by Nalini Singh
“Galen!” Laughter bubbled out of her, bright and unexpected and so very real that it brought tears to her eyes. “Oh, you are a barbarian.”
His cheeks creased, one hand coming up to play with her hair, twining strands around a thick finger. When he tugged, her stomach dropped, but she leaned forward. She expected to feel his mouth on her own, but he angled his face and brushed his lips over the top of her cheekbone. Shivering, she curled her hand around his nape, the feel of the tendon and muscle moving beneath the heat of his skin a seductive intimacy as he continued to brush kisses down the edge of her face, until he reached her neck.
“Oh.”
8
He nuzzled the place he’d kissed, the skin so sensitive that the hot gust of his breath made her toes curl. A fraction of a moment later, the pleasure and power of him were replaced by a shock of air as Galen ripped himself from her and retrieved his sword in a single savage motion. Attempting to quiet her gasping breaths, she stared around his battle-ready form, saw nothing. An instant later, a footfall sounded on the front path, followed by a knock.
“Wait,” Galen said when she would’ve risen. “It may be a ruse.”
He was gone the next instant, moving with predatory menace to greet a visitor who could mean her harm. Standing, she looked for a weapon to aid him if needed, and had settled on a small statuette when she heard the sounds of male voices in conversation. Recognizing the second voice, she replaced the statuette and stepped out into the hall. “Raphael.”
The archangel with his eyes of impossible blue and hair of midnight silk was pure male beauty. Next to him Galen was all hard, rough edges, a warrior who had lost none of his raw power in the face of Raphael’s strength. He watched with cool eyes as the archangel walked forward to take the hands she held out.
“Have my people been looking after you well, Jessamy?”
“Always.” Rising, she brushed a kiss over his cheek, but concern had her asking, “What are you doing here?” Alexander was fully capable of using Raphael’s absence to force his way into Raphael’s wild new territory.
“Alex, as Illium calls the vaunted Alexander”—a gleam of humor—“is currently in seclusion with his favorite concubine, and appears to have no willingness to leave his palace. I will have warning if he or his army look to be preparing to move.”
Something about the report on Alexander sang a sour note to her, a harp string damaged, but she couldn’t reason why. Abandoning the thought for the present when it stayed frustratingly out of reach, she released Raphael’s hands. “I’m glad of your visit. Come, tell me of your lands.”
As they sat and spoke, Galen stood guard by the doorway. Neither by look nor word did he betray to his archangel what he and Jessamy were becoming to each other… and a seed of doubt bloomed in her mind. His reticence could be born of any number of reasons, including the fact that Raphael was certainly here to evaluate the man who would be his weapons-master, but she kept circling around to a single horribly painful con-clusion.
Shame.
He might have taken her flying, but that could be explained away as a gift given out of pity. He hadn’t actually done anything in public that would make people talk, regard them as a couple. And it was an ugly image when she considered it without the blinders of hope—her, deformed wing and stick-thin frame, paired with Galen’s primal power and raw mascu-linity.
No, she thought, no, beyond angry with herself. She had to stop this. Galen did not deserve to be tarred by such fear-driven suspicions. He’d never lied to her, not even about his temper. Wanting to laugh at the giddiness of her relief, she promised herself she would make it up to her barbarian.
Galen watched in silence as Raphael bid Jessamy good night before nodding at Galen and rising into the stars glittering against a night sky so pure, it was ebony. Galen understood the silent command. A weapons-master held considerable power and influence in an archangel’s court, and Raphael would give the position to no one he didn’t trust on every level—tomorrow, Galen would be judged.
He felt no anxiety. He knew his own strength, knew he would not fail. And he knew he would judge Raphael in turn, for this was the man for whom he’d lift his sword for centuries to come, perhaps until the end of his immortal life. It was no light choice for a warrior.
