Darkness Arisen (19 page)

She nodded. "Catherine was there, and she was a little older than I was. We met when I was four and became best friends."

Ian's eyebrows shot up, but he didn't interrupt.

"One day Catherine and I went out to play in a nearby stream. While we were gone, the camp was attacked by demon specters, which are like the shadows of the demons that come for me when I die. We heard the screams and hid, just like my mom had always told us to do. We were in that cave for days. It was four nights before the screams stopped." It had been so cold in that cave. So damp. So terrifying. She remembered curling herself into a tiny ball behind a rock, the two of them trying to make themselves so small that no one would be able to see them from the entrance. "We waited two more days after the screaming stopped. We were so weak from hunger, we had to crawl out."

Ian began to stroke her hair, and she closed her eyes, focusing on his comforting touch.

"We could smell the blood from a mile away, but we didn't know what the scent was. Just this awful, acrid smell that burned our noses." She tried to rub the grit off her hands, remembering what it had felt like to crawl that mile back to camp. "Our hands and knees were bloody by the time we got there. When we got to the hill above the camp, we saw angels strewn everywhere, their bodies caked in blood. Around each one was a circle burned into the ground, and inside the circle was a pentagram."

"The devil's symbol? In an angel enclave?"

"It's not just the devil's symbol," she said. "It's the symbol of eternal life. If they harvest life from an angel of life, then demons can harness that magic and use it to try to break the barriers between our world and theirs. They can use it to give themselves real life." She looked at Ian. "They tortured every single angel looking for me, and not one of them told them where I was. When we got back, the only one still alive was my mother." She swallowed, remembering that frantic run across the scored earth when she saw her mother's body. "My mother was an earth angel, and they'd put her on a slab of cement to keep her off the ground. When I reached her..." Alice stopped, trying to steel herself against the agony of that moment. "She told me to get some earth and pack it in the wound above her heart. That was all she needed to live."

She couldn't say anymore. She couldn't relive it again.

"You couldn't do it?" Ian brushed his finger over her cheek, and she realized he was touching tears she hadn't noticed.

"No. All I could do was watch her die. I just sat there next to her, crying hysterically while her soul moved on. When she realized that I couldn't help her... God, the disappointment in her eyes was horrible. She turned her head away from me and died without looking at me again. Catherine couldn't save her because she's...well...she just couldn't do it either. But I am the one who is supposed to be able to do it, and I'm the one they were looking for. It was my fault she was attacked, and my fault she died."

"Shit, Alice." Ian kissed her lightly. "It's not your fault."

"It is," she said. "I'm an angel of life, and I couldn't save my own mother. What kind of angel am I?" She looked at him. "Do you know I've never been able to save anything in my life? Not even a bug. If they are dying around me, I can't help them. Not even if it's as simple as handing someone an EpiPen for an allergic reaction. I can't do anything." She pressed her hand to her forehead, trying not to let the memories overwhelm her. She didn't know how she was telling him, why this time, for the first time in her life, she could talk about these things, but it felt desperately good to be able to share it. To admit her failures to a man who she knew wouldn't judge her.

And he didn't. He simply kissed her nose and rested his forehead against hers, in an intimate, private gesture between two people who have no secrets from each other.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Ian gently rubbed her shoulders, his heavy weight comforting on top of her. "How does this relate to the fact you can't connect with me?"

Her arm began to itch, and she absently rubbed it. "As an angel of life, I'm bound by rules that don't apply to other angels. Our gift of being able to restore life is too powerful and too dangerous. If we get emotionally invested in someone, it can obscure our judgment and make us choose to interfere when we shouldn't. We can't save lives just because it suits us. We have to be driven by the greater good, by forces bigger than us."

He lifted his head. "The greater good?"

She smiled faintly. "I guess that sounds like your mission, doesn't it?" The itch on her arm became more intense, and she scratched it restlessly. "If you love someone, you will do anything to save them, so we can't love. We can't connect. We can't share secrets. No bonding. It's against the rules, but in addition, we literally can't do it."

