He yanked off his mask, his first thought upon reaching the other side always being ohthankthegods that's over!
His second thought was …
"Where am I?"
"Welcome, Brigadier-General Israfa." A thirteen-foot tall Cherubim guard reached down one armor-clad hand to help him out of the needle.
Raphael hesitated before taking the Cherubim's hand. Had he done something wrong? He stared up into the emotionless, antlike face of the man sent to meet him. The Cherubim wore beautiful, intricately wrought armor, but there was nothing ceremonial about it. Two long swords jutted out of holsters on his back, plus two shorter swords for close fighting strapped onto his belt. He held a spear-like nanigata in his other hand. This was not the Eternal Light, but somewhere in the Emperor's palace?
"Master … I'm sorry, Sir," Raphael gave the guard an apologetic grin. "I don't know your name, Sir."
"Master Natsuka," the Cherubim's voice rumbled low. The guard spoke with a parsimony of words as all Cherubim tended to do, a mannerism they had passed along to Mikhail. "Jophiel awaits your arrival. Kamelia will lead you to her quarters."
Raphael tried not to blush as a pretty Electrophori eel wearing high heels and a tail ring denoting she was single handed him suitable civilian attire to wear within the Emperor's palace and waited for him to get dressed. Thank the gods he hadn't stripped all the way down to his boxer shorts to fit inside the needle! As soon as he tied his shoes, he followed her through the palace to a wing he hadn't even known existed.
"Wait here," Kamelia said. "Jophiel will be with you in just a few moments." With a click-clack-click of heels, the Electrophori left him standing in the broad hallway.
This particular wing was simply decorated by the standards of the Eternal Palace. He sat down in a chair placed outside the door and arranged his wings over the back to wait. About twenty minutes went by before he heard voices and the door handle turning. Raphael jumped up, ready to salute his commanding officer. The door opened. He blinked in surprise as not Jophiel, but Prime Minister Lucifer walked out.
"S-sir…" Raphael gave him a crisp salute.
The Angelic behind him placed a hand upon his wings, far burlier than the slender, white-haired boy who'd just come out of Jophiel's personal quarters. Raphael blinked. His eyes had played tricks upon him. The unknown Angelic could not be more than 23 years old, not Lucifer's 240, and his eyes were the same brilliant shade of Cerulean blue as Jophiel's, not silver. The Angelic who emerged behind him wore the bars of a Major-General, one rank higher than Raphael.
The boy spotted Raphael and gave him a crisp salute. "Sir!"
The stern-faced Major-General assumed Raphael's salute had been meant for him, which it would have been had he spotted him first. The Major-General was blonde-haired and blue-eyed as all Angelics were, with white wings containing speckles of grey. The man appeared to be quite a bit older than the boy, but there was an echo of him in the boy's features, as well. The boy's sire?
"Major-General Kabshiel, Sir," Raphael recognized who stood before him. Kabshiel was the first man who had ever begotten offspring upon Jophiel, long before she had been promoted to Supreme Commander-General.
The boy must be Jophiel's first-born, Pathiel? Despite his young age, Raphael knew the boy had already begotten the unbelievable yield of three offspring, two of them upon high-ranking females who had long been blacklisted as infertile. It was rumored that Jophiel had reassigned her eldest to the most remote part of the Alliance and hidden her grandchildren away in a youth training academy after Pathiel had tried to run off with the mother of his first child, a scandal which had rocked the Alliance. Raphael suspected it was part of the reason Jophiel was hesitant to marry him now even though the Emperor had given their union his blessing.
"Brigadier-General Raphael," Kabshiel saluted him back. "Pathiel … this is your brother Uriel's sire."
"Pleased to meet you, Sir," the boy held his salute, waiting for Raphael to give the all clear.
Raphael wracked his brains. What was protocol in a situation such as this? Kabshiel outranked him, but he was also Pathiel's father.
"As you were," Raphael said to the boy, then made eye contact with the higher-ranking officer waiting to be given the at-ease himself. "Sir?"
