by Nalini Singh
“I won’t leave you there alone.” Naasir did not leave his family behind.
“I’ll be behind you,” Jason assured him. “If you can’t send me a message to let me know your location, just keep going. I’ll find you.”
“Don’t take too long or I’ll come back for you.”
Jason held his eyes and then he did something he hadn’t done for a long time. He reached out to touch Naasir, closing his hand over Naasir’s shoulder in a firm grip. “I know,” he said. “Now, let’s hunt.”
Naasir bared his teeth again and twisted to continue his run through the grasses as Jason prepared to lift off. Perhaps, he thought, considering Jason’s touch, there were more benefits to mating than he’d realized. Even with a soft, breakable mate, Jason was happy now. Jason hadn’t been happy for hundreds of years. He’d been dark inside.
Naasir wasn’t dark inside . . . but he was alone. The only one of his kind in the entire world. He had friends, had family, but he had no one who was like him. Mating wouldn’t change that, but it would give him a person who belonged to him just as much as he belonged to her. And maybe one day, they’d have a cub and there would be another like him in the world.
He grinned at the thought of a naughty cub hanging upside down from a tree branch. No one knew if he could reproduce, but Keir said there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to; he wasn’t like Made vampires who were only fertile for about two centuries after their Making. He’d been born as well as Made . . . and he was mostly not a vampire.
What even Keir couldn’t tell him was whether he was biologically compatible with a female, mortal or immortal, vampire or angel. He’d never tried to create a cub with anyone—he knew when he was in heat, could feel it, and he never took lovers during that time.
He didn’t want his cub to have a mother who thought he—or she!—was a savage. He wanted someone he trusted to love their child. And he hadn’t been old enough to be a father. Now, he was, and he’d found an angel who wore her own secret skin, but who’d shown her real self to him.
He wanted to play more with her, find out if she could be his mate. To do that, he first had to rescue her from hell.
* * *
Andromeda had actually fallen asleep during the last part of the journey to Lijuan’s citadel. It wasn’t by chance. Dahariel had taught her that skill over a hundred years of training. A warrior who could sleep where he or she had the chance, was a warrior who’d last longer in battle—or in enemy hands. While as an angel of almost four hundred, she didn’t have to sleep every night, she couldn’t last days or even weeks without sleep.
Sleep is a weapon. Dahariel’s aquiline features in her vision. It rejuvenates and heals. Use it like any other weapon at your disposal.
She’d never appreciated the value of his training and advice more than she did today.
Her hours of sleep meant she was alert when they arrived at the citadel just before sunrise. Ordering her bonds cut off as soon as they landed, Xi allowed her to remove her blindfold herself. “Are you in any pain or discomfort?”
She wasn’t surprised at the civility of his question. Xi was a general down to his bones. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t execute or torture her should it become necessary, but until then, he’d treat her with flawless courtesy.
“A little stiff,” she said, stretching out her wings and wincing more than strictly required. “May I be permitted to do a low flight to ease my muscles?” It would give her an idea of the landscape at least.
Unfortunately, Xi was too smart to permit such a slip after keeping her blindfolded this long. “No,” he said. “But you can spread your wings in this courtyard before we go in.”
Andromeda took her time. She was stiff and she needed to move smoothly if she was to seize an escape opportunity when it arose. Going through some basic exercises taught to most angels in childhood, she did nothing to betray her training under Dahariel—or the fact she’d kept up her skill by sparring with Dahariel and Galen behind walls that protected her secret.
Both angels had agreed with her choice to keep a hidden skill in her arsenal. Galen helped her because she was one of Jessamy’s apprentices, but Dahariel’s motives were . . . complicated. Andromeda didn’t like to think too much on those motives, but her training meant she had some kind of a chance in this hostile environment.
You have secrets.
Naasir’s deep voice echoed in her head and she wondered what he’d done after discovering she’d gone missing. He would’ve joined in the search, but even a silver-eyed vampire who wasn’t a vampire couldn’t be expected to infiltrate this citadel. As far as she was aware, no one aside from Lijuan’s people even knew its exact location.
If she was to survive this and escape, she’d have to rely on herself. Ironically, her bloodline might sway Lijuan enough to keep Andromeda alive, but Andromeda was no hypocrite. She wouldn’t attempt to use a family name she’d chosen to forsake—and regardless, given the way she’d been abducted, Lijuan wasn’t worried about offending Charisemnon.
“Thank you,” she said to Xi after completing the stretching routine.
She’d taken the opportunity to note the armed guards atop the high turrets, as well as the squadrons overhead. For some reason, and despite having witnessed the exquisite beauty and stately elegance of the Forbidden City before its destruction, she’d expected Lijuan’s citadel to be an ugly monstrosity full of despair—instead it was formed from a shimmering dark gray stone that the rising sun lit to glowing life.
Flowers in subtle shades bloomed in large planters situated around the courtyard, and she could see not only soldiers of both sexes moving about, but also maidens dressed in delicate silk cheongsams and ethereal gowns. There were pretty male courtiers, too, wearing embroidered silks and fashionable tunics.