Ian studied her. "But you just did it. You shared with me."

She nodded and took a deep breath. "I know. I've never been able to do that before." She managed a shy smile. "It felt good."

He grinned. "Aye, it did. Must be because my allure is so compelling that you can't hold yourself back from me anymore."

She smiled at his silliness. "Yes, that must be it. Your animal magnetism."

He shrugged. "I'm a raging inferno of manliness. Things like this happen from time to time."

"Well, it feels good. Really good. But why am I even constrained by these stupid rules?" Her arm was burning now, and she dug her fingernails into it, trying to get relief. "I can't save anyone anyway, so what would it matter if I fell in love with the world? I couldn't save them even if I wanted to— Argh!" She shook out her arm. "I think I got a bug bite or something—"

Ian's eyes narrowed. "Your arm hurts?"

"Yes—"

He grabbed her wrist and placed his hand on her skin. A look of raw possession filled his face. "It's hot. Feel it?" He splayed her palm over her forearm, and she felt the intense heat emanating from her skin.

"What is it?" She propped herself up on her elbows, looking at it. "There's no mark—"

"Not on the surface, no." But there was an edge of excitement to Ian's voice. "But it's beneath the surface, trying to form." He raised her arm to his mouth and pressed his lips against the burning flesh. It didn't cool it. It just made it hotter and more uncomfortable. "One of the stages of the bond is trust," he said. "It has two parts—you trusting me, and me trusting you. When you told me the story of your past and your inability to save your mother, you shared your darkest secret with me. It satisfied your half of the trust stage. We've done two and a half stages so far. Halfway there."

She caught her breath. "Telling a secret satisfies the trust stage?"

"Yes. It can be that, or giving the other one the power to kill you and trusting them not to actually do it." He grinned. "We're bonding, Alice. The mark is there, beneath your skin, and it's trying to get out."

Alice rubbed the mark. "That would be a bad thing, Ian."

"Why?" He was suddenly looming over her, frustration etched on his face. "Tell me why it's so damn wrong for us to bond."

"You mean, other than the deadly
sheva
destiny?" Because even assuming that all the angel stuff could be worked out, that was still a major problem.

"Yeah. Why else? Because I'm not buying that you're thinking about that right now."

She met his gaze. "Because angels who break the rules are stripped of their powers and thrust into exile. If I go far enough astray, I will become the Mageaan." She held up her hand, showing him the tiny gray mark on her palm that she'd noticed. "I've already started to fall."

* * *

I've already started to fall.

Alice's words reverberated in Ian's mind as he sat on the edge of the cot the next morning. Alice was still sleeping, but he had his weapons out. He was ready for Jada to come for them.

After Alice's revelation that his need to connect with her might drive her into the hell beneath the ocean, he'd shut it down for the night between them. There was no way he could take responsibility for turning her into a Mageaan. He'd just have to man-up and allow her to keep her angel secrets.

But shit, her story about her childhood still bothered him. There was no doubt Alice had learned her lessons well. The fear of making a wrong step dogged her constantly, and he didn't like that. Fear was hell. What angels taught fear? After his bout with the Mageaan and hearing the story of training she'd gotten as a kid, Ian was beginning to suspect that angels were like any other beings: some of them were good, quality people, and some of them were bad seeds whose influence was like the rot of poison infecting the world.

He thought of Ryland's obsession with angels, and wondered what he would think of the truth that not all angels were perfect.

Ian twirled his mace restlessly, wanting Jada to show up and get this thing going. Sitting on a bed beside Alice wasn't good for either of them, which is why he'd dragged himself out of the bed when he'd made the inconceivable decision not to make love to her.

Once he'd removed himself from temptation, Alice had slept hard, but restlessly, calling out repeatedly for someone to save her mother, her cries desperate and agonized, until he felt his own heart ache for her pain. He'd hit the floor and gone into his healing sleep long enough to chase away the worst of the damage. Afterward, he'd spent the rest of the night alternating between comforting her in her sleep and preparing for the morning.

