Chapter Ten
Anya
Five demons circled closer, their leader reeling in the chain, dragging me on my knees toward him. How the hell had I forgotten about the damn chain? My instincts always pushed me into battle without thinking. Now, I had to figure out how to do this with Dommiel’s chain tethering me to the red-eyed fiend dragging me closer.
I honed in on his vitals, picturing where I’d cut him through. I glared up into his sneering face, then suddenly he was gone, and I was knocked sideways onto the pavement.
Dommiel had my attacker on the ground. “Wrong angel, motherfucker.”
In a too-swift move, he gripped under his chin with his metal hand and ripped the demon’s screaming head right off, black blood spraying the air. Dommiel lobbed the demon’s head like a ball across the parking lot where it landed and rolled to a bumpy stop near Cocytus. She shrieked and gobbled it in one bite. The soul-eaters wandered the battlefields, eating their fill, but I never got used to the sight. I swallowed the bile rising up my throat. The soul-eaters were entities unto themselves, governed by neither heaven or hell. And though their favorite meal seemed to be the damned, they horrified me. With her next shriek, a ripple of woe laced the air, followed by a resounding crack of lightning. Dommiel carried the headless demon’s decapitated body halfway to her, then returned.
His pitiless gaze swiveled to the demons hovering around me, who’d frozen at his horrific display of lethal brutality and now began backing away. He shook his head from side to side.
“Too late.”
I couldn’t breathe, paralyzed by the sight of him. His lithe, deadly movements. Black-bladed dagger in hand, he didn’t sift but moved in supernatural speed. His fatal blows were efficient and without grandeur, a quick twist of the blade here, a swipe of another there, his body pivoting in a dance of death that was mesmerizing. Beautiful. With long strides, broad shoulders twisting, he dispatched one then another, expelling them back to hell in smoke and ashy cinders, their cries howling on the wind. But Dommiel showed no mercy, grim determination marking his face with a fierceness I’d not seen on any soldier before.
Around us, angels and demons engaged in combat. One flapped his black wings, hovering above us before swinging his great broad sword in an arc to decapitate a snarling demon. Maximus, my former general. Setting his booted feet on the stone pavement, his piercing blue eyes captured mine right before he turned to face another demon who launched toward him.
The spark of electric-green ether ammo zipped through the air, felling one angel, then another. Ether ammo could damage immensely, but a demon must have direct contact either through steel—a sword or dagger—or get his hands on the angel to send his soul to the netherworld. Across the lot, a gangly horned demon stood on an abandoned car and snatched the wing of an unsuspecting angel warrior, then impaled his blade in the angel’s back as he whispered the incantation seconds before the warrior exploded in luminescent blue light and sparks, his soul now damned to the tortures of hell.
Then I was lifted onto my feet by strong arms.
“Hold still,” whispered Dommiel, his shirt and jacket splattered with glistening black demon blood.
I did as he commanded while he gently unclasped the chain from around my neck. His expression still savage and hard, I touched my fingers to his jaw to get his attention.
“Thank you.”
His dark scarlet eye found mine, but he said not a word. Lost for a moment, I could do nothing but stare up at him, the cries of battle and the flash of weapon fire filling the air. He cupped my face and brushed a thumb across my cheek in a heartrending tender caress. So unlike him. Or was it?
He opened his mouth to say something, then suddenly bellowed in pain, arching his neck and back. Lightning fast, he spun to face his new attacker.
Gasping at the sight of the sword swipe all the way through his leather jacket, shirt, and flesh, blood dripping from the wound, I drew my own daggers beside him in a defensive stance.
Shock kept me immobile for a moment as I stared across at Maximus.
“General,” I murmured.
His muscles bunched at his exposed biceps beyond his armor when he swung his blade up high over one shoulder, readying for attack.
“So this is what becomes of you, Anya. A sworn soldier abandons her post to consort with…this?”
The raging wind whipped his black hair around his shoulders. He was the epitome of the stunning, fierce, and noble archangel, warrior till the end. And blind to what he didn’t understand. Something in his brutal gaze burning into Dommiel seemed odd, out of place. Maximus was a warrior who fought with cold precision. Though often ruthless, he’d never shown the searing hatred flaming in his blue-eyed gaze toward Dommiel.
