me down.

He increased his speed. I'm not wrong about her. I'm not. Even though everything Jonah and Marcellus said made perfect sense, that didn't matter. But he should have overridden her objections and closed the portal. Her safety was important, but Lucifer was right. The protection of the Lady and Her Earth from Dark Ones was the most important thing of all, the umbrella over everything else that would ultimately serve both objectives. He'd led with his heart instead of his head.

Not a crime in matters of love, but in matters of war, it was fatal.

That was likely another reason Jonah had given him the head start. To do what he should have done in the beginning, even if Mina hated him for it.

MINA couldn't reattach the angel's head, but she did align it with the neck as much as possible. She'd found the three dead angels still in her caves, ironically kept there by the wards on the cave's opening, protected from scavengers as they floated in a ghostlike, repetitive cycle through the five interconnected caverns. Fortunately only one of the angels had been decapitated.