by Nalini Singh
Hauling her lower body closer to his mouth with a powerful grip under her thighs, he licked her between those thighs and straight into a wrenching orgasm, then kept going. The graze of fangs made her moan and grow even wetter, but he was only playing. Playing with her like she was his favorite and most delicious toy.
“Naasir.”
A rumbling growl against her, a wet suck of her clitoris. Her stomach tensed, her spine snapped into a hard curve and she came all over again. Boneless, she moaned as he scraped his fangs lightly at her inner thigh, then went back to his licking and tasting and sucking. Her breathing was so harsh it almost hurt, and the pleasure, it was the blood in her veins.
When he scraped his fangs over her inner thigh a second time, she shivered.
And he bit.
Crying out, she clenched her hand in his hair and surrendered to the blood kiss of her mate.
* * *
Naasir drank his fill; there was no battle to fight this night and he’d brought in a pack of food for his mate. Afterward, he’d feed her, and pet her and talk with her. Now he drank from her and she was intoxication. Her warm, musky, sated scent surrounded him, her blood hot on his tongue and her free leg hooking around his back as he tugged strongly on her.
Shivering, she whispered his name again and it made his cock throb. He stroked her thigh as he fed, enjoying the silken feel of her. She was so soft and yet there was such strength in her. He wanted to spar with her, wanted to cross blades with her, wanted to lie naked in bed with her and tease her.
Licking the tiny wounds closed after he was finally full, he rose up over her. She was heavy lidded, her lips plump and her breasts flushed. Raising her hand, she pulled him down to her as he lifted up her thigh and pushed his cock into her tight, slick channel. He kissed her as they rocked together and she held him throughout.
It wasn’t how he’d imagined this act when he’d thought about being with his mate. He’d always thought it’d be hard and raw. This was hot and tender and he liked it. Stroking her thigh again as he moved, he kept on kissing her. Their tongues played with each other and when she pretended to bite his, he growled and she laughed.
Nipping at her nose, he squeezed her thigh.
Her smile deepened and she held him even more tightly, her legs locked around him. “I love you.”
“I know.”
Laughing again, her sparkly eyes full of sunshine, she claimed another kiss. And they kept on playing their sexy little game that made him happy deep inside. When she clamped down on him in a startled orgasm, he rode her through it before leaning down to suck and lick at her breasts until she moaned and tugged up his head.
He loved kissing her, so he cooperated with her silent demand. And when he orgasmed, he made her all sticky, until no part of her didn’t smell of him. Rubbing his cheek against her at the end, he lay on her for a long time, making sure to keep his weight on one arm so as not to crush her. When he turned over onto his back at last, she made a sleepy, complaining sound.
He cuddled her onto his chest, her wings spreading out over the bed and across his chest. Yawning, he stroked her wing and said, “I negotiated for you to return to the Refuge.”
“Hmm.” She put her hand over his heart, her touch possessive—as a mate’s should be. “Is Alexander setting up a stronghold there?”
“Yes. Technically, you’ll be attached to that, but you’re free to do your work in the Archives with Jessamy.”
Rising up on her elbow, her hair all tumbled, she blinked several times as if to clear her head. “I can’t believe you just asked Alexander for this and he gave it to you.” A sudden, deep worry creased her brow. “Did you lose something in the bargain?”
Naasir used his thumb to rub away her frown. “We saved his life.” Now that the Ancient had been in the world, he understood just how bad things had become with Lijuan and the Cascade. “He’s grateful he’s not locked in Sleep while his people need him. What I asked was little enough.”
He played with Andromeda’s hair. “Alexander offered to free you from his court altogether, but that could cause problems with the other archangels. So you’ll remain an official part of his court, but you don’t have to take up any duties within unless you want to.”
“My grandfather won’t be pleased that I’m not feeding him information.”
“Do you care?”
“No. He repudiated the blood vow in front of Alexander—it doesn’t matter what he wants.” Her smile was gleeful. “It just matters what we want. Are you going to take me to your secret aerie?”