Water glinted through one passageway out of the courtyard, along with flashes of green. A pond, Andromeda realized. Perhaps a garden created around that source of water. That had to be the true courtyard where Lijuan might walk amongst her courtiers. This was the more practical external one, and even it was paved with stones that glittered with flecks of sparkling minerals.
The parts of the roof she could see from here had sinuous dragons along the edges, while painstakingly carved stone bridges connected one section of the citadel to another. Those bridges endowed on the surely sprawling edifice an appearance of fragility. Impressive, given that it was hewn out of stone and could probably withstand a long-term siege.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “I expected a more military-like structure.”
“This is our lady’s home,” Xi said, a touch of censure in his tone, his posture military straight. “She has always loved and nurtured artists, though she has never flaunted it like Michaela. This citadel was designed by a gifted architect long ago.”
“Ah.” She ran her fingers over the stone, her bones aching from the sense of history embedded in the silky smoothness under her touch. As if so many hands had touched this stone over so many millennia, it had been worn down to its purest essence. “Suyin?” she asked in wonder.
A small incline of Xi’s head. “She was born of Lady Lijuan’s sister.”
Andromeda felt her heart sigh. To be allowed to view, to touch one of Suyin’s lost masterworks . . . It almost made her forget her circumstances. Craning her neck, she wished she could see the citadel from above—not for escape this time, but because her scholar’s heart was aflutter at the idea of exploring what may well be the largest structure Suyin ever designed.
Xi allowed her time to admire the parts she could glimpse before nodding at her to walk with him into the citadel.
“The world lost a great artist on Suyin’s death,” Andromeda said, her hands itching for a sketchpad and a pencil.
“Yes.”
Even as she continued to glory in the grace and splendor that shouted Suyin’s touch—as embodied in the palace the architect had designed for Alexander—she was recalling the sad and mysterious circumstances of the
other woman’s death. “Since Suyin’s body was never found, I’ve always hoped that perhaps her suicide note was a feint intended to allow her to go to Sleep on her own terms.”
Xi’s wings brushed hers on a tight corner. “My apologies,” he said, immediately putting an inch between them. “I wasn’t alive at the time Suyin created this citadel, but my lady may have further insights. We go to see her now.”
Andromeda’s blood chilled, wonder erased by ice-cold fear.
10
Swallowing to wet her dry throat, she said, “Is it possible for me to refresh myself prior to meeting the archangel? She is not known for her kindness to those who offend her.” An undeniable truth. “I would rather go in looking my best.”
“A wise and intelligent choice.” Xi’s near-black eyes skimmed her dusty form, but there was nothing derogatory in the glance.
No, it was more like a general taking stock of one of his men.
“You have fifteen minutes,” he said. “I will speak to my lady in the interim and tell her I have given you time to recover.” He made a small gesture and a short, sturdy-looking Chinese vampire appeared out of the woodwork to bow deeply toward him.
Andromeda’s heart slammed hard against her rib cage. She hadn’t seen the black-garbed vampire, hadn’t even suspected he was hovering. She’d have to be far more alert if she intended to make it out of here. Following the vampire down the corridor, then another and another and another, she realized he was either deliberately taking her on a circuitous and confusing route, or this citadel was a maze. It didn’t matter—a scholar’s mind was her greatest weapon and Andromeda had long ago learned ways to memorize and retrieve information.
Reaching the room at last, the vampire waved her in. “I will wait for you, honored guest,” he said in one of the major dialects spoken in Lijuan’s territory, then began almost immediately to repeat the words in French.
Andromeda held up a hand. “I understand.” Like most angels, even the youngest, she spoke multiple languages. However, as a scholar who wished to work at Jessamy’s side, she was expected to learn every single one that might be used by mortals and immortals both, including those languages that had fallen slowly out of favor.
For how can a Historian keep a true record if she doesn’t hear and understand all of the voices, even the quietest?
Jessamy’s words the day she’d explained the importance of language studies to a young Andromeda who was a novice at scholarship but who wanted so desperately to learn. Andromeda’s current retention rate was fifty-eight percent and included all the major world languages, as well as about a third of the minor ones.
Also remaining on her list were the subdialects, as well as certain languages spoken only in isolated pockets of the world, and the “dead” tongues. Of course that percentage would never hit a hundred—language was a living organism that changed from day to day, year to year, century to century.
Even Jessamy considered herself only ninety-eight percent proficient at any given time.
“I won’t be long,” she said to the vampire and closed the door behind herself.
The room she’d been given was elegantly appointed in dark gray with touches of jewel blue, and to her surprise, it had a window large enough to allow an angel to fly out. When she opened the latch, the window swung outward, letting in cool outside air that settled like a balm on her strained skin.
In front of her were rolling fields full of wildflowers that appeared undaunted by summer’s absence, beyond them trees resplendent with fall foliage that glowed in the soft morning light. While Andromeda had no idea of her exact location, the fact that the landscape appeared mountainous, when added to the noticeable chill in the dawn air, suggested that this part of Lijuan’s territory would turn snow white come winter.
It would be much more difficult to escape in snow, or icy, torrential rain.
The flowers beckoned at her to take a step, fly free.
