Dark Angel's Ward (10 page)

"Cara!" her sister shrieked, blushing. Cara just laughed.

I had a hard time holding back a chuckle myself. "Let me get this straight. You think I've been boinking Zeph for twelve hours straight, so attentively that I couldn't even roll over and pick up a phone? That's your big theory?"

Now she had the grace to look abashed. "Hey, we just wanted to know if he's here or not, that's all."

"Yeah, that's
just
what it sounded like."

"Oh, come on! I saw the ass on that man." She lolled her head back and fanned herself with an open hand. "That's enough to make a mother superior break her vows."

Sara rolled her eyes at her twin. "We've also been doing some research on nephilim since the other night. We were hoping maybe Zeph could shed some light on a few things."

I quirked an eyebrow at her. "Don't count on it. I suppose I should go check on him, though."

Cara snapped back to attention. "Aha! So he is here!"

"Yes, he is. Upstairs, in a separate bedroom, just as dead asleep as I was a scant ten minutes ago."

"So? Can we talk to him?"

I shrugged. Assuming he woke up as rational as he'd been when I'd gone to bed, I didn't see any harm in it. Especially if it kept him occupied and off my back for a while. "Oh, why not?"

"Go on, go get him!" Sara cried, grinning from ear to ear. "We'll wait down here."

"Oh, certainly. Make yourselves at home, why don't you?"

My sarcasm was lost on them. "We will," they chorused in unison, plopping down on the couch.

Grumbling uselessly under my breath, I mounted the stairs, taking them one at a time. Fortunately, my dizziness seemed to have passed--I could only hope I'd slept off any ill effects of bonding with Zeph. Today, my steps were slow with trepidation. I didn't want to face him in the light of day.

I didn't find him in the room I'd offered to him, though, nor the next one. He'd holed up in the smallest bedroom at the farthest end of the hall. I found him lying on his side on the floor, dressed only in a pair of black boxer-briefs. His clothing lay folded neatly on the foot of the bed. He'd twined the light coverlet around his nearly nude body. Its clean off-white hue looked almost dull against the alabaster paleness of his skin.

"Hey." I knelt beside him and gingerly shook his shoulder where the fabric kept my hand from bare flesh. "Wake up, I need to talk to you."

His dark lashes parted slowly. He smiled softly as he caught sight of me, and whispered my name. Then a look of alarm creased his features. "Are you well?" He sat up and caught me in his arms in a single, fluid motion. "You cried out for me."

"Um, no I didn't," I mumbled against his shoulder.

"You called my name in your sleep," he insisted, "but I couldn't wake. I wanted to come to you. I tried."

"Damn, Zeph, everything's fine! I had a wiggy dream, that's all. We're all awake now, so lay off the noble anguish crap. And let the hell go of me."
Before I melt
, I didn't add.

And he didn't let go. "I was afraid for you."

Those words rang familiar from our talk in the car. "Did you have another nightmare?" I asked, squirming to get a better view of his expression.

"No." He pulled me closer almost sharply. An unspoken command: hold me.

Wrapped in the warmth of his arms, I could no longer resist the urge. I brought my own arms up awkwardly--every possible place seemed too intimate to touch--and finally settled them just above his waist. Surprise flitted through me at the rough texture of the skin beneath my fingers. I'd somehow managed to forget the two deep furrows of scar tissue that ran the length of his back. Perhaps because they were the only flaws on his body, they'd seemed alien somehow, and hadn't registered in my memory as part of him.

"Jandra," he murmured, his breath warming my cheek. Some of the tension had gone out of his posture, though his arms stayed tight around me.

I felt oddly at peace in his embrace, as I had for those fleeting moments when he'd held me the night before. These arms had been my sanctuary so many times in the past. A place to hide from myself, to ride out my emotional storms. I'd once clung to him as a rock while the tidal waves of youth had battered at my heart, trusting in his stability, his resiliency against such petty mortal concerns. God, how I'd missed that feeling.

But things were different now. Gone were the stoicism and detachment. His pulse pounded as fast as mine, his breathing becoming quicker and shallower with each passing second. "Relax," I told him.

