Angel's Kiss (19 page)

I am Helena.

The sun withdrew its heat from my body and I fell to the ground. The screaming continued, reverberating throughout the forest. The screaming was coming from me …

Some final change had occurred within my body, and I was reborn, a phoenix rising up from the ashes. I opened my eyes and found that I could see. My vision seemed sharper and I could
see
the life force and vitality coursing through the grass beneath me. Colours were more vivid. I lifted my head and listened to the sound of worker ants scurrying around on the forest floor. I heard them going about their daily business as they carried bits of leaf to their nest. I could hear the rustling of treetop leaves — some thirty metres above me — in the gentle breeze. These were sounds that previously would have gone unnoticed. I felt the muscles in my body harden. Tightly coiled springs of power, waiting to be unleashed. I was alive!

I laughed when I realised what had occurred.
How ironic!

“Helena …”

I looked in the direction the voice had come from. Danny was sitting on his haunches, off to the side.

“Wouldn’t you know it,” I continued to laugh, “it had to be the ones having sex that provided the last of the blood I needed to become who I am now!”

“I thought you were lost to me,” Danny whispered.
Is that a look of fear on his face?
“I thought you were dead.”

“I can’t explain it. I only know that the sound of your voice pierced through the veil. It allowed me to remember who I was.”

Danny smiled, and the fear I thought I had seen just a moment before was gone.

“Do you need to rest?” he asked.

“No, I feel fine”

He stood up and offered me his hand, which I accepted without hesitation. On an impulse, when I was standing, I laid my cheek on his shoulder and gently nuzzled his neck. There was no way I’d bite him — the taste was too gross for that — but I could
smell
the musk of him — the unique scent of his masculinity. He smelled good, and I closed my eyes to revel in him.

Danny dropped his shoulder slightly. It was his polite way of telling me to
get off
. I opened my eyes and, feeling like I was truly looking into Danny’s eyes for the first time — how deep they were, the colour changing ever so subtly through the various hues of blue — smiled. I noted the beginnings of stubble on his face, and was able to
genuinely
appreciate his rugged good looks. Had the stubble always been there or did he shave?

“Time to try out the knife, I think. I won’t get any more out of drinking today.”

We headed back, but five minutes down the path I heard an unusual noise in the trees and called to Danny to stop.

“Up there,” I whispered, looking into the branches. “Let’s keep going. I don’t want to scare him. I’ll come back via the treetops, above him.”

“You can tell it’s a
him?
” Danny asked.

I nodded my head. The scent was distinctively male.

Danny joined me in the treetops. He was an excellent climber and I enjoyed watching the muscles in his arms flex as he scaled the tree.

“Stay back,” I said.

Danny crouched, perfectly balanced on the end of a branch, and watched as I leapt from tree to tree with the stealth of a leopard, agile and graceful.

I gently lowered myself to the branch the vampire had straddled. He was swinging his legs back and forth, as though he had not a care in the world. I pulled the knife out of its sheath, in preparation for the task at hand. I walked up behind him, slowly and quietly. I seized a handful of hair, jerked his head back and let the blade cut through flesh and bone.

The knife had been blooded and it felt fantastic. I hadn’t expected to hear the blade
sing
as it sliced through the vampire’s neck and I shivered when it was over, remembering the reverence of the song. It had almost made me weep. I kissed the flat of the blade and sheathed it.

Danny leapt deftly to my side and touched the body. It burned so rapidly all I saw was ash. He held out his hand for me to pass him the head, which I wasn’t even aware I was still holding. I released my grip and Danny set it down on the branch, among the ash. He touched the dead vamp’s forehead and it immediately crumpled to dust. Angels sure did have some cool tricks!

“Why wasn’t there any blood on the knife?” I asked.

“No blood can taint it or stain it. The blade
will not
be defiled.”

“What about the singing?”

“Pardon?” Danny said. “To
what
are you referring?”

“Didn’t you hear it?” He was within hearing distance. He should have heard the song.

“Hear what?”

“The
singing!
” I repeated impatiently.

“I heard the blade slice through his neck, clean and true. I heard the body slump forward onto the branch.”

“Well, that’s not all I heard. The blade
sang
to me as we worked together.”

Danny looked at me curiously, an eyebrow raised. No doubt he was weighing up the possibility I was trying to pull his leg.

“What did it sing?”

“It was more of a chant really, or words that I couldn’t understand. Either way, I could
feel
what it was trying to convey.” I searched for the words to describe it. “I felt the
reverence
of the blade, as though its purpose was being fulfilled.”

“May I?” he said.

I nodded my head and he removed the knife from its sheath. After a quick inspection — nothing out of the ordinary there — it disappeared up his sleeve. I wanted to ask if he’d ever nicked his arm doing that trick, but kept the question to myself.

“I promise I’ll return it after the next attack,” he said. “I need to try it for myself. Perhaps you have changed the blade in some way, or perhaps the two inscriptions have caused a change.”

“Okay,” I replied, and waved my finger in his face, “as long as I get it back. I’m holding you to that!”

“Shall I?” Danny asked as he extended his hand.

I took his hand and we let ourselves fall from the tree. It was funny how it didn’t matter if we were walking or falling — the end result was the same. A quick trip through the lights and we were at our destination. In this case, it was back on the ground, at our starting point.

“One more for today,” he said.

“Agreed,” I replied. “You pick the trail. Just be sure there are enough for the two of us. You with the knife and me with my
natural
talents.”

