Sentinel of Heaven (28 page)

And two pieces
of toast that were steaming perfectly again as soon as he glanced at them, with
a smear of real butter each and some cherry jam, my God!

He set the
meal before her and went to get her shoes and socks and put them on her as she
ate.  Her bags and her lunch were already packed and by the door.

“You have me
so spoiled,” she told him where he sat on the kitchen floor, holding her feet
and gazing up at her, all his work accomplished.

“My lady –
with all that has passed in your life before me, I think you may be due,” he
answered.

And when she
was finished he kissed her and gave her the meds and helped her to the car and
sent her smiling on her way just in time for her good luck to run out.

It not only
rained but hailed on her drive into work and almost all Georgia motorists and
their cars become two ton steel sheep when winter weather occurs.  The traffic
necessitated another call to Erica's voice mail and another warning that she
might be late.

Moira hustled
anyway once she could get off the thoroughfare, shaving the lights as close as
possible, taking the first available spot in the parking deck that bore the
blue and white sign, dragging in her bags.  She dropped her cane as she punched
in five minutes late on the time clock, then barked her goodish knee on the
security counter as she bent to retrieve it.

Muttering imprecations
under her breath she rode up twenty floors and stumped through the maze to her
desk.

As soon as she
sat down, all motivation fled.

Moira had
about twenty vacation notifications and holiday well-wishes in her inbox,
including one from the redoubtable Ray in Fraud Prevention, who may or may not
have been nursing a crush on her admittedly sensual phone voice.  His email was
to her only, shy and diffident but with undertones of interest.

Pretty
sure you've got a wedding band, Ray.

She deleted
them all unanswered, including his.

Seriously,
fuck this.

Fuck this
building, fuck this job, fuck Erica, fuck Ray, fuck this city, fuck every
single bit of it.
  By all rights she shouldn't even be here today.  She
was a dirt-poor hourly associate with a paltry two weeks of vacation and a
crippling mountain of medical debt still.

But she was
also a financial analyst and a forensic accountant with eight years of
experience and hundreds of closed investigations under her belt, goddammit,
whether or not they put it on her job title.  By all rights she should have
been making twice as much a year and salaried so she could spend this whole
week in the warmth and affection of her growing relationship at home and not
here under these buzzing green fluorescent lights in a shitty cube trying to
impress people she hated.

“By all rights”,
huh?  So why are you stuck here, girl?  Could it be that you've spent the last
four or five years deepening your hermitage, digging your rut, sinking into
your books and away from life because the page is easy and the flesh is
difficult?

You never
bothered with your resume, never shopped it around, secretly certain that any
company would call you in for an interview on the strength of it and see your
cane and your gimpy leg and your fucked-up back and forget the skills of your
brain entirely.

You're more
than your damage, Moira!  Why can't you bring
yourself
to realize it? 
Why don't
you
believe it?

She found her
vision had narrowed to a tiny field and she was breathing hard, gripping the
edge of her desk as the wave of frustration and self-loathing broke over her.

Fuck
absolutely every inch of this.  Time for an early lunch. 

She picked up
her laptop bag and her cane and nothing else, headed for the elevators, not
even stopping for her lunch bag. 
Fuck food.
  She rode the twenty
floors silently fuming, thankfully alone in the little space.  The security
guard looked up and probably saw the old Moira, stumping along angrily; he knew
better than to try to say hello.

She clocked
out and continued to the car, digging in her back pocket for her wallet even as
she walked, shutting herself into the tiny vehicle at last, exhaling as she
lifted the feather out in her fingertips.

“I need you,”
she said as the link opened.  “ I need to be with you right now.  I'm going
crazy.  I can't stand it here.”

He thrummed
with some surprise and consternation; she felt a dozen little mental fingers
probing her gently, triaging her mental state.  Moira prayed to any deity
listening for some patience.

Then Leo
seemed to come to a decision.  Possibility of affirmative.  Indication of her
current space.  Unoccupied other than herself, query?

“I'm alone in
the car.”

A directive
that was almost as clear as the words: show me.

She let him
look through her eyes as she scanned the parking deck; no one was out here this
early, it was barely eleven o'clock.  She felt him pull her gaze up.  Two
security cameras: one by the elevator, one pointing straight down the aisle to
her left.

