by Nalini Singh
She’d spoken to Keir, an angelic healer, not long before she’d come to Lumia, right when she’d begun to find her way out of the kaleidoscope. It was Caliane who’d urged her to do so. “If I were badly wounded in battle,” her friend had said, “I’d seek a healer and feel no disquiet in doing so. A wound of the mind is no different.”
Keir had made time to spend near to an entire week with her. For some reason, she’d found herself telling the calm-eyed and slender healer all of it, digging right down to the heart of what Caliane had termed her wound.
“Aegaeon’s actions impacted on brutal past trauma,” Keir had said in his gentle way, this man who was one of the few in angelkind not very much taller than her own diminutive height. “Each event in our life leaves a mark—in your case, two critical events left deep fractures in the same part of your psyche. Those fractures compounded into a break when Aegaeon chose to take an action that I, as a man, as a healer, as a lover, cannot comprehend.”
Keir wasn’t one to exhibit intense emotion—at least to his patients. He tended to be a haven of calm. But his brown eyes had held a wealth of darkness when he’d said, “You retreated into what you knew best in order to heal. You can’t blame yourself for that instinctive action.”
Sharine accepted that Aegaeon had acted with unwarranted vindictiveness. To this day, she didn’t know why—as vulnerable as she’d been then, to charm of a kind she’d never experienced in her mostly solitary and quiet existence. Aegaeon had overwhelmed her; she’d wanted desperately to cling to him—and that was on her and the ghosts that haunted her—but in actual fact, she hadn’t.
He’d kept his harem, kept his life away from her and Illium in the Refuge.
Sharine hadn’t attempted to clip his wings, hadn’t sought to alter the core of his nature, content with the scraps of affection he threw her way.
How foolish she’d been, how hungry for connection.
But it all added up to a single conclusion: he’d had no reason to strike out. Not only at her but at her son. Their son. Forget what he’d done to her, it would’ve cost him nothing to have gone to Illium and hugged him good-bye. It would’ve taken but a sliver of his time to tell their boy that his father was going to Sleep for a period, but that he loved him and would return.
Such things mattered to a child, mattered deeply.
For breaking their bright, beautiful boy’s small heart, Sharine would never forgive him. Never. Even if she lived to the end of time and beyond.
No one hurt her child.
Hand fisting at her side, her nails digging into her skin, she opened the door of the suite and stepped out into the hallway. That hallway was wide and fell away onto a massive central core. Walking to the railingless edge, she looked down and realized that she was about three stories up in a huge citadel built of gray stone that was both martial and hard—and lovely.
Fine veins of minerals wove through the stone “bricks” and each piece of stone had gradations of color that caught her eye and had her running a hand over the nearest support pillar. It was warmer than she’d expected, the stone smooth from all the time it had stood here, all the warriors and others who had placed their hands against it.
It could’ve been a cold place, but the stone had a glowing heart, and against the walls of the central core hung tapestries lush with the life of this land. Huge works of art that she could stand in front of for hours, taking in detail by detail. But that was just the start. Above her curved a gently sloping ceiling on which had been painted a night sky sparkling with the stars she’d see if she looked up after darkfall.
Each star, she realized suddenly, was a dazzling gemstone turned tiny by the distance.
Below her, meanwhile, was a buzz of constant movement.
Titus’s people walked this way and that and crisscrossed over what looked to be a massive carpet in the colors of sunset that could’ve come from Morocco. Perhaps during a time prior to the warlike tension between Titus and Charisemnon. Most of those she saw wore weathered and bloodied warrior gear, including more than one angel in full, lightweight armor that wouldn’t impede them in the sky.
But she also spotted one angel and two vampires who looked to be in the livery of household staff, the colors rich gold and deepest brown. Titus’s colors. They were rushing, their faces hot and sweat dampening their hair.
Sharine had the terrible feeling it was because of her.
