by Nalini Singh
“He says he is, but the child feels deeply. I know it’s difficult for him to see so much evidence of death over and over.” A tone to her voice that he’d heard in his mother’s more than once . . . and yet the maternal edge did nothing to dilute his response to her.
Sharine never spoke to him with that tone in her voice; she didn’t see him as a child—and he’d have dared her to try if she’d given that indication. Titus was no one’s child but the first general’s.
“Aodhan is also far from his own people,” Titus said, having heard enough of the angel to know that he wasn’t a man who trusted many. “Is there anyone nearby with whom he can let down his guard?” It’d be impossible with Suyin right now—she needed Aodhan too much for him to ever be in any way vulnerable with her.
“Every warrior must put down his sword at times,” Titus added. “Not even an archangel can go on day after day after day without respite.” It was a lesson he’d learned at his mother’s knee—the value of good comrades, friends, and family. His sisters drove him to lunacy, but it was to them that he went when he wished to just be their petted, harried, and beloved Tito for an hour or two.
“I’ve told him he must fly across to Caliane’s territory to take a break,” Sharine responded. “Even if he won’t be with close friends, he’ll be with warriors he knows from his ordinary life, and it’ll be, as you say, a respite from the heavy duty that lies on his shoulders.”
“I think Suyin feels the same weight.” Her face had been thin and drawn during the last meeting of the Cadre. “But she can’t leave her territory, even to gain a breath.”
“I hope she’s building a support structure around herself.” Sharine’s voice remained fierce and maternal. “Aodhan is too loyal to follow my advice and go to Caliane’s lands for respite, but he can’t stay forever—he’s critical to Raphael’s own tower.”
“Has anyone asked him if he’d be amenable to a permanent transfer? Being second to an archangel is a position many covet.”
A pause before Sharine said, “You must understand—for Aodhan, the Seven and Raphael are family, the bonds between them far beyond flesh and bone and blood. It is a thing elemental. Though he’ll serve Archangel Suyin with all his heart, he’ll always fly home in the end.”
Sharine sighed. “Suyin, that poor child. It must be difficult for her to know who to trust, especially after being kept captive by Lijuan for so long. She can’t trust anyone from the old court, for she has no way to know if the people with whom she speaks were involved in her captivity.”
“Suyin isn’t a child.” She was older than Titus.
Laughter that fell like a sparkling rain against his senses. “You’re all children to me.”
He swore he saw a glint in her eye, was near-certain she was baiting him. Unbelievable of the Hummingbird . . . but not of Sharine.
Deciding to be the mature party in this conversation, he responded to her earlier comment. “As far as the Cadre has been able to confirm, everyone loyal to Lijuan died with her—Suyin doesn’t have to fear sabotage from within.” He curled his lip. “I truly can’t see Lijuan leaving behind anyone, not when she wished to amass a force the size of a small nation.”
Sharine rode a thermal for a while, her wings beginning to dip against the deep reds and oranges of the early-evening sky but not yet to the point where it was dangerous. Titus just watched her; she was lovely in flight, a graceful and jeweled creature akin to the bird whose name she carried.
Fire sparked on the gold in her hair.
He scowled at the timely reminder that this same angel could strip his skin off his bones with her tongue alone . . . but the reminder did nothing to soften the tightness in his body, the heat in his blood.
“I’d like to believe the same,” she said upon returning to him, “but do you not think Lijuan might’ve left behind a small group, one tasked with retrieving her remains should she fall? They would’ve been told to put her in a safe place where she might regenerate.”
“If she did, it was a foolish hope.” Titus made no effort to hide his disgust; he’d lost all respect for Lijuan when she began to treat her people as expendable. “She is dead in a way that means she’ll never again rise. But do not fear—I stay alert, as does Raphael.”
He thought Neha, too, was paying sharp attention now that she’d risen from anshara, and Caliane would no doubt be the same. Titus missed Elijah’s wise counsel and acute perception, but the Archangel of South America was yet healing, his consort by his side.