Get out of the
car, Leo said.

She obeyed,
locking her bag inside but carrying her cane.  She folded the feather away in
her wallet, hoping she could still hear him.

Move around to
the other side, he said.

She did.  The
internal curve of her skull felt empty and bruised.

Move half your
height back.

She took three
steps backward, towards the outer wall.

Still alone,
query?

Affirmative,
she sent.

Suddenly he
was there, pinions folded tight in the close space.

He reached for
her and drew her against him, embraced in wings and arms, and pulled them into
another dimension entirely.

For an instant
she was several places at once; her ear still caught the sting of the boom they
left behind them, the air pushed out and then back into the place where they'd
stood.  Part of her was anchored there, intangible.

There was the
sensation of taking a very short step to go a very long way all at once;
something a bit like stepping onto a boat to cross a channel and then stepping
off again on the island.

Or perhaps not
really like that at all.

She could see
her kitchen's interior briefly overlaid on the parking garage and a third place
that was neither, before Leo completed that very long step with her in his arms
and they were reassembled and whole, standing in their home.

He set her
down and stepped back from her, taking her cane and leaning it against the
wall, examining her like a professor would a student who either hadn't studied
or didn't bother to grasp the lesson.

“I'm a mess,
an absolute wreck today and I don't know how to make it better,” she said.  “I
need you.”

“You'll shout
at me across seventy miles to come and fetch you,” he drawled coldly, “and then
you'll deign to speak to
me
about what
you
need?”

“What the hell
is wrong with you?” she gasped, stung.

“I could ask
you the same damn thing,” he returned, “but I already know.  There's something
in you just
spoilin’
for a fight today – it wants a knock-down,
drag-out you can win so you can go back to the office with all your itches
scratched and your wounds kissed and focus again – and darlin', I can give it
to you.

“But it'll be
on my terms.”

She stared at
him, her jaw hanging open.  His sky-blue eyes were icy.

“You want me?”
Leo asked.  “Then you figure out what in this room here is going to bring you
up to my level, because I refuse to fuck you if I'm looking down on you.”

He folded his
arms, unblinking.

“You may want
to hurry; you've only got sixty minutes.”

“What?” she
managed on her second or third try, feeling like someone had punched her in the
gut.

“And English
is actually your first language,” he scoffed.  “Did I stutter?  You've spent
the last couple of hours totally useless all due to a little bad mood and then
you got feeling sorry for yourself and that makes me
sick
, Moira.  Do
you
think
I just fuck any random losers?  I may not have all my
memories back but at least I have standards.”

She felt all
the blood drain out of her face.

“Earn it,
Moira. 
Work
for it.  Win it,” he hissed, seven feet of angry
celestial being.  “You're brilliant.  You're sexy.  You're amazing.  You're
powerful.  You're a warrior.  And I could screw you senseless for a decade, six
ways to Sunday, and not that or any other damn thing
I do
will make
you
believe
it until you accept it in yourself.”

He raised his
strong chin and stared down his nose at her.

The blood was
back, raging fire along with it – she went from pale to flushed in an instant
but she wasn't about to scream like a fishwife, oh no, not a Newton girl.  Not
her mother's daughter.

“How dare you
speak that way to me, in my own house,” she grated.  “I should get a knife from
the drawer – I could bring you down to my level damn quick.”

“Don't break
decent steel trying to get through my skin.  If you can't do it with your
hands, it don't need doing.  You can't tear me down, so rise up!”

They stared at
each other; him remote and dismissive, her shaking with rage.  His eyes
glittered.

“You're a
valkyrie, Moira,” he said, quiet and distinct.  “Prove it.  Own it.  You know
what'll move me.  Rise up.”

And still he
stood, arms crossed, not threatening, not stepping one inch forward.

Looking down
at her.

She stared up
at him and tried to understand what the hell was happening; confusion and fury
and hurt warred for supremacy in her chest.  His expression had not changed: the
professor giving a hard but necessary lesson.

He stood like
a stone; prepared to stand until the stars fell, for all she knew.

“Why?” she
asked, eyes blurring with unshed tears.