“We leave tomorrow for home.”
“Home.” Tears rolled down Andromeda’s face. “Home.” For the first time in her life, home would be a safe place where she was loved and cherished, and where she could be herself without any secrets or fears. “Home,” she whispered again.
Turning them over so that he was braced over her, Naasir kissed away her tears, then began to playfully kiss her “spots” one by one. “Home,” he rumbled when she started to smile and count along with him. “For me and my mate and our cubs.”
“Yes,” she whispered, her mind filling with tiny, wild children who’d drive her crazy and who she would love as fiercely as she loved their wonderful, beautiful chimera father. “Yes.”
Epilogue
Raphael ended his conversation with Alexander and turned off the communications screen. The Ancient had done one of Raphael’s Seven a great favor, and though Alexander had said there was no debt, Raphael had reached out to thank him regardless.
“Why make the call?” Elena asked. “Wouldn’t it have been better to just let things lie?” she added as they walked out onto the cliffs behind their home. In front and below them, the Hudson was sluggish and dull under the cloud-laden sky, Manhattan shadowed enough by the ponderous weather that a number of the high-rises had switched on their lights, though it was only early afternoon.
“You must remember that though Alexander appears little older than me, he is hundreds of thousands of years older.”
“He’s like your mother—he expects certain courteous behavior?”
“You are becoming an ever-more-elegant and knowledgeable consort.” His tone might have been a tease, but the words were truth; Elena had been forced to absorb an incredible depth of knowledge in a highly condensed span of time. “Soon you’ll be hosting angelic balls with regularity.”
“Hey, watch the insults.” She pointed a knife at him before sliding it away. “It’s a delicate thing though, isn’t it? When you talk to Alexander, it’s not like when you talk to Elijah or even Titus.”
Raphael watched the distinctive figures of Legion fighters fly in and out of their home in the distance. “Come. We’ll talk as we fly. You have to be at the Guild soon.”
Spreading her wings, Elena took off in a low sweep over the Hudson before using the air currents to rise up. Raphael didn’t need to do the same, but he did so they could fly wing to wing toward the city. Titus helped train me when I was a stripling, he said after they were both in position, but once I ascended, he accepted that I was an archangel and his equal on the Cadre.
Alexander, on the other hand, has always had trouble with the fact that I became an archangel at only a thousand years of age. It made Raphael the youngest angel to have ever become an archangel. As a result, I can never allow him to treat me as a youth. He could laugh with Titus and call him “old man” while the other archangel called him “pup,” but such games would never happen with Alexander.
Right. Elena’s braid slipped over her shoulder as she swept left with the wind, her joy in flight apparent. He’s like a father who can’t accept that his child has grown up.
A good analogy. Almost to Manhattan, he said, Look.
Elena’s response was free of the worry that had twisted through it in the days immediately after Illium’s fall. Bluebell and Sparkle are having a competition again.
Not far from the Tower, the two angels were racing in a straight vertical line into the clo
uds. As Raphael watched, Aodhan eked out a lead, Illium overtook him, only to be overtaken himself . . . and then everything went to hell.
Illium slammed into the stratosphere as the world suddenly shattered into a blue-gold rain. Hitting Elena beside him, it glimmered and stuck, streaking her skin and hair.
Raphael, what’s happening?
He’s ascending. Raphael’s heart thundered. Land. Now. With that curt instruction he knew his intelligent consort wouldn’t fight, not with the air currents already turbulent around them; he rose into the sky after Illium.
It wasn’t done to interfere with an angel’s ascension, but the boy was too young, hundreds of years too young. Right then, Raphael couldn’t help but think of Illium as the boy he’d first met, the one who had followed him all over the Refuge telling him stories of his adventures. The small blue-winged boy who, with his quieter friend, Aodhan, had pulled more tricks than most other children combined.
