by Nalini Singh
Fen didn’t reply for a long moment undisturbed by the wind, the pond smooth glass under the wide green lily pads. “You were so sad,” he said at last. “So very, very sad deep inside, where almost no one could see it. But I knew. Even as you smiled, as you ruled, you mourned. So many years you mourned.”
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes as his wrinkled hand closed over her own where it lay on the bench between them. “I worried who would watch over you when I was gone.” His voice was whispery with age, his fingers containing a tremor that made her heart clench. “I thought the sadness might drown you, leaving you easy prey for the scavengers.”
A single tear streaked down her face.
“I wanted only to give you peace.” He tried to squeeze her hand, but his strength was not what it had been when he first strode into her court, a man with an endless store of energy. “It broke my heart to see you haunting the gardens as everyone slept, so much pain trapped inside of you. It is arrogant of me to make such a claim, ridiculous, too, but… you are my daughter as much as Mariyah.”
She turned up her hand, curling her fingers around his own. “Do you think me so fragile, Fen?”
He sighed. “I fear I learned the wrong lessons from my other daughter. She is not strong. We both know it.”
“There would’ve been no one left to protect her after I was gone.”
“No. Yet still I could not bear your sadness.” Shaking his head, he turned to face her. “I knew I’d made a terrible mistake the very next day, when you faced the world with strength and courage once more, but by then, Queen was dead.” Regret put a heavy weight on every word. “I am sorry, my lady. I will take whatever punishment you deem fit.”
She squeezed his hand, emotion choking up her throat. “How can I punish you for loving me, Fen?” The idea of hurting him was anathema to her. He was no assassin, simply old and afraid for the daughters he’d leave behind. “I will not let Amariyah drown,” she promised. “As long as I draw breath, I will watch over her.”
“Your heart has always been too generous for a woman who wields so much power.” Making a clucking sound with his tongue, he waggled an arthritic finger. “It is good your vampire is hewn of harder wood.”
This time it was Nimra who shook her head. “Such mortal thoughts,” she said, her soul aching with the knowledge of a loss that came ever nearer with each heartbeat. “I do not need a man.”
“No, but perhaps you should.” A smile so familiar, it would savage her when she could no longer see it. “You can’t have failed to notice that those angels who retain their… humanity through the ages are the ones who have mates or lovers who stand by them.”
It was an astute statement. “Do not die, Fen,” she whispered, unable to contain her sorrow. “You were meant to live forever.” She’d had his blood tested three years after he’d first come into her court, already aware that this was a man she could trust not to betray her through the ages. But the results had come back negative— Fen’s body would reject the process that turned mortal to vampire, reject it with such violence that he’d either die or go incurably insane.
Fen laughed, his skin papery under her own. “I’m rather looking forward to death,” he said with a chuckle that made his eyes twinkle. “Finally, I’ll know something you never have and maybe never will.”
It made her own lips curve. And as the sun moved across the lazy blue of the sky, as the sweet scent of jasmine lingered in the air, she sat with the man who would’ve been her murderer, and she mourned the day when he would no longer sit with her beside the lily pond as the dragonflies buzzed.
That day came far sooner than she could’ve ever expected. Fen simply didn’t awaken the next morning, passing into death with a peaceful smile on his face. She had him buried with the highest honors, in a grave beside that of his beloved wife. Even Amariyah put aside their enmity for that day, behaving with utmost grace though her face was ravaged by grief.
“Good- bye,” she said to Nimra after Christian, his voice pure and beautiful, had sung a heartfelt farewell to a mortal who had been a friend to angels.
Nimra met the vampire’s eyes, so akin to her father’s and so very dissimilar. “If you ever need anything, you know you have but to call.”
Amariyah gave her a tight smile. “There’s no need to pretend. He was the only link between us. He’s gone now.” With that, she turned and walked away, and Nimra knew this was the last time she’d see Fen’s daughter. It didn’t matter. She had put things in place— Amariyah wouldn’t ever be friendless or helpless if in need. This, Nimra would do for Fen… for the friend who would never again counsel her with a wisdom no mortal was supposed to possess.
A big hand sliding into hers, his skin rougher than her own. “Come,” Noel said. “It’s time to go.”
It was only when he wiped his thumb across her cheek that she realized she was crying, the tears having come after everyone else had left the graveside. “I will miss him, Noel.”
“I know.” Sliding his hand up her arm, he placed it around her shoulders and held her close, his body providing a safe haven for the sorrow that poured out of her in an anguished torrent.
In the days after Fen’s death, Noel began to discover exactly how much the old man had done for Nimra. From watching over her interests when it came to Louisiana’s vampiric residents to ensuring the court remained in balance, Fen had been the center even as he positioned himself on the edges. With his loss came a time of some confusion, as everyone tried to figure out their place in the scheme of things.