Leo shook his
head sharply, once.  “You'll get answers when you realize.”

“Realize what?”

He only
stared.  She searched his face for any clue, any direction.

She saw
nothing but the disdain in his eyes, and the old lines of sadness at their
corners.  A little part of her wished, as she always did when she traced them
with her gaze, that she could kiss them away.

Moira lowered
her head into her hands and gave herself a moment to let the tears fall, her
shoulders shaking silently.  It felt good to give into it, to use it to purge
that awful self-hatred, that directionless and impotent anger she’d felt.

She wiped her
eyes clear not too much later – not much time to indulge, he was right when he
said she only had an hour – and sniffed.  He had not moved.

In the clarity
that came after all the negative feeling had been exorcised the solution was
obvious.

Without a word
she pulled out the nearest chair at the little kitchen table, set it squarely
in front of him and climbed up onto it.  As soon as she straightened shakily to
meet him on eye level his demeanor thawed.

“That's my
valkyrie,” he said, opening his arms to take her in.  His embrace was as warm
as she could ever have asked.

“You are a
brutal son of a bitch,” she breathed, leaning on him to ease her bad knee.  His
hands were gentle on her scarred back, stroking the steel in her spine.

“You didn't
give me long to work, my love.”  He was kissing her cheek, cradling her close. 
“You
were
looking for a fight; I know the same signs in myself.  I
won't beg your forgiveness.”

“But you'd
like to have it anyway,” she countered.  “Maybe you should earn it.”

He chuckled
temptingly, seeking her mouth.  Hungry kisses once more; with talented lips and
tongue he was keeping her attention as he unbuttoned her shirt and slid it down
her arms, then unfastened her bra and cast it away from them, stripping her
deliberately.  She moaned as his hands came up again and kneaded her breasts in
the morning light, pinching and plucking her nipples until she gasped for
mercy. 

He gave her
none, bending her head back to suck and nip hard at the flesh on the base of
her throat just over shoulder, leaving her shuddering and keening softly.

“You're going
to leave a mark,” Moira managed, feeling faint.

“I intend to,”
he growled.  “My valkyrie. 
Mine!
”

His sudden
possessiveness was arousing as hell, but her flesh was weak.  “I can't stand up
much longer...”

In answer he
swept the table clear; she heard her ancient salt and pepper shakers topple to
the floor along with the meteorite; thankfully nothing shattered...

“I'll clean it
all up later – but I will have you now.”  He picked her up and spread her out
on the surface before him, completely without effort.

Her hands went
to the button of her pants but he pulled them away, pushed them up and over her
head to hold the edge of the table.  “Stay,” he ordered.

“As my lord commands,”
she whispered viciously, feeling nothing but lust now, and heard his answering
snarl of passion.  Leo shucked her out of her shoes and socks quickly, then
took down her pants with the same easy speed.  She felt like a sacrifice pinned
down on an altar and maybe she was – the look in his eyes, dark and wet and
dilated, was predatory.

Maybe his
little power-play had affected them both.

She was
surprised that the table held under their weight.  He mated her with a savagery
that satisfied them both – still threaded with an aching tenderness that
pierced her heart.  “Eternity would never be enough of you,” she heard him say
through clenched teeth right before he began to fuck her in earnest, surging
thrusts that were a honeyed counterpoint to the work of his fingers and lips.

“Take all of
me then,” she answered him, feeling dizzy in the wake of her climaxes.  His
guttural moan was reply enough.  He gathered her up in his arms and leaned his chin
against the top of her head; the tension in him dissolved, a storm unraveling
into clear sky.

He slowed his
pace to take his ease once, then again.  “Oh, my Moira,” he whispered in her
ear as the final pleasures unwound inside him.  She listened to his heartbeat,
feeling as if she overflowed with light.

“I love you,”
Leo said softly against her earlobe, “and you are worthy of it.  You are my
queen.”

“And you my
king,” she breathed.

He disengaged
with great reluctance, pulling the sweatpants back up over the lines of his
hips.  “We must move quickly; go and restore yourself, I will gather your
clothes.”

