Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter)(12)

That would be her reward for each day of horror in her grandfather’s court.

“Would you like some bread?”

It wasn’t the words that startled her. It was how intensely polite they were, given the identity of the speaker. Taking the breadbasket from Naasir, she glanced up at his face and saw nothing but courteous interest. No feral glint as she’d seen earlier, certainly no attempts to annoy her.

The hairs rose on her nape again.

Disturbed by Naasir’s sudden politeness in a way she couldn’t articulate, she put a piece of the thick, warm bread on her plate and handed the woven basket to Venom. The vampire with the slitted eyes of a lethal snake and a dark sensuality that drew countless women to his bed, looked from her to Naasir but didn’t say anything except, “Thank you.”

“Here.” Jessamy passed a small bowl to Naasir. “I made your favorite. Honor sent me Montgomery’s recipe.”

Naasir took the bowl of what seemed to be rare—or was it raw?—meat of some kind, his open grin making Andromeda’s breath catch. However, the mask of civilization was firmly back on his face when he looked at her partway through the meal. “Do you require anything from this side of the table?”

Shaking her head, she took a bite of the food on her plate while Venom and Naasir sipped blood from small goblets. Venom nibbled on something here and there, but unlike Naasir, he didn’t really eat any of the solid food.

It only highlighted the fact that Naasir was no ordinary vampire.

She ate slowly, listened to the others speak . . . and felt her skin chill each time Naasir said something polite to her. Catching Jessamy’s frown at one point, she realized she was right to feel on edge. Logic told her that made no sense. People were normally polite to strangers . . . except Naasir was unlike any other person she’d ever met.

And he hadn’t been polite to her before she snapped at him.

“So, you are to find Alexander,” Galen said toward the end of the meal. “Where will you begin?”

Naasir’s silver eyes landed on Andromeda. “I was told you have possibilities for us to explore.”

“In a sense,” she said, her skin tight with a kind of cold fear that had nothing to do with Naasir’s unsettling behavior and everything to do with the fact that, unbeknownst to anyone at this table, she would soon be forced to have enemy loyalties, forced to be Charisemnon’s bonded subordinate.

Not for fifteen more days, she reminded herself. Long enough to try to save the life of an Ancient. “I never studied Alexander with the intention of finding his Sleeping place.” He had fascinated her because he was both a great statesman, and a warrior who had led his troops from the front till the day he chose to Sleep. “My suggestions are only educated guesses. I don’t presume to know the mind of an Ancient.”

“A hunt in the dark,” Venom mused. “With Lijuan’s people on your tail.”

Galen’s expression went flat, while beside Andromeda, Naasir’s fingers clenched on his goblet. “When is she going to die? I’ve been trying to accomplish that since I was a child.”

Andromeda felt her eyes widen. “Is the story true?” she asked impulsively. “That you once got into Lijuan’s Refuge stronghold and pretended to eat her pet cat?”

A sideways glance that was so cool, she almost felt frost break out over her skin. “Yes,” he said and turned back to his conversation with the others. “We also need to find out why she’s suddenly decided to murder Alexander.” A sip of blood. “Because I agree with the sire that this is far more apt to be about eliminating the competition than waking a possible ally.”

Jessamy shook her head, her expression troubled. “I’ve seen Lijuan walking closer and closer to the darkness but this I didn’t expect. To murder an Ancient in his Sleep? It’s a horror too huge to be borne.”

Andromeda could add nothing to that ugly truth.


*



Two hours after the dinner, Naasir shoved out of bed. He was meant to be resting so he and Andromeda could start the hunt tomorrow, but he was too wound up. She’d snapped at him to be civilized. Clearly, she wasn’t his mate even if she smelled so delicious that he could scent her in spite of the walls that separated them. It didn’t matter if she made his mouth water; his mate wouldn’t tell him to be what he wasn’t.

A woman who knows me, understands what I am, and who wants to have secret rules with me.

That’s what he’d told Ashwini he wanted in a mate and he hadn’t changed his mind. His mate wouldn’t ask him to wear a different skin, wouldn’t expect him to be “normal.” He wasn’t normal, not by any measure, but he was a person and people were allowed to have mates. He was allowed to have a mate.

Gritting his teeth against the urge to follow the beguiling scent of the woman who was clearly not his mate, he pulled on his jeans and headed to the small training arena behind the stronghold. It wasn’t the main training ring, rather a walled courtyard on the edge of a cliff where those who had to work inside the stronghold could go spar, or stretch their muscles.

He would jump up on the wall, climb down to the cliff, and make his way to the very bottom of the gorge that bisected the Refuge, then back up. The trip was difficult enough that it should exhaust—

He growled inside his chest as her scent grew in depth and intensity the closer he got to the courtyard. There were no sleeping rooms at this end of the stronghold. What was her scent doing here?