Christian, of course, tried to take over, but it was clear from the start that he had too much arrogance to play the subtle political games Fen had managed with such ease… and that Noel quietly began to handle. Politician he wasn’t, but he had no trouble putting any idea of rank aside to get things done. As for his right to be in the court at all, he hadn’t asked Nimra’s permission to remain, hadn’t asked anyone’s permission.
He’d simply called Dmitri and said, “I’m staying.”
The vampire, who held more power than any other vamp Noel knew, hadn’t been pleased. “You’re slated to be stationed in the Tower.”
“Unslate me.”
Silence, then a dark amusement. “If Nimra ever decides you’re too much trouble, I’ll have a place waiting for you.”
“Thanks, but it won’t be needed.” Even if Nimra did attempt to throw him out, Noel was having none of it. She was painfully vulnerable right now, and without Fen here to guard her secrets from those who would use her grief to cause her harm, someone had to watch her back. Mind set, he began to do precisely that, using the members of the court, senior and junior, to Nimra’s advantage.
Sharp, loyal Asirani was the first to catch on. “I always knew we hadn’t seen the real Noel,” she said, a glint in her eye, then passed him a small file. “You need to handle this.”
It turned out to be a report about a group of young vampires in New Orleans who were acting out, having caught wind of Nimra’s grieving distraction. Noel was in the city by nightfall. All under a hundred, the vampires were no match for him— even together. He wasn’t only older; he was incredibly strong for his age. As with the angels, some vampires gained power with age, while others reached a static point and remained there.
Noel had grown ever stronger since he was Made, part of the reason he’d been pulled into the guard directly below Raphael’s Seven. When the vampires proved stupid enough to think they could take him on, he expended his pent–up energy, his protective fury at being unable to shield Nimra from the pain of Fen’s loss, on the idiots.
After they lay bleeding and defeated in front of him in a crumbling alleyway barely lit by the faint wash of yellow from a nearby streetlight, he folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Did you think no one was watching?”
The leader of the little pack groaned, his eye turning a beautiful purple. “Fuck, nobody said anything about a fucking enforcer.”
“Watch your mouth.” Noel had the
satisfaction of seeing the man pale. “This was a warning. Next time, I won’t hold back. Understood?”
A sea of nods.
Returning to his own room in the early-morning hours, while the world was still dark, Noel showered, hitched a towel around his hips, and headed into his bedroom with the intention of grabbing some clothes. What he really wanted to do was go to Nimra. She hadn’t slept since Fen’s death, would be in the gardens, but the fading bruise on his cheek where one of the vamps had managed to whack him with an elbow might alert her as to what he’d been up to. He wanted a little more time to settle into this new role before—“Nimra.”
Seated on the edge of his bed, her wings spread behind her and her body clad in a long, flowing gown of deepest blue, she looked more like the angel who ruled a territory than she had in days. “Where have you been, Noel?”
10
“New Orleans.” He would not lie to her.
A wrinkling of her brow. “I see.”
“Do you want the details?”
“No, not tonight.” Her gaze lingered on the damp lines of his body before she rose from the bed, her wings sweeping across the sheets. “Bonne nuit.”
He hadn’t touched her intimately since the night he’d fed from her, so hot and sweet, but now he crossed the room to stop her with his hands on the silken heat of her upper arms, his chest pressed to her back… to her wings. “Nimra.” When she stilled, he swept aside the curling ebony of her hair to press his lips to her pulse.
Reaching back, she touched her fingers to his face. “Do you hunger?”
A simple question that staggered him with its generosity, but no longer surprised. Not now that he understood the truth of the woman in his arms. “Stay.” Kiss after kiss along the slender line of her neck, a delicate pleasure that made his skin go tight, his own pulse accelerate. “Let me hold you tonight.”
A moment’s pause and he knew she was weighing up whether or not to trust him with the depth of her vulnerability. When she shifted to face him, when she allowed him to take her into his arms, to take her to his bed, it turned a key in a dark, hidden corner of his soul, a part that had not seen the light of day since the events that had almost broken him. But they hadn’t. And now he was awake.
Nimra’s need for Noel was a deep, unrelenting ache, but she fought the urge to take, to demand, from this captivating male with wounds that would take a long time to truly heal. Then his eyes met her own as he braced himself above her, his fingers stroking the sensitive arch of her wing, and there was an intensity to them she’d never before seen. “Put your hands on me, Nimra.” A command.
One she was happy to accept. Running her foot over the back of his calf, her gown sliding down her leg, she began to explore the ridges and valleys of his body, so hard, so very masculine. He shuddered under her touch, his breath hot against her jaw as he grazed her with his teeth, his cock pressing in blatant demand against her abdomen.
No civilized lover, this.
“You are a beautiful man,” she whispered as she closed her fingers over the rigid evidence of his need.
Color darkened his cheekbones. “Uh, whatever you say.”
