by Nalini Singh
Suyin’s next words proved she’d also worked out what needed to happen. “I’ll bleed too much or I’d already have cut off my remaining wing and tried to escape via the ground,” she said without any hint of self-pity. “The pain from excision is intense and will likely cause me to lose consciousness for an hour at least. The blood loss will render me weak for much longer.”
Anger was a burn in Andromeda’s blood, but she forced herself to think. “We can break your wing.” That, too, would hurt, but it shouldn’t cause unconsciousness or the kind of blood loss that came with excision.
Andromeda had experienced a broken wing herself as a much younger angel, after being caught in a sudden draft that slammed her into the gorge wall, understood the resulting level of pain—and from what she’d seen, Suyin had developed a much higher pain threshold as a result of the repeated wing excisions. “Once it’s broken,” Andromeda added, “we can strap it tight to your back.” Like a folded-in fan, so it wouldn’t gather air.
Suyin took a deep breath, nodded. “Bones heal.”
Naasir closed the distance to her on that soft permission. Picking up a small cushion that had been lying on one of the sofas, he gave it to her. “Muffle your pain.”
While Naasir did the horrible task and Suyin bore it, Andromeda stepped onto a chair and removed the swords mounted on the wall. They may have been intended to taunt and terrorize Suyin, but they had razored edges and handled well. Conscious she’d need a scabbard if she was to carry both, she reluctantly left one behind.
As for her knives, she set them aside for Suyin; the other angel had no training with the sword, would find it unwieldy. Knives, however, were instinctive to use.
That done, she took the sword to the unfortunately white sheets on Suyin’s bed. By the time she’d finished slicing them up, Naasir had also completed his grim chore. Suyin’s wing hung limp, and though the angel’s face was as bone white as her hair, she’d held on to consciousness. Using the long strips of cloth, Andromeda and Naasir together strapped the broken-and-folded wing to Suyin’s body. “We’re almost done,” she reassured Suyin when the other woman’s body shuddered.
Wrapping the final strip of fabric around Suyin’s ribs, she tied it off. “Done.” She didn’t stop to think—she enclosed the much older angel gently in her arms and held her, rocking softly until Suyin drew in a shaky breath and pulled back.
“You were strong,” Naasir said, approval in his tone as he slid away what looked like a small phone. “Is your balance better?”
Taking the knives Andromeda handed her, Suyin walked, then ran quietly around the suite. “Yes, but I’m not used to heavy exercise.”
“We won’t be running hard.” Naasir came over to Andromeda to tug at her braid. “Ready?”
She held up the sword. Its deadly edge gleamed in the light.
Naasir grinned as Suyin smiled in angry satisfaction. “What a beautiful irony that the instrument of my torture will now help us escape.”
“I’ve contacted Jason,” Naasir told them both, and suddenly, he was the dangerous man who was part of an archangel’s innermost circle. “He’ll soon cause a disturbance in another section of the citadel—when he does, you must become my shadows.” An order. “I am the alpha. You follow.” His extraordinary eyes held Andromeda’s. “Not for always. For this.”
Andromeda was oddly pleased that he’d clarified his statement. “Until we escape,” she agreed.
Naasir went silent, his head slightly bent. Then he grinned again, his teeth bright white against the lush dark of his skin. “Jason is very clever.”
Andromeda didn’t know what he’d heard, but the ground vibrated with the thunder of running feet seconds later. All were heading to the other side of the compound. Screams sounded soon afterward.
“Reborn,” Naasir said with a feral smile. “Jason has driven them home.” A deep breath that made his eyes glint. “And he’s set a fire.” Opening the door, he said, “There is no one here now. Let’s play.”
14
Let’s play.
The statement should’ve sounded dismissive given the level of danger, but it made Andromeda grin. When she glanced at Suyin, she saw the other woman was also smiling—an astonished, startled kind of a smile. Naasir had that effect. Together, the three of them moved quickly down the corridor. Naasir made no noise; Andromeda and Suyin weren’t as quiet, but they did their best.
