Archangel's Enigma

38

Eyes wide, Andromeda stretched out her wings. They moved, but she knew without attempting it that should she try to fly out, she’d be sucked back down. Not that she would, not when she didn’t have the strength to lift Naasir with her. Keeping her arms around the taut muscle of him, she looked around as he did the same.

There was nothing else in this tunnel of stone except Andromeda and Naasir and the bubbling, ravenous lava below. Heart a staccato beat and every breath an effort, she said, “I think you got his attention.”

Naasir bared his teeth. “You’re more civilized—you talk.”

Molten geysers shot out of the lava, as if Alexander was getting impatient. “Archangel,” she said, directing her words to the lava, though she knew Alexander could hear her regardless of where she pitched her voice. “The world is in the midst of a Cascade and the archangels of the current Cadre are spiking violently in power.”

The lava bubbled and erupted with countless geysers as they fell another two feet.

The heat scorched her soles through her ruined boots.

Naasir’s growl was more feral than she’d ever heard it, the sound echoing off the stone to reverberate in her bones. “Lijuan wants to kill you in your Sleep, you stubborn old bastard! She believes she’s a goddess!”

Andromeda winced. Alexander had been wise, but he’d also had a stormy temper.

The stone rumbled but they didn’t drop again.

“He’s laughing,” Andromeda whispered incredulously. It pushed her over the edge. “Listen, damn you! Lijuan isn’t who you remember! She’s insane and she can kill you—while you’ve been Asleep, she’s become the Archangel of Death.”

She felt the heat of Naasir’s skin as his temperature rose, smelled burning flesh. Not hers alone. No. No. “Even if you survive, your loyal sentinels won’t!” As Naasir was Andromeda’s, the Wing Brotherhood was Alexander’s—worth dying for, worth fighting for. “Your men and women have held to their vows for four hundred years and they will die one by one in agony and suffering rather than leave you!”

She screamed as they fell again. The smell of burning feathers filled the air. It felt as if her blood was a heartbeat away from boiling, her eyes so hot she couldn’t keep them open.

Naasir’s voice was no longer in any way human, the words he spoke guttural. “I’ll come back from death you ancient relic, hunt down your immortal ass if you harm my mate!”

“Brotherhood,” Andromeda managed to whisper, sure Alexander’s bond to his sentinels was their only hope of reaching him.

Naasir pressed his cheek to hers, trying to curve his body as much as possible around her own. “As for your sentinels, Lijuan might decide to make them reborn. Shambling, living dead who hunger for the flesh. You are no sire if you permit that!”

No warning before they were pushed up at the same suicidal rate they’d been pulled down. Up and up and up until the air was cool and they could breathe.

The voice, when it came, was everywhere.

I am waking. Prepare for battle.

Naasir and Andromeda found themselves shoved out of the wind tunnel and dumped on the sandy floor of the stone chamber again. The chasm that had sucked them in closed up so seamlessly that there was no sign it had ever been there.

Getting up with muscled, feline grace, Naasir crouched in front of her as she sat up. He ran his hand over her hair, then very gently over the arches of her wings—it was a highly sensitive area, the touch intimate, but she burrowed against his chest, needing the tenderness, wanting nothing more than to be close to him.

Death, she’d realized in that tunnel, could come at any instant.

“Kiss me,” she said, lifting her face to the primal masculinity of his. “If death comes, I want to go having known your kiss.”

He nipped sharply at her lower lip instead. “We’ll kiss after I find your stupid Grimoire book.”

Forehead scrunching up, Andromeda shook her head. “Forget the Grimoire.”

Naasir gripped her chin, his eyes—so haunting and beautiful—locking with hers. “Your honor is important to you. It is as important as your heart. Kill one and I will kill the other.”

She cried then, because he knew her heart. His arms came around her, his breath against her cheek as he rubbed the side of his face against her, but she knew they didn’t have time for her sorrow. Stealing one more moment against the heat and strength and fierceness of him, she got to her feet.

Her soles were severely burned, causing excruciating agony, but she could already feel her body attempting to make the repairs. More important, she could still walk as long as she didn’t focus on the throbbing pulse of pain. “My wings should hold me for short periods,” she said, stretching them out. “I can fly up, search for a way out.”