Jessamy’s gaze tracked the archangel until his wings disappeared beyond the mountains, and he could almost taste the keen edge of her hunger. It angered him that she didn’t ask him for what she needed, but he tempered the response—it would take time for her to understand that he would fly her anywhere she wanted to go, whether they had harsh words between them or tender.
He held out his hand. “Come.”
She hesitated.
Unwilling to let anything go when it came to this complex, lovely woman who was a mystery that compelled him, he closed the distance between them. “Have you not yet forgiven me for my rage?”
“You apologized.” Laughter tugged at lips he wanted to suck and bite, but she didn’t come into his arms.
“Then what? I am not the most sensitive of men”—a weakness he’d realized long ago—“so you must make it clear.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you always so blunt?”
“No.” He could play games—he had grown up in an archangel’s court, after all. “But I have no liking for games, would rather not ever play them with you.”
Reaching out, she spread her hand over his heart, the touch going straight to his cock. “You have a way of destroying my foundations.” Stroking her fingers down his body with luscious concentration, her lashes obscuring her expressive eyes, she moved close enough that their bodies aligned.
His rigid cock pushed demandingly into the curve of her abdomen.
“Galen.”
“Jessamy.” When she didn’t break the intimate contact, cuddling even closer, he wove his fingers into her hair, wanting to push, to urge her to put her mouth on his skin. “You’re seducing me to get your own way.”
A husky laugh. “It’s quite pleasurable.” Another petting caress. “I do believe I should have bad thoughts more often.”
Realizing he’d been beaten, he decided on a strategic retreat—for tonight. “All right, keep your secrets, Jessamy mine.” Shifting his hold without warning, he swung her up into his arms.
“Galen!”
Three powerful wingbeats and they were in the air, Jessamy’s arms locked around his neck, her body tucked into his chest. “You can’t just trick me into flight every time,” she said, but she was laughing.
“I’ll always fly you. No matter what happens.”
She, in place of an answer, nuzzled her face into his neck. Her touch was welcome, her avoidance of his declaration not, but this night was too beautiful to mar with arguments, and so he swept her across the glittering landscape of the Refuge, and toward the east. As he rode the air currents with her slight weight in his arms, what he felt was nothing he could name. It was simply there, a quiet, deep knowledge, a sense of inexorable rightness.
It was much later that he took them down to land on a promontory that overlooked the Refuge, the lights within the homes a thousand fireflies in the dark, the majority of the residents wakeful yet. “This is my favorite vantage point,” he said, taking a position behind her, his arms around her shoulders. Her wings were soft and warm between them, the feathers silken against his skin.
Continuing to hold her with one arm, he used the hand of the other to stroke the twisted line of the wing that had never formed correctly, felt her stiffen. “I once lost my leg,” he told her, not breaking the touch. “I was young—it took years to grow back. The same could happen again in battle. Would you repudiate me?”
The stiffness of her didn’t abate. “It’s not the same, Galen.” A raw kind of pain in her words. “Eternity is a long time to live broken and malformed.”
He didn’t do her the insult of disregarding the suffering that had forged her. “Many would have chosen Sleep.” Decades, centuries, even millennia c
ould pass while an angel Slept. “Yet you chose to live.”
“I’m not brave,” she whispered. “I just didn’t want to give those who pitied me the satisfaction of seeing me give up on life.” Turning in his arms, she wrapped her own around his waist, pressing her cheek to his chest. “I didn’t want to be seen as weak.”
One hand on her nape, beneath the warm fall of her hair, the other on her lower back, he bent his head to speak with his lips brushing her ear. “Many a young warrior has gone into battle with the same motivation. There is no shame in fear that drives.” He widened his stance to tuck her even closer, and he thought that, perhaps, she had shown him a secret part of herself. “I was,” he said, revealing the same within him, “one of those young warriors.”
Tanae had always been so unflinching in her courage, and Galen had never wanted to shame her. “My mother looked at me with disgust when the blood and gore and horror of my first battle had me emptying my stomach, and I didn’t know how to tell her that I had never tasted true fear until that moment. Instead, I learned to be harder, better, stronger.”