The window was beautifully convenient.
It was as if Xi wanted her to fly out.
Leaning out with her hands tightly gripping the windowsill, she drew in a long breath, doing her best to make it seem that she was simply enjoying the view. As she did, she took in everything around her. Still, she’d have missed it if she hadn’t trained under Dahariel, and later, under Jessamy.
Dahariel had taught her how to assess a threat situation.
The Historian had taught her not only to look, but to see.
What Andromeda saw was that the fields might be empty but the same couldn’t be said for the sky. It wasn’t that she spotted any wings or caught a glint off a sword strapped onto a body high above. No, what she saw was a single feather float down to land on the grass not far from her window. That feather was small, could’ve been of a bird except that it was a pale yellow streaked with blue.
A very distinctive coloration identical to that of Philomena, one of Lijuan’s generals.
Only a fool would expect to beat Philomena and her squadron on their own terrain.
Pushing away from the window, Andromeda walked to the bed to see a change of clothes laid out for her. Had she given it any advance thought, she might’ve expected the garments to be delicate—and wholly impractical for escape purposes—courtier clothing, but the outfit was formed of tunic and pants, of a style she might have chosen herself. The hip-length tunic’s design echoed that of a cheongsam, the fabric lush midnight blue silk hand-printed with tiny white flowers. The pants were loose and white and cuffed at the ankles.
Stark and lovely both—and clearly tailored for her body.
The underwear placed beside it in a discreet cloth bag was still in its packaging . . . and also of the correct size. It made her wonder exactly how long Xi’s people had been watching her from the shadows, just waiting for the opportunity to grab her.
Feeling painfully vulnerable, she bathed quickly before getting into the new garments. A little fiddling and some creative use of strips of fabric torn from her dirty and already damaged gown and she managed to hide her blades along either side of her hips, under the waistband of the pants. She’d taken care to rip the gown along tears created by the net when she was first kidnapped, so there was no reason it should arouse suspicion.
As for this outfit, the pants were light enough that they wouldn’t hamper her should she need to run, though she would’ve preferred a color other than white; her best chance of escape would be at night, when no one would expect a scholar to venture out into the unknown.
That, however, was a problem for later.
For now, she had to survive Lijuan.
Having washed her hair, she tamed it into a neat knot at her nape while it was still wet and manageable, then slipped her feet into the provided slippers of white silk before opening the door. “Thank you for waiting.”
The vampire bowed again and turned to lead her onward. The corridors through which they walked were wide and, thanks to myriad windows, full of morning sunlight. Art lined the walls: fine pencil drawings and detailed paintings of parts of Lijuan’s territory intermingled with small but intricate tapestries. Flowers sat fragrant and lovely in large porcelain vases almost as tall as Andromeda.
“Oh.” She couldn’t help herself when she saw one particular vase. Touching her fingers to the masterwork by an angel long lost, she felt her heart weep. Lijuan had lived so long, seen so much beauty, been a patron of it . . . how had she become this twisted nightmare?
“Honored guest.”
Swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, Andromeda rejoined her escort.
The light-filled and gracious atmosphere of the citadel began to change in slow degrees the closer they got to the center. Darkness licked at the edges like a crawling beast, creating pools of shadow the leadlight lamps set into the walls seemed unable to penetrate. There was no longer any natural light. And the flowers . . . they were wrong.
Instinct told her they’d come from stock identical to the flowers she’d seen earlier, but a dark power had warped t
hese blooms after they’d been picked, the same maleficent energy that made the hairs rise on Andromeda’s arms and on the back of her neck and that caused nausea to churn in her gut.
Girding her stomach, she took care that no part of her touched the shadows . . . at least until they grew so thick not even a child could’ve avoided them. Cold whispered over her feathers and her skin where the shadows found purchase, and it was a cold that made her think not of winter, but of the grave and of dead, decaying things.
She tried to tell herself it was just her imagination, but the mute courtiers she passed in the corridors, their faces pinched and skittering fear in their eyes as they walked rapidly in the opposite direction, argued otherwise.
“We are here, honored guest.” Her escort stopped in front of a set of large doors that had been opened outward. Two vampires stood guard, both dressed in dark gray combat uniforms embellished with a single stripe of red down the left side.
The same colors as those in Xi’s wings.
As Lijuan had used these colors since her ascension, it made Andromeda wonder if the archangel had paid a young Xi particular attention because of his patriotic coloring. Had Xi’s future been written the instant his wings settled into their final coloration?
If she survived this meeting, perhaps she’d ask Xi.
In front of her, the guards didn’t so much as appear to breathe. One was a square-jawed and blue-eyed blond, the other dark-eyed and black-haired, his features angular, but they’d clearly been tempered in the same merciless crucible, their eyes without pity.
Walking past the two and leaving her guide outside, Andromeda found herself in a cavernous space that contained only a single piece of furniture. It was a throne carved of jade, the shades within spanning the spectrum from creamy white to a green so dark it was near black. Set atop a dais reached by five wide steps, it was spotlighted by the gentle golden light of the standing lamps set behind it. The soft lighting brought up the warmth in the jade, made the carvings glow.