Leaping against the cage, he rammed the soles of his shoes into the door and strained, dragging at the bar until he felt it yield more.
“Willow,” he shouted. “Stay with me.”
Just barely he reached the key and unlocked the cage. Aware of the bat’s mewling and flopping, he had no time to consider another attack from that direction.
The egg came together at its narrower end.
“No!” Ben threw himself across the space, hauled the egg toward him and saw a space no bigger than a quarter. “No!”
With all his might he jammed a forefinger through the hole and tore away a chunk of gummy shell. Hard on the outside, it was still soft and sticky inside.
Crazed with fear, he stripped away piece after piece
of shell. The viscous matter adhered to the inside, forming the actual egg, and toward the other end it had started to turn opaque.
He dragged at the stuff that still covered her head, scooped it away from her nose and mouth, panting, aware of choking on his own breath.
Sykes joined him and went to work helping clear Willow’s eyes and rake at her face and hair. The other man’s ragged breathing, his desperation, joined Ben’s.
Willow’s eyes were closed and she didn’t move.
Pushing Sykes away, Ben turned her onto her back and brought his mouth down over hers, puffing into her mouth and turning his head to watch her chest.
“Ben,” she whispered. “I’m not dead.”
He caught her up in his arms and shook her, kissed her and shook her, not caring what still clung to her skin. It was already drying and falling away.
Sykes cried out. Vanity found enough energy to land on his back and reach for his ear with one claw.
“You
are
dead,” Pascal thundered. Holding a bundle of metal orchid stakes, he cannoned inside the cage, raising a single stake in his right hand. He used it to hook Vanity from Sykes’s back and pin her by one wing to the back wall, like an ugly butterfly on a board.
Straining, striking out with the still-free wing, Vanity’s bat tried to snare Pascal, but he moved with incredible speed, piercing the second wing with another stake and jamming it to the wall. For good measure he sent several more stakes after the first two.
“Don’t kill it,” Sykes said. “We need its secrets.”
Pascal cast a pitying glance at his nephew. “Naturally.”
John in his lobster incarnation settled his tiny eyes on Willow, and he made sinuous movements in her direction, only to be met by Chris and Fabio, who threw themselves at his body and climbed him as if he were a rope. They made it to the head where they drove their fingers into those nasty little eyes.
The creature staggered back and forth, its body undulating in outrageous angles before it fell and the entire group of naked humans climbed on top to hold the thing down.
More footsteps pounded toward the conservatory. As Ben expected, Nat, Bucky Fist and Gray ran in while uniformed cops ground to a halt outside.
Ben wouldn’t let Willow go. He held her and watched for the moment when he would have no choice but to join the melee. Sykes snagged a stake from Pascal and the two of them fell to stabbing the still-writhing Rock.
Nat, Bucky and Gray flew into the middle of everything, and Ben almost laughed at the sight of Bucky slamming handcuffs on Rock’s talons, talons that withered before the eye. When the talons disappeared altogether, the handcuffs proved just as helpful since they were securely attached to Rock’s wrists.
He convulsed, and the horrible creature that was the real Rock rolled on his back and lay still while he was bound. “I need eggs,” he whispered.
Ben turned to the Vanity-bat attached to the wall inside the birdcage. It heaved and swelled, first in one direction, then another, like some deep-sea jelly creature blobbing along the bottom. Pascal kept watch while Nat stalked closer to the cage.
“Bolivar didn’t get away until after he was arrested.”
Ben recognized Gray’s voice, Gray who had been there when Bolivar was arrested, as Ben had not.
“We can try to do better this time,”
Ben told Gray.
“Bring that sack now.”
Snatching up a burlap sack, Sykes entered the cage neck and neck with Gray. Together with Pascal they covered Vanity with the sack and worked her free of the wall while leaving the stakes through her wings. She fell heavily into the bottom of the sack. Lumps and bumps poked at the inside as she struggled to get free. Ben and Pascal slapped lengths of duct tape around the sack until it was completely covered.