“You’re mistaken, Maximus. We are on a mission to find Uriel. Working together.”
The stubborn archangel narrowed his gaze and sneered. “Uriel is in the underworld where no one will find him. If you truly are no traitor, then step away from this demon so I can cut him through.” With a brazen swing of his sword and beat of his gargantuan wings that lifted him above us, he targeted Dommiel for death.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Dommiel pushed me behind him with one hand, aimed a handgun with a large barrel directly at Maximus, then fired—the electric-green blast of an ether bullet exploding from the barrel and into the side of Maximus’s torso. The blast spun him through the air, his sword clanging to the ground before his own body hit the ground, wings crumbling beneath him.
“Oh God! What did you do?”
Before I could go to the general to see how bad the injury was, Dommiel wrapped me up into his arms. “No, baby,” he whispered close to my ear, his breathing unsteady. “We’re out of here.”
Then we disappeared into the Void. My instinct was to fight him, to go back and see if I could help the general. He’d been my mentor for centuries, training me for the Great War. That is, before I’d become jaded with their single-minded agenda to destroy demonkind at all costs. Even at the cost of human lives. Of human extinction.
“Easy,” Dommiel murmured.
The sift was longer than normal, then we snapped out onto solid ground. A dark alley in a city, the damp cold heavy and ominous in the stillness.
“You shot an archangel general!” I pushed out of his hold.
Without a glance at me, fury vibrating from him, he stepped toward a steel-plated door. “I grazed him. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” He snorted in disgust. “Your boyfriend will live.”
“My boyfriend?”
“Enough. Let’s get inside.” Placing his hand on the door, he whispered softly, “Patentibus.” A tendril of gray-black smoke wound into the keyhole before a jarring screech of metal echoed into the alley as a bolt slid open on the other side. Hauling the door open, he turned at the entrance and held his hand out to me.
“You can’t cross the threshold without me. Take my hand.”
Still rattled and angry that he shot Maximus, I took his hand anyway and let him lead me into the darkness beyond. The door clanged shut behind us, the bolt sliding home by Dommiel’s whispered command, the snapping of demon power electric in the air.
“Stairs here,” he muttered.
Following down a short stairwell, he let go of my hand, then flicked on a light switch. Taking in the room in one sweep—a bed draped in blue velvet, a fireplace along the exposed brick wall, another wall of shelves, an oversized mahogany desk covered in books and loose papers, a glass case of guns and blades, and an open door leading to a small bathroom—I pivoted to Dommiel.
“This is your home.”
He tossed his leather satchel on the desk, then unharnessed his gun belt. Wincing, he stripped off his shirt, soaked in his own dark red blood.
“Yeah,” he huffed, his tone cynical. “Home, sweet home.” Anger still sizzled in the air around him, but I wasn’t quite sure why.
He started unbuckling his belt as he toed off a boot. I swallowed hard on the sudden thickness in my throat. His mouth ticked up on one side in a feral grin.
“Do me a favor. Take three drakuls and drop them in a glass of water.” He pointed toward the corner. “Water’s in the fridge.”
When he turned toward the bathroom, I gasped at the deep slice down his back, severing an inked battle scene. I only got a glimpse before he disappeared into the bathroom. A faucet turned on, then a stream of water pattered on the tile.
Shaking off the desire to peek in the open doorway, I walked to his small refrigerator, halted by my surroundings, the inner sanctum of such a man. Rows and rows of books, mostly worn and leather bound, lined the shelves. I trailed my fingers along the spines of a few—Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, J.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. They all appeared to be early or first editions. I pulled out the thin collection of Coleridge’s poetry. Indeed, it was the first edition with the author’s signature and a white satin bookmark set on one page. Flipping, I found the narrative poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” marked, seemingly read many, many times, the bend of the spine pronounced here. Skimming the poem, my pulse quickened, wondering at a demon who would collect rare books and read this poem so often.
The old man told his cursed tale to another, as was his fate, how he’d gone to sea and made a fatal mistake, killing one of God’s creatures, damning his crew to wander the open seas, adrift and dying of thirst. Then one dark night, a ghost ship drifts close where Lady Spectre and her mate, Death, gamble for their souls on the deck in a game of dice. She wins, taking the lives of every crewman except the cursed narrator, leaving him to wander endlessly, tortured with an eerie corpse crew to man the ship, until he finally collapsed, close to death, upon the deck. A band of angels came down, showing pity upon him, dropping the living corpses upon the deck, and sending rescue to the mariner. Though on safe ground, Fate isn’t done with him, forcing him to tell his tale over and over as penance for his sins.