“Such compliance, Noel?” She squeezed him, luxuriating in the velvet- soft skin covering such powerful steel. “I am not sure I believe you.”
A groan. “You have your hand on my cock. If you called me an ugly git, I’d agree with you. Just. Don’t. Stop.”
His unashamed pleasure made her entire body melt. Not only did she continue in her intimate caresses; she began to suck and kiss at his neck until he slammed his mouth down on her own, tender control transforming into untamed sexuality. Demanding and aggressive, he thrust his cock into her grip in time with the thrust of his tongue into her mouth.
His hand fisted in her gown at the same instant, pulling up the material until it bunched at her waist. His fingers were underneath the lace that protected her an instant later, making her arch, cry out into his kiss. Taking that cry as his due, he tore away the lace to stroke her to quivering readiness even as he pulled her hand off him. “Enough.” A ragged word against her lips, heavy hair- roughened thighs nudging her own apart.
She wrapped her legs around his hips as he flexed forward and claimed her with a single primal move. Spine bowing, she clung to him, her nails digging into the sweat-slick muscle of his back. When she felt his mouth settle on the pulse in her neck, it made a tremor shake her frame, the spot unbearably sensitive. Yes. She fisted one hand in his hair, held him to her. “Now, Noel.”
His lips curved against her skin. “Yes, my lady Nimra.”
A piercing pleasure radiated out from the point where he drank from her, while his body, his hands, shoved her ever closer to the precipice. Then the two streams of pleasure collided and Nimra flew apart… to come to in the arms of a man who looked at her with a furious tenderness that threatened to make her believe in an eternity that did not have to be drenched in loneliness.
Three days later, she found herself frowning at Asirani. “And there have been no other problems?” While she could believe her fellow angels wouldn’t have paid heed to the passing of a mortal, the vampires in the region had long dealt with Fen, understood the role he’d played. It defied belief that they hadn’t attempted anything while she’d been wracked by grief.
Asirani avoided her eyes. “You couldn’t quite say that.”
Nimra waited.
And waited.
“Asirani.”
A put- upon sigh. “You’re talking to the wrong vampire.”
Rather than chasing down the right one, Nimra decided to do her own probing. What she discovered was that “someone” had negotiated Fen’s passing with such skill that any ripples had been few and handled in a matter of hours. As far as the outside world was concerned, Fen’s decades of service had been forgotten as soon as he was gone, his death a mere inconvenience rather than a splintering pain that had ripped apart her chest, filled her eyes.
Later that day, she discovered that her reputation as an angel not to be crossed had in fact grown in the time she’d spent mourning her friend. “Why do I have a letter of apology from the leader of the vampires in New Orleans?” she asked Christian. “He seems to believe I’m an inch away from executing his entire kiss in a very nasty way.”
“His vampires misbehaved,” was the response. “It was taken care of.” His face, acetic and closed, told her that was all she’d get.
Intrigued at both the defiance and the realization that Noel and Christian appeared to have reached some kind of an understanding, she finally cornered the man responsible for a political game that had, from all indications, been played with none of Fen’s subtlety— and yet garnered excellent results. “How,” she said to Noel when she discovered him in the wild southern gardens, “did you acquire the title of my enforcer?”
He jumped up from his kneeling position with a distinctly guilty— and young— look on his face. “It sounded good.”
When she tried to look around him, and to whatever it was that he was hiding under the shade of a bush laden with tiny blossoms of pink and white, he shifted to block her view. Scowling, she tapped the letter of apology against her legs. “What did you do in New Orleans?”
“The vampires didn’t learn their lesson the first time.” Cool eyes. “I had to get creative.”
“Explain.”
“Heard of the word ‘delegation’?” An unflinching stare.
Her lips curved, the ruler in her recognizing strength of a kind that was rare… and that any woman would want by her side. “How are my stocks doing?”
“Ask Christian. He has a computer for a brain— and I had to give him something to do.”
Unexpected, that he’d shared power after taking it with such speed and without bloodshed. “Is there anything I need to know?”
“Nazarach’s hounds were nosing around about a week ago, but seems like they had to return home.” A shrug as if he’d had nothing to do with it.
“I see.” And w
hat she saw was a wonder. This strong male, who was very much a leader, had put himself in her service. Unlike Fen, Noel had intimate access to her, and yet even when she’d been at her most vulnerable, there had been no sly whispers in the sinuous dark, only a luxuriant pleasure that muted the jagged edge of loss.
Before she could form words from the fierce cascade of emotion in her heart, she heard a distinct and inquisitive “meow.” Heart tumbling, she tried to see around those big shoulders once more, but he turned to block her view as he crouched down. “You were supposed to stay quiet,” he murmured as he rose back up and turned to face her.
The two tiny balls of fur in his arms— comically colored in a patchwork of black and white— butted their heads against his chest, obviously aware this wolf was all bark when it came to the innocent.