“You are ready!” The heavy boom of sound didn’t startle her; she’d heard Titus’s door open and close.
Annoyed at his tone and in no mood to hide it, she said, “You sound surprised.”
He looked taken aback, all big shoulders and heavy muscle under a pair of brown pants that hugged his thighs, and a white shirt with a rounded collar and an opening that came to partway down his breastbone, the swirling golden tattoo she’d glimpsed earlier now concealed.
He’d folded back the sleeves of his shirt to reveal heavily muscled forearms, his skin a dark, dark brown with a richness of depth. Wings of golden honey and cream arched over his shoulders, his control a master class in warrior discipline.
Droplets of water glinted in his closely cut black curls.
He was a beautiful man. But Sharine had no time for beautiful men. One of them had ruined her life. Yes, she had a beautiful man for a son and an equally beautiful man for a protégé, but that was beside the point. Aodhan and Illium—and yes, Raphael, too—occupied a different sphere in her mind. She’d seen them as babies, kissed their skinned knees, smiled under their exuberant affection.
Every other beautiful man in the world could go jump in the molten heart of a volcano and she wouldn’t care. That applied especially to the beautiful archangel who thought Sharine was an ornament, breakable and useless in his territory’s desperate battle for survival.
“I know the ladies of my court often take their time,” Titus ventured at last, his voice moderated to a lower volume that irritated her—did he think her so weak she couldn’t even take his voice?
That was when his words penetrated: . . . the ladies of my court . . .
She hadn’t heard that he kept a harem, but it wouldn’t surprise her to be wrong. “Where are your ladies?”
“On a safe island.” He sighed. “The entire gentle court begs to come home but it isn’t safe—and those of the gentle court wouldn’t be happy here.”
Bristling at the idea of the women being banished as if they were children, she said, “I’ve heard that the women of Astaad’s harem are helping their people in the aftermath of war. Can not your ‘gentle court’ assist in the same way?”
Throwing back his head, Titus laughed, the sound echoing around the space, it was such a huge and joyous one. She found herself transfixed by him for a long moment. Forcefully shaking her head the instant she became aware of what she was doing, she looked once more at the floor below. People were smiling now, their cheeks creased and their steps lighter.
As if his warmth and happiness was contagious.
“The gentle court isn’t only made up of women—and none bar one within it are warriors or administrators,” Titus said when he finally stopped chuckling, then ruined what good he’d achieved by adding, “Elia is a woman of brilliance but her duty is to the court’s children. The rest of her brethren are pampered creatures who’d faint at the sight of blood—and expire at a torn hem.”
Sharine barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “Oh,” she said gently.
His eyebrows drew together, the onyx of his eyes getting even darker. “Oh?” It came out a deep grumble, his wings flaring out then snapping shut.
She smiled, a heat in her blood that pushed at her to push him. “Where are we to eat? I’m hungry after my long journey.”
Titus’s wings . . . quivered. That was the only word she could use to describe the tiny motion that rippled through his tightly held wings. “Of course, Lady Sharine
,” he said in an obnoxiously formal tone, his voice modulated into a lower range.
Eyes narrowed, Sharine nonetheless kept her silence as he stepped off the edge of the hallway, using his wings to initiate a controlled descent to the ground level. When she followed, she found herself the recipient of many smiles and bows, did her best to return them all.
None of these people had to suffer her bad temper simply because their archangel was a . . . what had one of the young ones in her court muttered recently? Ah yes, a blockhead. Sharine wasn’t certain of the definition of that word, but if it meant what it sounded like it meant, then it was the perfect choice of word to describe her host.
“If you will accompany me.” Titus’s scent was clean and fresh next to her as he led her through a large and ornate hallway decorated with ancient artefacts and weapons, and into a spacious room awash with the morning sun as a result of the huge doors currently open to the outside air.
“I will close those if you wish,” Titus said in that same—grating—formal tone. “I find I enjoy the sounds from the courtyard, but they might be overwhelming to someone used to quieter climes.”
