Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter)(3)

He was grinning at the close call when he became aware of someone rushing out onto the balcony. He didn’t need to look behind him to know who it was; Honor’s scent was as familiar to him as his own. Rising to his full height as he turned, he saw that her cheeks were pale beneath her gold-kissed skin, her green eyes huge.

“Naasir!” She ran across to him, frantically running her hands over his shoulders and down his arms. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Naasir suddenly realized he might be in trouble. “No,” he reassured her. “It was only a short jump.”

“A short jump?” Honor pressed one hand over her heart, her other hand gripping tight at his upper arm, as if she was afraid he’d fall off the balcony. “You scared me half to death!”

Moving slowly so as not to scare her any more, he wrapped her in his arms and nuzzled his cheek against her hair. “Don’t tell Dmitri,” he whispered.

“You are a person.” The deadly vampire who was Honor’s mate had said that to Naasir when he was only a feral child. “You are Naasir. I’ll lose a piece of me if you die and it’s a piece I’ll never get back.”

Until that instant forever seared into his memory, Naasir hadn’t actually understood that anyone considered him a real person, a person who would be missed if he was gone, and who had the right to other people’s love, affection, and care. That day, in Dmitri’s dark eyes, he’d seen pain at the idea of a world without Naasir, as well as raw anger at the fact Naasir had once again endangered himself, and it had forever changed the boy he’d been.

In many ways, that moment marked his true birth. The birth of Naasir, the person.

Even today, though he was full-grown, Naasir didn’t like making Dmitri scared for him, or angry with him—and he felt the same way about Honor. She was Dmitri’s mate and part of Naasir’s family now. She treated him as if he were hers to care for, to spoil, and to touch as family touched. That should’ve been strange, but it wasn’t. He had no trouble following Honor’s orders, no matter that he was the far more dangerous predator.

Maybe because she belonged to Dmitri . . . and maybe because she made him feel safe and protected. It made no sense, but when he was with Honor, her soft scent in his every breath, he felt like he thought a cub must feel next to the comforting warmth of its mother. She looked after him and she didn’t do it in a way that made his hackles rise.

Laughing a little raggedly now, she ran her hands down his back. “I won’t tell on you,” she promised, “but you can’t go around doing things like that.” She leaned back so she could hold his eyes with the jeweled brightness of her own. “What would I do if you hurt yourself?”

He hung his head, looking at her through his lashes. Like the choppily cut hair that slid around his face, they were a metallic, inhuman silver that marked him as different. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget to think like a human.”

Shaking her head, Honor cupped his face in her hands. “You’re perfect exactly as you are,” she whispered with so much love that he felt as if he was being hugged. “I just don’t want you hurt.”

He smiled at the last, knowing he was forgiven for having scared her. Lifting her up in his arms and off her feet, he squeezed her tight. She laughed, silhouetted against a cloudless sky of chrome blue, and, when he put her back down, said, “Be on time for dinner. I asked Montgomery for the recipe for the spiced meat you like.”

Making the promise, Naasir walked her back into the Tower and realized he’d jumped onto the balcony right outside her study. He was thinking about curling up in a sunny armchair in the corner and just napping when he felt the crashing wave, the biting, fresh touch of water, that was his archangel’s voice in his head.

Naasir, I need to speak to you.

I’m on my way, sire. Leaving Honor with a rub of his cheek against hers that she permitted with a smile, he made his way to the room in the Tower from which Raphael ran his territory. Spearing through the Manhattan sky, the city’s Archangel Tower held countless rooms, all with a purpose. Above this floor were the private suites.

Naasir had one, but he preferred to stay with Honor and Dmitri.

Why would he want to be by himself when he could be with family?

Entering Raphael’s office, he was disappointed to find that Elena wasn’t there. He liked sparring with his sire’s consort and they’d done it several times since Naasir had finally been released from long-term duty at Amanat, the city held by Raphael’s mother, Caliane.

Caliane’s forces had grown strong as more and more of those who remembered her rule returned to her and swore their allegiance once again. It was no longer necessary for Raphael to second one of the Seven to Amanat, though Naasir knew the sire would continue to assist his mother while she adapted to the modern world.

“Sire.”

Raphael’s wings were backlit by the sun where he stood behind his desk, his feathers sparking a white gold as metallic as Naasir’s hair, and his gaze on an array of blades spread out over the polished volcanic stone of his desk. Even after all these centuries of being one of Raphael’s most trusted men, part of Naasir always felt a punch of awe at the violent power embodied in the archangel in front of him. That punch came from the primal core of his nature, the part that had never been meant to be within such proximity to an archangel.