In the Company of Witches

“There’s a Grim Reaper in town,” Mikhael mentioned.



“I think Ramona’s adopted him for the afternoon,” Raina added. Ruby lifted a brow.



“Should we be worried?”



“No. Mr. Know-It-All here says that he’s not here for her. That it’s all part of the natural order, blah, blah, blah.”



“Sorry; this is Mr. Know-It-All.” Ruby tilted her head toward Derek. “One’s got to be an impostor.”



“Or we’re just letting them think they know everything. Female condescension and all.”



“Sssh. That’s ultrasecret girl code.”



Raina smiled. It was good to see Ruby joking again. She gave Derek credit for that. He’d helped her friend heal from the loss of their baby and the terrible fallout from that, which had nearly taken Ruby from all of them. That won him a lot of points in her book. Not that she’d show it.



“Ice cream’s done. I’d like that moment now,” Derek said, looking pointedly at Mikhael.



“If you’re going to do the ultraprotective, husband-of-my-best-friend thing where you threaten to kick his ass if he’s mean to me, you can sit right here and do that,” Raina said. “And I don’t need anyone’s protection.”



“Actually I was going to warn him that you’re a rabid pit viper and not to go to sleep in the same house with you. Unless he chains you in the basement first.”



“Asshole.”



“Shrew.”



“Chaining her in the same room with me would be far more exciting.” Mikhael wiped his mouth with a napkin and rose. “I’ll walk with you, sorcerer.”



He gave Raina a glance that made her visualize in great detail what being in chains and at Mikhael’s mercy would be like. There went that shiver again. Ruby registered her reaction, damn it, but there was no help for it. Mikhael’s specialty was dark souls, and hers just rolled out the red carpet for him. Each time he made comments like that, she knew he was drawing closer to when he’d make good on them. It didn’t matter if she registered it as promise or threat—she looked forward to it.



“YOU HAVEN’T TOLD HER, HAVE YOU?” DEREK SAID, HIS jaw tight. They’d moved a block down the street, turned into an alley between a café and a wine shop. There was an iron gate to protect the cottage garden there, but it was open, allowing them to step out of the flow of foot traffic onto a pattern of concrete stepping stones.



“Told her what?”



“What you’re feeling, what it means.”



“What am I feeling?”



“We saw you across the street before we came up. The hand holding, the peanuts.”



Mikhael blinked. “My God. I knew I should have concealed my nefarious peanut-crushing activities.”



Derek set his teeth. “I swear, you’re just like her.”



“In a few days, I’ll likely have to kill the wild incubus she’s protecting. Possibly in front of her. How do you think she’ll feel about me then?”



“You’re part angel, Mikhael.”



“Any other obvious statements you wish to make? Do you need to remind me that I used to spread your wife’s legs and—”



Derek had him shoved up against the alley wall in a heartbeat, just as Mikhael expected. He dodged the punch to the face but caught Derek’s fist in his own before it impacted the wall. Broken fingers would be hard to explain. They held that pose a charged blink in time; then Derek shoved away from him.



“The hell with you. But if you hurt her, if you hurt my wife’s best friend, I will disembowel you.”



“You can try.”



Derek stepped to the opening of the alley, then swore, pivoted. “Is it the Darkness that makes you like this? You always had it in you, but over the years…it’s become darker. I thought we were friends, once.”



“You even the scales for the Light, Derek. I do it for the Dark. It may be for the same goal, but it’s from different sides. I work from the shadows; you work in the light of the sun.”



Mikhael’s gaze shifted. Derek turned to see Ruby and Raina standing there. They knew them too well, apparently. Ruby’s face was tight with concern, but it was to Raina Mikhael’s attention went, knowing she’d heard his last statement. He couldn’t tell much from her expression, but she was listening. Waiting.



He came back to Derek. “When a civilization becomes so prosperous it gets lazy and falls into entitlement, decadence, apathy and inertia, my job is to push them into brutality and hardship to accelerate change, bring the scales back to rights. You may save a child to ward off evil; I will cause its death for the same purpose.”



He heard Ruby’s indrawn breath, but he wouldn’t look toward either woman, not now. “Without struggle, there is no character and strength. But some force has to provide that adversity. We work for the same goal, but on sides that can never be reconciled.”



“I would have taken the thirteenth straw.”



“Yes, you would have. And it would have been the wrong thing to do. I was the right person for the job.”