Naasir’s eyes were flames of liquid silver as they took in her blackened and burnt feathers but he nodded. “Go. I’ll look down here. There’s still something about the air currents.”

It was only when he turned that she saw his back. A pained cry leaving her mouth, she reached out instinctively before pulling back her hand lest she harm him with her touch. “Your back.” Her voice shook with fury. “Alexander hurt you.” His T-shirt had been almost totally burned away on that side of his body, leaving only exposed and charred skin.

Turning toward her, he cupped her cheek, his thumb scraping over her cheekbone. “It’s only a minor burn. It’ll be gone within hours.”

Old and strong, she reminded herself. He was older and stronger than her, and he was a legendary chimera. “Is it true that you can heal as well or sometimes even better than an angel?” That was a “fact” she’d just remembered, something she’d come across during her studies into mythical creatures.

“Yes.” Leaning in, he rubbed his nose over hers as he’d done at the end of their tunnel ride. “I’ll tell you all about chimeras after we get out.”

She felt her lips twitch at his tone—as if he was offering her a treat. And the truth was, he was: she was a scholar, loved new information . . . and this wild chimera had figured that out because he looked at her and saw who she was. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Spreading her wounded wings on his smile, she rose into the air. Vertical takeoffs took more strength than a glide, but as a result of the training regimen Dahariel and Galen had taught her, she usually had no problems. Today, however, it felt as if a thousand thin spikes were stabbing into every inch of her wings, trying to hold her down.

Gritting her teeth and refusing to consider failure, she got aloft and began to circle around. Other than the impossible-to-climb chute down which they’d slid into this pit, there didn’t seem to be any other fissures or tunnel mouths.

She flew higher.

Naasir watched to make sure Andromeda was steady on the wing before he pulled off the shreds of his useless boots and began to prowl around in search of an exit. The air currents in this room were stirring wrong against him, his skin rippling with stripes between one breath and the next. What wasn’t visible unless someone stroked him at the exact right moment, was the fine, fine, fine layer of fur that occasionally appeared on his skin.

Maybe he wouldn’t tell Andromeda about that part of him—he’d just let her discover it one day while they were playing naked. She wouldn’t mind; he knew that about her now. She liked him despite the fact he wasn’t in any way “normal.” No, that wasn’t right. Andromeda didn’t like him despite his unusual nature. She just liked him.

Even when she scowled at him, she liked him.

Standing in different parts of the pit as that knowledge settled into his cells, he tuned into the air currents. When he felt Andromeda start to descend, he looked up. “Can you stay up a little longer?” Her landing would disturb the air that had settled after her takeoff.

She nodded and began to circle gently instead of staying in place. Realizing she was hurting too much to maintain a hover, her burnt feet and scorched wings making him want to snarl, he clenched his jaw and went toward a particular part of the wall. The air was fresher here, moved faster. “Andi.”

Landing softly behind him when he gestured, she pulled off what remained of her own boots, and hobbled over to peer at the wall. “What do you see?” A sudden blink, her body motionless. “Why can I see?”

Naasir, able to see no matter the light, hadn’t noticed the fact it was no longer pitch-black, the luminescence from the walls at a much higher intensity. “Alexander.”

“I guess this means he liked us after all.”

“Not enough to lead us out of here.”

“Alexander was never known to be an easy archangel.”

Grunting in acknowledgment, Naasir began to run his fingers along the lines where he’d felt the fresher air. “There’s a door here.”

Going to her knees below the outwardly unbroken stone, Andromeda began to feel around the wall at ground level. “Sometimes the pressure point is hidden lower, where people are less apt to—” Her fingers slid over a faint, shallow indent. “Naasir.”

He came down beside her, confirmed he could also feel it. Fitting a finger against the indent, he pushed.

No door. No effect at all.

“I think we need to find two,” Andromeda said, thinking back to an ancient door she’d read about in a history book. “Let’s hope it’s not a code which requires the application of pressure in a precise rhythm.”

“Alexander can just drop those he doesn’t like into a boiling pit,” Naasir pointed out with a shrug. “Anyone allowed to stay alive must be given a way out.”

“Good point.” Andromeda felt for the second dent alongside Naasir.

“Got it.”

