Twenty minutes later, Noel leaned back against the wall beside
Nimra’s writing desk and watched her walk to the armoire where she kept the Midnight. Her wings were an exotic temptation, reaching out to touch them an impulse he only resisted because neither of them was in the mood for play.
Less than half a minute later, she turned, the vial of Midnight delicate even in her fine-boned hands. Walking to the window, she held it up to the light. Darkness crawled a stealthy shadow across her face. “Yes,” she murmured at last, “you are right. There is not as much Midnight as there should be.”
He hadn’t wanted to be right. “You’re certain?”
A nod that sent liquid sunlight gleaming over the blue-black tumble of her hair. “The vial is ringed with circles of gold.” She ran her fingers over and along those thin lines. “It is no more than an aesthetic design, but I remember looking at the bottle when it was first given to me and thinking of what some would do for this infinitesimal quantity of Midnight—it just reached over the third line of gold.”
Noel crouched down by the window as she held the vial level on the sill. It took a bare few moments for the viscous fluid to settle. When it did, it became apparent that it now hovered between the second and third line. He blew out a breath.
“I would that you were wrong, Noel.” Leaving the Midnight in his hands, Nimra walked across the room, her wings trailing on the amber-swirled blue of the carpet. “The fact that the assassin came into my chambers and took this means two things.”
“The first,” Noel said, placing the vial inside the safe and locking it shut, “is that he or she knew it was here.”
“Yes—I can count those who have that knowledge on the fingers of one hand, and not use up my fingers.” A desolate sadness in every word. “The second is that it means no other powerful angel was involved in this. The hatred is theirs alone.”
Noel didn’t attempt to comfort her, knowing there could be no comfort—not until the truth was unearthed, the would-be murderer’s motives exposed to the light of day. “We need to get an evidence tech in here to see if there are any prints on the vial or the safe that shouldn’t be there.”
Nimra looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. “An evidence tech?”
“It is the twenty-first century,” he said in a gentle tease, his chest aching at the hurt she would soon have to hide, becoming once more the angel who ruled this territory, ruthless and inhuman. “Such things are possible.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Laugh at me at your peril.” But she didn’t resist when he tugged her into his arms.
He ran his hand down her back, over the heavy warmth of her wings. “I can get hold of someone we can trust.”
“To have such a person come into my home—it’s not something I welcome.” She raised her head, those amazing eyes steely with determination. “But it must be done and soon. Christian has begun to question your presence here beyond that which can be explained by jealousy, and Asirani watches you too closely.”
Prick or not, Noel had never discounted Christian’s intelligence. The only surprise was that it had taken the male angel this long to wise up—no doubt his feelings for Nimra had clouded his judgment. As for Nimra’s social secretary—“Asirani watches me to make sure I don’t hurt you.”
Nimra pushed off his chest, her tone remote as she said, “And are you not afraid that I will hurt you?”
Yes. Compelling and dangerous, she’d forced him awake from the numb state he’d been in since the torture. His emotions were raw, new, acutely vulnerable. “I’m your shield,” he said, rather than exposing the depth of his susceptibility to her. “If that means taking a hit to protect you, I’ll do it without the slightest hesitation.” Because Nimra was what angels of her age and power so often weren’t—strong, with a heart that still beat, a conscience that still functioned.
She cupped his face, such intensity in her gaze that it was a caress. “I will tell you a secret truth, Noel. No lover has stood for me in all my centuries of existence.”
It was a punch to the heart. “What about Eitriel?”
Dropping her hands, she turned her head toward the window. “He is no one.” Her words were final, a silent order from an angel used to obedience.
Noel had no intention of allowing her to dictate the bounds of their relationship. “This no one,” he said, thrusting his hands into the rich silk of her hair and forcing her to meet his gaze, “walks between us.”
Nimra made as if to pull away. He held on. Expression dark with annoyance, she said, “You know I could break your hold.”
