Page 32 of Angels Don’t Date

“Yes. I’m not bored when I’m dueling with you.”

I smiled happily and sank into his feathers, letting them wrap around me while his heat warmed me to my toes.

“I’m getting sleepy,” I said, the rocking boat and the warm sun on my face mixing with the delightful feathers and arms wrapped around me.

“Same. I was up all night flying to the coast to retrieve a pan. What’s your excuse?”

“I think my heart’s still healing from the time I got shot.”

He inhaled sharply. “Does it bother you?”

“That Mini shot me? Of course it does.”

“I mean the healing. Did I not do a good job? What kind of healing do you need?”

“For the next time I’m shot? I need rest. And blood. And more rest. So I’m going to take a nap wrapped in your chicken feathers. Sh. And you can nap to recover from your flight.”

“But if we’re both napping, who is watching for assassins?”

“Mitt and Hallie.” Hallelujah! “I like her.”

“You like everyone. Even that fairy. I should tell you, for the sake of full disclosure, that he’s not actually Italian.”

I snorted. “Of course he’s not Italian. He uses the wrong accent. But it’s his brand.”

“You know all about accents?”

“Obviously. I was raised by the Scholar. I speak 15 non dead languages, and I can translate…”

“Sh,” he whispered against my ear, his breath warm and tickly. “Don’t speak of translating or we’ll have to pluck out your eyeballs. I should hire you as my ambassador. You could buy ballgowns for all the events, and speak to all the diplomats.”

“Oh, yes. I’m notoriously good at being charming and gracious.” I closed my eyes, smiling, and let the boat rock while his heart beat steadily, sending me to sleep.

Chapter

Eleven

Iwoke up from a weird dream, like my arm was on fire, distantly throbbing on and on and on until I blinked awake and sat up. I was still in the boat, but there was a cloud over the sun, and the boat was drifting in the center of the pond.

Richard was still there, lounging with his glorious wings, looking like the spread in some magazine titled: Hot Angel. Speaking of hot, my elbow burned in real life. I frowned down at it, stretching out and twisting so I could see my inner elbow where it really burned.

“Are you all right, Princess?”

I looked at him, so perfectly beautiful and delicious, and then something wrapped around my extended wrist and yanked me over the edge of the boat and into the water.

The shock of cold, the pressure all around, and the grip on my wrist bone as I was dragged down by the tentacled monster, was panic-inducing. Seriously, now I was getting tentacled assassins? I didn’t like it.

I slashed with my claws while I struggled to hold my breath, but another tentacle came around my waist, then around my throat, then, all of me, until I was in the full-bodied grasp of a pulsing worm. I was on my own, and underwater I couldn’t do spells. I channeled my vampire, ripping off tentacles, but more took their place.

I struggled and strained, but I was running out of air, and I needed more blood to replenish my vampire side.

Black specks filled my vision while pressure on my throat increased. Would the sea monster crush it?

Though the murky water, a bright light shone, brighter and brighter and brighter while my arm burned until with a hiss and a crackle, the water evaporated, and then the monster screamed.

Tentacles shriveled and bubbled in the overwhelming heat. Heavenly fire. Richard was going to burn the pond? And then he was there, carrying me up with steady beats of his enormous wings, but the edges weren’t tipped in soft downy fluff but sharp blades of fire and gold.

I clung to him while he flew me, shivering, gasping, heart beating too hard in my chest, back to my cottage. No, he was going directly to the castle. He burst through a window and landed in the library, shards of glass surrounding the Siren, Pearly White where he sat on the red velvet couch, looking cold and irritable.