"As you were," Major-General Kabshiel ordered. He placed his hand on Pathiel's shoulder, his expression softening. "Supreme Commander-General Abaddon has just granted me the favor of allowing my only child to be placed under my command."
"Ah … Abaddon?" Raphael frowned. Had he heard wrong? Yes. He must have heard wrong. He decided to remain silent rather than reveal he was either hearing things, or had not heard of something so ground-shaking because he'd been out in the most remote spiral arm in the galaxy on a top-secret mission.
"Good day, Sir," Pathiel tried to mimic his father's stern expression and did not quite manage to suppress a grin. Whatever had been discussed between his sire and his mother, it obviously pleased the boy.
Now that Raphael looked closely, the boy was the spitting image of Jophiel. Only a speckling of grey plumage and slightly broader nose betrayed his sire's genetic contribution. Raphael stood in the at ease position as the two Angelics strode down the hallway, the younger Angelic working to match his sire's more self-assured gait, until the Cherubim guard let the pair out past the outer door before knocking.
"Enter," Jophiel called.
The mere sound of her voice caused a warm expansiveness to flood his chest. Little rivulets of electricity shot down to his extremities. Oh! How he had missed her! The appearance of one of her former lovers exiting her quarters aroused a stab of jealousy. He turned the handle and strode inside.
She was dressed not in the uniform of a military commander, but in a tasteful civilian pantsuit in a shade of blue which only accentuated her cerulean blue eyes. Instead of her usual tight bun, her hair was coiled loosely at her neck in a chignon, wisps of silver-blonde hair curling in little tendrils to frame her face. Her snow white feathers were fluffed as though she had spent several hours preening, not her usual perfunctory grooming.
It was all Raphael could do not to kick the door shut and fly to her side…
"Sir," Raphael saluted her.
Jophiel gave him a wistful smile and stepped around the narrow sofa table she used as a makeshift desk to stand in front of him.
"That's no longer necessary," Jophiel's voice sounded weary. She reached up to touch the hand held stiffly above his eyebrow in a perfect Alliance salute. "Parliament stripped me of my command when they voted the Emperor was no longer the leader of this empire."
Her intoxicating scent got to his brain stem long before her words did, causing him to almost swoon forward and kiss those luscious pink lips he dreamed about hundreds of times each day. What she had just said belatedly registered in his conscious mind.
"Wh-what?" Raphael's wings whooshed with disbelief, an instinctive gesture Angelics made whenever they sensed they might lose their balance.
Her lips turned down in a sad smile. "A lot has happened while you were out searching the uncharted territories. Come. Sit with me, please? We have a lot to discuss."
She gestured for him to sit on the couch in this room which was some type of apartment. Did Jophiel now live here? The room bore evidence of having been played in recently, but he could see no sign of Uriel. Jophiel noticed the way his eyes scanned the room, searching for his son.
"Uriel is with Nanny Garoaker," Jophiel reassured him. "The needles will need to make two trips to transport her and the gorock back with you to the uncharted territories. She's not happy about it, but she loves him enough that she will go with him to ease his transition. The gorock we'll just have to sedate."
"What … um … Jophie?" He sat clumsily, not only sitting down upon his feathers instead of arranging them neatly as he sat, but also her perfectly coiffed white feathers as well. "What's going on?"
She told him.
Raphael realized he was staring at her with his mouth
open. He shut it, determined to project the proper gravitas.
"Lucifer is dead?" Raphael repeated. "And you've been busted down to Private Third Class?"
"I'm nothing anymore!" Tears welled in Jophiel's eyes. "Private third class is a rank you only hold on the bus ride over from the youth training academy to your first day of basic training. The only reason they didn't kick me out of the military completely is because the law says, as an Angelic born of at least one enlisted parent, I must serve my mandatory 500 years."
He realized she waited for something, some acknowledgement that he did not devalue her now that she was not longer a means to career advancement. Her eyelashes veiled her brilliant blue irises as she looked down at his hand resting on his lap. His experience playing with Uriel and communicating with needles had taught him she was looking to him for reassurance.
"It doesn't matter," Raphael pulled her slender, white fingers to his lips and planted a kiss upon her knuckles. "That just means I'm no longer in your chain of command."
