regal authority.
Damali watched wide-eyed as he stripped the sheath of fabric away from his body at the door of his closet, and began searching for his armor. Totally mesmerized, she had to find a bench to sit down on before she fell down.
"While here, and should you ever come due to a barrier break in the energy seals between our kingdoms, you cannot judge by parental lineage."
She wasn't sure what he was talking about. His baritone voice was running all through her, the military battle, no-nonsense tone in it making the hair on her arms rise. She almost wanted to just start some mess to see the brother pull a blade, but tucked that insane thought away and tried to listen as he mounted his golden breastplate, and put his helmet under his arm. Have mercy . . .
"Half-human, half-angel does not mean that entity is good. It may have made a choice to use the preternatural power in a negative way-- just as my grandfather fell from grace. Conversely, I have a best friend, her father was a dragon... but she has a heart of gold. This is what makes this realm so challenging. It is a mirror image of earth, a gray zone, where choice is based upon an individual soul, not a broad category or fila. Any entity with a soul can make a choice, hence be redeemed, unlike original demons created in the nether realms."
"Then how do you know?" Damali whispered. Cain was blowing her mind with new knowledge.
"You must sense the vibrations off the entity in question. Hence, I, no more than you, am interested in having the earth prematurely flooded. There must be a very strict scrutiny for passage out to assist in the final war."
Damali nodded. This brother was pushing so many right buttons she was sure she was glowing. "Like a celestial or interdimensional passport system."
"Yes," he said, offering her his elbow as he passed.
She accepted it, but it was such an Old World gesture that she wasn't sure how to react. He brought her to the edge of the clearing at the end of the cliff, unsheathed the blade he was wearing, and used it like a pointer, lighting the sky in sparkling, golden filaments.
"I will show you the main pavilion, the broad thoroughfares, and the temples. The libraries are expansive. As are the universities. In the residential districts, each palace was the prototype for the ones later human-designed. There is a sensory space at the outreaches. The hall of whispers. This is where beings so moved will try to pierce the veil to send humanity inspiration, or nightmares, whichever their choice."
"Is that where you met me?" she asked quietly, still marveling as she looked down the building-studded landscape in the jewel- green valley below. Then she remembered the vibes coming off the alley bricks behind the club, her mind ablaze with curiosity.
"No," he said quietly. "I will tell you where, later." He smiled. "To begin that explanation will make me lose focus."
Again she felt her face warm from his words. "This is awesome though," she said, peering over the cliff. She backed up from the edge of it and glanced around. "This is all energy?" She stooped to pick a blade of grass, studying it so closely her eyes nearly crossed.
Within the cool green blade, she could see tiny whirls of energy in-teracting as though the atoms in the structure were visible through the translucent, iridescent-green casing. Delighted, she brought it to her ear and listened hard to the soft, humming resonance it contained.
He seemed so pleased that he rubbed his jaw and paced away from her as though needing the distance to not touch her. "I can transport you down--"
"No," she said, laughing. "I can do it."
"You can? Here?" Raw desire began to take over his brown irises. "The laws of gravity still apply, you know."
She shrugged, dropped the scepter, and unfastened her Isis, which made his eyes go straight silver. Then she became a sparrow and took off down the side of the cliff. He was waiting for her when she reached the bottom, and he held out her Isis and her scepter to her.
"You should have these as you walk," he said just above a whisper.
"Thanks," she replied, more quietly than intended. "But why do you have armor on, just to stroll through town?" That she needed to know.
"Because I'm with you, and you are flesh," he said calmly, his gaze sweeping the pedestrian-packed boulevard.
Spectacularly attractive beings