Touching the spot Naasir indicated, she nodded. “I’ll push here and you push there.”

When nothing happened, her heart squeezed, the idea of being entombed a nightmare.

A harsh groan split the air the next second, motes of dust shining in the luminescence.

Rising to stand on marginally less painful feet, she took Naasir’s hand and they backed away in case the mechanism swung outward, but when the ancient door finally moved, it was inward. The tunnel within was gray with thick cobwebs that made it clear no one had traversed it for centuries, but the walls glowed with the same luminescence as the central chamber.

“I hate cobwebs.” They stuck stubbornly to her feathers and this thick, they might even affect her ability to fly once they made it out.

Again that smile from Naasir, the affectionate one that hit her right in the solar plexus. “I’ll go first and clear the way for you.” Stepping in, he started using his claws to rip away the sticky mass.

Sword in hand, she got the bits that he missed and together, they managed to keep her wings mostly unsticky. “I’m trying very hard not to think about the spiders who built these, or about what just crawled over my foot.” She shuddered.

“You don’t like bugs?”

“Not ones with more than six legs. Or shells. Or antennae.”

Naasir chuckled and they carried on. It felt as if they walked for two hours on their burnt feet before the tunnel spilled them out into a small cave illuminated with the same luminescence that had lit their path this far. Given the lack of natural light, it was clear they were still deep inside the cave system.

Where they might permanently remain, courtesy of the angry wing brothers waiting for them, their crossbows pointed and primed.

Three hours after the tense meeting outside Alexander’s chamber, night had fallen over the oasis and the wing brothers knew what was coming. The fact their archangel was waking had caused wide-eyed awe among the younger members of the Brotherhood, grim joy in the older.

“I am happy to know I will see the sire again.” The tautly held emotion in Tarek’s tone was a testament to the loyalty Alexander inspired in his people. “I only wish his Sleep hadn’t been so precipitously interrupted. He did not plan to wake for thousands of years.”

The leader of the Brotherhood was sharing a meal with Naasir and Andromeda under the starlight. She went to speak, ask him about his long service, when a long-range scout ran in. It turned out the wing brothers’ phones didn’t work here, either—they had a hidden communications bunker a considerable distance out from the oasis.

It was of no use right now. All communications systems had gone down not long after Alexander told Naasir and Andromeda he was about to wake. As far as the Brotherhood had been able to ascertain, it had affected the entire territory, perhaps farther. All information was currently being passed through a relay of runners and old signal beacons that utilized a Brotherhood code.

“The fighting continues at the palace.” Accepting a bottle of water, the scout gulped it down. “It seems Rohan called in all his squadrons and ground troops prior to the attack.”

“Your warning,” Tarek said, and it wasn’t a question.

Naasir’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “Who is winning?”

“Rohan and Xi are evenly matched. Stalemate.”

That, Andromeda knew, wouldn’t last. “Lijuan will tip the balance unless Favashi returns home in time.” The Archangel of Persia had to know about the assault, as it had begun prior to the communications blackout.

A blood vessel pulsed in Tarek’s temple, his hand fisted on the table. “We can’t leave our post to go to his aid and I do not think Rohan would wish it.”

“Let’s hope Lijuan is too weak to arrive anytime soon.” The fact the Archangel of China wasn’t already here was a good sign. “The storm you mentioned—would it be enough to delay Raphael?”

Naasir had expected his sire to arrive tonight.

“According to the last report we had before everything went dark,” Tarek said, “the lightning storm is pummeling every part of the world except this territory, and the strikes are violent enough that all planes and angels have been grounded. Your sire may have been forced to land midway—or he was hit and needs to recover.”

“He’ll be here.” Dressed in a loose linen shirt he’d put on over his ravaged back after one of the wing brothers offered to replace his ruined tee, Naasir put another piece of meat from his own plate onto hers.

She smiled and ate the offering; it was nice to have someone who wanted to take care of her. She intended to do the same for him—the wing brothers had provided bottled blood, but she could tell he didn’t like the taste. If she ate well, he’d have no excuse not to feed from her.

The ground rumbled at that instant, the night sky above suddenly awash with a silvery aurora that rippled like water. It was breathtaking, and it spanned the sky as far as the eye could see.