At not much past five hundred, Illium’s body simply wasn’t physically strong enough to handle the power that lived in an archangel’s veins every moment of every day. A thousand had been a stretch—Raphael had barely survived the transition, been able to feel his skin about to break when he landed following his ascension. It had taken every ounce of his will to hold himself together instead of flying apart.
Today, using that same violent power to cut through the unstable air currents that had sent other angels dropping onto the closest landing surfaces, he arrowed directly toward Illium. The younger male was glowing golden, so much power pouring out of him that it threatened to ignite and annihilate him. His body was bent backward, his wings hanging down limply though his hands were fisted, his jaw gritted.
Raphael didn’t hesitate.
Punching through the golden blaze of power, he grabbed Illium with a grip on his upper arms. “Illium!”
The blue-winged angel’s eyes met his, pure terror in golden depths full of a hot red fire. As if his blood was boiling inside him. “Sire.” The sound was strained. “I can’t—”
His head snapped back, light pouring out of his eyes, his mouth, his skin.
Refusing to see the jagged cracks appearing in Illium’s flesh as raw power forced its way out of a body not built to hold it, Raphael “caught” that power with his own. He was running on blind instinct, had no reason to believe it would work. Though there were rumors and suspicions that Lijuan had gained the ability to siphon power from other archangels, from what Raphael had seen in the battle above New York, all she might be able to do was to feed on the Cadre much the same as she did with anyone else.
No archangel could capture another archangel’s true power.
Only . . .
Illium’s power surged up his arms and into his bloodstream. He directed the excess into the sky, where it turned into shattered lightning. When the lightning tried to pour back into Illium, he held it back with a shield of blue licked with iridescent wildfire, and he continued to capture the new energy pouring out of Illium.
The power he’d dispersed pushed against his shield, but it was new, fragile. Sending his own energy out into it, he made it break apart. Again and again and again. The rain continued to be glittering blue gold around him, but Illium’s breath began to come a little easier.
The golden light still pulsed below the surface of his skin, but it was no longer surging out through the fractures that didn’t bleed but glowed. Raphael didn’t know what would happen if he captured all the power, whether it would kill Illium or destroy his chance at ascension. He stopped.
“Can you fly down?” They were high enough up and had been encased in so much blinding light that no one could’ve seen what Raphael had done, but if Illium was to join the Cadre, he could not appear weak, least of all now.
His face drawn and eyes glowing a vivid gold, Illium gripped Raphael’s arm hard as he spread out his wings. “Yes.” Another strained word. “Not far.”
“Follow me. Head to Aodhan.” The Tower balcony on which he’d seen the other angel land was the closest viable point.
Then he dropped through the now dead-quiet air, having judged that Illium didn’t have fine muscle control over his wings. The new energy inside the younger angel’s body was overpowering him. He kept in mental touch with the other male throughout, making sure to land first so he could break Illium’s fall if he crashed. But the blue-winged angel managed to land on his feet . . . barely.
Aodhan, his face stark, went to reach out, stopped.
Illium’s eyes reflected a hundred different emotions as he stared at Raphael. “Sire.” His voice was so full of power it was barely understandable. “I’m not ready.” Blood bubbled out of his mouth, was washed away by a heavy rain no longer stained blue gold.
The power, Raphael realized, was crushing Illium’s internal organs. Left alone, it would kill him in a matter of minutes. Grabbing the side of the younger male’s neck, Raphael looked into his eyes and drew a touch more of the power into himself. He didn’t want to steal what was Illium’s birthright, but he would not let one of his Seven die.
“Focus on controlling it,” he said just as Elena landed on the edge of the balcony. “Hold the power in a tight grip.”
Illium clenched his jaw, stared into Raphael’s eyes, but the blood kept bubbling out.
Aodhan was suddenly there, his arm wrapped around Illium’s waist from behind as he held up his friend. “Focus,” he ordered. “You focus!”
Not far from Raphael, Elena was on her cell phone. “Lady Caliane,” she bit into the receiver. “No, I can’t wait! Get her!”
