A Witch's Beauty Read online

  "Fortunately, I know you're an opportunistic liar." Putting his hands to her waist, he drew her up with a flexing of his arms, a careless sweep of his wings that sent water out in elegant swirls around them. He held her there for a second, studying her. "But I'm not. You can count on that, Mina. Even if Jonah had suggested I seduce you to gain compliance, I wouldn't have agreed to it, not as a strategy. Whatever I feel, I feel honestly. Besides which"-a wry look crossed his face-"he would have sent someone else for that. I don't have that much experience in seducing women."

  He turned away as she blinked at his broad back, her body still vibrating. "So we need to go deliver this potion, then?" he asked.

  She couldn't do this. She really couldn't. And in that moment, she threw the detonation spell at his back.

  "WHY won't you understand?" She held pressure on the wound. As she checked his pupils, she noted with relief the burned area on his side was healing on its own. His head had rammed the metal wall, but apparently his skull was as hard as he'd demonstrated it to be with his unwise persistence.

  "I don't want to hurt you. I just want to be left alone. Have to be left alone."

  When he began to wake at last, she was smart enough to back off. She floated all the way across the ship's hold so she was well clear when he started up, his hand already on one dagger grip. As David felt the wound and obviously oriented himself, he shot her a narrow glance. "It will heal on its own, you know."

  "Yes. But the water-resistant oil I smeared on it will help the pain until it disappears."

  "Why do you care?"

  "I don't." It was a ludicrous thing to say, but she stuck with it. "If I'd left you unconscious, unprotected down here, something bad could've happened to you. Then Jonah would send hunters after me. All I want is for you to be gone. Leave me be."

  "Throw your worst at me, Mina." David drew himself upright, hovering, and took out two of the daggers.

  "What?" She stared at him.

  "You heard me. You think you can kill me? Try it."

  "I've never tried to kill any of you." As she pushed down the fear his words evoked, it pushed back, becoming something far more disturbing than fear. "I could have killed you while you were unconscious, couldn't I? I just want you to leave me alone. I can't be around you."

  "I just want to help."

  "Then leave me alone." The scream tore out of her before she could stop it. Her head exploded with pain, a berserker's violence surging through her. An absence of pain lay on the other side of death and killing. When blood was on her skin, the taste of it in her mouth, the screams of others would drown out the screams in her own head. It might take a thousand lives to do it, but somewhere at the end, when death reigned, there would be nothing to feel.

  David stood frozen, watching as the scars shifted. Something lived beneath her flesh, struggling to get out. Her eyes snapped toward him, both red now. As her lips drew back grotesquely, she revealed fangs as long as his fingers, a mouthful of them, the skin of her face drawing tight, outlining her skull even as her arms elongated, became more skeletal, fingers now talons.

  Dark One. He was looking at a Dark One, struggling to get out of her body. No, to take her body over.

  Shrieking, that high-pitched shrieking he knew too well. His hands tightened on his weapons. He knew how to destroy a Dark One this size hand-to-hand, could cut its throat in a heartbeat.

  The writhing creature dropped swiftly to the hold floor, apparently possessing a gravity far heavier than water could bear. Convulsing, it fought with an unseen assailant. Amazed, he watched it roll back and forth, clawing at itself, water churning around it. Words spat from its mouth, like the musical language of the merpeople, reminiscent of dolphin and whale speech, but guttural, as if its throat were being strangled. He made out the chant of containment, which galvanized a raw shriek of rage, answered by another shriek from the same throat, defiant, equally as furious. Two entities in the same skin, vying for control.

  Both seemed to know they had to get the upper hand quickly, for the battle was swift, brutal and merciless. Then it was just Mina rocking in the turbulent current, holding to the metal floor. Her gills were working hard, but she was struggling to get herself upright. Her hair had come loose from its tie and was drifting in a swirl around her face, giving him brief glimpses of the scarred and unscarred sides, an ironic montage of what he'd just witnessed.

  Throughout those tense few moments, he'd struggled with himself as well. When it came to fighting Dark Ones, pausing to question or think was a dead angel waiting to happen. He was prepared to kill. Trained to do it.