I snapped the book shut, eyeing the open doorway of the bathroom, completely perplexed at the idea of Dommiel—a damned demon—finding this poem in particular so fascinating. Beyond the books and weaponry, there were other personal items that spoke more of a high demon lord.
A gold chalice, hand hammered and inlaid with coin-sized rubies around the rim—the cup of a king—set upon a shelf. An antique Greek vase, which looked as if it had been kept well over time, bearing the scene of a woman copulating with a satyr. A well-endowed satyr. Upon a stand, an aged iron dagger with the pronounced design of the Romans—thick crossbar with a blade that curved inward and a slight bulging before coming to a fine point. An insignia was stamped into the crossbar in Roman letters, a name I didn’t recognize. Treasures he’d collected over the ages. Ones he deemed worthy of keeping in his exile.
Glancing at a low table next to a chair near the bed was an ashtray made of a human skull—hollowed out and set on a marble stand upside down, the skeleton’s smile giving an eerie impression from its overturned position. The flake of ash told me this was no decoration. I shivered in wonder at whose skull Dommiel had kept to desecrate.
What a paradox he was—a demon lord who surrounded himself with objects of power and death but who also read poetry of salvation and redemption. He was so much more than he let the world see. What was more shocking was my innate need to know more of him. To know all he would tell me and give me.
Shaking off these perplexing thoughts, I walked to the refrigerator. It was stocked with bottled water and that was all. I found a glass in the cabinet above, emptied a bottle into it, then set it on his desk. Unzipping his satchel, I dug around the ammo till I found a jingling pouch. When I scooped out three pieces, the power they held vibrated in my palm and hummed along my skin. I felt a latent sting in my neck where the demon prince’s poison pooled. A finger of pain slid like a knife under my collarbone toward my heart, reminding me my time was running out. I resisted the dark essence weaving its way deeper inside me, but eventually it would encase my soul and take over my will. I would fight it off as long as I could, but a demon prince was too powerful for me to resist forever.
With a sharp twist of my wrist, eager to let go of the power-infused drakuls, I watched as they wound in a perfect circle around the inner rim of the glass till they settled on the bottom. A green plume of liquid smoke swirled as the coins dissolved, the sinuous smoke rising out of the water, swaying like a cobra ready to strike, the echoing hiss very much like a serpent warning enemies to beware. A high-pressure pulse of white light blinked, blinding me for a split second. I leaped back, then all was still and quiet as before. Only the faint crackle of otherworldly power fizzled from the glass, the liquid glowing electric green.
Dommiel let out a pained groan. Where I’d stepped back, I was in the perfect position to simply turn my head and peer inside the bathroom.
I shouldn’t.
Warring with temptation was quite new to me. I’d never had to battle my own desires. Not until I’d met this damn demon.
A little peek wouldn’t hurt.
So I did, angling in just enough to get a partial view of the backside of his body.
Oh, lovely.
Apparently, I’d lost all sense, because that wasn’t enough. I edged farther into view, watching in awe as he braced both hands—flesh and metal—splayed wide against the white stone, letting the steamy water pour down his broad back covered in intricate tattoos, sliding over his muscular buttocks and down thick thighs. My mouth gone desert dry, I couldn’t move, drinking in the sight of him as he arched his neck back, the corded muscle straining as he dipped his head under the steaming water.
His eyes still closed, his action-rough voice startled me from my shameful ogling. “You can join me if you like.”
He didn’t even open his eyes and look my way. Still, I couldn’t move, riveted by the rugged, masculine beauty of him—scars, wounds, and all. What is wrong with me?
“Your drakuls potion is ready.” Though I tried to hide the tremor in my voice, I failed. Miserably.
Unhurried, he turned off the faucet and slid the glass shower door open, stepping onto a white mat. I couldn’t breathe properly, my chest rising and falling quickly, yet I couldn’t get enough oxygen into my lungs. Or perhaps I was getting too much.