He also hadn't missed her comment about how she had met Catherine when they were at the encampment. She'd said they'd become good friends, which was different than how she would have described a sister. Alice had been so caught in the story that she hadn't noticed her slip, but he had. Catherine was not her sister, despite Alice's claims. It made him rethink all that had happened between them. What exactly was her deal?

The day he'd first met Alice, when she'd fallen off the cliff and Elijah had struck her down, she'd been carrying a wallet with Catherine Taylor's driver's license in it. The picture had been tattered, making it difficult to get a clear read on the visual, so he'd assumed the license he'd found belonged to the woman who'd been carrying it: Catherine Taylor.

Yet last time he'd met her, before she died, she'd told him that Catherine was her sister, and
her
name was Alice Shaw.

Last night, she'd revealed that Catherine was not her sister, but a friend who had witnessed carnage with her.

Too many tangled threads intersecting. Too many secrets she was trying to keep track of.

Ian studied the woman sleeping beside him. After the unsettled night, her face was finally relaxed in sleep, and there were no lines of stress or tension. Her auburn hair was spread over the pillow like an autumn halo around her head. Her lips were soft pink perfection, the skin on her throat delicate and tempting. In this moment, she looked every bit an angel. Was it really possible that she could end up as a Mageaan?

After a moment, Ian sheathed one of his maces into his arm, and he spread his palm over her heart, pushing aside the tank top so he could feel her skin beneath his. Her heart beat in a steady rhythm, and he closed his eyes, opening his mind to her. Asleep, her defenses were lowered, and he was able to easily slip past her barriers into her mind. It was a cascade of brilliant, vibrant colors. High-pitched, warm energy flowed through him, the spirit of a warrior with a pure soul.

He saw no poison, no taint. Just a woman filled with fear, passion, guilt, and intense determination. There was nothing to explain why she couldn't fulfill her duty as an angel of life. No sign of the walls that she claimed bound her against her will. There was nothing foreign inside her. Simply her spirit, along with the deep-seated protections that were hers alone. Deep, deep fear that was almost paralyzing in its intensity. But her spirit wasn't the unfettered simplicity of an angel. There was so much more to her: a complexity and depth that he suspected an angel wasn't supposed to have.
What are you really, Alice? What secrets are you hiding, even from yourself?

Her luminous green eyes fastened onto his. "Are you invading my privacy?"

"Yep." He didn't remove his hand from her chest, tracking the rhythm of her heart as it began to speed up. From his nearness? He suspected it was, and he was glad to know she wasn't immune to him.

She frowned at his admission, and he expected her to get angry. But to his surprise, she smiled. "It feels nice to have you in my mind."

He grinned and leaned forward to kiss her. She kissed him back, and desire flared hot and powerful almost instantly. With a curse, he broke the kiss and stood up, pacing to the other side of the room. "I can't believe I didn't finish ravishing you last night."

"I know." She sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. Her shorts had ridden up, revealing a long expanse of leg that made his groin tighten. "I thought we were going to."

"Yeah." He watched her as she stretched, her tank top riding up to reveal the same flat belly he'd been kissing last night. Shit. He needed to get his mind off sex and fast, or they'd be caught
in flagrante delicto
when Jada showed up to announce their fate. "Catherine Taylor isn't really your sister, is she?"

Alice sucked in her breath, her face turning white. "What?"

His heart softened at the look of shock on her face. His woman was as open and real as it was possible to be. She might be lying, but she was becoming utterly transparent to him. "Tell me, Alice," he said, keeping his voice conversational. "Do you really want to rescue her, or are you going after her for another reason?" He was willing to make himself respect her angel rules if that meant helping her avoid a life as a Mageaan, but in terms of the mission they were on, he needed full disclosure.

Alice's face grew even paler. "Of course I want to rescue her. Warwick kidnapped both of us, and I was the one who got away. I couldn't save my mother or anyone else, so I can't let her die, too. I have to save one person in this world. And since I just want to free her and not actually save her life, it should work, right?"