He watched the emotions dance across her beautiful, chiseled features. Apprehension. Fear he would reject her. Relief. Taking a cue from his good friend Major Glicki, perhaps a bit of levity might help the situation?
"Hmmm… An E-fuzzy?" He shot her a grin that exposed the dimple he had passed along to their son. "Does that mean that you now have to salute me?"
"Not for long, I fear," Jophiel said. "The Emperor has asked me to defy Parliament and refuse to turn myself in for interrogation. I am here because not even Abaddon will enforce Parliament's order to arrest me within the Eternal Palace. They know we have been in contact regularly, but they do not know where your fleet is currently stationed. If the Emperor cannot regain the upper hand, it will destroy your career."
"You know I am loyal to the Emperor," Raphael dared the forwardness to reach out and touch her cheek. "Jophie, tell me what you need me to do?"
"The Emperor feels it best to keep Abaddon in the dark about Mikhail's transmission," Jophiel said. "You are the best intelligence officer we have."
"But Abaddon could help us find the human homeworld?"
"The Destroyer is more useful as a deterrent against Shay'tan than conducting a manhunt," Jophiel said. "Until we know what Lucifer was really doing in the borderlands, we can't risk leaving the Alliance defenseless."
"We could offer to come back and hold the border if Abaddon would prefer to conduct the search himself," Raphael said. "What matters is we continue the search!"
"Shay'tan fears The Destroyer," Jophiel said. "He does not fear you … or me."
"But Abaddon searches in the wrong direction!"
"If you were Abaddon and traced the Prime Minister's ship to where Ba'al Zebub had been delivering the shipments," Jophiel asked, "would you believe the Emperor if he suddenly told you the planet lies someplace completely different?"
"But it is not there!" Raphael said. "Mikhail's transmission could never have made it that far! The partial vectors aren't even in that spiral arm."
"So we say," Jophiel said. "After the Emperor was evicted from power and Abaddon doesn't trust a word he says."
Jophiel looked past him as though replaying something in her mind. "From what little I saw of Abaddon's wife, Shay'tan hand-picked the one bribe the old general would not refuse and staged her delivery to lead us off on a merry chase if Abaddon tried to wrest it from him. Not only does our presence in the defunct Third Empire give Shay'tan an excuse to invade, but it will provoke the Free Marid Confederation and Tokoloshe Kingdoms to unite against us."
"What are my orders?"
"I will not ask your fleet to follow me," Jophiel's expression was serious. "Right now, the only person who knows is you. Just continue to maintain radio silence and keep on searching. If Abaddon can't find your armada, then he can't order your subordinate commanders to do something different than the orders they received from the Emperor himself."
"What about Uriel?" Raphael touched her cheek. "It's you he's used to being with."
A tear escaped those long, dark lashes and kissed a long, tender streak down the valley next to her nose, pausing at her top lip to capture the light.
"Just keep him safe, okay?" Jophiel whispered. "Parliament seized my children. Even Abaddon did not approve, which is why he ordered each child be placed under the protection of their sire. Uriel is the only one I can't protect."
"Why would Abaddon give up that kind of leverage?"
"Because he understands what I so foolishly didn't until She-who-is nearly took Uriel from me," Jophiel touched his hand. "A society which doesn't nurture its offspring is a society which is already dead. It just doesn't know it yet."
Her fingers slid up to brush his forearm. Raphael's heart fluttered in his ears. Jophiel never initiated touch. Ever. Always she maintained that professional distance between them. His breath sped up. Longing moved up into his heart and outwards into every pore as he stared into those bottomless blue eyes, so brilliant it felt as though he stared into the sky.
"Marry me?" It was the question he asked each time he got a moment alone with her.
Long, dark eyelashes lowered to cloak her expression. And now, she would refuse him. Again…
"I do not think I am an example the other hybrids will follow any longer," Jophiel's hand trembled where she touched his arm, "but I think perhaps it may be necessary for me to continue this ruse a little longer?"
"What ruse?"
"Pretending I am not in love with you," Jophiel whispered.