  It must have shown on his face, for when he moved forward, her gaze lifted, focused on the daggers he'd drawn.

  "If you kill me, kill me as I am. Don't kill me as one of them." Her voice was hoarse, but she managed to float upright, though she was unsteady even against the current inside the ship. "I'm Mina, daughter of the seawitch Inanna, descended from five generations of seawitches of Neptune's realm. If I die, I die as that, not as the filth that raped my mother."

  As her stiff lips moved, one eye went from red back to blue, while the other remained crimson. David forced himself to take a breath, his violent reaction settling into a backseat. Deliberately sheathing the daggers, he started toward her. She had courage, for she didn't move, just tilted up her chin as he drifted closer. Her hair continued to float around her features, giving him a steadying desire to gather it. He could remember how it had felt, blooming with the fullness of water, passing over his fingers. That moment was separate from what he'd just seen. Just as that beast was separate from her.

  "I'm not going to kill you, Mina," he said at last. "However, if you ever do something like that detonation spell again, I'll do something far worse."

  "What?" Her brow drew down when he leaned in. He noticed she couldn't keep her attention off of his mouth, making him want to do all sorts of absurd things to her with it. Absurd, since she'd just tried her best to maim him, and demonstrated that there was more Dark One in her than any other angel would tolerate. But she could have left him, and she didn't. She'd treated his wound, watched over him and waited for him to wake. He didn't think it was because she feared the retribution of the Dark Legion, as she'd said.

  This was Mina, with the perpetual frown line between her brows and a suspicious, wary look he found a challenge to replace with other expressions, like the faint flicker of panic as he got closer to her face, her lips. A lock of her hair floated over his cheek, caressed his shoulder, and her eyes followed it as if she wished it could be her fingers. Or maybe that was just his wish.

  "I will put you over my knee and spank you."

  Her gaze snapped up to him, shock coursing over her features. "You're... not teasing me."

  "No." He was satisfied to see he'd come up with a threat that had caught her off guard, but captured her attention. He was tempted to do it right now. "So don't forget. Now, you said we needed to deliver a potion. Tell me about that."

  Five

  "THIS is going to be a bad idea," David commented as they set out from the Graveyard some time later. Mina carried her potion in a carefully prepared packet she had strapped beneath her cloak.

  "You're welcome to stay here and preen," she pointed out. "I can handle a Dark One attack."

  He shot her a look. The irritability and disdain were back in full measure, as if the trembling and uncertain female with soft lips and eager body had never existed.

  "Preening? If your opinion of angels gets any higher, I might blush."

  "If you don't blush from wearing that excuse for clothing, I doubt any flattery from me will cause it."

  "I was going to go for the ghoulish cloak look, but apparently there was a run on them. This was all they had at the mall."

  When she narrowed her gaze at him, he noted she understood what a mall was. She'd taken in stride several of his comments that would have baffled his fellow angels. Somehow, she had a fairly good grasp of what occurred on land, and it didn't
all come from Anna.

  "So if you're such an accomplished one-woman Dark One Destroyer"-he changed direction-"why haven't you asked Jonah to sign you up for the Dark Legion?"

  "I don't look good in red." She glanced at the battle skirt. "And I'm afraid of heights." Turning away, she swam through a defile between two ships that would take them out of the Graveyard. "Most of your fights are in the sky, you know."

  "Afraid of..." Feeling a sixth sense prickling at his neck, David turned. He caught a movement at the porthole of the freighter. Blinking, he realized it was the skeletal cat. It disappeared at his regard.

  "Did you forget to turn something off?"

  "Hmm? Oh." Following his glance, she appeared to take a moment to focus, then turned back toward their exit.

  "You're afraid of heights," he repeated. "You can shapeshift into a dragon. You flew over a canyon, did aerial maneuvers to escape a Dark One archery attack."

  "Hmm." She didn't pause, continuing to swim forward at a fairly swift pace, her gaze moving around them. It told him she was used to relying on herself to anticipate a threat. He was mildly gratified to see she wasn't including him in that surveillance, though, trusting him to guard her right flank. "So?"

