Angels Dance

challenge—“it means nothing.”
    “The sensitivity of that region springs not only from base urges.” It scared her, how much he made her need , how effortlessly he shattered defenses built up over the endless eon of her existence. He had no comprehension of what he was asking.
    Two thousand six hundred years she’d been alone and trapped in the Refuge. She’d had to find a way to survive, to become more than a ghost who lingered on the edges of other people’s lives. She’d made herself—into someone who was respected by adults and loved by the children she taught. It wasn’t a glorious life, but it was a life far better than the painful existence of her youth.
    To risk the small happiness she’d found by jumping into the unknown, trusting that this warrior, this stranger who wasn’t a stranger, would catch her? It was a terrible thing to ask . . . but even as she thought it, she knew she might well be willing to pay the price for the chance to know Galen body and soul. Because this man, he didn’t simply look at her. He saw her.
    “And yet,” he said, responding to her argument when she’d almost forgotten what she’d said, “it’s a caress shared between lovers alone.” With that, he stalked over to take a seat on the stool beside which he’d left his sword and, picking up the weapon, began to clean it with a soft cloth.
    She wanted to shake him, this big boulder of a man who thought he was right in everything. “Do you think you’ve won?” Do you know what you’re doing to me, understand the fractures you’re creating?
    Smooth, slow strokes on the gleaming metal. “I think we need to find out what you know that is so important, someone would seek your life for it.”
    The chill she’d almost managed to overcome invaded her bones again. Rubbing at her arms, bared by the design of her simple gown, she walked into the tiny kitchen area and started to open the cupboards. Whether Galen cooked or not, one of the angels in charge of keeping the warrior quarters supplied would have stocked it with the essentials. She found flour, honey, butter in a cooling jar. A little more hunting and she had dried fruits, and eggs. “Do you have wood for the oven?”
    Galen got up in answer, and walking to a corner of the aerie opposite from where she stood, reached into a basket to bring out two small logs, which he placed in the oven. A bit of tinder, and the fire was lit, the door closed. Designed for the aeries, the smoke from the stove would vent into the gorge, while the heat would remain inside. Angels didn’t feel the cold as mortals did, but warmth was always welcome in the mountains.
    Returning to his sword, Galen continued to clean the already pristine blade, but she could feel him watching her, the sensation an almost physical touch. “What are you making?” The faintest hint of some gentler emotion.
    Longing?
    She went to dismiss it, hesitated. He’d been raised in a warrior court—had that small boy ever been made a treat, or had he been considered a warrior-in-training from the cradle, taught only discipline and war? “A cake with dried fruits,” she said, shaking off the idea, because his mother had surely lavished him with affection—if she knew one thing, it was that angels adored their babes. Jessamy might not be able to live with Rhoswen’s guilt, but she’d never doubted her mother’s love.
    “It would be better if the fruit had soaked overnight,” she continued, heart settling, “but I don’t want to wait.” Picking up the kettle on top of the oven, she poured some of the already hot water on the dried apricots, berries, and slices of orange. “And I know many things, Galen,” she said, forcing herself to face the nightmare because it wasn’t going to disappear. “I’m the keeper of our histories.” A million fragments of time, more, they existed inside her mind.
    Rising to place his sword on a bracket on the wall, Galen began to stretch slowly in the center of the room while they talked. She realized she’d interrupted him earlier, was glad, for it meant she could watch him now. No matter what she’d argued, what she knew to be the safe choice, she was a woman who ached for something that might well break her forever . . . and he was a beautiful man.
    “But,” he said, twisting in a move that had his abdomen clenching tight, the filaments of white-gold in his wings glittering in the lamplight, “we only need to pay attention to that which could