Frozen, I stared at his magnificent body, transfixed by the swirling and jagged ink rippling over his firm chest and well-muscled abdomen down to the perfect vee at his hips. The scene of two dragons mid-battle—one red and one black—draped the border of his torso. The red dragon clawed the black, while the black opened his jaws onto the red’s tail. Harmoniously detailed skulls and flowers were interwoven around and between them. But at the center of his torso were two constellations in myriad shades of blue. One was the seven sisters, the beautiful nymphs whose father was Atlas and held up the world. They were cavorting naked with slender limbs, the stars pinpointing their willowy outlines. Nearby was Orion the hunter, aiming his bow and arrow at the charging Taurus, all inked with such intricate detail it could’ve been a painting.
My eyes drifted lower from the captivating artwork to something even more mesmerizing. His…manhood hung heavy and thick against his thigh in a semi-state of arousal. At half-mast, it was more than impressive. Far more than sculptures I’d seen in museums.
“Mercy,” I breathed on a whisper.
He still wore his patch, and I wished that he had both his eyes, for I selfishly wanted to feel the weight of them both on me. Even so, the intensity of his attention blazed a trail of fire over my skin, skimming down into lower, deeper places.
“You see anything you like?”
His burning gaze was unwaveringly fixed on me. His voice resonated on an ocean-deep level, growling out of his vocal cords as if with great pain, not like his typically playful tone. His fists balled tight, his shoulders bunched, his body rigid with strained control.
Catching a glimpse of his growing arousal—to a size I’d not known was possible—I gasped and ran out of the bathroom like a frightened sheep. By heaven, never had a wolf looked so savagely seductive. That look in his eye had warned me I’d not forget his bite. And that I’d most definitely like it.
Pacing to the small rectangular window near the ceiling on one wall, a basement view of the street outside, I wrapped my hands around myself, wondering why I didn’t feel endangered or filthy or like a traitor for the feelings fluttering inside of me for this demon lord. I felt his presence as he padded out of the bathroom. I opened my wings to give him privacy and kept my eyes trained on the window and the fog-laden darkness beyond. The sound of his towel dropping and the slide of pants being pulled on should have given me a sense of relief. But no. I was more on edge than ever. A jittery need to do something skittering over my skin.
“You can turn around now.”
A flicker of flame erupted in the fireplace. Tucking my wings close, I stepped toward the hearth, glancing over to find him draining the entire glass of drakuls potion. The muscles in his neck worked as he gulped the last swallow down. His eye was that same dark ruby red, almost purple, not the same blood color as other demons.
Striding behind me, the heat of his shirtless body scalding me hotter than the fire at my front, he said, “Come get in bed with me.”
“What?”
I whipped around to catch that feral grin he so often gave me. He fell stomach first onto the velvet coverlet with a heavy sigh.
“I need you to bandage my back till the wound heals.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.” He peered over his shoulder. “Unless you had something else in mind?”
Pretending that didn’t conjure all kinds of ideas, I stepped carefully toward him and sat on the bedside at his hip.
“There’s gauze and tape there on the table,” he muttered sideways into the pillow.
That’s when I got a close-up look at his wound and realized how much pain he was in. Though clean of blood, the gash was deep from Maximus’s blade.
“Do you need something for the pain?”
“I’m used to pain. Just want to keep it covered while my body heals.”
“The drakuls potion helps with healing?”
I tore a piece of gauze and started at the top. He lifted up onto his forearms, curling his fists inward and setting his forehead there. The action bulged his biceps, drawing my attention to his exquisite form yet again. Of course he was exquisite. He was an angel once. But not anymore. I needed to keep reminding myself of that.
“No. Drakuls just replenishes power. My body does the healing on its own.”
“I don’t understand why someone would give up their own power to create drakuls.”
I tore another strip, examining the details of the battle scene inked from his shoulder blades down to the middle of his back. It was the battle of the Great Fall, angels battling angels in the heavens, swords clashing, the defeated falling into starry darkness, their beautiful wings shredding and singeing with fire in their wake.
“What is it?”
I’d paused from setting the gauze.
“Nothing.” I placed another strip, then took the medical tape and pressed it in a line on either side of the mark. The heat of his skin made me want to touch more, to roam my fingertips down his spine, to follow the other swirling Celtic knots and symbols woven across the small of his back bordering the battle.