“Yet here we are.”
CHAPTER 9
He was impossible, Nimra thought. Such a man would not be any kind of a manageable companion—no, he would demand and push and take liberties beyond what he should. He would most certainly not treat her with the awe due to her rank and age.
Somewhat to the surprise of the part of her that held centuries of arrogance, the idea enticed rather than repelled. To be challenged, to pit her will against that of this vampire who had been honed in a crucible that would’ve savaged other men beyond redemption, to dance the most ancient of dances . . . Yes.
“Eitriel,” she said, “was what a human might call my husband.” Angels did not marry as mortals did, did not bind each other with such ties. “We knew one another close to three hundred and forty years.”
Noel’s scowl was black thunder. “That hardly makes him ‘no one.’”
“I was two hundred when we met—”
“A baby,” Noel interrupted, hands tightening in her curls. “Angels aren’t even allowed to leave the Refuge until reaching a hundred years of age.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Do release my hair, Noel.”
He unflexed his hands at once. “I’m sorry.” Gentle fingers stroking over her scalp. “Bloody uncivilized of me.”
Unexpected, that he made her want to smile, when she was about to expose the most horrific period of her life. “We are both aware you will never be Christian.”
His eyes gleamed. “Now who’s walking a dangerous road?”
Lips curving, she said, “Not a baby, no, but a very young woman.” Because of their long life spans, angels matured slower than mortals. However, by two hundred, she’d had the form and face of a woman, had begun to spread her wings, gain a better understanding of who she would one day become.
“Eitriel was my mentor at the start. I studied under him as he taught me what it was to be an angel who might one day rule, though I didn’t realize that at the time.” It was only later that she’d understood Raphael had seen her burgeoning strength, taken steps to make sure she had the correct training.
Noel’s hand curved over her nape, hot and rough. “You fell in love with your teacher.”
The memories threatened to roll over her in a crushing wave, but it wasn’t the echo of her former lover that caused her chest to fill with such pain as no woman, mortal or immortal, should ever have to experience. “Yes, but not until later, when such a relationship was permissible. I was four hundred and ninety years old.
“For a time, we were happy.” But theirs had always been the relationship of teacher to pupil. “Three decades into our relationship, I began to grow exponentially in power and was assigned the territory of Louisiana. It took ten more years for my strength to settle, but when it did, I had long outstripped Eitriel. He was . . . unhappy.”
Continuing to caress her nape, Noel snorted. “One of my mortal friends is a psychologist. He would say this Eitriel had inadequacy issues—I’ll wager my fangs he had a tiny cock.”
Her laugh was shocked out of her. But it faded too soon. “His unhappiness poisoned our relationship,” she said, recalling the endless silences that had broken her heart then, but that she’d later recognized as the petulant tantrums of a man who didn’t know how to deal with a woman who no longer looked upon his every act with worshipful adoration. “It came as no surprise when he told me he had found another love
r.” Weaker. Younger. “He said I had become a ‘creature’ he could no longer bear to touch.”
Noel’s expression grew dark. “Bastard.”
“Yes, he was.” She’d accepted that long ago. “We parted then, and I think I would’ve healed after the hurt had passed. But”—her blood turning to ice—“fate decided to laugh at me. Three days after he left, I discovered I was with child.”
In Noel’s gaze, she saw the knowledge of the value of that incomparable gift. Angelic births were rare, so rare. Each and every babe was treasured and protected—even by those who would otherwise be enemies. “I would not have kept such a joy from Eitriel, but I needed time to come to terms with it before I told him.
“It never came to that. My babe,” she whispered, her hand lying flat over her belly, “was not strong. Keir was often with me that first month after I realized I carried a life in my womb.” The healer was the most revered among angelkind. “But he’d been called away the night I began to bleed. Just a little . . . but I knew.”
