by Nalini Singh
Sharine watched the child for multiple shifts, with Ozias volunteering to take the risk of infection and stepping in so they had another person in the rotation who could be with the infant without protective gear.
“No child should spend her first days in the world without the comfort of touch,” Titus’s spymaster had said firmly. “I know enough about babysitting after surviving all the children that have been raised in your court, sire, that I’m unlikely to kill the infant by accident.”
Needless to say, Ozias was a most unusual babysitter.
The one mercy was that Sharine had found confirmation in Charisemnon’s journal that the infection set in early and visibly, so the three of them only had a stand-down period of two hours after contact with the infant. After that, they were safe to return to the fight, sure they wouldn’t inadvertently carry the infection to Titus’s troops and staff.
On the evening of the fifth day since the child’s birth, Titus came by with dinner for Sharine and found the child asleep in her crib. As they ate, seated side by side on a sofa, Sharine asked for an update on the reborn situation; her last external shift had been twenty-four hours earlier, when she’d single-handedly saved three ground teams from being overwhelmed by a hidden nest.
Day by day, hour by hour, she was becoming ever more comfortable in her power and better able to direct it. Titus had the strong feeling they’d still only seen the tip of the iceberg—Sharine had plenty more surprises up her sleeve.
His people were over the shock of the Hummingbird not being at all what they’d expected, and were now well on the way to total adoration. Tough, loyal, and newly hard-of-heart Kiama often tracked her down for conversation, Titus’s harried cook somehow had the time to make a “little something” for her each day, and one of his lead vampiric commanders had threatened mutiny if Titus didn’t manage to hold on to her.
“I said nothing when you scared away the others,” India had said with a flash of fangs, “but, sire, I’ll surely rebel if you lose Lady Sharine.”
Tall and heavily built Amadou, a fellow senior commander, had nodded in solemn agreement.
Even Tanae had been moved to say, “I like her.” From his troop-trainer, that was praise unbounded.
“The extermination effort is continuing to pick up speed now that the hunters are out pinpointing nests.” Which was partly why he wanted to talk to her. “We’ve now gone so far out from our initial starting point that it makes no sense for me to fly back each morning, then fly forward again. I’ll be staying in the field for some time.”
“Do you need me to watch the babe full-time?”
“No, you’re too necessary in the field.” Sharine’s reserves were deep, her bolts of power of violent intensity. It had become clear over the time she’d been with them that she was stronger than Tzadiq—and Titus’s second was in the top tier of non-archangelic fighters.
“Do you think she knows she could’ve been a general?” Tzadiq had said to him the last time all three of them had been in the field at once, the pale green of his eyes following Sharine in the night sky as she protected the vampiric troops with precision fury. “People follow her, she has the martial power, and the quick-thinking intelligence.”
“I’ll ask her,” Titus had said, “but can you imagine a world without Sharine’s art?”
Tzadiq had paused to wipe off his gore-encrusted sword. “You’re right, sire. We have enough generals. We have only one Hummingbird.”
Today, however, Titus was forced to ask her to be the general and not the artist. “I need you to fly northward with Ozias’s squadron and two ground teams, clearing any reborn nests as you go. You’ll meet Alexander’s troops at some point, and the group of you can do a final comprehensive sweep of the north to make sure it’s clear.”
He didn’t want to send her away from him, but it was the best possible use of resources. Nala and Zuri also had the ability to fire energy bolts in their arsenal—adding Sharine’s firepower would make the team unstoppable against the numbers of reborn in the north. “Once the north is clear, I don’t have to worry about reinfection from that side.”
He paused, scowled. “Remember—don’t listen to anything my sisters say about me.”
A twitch of her lips, but her gaze was solemn. “What’ll happen to the babe with all three of us gone?”
“It appears she has charmed one of the scientists.” No surprise that—the babe smiled in her sleep and cried but rarely. “Asiah is more than willing and happy to watch the child without protective gear. The little one will be safe and tended while we are gone.”
“Asiah . . . yes, she’s the only one of the scientists I’d trust with her,” Sharine muttered. “She treats her like a baby rather than a science experiment.” Glancing at Titus, she put one hand on his thigh.
The muscle jumped, went rigid, his entire body focused on the heat of her. “Sharine.”
“Take care of yourself, Titus.” It came out an order. “Simply because you’re an archangel doesn’t mean you can go forever without a rest.” Then she leaned in and kissed him, and his abdominal muscles clenched, his pulse staccato.
Breaking the kiss before he could reach for her, she rose. “I’ll see you when our task is done.”
Titus had never ached as he watched a woman walk away from him, but he was one big bruise an hour later when Sharine took off into the early-evening sky with Ozias’s elite squadron. The ground teams had departed ahead of them.
Pressing a fisted hand to his heart, he watched her until she was invisible in the sky, then took off to join the southern squadrons. It took everything he had not to turn north, in her wake, but he was an archangel. His first duty was to his people and his territory. That didn’t mean he didn’t glance over his shoulder one more time, hoping to see wings of indigo and gold in the sky.