When Naasir held up a hand, she froze and caught Suyin when the wounded angel would’ve stumbled. Lifting a finger to his lips, Naasir jumped. He was on the ceiling before Andromeda knew what was happening. Her mouth dried up. Watching him make his way around the corner, she had to force herself not to follow on foot, her protective instincts bristling.
He returned not long afterward. When they turned the corner, she saw one of her vampiric escorts propped up against the wall. “Is he—”
“Alive,” Naasir said, and without warning, opened a door. “Inside.”
They ducked inside and he followed them in. Shutting the door, he put his ear to the wood, eyes gleaming liquid silver in the darkness. “Xi has sent people to check on you and Suyin.” Opening the door, he stepped out.
This time, Andromeda followed.
Naasir had already incapacitated one guard, and as she watched, he put his forearm around the neck of another and twisted. Clean and efficient, with no desire to cause unnecessary pain, his actions were honest in a way that spoke to the warrior in her.
Returning to the room, she brought out Suyin, and the three of them moved as fast as possible down the corridor. They had to slide into another room to escape a patrol and while in there, Suyin suddenly said, “I know this room. I built a special entrance to the tunnel in here.”
They both stared at her.
“What tunnel?” Andromeda said, wondering if her instincts had led her wrong after all. “You said there were no other escape routes but the secret gate in the wall.”
Suyin’s delicate face was so sheepish it couldn’t be disbelieved. “I forget things,” she admitted. “The Sleep has that effect, as I’m never awake long enough to truly recover.” Walking to an elegant sofa with curved wooden legs, she said, “I think the trapdoor lies beneath.”
Naasir moved the sofa and pushed the rug aside to expose a smooth, flawless floor. “Where?”
Tucking the knives into the strips of fabric that bound her wing to her body, Suyin went to bend down. Andromeda caught her arm. “Careful,” she whispered. “Don’t bend your back; use your knees.”
Even that made pain lines flare out from the corners of Suyin’s eyes, but her fingers were sure on the wood of the floor as she began to touch what must be pressure points. Andromeda took the opportunity to block the door into this room by propping a chair under the handle. Behind her, the trapdoor opened on a puff of dust.
Waving a hand in front of her face after stifling a sneeze that made her muscles wrench and her eyes tear up, Suyin looked down. “The tunnel goes to the outside. It was built as an escape route of last resort for Lijuan’s people.”
Naasir dropped down into the hole, then pulled himself back out with a lithe strength that made Andromeda want to simply watch him. “We won’t go that way,” he said definitively.
Disappointed, but not that surprised, Andromeda said, “It’s a trap?”
“Yes. It stinks of fresh scat and of reborn.” His lips lifted to reveal his fangs.
“I didn’t know.” Suyin’s throat moved, her fingers trembling as she rubbed them on her thighs. “On my honor.”
“You don’t stink of lies.” Naasir glanced down at the tunnel again. “It’s a trap, but we can turn it on those who set it.” Pulling down the trapdoor, he got up and looked at the rug and sofa they’d pushed aside. “Now we hide.”
Andromeda wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but she’d promised to trust Naasir, so she followed him into the walk-in closet on one side of the room, and there the three of them stood. They didn’t have to wait long. Thudding bangs on the door ann
ounced either boots or shoulders hitting it, but the end result was the door breaking open and guards pouring in.
Shouts followed, then came the sound of the trapdoor being thrown back.
Andromeda took Suyin’s hand when she felt the other woman begin to shake. Suyin had to be so scared of what Lijuan would do to her should they be discovered. When she felt Naasir put his arm around the wounded angel, she wasn’t surprised. Naasir might be feral and uncivilized in his true skin, but he was good in a way Xi would never be.
The general’s voice sliced through the air at that instant. “Go after them. Now. Do not allow the reborn to get to the scholar.” Swearing low under his breath, he gave further orders. “Make sure the opposite end of the tunnel is watched, on the low chance they make it out.”
“Sir.”