Mere heartbeats later, Elena said, “Lady, I’m sorry to be so rude, but Illium has ascended and it’s killing him.”
Running over with that abrupt greeting, she put the phone next to Raphael’s ear. “Mother,” he said. “I can leach off his power, but I don’t know what it’ll do to him.” As far as Raphael knew, no ascension had ever been halted or reversed, but compared to his mother, he’d lived but a firefly moment in time.
“The boy is bound to you?” Caliane said sharply. “By blood?”
“Yes.” The bond had been made when Illium became one of his Seven. It was partly why all of his Seven could initialize mind-to-mind contact with him regardless of age and whether they were angel or vampire.
“Absorb the energy, all of it. Now, before it’s too late.”
Not arguing when Illium was choking on his own blood in front of him, Raphael opened up his senses and did what he’d done instinctively in the sky. Power slammed into him, golden and filled with a joie de vivre that was pure Illium. Yet it melded with Raphael’s so flawlessly it was almost as if it had been meant for him.
It was strong . . . but young. Even so, the golden light bonded with Raphael’s cells in a way that said it was making him stronger on a permanent level. As if another brace had been added to the foundation of his power.
Not just an increase in strength. Evolution that took seconds rather than eons.
Gasping in air, Illium swayed but Aodhan kept him upright as Raphael continued to do the impossible and absorb the power of another archangel. Only Illium wasn’t Cadre. When two members of the Cadre stood next to one another, there was a faint repulsion effect, as if they were not meant to be so close. It was mild enough to ignore for short periods, but it was always present.
Raphael felt nothing akin to that with Illium.
“Yes,” he heard Elena say behind him just as he drained the last drop of the new energy from Illium. “I think it worked.” A pause. “Yes, I will.” Hanging up, she said, “Let’s get him inside.”
Between Raphael and Aodhan, they managed to get Illium into the office off the balcony—which happened to be Honor’s—and shut the door. Elena pushed the button that opaqued the windows and it was only then that Illium collapsed into the nearest chair, his wings spread out on either side. “What happened?” he said, his entire body shaking.
When Aodhan crouched in front of him and pushed back Illium’s dripping hair
, the blue-winged angel shuddered and leaned into the caress. It took time for him to stop trembling, and when he did, it was to raise his head to meet Raphael’s gaze. “Sire, I am no archangel.”
“No,” Raphael agreed. “You might be one day, but your body and mind can’t handle the power at this age.” And with it living in Raphael now, Illium showed no signs of an ascension.
Having found a bottle of cold water, Elena gave it to her beloved Bluebell and, perching on the arm of his chair, gently patted his back, her fingertips brushing Illium’s wings.
“Did my mother say anything else?” Raphael asked her.
The gray of Elena’s eyes was dark, the ring of silver vivid. “She wants you to call.”
Not waiting in case Illium began to glow with power again, Raphael used his consort’s phone to make the call, putting it on speaker so all of them could hear what Caliane had to say. He expected to get the technician who monitored the communications system he’d had Illium organize for Amanat, but it was Caliane’s face that filled the tiny screen.
“Son,” she said, her expression drawn. “Is your city still standing?”
“Yes.” Her worried question made him understand the staggering truth: if he hadn’t been there to stop Illium’s premature ascension, the young angel’s death would’ve resulted in a catastrophic shock wave. “Have you seen this before, Mother?”
“Yes, in a Cascade at the very dawn of my existence. Before I was an archangel.”
Raphael couldn’t imagine that time—his mother had been a power his entire lifetime. “What happened?”
“An angel who was the commander of an archangel, ascended without warning. He was only seven hundred and his body could not hold the power.” Sorrow in her at the loss of that long-ago angel. “He died in a thunderous fury and he took over twenty thousand people with him.”
Blowing out a harsh breath, Illium rose to his feet. He was shaky but managed to make his way to Raphael’s side to face Caliane. “Lady,” he said, giving a deep bow. “You saved my life. I thank you.”