by Nalini Singh
Her lower lip shook. “You see how bad my control is over my base urges,” she whispered. “You’re having to school me.”
Naasir smiled as if she’d said something wonderful. “I don’t see a problem. My mate should find me irresistible.”
She wanted at once to kiss that wicked mouth with its sinful smile, and bare her teeth at him for his arrogance. “I’m not your mate.” Could never be, her bloodline of the enemy and bound to that enemy.
Naasir growled. “I’ll make you change your mind.”
Andromeda wanted to play with him so badly that she did something unforgivable—she encouraged him to think they could have a future. “Oh? How?”
“Wait and see.”
The monkeys started calling out then, one swinging upside down from a branch above to stare right into her face. When she cried out and jumped back, the monkey and Naasir both laughed. The others joined in, the sound raucous.
Scowling at her unrepentant partner, she pushed at his muscular arm. Undaunted, he grabbed her hand and held it possessively in his.
She curled her fingers around his palm, not challenging his right to touch her.
* * *
Two hours of walking brought them to the spot where Naasir had arranged for a large vehicle to be waiting for them, watched over by a vampire who saluted Naasir then took off in the direction of Amanat. Modified to transport injured angels if necessary, it had plenty of room for her wings and the rest of their journey to the airfield passed quickly.
Since Philomena likely had eyes on the airfield as well, they’d had to make a decision about whether to arrange a different jet, or to do the unexpected. Since it was unlikely they could arrange another jet as fast as those in Raphael’s fleet, they went with the latter option. Driving the vehicle right to the jet in order to offset the chance of a surprise attack, they had the pilot file a flight plan that took them across Favashi’s territory and deep into Michaela’s.
Once Philomena passed on the information to Xi, he’d either follow them to their destination, or send a squadron after them while going with his own instincts—which would likely lead him to Rohan’s palace. Regardless, he’d be at least a five-hour flight from Andromeda and Naasir’s actual destination.
Once in the air, Andromeda settled in while Naasir prowled the aisles like a beast caged. “Come here,” she said after ten minutes, having moved to an extra-wide seat meant to accommodate two angels who wanted to sit side by side.
He scowled but came. “I don’t want to sit.”
“Lie down and put your head in my lap.”
Still scowling, he stretched out on the seat as she’d suggested. His tension remained unabated. When she began to stroke her fingers through the heavy silk of his hair, however, his eyes closed and he made a rumbling sound in his chest. Smiling, happy to simply be here in this moment with him, she continued to pet him until he fell asleep. Even then, she didn’t stop, the pleasure in doing this for him a glowing warmth inside her.
When he stretched some time later and opened his eyes on a yawn, it was to look at her with a sleepy gaze and say, “This is a mate thing to do.”
Yes, it was. “Is it?” She forced a teasing smile. “If I’m your mate, shouldn’t you be doing it in return then?”
He reached up to place his hand on the back of her neck, his skin warm and a little rough. Her pulse thudded at the contact, her senses lost in the silver mysteries of his eyes.
“I wouldn’t just pet your hair,” he said. “I’d stroke your wings, especially the places I’m not allowed to touch yet.”
“Naasir,” she whispered, leaning so close to him that their breaths mingled. “Why did you not find me sooner?” They could’ve had centuries together instead of mere weeks.
“I wasn’t full-grown.” He ran the fingers of his free hand over her cheek. “I didn’t yet have the understanding of what it meant to have a mate.”
Lifting her head before she closed the final distance between them and stole a kiss, she tilted her head to the side. “But you’re six hundred years old.”
Sliding his hand from her neck, he insinuated his arm behind her waist, so that he was holding her under her wing. His body heat burned into her back and the upper part of his arm brushed against the inner surface of her wings. It was a deeply intimate hold.
And it felt unmistakably right.
“I’m not like other six-hundred-year-old immortals,” Naasir said, his voice unexpectedly quiet and serious. “I’m not like anyone.”