As for Alexander, he was physically fine, but Titus knew the Ancient too well not to understand that he was wounded within. It had to do with Zanaya, another archangel who might never again rise, her wounds had been so grievous. Not that Alexander would talk on the topic; Titus had tried to bring it up and been firmly rebuffed.
When it came to Lijuan, Alexander had come too late into the old Cadre to have the necessary knowledge of her court, but Titus knew Alexander would back him if Titus made a call on the point. The two of them might be friends, but they weren’t always on the same page when it came to Cadre business—but on this subject, they were in full agreement. “We won’t allow a viper to infiltrate Suyin’s court.”
“You’re protective of her.”
“She has ascended at a terrible time. Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t have a time of relative peace in which to grow into her strength.” Titus’d had a good four centuries before Charisemnon began to show his ass over the border. “The only mercy in all of this is that with the entire world in chaos, she doesn’t have to worry about territorial challenges.”
Darkness had begun to touch the horizon in the distance, and now it spread over them, wingbeat by wingbeat, breath by breath. Until at last Sharine said, “I can’t go any further without resting.”
Titus was glad of the survival skills he’d gained from having four sisters; another man might not have held his tongue when he first noticed the dip in her wings. “I’ll carry you.” Keeping his eyes scrupulously off her chest, he held out his arms.
He half expected an argument, but she flew to hover just above him. “If you drop me,” she muttered, “I will ferment reborn blood, then pour the resulting foul concoction over every inch of your sleeping quarters.”
“Then I’ll just sleep outside,” he snapped, incensed by her lack of trust. “I’m an archangel, Sharine. I don’t drop things.”
“What’s it like to be so arrogant?” she asked musingly. “Do you spend at least an hour a day imagining all the ways in which you are wonderful?”
“Do you wish to come or not? Or you can land and I’ll pick you up on the way back.” They both knew he wasn’t going to make good on his threat—he wasn’t about to leave her to the mercies of the reborn that crawled across the landscape. But a man had a limit.
Folding back her wings, she dropped—right into his arms.
Only once she’d looped one arm around his neck, her wings pressed tightly against her body to reduce drag, did he realize that this was going to make things extremely difficult. Because now, not only did he have the soft warmth of her pressed up against him, he could see down her neckline, to the rounded mounds of her breasts. If that wasn’t enough, every part of her that was bare rubbed against his own bare skin.
The Hummingbird. The Hummingbird. The Hummingbird, he chanted silently. This is not a woman. This is the Hummingbird. A great artist. A treasure of angelkind.
“What do your myriad lovers think of being fleeting conveniences?”
24
A treasure of angelkind.
More like a jackhammer drilling into his brain.
“Why do you believe my lovers are fleeting conveniences?” he asked with a scowl, because holding her was like holding light and air; he’d have to ensure she ate properly whilst in his court or she’d waste away.
Only . . . how could a woman be so light and have such
soft breasts and curving hips?
Hummingbird. Hummingbird. Not a woman with breasts and hips and nipples. THE HUMMINGBIRD. An artist. A treasure—
“Oh, come now, Titus.” Her breath whispered warm and soft against his neck, her voice husky and her lush lips curved. “I may have been at a distant outpost of late, and I may have been quite insane prior to that, but I never lost my hearing. The revolving door to your sleeping quarters is well-known.”
Titus didn’t know which one of those statements to address first. In the end, he decided to go for the most unexpected one. “What do you care about the door to my sleeping chamber?” It came out rough and edgy, his cock growing hard in his pants.
He grit his teeth and thanked the skies that she couldn’t see his arousal from her position in his arms. Arousal! He couldn’t be aroused by the Hummingbird! It’d be like being aroused by a great work of art. You weren’t supposed to touch such masterpieces.
The great work of art bared her teeth at him. “Oh, I’m not.” She waved her free hand. “I just worry about the women you use and discard.”
