His demon radar was screeching again, the wonderful sensation of nails raking a chalkboard. With no time for the niceties, he grabbed Karly's hand and flashed them away with the barest thought.
** ** **
Lucian paced, annoyed with the thick carpeting. The outer room of the plush hotel suite where he'd been left to cool his heels aggravated him to no end. Why did they have to go to meet the Pope's representative anyway? Surely the priest could have come to them.
He wasn't sure how Dorn had convinced the Vatican Envoy that Jessie had something valuable to offer in the birth control debate, but somehow he'd managed. And now the Pope seemed to be considering granting her a private audience. If she convinced the representative.
What she might have to do to convince the sleazeball was the problem. Already he could hear her, her voice soft and intimate, coaxing. And when the priest replied, his voice rumbled with very unpriestly arousal.
Damn his head hurt.
Dorn cleared his throat, drawing Lucian's attention. The angel sat at one end of the sofa with Sally tucked under his arm. Where anyone else would have sprawled, Mr. Perfection kept his spine straight and feet flat on the floor.
When Lucian failed to acknowledge him the angel cleared his throat again and spoke. "What's wrong, Lucian?"
He froze. "Why would you think something's wrong?"
Dorn shook his head and pointed to the gilt-framed mirror over the bus-sized fireplace. "Look."
Scowling, Lucian followed directions. The right side of his face was sickly gray instead of his normal tan. Darker splotches within the gray swirled, looking ready to erupt with some sort of poison.
He lifted his hand to touch the skin and found it icy cold, almost painful to touch. His fingers against it felt like white hot brands and he jerked away. Panic struck and his heart nearly pounded its way through his ribs. "The mark?" His voice cracked and became a weak whisper, unable to hold his usual timbre.
Dorn rose and stood beside him. "Whatever is going through your head, you need to get a handle on it. I can guess what it is, and I have to remind you to trust your wife. She won't do anything to betray you."
A few lucid seconds and Lucian sighed. God. Of course she wouldn't. His sweet Jessie didn't have a traitorous fiber in her being. His mind filled with the sound of her soft cries as he made love to her. No, he had nothing to worry about.
He started to turn from the mirror but his image caught his attention again. The gray had faded and the dark splotches had disappeared entirely. He gasped. If he hadn't seen it, he would never have believed the mark held such power.
"Remember, you have to keep those lies out of your head. Doubt is the weapon the enemy will use against you because it's your natural reaction. You have to fight it."
Apparently.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Something’s wrong.” Toren hovered next to Kassern in the air. He’d had to leave his body that was supposed to be incapacitated due to his injuries, to go talk to the other angel.
“What’s up? Short version please. Karly's at the Grotto of Aesculapius for a bunch of tests.”
"Sorry, but I didn't know what else to do and I'm afraid the mission is going off track." Toren shook his head. “I think I want her too much.”
Kassern quirked a brow.
“I mean I…” Toren wasn’t sure how to put it in human terms. “My mercury is going insane around her it wants…it wants to bind to her. It’s extremely aggressive about it.”
Both his brows raised at that. “How aggressive.”
“As in I have to fight myself to keep from…”
“Tearing into her.”
Toren gasped at his accuracy. “Yes. Exactly.”
Kassern whistled long. “That’s supposed to happen after your humans connect.”
“That was my thought. If it gets worse than it is, I’m concerned I’ll…”
“Hurt her.”
Again he was relieved with his understanding. “Yes.”
“I’ll talk to Uriel and Dorn, see what they think.”
“What am I supposed to do meanwhile? I mean does it matter in which order the quadrumvirates are formed?”
“You mean can you and her join first?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going on here?”
They turned at Dorn’s sudden appearance in the air next to them.
“Hurry, I can’t stay gone long.” He looked at Toren. “Where is your body?”
“Injured. Not really,” Toren said at seeing Dorn’s confusion. “If I’m human I would be. Got trampled by a horse.”
“Oh for crying out loud,” Dorn muttered. "What are you doing on that farm? We do not have time for this. Have your humans mated?”