Angels' Flight(96)

“Galen,” the girl next to him supplied in a loud whisper. “My mother said his name is Galen.”

Jessamy blinked, so startled she could only say, “Why?”

Azec stood, wings spread, and hands thrown victoriously in the air. “Because you were kissing him!”

Giggles erupted around the room, while Azec sat back with a bright grin, satisfied he’d trumped all his classmates. But his elevated status didn’t last long.

“I saw, too!” another girl cried. “Up on the cliff.” Kicking out her legs, she beamed at Jessamy, her wild tumble of sun-colored curls held back with a pretty lilac ribbon. “I could tell it was you because of your wing,” she said with the unvarnished honesty of youth.

All at once, Jessamy remembered how Galen had blocked the view with his own wings when things became heated—he’d known their silhouettes would be visible from certain areas of the Refuge, had to have realized the kiss would be all over the angelic city by morning. She had been, she realized, expertly outflanked. No wonder so many people had looked at her with secret smiles on their lips this morning. Not smirks, but smiles full of delight.

Such as those on the faces in front of her.

Their joy for her shattered something inside her, some brittle, hard shield. “I did kiss Galen,” she admitted, because you couldn’t lie to children and expect to keep their trust.

Azec and Saraia both spoke at the same time, their voices tangling in playful innocence. “Did you like it?”

“Yes.” Until she didn’t know the passionate, demanding stranger she’d become.


Having caught more than one speculative look directed his way as he walked through the artisans’ section of the Refuge later that day, Galen bit back a smile of primal satisfaction. No one was now in any doubt about his claim when it came to Jessamy.

Illium knocked on the door of the home where he’d led them, eyes of deep gold narrowing when his gaze fell on Galen. “It might be better for your health not to look like the cat that got into the cream when you see Jessamy next.”

Galen bared his teeth. “A man has a right to declare his courtship.” And make it clear that anyone who got in the way would be eviscerated.

The blue-winged angel shook his head. “Barbarian, there’s declaring and then there’s beating the point home with a club.”

Right then, they heard a faint “It’s open” from within the house.

Following the flirtatious wind in the hallway, they came out onto a railing-less balcony that hung out over the gorge, appearing to be suspended against the cerulean blue of the sky. The angel who sat with his back to the house, his face and hands streaked with red and blue and yellow, a color-drenched canvas on the easel in front of him, was created of fractured pieces of light.

His wings were diamond bright, refracting and breaking the piercing beams of sunlight; his hair the same pale, paradoxically dazzling shade; his eyes, when he turned to glance over his shoulder, splintered outward from the black pupil in shards of crystalline blue and green. A sculpture in ice, but for the fact his skin held a golden warmth that likely made him an object of desire, though he was a youth yet.

Rising the instant he saw that Illium wasn’t alone, the angel took a respectful stance beside his easel, the blue paint on his cheek a primitive tattoo.

“Galen, this is Aodhan. He serves Raphael.” Illium made the introduction with a courtly grace that wouldn’t have been out of place in the palace of Neha, the Queen of Poisons. “Aodhan,” the angel continued, “meet Raphael’s new weapons-master.”

“Sir.”

Raphael’s people, Galen thought, fit no predictable pattern?… but one. “Your aerie is well situated,” he said, considering the quiet, implacable loyalty he’d sensed in both Dmitri and Illium. An archangel who inspired such fidelity in men of strength was indeed a power Alexander should fear.

Aodhan’s wings rustled as he moved to join Galen near the edge of the balcony. “The light,” he said, a shy smile in his eyes, “it’s perfect for painting.”

Shy perhaps, Galen thought, but intelligent, and, from the way he moved, highly capable in some kind of combat. “The blade,” he murmured. “Rapier?” The delicate but deadly sword would fit the angel’s graceful step.

But Aodhan shook his head. “Too light for me. I prefer a more solid blade.” He pushed back his hair, leaving a red streak on his forehead and in the strands. The color glittered.

“You returned to the Refuge this morn?” He’d give the young angel time to rest, after which he wanted to see him in the salle—as weapons-master, he had to know the strengths and weaknesses of all of Raphael’s trusted people.

“Yes. I’ve been acting as a courier for the sire this past year.”

“You’re very young for the task.”

“I was given special dispensation,” Aodhan began, just as wings of white-gold swept down from the sky to land on the balcony, the wind of Raphael’s descent blowing Galen’s hair back from his face.

“You’re all here,” the archangel said, folding his wings tight to his back. “Good.”

Caught by the tone of his voice, they converged around him.

“It’s time I returned to my territory,” Raphael said. “It seems Alexander is stirring. Galen, you come with me.”