"I can't." His words came out in a gasp. "I...."

"Ssh." I hugged him tighter, sliding my hands down to the small of his back, away from the scars. It agitated me to touch them, and my agitation wouldn't help soothe his. I began to rub slow circles over the smooth skin, projecting my desire for calm. Not quite the same as sending calming thoughts, but it was the best I could manage right now.

"Jandra." A shudder ran through him at my touch, racking me as well. "I want to kiss you."

His words jolted me back to reality. What the hell? I hadn't been trying to lead him on, I'd just wanted...what? To comfort his fear, and be comforted myself. Well, I'd screwed
that
up royally.

His parted lips hovered ever closer. "Please, Jandra."

"No way." I slid a hand between us, pressing him back. "But thank you for actually asking permission this time."

"I feel like I'll die if I don't." He met my gaze deliberately. "I've never stopped wanting you, my Jandra. Even when I couldn't feel, I could always remember. The warmth of your body against mine, the taste of your lips...."

"Stop it!" I leaned away, though the circle of his arms allowed me no escape. "I am not yours, damn it. Stop saying that!"

He sighed. "I still don't understand."

"I don't expect you ever will. Now let
go
of me!"

He complied, finally, and I fell back on my butt with a thump. I gasped for breath as every nerve ending in my treacherous body blazed to life, begging for more of his touch. I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms.

"Why?" he whispered raggedly, his eyes burning as he stared at my heaving chest. "Why do you deny me when we both want the same thing?"

"Because you used me!" I wailed, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. "You took me when I was vulnerable and played me like a violin. I was a virgin, Zeph. I didn't know what sensuality was until you showed me. And by now you've mixed me up so badly I don't even know what I want anymore."

"You desire me. I can feel it as plainly as I can see you sitting before me." His voice held a thread of his power--probably involuntarily at this point, but nonetheless I could feel myself softening, bending toward him.

"I can't help it! You
make
me desire you. It doesn't matter how I feel about it."

"But it does." He reached out and stroked his hand along the curve of my cheek, indifferent to my flinch. "It does. I want your love, Jandra. More than I've ever wanted anything."

"What is 'want'?" I demanded bitterly. "What is 'love'? Can you tell me?" Silence. Sighing, I added, "Hell, I don't even know anymore. If I was ever certain of anything, you took it away from me."

"I didn't...."

"Damn it, I'm not talking about this anymore." I rose unsteadily to my feet. "You crossed the line once, and you're not getting another chance. Deal with it."

"Jandra...."

"No!" I wrapped my arms around myself in a vain attempt to calm my body's reaction. "Put your clothes on and go downstairs. The twins are here. They want to talk to you."

I didn't wait to see if he actually did as I asked. I fled into the bathroom across the hall. Turning the cold tap open all the way, I leaned over the sink and splashed water over my face until my skin ran with goose bumps. Meanwhile, I groped for control as I'd been taught in my training--
breathe deeply and evenly, empty the mind, and wait for the pulse to slow.

Vertigo whirled through my head, as suddenly it had the night before. I gripped the edge of the vanity for support and cursed under my breath. The color visibly faded from my eyes as I watched in the mirror, their warm gray-green lightening to a hollow color like an old-fashioned glass bottle.

Breathe deeply and evenly!
I repeated the mantra in a mental shout, all the while hating myself for falling back into old patterns, calling upon the skills the Society had drilled into my brain. I didn't want to sink any deeper into the past, but neither would I call on Zeph for help. Not after what had just happened.

Thankfully, the dizziness began to ebb before too long. After soaking my face with cold water again for good measure, I toweled off. My pajama top had gotten completely drenched, so I stripped and picked up the outfit I'd left in here on the night of Zeph's arrival. I left off the camisole and buttoned the oversized shirt all the way to my throat.

Though I didn't feel ready in the least to face him again, I stepped out into the hall. The adjacent door stood open, showing a neatly remade bed in an empty room. Good. I switched off the light and went to join the others downstairs.

Eleven

In the time I'd been gone, the twins had turned the living room into a miniature hurricane of photocopies, computer printouts, and notebook paper. A leather-bound Bible sat in the middle of the coffee table, propped open with the ceramic gargoyle figurine the girls had given me for my birthday last year.

"This is nice." I fingered the gilt-edged pages.

Cara glanced up from a sheet of handwritten notes. "Grannie Annie sends us one every Christmas.
And
on our birthday."

"Hmm." I looked to Zeph, who sat straight as a ramrod in the armchair across the room. His expression showed no hint of the waves of consternation I felt from him. I wondered how much of that had to do with Sara's rapt gaze on his face--she stared at him as if he were the last coconut on a desert island. A sly watchfulness lurked beneath Cara's apparent indifference, too. I wondered if I'd missed something.

"So, what have you figured out?" I asked, mostly to break the heavy silence.

Sara cleared her throat. "Well, there's definitely a clear distinction in the Bible between the Watchers, who were angels, and the nephilim, who were the half-angels." She glanced at him again. "You really don't know which you are?"

He hunched his shoulders. "No."

"Hmm. That's too bad, because it's a pretty important difference. It seems destroying the nephilim was one of God's primary reasons for sending the great flood."

"According to this translation, anyway," Cara cut in, "and the personal biases of whoever had hold of the Church's strings at the time."

I raised an eyebrow at her tone. "And you call me jaded?"

She shrugged. "All I'm saying is, the true Word of God was handed down in times immemorial. This," she tapped the open Bible, "has been written by the hand of man, over and over again, for thousands of years. Ever play the Telephone Game for ten minutes?"

"Point taken."

"I trust this," she added fiercely, thumping a fist against her chest, above her heart. "This, I
know
is God's original handiwork."

Zeph smiled at her. "You are strong in your faith. That's good."

"Um, yeah." She looked away, the suspicious beginnings of a blush coloring her cheekbones.

"Anyway, I can understand why you'd prefer not to be called nephilim," Sara continued. "They get a pretty bad rap. One of these sources translates the word to mean 'those who cause others to fall.'"

"That's not true." His eyes lit with the fervor of certainty for an instant, but went vague again. "We were a gift," he concluded.

Sara smiled shyly at him. "I think so, too."

"Oh, gag me." Cara shoved her sister across the couch cushions. "The best we can figure, there shouldn't be any more Watchers left on Earth. A few were forgiven and allowed to return to Heaven, but the rest were, and I quote, 'cast down to Hell, and delivered into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.' So at least as far as the texts are concerned, it's way more likely you're a nephilim, sorry to say. We know they were still around after the flood, for however much sense that makes. They're scattered into different tribes in the later books: Rephaim, Anakim. Some people even identify them with incubi."

"What's that?" Sara asked, craning her neck to peek at the papers in her sister's hand.

Cara handed a sheet over, pointing. "An incubus is a demon that gives women dirty dreams and feeds on their lust."

"That's not right, either." He frowned. "Demons eat flesh."

She blinked at him. "Trippy. So you mean demons are real, too?"

"Of course. All things exist in balance. Ideally."

"So the Watchers were punished for upsetting the balance?" Sara asked.

I shrugged. "For what it's worth, the modern-day Watchers disappeared off the map for quite a while, too. Not into Hell, though--they were taken into protective custody by a secret society."

"Yeah, you keep mentioning 'the Society.'" Cara turned a curious look on me. "What's their story?"

"Can't tell you much, unfortunately. Like I said, they're a secret society. As in very secret."

"So you don't even know who you were working for all those years?"

I rolled my eyes. "Hello? Conscripted in grade school, remember? I didn't exactly get to meet my union rep."

"Well, does this society have a name?"

"The Light of Justice," Zeph answered before I could.

"Oh, really? 'Cause I've always called them the Fairlight Society."

He nodded at me. "A more recent invention of the name."

I'd never heard the less recent version before. "Whatever. All I know is they're part Church, part military, and probably a few old billionaires writing the checks. They've taken it upon themselves to 'protect the Sons of God,' though it's more like they protect the Sons of Man
from
the Sons of God."

"That's an accurate description," Zeph mused. "But remember, it was they who discovered the potential bond between Watcher and Warden. If not for that, we might be little more than prisoners in this modern world."