* * *
* * *
Sharine felt a wrench inside her as she flew away from Titus, and she wasn’t certain she liked it. At the same time, she couldn’t help from looking for his big, solid form in the courtyard. He was wearing his breastplate and other upper-body armor, his hands on his hips, and his wings held with exquisite control against his spine—and she was pretty sure he was scowling.
For some reason, that made her want to smile.
But then her squadron gained height and she could no longer pick him out in the land far below. The ache inside her becoming a knot heavy and hard, she angled her wings north and away from the archangel who’d come into her life at a time when she wanted no man in it in the romantic sense.
She’d thought before that Titus would leave a mark.
Now she knew that mark would be deep and painful and would hurt for a long, long time to come. But still she’d take the risk. No longer was she the Sharine who’d grown up scared and afraid, a child who’d tried to cling to her parents by being always good; the Sharine she was today shot fire from her hands, she made mistakes and learned from them . . . and she took risks.
Even when it involved a man as dangerous to her as Titus.
* * *
* * *
Ozias sounded the first alert two hours later—because they were pacing the ground troops, they hadn’t covered as much distance as an angel otherwise might, but this wasn’t about speed; it was about ensuring they unearthed every single reborn in the landscape.
“Guild Hunter marked that hill as the site of a small nest!” the squadron commander said in a tone that’d carry to all the airborne troops. “Obren, do a high flyover, report any movement. It’s after dark so they may have gone hunting and we’ll have to track them.”
Looking down, Sharine saw the ground vehicles setting up a perimeter, vampiric and mortal warriors stepping out with weapons ready. The ground commander, a grim-eyed vampire named Amadou, was at the forefront. The ground teams called themselves the “cleaners”—their task was to eliminate any reborn that got
through the angelic barrage.
Thus far, they’d seen no new signs of an angelic reborn—though Titus had briefed all his senior people that it was a possibility—so angels remained less at risk from reborn than vampires or mortals. It made sense for them to be the first line of defense. And for Sharine to do everything in her power to ensure the reborn didn’t get a chance to harm any of the team.
“Commander.” Obren was back. “Definite movement at the mouth of the nest.”
Ozias raised a hand, dropped it in a hard sweep downward.
Acting as per their plan, Sharine blasted a hole in the hill, reborn scrambled out, and the angels took off their heads. The ground crew didn’t have to fire a single shot.
The second nest, however, proved to be a—
“Fuck, this is a fucking clusterfuck!”
Sharine had no idea which one of the vampires below had yelled that and even less knowledge of what it meant, but it sounded right. The Guild Hunter who’d pinpointed this site had been correct to say it was a big nest, but what the hunter hadn’t realized was that it was a maze of interconnected nests.
Some of which were behind the ground troops.
The creatures swarmed the ground troops while the angelic fighters were caught in furious battle against a massive knot of reborn in the center. Sharine was the only one still high enough in the air to see what was happening, how the reborn were spilling out of burrows everywhere and heading to attack the ground teams.
She thought quickly. Ozias! Get your squadron in the air and out to assist the ground teams. I’ll take care of the central core of reborn.
Ozias would’ve been in her rights to question Sharine; after all, Sharine was no battle strategist, but the spymaster’s squadron lifted off near instantaneously after Sharine made the request. They stayed low as they flew in all directions to help the ground teams.
The creatures in the middle screeched and began to run after them.
Sharine set her jaw and began blasting out her power in pinpoint strikes—she’d gotten much better at it since her first strike what felt like a lifetime ago and it didn’t take her long to create an effective moat around the reborn. The creatures fell into the hollow she’d created, and immediately began to try to climb out.
But her action had given the ground teams enough backup that they were able to move in and use their weapons to pick off the creatures. Sharine stayed high, and when she saw an angel fly too low and a reborn grab their wing to pull them down, she slammed a bolt into the reborn that evaporated its frame.
Peace be with you, she thought, for all these creatures had once been someone’s child, with dreams and hopes that would never now come to fruition.
The angel who’d gone down dusted himself off and waved to her in thanks.
And the battle continued.
44
Titus fought himself to near exhaustion in the days that followed, going further and further from Sharine. In desperation, he asked Tzadiq to get him a phone device, and he began to learn to use it so that he could see her face when they spoke.
His second said nothing to the request, but his eyes did plenty of talking.
Titus cared little; he wasn’t a man to hide his emotions even if he knew the future held rejection and a terrible hurt. Sharine had been crystal clear that she didn’t wish to be tied to any man.
Titus couldn’t blame her for her stance.
His heart twisted, the pain more difficult to bear than any battle wound he’d ever taken. She’d flown inside him, had Sharine, and the idea of not having her there always . . . it was brutal.
“Some would say it serves you right,” Tanae said with a distinct lack of sympathy in her tone when she came upon him muttering imprecations at the phone device when it wouldn’t do as he ordered. “To fall so hard for a lover who doesn’t see you as the sun in her sky.”
Titus glared at her. “Gloating doesn’t become you, Tanae.”