  "So I don't understand."

  A school of fish parted as if cut by a scythe to let her pass through their ranks. "Let me know when you do. I'll wait for your comprehension with bated breath."

  "I'm beginning to understand why Marcellus wanted a gag," he muttered darkly.

  As they moved into a more open area, David fell back and went up, wanting to survey a wider scope of their surroundings, see more attack points.

  She flicked a sidelong glance at him as he changed position but said nothing. The others had probably employed similar tactics. She seemed unconcerned with his movements, but dropped lower, so she became nothing more than a mundane sea creature making her way along the seafloor, brushing close to reefs when they were provided, minimizing her open exposure. The cloak spread out so at first glance, with tentacles curling and uncurling behind in graceful propulsion, she could be mistaken for a squid of some type, a creature without numerous enemies moving casually over the surface populated by myriad corals, sponges, sea fans and darting fish, in a silent, mostly blue green world.

  Except he saw something entirely different down there. The rippling silk of the hair, the brief glimpse of slim arms, almost lost against the sandy portions of the seafloor. He remembered their strength around him, the desperate grip of the one undamaged hand, the press of the three fingers on the other. The odd, rough feel of the stumps where fingers no longer were, but pressing down even more fervently, as if making up for their deficit.

  He'd unbalanced her, in more than one way, and maybe himself as well. He'd known that intuition would guide him, but he hadn't expected how innate it would be to employ the strategy of sexually dominating her, such that he wasn't sure whether or not it was a natural compulsion she seemed to provoke in him. But in the brief flash of vulnerability she'd shown as a result, he'd known it was the difficult but only sure road of winning her trust. If she didn't kill him first, or compel him to strangle her.

  She stopped, her cloak waving around her, and settled to the ocean floor. David stilled, scouting the terrain and her position to see a group of merpeople skirting a line of the reef. Coming from a passageway that led down to Neptune's lower realm, if he recalled the layout of this area correctly.

  It was a mixed group. Mermaids and mermen, perhaps a family and some extra friends thrown into the mix. Possibly a foraging party, or swimming as a group to go sun on the rocks. The males had an outer flanking position, for though there were only a few predators of merpeople, they were formidable ones. Killer whales, bands of sharks.

  The formation reminded him that merpeople were a very patriarchal society, where women were not expected to be warriors. Mina was an apparent exception, with her lethal fighting skills.

  He'd expected her to move after confirming it was her own people, but she remained motionless as they passed overhead, until they were well along their way. Then she rose from the bottom, a slow shift, like a sea creature in truth, nothing that would catch the eye, and continued on her way, sliding around the side of a coral bed and starting her swim across the more open area.

  "Begone! Go!"

  The combination of musical notes and shrill cries that signified the merpeople language resonated to him. Another group had been emerging from the passageway from Neptune's realm. Mina increased her speed, but something was hampering her. She was favoring her left side. As he dove, the position of the reef shifted so he could see a cut on her forehead. The wildly spinning disks of a cluster of sharp oyster shells floating toward the bottom helped him put it together.

  "Dark Spawn! Begone from here. Filth! Seawitch."

  He dropped into the space before her just as another projectile torpedoed her way. Merpeople used a modified form of underwater slingshot and crossbow to give them the propulsion to launch underwater missiles at foes. Fury spurted through him as he caught the sandstone, jagged with embedded shells, in one hand.

  "Angel." The group of merwomen shrieked at the sight of him and about-faced, diving behind the reefs. The two mermen with them backpedaled and then followed, creating a strong wake with the frantic propulsion of their tails. Merpeople, like most nonhumans, treated angels with fear and awe. In this case, David was glad for it, because he felt like bringing a storm of wrath down on them they wouldn't soon forget.

  Releasing the stone with disgust, he turned to find his seawitch still in motion. Having crossed the passageway, she was now moving more swiftly on her way. When he caught up with her and tried to see how she was injured, she jerked away.