Disbelief that he was not experiencing an auditory hallucination caused him to hesitate before he realized that maybe she was finally telling him yes?
"And what if it becomes possible that you no longer do need to maintain any kind of political deception?" Raphael's voice warbled with his hope.
"Then as soon as you find the human homeworld," Jophiel's eyes rose up to meet this, "if you are still willing to marry a lowly private third-class, then yes, I will publicly marry you."
Raphael exhaled, disbelief delaying his reaction before he unleashed the yearning he'd kept so carefully contained. He crushed his lips down upon hers, pulling her into his arms with a cry of joy. This time, he would give her no quarter until she yearned for his touch so badly it would hurt her to be separated from him the same way it physically hurt him to be apart.
She pushed against his chest as though she had not expected him to react so strongly, but Raphael was heedless of her whimpered protests. He tangled his fingers in her hair and nipped her lip until she parted them to allow him a taste of her tongue. With a groan she responded, her scent so intoxicating it was overwhelming. Some part of his brain whispered he came on too strong, but he did not care. She was his mate, and he would make her his.
"Raphael … I …"
His golden wings slapped against her snowy white ones. She melted into him, her protests ceasing as that cold reserve she had built up melted in the onslaught of a man who was determined to brand himself into her very soul. It was not a lustful instinct, although the warmth which pooled into his loins only accentuated his urgency, but something else, a need to complete something which had begun to form and been cut off by the artificial impediments which decreed his species was not allowed to love.
And then there was her scent. So intoxicating. So primal. So…
"You're in heat again?"
Raphael recognized the scent that had him willing to rut in the street, if necessary, to have his way with her again. Angelic females usually came into heat once every two years, but it had only been a year and a half since they had created Uriel. Sometimes Angelic heat cycles came quicker, but not often.
"Yes," Jophiel forced him to meet her eyes. Her lips trembled as a shadow of vulnerability crossed her face. "Raphael, the Emperor's edict mandates that no two offspring can have the exact same parents. If we do this, not only do we break the law, but every other hybrid will follow our example, causing our gene pool to shrink even further."
"Then I will find you
that planet so it doesn't matter anymore," Raphael touched her cheek. "Mikhail was right. Our species was not meant to live this way. The only woman I can ever bear touching again is you."
"Then make love to me," Jophiel's eyes brimmed with tears. "Make love to me and we shall see if the goddess approves of this union by gifting us with another child."
Responding with the hunger of passion too long denied, he fumbled with her buttons and slid her blue suit jacket off her shoulders to plant a tender kiss. Jophiel gasped as he nipped her pale flesh, slipping the garment off from around her wings and moving to conquer her camisole.
Jophiel answered his hunger with her own, repressed appetite, tugging at his shirt until she finally just tore off the buttons. Her scent grew stronger, muskier, the scent of lutropin, an Angelic female ovulating. Angelic females bordered on aggressiveness whenever they went into a heat, an instinct the Emperor had dampened through socialization, but never been able to eliminate. She tugged at his undershirt, eager to get it off so she could caress the muscles which strained beneath his skin.
Raphael cupped her breasts as he freed them from her camisole, twin, creamy peaks which had graced his dreams each night since the last time he had tasted them. She whimpered as he kissed his way down her neck, pausing to nip the pulse beating at the base of her throat, then slid his lips further down to close his mouth first upon one nipple, taking it between his teeth and nipping the tiny nob until it grew hard and firm, and then sliding his tongue between the peaks into the valley and up to the other summit to conquer that peak, as well.
"Raphael!" Jophiel arched her back, giving him access to slide her slacks off of her trim hips. Twelve babies she’d borne the Alliance, but she was still as fit and slim as a cadet.
He traced the thin, silver lines which were the only indication this would not be her first union and paused to first kiss, and then dart his tongue into her belly button. His manhood fought against the confines of his pants, twanging insistently for him to set it free. White-blonde curls beckoned from the soft pink flesh of her feminine mound. He nuzzled it with his nose, noting the way her abdomen trembled beneath his lips and inhaling the scent of her arousal.
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 91