“I know.” She ran her fingers through his hair again. “You’re unique and wild and extraordinary.”
“Sometimes I’m more animal than man.”
She shrugged. “In my experience, animals are often far better than people.” Massaging his nape when he tugged her hand down to it, she smiled. “You can’t scare me off. I’ve stood face-to-face with monsters—I know you’re the opposite.”
His gaze darkened. “I really wish I could kill Lijuan.”
Realizing he’d taken her reference to Charisemnon’s court as being to Lijuan’s, she nodded. “The mortals who seek immortality, do you think they ever consider the fact that immortality might mean being stuck with people you despise for centuries or even millennia?”
Naasir didn’t answer, his eyes closed again. “Use your nails,” he said lazily.
When she ran her nails over his nape, he purred. It made her body sing, her breath shallow. “Were you ever human or were you born as you are?” she asked when she could speak coherently, her need to know him endless.
His lashes lifted. “Most people ask who Made me.”
She could see why—being Made by an angel was the only known way to become a vampire. “But you’re not a vampire,” she said definitively. “You have enough vampiric characteristics that it’s easier for people to categorize you as a vampire than to accept the unknown, but I told you I like hunting secrets.”
Naasir’s lips curved in a playful smile. “Ellie calls me a tiger creature. It makes her crazy that Raphael won’t tell her what I am and spoil my game.”
Andromeda pulled at his hair a little. “You and your sire are clearly both as bad as one another.”
His laughter filled the cabin. When he spoke again, he said, “I was once human . . . and I was not human. Then I became me.”
She narrowed her eyes at the riddle. “I think Raphael’s consort and I should join forces.”
A grin. “It is a game.”
“Give me another clue.”
“I am a thing of more than one thing.”
“You’re not a thing,” she said with a frown. “You are Naasir, a beautiful, dangerous man.”
He sat up without warning, making her heart thud. Bracing one hand on the armrest on her left, his arm diagonally across her body and his face bare inches from hers, he said, “I am a person to you.”
It wasn’t a question but she felt compelled to reply. “You are the most fascinating, most wonderful, and most aggravating person I’ve ever met.”
Bending his head with a grin at the last, he rubbed his nose over hers. “And you, Andi, are the smartest, most sparkling, most-delicious-smelling woman I’ve ever met.”
Her thighs clenched at the memory of what he’d said he’d do to her should he ever sink his teeth into her. “I will figure out the mystery of you,” she said, throwing down the gauntlet. “When I do, will you tell me of the adventures you had in your youth?”
“I can tell you a story now.” Retaking his previous position with his head on her lap and his arm around her back, he bent one leg at the knee, the other stretched out on the seat. “When I first came to the Refuge, I was small, a boy like Sameon.”
Andromeda tried to imagine him as a child, couldn’t. To her, he was and would always be, a strong, deadly man.
“I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to touch wings.” He rubbed the back of his hand over the inner surface of her feathers, eyes going heavy-lidded when she shivered. “Even though Raphael had t
old me after I yanked out one of his feathers, I still didn’t understand—I wasn’t grown like another boy of the same size, and my mind couldn’t understand things like that.”
“But you could understand other things?”
A nod. “I knew who was a good person and who was a bad person. I knew never to be alone with certain people, and I knew I could play with the other children but that I mustn’t hurt them with my fangs or my claws or I’d lose my friends. I was very careful with them—angel babies are very fragile.”
“Yes, I suppose they are.” Especially in comparison to a boy who had claws and fangs. “You said you were human and not human. When you were younger, were you more not human?”
A slow, sly smile. “You’re clever, Andi.”
She pulled his hair again. “Answer the question.”
Baring his teeth at her, he said, “Yes, I was more not human. But I knew how to play with other children.” A sudden darkness in his eyes. “I never played with angel or mortal children before I came to the Refuge. My before-friends were snow wolves. The other children were all dead. Ghosts.”
28
The scholar in Andromeda wanted to follow that dark thread, but the woman who’d fallen so entirely for this man knew down that alley lay only hurt for him. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “Did you make good friends at the Refuge?”