All went quiet soon after that.
Sliding out only once Naasir confirmed no one remained in the room, the three of them headed toward an exit. This time, they encountered no one in the corridors. Stepping out into the rain-lashed night, Andromeda glimpsed a tongue of hot yellow flame shoot from a window in a distant section of the citadel.
Rain couldn’t put out a fire on the inside. Yes, the spymaster was clever.
When Naasir held out a hand to her, she took it at once. Since her other hand was wrapped around the hilt of the sword, she told Suyin to grip the waist of her pants under the tunic.
The world was an opaque, punishing blackness but Naasir navigated it like he’d been born for it.
When Suyin stumbled, her legs threatening to collapse, Naasir and Andromeda put her between them and wrapped one arm each around her waist, careful not to apply too much pressure. As they helped her to a door in the inner wall, Andromeda saw a flicker of movement to her right. She acted without hesitation, slicing out with the sword to almost decapitate a vampire.
He fell gurgling to the ground.
It was the first time she’d ever truly hurt someone and part of her flinched, bile rising in her throat. That part bore the name of the girl she’d been, the one who’d run from a home where brutality was an everyday affair and kindness considered a laughable weakness. The rest of her understood this wasn’t violence for violence’s sake. It was about survival. Not just her own but Suyin’s and Naasir’s. There would be no mercy should they be caught; these same guards would mete out base torture if so ordered.
Naasir’s eyes gleamed at her through the pounding rain. “Stop playing. We have to leave.”
She went to scowl, realized he was the one who was playing—with her. So she wouldn’t think about the blood she’d just spilled. Wanting to kiss him, she instead helped Suyin through the inner wall gate as the rain washed the scarlet stain from her sword.
That was when their luck ran out.
Three sentries came around the corner almost at once and the men were looking right at their small group. Naasir was on them a split second later but it was three against one. Leaving Suyin leaning against the wall, Andromeda swung into the fight. The sentries could not be allowed to send up an alarm.
Her target was trained, but he wasn’t expecting her skill. She cut his throat, left him trying to clamp his hand over the bleeding orifice. By the time she turned toward Naasir, he’d already taken care of the other two. Seeing her sentry, he reached out and hit the man on the side of his head, slamming him into unconsciousness. “He could’ve seen our direction from here, betrayed us to others.”
“Sorry. I was worried about you.”
He tilted his head to the side, rain rolling down his skin. Then he smiled and went to pick a shaky Suyin up in his arms. Sticking to his side, Andromeda watched their backs as they ran to a small servant’s gate in the outer wall. This time, no one spotted them and they were soon outside, but hardly free.
The area directly around the stronghold was grass currently being flattened by the wind and the rain, offering no hiding places. It seemed an interminable distance to the cover of the trees when winged sentries flew constantly across the sky. “How do we do this?” she asked Naasir.
“Go low and let the wind bend the grass over you.” He put Suyin on the ground, then gently rubbed dirt over the bandages on her back to make them less white. “On your bellies. Be the cat creeping up on its prey.”
“My wings?”
“Hold them as tight as you can. No big movements. Go!”
The ground was wet and muddy, but Andromeda did exactly what Naasir had ordered, the three of them spread out enough that from above, each one would be nothing other than another muddy patch of grass. It was hard and relentless and they had to go motionless more than once when an angel flew too close overhead. Breath coming harsh and low, Suyin did her best, but she lost consciousness halfway through.
Andromeda helped put her on Naasir’s back and he took the hurt angel the rest of the way.
By the time they reached the trees, Andromeda’s muscles were quivering and the front of her body coated in mud. Using the rain dripping from her hair to wipe off her face, she saw Naasir had already placed Suyin in a seated position against a tree.
“I can’t believe that worked.” Turning into the rain in the hope it would wash off more of the mud, Andromeda looked out over the distance they’d covered.
“The rain helped. Otherwise, we’d have had to hide and wait for another chance.” Picking up Suyin after that short break, he led Andromeda through the trees that didn’t do much to hold back the rain. “Jason probably drove out most of the reborn, but their scent is still thick, so one or more may remain.”
