“Will you stop?” she said. “One form is confusing enough.”
He shifted back to the beautiful man with the heavy-lidded eyes. “Do you see it yet?”
“See what?”
Vasu sighed. “Children are so much wiser than adults.”
“Not usually.”
“Yes, they are. The little one saw it immediately. Like stars, she said. A perfect geometry.”
The little one… “Are you talking about Intira? Have you been talking to her?”
“Her mind is a very interesting place.”
Kyra spoke in a firm voice. “Stay away from Intira.”
Vasu frowned. “No.”
The petulant expression reminded Kyra that she wasn’t dealing with a typical angel. There was something intensely childlike about Vasu, a brightness and curiosity her father had never exhibited. Vasu was like the naughty child who dropped a rock on another child’s finger. It wasn’t cruelty. It felt more like curiosity. Of course, it was curiosity without moral restraint.
Kyra understood amoral creatures. She had been raised among the Fallen.
“Vasu, you must stay away from Intira. Her mind is young and impressionable.”
“I know.”
“But think,” she said carefully. “If you visit her too often, she may soon mirror your thoughts and not her own. Then what makes her interesting and unique will be spoiled. Her mind should remain her own. That is what makes her wise.”
Vasu crossed his legs and sat in front of her. “You may have some insight.”
“Is that why you visited me?” It wasn’t the first time she’d been visited by a Fallen. Her father had sat in her dreams when she was young. Sometimes he felt benevolent. Mostly he felt cold.
“I visited you…” Vasu cocked his head again. “Why did I visit you?”
“I don’t know, Vasu.”
He closed his eyes. “Oh!” They popped open. “Do you see it yet?”
“That question still makes no sense to me.”
“The music.” He leaned forward and exhaled a hot breath over her lips. “You have to see the music.”
“You’re not making sense. You don’t see music, you hear it.”
“I do make sense; you just don’t see. But you will.”
His presence was so heated she felt her body react. She didn’t like it but knew the reaction had little to do with Vasu’s intention. Angels were seductive by nature.
“What do you want, Vasu? What do you hope to gain by this meddling?”
He sat up straight but said nothing.
Vasu had been allied with both Jaron and Barak. Jaron and Barak had both returned to heaven.
“Do you think it worked?” Kyra asked quietly. Were they redeemed?
Vasu saw inside her mind. “I have no way of knowing.”
There was a note of longing in his voice. She felt it more than she heard it.
“Are you lonely?” she asked.
“If I was, daughter of Barak, what would you do to remedy me?” Vasu leaned forward and captured her lips.
Vasu’s kiss was heated and lush. Honey and saffron. Sweet milk and raisins. Kyra opened her mouth and pulled away, taking the angel’s breath into her lungs. Vasu captured her chin and held her, forcing her eyes to his. His gaze was not cruel, but the power in it filled her heart with dread.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” Vasu whispered. “You do not carry the thing I need, Barak’s daughter, but you may take this gift anyway.”
Kyra blinked and he was gone.
She woke in the bungalow, still sitting in the corner where she meditated, tears rolling down her cheeks and the taste of honey in her mouth.
Leo found her hours later, still sitting in the corner. He carried a tray into the bungalow and set it beside her.
“Alyah said she sang to you. She said you might be tired. She apologized as well. Did she offend you?” He sat beside her and stroked her hair back from her forehead. “I didn’t want to disturb you when you didn’t come to dinner, but I thought you might be hungry.”
Kyra glanced down at the tray. Fruit and rice. A bowl of vegetables and chicken bathed in fragrant coconut curry. A pot of tea and a single cup.
She looked up at Leo. “I love you. Or I think I love you. I’m not sure I know what that is, but I feel something for you that is so huge. Sometimes it frightens me, but I cannot seem to stop feeling it.”
Leo didn’t say anything, but his face… She couldn’t read his face.
He sat beside her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why wouldn’t you know what love is?”
“The only people I have loved are my brothers and sisters. And this is not the same.”
“No.” He leaned over and delicately kissed along her ear. “No, it’s not.”
“Do you love me like this? I think you do, because you are so kind to me. You take care of me. I think… you must think about me as much as I think about you. I try not to listen to your thoughts, but your voice is so clear. Even when I hear you, I can’t know if you have this feeling inside you. Is that what reshon means? Does it mean you love me?”
He placed a warm hand on her neck and tilted her head to the side, laying kisses along skin that hadn’t known sensation until he touched it.
“Reshon,” he whispered, “means that you are mine and I am yours. That we were created for each other. This is love—because I love you so much—but it’s more than love.”
“What can be more than love?” Her heart felt like it might burst. Leo loved her too. He had been raised with love, so he must know the feeling she was talking about. He didn’t have her fractured past.
He loved her.
Leo pressed his cheek to hers. “When we have time, when we are safe, I will show you what it means to be reshon. What I can tell you now is that it is a connection ordained by the Creator. It means my voice will always be the clearest for you—”
“It always has been. From the beginning.”
He smiled. “And my touch will always give you peace.”
“It already does.”
Leo hauled Kyra into his lap and hugged her tightly. “You belong to me.” It wasn’t spoken in pride but in awe.
She smiled against his chest. “I would like that.”
“And I belong to you.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “You know that’s part of it, don’t you?”
“What can I do for you?” she asked. “If I am your reshon, what does that mean for you?”
“Your touch will heal me,” Leo said. “When I am wounded, your touch will make me stronger. Your song…”
His expression went blank, and Kyra’s heart sank.
She asked, “It won’t be the same, will it? It won’t be the same as it would be if your reshon were Irina. Because I don’t know the same magic.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“Ava was able—”
“Ava was human. Or at least she was to the Irina. She has no ties to the Grigori world. No one would ever question her loyalty, Leo.” She rested her ear over his chest and listened to his heart beat. “They taught her magic, but it’s not the same for me.”
He said nothing, because he knew she was right. It didn’t matter how much Leo loved her; he could not teach her the magic she needed to be what she wanted to be for him. She also knew he wouldn’t let her go. Their connection was unique. She believed that.
“I love you, Kyra.”
Would it be enough?
Leo set her on her pillow and put the tray on the low table beside them. They took turns feeding each other until they had eaten everything. Kyra couldn’t finish what Leo had brought her, but she smiled and fed him the rest.
“You are what they call a bottomless pit.”
He stretched out next to her. “There is a lot of me to fuel.”
“Most Irin I’ve met aren’t as tall as you. Most Grigori are taller, but they’re not as strong.”
“It’s probably simple genetics. Everyone in my family was tall. But my cousin and I…” He winked. “We may have written a few spells to give us an edge. I don’t know if they worked or if it’s just in our blood.”
“So your parents were tall as well?”
“I believe so. I didn’t know my mother, just a few things about her. She was a healer. Sometimes I think I have memories of her, but I don’t know if I’m really remembering or whether they’re memories others have told me. Both of Max’s parents were killed in the Rending. Our mothers were twin sisters. I think that’s why we look so much alike.”
“Your father?”
“I did meet him when I was seven. He was a mystery. Everyone assumed he was dead for many years. And we were never close. I don’t think he was ever the same man after he lost my mother. Our grandfather is the one who raised us. He wrote our first spells.” Leo turned over to show the line of spells that ran down his back. “Until we went to the academy, he cared for us. And he was very tall. He was our mother’s father, so Max and I were all he had left.”
So the Rending had taken Leo’s family from him too. Though it happened before her birth, Kyra still felt a pang of guilt anytime one of the Irin mentioned it.
“It had nothing to do with you,” Leo said.