“Nope. I need to decide how to handle this, and I can tell you have experience. A bad one, I’m guessing.”
“Point taken. It is a lesson I need to teach you.” Lark pulled a dagger from a sheath on his ankle, the hilt more ornate than his typical weapons. An engraving on the blade read Never Fail. “Her name was Caza, and we courted a century ago, not long after Raphael and I moved here at Dante’s invitation. Caza was a dependent sort of female. Timid. Frail. She had many strengths, but independence was not one of them.”
“So, she had a hell of a time with you constantly working.”
“She handled that well, actually. At the time, I split some hours with Dante so I could spend time with her each day. At that point, Raphael lived in an apartment on the second floor of the town hall. The arrangement was easy to manage, and Raphael encouraged me when I would have hesitated. He worried about me not having anything else in my life.”
Lark dropped his head back and stared at the sky, now covered with stars. The cords of his neck grew taut. “About a year in, a group of humans attacked the colony. They weren’t poachers, just religious extremists hoping to rid the earth of a few demons. ‘God’s work,’ blah-blah. It was late fall. No leaves on the trees. Raphael flew over—low, because a storm was coming in—as they were sneaking through the woods, and they shot at him. They missed him, but he had to dodge. He side swept a tall tree fast enough to break the outermost flight feathers of one wing. The imbalance forced him to land.
“I was elsewhere in the woods on a picnic with Caza when I sensed his distress. I told her to get inside and I rushed into the forest to get to Raphael. Three humans had him cornered. I dispatched them.” Lark dropped his gaze from the stars and looked Jett in the eye. “The rest of the human group had proceeded to the colony. They didn’t get two steps into the residential area before the Guardians took them all down. However, the humans had happened upon Caza, who’d been too scared to move from the spot where I’d left her, and…”
Jett swallowed. “They killed her?”
“Yes.”
As Lark lapsed into silence, Jett stared hard at the ground. He nodded in grim understanding. “Even if you’d known she wouldn’t go…”
“I would’ve had to leave her. Hell, at the time, I suspected she wouldn’t go. I saw the fear in her eyes and felt it in my mind. But, I didn’t take the oath to Raphael with reservations or conditions. He comes first. Period. If you go through with this, you’ll take the same oath.”
“She knew that, though.”
“Yes. We’d discussed it at length. But I got to tell you, the oath doesn’t justify her death here.” He pressed his palm to his chest. “I still feel the sting of her emotions during her final moments. Think about it long and hard, Jett. No matter the circumstances, you’ll have to turn your back on Lexine if the archangels are in even a small amount of danger. If I could go back, I never would have dated Caza in the first place.”
At a loss, Jett simply said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Think about it. Remember that it’s a very different situation for the other Guardians. They take mates on a regular basis. We don’t. If you want to become a regular Guardian, neither Raphael nor I will begrudge you. I’ll train you either way.”
Lark got to his feet, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “Keep watch. I’m going to check the perimeter again.”
…
When Lark didn’t return right away, Jett climbed down from the oak tree and began to walk around the house, first across the lawns, then farther out in the woods.
Where had the demon gone? Everywhere Jett went, he detected Lark’s scent, a result of his constant presence. Jett returned to the house and stepped into the garden. Light spilled from the half-open door of Lark’s little home in the back corner.
Jett left him alone, certain that Guardian didn’t break down easily or often. If he needed a couple minutes to himself, he wouldn’t take them unless he trusted Jett.
Returning to the tree, he focused his senses on his surroundings, but his thoughts went to Lexine. Any hope that he could have both Lexine and the position of a dedicated Guardian had been erased. He’d have to choose.
The idea of giving up either grated on his skin.
Sure, there’d be nothing shameful about becoming an average Guardian for the colony. Raphael could find someone else. But, the archangel had asked Jett. That trust meant too much to turn away from. Besides, the empath in Jett wouldn’t be able to tolerate such a thing. He hadn’t been able to walk away during the long, harsh winter. He certainly wasn’t leaving now, in any form.
But Lexine…
He could feel her warm skin, her breath on his neck, and the contentment of sitting across from her over a plate of food. Such simple things, but nevertheless, he’d been changed by them. The sense of companionship and closeness was unlike anything he’d ever known. On a deep level, he knew that not every female could touch him so.
Lark said Jett didn’t need to jump to a decision. Months of training remained before he had to decide to take the oath or not.
That left time to get to know Lexine better, make sure he wasn’t misreading what was growing between them.
With this much on the line, he had to be damned certain. And so did she.
Chapter Seventeen
Staring at herself in the new bathroom mirror, Lexine said, “You know he’s not going to have time for you. Why are you getting attached?”
After dressing and braiding her hair, she headed for the graveyard. With autumn making itself at home, it was time to cut back the spent flowerbeds. She needed to stay busy, not think about Jett, not sit around and consider how much their intimate encounter two weeks ago had affected her. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.
She worked well into the afternoon, doing more than was needed, even digging a new flowerbed near the gate to plant in the spring.
Distraction? Who had she been kidding? Jett’s hands might as well have never left her body. She kept reliving the kisses. The touches.
“Hello, beauty.” His tone when he’d greeted her, returning with food, had turned those two simple, unoriginal words into her complete undoing.
She’d been on the edge as it was. Though the act had been simple, a virgin had made love to her with more intensity and focus than any of her previous partners. At the time, with those demons, she’d had no cause to complain. Compared to Jett, it was as if those demons hadn’t even been looking at her while they’d been dating her.
Her phone chirped, her ringtone set to singing birds, and a welcome name graced the screen. “Hey there.”
“Hey. Feel like being bad?” Fatigue dulled Ginger’s voice.
“Define, ‘bad.’”
“Painting our nails in the garden while I let my mate fend for himself with twins for a couple hours?”
Lexine laughed. Nail painting? She was no tomboy, but she hadn’t painted her nails in a decade. “Sure.”
After stopping to rinse off the dirt and change into simple cotton pants and a tank top, Lexine wandered into the garden behind the archangel house. Ginger sat on the patio adjacent to the building, staring into the goldfish pond.
“Needed a break?” Lexine settled at her friend’s side. “Everything’s okay, right?”
“Oh, everything’s fine.” Ginger smiled. “The twins are out cold, I wanted some sun, and I haven’t seen you much lately. Besides, this might be the last truly warm day of summer. It’s supposed to pour for the next week.”
Lexine perused shades of nail polish in a small basket as they chatted.