“That’s him,” the woman with Chris cried out. She pointed at John who was transforming back to his elegantly dressed form. Already his blond hair had appeared. “He’s the one who did it to me. He put me in a champagne glass, then in a bottle and left me there.”
As if struck, John grew completely still. Then, first blurring and melting, he changed shape, growing shorter, stockier and eventually, becoming Val Brandt.
Ben stared, but it was Willow who confronted the man. “You were with them all along. You helped lure me to your house. Was Chloe one of you, too?”
Val laughed. “Poor, weak Chloe. She never knew that I took over her Val’s body.”
R
ays of golden sunshine penetrated the Court of Angels.
The Millets, Marley and Gray Fisher and the Fortunes gathered near the fountain—all but Poppy Fortune, who had left New Orleans the night before, headed for her parents’ retreat house in California.
Ben kept Willow close to his side. “I want to get out of here,” he murmured to her.
Her immediate smile was all the response he needed.
“We’ve got one or two things to get through first,” Sykes said, smirking.
“We all know about your out-of-this-world hearing,” Willow told him. “But you do have to compete with Ben all the time, don’t you? It’s pointless because…well, it’s pointless is all.”
“Pointless,” Ben echoed, squeezing her shoulders.
The smirk on Sykes’s face didn’t waver.
“That’s enough, children,” Pascal said, but he looked pleased with himself. “This is serious. No horsing around.”
“How sure are we that Nat has those three in custody?” Gray asked.
A pause settled in. After taking time only to shower
and change, most of them were exhausted, if relieved, but they knew what stretched ahead and it wasn’t pretty.
“They’re in restraints,” Pascal said finally. “Inside cells.”
“What if they morph into something else?” Gray said.
“They don’t pass through walls as far as we know,” Marley put in.
Liam and Ethan Fortune stood a little apart. They had been brought up to speed by the others, but the fresh concern over what New Orleans and its people faced was obvious. “Couldn’t they be put in tanks?” Liam said. “Where they could be watched all the time? They aren’t invincible and we’re going to know more about them.”
“They can’t help themselves,” Ben said. “They’ve set a course and it isn’t going away. They are slowly dying out. Slowly by their standards is evidently a long, long time by ours, but they aren’t ready to give up immortality.”
“Finding out the significance of those keys has to be at the top of our list,” Willow said. “Especially now we know they definitely have something to do with our missing angel.”
“If the Embran have it right,” Ben pointed out.
“I think the angel represents a real person,” Willow said, and everyone fell silent.
The stands of bamboo rustled and flipped. Winnie chomped noisily on her plastic bone—dinosaur bone as Gray called it. Mario stuck close to Willow and Ben and seemed subdued.
“It doesn’t have to represent a real person.” Marley sat down abruptly on the edge of the fountain. “Unless it’s on a tomb. There aren’t any of those around here.”
“Not that we’ve noticed,” Sykes said. “I want the connection between our story and the fate of the Embran.”
“We may not like it when we get it, but we will get it. We may have to involve people outside the families.” Pascal frowned heavily.
“We already have,” Ben reminded him. “Nat, Bucky, Blades and who knows how many more have figured out this isn’t all a concoction of the psi families. Nat told me the rumors are only getting bigger. And now we have the bunch of people Vanity and John, or Val or whoever he is, assaulted. You can’t deny the same story from nine people.”
Willow rubbed her knuckles over his back. “You should have heard Chris and Fabio. They are ready to form an army.”
“That’s not far-fetched. We’re going to need an army.” Liam Fortune narrowed his eyes and looked into the distance. “I’m hoping for one break. Let it take them a while to get organized again. The powers that be down there don’t know what’s happened up here as far as we know. The longer it takes them to send some of their monsters to find out, the better.”
“Wish they remained monsters,” Ben said. “It’s when they look like the rest of us that we’re in most danger.”
“Nat told me Vanity seems stuck in bat form now,” Willow told the rest. “And she keeps squirting some sort of fluid over herself from her back. Half of her becomes invisible but not the other half and she throws fits.”