Derek studied him a long moment. “Ruby, Raina, I need to say something to him. Privately.”



Both looked ready to argue, but Mikhael looked toward Raina. “No more fighting. I promise.”



“Right.” She gave him a searching look. “Play nice. We’d hate to have to separate you boys.” Curling her fingers around Ruby’s arm, she tugged her away with her.



Derek waited until Mikhael knew he was certain the women were out of earshot, but even then he kept his voice low.



“Angels only give their hearts once, Mikhael. I know it; you know it. You have sex—insane amounts of it—but I’ve never seen you act like you’re in a relationship. I’ve never seen you crush peanuts for a woman.”



“I’m quarter angel.” Leave it to Derek to laser in on what had crossed his mind a hundred times today, but it didn’t matter.



“You’ve always had more of your grandsire’s blood than your parents’. No matter how you amp up that bullshit Russian accent.”



“You’re wrong, and even if you aren’t, it’s my business, Derek. She won’t be affected by it. She’s not an angel.” A diabolical ripple of humor went through him, remembering her trying to electrocute him with a metal ice cream table. What an understatement.



He met Derek’s scrutiny dead-on, Guardian to Guardian. “I won’t cause her any more harm than my mission requires. Not that I feel any obligation to you, but as my…apology to Ruby, I give you my word on her behalf. I will leave her friend no worse than I found her.”



Derek grunted, a noncommittal noise. “Can you live without her when you have to walk away?”



“I’m immortal, same as you, sorcerer. We live on, no matter what.”



13



HE’D BEEN QUIET SINCE HIS ONE-ON-ONE WITH DEREK. They drove back to Sweet Dreams, but when they reached the driveway entrance, she wanted to walk, so they left the car. As Raina glanced over her shoulder, she saw it shimmer and disappear. Back to the Underworld garage. Thinking about the train set, she wondered what other things Mikhael had in that cache deep in the Earth. An old toy from his youth, a picture of his mother, all indications of what he was, other than a Dark Guardian.



She knew the dangers of this kind of thinking. People were many layers, yes, but there was always one main layer to them, and she’d seen plenty of women engage in disastrous relationships by rationalizing away that one layer, giving too much weight to the less important ones. Mikhael had made it clear. He’d decided centuries ago to be a Dark Guardian, and he had no regrets or doubts in that choice. Perhaps he’d struggled with ostracism from friends like Derek, or the terrible things he’d had to do, but his one overriding layer was Dark Guardian.



Except for the unexpected bomb drop in the alley, she’d noticed he rarely talked about the specifics of what he did, as if he knew no one wanted to know. It must be odd not to talk about the thing that dominated his waking hours. And he’d said he had a lot of waking hours.



While she wasn’t sure of his motives toward her, she was pretty sure he wanted to continue their…whatever their relationship was, after his business with Isaac was concluded. So if she wanted him to be a part of her life, stopping by for croissants or to share her bed, she had to be willing to understand more about that main layer.



You may save a child to ward off evil; I will cause its death…Did she want to know more?



It started to rain, but she liked rain, coupled with the solitude of walking on the road with him. Picking up on it, he didn’t suggest they hasten their pace or reconjure the car. Instead, he stood while she held his shoulder to slide off her shoes and put her bare feet on the dampening ground. When they stepped off the main drive to follow a forest path to the house, where the canopies of the trees provided some cover, he delighted her by stripping off his shirt, letting his wings stretch out. One curved to shelter her head as the angle of his body did the rest. As the rainfall increased, finding its way through the treetops, the drops pattered onto his shoulders and slid down her collarbone and forearms. Turning her face up to the gray sky, she met his mouth for a rain-soaked kiss.



As it deepened, the rain grew more insistent, heavier. Thunder rolled in the distance, but it would come closer. She could sense it through the soles of her feet. Mikhael directed them beneath a large, moss-covered live oak, one of her gray-beard wizards, though deeper in the wood than those that lined her drive. Glancing up, she noted the spreading branches and remembered what he said about sleeping in them. She imagined walking through the forest and coming upon something like him, shirtless, his wings curled around him, one leg braced as he slept, those strands of hair drifting across his forehead with the night breeze.



Of course, Mikhael would never be caught asleep. But it was a nice fantasy, kissing him awake, like a reverse Sleeping Beauty.



“Want to ride out the storm up there?” he suggested.