“Your mother… she sounds a harsh taskmaster.” It was a hesitant statement.
“She is a warrior.” Galen had no other words, because the words he’d already spoken described Tanae’s soul.
It was Jessamy’s hand that stroked him now, her touch tender and careful over his wing, and he was startled at the realization that she was attempting to comfort him. It was a strange sensation. No one had ever coddled him after he’d snarled at the flitterbies, determined to become tough.
Jessamy would probably not handle snarling well, so he’d bear the gentle petting. “Jessamy?”
“Hmm?”
Fisting his hand in her hair, he tilted back her head. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
As the stars flickered overhead, icy gemstones lit with cold fire, he took her mouth the way he’d wanted to from the first. He demanded entrance and she opened for him, the softness of her his to ravage. Mystery, that was what Jessamy tasted like. Sweet and dark and with depths it’d take a man an immortal lifetime to explore. Gripping her chin with his free hand, he angled her just as he liked and then he devoured her.
A tiny push, a hint of teeth.
Listening, he gave her a bare instant to breathe before he plundered her mouth again, her sensuality a deliciously slow-burning ember that had her nails digging into his nape, her tongue stroking against his with carnal curiosity.
He groaned and angled his body, the spread of his wings blocking the view of the Refuge as he cupped the gentle curve of her bottom and lifted her up to cradle the hard ridge of his need.
“Galen.” Breathless.
He was moving too fast. But when she rubbed her lips over his, licking out her tongue to taste him, it would’ve taken a stronger man than Galen to resist her.
Galen was unsurprised to find Raphael in the practice salle the next morning, stripped down to wide-legged black pants held up by a thick fabric belt tied at the side. It reminded Galen of the gear worn by Lijuan’s men when they occasionally came to train with Titus’s, the two archangels maintaining a relatively cordial relationship this century.
He’d worn pants of a durable brown material today, along with his favorite worn-in boots, his sword in its usual position along his spine. Now he removed boots and sword. “Are you going to execute me if I pin you to the floor?”
Raphael’s lips curved at the practical question. “I’m not Uram, Galen. I suppose I’m more like Titus in this—I want men who aren’t too afraid of me to tell me the truth.”
Galen had thought as much. It was why he was here. “Hand to hand, no weapons.”
“Agreed.”
A whisper of blue flickered on the periphery of Galen’s vision as Illium entered, spreading his wings to fly up and perch on a beam. Dmitri was no longer in the Refuge—he’d gone, Galen had realized, to hold Raphael’s territory while the archangel was here. Jason had also disappeared, having left a message for Galen about which warriors could be trusted with Jessamy’s safety.
Important as she was to him, Galen wouldn’t have placed faith in even Jason’s astute assessments, except that he’d already decided on half the men and women on the list—so he allowed them to watch over her as he saw to his duties. “Yes?”
Raphael gave a single nod.
They met in the middle of the salle, two men with wholly dissimilar fighting styles. Galen was a blunt force who had just enough grace that he could surprise opponents, while Raphael was pure lethal elegance. Unlike when he was fighting with an inexperienced adversary, Galen used his wings, and so did Raphael. It took incredible strength to achieve a short vertical liftoff without exposing vulnerable parts of yourself, but Galen had learned to do it through constant and unrelenting practice. Raphael, meanwhile, seemed to do it instinctively.
Respect for the archangel grew deeper in Galen as Raphael almost brought him down, twisted to block a strike, and recalculated his attack. The archangel was cold-blooded enough to strategize, warrior enough to take pleasure in the dance. Galen had the sudden thought that if this was the truth of who Raphael was beneath the veneer of civilized sophistication, then he wouldn’t only work for the archangel; he might just serve.
Slamming the archangel to the earth, he went to pin him, but Raphael was already gone, having rolled and risen to come at Galen’s back… except Galen was twisting to meet the attack, their arms thrusting up to halt each other, elbows and biceps locked.
