“Amberd,” I said aloud, recalling the name of that place even as my mind translated its meaning: “fortress in the clouds”.
I felt like my brain was creaking - or maybe it was just the hinges of that inner door I had slammed on my childhood.
My mother, standing beside me, dark hair billowing as she pointed to those rounded towers . . .
With a pained gulp of air, I shoved that image away from me, but I couldn’t escape the vision taking up most of my little balcony. Shant filled the entire space except for where I was standing, and he moved even closer, so near I imagined the heat of his body forming a shield around me. “You have deeper injuries, older injuries that still need healing,” he murmured. “Let me help you. Let me soothe your heart as I soothed your body.”
I couldn’t respond directly to that statement, or to him. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the thready racing of my heart as I stared past Shant at SoHo. At the real world. At my present, not my strange, shrouded past. “Will that . . . fire-thing . . . show up again?”
“The Raah’s essence returned to its maker.” Shant’s downwards gesture was unmistakable. “But there will be others.”
My brain really was starting to spin in my skull. I was sure of it. “You’re trying to tell me that I sent whatever that thing was to Hell.”
“Yes.” Shant put his hands on my shoulders and moved me backwards. Carefully. Measuring out his strength so he didn’t overpower me. In a smooth, balanced motion, he swept my balcony doors shut with his leg, cutting off the steady flow of snow and wind.
My cheekbones ached in the sudden warmth of my small, dark and sparsely furnished apartment. The main room was lit only by the city itself - and a slight but definite silver glow from Shant’s skin. As for my skin, it seemed to hum where he was touching me. My body began to override my intellect, wanting more contact with him, leaning towards him even as I fought to force myself to step back.
“So, if that fire-thing - the Raah - if it was from Hell, then am I supposed to believe you’re from Heaven?” I stared into Shant’s eyes, his handsome face barely illuminated in the softer-than-soft light. “Does Shaddai mean some sort of angel?”
Shant’s wings rustled, then slowly eased from view, as if he might be pulling them into his flesh. When he smiled, the curl of his lips made me want to stand on my toes and kiss him.
“I’m no angel,” he assured me as he pulled me against him, then lifted one hand to brush my hair from my eyes.
I wrapped my arms around him, my palms pressing against his taut back, then the ridges of flesh where his wings had been.
His fingers lingered on my forehead, spreading tingly waves of heat through my temples, down the sides of my neck, and lower, through my whole body, especially the spot where his hard belly pressed into my ribs. I wanted to lean my head against the warm firmness of his chest, and I wondered if he was making me dizzy somehow, stealing my ability to reason, to be afraid, to even be cautious.
His face was lowering towards mine, his green eyes sizzling with light and life. I could almost taste his lips. His breath tickled against my chin and nose, and I realized he was doing it again, reading me somehow, and my heartbeat rushed, then slowed, rushed then slowed -
And he stopped.
Pulled back.
Let me go.
My chest tightened from the shock of the sudden abandonment. It felt wrong, being more than an arm’s length away from Shant, and I wondered if I really had left my sanity back at Riverview.
His beautiful eyes had gone wide, and for a moment I worried that he’d turn, blast through my balcony doors, and vanish into the dark winter night.
Instead, the silver glow from his body increased, falling across me like a search beam. “It makes more sense now,” he murmured. “It was you - the danger to you — that brought me here.”
I saw him touch his chest, trace the spot where his phoenix wounds had been before they healed, but I didn’t understand. I was still aching from wanting to kiss him, and my arms screamed to be around him again.
When I stepped towards him, he stepped back, and this time, he did bump into the balcony doors. He raised both hands as if to ward me off, then bowed his head.
“My apologies for my boldness,” he said, his voice rough with shame. “Why didn’t you tell me? If I had known, I would have never . . . Forgive me
. Please. But how did you conceal yourself so perfectly?”
I rubbed one of my eyes to relieve the pressure building anew in my brain. “Shant, what are you talking about?”
And I just want to be kissing you, not figuring this out.
“I’m Shaddai,” he said, as if that explained everything, then seemed to realize I truly didn’t know what he meant - about himself, or about me.
“Shaddai,” he said again, his voice rough with surprise and disbelief. “A protector, nothing more.”
When I still looked clueless, he came towards me once more, but stopped well shy of grabbing me again, of pulling me against him like I so wanted him to do.