Angels' Flight(109)

My man. Mine.


Autumn bled into winter and then into the very heart of snow and ice. As the days shortened and darkened, Jessamy spent her nights tangled in Galen’s arms when he wasn’t on watch or leading a night-training exercise, and reading into the dawn hours when he was. It was a time of discovery and play and joy, but for the quiet, creeping knowledge that her big barbarian was being very, very careful not to break her.

She hadn’t understood at first, too blinded by the splendor of what they did to each other to realize that loving wasn’t only a slow dance. But now that the naked edge of their hunger had been soothed, now that she’d spent more than one night exploring Galen’s beautiful body while he “suffered” for his lady’s pleasure, she could feel the taut tendons, the rigid muscles as he held himself back from expressing the violent force of his passion.

It hurt her that he never set himself free to take the intensity of pleasure he lavished on her, but she felt no anger. How could she be angry with a man who looked at her as Galen did? He might never say poetic words of love, but she knew what he felt for her in every fiber of her being, felt his devotion in every caress, every new wonder he searched out to show her… every secret he shared.

“My mother has written to me,” he’d said last night as they lay in bed.

Aware of the painful relationship he had with Tanae, she’d placed her hand over his heart and simply listened.

“She tells me to return, says Titus has agreed to give me command over half his forces. Orios will remain weapons-master, but I would be his lieutenant.”

Rising up on one elbow, she’d scowled. “Why would she offer you a lesser position than you have with Raphael?” Perhaps Raphael’s army was not yet as impressive as Titus’s, but it was Galen’s to train, to lead. Even Dmitri, Raphael’s second, bowed to Galen’s expertise when it came to their troops.

Galen’s smile had held a bleakness she’d never before seen in her warrior. “Because she knows I have ever striven to please her. As a child, I thought if I was good enough, strong enough, I could earn her love.”

Her smoldering anger at Tanae, having built over the seasons with every small truth Galen betrayed about his barren childhood, had ignited. “You have no need to please anyone, Galen. You are magnificent, and if she can’t see that, then she is a fool.”

A dawning light in the sea green, until it was translucent. “Magnificent?”

Caught by the vulnerability he showed no one else, she’d whispered her answer in a kiss. “Utterly.”

Now, having made her way to her favorite vantage point on the roof, she thought of how much that small conversation had told her about her barbarian. He might be brash and blunt on the surface, but there was a terrible wound on Galen’s heart, one that led him to take such exquisite care with her—as if he did not ever want to do anything that might drive her away now that she was his.

A single tear trickled down her cheek.





14


Galen finished the drills early as the winter darkness closed around them, the air clear of snow today, though a thickness of it covered the ground. Scowling at the whispers that passed from warrior to warrior about their weapons-master’s desire to get home, he nonetheless waved the grinning lot of them off without reprimand. Maybe he was getting soft, but he was happy in a way he’d never before been happy. It made him tolerant.

Winging his way to the balcony of the apartment he now shared with Jessamy, he found the rooms empty. Disappointed, he decided to head out to bathe. He’d just grabbed a change of clothes when Jessamy walked into the room. His heart stopped as it always did. Flowing into his arms, she kissed him with the wild joy of a woman who loved his touch. Such constant affection could make a man lose his head, come to believe that he was the magnificent creature he saw in her eyes.

“Are you going to bathe?” She nuzzled at him, her hands caressing his chest with delicate proprietariness over the top of the shirt he’d taken to wearing when the snows came. Jessamy worried otherwise.

“I’ll be back soon.” The river water was icy even for an angel, didn’t tempt him to linger.

Slow and wicked, Jessamy’s lips curved in a smile only Galen ever saw. “I’ll scrub your back.”

He should’ve told her to remain in the Tower, where she’d be warm and comfortable, but he needed her too much. Giving her the clothes to hold, he scooped her up and flew them not to the nearby river, but to a small pond at the foot of the mountains in the distance, where the water ran clear and sweet yet. It was a considerably longer flight, but it mattered little since he had Jessamy with him.

“Is anyone likely to disturb us?” she asked when they landed, spreading her wings out to stretch them, a tall, beautiful woman in an ankle-length gown the color and lightness of seafoam, the buttons that closed the wing slits at her shoulders made of square-cut crystals in a more vibrant shade of blue.

“No. We’re alone.” Unable to resist, he stroked the sensitive arches of her wings to her quiet shiver of pleasure. “This area is far out from the angelic patrols, and uninhabited. The mountains are as wild as they were at the start of time.”

Her smile held a sultry anticipation that made his cock jump. “Don’t you have to bathe?”

Laughing at the way she sat down on a nearby rock, like a great queen about to enjoy a private performance, her wings brushing the snow, he began to strip. He’d never been self-conscious about nudity, but seeing Jessamy’s delight in his body had made him an exhibitionist… but only with her. Bare to the skin—and blatant in his desire—he sucked in a breath and dived under the chill surface of the deep pond fed by mountain rains.