Ben decided he’d explain the reason for that later.
The back door to the shop opened and Anthony pushed out a loaded cart. “Are you ready?” he called to Pascal.
“Absolutely. More than ready for some official business.”
“We’d better change the subject,” Marley said.
“Anthony is my confidant,” Pascal said with his nose elevated. “I trust him with anything and he understands everything. He will become very useful.”
Pascal’s trainer trundled the cart over uneven ground. “This is going to shake up the bubbly,” he remarked.
“Can we get a move on?” Ben whispered to Pascal. “I’ve got things to do.”
“Not without the necessary formalities,” Pascal told him, but he stopped himself from grinning. “After all, this is a special day, regardless of anything that may have gone before.”
Anthony poured champagne and began handing glasses around.
“None for Marley,” Willow said. She turned very red and her freckles popped out even more.
She had created a puddle of silence.
Gray sat beside Marley and kissed her until cheers went up. “You keep quiet,” he told Willow. “Miss No Talent Who Knows Everything. Seems there’s going to be a little person running around here in a few months. But we don’t want to talk about it now. This day is for Ben and Willow.”
Gray wasn’t successful in stopping the whoops, the hugs or the applause until Pascal used a fork on glass to control them all.
“Let’s hear the words,” he said when he could hear himself again. “Ben and Willow, step up and do it right. Then we can party.”
Ben took Willow’s hand and they stood in front of
their family members. She wore a long, pale green linen shift and flat sandals. Her hair was still wet, and he had never seen anyone look more stunning. The stirring he felt was no surprise, nor was the current that fused their palms together and sent shocks through his body.
“I know,” Willow whispered. “We need to go.”
“Get on with it,” Pascal said, feigning resignation.
Ben’s own nod to the day was a white linen shirt Willow had said she loved. He wore it with blue jeans and sandals.
“Ben and Willow?” Pascal sounded exasperated.
“Okay, okay,” Ben said under his breath. “Willow Millet, in keeping with the instructions from your Mentor, I am the best thing that ever happened to you.”
Titters built until Pascal clanked the glass again. “That’s it,” he said. “This isn’t a joke.”
“It sure isn’t,” Ben said, feeling a smidgen of remorse for being flip. “Willow and I have loved each other for a long time. We know we are Bonded. And now we want to tell all of you that we will be together forever.”
He heard a snuffle and traced it to Marley.
“Willow, will you join me forever?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am yours and you are mine. We are Bonded.”
“And may you enjoy a long, happy life of pain,” Sykes bellowed.
Ignoring the remark, Anthony whipped the cover from a tray of hors d’oeuvres. The smells alone drew a gaggle with outstretched hands.
“Nice how they’re congratulating us,” Willow said. She stared into his eyes as if she would never look away. “But all I need is you, Ben Fortune.”
“Ditto,” he said, the color of his eyes growing darker. “Wrap your arms around me and hold on tight.”
“Why…Ben, you’re up to something.”
“You bet, love. Up, up and away.”
W
ith her arms still wrapped tightly around Ben, Willow opened her eyes.
Coconut palms, hibiscus blossoms in burning scarlet, orange and gold, ironwood trees and creepers with bright leaves stretching over white sand had replaced the Court of Angels.
Bleached driftwood dotted the shore and beyond that lay the ocean. At first glance she saw ribbons of surf, incandescent under a sun as bright as it had been in New Orleans, but cooled by trade winds here, and water so vivid it appeared pure turquoise, lit from beneath. As she stared, other colors appeared, sapphire, cyan, aquamarine and lapis.
“We’re in Kauai, aren’t we?” she said. “We just traveled thousands of miles in less than a moment because you decided we would.”
“Sort of.” He looked a bit sheepish. “I wasn’t sure I could take us this far. But we can both swim, so…”
“Not funny, Ben.” She felt him watching her face. “You do know you could make a fortune with this trick, don’t you?” she said, keeping her eyes trained on his chest. Looking at Ben’s chest was no punishment.