Noel muttered something low and harsh under his breath, spinning away to shove his hands through his hair, before turning in one of those unexpected bursts of movement to tug her into his arms. “Tell me you weren’t alone. Tell me.”
“Fen,” she said, heart heavy at the thought of her old friend grown so very frail, the light of his life beginning to flicker in the slightest wind. “Fen was there. He held me through the terrible dark of that night, until Keir was able to come. If I could Make Fen, I would in a heartbeat, but I cannot.” Tears clogged her voice. “He is my dearest friend.”
Noel went motionless. “He can walk freely into these rooms?”
“Of course.” She and Fen had never again been lady and liege after that stormy night as her babe bled out of her. “We speak here so we will not be interrupted.”
Noel’s hands clenched on her arms. Frowning, she went to press him for his thoughts when the import of his question hit her. “Not Fen.” She wrenched out of his embrace. “He would no more harm me than he would murder Amariyah.”
“I,” Noel said, “have no idea of how that safe works, much less the combination. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. But Fen . . . he knows so many things about you. Such as the date you lost your babe, or the day your child would’ve been born.”
The gentle words were a dagger in her soul. Because he was right. Five decades ago, she’d changed the combination to what would have been her lost babe’s birthing day. It hadn’t been a conscious choice as such—the date was the first that had come into her mind, embedded into her consciousness. “I will not believe it.” Frost in her voice as she fought the anguish that threatened to shatter her. “And I will not allow this evidence technician to come here.”
“Nimra.”
She cut him off when he would’ve continued. “I will speak to Fen. Alone.” If her old friend had done this, she had to know why. If he had not—and she couldn’t bring herself to believe him capable of such treachery—then there was no cause for him to be hurt by the ugliness of suspicion. “Unless you think he’ll rise up to stab me while I sit across from him?”
Noel made no effort to hide his irritation, but neither did he stop her as she headed for the door. Exeter was waiting to speak to her at the bottom of the staircase, as was Asirani, but she jerked her head in a sharp negative, not trusting herself to speak. Nothing would be right in her world until she’d unearthed the truth, however terrible it might be.
Fen wasn’t at home, but she knew his favorite places, as he knew hers.
“Ah,” he said when she tracked him down at the sun-drenched stone bench on the edge of the lily pond, his near-black eyes solemn. “Sadness sits on your shoulders again. I thought the vampire made you happy.”
Noel had dropped back as soon as Fen came into sight, giving her the privacy she needed. Heartsick, she took a seat beside her old friend, her wings draping on the grass behind them. “I have kept a secret from you, Fen,” she said, eyes on a dragonfly buzzing over the lilies. “Queen died not because her heart failed, but because she drank poison intended for me.”
Fen didn’t reply for a long moment undisturbed by the wind, the pond smooth glass under the wide green lily pads. “You were so sad,” he said at last. “So very, very sad deep inside, where almost no one could see it. But I knew. Even as you smiled, as you ruled, you mourned. So many years you mourned.”
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes as his wrinkled hand closed over her own where it lay on the bench between them. “I worried who would watch over you when I was gone.” His voice was whispery with age, his fingers containing a tremor that made her heart clench. “I thought the sadness might drown you, leaving you easy prey for the scavengers.”
A single tear streaked down her face.
“I wanted only to give you peace.” He tried to squeeze her hand, but his strength was not what it had been when he first strode into her court, a man with an endless store of energy. “It broke my heart to see you haunting the gardens as everyone slept, so much pain trapped inside of you. It is arrogant of me to make such a claim, ridiculous, too, but . . . you are my daughter as much as Mariyah.”
She turned up her hand, curling her fingers around his own. “Do you think me so fragile, Fen?”
He sighed. “I fear I learned the wrong lessons from my other daughter. She is not strong. We both know it.”
“There would’ve been no one left to protect her after I was gone.”