“I said ‘some,’ sire.” Her gaze grew distant, his troop trainer focused on a secret inner landscape. “I’m happy for you, that you’ve finally come to know the depth and passion of your own heart and the intensity with which it can feel.”
She glanced down at the ground, her flaming hair in a braid. “I’ve kept my heart confined for centuries upon centuries, my fears old enemies, and now I have a son who is my pride—but to whom I can barely speak. When I do, I say all the wrong things and I see him move even further from me.”
Stunned speechless by this unforeseen and startling show of emotion, Titus watched Tanae in silence as she carried on past him. She’d never been particularly maternal with her son, but this was the first evidence he’d ever seen that the distance between them was a wound that bled.
Perhaps, after the world had settled into some semblance of sanity, he’d speak to Galen, see if his former protégé wished to fly home for a visit. Or would that simply lead to more pain for both parties? Fact was that Tanae could be a hard mother—Titus had thought that even when Galen was a babe, hungry for his mother’s approval.
He knew the gentle and pampered flitterbies—a particular group of orphans raised in his court—had tried to baby the boy, but Galen had been stubborn and resolute even then. That didn’t mean the boy’s brave heart hadn’t bruised each time Tanae withheld her approval. Tzadiq had done his best, but he was more warrior than father. Titus had spent more time with the boy than either parent, but even an archangel’s approbation couldn’t erase the hurt caused by a mother or father.
He sighed; he could appreciate Tanae and Tzadiq as warriors while disagreeing with their parenting strategy. Titus had been raised with discipline tempered by overwhelming love, and that was his template for how he dealt with children. To withhold affection from a child . . . no, he couldn’t agree with it.
He’d ask Sharine her opinion on the matter when he got this blasted device working and they spoke. At least he’d worked out how to send a message.
His fingers felt too big and fat on the sleek screen of the device, but he missed Sharine too much not to persevere. He wrote: I broke the original device by hitting too hard at the screen.
Her response was pure astonishment that he was even attempting to use a phone.
When he did finally succeed with the device, and asked her about Tanae and Galen, she was silent in thought for long moments. “I made awful mistakes as a mother,” she said, her eyes dark with sorrow, “but the one thing I did right was love Illium fiercely when he was a boy.
“I think Tanae has a much harder road to walk—her son is weapons-master to an archangel, and settled with a woman he adores. He’s no boy with a soft heart . . . but she remains his mother. If she truly wishes to build that bridge, she must be willing to forget pride and accept that he could choose to reject her outright. He has that right.”
Expression pensive, she added, “Talk to her, Titus. If she opened up to you, it’s as close to a cry for help as she might ever make.”
Titus had no expertise in such things, but he trusted Sharine’s, so the next time they broke from battle at dawn, he found Tanae and as they cleaned their weapons side by side, he said, “If you die, there ends the chance to speak to Galen—and to make any apologies you wish to make.”
Tanae grew stiff . . . but didn’t move away.
The next day, she said, “I don’t know what to say to him. I get it wrong every time—I’m harsh and mean when I want to be otherwise.”
Out of his depth, Titus asked her if she’d speak to Sharine. “She’s a mother, too, and she understands what it is to make mistakes as a parent.”
Three days later, Tanae said yes, and Titus passed the baton. He knew his skills and he knew Sharine’s.
Together, they made one hell of a team.
It felt good to have her at his side in such a way, to have her strength aligned to and augmenting his own. He could only hope h
e did half as much for her. Because for the first time in his existence, Titus knew he needed a woman—but he was rawly conscious that the need might not be reciprocated.
He felt like a pup, waiting for her every call or message.
Then one day she sent a message that sheared ice through his veins.
Titus, we’ve found another infected angel.
* * *
* * *
Sharine should’ve expected this. The first infected angel had gone north for a reason—from all they’d been able to divine from their conversation with the survivor, the angel had retained a limited sense of reason until the final break from sanity. It was safe to assume he’d been more rational at the start.
As he’d been part of Charisemnon’s inner court, he’d also have known the battle was taking place in the other direction. While the border was no longer a political fact, the north remained safer if you wished to hide. Until now, Titus’s people had focused on the more badly overrun southern side of the continent.
It was Ozias who’d found this infected angel, her sharp eyes spotting the primary wing feathers of an angel lying outside a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. In angelkind, primary feathers didn’t shed in the same regular fashion as other feathers. For the majority of angels, it took a long time for a damaged primary feather to grow back, and the feathers on the ground were each the same shade of charcoal gray. They belonged to a single angel. For one of their kind to have lost that many . . .
“I’m going to check if we have a wounded angel,” Ozias had said, the sun a glow against the left side of her face, her features exposed because she’d braided her hair at the sides before pulling the rest of her curls into a tight bun. “Everyone else, stay up here.”
Sharine had disagreed. “Ozias,” she’d said softly, “there’s another possibility.”
The spymaster’s pupils had dilated before she gave a small nod. “Lady, I’d be grateful for your assistance.”