Ingrid’s hand clutched his, her attention riveted to the robed woman as well. She could see her. Irindi was … well, she appeared … human, though her face remained an emotionless mask.
“You have pleased God and the Order,” she said.
Luc lifted his free hand, the one not being crushed by Ingrid, and absently rubbed behind his ears. Her voice. It didn’t bellow or chime. It didn’t hurt to listen to her.
“I have?” he asked, feeling asinine.
“Surrender thyself, forgive thine enemy, and ye shall be cleansed and made anew.” Irindi—this human-looking version of her—said this as though it were scripture, but despite his centuries at the abbey, Luc had never so much as cracked open a Bible. He didn’t know what she meant.
“The angels of the Order are not without their gifts. I offer one to you. The opportunity to protect and guide God’s children here, among men—as a man.”
Luc wasn’t given the chance to comprehend, or breathe, before Irindi continued speaking.
“You shall embody all that is forgiveness. All that is God’s miracle.”
His stomach and heart dove in a mad rush, dipping and spinning. He didn’t understand what was happening or what Irindi was telling him.
“Until we meet again, Luc Rousseau.”
He blinked, and Irindi had gone. Ingrid gasped beside him, her body adhered to his side. He was shaking as he spun around, searching the corners of the front room for Irindi. Everything had suddenly been swamped in shadow.
His night vision wasn’t working.
“What just happened?” Ingrid whispered.
Luc was afraid to move. What had Irindi just done?
“Luc?” Ingrid pulled away, her lips parted in awe. “What did she mean … as a man?”
He stepped away from her, his heels treading on a couple of tumbled books. He stumbled but held out his hand to signal Ingrid to stay back. She stood still, and Luc felt a queasy churn in the pit of his stomach.
He hunted for the trigger inside his core, the one that had always given way to the command to coalesce. Whether he coalesced willfully or under compulsion, pulling that trigger, changing from man to monster, had become as natural as breathing.
It wasn’t there.
The trigger, the catch inside of him that had never failed to mutate his body, was gone. He couldn’t find it.
Luc’s breathing came faster. An edge of panic crept in. He couldn’t shift. He couldn’t see in the dark.
“Say something, Luc,” Ingrid pleaded in a small, uncertain voice.
“I think—” Another queasy growl churned his stomach, and he remembered a feeling like it. He’d felt it before, long, long ago. He was hungry.
“I’m human,” he said, so soft the words barely reached Ingrid’s ears. She turned her ear.
“What did you—”
“I think I’m human,” he said louder than before, his confidence rising as he tried, and failed, once again to locate the trigger that had centered him.
“Coalesce.” Disbelief lent urgency to Ingrid’s demand.
A solid knot bound up his throat as he shook his head. “I can’t.”
A hand muffled her cry and then Ingrid surged toward him. His knees gave out as she reached his side and they fell together to the floor, a tangle of laps and legs and arms. She clung to him, her hands running wildly over his cheeks, through his hair, smoothing down the front of his shirt.
“Is this real?” she gasped.
“I don’t know what else it could be.”
It wasn’t just his faultless sight or his ability to coalesce that had fled him. H?tel du Maurier itself had gone mute. His connection to this territory had completely disappeared from his senses. Everything around him felt quiet and still, except for the rapid-fire beating of his heart.
Irindi had said it was a gift, but that word … it was too small, too insignificant, to describe what this was. Even miracle didn’t measure up.
He didn’t know what to think. Once again the angels had left him with more questions than answers. All he knew, as Ingrid lowered her lips to his, was that he wouldn’t have to push her away. He’d been granted a second chance. A second life. Luc gathered Ingrid closer.
He wasn’t going to waste a moment.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS