Free Angel Fire by L. A. Weatherly Page B

rueful face. “Okay, you got me, Seb. So what do your parents really do?”
    “Really? They run a circus training school.”
    Lucy snickered. “You’re not going to get anything out of him. Don’t you remember from last night? Seb’s the original man of mystery.” She squeezed his arm, giving him an arch smile. “I bet your parents are really Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary of Boring, Mexico.”
    He laughed out loud at that – if only she knew. “Yes, I think maybe you’re right,” he said.
    Leaning close, Lucy traced the thin scar on his forearm, from a knife fight when he was younger. He caught a whiff of her shampoo; it smelled like oranges. “Let me guess – a swordfight with pirates, right?”
    “Just a cat scratch. It was a big cat, though.” Even without the sultry pink lights shifting through her aura, Seb was very aware that Lucy was coming on to him a little. As she touched his arm, he knew without trying that she was wondering what it would be like to kiss him; planning how she could get him on his own at the hostel later.
    From long habit he started to pull gently away – and then stopped. For the last year or so, the sense of his half-angel girl had grown so strong that Seb had stopped having even flings with human girls; it had felt like he was betraying her. But she wasn’t real, she never had been – he had to get that through his head. Since giving up his search he’d been even lonelier than usual; achingly aware that he was the only one of his kind. This girl didn’t want a relationship with him, so why not? She obviously liked him – and it had been so, so long.
    As if in response, he caught the sense of his half-angel girl again, like a whiff of perfume floating past. Seb’s jaw tightened. Why couldn’t she just leave him in peace, instead of taunting him with what he could never have?
    He didn’t pull away. After a moment he felt Lucy’s hand slide down his arm and find his. “Maybe you can give me a psychic reading later,” she said softly, under cover of the sound of a mariachi band that had just started up.
    Seb took in the clear invitation in her eyes. No human girl could ever give him the true companionship he craved; he knew that. This, right here, was the most he could ever have – and he’d take it, because he wasn’t saint enough to spend the rest of his life alone, never even feeling the warmth of someone’s touch.
    Fighting the wistfulness he felt, he pushed the beautiful phantom out of his mind and let his fingers close around Lucy’s. “Are you sure?” he said. “I’ll find out all your secrets.”
    “Promise?” She smiled, and flipped her ponytail back. She said something else, but he didn’t hear what it was; in a sudden flash, a blinding white figure had come into view overhead. There was an angel cruising over the crowded stalls. Its wings burned in the late afternoon sunlight as it glided, gazing down at the shoppers.
    Reflexively, Seb shifted his aura to the dullest colours he could think of, making it look stunted, unappetizing. He’d fought an angel only once before; he had no desire to ever do it again. “Come on, let’s go this way,” he said, pulling at Lucy’s hand. Amanda was lagging behind looking at jewellery; he took her arm too. “Come, there’s a stall over here I want to show you.”
    “Hey!” protested Amanda as he dragged her off. “I was going to buy that.”
    “No, don’t bother,” he said. “This stand’s better, I promise.”
    Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the angel select its victim and land, so dazzling with radiance that the marketplace seemed to fade away. The man stared at the being in wonder as it reached towards him. Smiling gently, it rested its gleaming hands in his aura and began to feed.
    Seb led the girls to another jewellery stand. While they stood laughing, trying on rings, he found his gaze drawn back to the angel as it finally flew away in a shudder of light. Though he no longer wanted to be pure angel