Forbidden Read online

  Leah sighed. “Maybe. From what you’re saying, it doesn’t sound like there’s very much available anyway.”

  “Afraid not.” The professor sat back and gave her a shrewd look. “What you ought to do is butter up that brother of yours so you can keep staying with him. Does he live close by?”

  “Not really. He’s a surgeon at TGH, so he lives by the hospital, but it’s an easy commute—a straight shot. So I don’t mind.”

  “A doctor, hmm? Nice. And I bet his place is gorgeous—a lot nicer than what you could find on a TA’s stipend.”

  “It is really nice,” Leah admitted. “The bedroom especially—” She broke off abruptly, blushing as she remembered what had happened between her and Owen in his bedroom that morning. For some reason, she could almost smell the warm scent of his skin and feel the hard planes of his chest against her naked breasts. God, I have to stop thinking like this! Just because I had that crazy dream doesn’t mean I should be entertaining these kinds of fantasies. What would Owen think of me if he knew? “The kitchen, I mean,” she continued in confusion. “I meant to say the kitchen is really nice.”

  “Oh, do you cook?” Professor Dobrev asked.

  “Uh, yes, I do. My mom was an excellent cook, and she taught me everything I know.” Leah was relieved the professor hadn’t noticed her moment of confusion.

  “I love to cook too. I find it relaxing. Chopping vegetables, making bread—it’s like Zen for me.” Dobrev grinned. “We should trade recipes sometime. So I take it you’re anxious to try out your brother’s fabulous kitchen?”

  “Actually, I am.” Of course, I’ll cook him supper. That will show him how I feel, how much I appreciate him. Leah’s mind was already racing a hundred miles a minute, thinking up possible menus and the ingredients she would need. But I’ll still go look at a few places before I go grocery shopping, just so I can say I did, she decided. After all, she couldn’t count on an invitation to be Owen’s permanent houseguest. It was best to be prepared in case he decided he wanted to go back to the way things had been for the past ten years.

  “Well, you’d better get going, then.” Professor Dobrev made a shooing gesture. “Don’t forget to skim that book. We can discuss it tomorrow. Same time.”

  “All right. And thank you so much again.” Leah smiled as she picked her way through the academic maze of the messy office and let herself out.

  “My pleasure,” Dobrev called as the door closed. “See you tomorrow.”

  “That went rather well, I think.”

  “The same here. And how did you enjoy spending time in human form?”

  “Ugh. It was awful.” The soft sound of feathers rustling. “Crawling on the ground like some kind of bug, not even able to fly…”

  “Missed your wings, did you?”

  “Of course I did. I don’t know how Micah and Ariel bear it.”

  “They can bear it because they don’t know. Not that you didn’t try to give Ariel a pretty broad hint.”

  “Oh, you saw that, did you? Yes, I thought it couldn’t hurt.”

  “It did, though. It made her dizzy. You know you have to be careful. If we overload those weak human brains of theirs before they get together—”

  “I know. They might never find their way back to their celestial bodies.” A sigh. “It’s just that the war is heating up. We can’t wait another ten years. Micah and Ariel need to find each other now.”

  “I know what the situation is, but you have to be careful not to give her a stroke.”

  “I’m sorry.” Contritely. “But you know my job is harder than yours. Micah already desires Ariel. She, on the other hand, still thinks of him as a brother. And that human taboo is holding them apart, because neither one of them has any idea Micah was adopted.”

  “That can’t be helped for now. All you can do is plant a seed.”

  “It’s been planted, all right. Now we just have to wait for it to grow.” An impatient sigh. “And waiting is the hardest part. Especially with all of hell on our doorstep.”

  “Don’t worry. We will prevail in the end.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Chapter Seven

  Several hours later, Leah was back at Owen’s loft, feeling discouraged. The hunt for a place of her own had been a dismal failure. It seemed almost everything in her price range was taken—all but a creepy little apartment building not far from campus that looked like someplace Jason from Friday the 13th would feel right at home.

  It was a grungy, ground-floor one-bedroom, with water spots on the ceiling and a leaky bathroom faucet. There were also black plastic roach traps in every corner. But when Leah had asked about them, the landlord, a surly man with a huge, hairy belly falling out of his dirty white T-shirt, had denied there was any kind of a pest problem. He had frowned when he said it, his brown piggy eyes almost lost in the folds of his doughy cheeks. Leah got the impression he wouldn’t be the easiest person to rent from—he was about as scummy as the apartment itself. Still, since there was nothing else, she supposed she might actually have to take it. She’d gotten his card and promised to call him back in a day or so.

  Leah sighed. Oh well, maybe I can just take it for a little while, and next semester something else will open up. Nothing I can do about it now, and anyway, it’s time to start supper.

  She’d stopped by a grocery store on the way home and got the ingredients for a chef salad, since that had always been one of Owen’s favorites, and it was easy to make. Not that she minded preparing something more elaborate, but it was better to eat light if he was going to get home late, and besides, she had to have time to study the angel-legends book Professor Dobrev had given her.

  After everything was chopped and chilling in the sleek, stainless-steel fridge, Leah took a quick shower and looked for something more comfortable to change into. She could have sworn she’d packed plenty of sleep clothes, but all she could find was a single lacy black negligee and matching panties. The set was way too sexy and see-through to hang around the house in. Especially after that weird dream I had this morning. Leah pushed the disturbing thought away and kept looking.

  Where had her sweatpants and concert T-shirts gone to? After digging through her suitcase twice, she decided they were probably all in the boxes being shipped from Sacramento. In the end, she grabbed another one of Owen’s white T-shirts and pulled on a comfortable old pair of ragged jean shorts she liked to wear around the house. Why she had packed those and no nightgowns was beyond her, but she had been pretty distracted while she was getting ready to move.

  She debated wearing a bra under the shirt, but the lacy white underwire bra she’d had on all day had been cutting into her unmercifully. Leah was reluctant to put it back on. The other bra she had—the one she’d been wearing when she first arrived at Owen’s doorstep—was black. Which was going to look weird under a white T-shirt, but what the hell. It wasn’t like she cared what Owen thought of how she looked anyway—he was her brother, not her boyfriend.

  So, comfortable in her black bra and white T-shirt, she settled on the black leather sofa with the small leather-bound volume of angel mythology and prepared to do her homework.

  Most of the legends had to do with the idea of fallen angels coming to earth to take human wives. Leah was fairly familiar with that concept, so she skimmed a lot until she came to a section in the middle of the book that had a red silk bookmark between the pages. “Illandra’s Debasement.” Hmm, interesting.

  At first she thought it was another fallen-angel story, and it did start with a male angel and a female human. But then it turned out to be a story of the human woman’s children instead, specifically her daughter, who had been fathered by the angel. The writing style caught her, and after skimming a few paragraphs, Leah was hooked and went back to read the legend more carefully.

  And it came to pass that Illandra, who was the child of a human mother and a celestial father, was more beautiful than any other in the land, for she shone with an inner light she had in