By the time my feet hit the deck, the dinosaur didn’t look like a dinosaur anymore. Courtesy of my magic, it now most closely resembled a red sky penguin. The other dinosaur saw the little fluffy creature and froze for a moment before it let out a shrill screech and shot toward its favorite prey. The sky penguin spun around and zipped off. The dinosaur took chase. They’d be miles away before my spell wore off, and the dinosaur realized the penguin it was chasing was actually its mate.
“That was a very thorough shifting spell,” Colonel Dragonsire commented, the bodies of the two dinosaurs who’d tackled him balanced over his shoulders. It looked like he’d killed them with his bare hands.
“Glad you approve,” I replied, even though his face didn’t look particularly approving. No, he looked contemplative. Like I was a threat he was assessing. Well, he had promised that he would be watching me closely.
“To fool the dinosaur, you had to change not only its companion’s appearance and the way it moves, but also its scent and the sounds it makes. You shifted its entire sensory spectrum.”
“Not the entire spectrum. I don’t usually bother with taste. To do that, I’d have to know how the beasts taste, and I’m not nearly so dedicated to my work that I’m willing to taste every monster that I want to shift.”
Colonel Dragonsire hefted his dead dinosaurs higher, then hurled them over the side of the ship. “That’s not what I hear.”
“Oh?” I said, trying not to cringe.
In my early days at the Legion, some of the other soldiers had taunted me mercilessly for my attention to detail. A few of them had even claimed my research involved some pretty disgusting experiments. Had those vile rumors reached Colonel Dragonsire’s ears?
“From all accounts, you are very dedicated to your job,” he said, his eyes as hard as blue diamonds.
“I try to be,” I replied, averting the Interrogator’s penetrating stare.
It was then that I saw the damage his tumble with the beasts had done to his body. His vest was in pieces. Crimson stains told me the dinosaurs’ talons hadn’t just shredded the leather; it had slashed his skin too.
“You’re wounded.”
He looked down at his torn clothing. “It would appear so.” He peeled the shredded leather off his body and tossed it to the floor. My gaze dipped, tracing the hard muscle of his shoulders, down to the taut contours of his chest, across the ridge of his… I blinked, forcing my eyes to focus on the bloody wounds that marred his skin.
I reached out to him.
He stepped back. “What are you doing?” he demanded, his voice hard.
“Healing you.”
“I can heal myself.”
The Legion’s Interrogators lived and breathed paranoia, but the Master Interrogator had turned mistrust into an art.
“You can’t reach them all,” I told him. “There’s a nasty gash on your back.”
He stretched his arm over his shoulder, reaching for the wound.
I grabbed his hand. “Stop moving, Colonel. You’ll only aggravate your wounds.”
He glared down at my hand. “I said I could heal myself.”
I didn’t back down, and I didn’t let go. I’d had a lot of experience healing obstinate angels—and convincing them that their inability to stand meant it was time to extricate themselves from the battlefield. Angels made horrible patients. They really were their own worst enemy.
“What if I promised not to stab you in the back until after the mission?” I said.
Damiel Dragonsire, Master Interrogator, the Fury Angel, actually snorted. His tense muscles relaxed slightly. “Very well.”
Warm, golden magic glowed on my hands. I traced my fingers across his wounds, healing them one by one.
“You know, you have to trust someone,” I said as I healed a deep laceration on his shoulder blade. “No man is an island.”
Colonel Dragonsire glanced over his shoulder at me, his expression guarded. “Perhaps no man is an island, but every angel is,” he challenged. “You would do well to learn that. Being so quick to trust people will only get you killed. I’ve been at this for a long time. I know what I’m talking about. Trust me.”
“Trust you? I thought I shouldn’t trust anyone.” I smirked. I just couldn’t help it.
To my surprise, he laughed. The sudden movement caused my hand to slip off his back.
“Hold still,” I scolded him, returning my attention to healing. The wound on his back was already knitting together, so I circled around him to take care of the one that marred the left side of his chest.
He watched me work, his expression almost perplexed. “Most people are afraid to touch me.”
I looked up, meeting his eyes. “Most people are afraid to speak to you too.”
His eyes hardened. “Indeed.”
Was that a hint of remorse I detected in his voice? Was it possible that he actually missed the personal connections Interrogators so openly shunned?
I brushed my fingers across his final wound, then backed away from him. “Good as new,” I declared as the healing glow faded from my hands.
He looked himself over, checking my handiwork.
“Worried that I missed a spot?”
“No,” he replied. “You have a reputation as a competent healer.”
“Ah, so you’re admiring my work then?” A smile tugged at my lips. “Maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two from it.”
He gave me an odd look. If it had come from anyone else but Damiel Dragonsire, I’d have labeled that expression as ‘perplexed’. But the Master Interrogator did not get perplexed. Or did he?
“Thank you.”
I blinked. I could scarcely believe my ears. Had Damiel Dragonsire just thanked me?
“You’re welcome,” I said quickly, before he changed his mind and decided healing him was part of some evil ploy. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Not for a skilled healer like you.”
“I wasn’t talking about healing you,” I told him. “I was talking about you trusting me to heal you.”
“Trust is…”
“A double-edged sword?” I offered. Why was I smiling? This was no time for smiling.
A soft, deep grunt hummed in his chest. “I prefer single-edged swords myself.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Life is simpler that way.”
“Life isn’t black and white, Colonel. It’s layers of delightful complexity,” I told him.
“That is an ironic statement coming from a second-generation angel, a soldier of light.”
“Well, I guess we’re all more than the sum of our parts.”
He cocked a single eyebrow up at me. “You are, without a doubt, the most naive angel I’ve ever met. Time will strip away your innocence.”
“I hope not.”
A contemplative crinkle formed between his eyes. “Or you’re simply the best actress I’ve ever met.”
“That’s the cynic talking again.”
“I am the cynic.” He glanced down, his fingers tracing the smooth skin that had, just moments ago, been marred with cuts. “You did a flawless job. There’s no hint of the wounds.”