“It is.” There was no false modesty in his tone, only intensity and purpose.
I wished I knew more about him.
I started to move away but he motioned me to stillness. Right, my feet were raw and they needed bandaging. He produced a knife and made a small cut across his palm. Too late I realized he’d meant it literally—I am here to bear your pain, my blood for yours. I tried to recoil, but he held me still, sealing the trickling wound against the worst of the damage.
A glorious heat filled me, as if I could fly, or simply float away. My whole body felt weightless and blasted with irresistible euphoria. Once, I’d done a little E, and this was a thousand times more powerful. I laughed—and the sound swirled into endless echoes. A distant roar came back, and I giggled over that too. Boneless, I didn’t struggle when he treated my other foot. The fizzing in my brain increased until the whole world sparkled, as if through a diamond rain.
“I’ll heal your arm too. Too much risk of infection out here.”
“That’s nice,” I mumbled.
The roaring got louder, or maybe it was my heart. I could feel him inside me, seeping into my cells with that fierce heat. Kel turned his face away from me and then he sprang to his feet.
“Stay here. Don’t move.”
Well, where would I go? Disjointed noise spun all around me, and I tried to track his movement, but he slipped and slid in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics. I blinked, trying to force the colors to die down, but no matter how I looked at him, I saw his body edged in silver and gold, crowned in a white light. But he hid darkness in his core, a tiny little knot of sorrow.
Wait—is he fighting? It was an animal, but so smeared in red I couldn’t see. Images overlaid my vision, transparent and only half realized. More light. More shadow. Every tree and rock gained new dimension, as if I could see in a spectrum of color to which I’d been blind before. My eyes hurt with it, so I closed them and dropped my head on my knees. The world needed to stop now.
I felt his hands on my shoulders and I jerked. Not in pain, but because the power of him swam inside me. Before, I had no idea how strange he was—how alien—and now he felt too big to be crouched beside me, a force of nature rather than a person. He glowed like a sun.
“It will wear off soon.”
Blindly I reached out and fisted my hands in his shirt. There was no spark, reinforcing the fact that he wasn’t just a gifted human. “What did you do to me?”
“Just breathe.”
“You had wings,” I whispered. “Two of those scars on your back—you had wings once, raven dark, inky blue. When you flew, people crossed themselves and hid in their homes.”
Because I had hold of him, I felt the shudder that ran through him. “Now there is proof you are born of ancient kings. You saw too much. Such a small amount of my blood should not affect you so.”
“There’s no taking back what you’ve given me, Kelethiel.”
A low growl slid from him. “That name must not be spoken.”
“Keleth—”
He sealed his hand over my mouth, silencing me. “Name me not, unless you mean to bind or banish me.”
Some devil prompted me. I did the one thing I was sure would make him recoiclass="underline" I moved my mouth in the faintest whisper of a kiss. He tasted of salt and copper, the hint of the blood he’d sacrificed for me lingering on his skin. My lips burned, his power seeping in through the dry cracks.
He did not withdraw, merely stared at me through narrowed eyes, as if I had transformed into a dangerous creature. His shoulders tensed, but he appeared to be appraising me in a way I could not measure. And then he moved his hand in increments of millimeters. Maybe it wasn’t his intention, but his withdrawal became a sweet torment of fingertips dragging over sensitive skin. I had never received a kiss that stirred me more than that furtive, forbidden caress.
It’s the blood, I told myself. Not him. He’s like a powerful mushroom or an exotic toad. He can’t help the effect.
His mien grew stern. “Are you yourself again?”
Ah. So that was how we were going to play it. My mind must’ve been addled for me to take such liberties with God’s Hand. More fool me, because my heart thumped at his proximity, kindled by the traces of fierce magick in the air. He crackled like a fire, all leashed power and restraint.
“I am. Your secret is safe with me,” I assured him quietly.
He lowered himself to the ground beside me, beside the clay statue, and his head went down, hunched shoulders indicating weight I could not see. For those terrible moments where I’d glimpsed him from the inside out, I had seen countless wars. Never-ending wars. Wars on earth, in hell, and in heaven. He had seen far too much for me to comprehend all of it, and yet—
I cut the thought mercilessly. That tree could bear no fruit. Ah, Corine. Always the emotionally unavailable men, but this one makes Chance seem like an open book.
What are you, Kelethiel, whose name I must not speak? All the lore I had read made me think he was an angel, but surely not. Not squatting in the mud with me.
“No wonder Nalleli wanted your blood,” I murmured. My mind was clearing, so maybe I had been addled when I kissed his palm. In the silence I wondered how it would be to have him focused on me with the intensity he devoted to divine orders. “For spells . . . and probably chemical diversion as well.”
Christ, a trace of his blood got me high as a kite and made me see things I wished I hadn’t. Infinity hid behind his eyes, like precious gems beneath a layer of ice. For a whisper of a moment I’d seen him as he was—and as he saw himself. I didn’t know if I’d ever recover.
He merely nodded. “I’ve driven away the cat. A jaguar.”
“You didn’t kill it?” Interesting.
“It was roused by our intrusion into its territory. We’ll be on our way shortly.”
I nodded. “As soon as we figure out the meaning of those markings. And I think I know what I need to do.”
“And that is?”
“Sleep.”
Booke would have answers. After all, we’d solved a number of problems via dream consultation. If anyone could help me, the hermetic scholar in the U.K. could. I liked to picture him in an enormous library, surrounded by arcane tomes. But before I could tap that knowledge, I had to prepare. I got a piece of paper and went to work. By the time I copied the glyphs, the sun hung low in the sky, though I could see only glimpses of it through the canopy. I could tell it was sunset by the lengthening shadows.
I had no idea whether this would work, but I had to try. On those other occasions, Booke had found me in my natural sleep; this would be my first crack at tracking him down. Before my power shifted—expanded—I doubt I would’ve attempted it. I was too accustomed to seeing myself as crippled in this world. I didn’t feel that way anymore.
“I’ll keep you from harm,” he said.
And I trusted him to do so.
Dreamwalker
Acknowledging Kel’s promise with a nod, I lay down on top of my bedroll. Sleep scooped me up fast and carried me away. First, I dreamt of angels with fiery swords and nightdark wings, but I couldn’t stay to watch the titanic clash. From there I wandered into a world of shades that whispered of death and tried to touch me with smoky fingers. It was cold in comparison to other worlds, so I shifted again.
This time, I found myself in my old apartment, watching Chance. As always, he was lean and gorgeous. His hair had gone wild in shaggy layers, falling into his tiger eyes. By the angle of the sunlight, it was early afternoon, and he held his cell phone, arguing with someone over a repayment schedule.
“No,” he bit out. “You’re two weeks overdue. I’ll start doubling the daily vig if you don’t get me my money tonight.”