Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,157

just drop me off, so they have no idea I had help getting back.”

He smiled—a truly predatory smile, much like the one I used from time to time. His was even better than mine. “I can be unseen if I choose to be,” he reminded me.

“These are vampires. They’ve got more finely tuned senses than humans.”

“Alice,” he said patiently, “I’m an archangel. If I don’t want someone to know I’m there, they won’t. I won’t interfere…unless things get out of hand.”

“All right.” I turned to Daisy. “Is this satisfactory, Your Highness? We’re getting an archangel escort home. Doesn’t get any safer than that.”

She growled agreeably.

“Okay then.” I took a deep breath. “Come on home, then, Daisy-dog.”

She took a couple of steps and launched herself at me, turning to golden magic in mid-leap.

We’d done this a half-dozen times, but never in the Broken World. Back home, she’d simply returned to my body in a surge of shifter magic and settled into my bones with the pleasant sensation of a puzzle piece finding its home.

This time, the experience was anything but pleasant.

When she hit my chest, the impact was only slightly less powerful than if she’d been completely solid. The only reason I didn’t fly backward into the rocks was Ronan was standing behind me and caught me.

And when she passed through my flesh and returned to my body—oh holy hell, did it hurt.

My hoarse screams echoed in the ruins. Ronan held me as I doubled over. If I’d thought it hurt when Daisy had jumped out of me when we arrived, that was nothing compared to the agony of her return.

Finally, it was over.

Daisy? I asked tentatively, clutching my aching chest.

Sulking, her tail down and ears back, she retreated into the shadows in my head. Maybe she was upset because her return caused me so much pain, or maybe because she’d enjoyed her freedom and now felt confined. I didn’t know the reason for her silence, and she clearly didn’t want to talk to me.

Her golden magic gave my skin a light glow as it settled into my bones. The glow slowly faded. I rubbed my chest and straightened with a grimace.

“I’m sorry,” Ronan said, releasing me.

“For what?” I wiped my nose on my dirty sleeve.

He helped me sit on the rock next to Esme. “I’m sorry you had to go through so much pain.”

“It’s not usually that bad, but this place…” I waved my hand. “It’s messed with our magic and our bodies. Nothing works right.”

“Then I should get you all home.” He regarded Esme. “Do you need to ride along in Alice’s backpack? Or can you travel with me?”

She put her ears back and made an indignant sound.

“I take that as a yes that she doesn’t need to ride with you.” He brought me my backpack and helped me put it on, fastening the straps across my chest and stomach. He put on his own pack and pulled me to my feet. “You ready?”

“Will this suck as much as when Tis and her sisters sent us away from Edis?” I asked.

“That was rough travel because of how quickly we had to be moved. Had there been less urgency, it wouldn’t have been so hard on you. And just so you know, Tis and the others made it harder on Mariela than on you.”

“I wondered why it took her so long to recover. See—I knew Tis was secretly cool.”

Ronan snorted. “Lucky for you, she is.”

“Lucky for you too, as it turned out.” I picked Esme up. She jumped from my hands onto Ronan’s shoulder. “I want to get back as soon as I can, but we can take enough time to make this a smooth ride. I have to deal with a vampire I’m pretty pissed at when we get where we’re going, and I’d rather not make my entrance looking and feeling like shit.”

“Well, I can’t do much about how you look.”

“Ass.”

He wrapped his arms around me. I scowled. “Is this necessary?”

His wings erupted in a blaze of silver-blue magic that blinded me. His mouth brushed my ear. “You said you wanted a smooth ride,” he murmured.

Before I could retort, the ground fell away from our feet, and we were gone.

31

Flying Ronan Airlines was indeed a very smooth ride. I made a mental note never to say that sentence aloud when Sean or Malcolm might overhear it.

Instead of an out-of-control tumble through an airless magical riptide, we caught what felt like an ocean current and followed it past dark