Sword held at the ready as the rain continued to thunder down, Andromeda kept her eyes on alert for the shambling half corpses that were the reborn. When Naasir hissed and said, “Left,” she pivoted, sword already coming up.
A severed head rolled to the ground seconds later. The reborn’s body gushed blood as it fell, but Andromeda stepped out of the way of the spray just quickly enough. “Thank you for the warning.” Again, the rain washed her blade clean.
As it had her father’s when he methodically cut a vampire to pieces once.
Naasir’s gaze searched her face, as if he could sense how disturbed she was at her unhesitating ruthlessness. “It’s us or them. You aren’t torturing or harming the reborn without cause—you are fighting for your survival. That is the right of any creature.”
Andromeda jerked her head in a nod. “Yes.” The reborn may have been innocent prior to their transformation, but they were an abomination now. As for the guards, they would’ve killed Naasir given the slightest chance.
Her jaw firmed, hand tightening on the hilt of the sword. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Instead of laughing at what must seem a ridiculous statement when it came to a man so dangerous and capable of looking after himself, Naasir’s lips curved in a satisfied smile. “I knew you liked me.”
Surprised into a soft laugh, Andromeda reached out to check Suyin’s pulse. It was even shallower than she’d expected. “She could fall into anshara.” Normally, the semiconscious healing sleep was a helpful thing, but it could be a serious handicap if Naasir had to carry Suyin the entire way.
“Angels would be much more efficient if they could drink blood,” Naasir said conversationally.
“Well . . . I suppose that’s true.” A feed would’ve given Suyin an immediate jolt of energy. “Do you ever feed anyone?”
Naasir shot her an intrigued look. “Do you want to taste me?”
She wasn’t put off by that question as any civilized scholar should’ve been. “No,” she said at last, and had the feeling she was telling a lie.
“I want to taste you.” A wicked smile. “Will you feed me if I need it?”
“Of course,” she said, trying to sound pragmatic when the idea of Naasir feeding from her made her insides turn molten. “You’re my only hope of getting out of here.”
He growled at her and didn’t say anything else for the next ten minutes as they made their way through the forest. Finally, she could
n’t stand it anymore. “Stop sulking.”
Another rumbling growl. Turning, he snapped his teeth at her.
She jumped even though she’d thought she was ready for an aggressive reaction. Teeth gritted, she glared at his infuriating face. “Growl at me again and I’ll bite you.” She didn’t know where the words came from, probably from aggravation.
Staring at her, he went as if to speak. His nostrils flared. “Reborn,” he said, and placed Suyin against a tree with a wide-enough trunk that her back was fully protected.
Andromeda didn’t need to be told where to stand; she stood with Naasir behind her, Suyin to her left. His back pressed into her wings, but she knew he wasn’t being provocative for once.
“Be careful of your wings.”
She suddenly remembered his bare hands. “Do you have weapons?”
A joyous laugh. “Yes.”
And then there was no more time to talk. The slavering, blank-eyed and ferociously hungry creatures who were Lijuan’s reborn boiled out of the woods around them.
15
Naasir drew deep on the primal heart of his nature. His claws released and his canines elongated, his vision a knife blade through the dark and his sense of smell acute. All trappings of civilization gone, he wanted to turn and nuzzle at the neck of the woman who smelled like his mate, but that had to wait.
First, he had to kill the foul creatures howling toward them.
They were shambling and laughingly slow in comparison to his speed, but their infectiousness made them a threat against which he couldn’t risk using his teeth. From all evidence to date, it appeared the reborn needed to kill their victim for that victim to become reborn, but Naasir wasn’t going to take the risk that the creatures hadn’t mutated and become strong enough to infect living flesh.
His teeth might be out, but he utilized his claws like blades, slicing and ripping and tearing. At his back, he could feel Andromeda moving with a fighter’s grace, her sword slicing through the air on a deadly whistle of sound.