“Yes.” A flash of fangs. “Some parents said I was a bad influence, but the children liked me.”
“Of course they did.” Andromeda laughed. “Are you still friends with those children now?”
“Yes. Especially with two of them,” Naasir said. “One works with Galen, the other is a scientist on a tropical island in Astaad’s territory. When I visit, he gives me fish to eat.” Naasir looked dubious. “I eat it to be polite, but I don’t understand fish.”
Her lips twitched. “You’re a good friend.” She could just imagine him eating the fish while trying to figure out why anyone would eat fish. “Tell me the rest of the story.”
Fingers brushing over her hip, he grinned. “Because I didn’t understand I wasn’t supposed to touch wings, I’d do things like wait on top of bookshelves or cling to the ceiling and drop down on unsuspecting angels. Before they’d finished shrieking, I’d have torn off a feather and run away.”
Andromeda’s shoulders shook. “You were a little terror.”
“Yes,” he said proudly. “Then one day, I jumped on Michaela.”
Andromeda’s laughter dried up. “Did she hurt you?” The archangel renowned for her vivid green eyes and flawless skin the shade of milk chocolate, her beauty the muse of poets and artists through the ages, was not known for her patience.
“Michaela wasn’t an archangel then, but she was dangerous all the same. Only her scent was . . . not what it has become.” Naasir frowned, as if trying to figure out the change. “She was fast though. She caught me by the foot before I could run away and, holding me upside down with a grip on one ankle, her arm stretched out so I couldn’t get her with my claws, she said, ‘You are in trouble.’”
Andromeda swallowed. “What did you do?”
“I had one of her covert feathers in my hand and I offered it back to her. When she didn’t take it, I growled and clawed and tried to get away.”
Andromeda’s heart was in her mouth, though Michaela clearly hadn’t done Naasir any lasting harm if he was telling her this tale. “Did she take you to Raphael?”
“No. She carried me to Jessamy and told her I needed lessons in civilized manners.”
“Did Jessamy make her let you go?”
Naasir shook his head. “I’d torn up all my schoolbooks the day before and eaten the schoolroom’s pet bunny.”
Andromeda knew she shouldn’t, but she burst out laughing. “You didn’t.”
“It was there and I was hungry and no one told me I couldn’t eat it,” he said with an aggrieved look on his face. “Why would you put a bunny there if it wasn’t for eating?”
“Poor Jessamy.” Wiping away her tears, Andromeda shook her head. “What did she do?”
“She locked all the windows and doors in her study space in the Archives, then held on to me while Michaela slipped out and pulled the door shut behind her, making sure it locked. When Jessamy released me, I raged all around the room, tearing up things, clawing the furniture and even biting her.”
Andromeda’s smile faded. “You felt trapped.”
“Jessamy didn’t know all of my life before, didn’t understand what it would do to me to be caged. As soon as she realized I wasn’t just angry, but scared, she opened the door.”
“And you ran?” she guessed, her heart hurting for that small, scared boy who didn’t know how to be in an unfamiliar world.
Naasir’s answer was a surprise. “Jessamy was crying. Even though I was scared, I knew that was bad, so I went over and patted her hand and said sorry for biting it.”
Andromeda’s own eyes turned hot.
“She went to her knees and told me that wasn’t why she was crying. She was crying because she’d made me afraid when she’d just wanted a chance to talk to me without me running away when I got bored.”
Andromeda could well imagine Jessamy’s distress. The teacher of angelic young had a heart so huge, she loved each one of her charges as if that child was her own. “You decided to stay, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t like Jessamy crying—she was always nice to me, even when I tore up her books. I put my hand in hers and we went for a walk to a place with gardens, where she took a seat on a stone bench, put me on her lap, and started to teach me what I needed to know so I could live in the world without people being angry with me all the time.”
The ache inside Andromeda, it was so deep now, for the boy he’d been. “How long did Jessamy teach you such things?”
