Archangel's Storm

31

“Neha alone knows the truth of our supposition,” Jason said, thinking through the matter, “and if we are right, and your mother is already free, telling Neha cannot disadvantage her.” The vampire with scarlet hair was unlikely to be the only one of her people Nivriti had found, gathered together. “Neha may also have an idea of where Nivriti might have located her base of—”

Mahiya made a sudden tight sound in her throat. “If it is my mother, I know why she killed Arav.”

So did Jason. The man had hurt Mahiya, hurt Nivriti’s child, deserved punishment. Jason found he had no argument with that, and the realization made him halt, consider who Mahiya was to him. He had no answer to that, but he suddenly saw one to her earlier question. “I will not speak to Neha about this.”

Mahiya shuddered, shook her head. “No. If she murdered Shabnam, I can’t protect her.”

“This isn’t about protecting Nivriti.”

Mahiya’s eyes searched his face. “What is it?” Closing the distance between them, she placed her hand on his chest. There was tenderness but nothing proprietary or possessive in the touch, and he knew she spun no moonbeams in the air, expected nothing from him but the man that he was.

Something tense and waiting in him relaxed. He didn’t want to end this with Mahiya, but it was a decision he would’ve been forced to make had she sought to claim him, sought to see in him a future he couldn’t build with her. Not in the way Dmitri had with Honor, Raphael with Elena.

“A hostage,” he said, his hand on her lower back. “If we give Neha this information, we give her a hostage.”

Mahiya’s eyes widened in pained understanding, but she shook her head. “You risk breaking the blood vow, Jason.” A fierce whisper. “It could mean your death.”

“There is time yet.” Until he was certain Nivriti lived, this fell under his mandate, his silence no threat to the vow. “And I will not put you in harm’s way.” He’d made his choice, and it was this woman with her eyes as bright as a creature wild and dangerous for whom he’d raise his sword, not an archangel full of centuries-old hatred.

Mahiya’s lower lip quivered. “You must not.” Her fingers brushed his jaw, her mouth soft on his own. “Thank you for putting me first. No one else ever has, and I will never forget that you did so.” Her voice cracked. “But you yourself said Neha might know where my mother might be hiding. I cannot buy my life with Shabnam’s blood screaming for justice. If we are right, then my mother killed her as surely as she killed Arav. But this time, for no reason.”

“There was a reason—Shabnam was Neha’s favorite.”

Mahiya lifted a trembling hand to her mouth. “Akin to a child destroying a sibling’s favorite toy out of jealousy or spite.”

A scream ripped through the fort on the heels of her horrified words.

No angelic or vampiric body awaited them this time, but there was carnage nonetheless. Thrown across what seemed like every inch of the public audience hall were the limp, mangled bodies of at least twenty of Neha’s pet snakes, the columns that held up the structure splattered with blood.

“This took time.” Mahiya knelt down beside the thick body of a tree boa whose dry leathery skin continued to gleam a dramatic green. “The snakes aren’t tame as such—they come only to Neha’s hand. Tracking and patience, this required both.”

Hearing the sadness in her tone, Jason met her gaze in wordless question.

“After Guardian,” she said with a tight smile, “I can’t avoid the fear that curdles my stomach at the sight of Neha’s creatures, but I will not allow that fear to rule me.” Grim determination. “I try to remember what I’ve always known—that left alone, these creatures would avoid me as I’d avoid them. They did not deserve to be slaughtered.”

A wash of wind, Neha coming to land behind them, the anger on her face shot through with grief. Not saying a word, she stepped to the edge of the audience hall and simply looked, as if taking note of every single snake that had been butchered. And they had been. The boa Mahiya had been crouching beside appeared an exception, but closer examination showed it to be only half of the snake.

After being hacked into pieces, the reptiles had been flung around the audience hall. Such a thing would be impossible to do in daylight, but this particular area would’ve been all but deserted in the darkest part of night—the early discovery had occurred because of a lover’s spat that had sent a male vampire aimlessly wandering the fort.

“Do their bodies tell you anything?” Neha asked with frigid politeness.

Jason shook his head. “Only that the blade used was most probably a butcher’s cleaver.” A simple, sharp cut. “Is there any pattern to the ones who were harmed?”

Neha’s gaze lingered on several of the mutilated snakes. “They were the most docile—older pets who had become used enough to humans that they wouldn’t have slithered away at being approached.” Her wings held neatly off the blood-streaked floor, she said, “I must care for them.” Reaching back, she took a woven basket from the lady-in-waiting who’d arrived with her.

Not saying a word, Mahiya took a second basket and helped Neha gather up the remains. The silence was acute, Neha’s anger a pulse he could almost sense against his skin. But that wasn’t what Jason listened for, what he watched for. Because he was almost certain that out there in the shadows, within sight of the audience hall, stood someone who laughed at Neha’s distress.

However, not even his eyes, with their extraordinary night vision, could penetrate the thick clouds of black that coalesced inside the arches and doorways he could see from this vantage point. Starting a search for the watcher would be pointless. He or she had the advantage of having planned an escape route, would be long gone by the time Jason reached their hiding place.

Instead, he stood guard, never losing sight of where Mahiya was at any moment, regardless of his focus on the shadows.

“Come.” Neha said nothing else as she took flight, basket in hand.

Mahiya rose after her, and Jason followed, rising above them both in order to keep watch. However, Neha didn’t go far, landing on a small mountain plateau perhaps five minutes later. In the center of the open space stood a flat gray stone set atop a number of other stones shaped to brick smoothness and slotted in to create a squat pyramid.

Placing both baskets on the flat stone, Neha bent down and whispered something so soft, the wind buffeted her words away before they reached Jason. The first tendril of smoke appeared from below the baskets a second later.

By the time Neha stepped away from the little pyre, flames licked out of the baskets, and he understood the archangel had gained power not just over ice, but over fire. Ice could harm, but fire . . . fire was annihilation and violence on a level beyond. And Neha could now drop the flickering yellow orange death from the sky.