She felt like telling him she had a knife. It had been a gift from Raphael’s Elena, one she’d found on her bedside table after Elena left Lumia prior to the war. With it had been a note: I’d be honored if you’d accept this gift as a memory of the fun we had stabbing those targets. Also, you should keep up the stabbing practice—you have a rare natural balance when you throw the blade.
Sharine had been delighted by the gift and the missive—and she had kept up the practice. Even Tanicia had remarked on her accuracy. She was no warrior, but she was accurate enough to teach a certain archangel a lesson about assuming anything when it came to Sharine. “This is fine,” she said, leaving the knife strapped to her thigh, where she’d discovered she liked wearing it.
Walking to the central doors, she stepped out onto the edge of the central courtyard and into the warmth of morning. It had been cool inside the citadel, likely because of the stone with which it had been built, heavy and solid. Outside, the colors were shades of sun-gold and working brown, along with a pop of lush green from the fresh produce on a large cart.
A small specialized vehicle being operated by a young woman was in the process of ferrying the loaded cart toward what Sharine assumed were the kitchens. She’d seen such vehicles in New York, too, lifting pallets out of trucks, but couldn’t recall their name just now.
Most of the courtyard was open space, to be used by Titus’s warriors and other staff, and likely as the central location for the legendary parties Tanicia had mentioned Titus was known to throw in better times. But one corner housed the stables, and there were also a number of trees planted to the left, creating a shady haven where tired people sat down to rest and sleek cats prowled up for pets.
Motion was constant, angelic warriors landing or taking off while vampire—and possibly mortal—warriors drove in and out in rugged vehicles such as used by some of her own people. Each and every one of the fighters going out into the field bristled with weapons, from swords to unidentifiable modern devices.
The last time she’d been in a place this active, it had been Raphael’s Tower.
Conscious of Titus’s muscled bulk beside her, she went to ask him of the progress of the reborn eradication, when a female angel with dark red hair and two-toned wings—dark gray atop and white underneath—landed to Titus’s right. “Sire,” she said with a bow. “Lady Hummingbird.”
“This is my troop-trainer, Tanae,” Titus said, but his attention was obviously on the warrior. “What has occurred?”
“I received a report of a nest we might’ve missed inside the perimeter and went to check—the creatures were hiding in an abandoned grain cellar.”
Titus hissed out a breath. “How many?”
“Ten. I took a squadron with me and we were able to clear the cellar. But, sire, the creatures appeared to have sent one of their kind out as bait. I believe they wanted us to spot it, their intent to launch a deadly ambush.”
11
I didn’t know the reborn were so intelligent,” Sharine said, stunned at the idea the flesh-eating beings were able to think and plan to such a high degree.
“Only in Africa,” Titus ground out. “Lijuan and Charisemnon were in the process of creating a new, more vicious strain. A feral intelligence is part of it—and it appears some groups of reborn may possess more than others.”
His next words were directed at his troop trainer. “Do I need to go out there and sear the landscape?” Titus asked the woman whose features struck Sharine as oddly familiar.
Had Sharine painted her? She couldn’t recall. But the flame of hair, the shape of the eyes, the dual-colored wings, she’d seen those before. It was on the tip of her tongue.
“No, the sludge was contained in the cellar, so we used fire to destroy it.”
“Then take this time to rest.” Titus slapped the woman on the shoulder. “I’ve just had a report from Ozias that she’s seeing more daylight movement from the reborn. We might soon be fighting every hour of the day.”
A bow of her head before Tanae took off . . . and it was then, in the flash of wings gray and white, that Sharine found her answer. “Galen,” she murmured, her eyes filling with the image of an angelic warrior with choppily cut red hair and eyes of peridot green, his wings gray with white striations visible only in flight.