  "Why did you do that?" she demanded.

  "They were attacking you."

  "They were throwing things at me. They always do that. All you did was draw attention to me. An angel, no less. That makes it worse."

  "Maybe they'll be less likely to do it if they think someone is protecting you."

  She came to such a sudden halt she swayed in the aborted flow of water. Eyes as sharp as his daggers leveled on him. "For the last time, I don't need your protection. I held off an archery attack of Dark Ones at the Canyon Battle to reclaim Jonah. I threw a detonation at you that knocked you unconscious. You think I couldn't annihilate a group of ignorant, superstitious merpeople? I can conjure fire spells that would-" As she cut herself off, obviously struggling with her frustration, he raised a brow.

  "Make half my platoon look like naked chickens?"

  Her attention snapped back to him. David arched his brow higher, waiting.

  "You don't understand."

  "I do. People suck." Coming closer despite her warning expression, he took a look at what was luckily a superficial cut. Her gaze narrowed, became more menacing. However, as he'd endured withering looks from not only Jonah but Lucifer, the overpowering Lord of the Hades Underworld, it would take more than a look to shake him.

  "Where did the other one hit you?" He dropped his attention to where she was still clutching her side.

  "They didn't hit me. It's a muscle cramp. It happens sometimes."

  "Let me help."

  "No," she snapped. Closing her eyes, Mina shook her head. "I can't have you disrupting my life like this."

  "We want to keep you safe."

  "I've never been safe a day in my life, David." Gritting her teeth, Mina moved back from him again. "Neptune tried to have me killed when I was nine years old. When he decided he might have made a mistake, he ordered his healers to help me as best they could. I felt their revulsion in every touch. If they'd had the courage to defy him, they'd have blocked off my gills and made it look like I died of my injuries. I know that, because they told me so.

  "And you don't want me safe," she added. "You want my power safe."

  Mina pressed on before he could deny it, aware that the shrillness in her voice was increasing, but unable to stop herself. "No one will
use my power but me. If anyone tries to make me use it for their benefit, I will destroy myself in the process. Not for some greater good, but just to deny them the pleasure of taking what they were never offered. If I can convince you of that, will you leave me be? I don't want you, don't need you, any of you. To me, you're all the same side. You're-"

  It clamped down on her, shoving her into a howling vortex of darkness. She clawed at the sides of it, but the sinking despair told her she'd lost the fight again. Rage. She knew better than to get this worked up. Twice in one day now. Or was it three? She couldn't have him around. Oh, gods, why couldn't she make him understand?

  Maybe because if he did, he would try to kill her and be done with it, and for reasons she didn't comprehend, she still clung to the idea of life. She shot off through the water, hoping David, if he wouldn't leave her, at least wouldn't be stupid and try to slow her down this time.

  She used the pain from the muscle cramp, pushing herself to the limits of her speed, stroking and pumping wildly with her tentacles, twisting her body so that it screamed in agony. Going faster and faster until her heart was laboring, gills flared wide along her neck. The pain became living fire in her side, a wall of flame between her and the red Minotaur of rage that wanted to leapfrog over it, reduce that group of smug, useless merpeople to chunks of torn-apart meat. A meal that would summon an army of sharks while she perched on a nearby rock, glorying in the cloud of blood, opening her mouth to taste the remnants of it, of their laughter, as she laughed last. She'd catch the women's long, beautiful hair on her arms, weave herself a cloak out of it. Maybe she'd even take the delicate necklace of shells she'd seen one of the mergirls wearing. Probably given to her by an adoring father or friend. A sister or mother. Maybe she'd made it herself, with slim, dainty fingers that had never known a single twinge, let alone the clawing agony in joints that screamed for relief that would never come.

  By the time she reached the entrance to her cave, she was shaking so hard she had to slow down or risk bumping into the jagged collar of stinging fire coral around it. Diving into its welcoming darkness, she pushed herself to keep moving, far into its depths. This was her place where no one else dared enter, warded to maintain that sense of apprehension in those that approached. Nothing could enter, except one annoying angel.