“Stalemate!” Illium called out.
Amusement colored Raphael’s expression, though he continued to hold the strained position. “I would agree.”
Nodding, Galen stepped back at the same time as the archangel. “Well played.”
“You’re better than Titus’s people led me to believe.” A gleam in the relentless blue. “I think he’s hoping you’ll return to his court.”
“I’ve made my choice.” He began to cool down, conscious of Raphael doing the same beside him. “If there’s no place for me here, it’s not to Titus’s court that I would go.”
“Where, then?”
Galen considered his options. “There aren’t many for whom I might choose to raise my sword, fewer still who are strong enough not to consider me a threat. Elijah would head the list.” The archangel was older than Raphael, but not lost to the cruelty power engendered in so many. “However, he has a weapons-master he trusts and respects.”
“You have the potential to rule within an archangel’s wider territory,” Raphael said, resettling his wings as he brought himself to a halt. “Why not petition the Cadre for a change in status?”
Galen, too, came to a standstill. “I am a weapons-master.” It was what sang to his blood.
Picking up a set of throwing knives, Raphael gave them to Galen before taking a set for himself. When he raised his eyebrow, Galen grinned and looked up. “Let’s see how fast you really are, Bluebell.”
“Bluebell?” The archangel laughed as Illium swore to get even, and then the first knife was flying from his hand.
Twenty knives later—ten each—Illium smirked from his high perch. “Oh, you both missed.” Faux disappointment, embellished with theatrical sighs. “Poor, poor dears.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I am an archangel,” Raphael reminded the irreverent angel, his tone dry.
Illium grinned, unrepentant. “Want to try again? I’ll move extra slow—you are both so much older, after all.” The last words were a conspiratorial whisper.
Galen glanced at Raphael. “How has he survived this long?”
“No one can catch him.”
As Illium laughed and attempted to get Raphael to commit to a wager, Galen felt a sense of absolute rightness. This, this was his place, with these warriors tied together by more than fear or subservience, but most of all, with the woman who had marked him with the erotic promise of her kiss.
He wondered when Jessamy would realize what he’d done.
9
&
nbsp; Jessamy said, “Saraia,” in a stern tone.
“Sorry, Jessamy.” Pulling her drooping wings back up, Saraia looked to Jessamy for praise.
She smiled. “Good girl.”
Satisfied, Saraia continued reading out the passage she’d been assigned.
Jessamy knew her charges thought her merciless for the way she constantly reminded them to raise their wings, but the fact was, their bones were still forming. The more effort they put into the task, the stronger they’d grow, until the heaviness of their wings became near weightless.
However, in spite of her correction, her mind wasn’t completely with the children. Part of her remained in Galen’s arms, her mouth burning with the imprint of his own. When he’d offered to fly her, she’d felt such guilt for the awful thought that had wormed its way into her mind earlier, but Galen had certainly not minded her efforts at a silent apology.
“You’re seducing me to get your own way.”
A giddy smile more suited to an adolescent threatened to break out over her face.
“Jessamy?”
Glancing up, she saw Saraia looking at her with a hesitant smile, the book closed.
“Well-done,” she said, wrenching herself back to the present, and to these precious souls who needed to learn what she had to teach them. “You have a lovely way of reading.
“Now,” she said, once Saraia had returned to her firm but comfortable stool in the circle of young ones, Jessamy’s older students having already had their lesson, “it’s time for our discussion. Have you all thought of a subject to talk about?”
A hand went up, waving wildly.
“Yes, Azec?”
The boy’s wine-dark eyes sparkled as they met her own, the naughtiness in them so apparent she had to fight a laugh. This one reminded her of Illium—whom she’d had to threaten with dire consequences more than once when he wouldn’t concentrate on his lessons. He’d always kissed her on the cheek afterward and apologized with such sincerity, the little mischief-maker.