“The sire.” The leader of the Brotherhood looked up, his throat moving and his voice thick.

Andromeda’s own soul ached at witnessing the eerie beauty and incandescent power of an event that might never be repeated in her immortal lifetime. “As long as the aurora covers the entire territory, Lijuan’s people won’t be able to pinpoint the oasis or the caves.”

“We should take advantage of tonight.” Naasir’s tone was far more pragmatic than either hers or Tarek’s. “Leave scouts on watch and rest as many of your people as you can,” he said to Tarek. “If you have a place to hide your vulnerable, do it. Lijuan will not spare them.”

The other man’s face turned harsh, his love for his sire replaced by brutal protectiveness. “Come.” Showing Andromeda and Naasir to a small house on the edge of the village, he said, “You have excellent senses,” to Naasir. “I may as well use you.”

“I’ll sound an alert if I sense intruders.”

Saying good night to the wing brother, the two of them walked in to find the home was a simple one-bedroom space furnished with a bed large enough to accommodate Andromeda’s wings. There was also a small table set with extra food and drink, and a separate section for the facilities.

As Naasir went and opened the large window not far from the bed, Andromeda walked into the bathroom and cleaned up. The wing brothers had retrieved the pack she’d abandoned during their escape this morning, and though she’d have rather changed into the loose sleep clothing given her by a villager, she put on the last clean set of her own gear.

If battle came to them in the middle of the night, she wanted to be ready.

Naasir brushed past her as she walked out and he walked in, his smile letting her know it had been deliberate. Like a cat rubbing past her. Smiling, she waited until after his shower, then made him turn around so she could examine his back.

His hair damp, he was dressed in a clean white tee she’d found in the pack, and a borrowed pair of dark brown cargos that hung low on his hips. Stripping off the tee, he threw it on a chair and stood still for her worried appraisal. Her breath caught; his skin was warm and rich and flawless, the muscles beneath liquid strength. No mystery why women fought to stroke him.

But beautiful as he was, that wasn’t her primary focus at this instant. “You do heal fast.” There were no scars, no sign that he’d come to within inches of being burned alive. “Does anything hurt?”

“No.” Shifting on his heel, he took her shoulders and ordering her to face the window, examined her wings with slow, methodical care. “Parts of your wings have been scraped down to the tendon.” The growl was deep. “Be careful when you sleep.”

Andromeda nodded, able to feel the stretching, throbbing pain that denoted healing tissue.

“Your feet?”

“Healed.” Usually, all energy would be directed to the wings, but her body had clearly decided the feet were a minor enough wound to deal with quickly.

Getting into bed, she lay on her stomach. When Naasir slipped in beside her, she lifted her wing to put it over him. He petted her gently over the uninjured sections. “Can I have one of your smaller feathers when it sheds? Don’t pull it out.” The last was an order.

The gritty roughness of his voice made her toes curl. “The one under your index finger—I can’t feel it.” An angel’s feathers were another organ in a sense, the awareness of them bone-deep. “I think it’s detached.”

Naasir touched it with care, and when it slid away, he took it and, getting out of bed, went to their single surviving pack. He returned with a fine strip of rawhide in hand, the kind men sometimes used to tie back their hair. As she watched, he sat on the bed and tied the feather neatly to the rawhide, then wove the strip of leather into a thin braid on one side of his head, tying it off with a clever twist at the end.

“There,” he said with satisfied pleasure, and turned over onto his stomach beside her.

Heart so melted it was just this warm thick honey in her chest, she draped her wing over him once again. “You need to feed.”

“I’ll drink the rest of the bottle.”

Andromeda ran her nails over his nape, to his heavy-lidded groan. “Drink from me. I ate well.” She slid the wrist of her other hand under his mouth when he lifted his head.

His soft, astonishing hair brushing over it, the damp strands a cool caress, he pressed a kiss to her pulse. It jumped. Nostrils flaring, he licked over the skin but didn’t bite. “One day, I’ll sip from you while my cock is snug inside your tight sheath, and it’ll be slow and deep and long.”

Breathing suddenly became a difficult task.

“But on this night, your body needs all its energy to heal the damage to your wings.” Another kiss, this one so tender, it made her lower lip quiver and her eyes well.

How could she possibly survive five hundred years without him?