I pressed one piece down with pressure, absorbing some of the dark blood through the gauze. Wait. Not black blood. Definitely dark, but muted to a deep purple hue. I paused again, staring at the anomaly. What did this mean?
He lifted his head, peering over his shoulder at me. “What is it?”
“Your blood.” I’d noticed before, but somehow didn’t recognize the significance. “It isn’t black.”
His brow furrowed in angry confusion. I lifted the soiled gauze to show him.
“See?”
He stared at it all of three seconds, then leaned his forehead back on top of his fists. “Just patch me up.”
“But what does that mean?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Don’t you want to know?”
He chuckled, cynicism ringing in his tone. “What does it matter? Maybe it’s from the drakuls potion. Maybe it’s from your boyfriend’s blade. Maybe I’m slowly becoming mortal, in which case I won’t be much use to you for very long.” He rolled his head sideways, staring intently at me. “Patch me up.”
Still in disbelief, I did as he asked—or rather commanded—and covered the rest of the wound in the gauze, taping it on both sides. He might act flippant about such a thing but all demons’ blood was black as pitch. Dommiel’s was not. And his eye, also a different shade than the others.
Finishing, I set the medical tape on the side table. “I just don’t—”
He rolled to his back, cupping his hands behind his head, displaying his fit, masculine physique to perfection, putting that startling inked artwork on perfect display. My brain stalled.
His knowing smile sent a flush of heat up my neck into my cheeks.
“Maximus. You and him ever have sex?” He arched a brow casually, yet there was something dark in the question.
“Maximus?” I gaped at the thought. “No!”
“Just wondering.” He stared for a second. “Plenty of angels play around down here. As you saw in Venice.”
“Well.” I cleared my throat, pinching a piece of gauze from the velvet cover and brushing it off. “I don’t play.”
Devil in his smile. “Bet you’d play with me.”
Ruffling my wings, I glared daggers at him, which only made him smile wider. “Why do you say such things?”
“Because it’s true.”
“You don’t know what I feel.”
An arrogant chuckle. “Yes. I do.”
Flustered, I couldn’t seem to stop my emotional outburst. “And why did you kiss me?”
“Because you let me.” He bit his bottom lip, releasing it with a slow shake of his head. “Because I want to. And you want me to.”
Exasperated beyond reason, I stood with a swift jolt. Then I was on my back, flattened beneath him, my wings spread wide on the bed. With unbelievable strength, he had my wrists manacled in his metal hand and pinned above my head, his other wrapping my nape, his thumb brushing my pulse. He gave me his full weight, pressing me into the mattress, a heavy thigh between my legs.
“What are you doing?” I grated on a huff of breath.
“Showing you something.”
“Showing me what?”
“How much you want me.”
Dipping his head to where his thumb pressed, he licked along my pulse. A slow, languorous, and thorough tasting with tongue and lips and teeth. It was wicked and disturbing and wonderful, stirring that fluttering low in my belly into a storm of violent proportions. How he could hold me with such force and yet caress me with such gentle brushes of his mouth, I didn’t know.
What was happening to me? This was surely a sign I was crossing over, yearning for the damned to touch my body, to make me feel the kind of pleasure only a demon could give, leaving a hollow shell behind. Wasn’t it?
“So sweet,” he growled.
I didn’t feel hollow. The emptiness wasn’t one of a dark void but of a yearning for something more. A well only Dommiel could fill inside me.
Wrenching my wrists and not budging from his hold, I bit back a moan when he angled his head and scraped his elongated fangs down the slope of my neck to my shoulder, pressing his thigh higher between my legs, the friction a delicious welcome.
“What I wouldn’t give to have you tied up in this bed right now.”
“You like to control and dominate,” I panted.
“Like’s got nothing to do with it.” He lifted up, capturing me in his midnight-and-mayhem gaze, our breaths mingling. “I need it.”
Confused and terrified, I flipped in a flash of movement, my dagger unsheathed and poised beneath his chin. It was entirely too easy. When he chuckled, clutching my hips, I knew he’d let me do it.
“Go ahead and cut me, beautiful.”