I wiggled my fingers in the air. There could be no doubting where my talents lay. I had very experienced hands, a legacy of my previous life.

The trail he chose travelled east, through very thick trees. Hardly any sunlight filtered through to the forest floor. Danny raced ahead, keen to see if the blade would sing to him as well.

A number of scents intersected, distracting me from our chosen trail. The wind picked up and carried with it a new scent, one I knew I should recognise, but couldn’t place.

“Wait up, Danny,” I yelled out. “I smell something funny.”

14.
The Angel Inside

I sniffed the air, but wasn’t entirely sure what the scent belonged to. Behind me I heard a number of soft thuds. I turned to see what was there.

Werewolves, three of them! We eyed each other through the forest for less than a moment before they charged. I turned and ran.
Where did they come from?
The forest path had been clear, I was sure of that — the trees then?

Danny, who’d been scouting ahead, ran back in my direction and yelled, “Hurry, take my hand!”

I ran as fast as I could. My hand closed around Danny’s, and we took our first step. I felt a searing pain down by back. A werewolf had leapt towards me, lashing out with its claws, raking me from shoulder to hip.

The fourth step saw us back in the cottage. Danny supported my weight and gently laid me on the bed, on my stomach. He removed the remains of my tattered clothing to survey the damage. I was in agony. Was searing pain going to be the norm? It seemed every few days that’s what was happening to me. I’d need to work on pain management if I didn’t want to go crazy.

Four deep gashes, the width of a man’s thumb, ran down the length of my back. Danny knew what he needed to do. He produced a knife from thin air —
how cool a party trick would that be, but is that my knife he’s using?
— sliced his palm deeply and let the blood flow freely over the wounds on my back. They burned like hell, but they sealed and healed — I would not be physically scarred, but psychologically, who knew?

The burning sensation continued, even after Danny’s blood no longer touched me. My body convulsed in heaving, racking sobs. Danny gently lifted me and held me against his chest. The wounds were closed now. No need to fear causing me any more discomfort by cradling me to him.

“Please … don’t cry. It’s over now,
it’s over
.”

His palm had already healed. Angels could heal themselves with little difficulty. I wished I could as well. When would I be strong enough to heal myself, if ever I could?

I couldn’t control my sobbing. This had been my first encounter with live werewolves and I hadn’t realised how massive they would be. How fearsome looking. I’d been sparring with a little one, compared to those in the forest. Did wild wolves grow larger than their domesticated counterparts?

Danny lifted my face and wiped the tears from my eyes with his thumb. He gently kissed each eye, my forehead, nose, cheeks and chin. Finally he kissed my mouth. His lips were soft and warm and my mouth melded to his perfectly. My sobbing slowed, then stopped, as I kissed him back.

He pulled me closer to him. I felt a longing, a
need,
stir within me. I had to have this man, this
angel
. I had to have Danny. I’d never experienced this before — never
needed
the touch of another. Yes, I’d needed their money, but their touch was something I could do without.

I fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, so much so that I ended up tearing it off him. The fabric gave way like cotton wool, offering little resistance. He laid me back on the bed and my heart, which up until this point had not beaten fast at all since I’d been changed — with the exception of the bad experience with the burger — started racing.

I ran my hands through his hair and down his back. I felt the tensing of muscles and their underlying strength and, as my hands continued down as far as they could reach, the tightness of his butt.

Danny’s hands explored every part of my body, lingering on some more so than others, and his lips followed — my skin tingling wherever they touched. I shivered with delight. Never had I known anything like
this
— that something like
this
could actually exist, and it excited me greatly. When I could contain myself no longer I urged him to return to my lips, with a moan, and he kissed me passionately, my body still tingling and sizzling at his touch.

We were engulfed by a driving desire, drowning in it, and enslaved by a feverish and maddening need to be
together
— to be one. I was careful not to allow all of my fingers to touch his bare skin — it was a risk I was not prepared to take.

The room was bathed in a soft red glow. Other more urgent and pressing needs pushed the wonder of the light out of my mind. Our bodies were carved to fit perfectly together as one, my legs entwined around his. We moved in an age-old rhythm, as natural as life and breath itself.

At the height of my passion I called out his real name,
Danizriel
and my back arched. He responded by kissing me eagerly and my heart fluttered wildly. I felt him achieve a state of ecstasy through every part of his body and my own body answered in return, with a final shudder of pleasure.

He held me in a warm embrace, talking softly into my hair. I felt safe and secure, snuggled against his strong body. This was where I belonged, where I wanted to be.

Eventually I succumbed to sleep, exhausted from the intensity of our passion, as well as my ordeal with the werewolf. When I awoke, Danny was standing — naked still — at the window, gazing into the garden. As I leaned on my elbow to drink in his body with my eyes —
ah, the perfection
— nothing less than a miracle occurred. Wings sprouted from his back,
glorious pure white wings!
The peaks reached out just above his head, and the tips ended well below his knees. Danny unfurled them and, fully stretched out, they touched the walls on either side of him.

I climbed out of bed and pressed up against his body, my hands poised uncertainly over his wings. They were so
beautiful!

He turned his head to look back at me and smiled.

“Touch them,” he said encouragingly.

I let my fingers gently caress them, from his shoulder blades, where they joined his flesh, to as far as I could stretch my arms. The feathers were soft to touch, like cashmere, and pleasantly warm. I rubbed a feather between my fingers and it made the familiar rustling noise I recalled from my childhood, when I’d enjoyed collecting feathers and running my fingers along the vanes.