“Tanae and my second Tzadiq’s son,” Titus told her. “Galen was a commander in my forces before that pup Raphael stole him away.” No humor in those words, but his grim expression had nothing to do with Galen’s defection.
“This is what we’re facing,” he said almost to himself. “An endless surge of infection, mutation, and death. Charisemnon and Lijuan released something monstrous into our world.”
In that moment, he was Titus, Archangel of Africa and member of the Cadre, responsibility a weight on his wide shoulders. “If the creatures are becoming more intelligent—”
A hard shake of his head. “You think we could communicate with them?” Deep lines bracketing his mouth, he said, “We tried. I have no desire to exterminate people if they simply have the bad luck to be infected with a disease.” His muscles bunched taut under his skin as he folded his arms. “But the reborn’s intelligence isn’t even that of a hunting leopard. The leopard lies in wait for prey, pouncing and taking down its meal.”
As if aware its larger feline brethren were under discussion, a cat with a dark yellow-orange coat and black spots, its ears pointed, padded over to rub its head against Titus’s boot. Hunkering down, his pants stretching over his thighs, he scratched the cat behind the ears.
“But the leopard hunts to eat,” he continued, “and to protect its territory. The reborn? Their sole purpose is to spread death—in no world can the reborn exist with any other species; the creatures maul and murder any living being that crosses their path, including animals.” He looked up, his onyx eyes holding her prisoner. “The reborn are filled with the murderous desire of their original creator.”
Lijuan, Archangel of the Dead . . . and a woman who’d sought to subjugate the entire world.
Rising to his feet in a flowing movement, Titus said, “Let’s eat so I can get back to my duties.” His voice was of an archangel giving an order.
Sharine had been in sympathy with him until then, but now her fingers twitched once more for her blade. Surely she began to understand why New York Tower’s internal walls had holes that could only be explained by knives slamming into them. It must be most satisfying for Elena to throw such blades at Raphael’s head when he acted the fool.
But Raphael would never dare speak to Elena so preemptively—he respected her as a fellow warrior. Titus, meanwhile, considered Sharine a broken bird he had to babysit. “I wouldn’t want to keep you,” she said in a voice that dripped with honey. “Please, take what you need
and feel free to fly.”
The look he gave her was a scowl mixed with pure befuddlement. An extraordinary expression to witness on the rough-hewn handsomeness of his face, but it quickly gave way to a calming smile. “You must be tired by the journey.” Soothing words, the natural volume of his voice irritatingly modulated. “Come, a little food will be exactly what you need.”
He was treating her like a fractious horse. She’d give him calm in a minute.
Spine taut, she waved off his offers of help and seated herself at the table, her wings falling gracefully to either side of the specially designed chairback. The table in front of them was set with sumptuous dishes—far too complicated a meal for a citadel that was fighting a deadly battle—and it just lit a fire under her already simmering temper.
Then Titus spoke. “I fear my cook was so excited by the prospect of a formal meal after weeks of simply feeding everyone as fast as possible that it appears he let it go to his head.” Loud, warm laughter, flowing over her like water. “Ah well, we shall eat richly this morn and so will anyone else in the citadel who manages to grab a plateful of this feast.”
Temper dying under the warmth of the comment, Sharine held out her plate when he lifted a spoon as if to serve her from a dish. He put a huge portion on her plate. “I’m not an elephant,” she muttered, and was suddenly acutely aware of her obvious irritation—it really wasn’t like her to be so ungracious, but something about Titus kept setting her off.
“Fine.” He picked up his plate. “We’ll exchange plates. I’d have staff here for they are eager to serve you, but I thought we should talk in private this morn. I can remedy that with a single shout.”
Glaring at him, she took his plate while handing him hers. Then she rose to her feet and lifted the lid off a vegetable dish. “As neither of us has lost both arms, I think we’re capable of serving ourselves and each other.” She placed a serving on his plate as well as her own. “Illium told me you were wounded in the battle against Charisemnon. You’ve healed?”