On the Hunt (Sentinel Wars #3.5)(80)
Author: Gena Showalter

"I wish." Shay sighed into the phone. "Jamie holed himself up down there last night after you left, and he’s not budged ever since. No way would he let me take anything out of the library. Frankly, Sunny, he’s not been in his right mind since you left."

Sunny closed her eyes. "He’s gotta leave the cellar sometime, right?"

"But not long enough that I could let you borrow any of those books. He’d ask too many questions, all of them about you."

And he’d want to know why Shay was removing those volumes, which would elicit a firestorm of problems, as well as potential amorous attention once Jamie realized Sunny was the one after the texts. Which was so not what Sunny needed right now. She’d been hoping to come up with a subtle way of investigating their "problem" without Jamie knowing. Like she’d told him, she was a lower-rung angel, and it wasn’t as if she had many answers, but during the night she’d come to hope that maybe—just maybe—some of his family’s many volumes about angels might help them.

Might even point out a way they could be together, a way she might fall to earth without turning dark or sinning.

"Sunny, I have to tell you . . . Jamie can be incredibly stubborn. He won’t let this thing with you go easily."

"But, Shay, he doesn’t understand. If he did, he wouldn’t be doing all that research."

"Then why did you want to read all those same books?" Shay asked innocently. "Just a sudden random interest in learning more about your own kind?"

"I kept praying, all last night . . . hoping there might be some way."

"You can’t blame my brother for hoping and praying for the same thing." Shay laughed into the phone, lowering her voice. "That kiss you two shared, it must’ve been out of this world."

Sunny’s face flushed and she covered her eyes even though Shay wasn’t there to see her shyness. "I think I could love him." Sunny reached for a pillow, pressing it against her cheek, wanting to hide in shame.

Shay made a happy little squealing sound into the phone. "That means we’ve just got to solve this problem."

"It’s more than a problem!"

"A compatibility issue, that’s all. God is love. You of all people know that, more than any of us. So if He is love, and you think you could love my brother, then maybe it’s not as forbidden and impossible as you seem to think."

Sunny opened her mouth, about to argue and explain Kiel’s warnings, but Shay was too excited to hear.

"Sunny, doll, I have an idea. Just keep an open mind and I’ll be over in an hour."

Shay sat down across from Sunny on the sofa. She clasped her hands together, excitement glinting in her eyes. "I don’t know how much you know, as an angel. About me or us, I mean."

Sunny couldn’t help smiling. "I’m limited in my scope. So don’t worry; I don’t know the secret stuff you wrote in your diary at fourteen."

Shay reached for the big purse she’d plopped on the floor. "What about my gifts? Jamie’s and Mason’s? Know anything about that?"

"Just that you’re all very gifted hunters. That’s all."

Sunny peered into Shay’s purse, wondering what she was pulling out of it. Suddenly her friend produced a big sketch pad and charcoal pencils. Shay placed them both on her knees and then faced Sunny. "I’m a prophetic artist. That’s one of my gifts, and that means I can sketch the future or visions or sometimes get heavenly insight. I’m a prophetess."

Sunny grinned. "Oh, yeah, that—that I’d actually sensed. Sorry, forgot to mention it. It’s in the way your aura glows. It’s pearl colored."

"Really?" Shay’s eyes went wide. "I don’t see auras. None of us Angels do. That’s freaking cool."

"Just like humans, heavenly guardians have different gifts. That’s one of mine."

"Like how I draw and see things, learn things." Shay nodded in understanding, opening her sketch pad. "Oh, and I should warn you, Sunny—I kind of zone out while I do this."

Shay slowly began moving her pencil across the blank page. Her dark eyebrows knitted together; her pale blue eyes became glazed as she stared down at the page. After several silent moments, she began a rocking motion as she drew, humming a strangely monotone tune that sounded a bit like a hymn.

Sunny rose quietly, moving to the sofa where Shay sat, intensely curious as to what her prophetic drawing might reveal. Shay kept working, oblivious as Sunny settled beside her on the couch.

Very quietly, Sunny stole a look at the sketch, and her breath caught in her throat at the vicious scene on the page. Jamie lay prone on the ground, a heavy metal chain wrapped about his throat—held firmly in the hands of a hideous-looking demon. And if anything might have frightened her away from Jamie, if any image could have convinced her that she didn’t belong in his life, the rest of Shay’s sketch did just that.

Because standing over Jamie’s prone body, radiating with heavenly power . . . stood Sunny herself.

Sunny pressed a hand to her lips. "That’s terrifying."

"What?" Shay turned to her, blinking in surprise—almost as if she were coming out of a deep trance.

Sunny pointed to the drawing. "Look at it. He’s in danger . . . because of me."

Shay studied her own drawing for a moment, then shook her head in disagreement. "That’s only one possible interpretation."

"You got another?" Sunny’s heart leaped, no longer lodged quite so firmly in her chest.

Shay pointed to the image. "Yeah. Maybe you’re meant to fight with him. Maybe you’re supposed to be a team…. You’re together in this image."

"And he’s in trouble because of that."

Shay shook her head. "You’re watching over him here, helping," she said, then gave Sunny a long, significant look. "Looks to me like you’re about to save his butt. And that’s exactly what fighting partners do: watch each other’s backs."

Sunny buried her face in both hands. "Oh, honey, but that’s not what I’m called to do. I’m Kate’s guardian, not Jamie’s."

"Sometimes mission priorities change. That’s true on Earth, so I’m guessing that might be true for heaven, too."

Sunny’s hands fell to her lap. "If I only had information, some way to know that you’re right."

Shay smiled, a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes. "Uh, Sunny? I didn’t just bring my sketch pad."

She reached inside her big purse and retrieved three dusty volumes, leather-bound, with ancient writing on them. "I brought these, too—smuggled them out of the cellar without Jamie knowing. I say it’s time we go to the source and look for real information."