“
Trick
isn’t a word in my vocabulary,” he told her. “Unless you’ve got some different rules from mine, we don’t make money on our powers.”
“This is your beach?”
“Mmm. Sometimes it feels as if it is. Hanalei Bay.”
“Don’t you think we should let the others know where we are?” she said.
He tipped up her chin. “Nope. I told Pascal we would be leaving. That was enough.”
The trades blew his hair aside. His neck and jaw were strong and tanned, his eyes the blue of that lapis in the ocean.
“Do you mind that there are…sensations with every touch we share, Ben?”
“I’d mind if there weren’t now.”
Willow began to unbutton his white shirt—until he stopped her. “I didn’t say this was entirely my beach,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to get carried away.”
“Yes, I do.” She intended to look serious, but the sudden total absorption he turned on her sent shivers across her skin.
He looked past her and frowned.
“What?” Willow turned around. Behind her, just visible through a break in hibiscus hedges, she could see a green, single-story house with a lanai running along as much as was visible of the building. “That’s a pretty place. Is this yours?”
“It’s ours,” he told her. “It’s very island because that’s what I like. But if you want something with a lot of glass and everything modern, that’s what we’ll have instead.”
Willow continued to undo his buttons. “Whatever pleases you, pleases me.”
“I’ll remind you of that. How about what I was looking at, and it wasn’t the house? You okay with that?”
She spun around again.
Ben pulled her back against him, and she shivered, closing her eyes to soak him in. “What do you see?”
His chin came to rest on her shoulder. “Are you looking?”
“Of course.” She snapped her eyes open to search around. “I don’t see anything that isn’t beautiful.”
“You’ve always had bent opinions about some things. Staring at us from behind that green rock, the big one. What do you think?”
It took a moment before she realized he was talking about Mario, whose black eyes managed to look as if he’d been beaten regularly and feared he was about to get another whipping.
“Mario!”
The dog raced across the sand and leaped into her arms.
“How did you get here?” she said, rocking him.
“Well, Sykes didn’t bring him this time.” Ben cleared his throat. “Could it be he made sure he was close enough to get caught up in the moment, shall we say?”
She wrinkled her nose at Mario. “Maybe.”
“Come on,” he said, lifting her and Mario into his arms. “I’ve waited long enough. We’ve got a Bonding to make official.”
Willow laughed and kissed his neck again and again until he leaped about. “I think you’re electrocuting my throat,” he said. “You can put your mysterious little Brussels Griffon on the lanai and tell him to stay there. We have other things to concentrate on.”
“My what?”
“I researched him. He’s a Brussels Griffon. Purebred. They’re show dogs. Or a good specimen would be.”
She poked his ribs. “That’s weird. Are you sure he’s one of those?”
Ben walked with her between poinsettia and bird-of-paradise flowers. “Brussels, Belgium. Been around since the sixteenth century at least. I thought that was strange, too. Quite a coincidence.”
He climbed wooden steps, and Willow saw the lanai went all around the house.
“So I found a Brussels Griffon. Big deal.”
“You found him?”
“He found me. I want him inside. There’s got to be somewhere he can be comfortable—”
“While we’re otherwise occupied? You bet.”
He slid the screen aside with a finger and walked in through the open front door.
He kissed her then, for so long Willow gulped for breath whenever she had the chance.
“You can see the ocean from these front windows,” she gasped when he took a break. “Look at this place. Ben!”
He set her down and she put Mario on the floor. The dog immediately scuttled away behind a couch. The furniture was either made of heavy bamboo and cane with cushions covered in leafy-green fabrics, or Asian, carved and lacquered. Here and there a shiny red piece stood out. And brass bowls, bone carvings and tapa hangings. Loose carpets in beautifully worn and muted colors were perfect on richly shining koa wood floors.
Ben took her by the hand and led her into a bedroom
much the same size as the living room. Again, the view through the windows was of the ocean and beach.