“For years.” Naasir’s tone held a deep vein of affection. “It took me time to learn but Jessamy is patient. Every afternoon, we’d sit in the garden and she’d teach me things the other children already knew. Like how I shouldn’t growl at people even if I didn’t like them, and how bunnies and other animals in the Refuge weren’t for eating.”
He rubbed his fingers over her hip. “Dmitri taught me, too, but Dmitri didn’t care if I ate pet bunnies or if I jumped out at him so he wasn’t the best teacher on the topic.”
Andromeda could well imagine that Raphael’s deadly second had a far more laissez-faire attitude toward etiquette and behavior. When you were that dangerous, you made your own rules. “And now you can be so civilized it’s scary.”
A shrug. “I put on a different skin when it’s necessary. Dmitri taught me that—he said I didn’t have to change, but that my life would be easier if I could fool people into thinking I had at times.”
“I’m so happy you never wear any skin but your own around me,” Andromeda whispered, her heart wide open.
Silver eyes locked with hers. “I’ll always be Naasir with you,” he promised solemnly, then grinned. “Even if you ask me to act civilized for a minute.”
She groaned and pretended to beat at him with her free hand. “You’re never going to let me forget I said that, are you?”
“Maybe if you tell me a story of your childhood.”
* * *
Naasir glimpsed many expressions move across Andromeda’s face in a matter of split seconds. He didn’t catch all of them, but he saw pain, anger, shame, and finally joy.
None of it surprised him; immortality meant many experiences. Though the shame wasn’t a usual thing—but then, Andromeda wasn’t a hardened immortal. Her heart was tender. She probably felt shame for a transgression others would’ve long forgotten.
“I never went to the Refuge school,” she began. “I didn’t see the Refuge at all until I flew there myself just after my seventy-fifth birthday.”
“Seventy-five is not full-grown for an angel.” At that age, she would’ve been close to a fifteen-year-old human teenager. “You flew to the Refuge alone?”
“Yes.” H
er expression altered, the golden bursts in her eyes suddenly dark. “My body had started to curve early, my breasts lush. I no longer appeared the child I was and a number of my parents’ guests were starting to look at me in a way that was distinctly predatory and sexual.”
Naasir felt his claws prick at his skin, fought to keep them sheathed.
“I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew as a princess of the court, I was probably safe, but the look in the guests’ eyes . . . it made me feel dirty and small. And the way my parents and their friends brutally tortured others for pleasure . . .” She shook her head, stark echoes of fear and shock in her expression. “I told them my plans, then flew out.”
A shuddering breath. “I think Mother and Father expected me to give up and return home. When I didn’t, they washed their hands of me.”
Andromeda was lying. Not about her flight to the Refuge, but about another part of her story. It made him want to bare his teeth and demand she tell the truth, but he’d do that later, when she didn’t appear so fragile. “Who did you play with when you lived with your parents?”
“The animals.” Joy chased out the shadows. “Once, while I was having dinner in my nursery, a baby giraffe poked his head in the window and ate the fruit right off my plate.”
Naasir grinned. “Truth?”
She nodded. “It came back, too. I used to make up a plate especially for him until my nanny caught me—and even after that, I waited until she wasn’t paying attention and opened the window so the giraffe could slide its head and neck inside.”
Delighted at the idea of her dining with a giraffe, Naasir said, “Did the other animals also join you for meals?”
A shake of her head. “With the cheetahs, we’d race. I’d be in the air, the cheetahs on the ground.” She blew out a breath. “They’re fast.”
“I’ll race you,” Naasir said. “When we’re free of Lijuan’s spies.”
“Deal.”
As the plane flew onward and the world turned, she told him more stories of her childhood. It betrayed a total lack of other children. Not even any mortal playmates. Andromeda appeared to have had no one but her animals. Maybe that was why she understood him so well, accepted his wildness without hesitation. He was happy about that, but he didn’t like to think of her so alone.