“I am…where I choose to be.” Her ethereal image kneeled before him, and she stroked his hair. Then she fingered one of the ropey lengths and smiled. “Eons have passed, and you still wear your hair this way. She likes it, youknow.”
“What?” He shook his head again, trying to clear the dizziness. “Inara—”
“Shh, brother. Go back to your mate and do what youmust.”
He heaved a sigh at her words. Damn, he pressed a hand to his new injury. Even breathing fucking hurt. “I can’t. She’ll die, and that I cannotbear.”
“How quickly you forget.Iam the Goddess of Life. Aye, I’ve accepted what I am.” A wry laugh. “Death is not in the cards today.” She laid a hand on his arm. The intense pain eased as his body shimmered and the decrepit rooftopvanished.
Eyes clenched tight, Dagan staggered as he took form, not on the portico of the castle but on his ownbalcony.
“Be at peace,ahu,” her fading apparition whispered. “You cannot blame yourself for something you had no controlover.”
“Inara,wait!”
“Alas, I cannotlinger...”
At the sadness in her voice, Dagan’s chest hurt. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come getyou—”
“No, brother mine, this time, it’s my burden to endure. Penance for my mistake.” Her misty form enfolded him in a sweet hug he couldn’t feel. Her familiar scent of honey and some musky flower surrounded him, filling his mind with images of a time of innocence and laughter. Then, he wasalone.
“Forgive your old friend.” Her last words penetrated the fog in his mind. “Things are not what they seem…the dark angel, Lucifer, was mymistake.”
