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Yes, he certainly was in store for many more surprises. She just had to trust that he was strong enough to withstand them all before her luck ran out.
Because the truth of the matter was, despite what she’d planned for her original course of action, she was beginning to like the angel. Very much so.
And wasn’t that the biggest and most perplexing surprise of all?
Oh, what a pair they made, truly.
Clara pulled her hands out of his and took a few steps back. “If surprises frustrate you, then you’re really not going to like what I have to tell you.”
“What’s that, my lady?”
She gestured toward a copse of trees in the distance and gripped her cloak tighter, armoring herself as best she could. “We’re here.”
Chapter 12
Bronze had no idea what he expected to find when he reached the lycan lands, but the discombobulation of modern-day attire mismatched with far more leather and animal hides than this side of the century had any business seeing was too much of an assault on the senses. Perhaps it was the fading pain of the coyote bites adding to the delusion currently taking up residence in his brain matter, but he almost wished for another dose of fangs on flesh just to jar him out of the reality he’d walked into.
Holy fucking shit.
The community Clara escorted him through could only be described as an old village but in the strangest, most bastardized sense of the concept. There was an abundance of modest stone buildings and wooden cabins, some of which featured roofs with modern asphalt shingles while others were topped with—he narrowed his eyes—actual thatched roofs. As in, clumps of dried vegetation that had gone out of fashion somewhere around the dawn of indoor plumbing and the zygote phase of antiseptic use.
Of the few people—lycans, he corrected himself—milling around, it was clear that the time, tone, and tenor of the mortal realm had fuck all to do with how they lived. One male, who couldn’t have been older than twenty or so in mortal years, wore dark brown leather leggings similar to what he’d first discovered Clara wearing. The tunic he had on, however, was a thin beige linen that looked like it had been yoinked straight off a two-centuries-old laundry line and then belted at the waist with a strip of even more leather, which was likely cut from the same cow as what he covered his ass with. The male’s hair, though closely cut at the sides, swooped up in a rusted red wave that didn’t hold a candle to Bronze’s auburn follicle situation but reminded him of the henna from North Africa used to dye hair thousands of years ago.
Another male, this one pulling a wooden cart behind him as if he himself were a beast of burden, looked like any movie set extra for a nineties motorcycle film. Black leather vest cut to allow for maximum arm movement and not much else. Green camouflage khakis that were only as baggy as his thick thighs would allow. Shitkickers with soles sporting more rubber than tractor tires. And a puss that could curdle milk before it had even left the teat.
In all of Bronze’s immortal years, very few circumstances had made him, well, reevaluate his depth and just how strong of a swimmer he really was, and this one topped the list. As he trailed behind Clara through what he could only describe as an old-timey tourist trap with an identity crisis, the pain in his leg reminded him of another, far more acute crisis of his own.
At first, Bronze figured the sluggishness in his powers was due to his lack of sleep and the shortened time available to recharge his elemental energy. Thinking back on it, however, he’d been so concerned for Clara, he was lucky if he’d gotten at least four hours’ worth of regenerative sleep at all. It wasn’t like he hadn’t pulled all-nighters before, and no, four hours was hardly enough for a sustained power diet, but it was usually sufficient to get the juices flowing the next day, provided he didn’t do anything too taxing.
Like taking on three pissed-off coyotes on their own turf.
His metallic armor failing him in a fight wasn’t the most comforting realization, but it wouldn’t have been the first time, and he could logic out the whys of it.
What didn’t make sense was why the fuck he was still limping along with a chewed-up leg or why his angel fire had zero interest in responding to his call. His powers were hardly sentient. Like his ability to heal, they were as much a part of him as his big mouth and megawatt smile. There was no contract. No days off. They always showed up for the job. So why the hell were his powers—and, by extension, he—moving at the speed of molasses?
And that, right there, was the other terrifying thought that kept his mind from staying on the task at hand and wandering to other circumstances he preferred to keep well and truly buried.
If he didn’t even have the strength to stitch up his meat, let alone reliably call on his powers, how the hell was he supposed to make it through whatever trials the lycans had in store for him so he could nab the other relic and get gone?
Then yet another pang of worry knocked around his ribs on the heels of the others, making him fully aware of just how hollow his chest cavity had become over the eons.
Clara. Even as she walked ahead of him, with her bare feet poking out from the hem of her cloak and hinting at the rest of her bare state beneath, he couldn’t shake the image of how he’d seen her after the coyote attack. Naked, newly turned, and flushed pink and pretty with the fresh heat of battle. Every flash of her instep as she led him further into her world was a reminder of what else he’d seen . . . and not seen.
She had been there, on the ground, her white hair engulfing both her and her sweet secrets, and all he could think was how badly he wanted to brush that gorgeous mane aside and lift her from the forest floor, only to lay her down properly upon it again in another fashion. Of all the creatures he’d encountered over his very long, long years in the mortal realm, none had ever stirred him up so thoroughly, to the point where he would have sliced off a sizable chunk of his wings just to transform into a beast alongside her and give himself over to whatever drug she emitted that called him there and kept him.
Bronze simmered over the circumstances, not liking that each step he took landed him in a deeper hole than before. His fondness for the little lycan was threatening to grow into something far greater than simple attraction. Yes, he’d given his word that he’d see their contract through, but he’d also taken great pains to remind himself of his impartiality on the matter. These were not his people, after all. He had no claim to them or even so much as a passing interest. Clara had even said that once he’d won her hand outright and they’d commenced with the formal necessities, he’d only be needed in brief official capacities. Fine by him. Perfect. Fucking wonderful.
What did interest him, however, was the unbridled access that came part and parcel to his winnings.
Access to the royal coffers and properties. An unquestioning allowance to search and scour the lycan stronghold as he saw fit. An opportunity to locate the other relic Rhode had advised him of and get the hell out of Dodge so he and his brothers could maybe finally return home.
Bronze shifted his pack to his good shoulder and tried not to think about the mounting distractions, be they female- or flesh-related. There was a prize on the horizon far too significant to demand anything less than his whole attention.
It wasn’t just a homeland he’d lost when he was sealed out of the Empyrean. The sooner he could get Clara settled on the throne and that relic settled in his hand, the sooner he could focus on fulfilling another contract he’d made long ago.
Chapter 13
The sun was just cresting its arc in the sky when Clara and Bronze ascended the steps of the king’s stronghold. For some reason, the stones beneath her bare feet didn’t feel quite as cold as they normally did after a shift, when she’d indulge her desire to forgo her boots. Perhaps it was the warmth of Bronze’s sturdy frame at her back or the muscle of her courage giving off more heat due to her continued use of it, but she welcomed the sensation with a newfound appreciation for a strength she didn’t know she possessed until recently.