With his aid
she got down from the table, then staggered even less steady than usual to the
restroom where she cleaned up and splashed some cold water on her puffy face. 
Looking up at herself in the mirror she saw the dark and sizable love-bite he'd
left where her throat joined her shoulder, just above where the neckline of the
shirt she'd worn that morning would have ended.

She turned and
the angel was in the bathroom doorway, looking surprisingly sheepish.  “I brought
a sweater with a high neck...”

“Good, thanks –
don't need anyone thinking I'm getting laid in the parking garage.”  She
stepped into her pants and sat down in her makeup chair to put on her bra and
shirt, letting him slip on her shoes once more.

Leo looked up
at her as they finished dressing her, his eyes distant and his expression
focused.  “Stand, my love – we are clear if we go now.”  He put the cane back
into her hands.

As his wings
wrapped around her the world twisted again; an endless nothing-moment that was
literally neither here nor there.  Then he released her on her feet in the
empty concrete corridor, pressing a last quick kiss to her lips before he
vanished home in silence.

The distraught
and confused woman that had left the building that morning was not the same one
that returned an hour later.  This new woman was serene, sublimely calm;
despite walking with a cane she seemed to float down the hall listening to some
internal music, a smile playing around her lips.

She clocked in
two minutes late and didn't even care.

Moira replayed
the spurious 'argument' in her mind and grinned wider to realize the skill with
which Leo had manipulated her.  He had told her exactly what she was wanting. 
He had agreed to give it to her.  And he had called her wonderful things –
powerful, brilliant, amazing, sexy, a warrior – and had twisted his tone and
stance and phrasing to make it feel insulting and incendiary, to focus her on
his demeanor and not the meaning of his words.

He'd given her
the most non-offensive fight she'd ever had.

Leo was right:
he could make love and whisper sweetly and protest his affection and devotion
forever and she wouldn't believe she could deserve it, until she decided that
she was a worthwhile person.  He'd all but begged her to accept herself,
forgive herself, love herself, underneath the scornful cloak of pretended
contempt.

She leaned
against the elevator wall, awash in a rush of love that finally held no trace
of self-doubt. 

I love a
warrior-king – I will never let myself be less than a warrior-queen. 

The break room
was almost empty even at the proper lunch hour so no one noticed her dreamy expression
as she got her lunch bag from the fridge and took it back to her desk.  She
brazenly unwrapped her sandwich to eat it where she sat, flipping through her
research.

“Did you
change your shirt?”

Moira turned. 
Erica was standing in the doorway of her cube.

“Yup.”  She
took another bite.

Her supervisor
goggled at her for a long moment.  “Why?” she asked, for lack of anything
better to say.

Moira
swallowed.

“You know,”
she answered, “I'd thought for maybe a second about figuring out some excuse to
give you if you noticed, some noise about oh, I spilled something on it at
lunch, and how I just happened to have clean laundry in the car, thank
goodness.

“And then I
decided: both of my shirts are work-appropriate and the reason I changed out of
one and into another is none of your business.  I'm just not interested in
investing the time to think of a decent lie and deliver it believably.  And we
certainly aren't close enough that I care to satisfy your non-work-related
curiosity.”

She ate
another bite of sandwich, watching Erica's face with calm interest.

“Hourly
associates are not allowed to eat at their desk,” she tried at last, but the
edict lacked teeth.

“Erica,” Moira
replied with great insincerity.  “Yesterday you 'challenged' me to get some
work done this week.  Well today I'm challenging
you
to get off my ass
about this meaningless crap and let me do it.  Consider this an 'opportunity'. 
Mmmkay?”

She spun her
chair around to face her screen again, finishing the last bit of her sandwich. 
Oooh, Leo had packed her some cherries for dessert.  Yum!

The
click-click of angry high-heels faded away across the row of cubes, a meaningless
sound to Moira now. 
It's good to be the queen,
she thought serenely. 
She pictured herself in a white dress, decked out in sparkling crystals and
moonstones...

And the weight
of a silver crown on her brow.

Mmm.  The
cherries were good, sweet and tart; he'd cut them in half and pitted them for
her. 
Hope he used magic; it’s a bitch to do by hand.
  She focused on
the taste and let the memory tease itself out.  The queen in a gathering storm.