“Come on,” he said, still moving. Another door opened onto a small sunken garden of lava rock and ferns. On one side there was a hot tub, steaming gently. And rattan screens covered with flowering vines created a private bower.
Ben shut the door to the bedroom. She had no more time for questions before he pulled her dress over her head and tossed it aside. His shirt and pants followed and he kicked off his shoes.
Excitement curled in Willow’s belly. “Ben—”
“Shh.” He touched her mouth. “There are things I want. Not just the things you think. More. I want what Marley and Gray have—a marriage like—”
“Shh.” It was her turn to break in. “Then we will. I’d like that, too, but I didn’t have to have it if you didn’t.”
He picked up his pants and took a little bag from a pocket. Inside were two simple gold bands. Ben gave the bigger one to her and raised an eyebrow as he held out the small one. Willow gave him her hand, and he slipped on the ring before she put the other band on his finger.
“Tomorrow we’ll do the rest of it,” he said. “On the beach, maybe. When the light gets mauve?”
Willow thought of the mauve light she had seen in the Court of Angels.
“Sweetheart,” Ben said. “Take it from me, the light here gets mauve at certain times of day. And it sparkles. And if we’re lucky it’ll rain just before we go out there and we’ll have rainbows.”
She couldn’t be nonchalant about the naked man who had just put a ring on her finger. She couldn’t look away from his body, tall, straight, powerful and potent.
Her bra and panties made her feel awkward.
“Now,” he said, and before she could take another breath he swept her into the hot tub. Immediately, he gripped her waist and raised her partway out of the water. “Your underwear should always be wet and sticking to your skin. Oh, yeah.”
Wriggling did her no good. He whipped off the bra then dipped under the warm water to slide her panties down and over her feet. Then he came up sputtering.
“Have you ever made love in a hot tub?” he asked.
“No. Have you?”
He tilted his head as if in deep thought. “Actually, no. I was waiting for you.”
“I’m burning up, Ben, and it isn’t the water.”
Ben tipped her on her back and floated her around the small pool. When she automatically put her hands over her breasts, he moved them away and kissed her in every place that ached for his touch. But when he shifted his mouth to fresh territory, he only left a deeper ache behind. Willow moaned and tried to grab him.
He raised her hips to make a straight path for his tongue, straight to delve into the folds between her legs.
“Stop it!” She writhed.
“You don’t mean that,” he said and carried on until waves of sweet agony broke over her.
Willow panted and scrambled to get her arms around his neck. “Your turn.” But she got nowhere with her attempt to get his feet off the bottom, other than to make him shout with laughter and subdue her as if she were a doll.
“I’ll make a deal,” he said. “Let me have my way first, then you can see if you can do better.”
“Who’s the judge of better?” she said, sliding her fingers over his hips, across his belly and grabbing him before he could stop her again. Not that he tried very hard.
But he was ahead of her. In one swift motion, he gathered her legs and wrapped them around his waist. “Well,” he said through his teeth. “What are you waiting for?”
Staring into his eyes, Willow put him where they both wanted him to be, and they moved together, first slowly, eyes closed, heads falling on each other’s shoulders. Then ever faster, and their cries kept pace with the searing reactions that would always be part of them—their own electrical currents.
The release came, long, raw, filling them up but not enough.
For minutes they hung together. “Don’t let me go,” Willow whispered. “I’ll drown.”
He ducked and sipped at her breasts, stood with her legs over his shoulders and made wicked arches of his eyebrows. His mouth closed on that vulnerable place, but first he said, “I love you, Willow. You are mine, so make the best of it.” And he carried on to his target.
Willow tossed. “I’m yours, I’m yours,” she cried. “I give in. And you’re mine. But if we’re going to do this forever, you’d better save something for next time.”
Ben saved nothing, not then, or the next time. And Willow was his match.
Much later, when the sun set behind the folded, lush green mountains around Hanalei Bay, red, lemon-yellow and purple streaked the sky. They watched rosy chips sparkle along a gold path on the water. But not for long.