“That is enough!” he boomed, certain she was attempting to annoy him on purpose.
A wince. “I’m right here, my lord Archangel.” A hand rubbing over her ear. “There’s no need to try and blow out my eardrum.”
Did nothing terrify her? “Are you certain you’re not still insane?” In truth, he was sure that she’d never actually lost her sanity—she’d just lost herself for a period. “Baiting an archangel isn’t considered good for one’s health.”
“It is possible,” she said thoughtfully, tapping a finger on her lower lip. “But I find that I don’t give a shit. Is that not a wonderful statement? Think about it. To care so little for a thing that you wouldn’t even offer excrement for it!”
He was so agog at the vulgarity coming from her mouth that he stopped flying for a second. They both dropped. He recovered at once, but she dug her nails into his neck regardless. “Concentrate.”
Titus’s cock thickened even more, his skin hot, and his pulse rapid. “I’ve treated with respect each and every woman who has shared her body with me. I’ve never made promises of forever.” That would’ve been a lie and Titus didn’t lie. “Any woman who comes into my arms understands that I offer only pleasure and affection.”
Uncharacteristically for the fascinatingly impertinent woman he’d come to know, Sharine went silent. For so long that he began to fear he’d scared her to silence . . . and that chilled his blood. About to apologize for yelling at her, even though he’d been speaking at his usual tone, he was stopped by her saying, “Do you know what’ll happen to Astaad’s harem? I know they’ve been helping their people, but what’ll happen to them in the longer term?”
He blinked. “Heartbroken though they are, they’re not just helping on the ground—they’ve been acting as a kind of advisory board to Qin, assisting with the transition of power. Qin’s asked Mele and the others to stay on, but if they don’t wish to continue to advise him beyond the transition period, he’s promised to pension them to lives away from the court.”
“Do you think he’ll keep his word?”
Titus hesitated. “Qin rarely speaks,” he said at last, searching for the right words to describe the Ancient. “It’s as if he has half a foot in this world, half in another.” In that second world lived the mad, beautiful prophetess whom Qin loved so profoundly that for him to be in this world without her was pure pain.
“That he doesn’t wish to be awake couldn’t be more clear.” Qin was a creature out of time and place, woken from the depths of the ocean by the pitiless Cascade and left stranded on the unforgiving sand. “But unlike Aegaeon’s posturing, Qin is quietly going about doing his job as an archangel. So yes, I believe he’ll keep his word.”
He tightened his hold a fraction, so he could have more of Sharine’s warmth against him. “Also, even if I’m wrong in my reading of him, Mele is too strong and too intelligent to take any deceit or force lying down. She’ll find a way to protect herself and the other women of the harem.”
“So she’s a warrior? Good.”
Titus frowned. Mele wasn’t a warrior, not in the sense of sword and shield, but he couldn’t argue with the characterization—from everything Titus’s spymaster had managed to discover through her sources on the islands, Astaad’s most beloved concubine was standing shield to the other ladies of the harem. Mele alone dealt directly with Qin, though she was but a vampire and he was an archangel.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Mele is a warrior who doesn’t carry a sword.”
Sharine searched his face. “I worried,” she said, “because I saw what happened to Aegaeon’s harem after he went to Sleep. A kind of bloody savagery as the women sought to find positions in the courts of other strong angels.”
Titus curled his lip. “Aegaeon harps on about not wishing to be awake, but he’s already begun to form a new harem, full of the type of women that he prefers. Vicious backbiting spiders who eat their own young.” The words were barely out when he realized that he’d put his entire giant foot in his mouth.
Wanting to groan, he said, “I don’t count you in that number.”
The nails that dug into his neck this time were deliberate. “That’s good, because I was never part of his harem.” Ice-cold words. “He invited me to live in his court more than once, but I couldn’t exist in that sphere. I couldn’t survive there.” The latter words were flat. “At the time, I was a soft creature, a crab without a shell. I preferred to live in the Refuge with my art and—later—with my son.”