Holding my hips in place, he ground his hard bulge against my sex with a languid roll of his hips, even as the tip of my blade nicked his chin. Barely biting back a moan, my eyes slid closed on the wave of unexpected pleasure that rocketed between my thighs. One hand holding the dagger, the other squeezing his bare shoulder for balance, I couldn’t seem to force myself to get off him.
“Is that it, right there?” he crooned soft and rough.
He rolled his hips again, hitting the perfect spot where the pressure was building, where I needed something I couldn’t explain. My eyes still closed, I was washed away in sensation, his firm, large hands keeping a hold of me. Unable to stop myself, I rocked my hips with him, moving to the rhythm he set, rubbing my core harder against him, chasing some inexplicable end.
“Yeah. That’s right. Take what you want.”
His hand slid up under my shirt to my waist, the skin-on-skin contact ripping a heady gasp from my throat. He feathered his fingers higher, scooping down my athletic bra. His large hand engulfed my breast, mounding once before he pinched my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling the bud between. My mouth fell open on a long moan. I rocked faster, heat pooling between my legs. Rubbing against his growing erection, I could no longer think of anything, but chasing and finding the release just out of reach.
“Fucking hell,” he growled, mounding and pinching with his glorious hand as he quickened his grinding thrusts beneath me. “Just like that, angel.”
A rush of ecstasy swept me up, ripping a long, keening moan from my throat. My eyes shot open, my mouth ajar as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over me, pulsing from my sex with a ripple of heat up my body. In its wake came a surge of heavy, thick, crushing emotions—bliss, sorrow, ecstasy, regret, fear, and worse, even more longing. More emptiness not yet filled. A deeper well and need for Dommiel to fill me up till I was bursting.
All of it surged from me in a sob, hot tears spilling down my cheeks. Dommiel’s expression shifted to surprise. Still holding the dagger—his chin bleeding where I’d nicked him—I dropped it and scrambled off of him. I didn’t get far. He grabbed hold of me, both of us falling sideways onto the bed, my wings fluttering helplessly. I pressed my hands to his chest to push away, but he only crushed me closer against his chest, one hand binding around my waist. Rather than make one of his vulgar or arrogant remarks, he whispered soft hushes, cradling the back of my head, keeping me still in his iron grip.
“Shhh,” he whispered into my hair. “Christ. I forget how innocent you really are,” he murmured softly, smoothing his hand over my hair in comfort. “That was a first for you, wasn’t it?”
Still unable to form coherent thoughts, much less speak, I nodded, panting heavily against his bare chest. I knew what an orgasm was. I’d been around for centuries. But it wasn’t a sensation I knew personally, never exploring my flesh in that way. Never needing pleasure. But now, it seemed to be taking hold in a brutal fashion, forcing me to take note of what Dommiel could offer me.
“Sorry, baby.” And his voice truly held a note of regret, something I’d not yet heard from him. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” He smoothed his large hand over my head and hair again. “Didn’t know you’d react that way.”
“I don’t understand what I’m feeling.”
I’d always been honest to the core. My role in this immortal life had been simple—straight and true. Now I was on a path I didn’t recognize, and I couldn’t fathom what was happening. What this burning, yearning sensation meant about me.
“Shhh. Go to sleep, Anya. It’ll be better in the morning.”
What was he talking about? I couldn’t possibly sleep after that, my blood humming like a freight train through my veins.
His hands soothed, then a cool sensation, like a hypnotic breeze whispered around me. Looking up, I caught the distinct plume of his demon essence streaming from his mouth as he descended on me.
I gripped his shoulders to push away, but it was too late. His mouth met mine, gentle but firm, sealing me, a stroke of tongue, a soft moan. He pulled back, breathing his essence, his lips brushing mine, a cool balm that eased my fractured nerves.
“Sleep, Anya,” he coaxed. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
My grip loosened, body relaxing into the mattress, into his arms, his warmth, where he kept me close, my wings sagging against the velvet covers. I tried to say something, though I know not what, as my eyes slipped closed, and I gave in to the sweet oblivion of Dommiel’s essence that felt like moonlight in the dark, a shadowy pool of clear water, or some other strange and wondrous thing that you couldn’t describe but could only feel. I was able to slip under, into the cool shadows, knowing he was there. Knowing that with him, I was safe…and no longer alone.