“No. Yet still I could not bear your sadness.” Shaking his head, he turned to face her. “I knew I’d made a terrible mistake the very next day, when you faced the world with strength and courage once more, but by then, Queen was dead.” Regret put a heavy weight on every word. “I am sorry, my lady. I will take whatever punishment you deem fit.”
She squeezed his hand, emotion choking up her throat. “How can I punish you for loving me, Fen?” The idea of hurting him was anathema to her. He was no assassin, simply old and afraid for the daughters he’d leave behind. “I will not let Amariyah drown,” she promised. “As long as I draw breath, I will watch over her.”
“Your heart has always been too generous for a woman who wields so much power.” Making a clucking sound with his tongue, he waggled an arthritic finger. “It is good your vampire is hewn of harder wood.”
This time it was Nimra who shook her head. “Such mortal thoughts,” she said, her soul aching with the knowledge of a loss that came ever nearer with each heartbeat. “I do not need a man.”
“No, but perhaps you should.” A smile so familiar, it would savage her when she could no longer see it. “You can’t have failed to notice that those angels who retain their . . . humanity through the ages are the ones who have mates or lovers who stand by them.”
It was an astute statement. “Do not die, Fen,” she whispered, unable to contain her sorrow. “You were meant to live forever.” She’d had his blood tested three years after he’d first come into her court, already aware that this was a man she could trust not to betray her through the ages. But the results had come back negative—Fen’s body would reject the process that turned mortal to vampire, reject it with such violence that he’d either die or go incurably insane.
Fen laughed, his skin papery under her own. “I’m rather looking forward to death,” he said with a chuckle that made his eyes twinkle. “Finally, I’ll know something you never have and maybe never will.”
It made her own lips curve. And as the sun moved across the lazy blue of the sky, as the sweet scent of jasmine lingered in the air, she sat with the man who would’ve been her murderer, and she mourned the day when he would no longer sit with her beside the lily pond as the dragonflies buzzed.
That day came far sooner than she could’ve ever expected. Fen simply didn’t awaken the next morning, passing into death with a peaceful smile on his face. She had him buried with the highest honors, in a grave beside that of his beloved wife. Even Amariyah put aside their enmity for that day, behaving with
utmost grace though her face was ravaged by grief.
“Good-bye,” she said to Nimra after Christian, his voice pure and beautiful, had sung a heartfelt farewell to a mortal who had been a friend to angels.
Nimra met the vampire’s eyes, so akin to her father’s and so very dissimilar. “If you ever need anything, you know you have but to call.”
Amariyah gave her a tight smile. “There’s no need to pretend. He was the only link between us. He’s gone now.” With that, she turned and walked away, and Nimra knew this was the last time she’d see Fen’s daughter. It didn’t matter. She had put things in place—Amariyah wouldn’t ever be friendless or helpless if in need. This, Nimra would do for Fen . . . for the friend who would never again counsel her with a wisdom no mortal was supposed to possess.
A big hand sliding into hers, his skin rougher than her own. “Come,” Noel said. “It’s time to go.”
It was only when he wiped his thumb across her cheek that she realized she was crying, the tears having come after everyone else had left the graveside. “I will miss him, Noel.”
“I know.” Sliding his hand up her arm, he placed it around her shoulders and held her close, his body providing a safe haven for the sorrow that poured out of her in an anguished torrent.
In the days after Fen’s death, Noel began to discover exactly how much the old man had done for Nimra. From watching over her interests when it came to Louisiana’s vampiric residents to ensuring the court remained in balance, Fen had been the center even as he positioned himself on the edges. With his loss came a time of some confusion, as everyone tried to figure out their place in the scheme of things.
Christian, of course, tried to take over, but it was clear from the start that he had too much arrogance to play the subtle political games Fen had managed with such ease . . . and that Noel quietly began to handle. Politician he wasn’t, but he had no trouble putting any idea of rank aside to get things done. As for his right to be in the court at all, he hadn’t asked Nimra’s permission to remain, hadn’t asked anyone’s permission.
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