Titus had to fight the urge to crush her to him. “I think you don’t have to worry about Mele and the others. They’re a family, and they’ll make the decision as a family.”
“Do you believe Astaad will rise?” No more nails digging into his neck . . . and possibly a small caress of fingertips over skin to soothe the earlier bite. “Did not Lijuan suck out part of his life force?”
“As a small child,” he said, soaring underneath a banner of brilliant stars, “I was told the legend of an archangel who was cut into a hundred pieces by his enemy then burned up with angelfire. But the enemy missed a fragment of his brain. It was left in a rock crevice and there it stayed for many years. It was covered by snow and then by the grasses of the distant plateau where it lay among the rocks and it was pecked at by birds, but it didn’t decay and it wasn’t lost.
“Then, one day, a bird picked it up but lost it mid-journey, dropping the piece of brain matter into a massive gorge. There it lay in the dark shadows for hundreds of years as the archangel slowly rebuilt his body cell by cell, the action one of instinct, of the natural order. For all you need for an archangel to come back to life is a fragment of a healthy cell.” That was also why he was sure that Lijuan would never return—nothing of her had remained.
“A most gruesome story.” Sharine pressed her free hand to his chest. “Tell me the rest.”
He grinned, delighted with the unpredictable woman in his arms. “Well, the archangel stayed silent even after his head grew, for his torso wasn’t yet complete. He knew he remained vulnerable. So he lay there in silence for tens of years more—I’m told that once the brain and the head have regenerated, the rest of the body doesn’t take as long.
“Still, because he had no sustenance except for the insects that flew into his mouth and the rainwater that fell on him, he regenerated far slower than is possible with more fuel to power the growth. Once he had arms, he dragged himself to a spot in the gorge that had a small stream, and in that stream lived such creatures as small frogs that he could catch and eat.
“He also ate the wildflowers on the stream’s edge, and the moss that grew on the shadowed rocks that were his home. Even once he had his whole body, he remained weak, so he waited crouched in the dark crevices of the gorge and hunted any animal that came close. It’s said that it took him another ten
years to regain his strength to the point that he could fly out of the gorge. Once out, he hunted for bigger creatures until he was brimming with power.”
He paused.
The Hummingbird slapped him lightly on the shoulder, a butterfly’s sting. “Stop dragging this out, tell me the rest!”
He chuckled. “So, Sharine likes a good story.”
“What Sharine likes is flaying infuriating men alive.”
Grinning, he carried on. “Once he was full of power, the archangel didn’t attempt to pull together his court. He knew who was loyal and who wasn’t, and he knew they’d come to him. First, however, he had a task to complete. He stalked his enemy, and then, when the enemy was alone, he incapacitated him by chopping off his head.”
“That seems a bit anticlimactic.”
“Do you always interrupt your storytellers?” he asked, though he’d made a similar judgment as a child.
“Carry on, my lord storyteller. Please do carry on.”
Despite her poor demeanor, he could feel the tension in her body and knew she was hanging on the edge, waiting for the next part of the story. “After chopping off his head, the archangel incinerated his enemy’s body. Then, before he flew the head back to the same gorge where he’d lived all that time, he destroyed the mouth and jaw of his enemy.
“He hid the silent head deep in a shadowed corner, where no one would ever find it. He knew his enemy would regenerate his mouth but no one would hear him when he screamed. Then, for millennia, the archangel would fly back at regular intervals to destroy any part of his enemy’s body that had regenerated.
“The enemy remained forever a head, sitting there oozing on the bloody stump of his neck, screaming into the void. It’s said that he is there still. Insane beyond all understanding, a thing no longer sentient.”
He lunged his head toward Sharine.
She screamed.
Titus burst out laughing, shaking so much with mirth that he was barely aware of her hand slapping his shoulder while she called him “a fiend.” “I thought you were narrating a true story! Who came up with that hideous tale?”