Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter)(79)

Andromeda’s voice rang out into the silence. “We’re with Raphael! That squadron was wearing Lijuan’s colors in case you missed it! Raphael’s mortal enemy!”

The sentinels below Naasir didn’t move, but a deep male voice came from the left. Speaking the same well-known local dialect as used by Andromeda, he said, “This land is forbidden to outsiders. Leave.”

“We can’t. Lijuan is coming to kill your archangel.”

A pause before the speaker’s voice came again. “We will listen. Face-to-face.”

“Swear on Alexander’s honor that you will do us no harm!”

This time the pause was longer, more potent, but when the voice came, it was resolute. “On Alexander’s honor.”

Naasir had made it to the speaker by then, a tall and husky male vampire with tanned skin and hair hidden under the same kind of scarf as Naasir had noticed on several others. He dropped down right behind the man who had to be the leader of the sentinels, a deliberate choice to ensure the other male didn’t attempt to treat them as prey.

The sentinel whirled around, pale gray eyes glinting and crossbow held up and pointed at Naasir’s heart.





33


“The silver-eyed beast.” Despite the description, the leader’s voice held no insult as he lowered his weapon. “How many of my men did you kill?”

“None—there was no need.” Naasir shrugged. “They’ll have headaches when they wake if they haven’t already. You should remind them never to forget to look up, even if there are no wings in the sky.”

A slight incline of the leader’s head. “A point well made.”

Andromeda appeared out of the trees right then, her dark brown pants dusty and the paler brown of her fitted tunic bearing a streak of dirt. Her eyes went to Naasir, skimmed over him, the tense lines of her only easing once she’d taken in his uninjured state. Naasir wanted to preen at having a mate who cared, and he wanted to nuzzle at her to ease her worry. He also wanted to run his hands over every inch of her to confirm that she, too, was unhurt.

“So,” she said, sword held out at her side and eyes on the sentinel leader, “we’re all here and not attempting to kill one another. Why don’t we go back to the village? I need some coffee.”

Naasir didn’t dispute her suggestion. Until they convinced the sentinels of their intent, they’d get exactly nowhere. “You know who I am,” he said to the leader of the sentinels. “This is Andromeda.”

“I am Tarek,” the other man replied, his skin smooth over angular cheekbones and his jaw shadowed with dark stubble. “We will head to the village, but do any harm to the villagers and our agreement is void.” When he pulled down the scarf to allow it to lie loosely around his neck, his hair proved to be not black but a dark brown threaded with gold.

“We have no cause to harm anyone,” Andromeda said and the three of them walked back to the village, the other sentinels no doubt at their backs.

The villagers looked at them with wide eyes when they walked in, though a barefoot child with dark hair and skin not many shades lighter than Naasir’s, ran straight for Tarek. “Grandpapa!”

The vampire, who looked no older than his third decade and yet who was likely not “grandpapa” but great-grandpapa many times removed, picked up the little girl without breaking his stride and held her with an ease that shouted familiarity. The child peered curiously at Naasir. Her eyes were the same light gray as those of her living ancestor.

Naasir smiled, flashing fangs; the child immediately dimpled and waved. Children liked him. They knew without being told that he wouldn’t hurt them. It didn’t matter if the child wore skin or fur or scales.

Osiris had taken and killed the young of many species without compunction. That was one of the many reasons he had to die. One of the many reasons why Alexander had to execute him.

The latter was a fact Naasir hadn’t known until he was older. He’d always thought Raphael had done it, but Raphael hadn’t been an archangel at the time, and Osiris had been an Ancient’s brother.

“Whatever our later disagreements,” Raphael had said to Naasir a hundred years earlier, “Alexander and I always agreed that Osiris had to die.” A grim tone that echoed the hard line of his jaw. “Alexander’s older brother wasn’t insane. He was just wired wrong and he committed infanticide on a horrific level. Simply because he killed the children of mortals and animals didn’t make his crimes any less terrible—he wiped out entire species in his obsession.”

Naasir knew Osiris would’ve loved to have had an immortal child on whom to experiment—stronger, less apt to die on him—but he’d never been able to father one on the concubines he kept far from his stronghold and only rarely visited. And even he hadn’t been arrogant enough to kidnap an angelic child.

Not then. Had he been allowed to live . . .


*



Calling out in a subdialect Andromeda didn’t fully understand, Tarek led them to a clearing surrounded by houses on one side and the blue-green waters of the lake on the other. There was a table set up there by the time they arrived, benches on either side. Food and drink was being placed on it by fast-moving men and women.

Suspicion underlay the quick, curious glimpses to which Andromeda was subject, though she noticed the non-warrior women were sending Naasir some very come-hither smiles. Then she saw one of the male sentinels scan Naasir’s body in an unobtrusive but admiring way and knew the interest wasn’t confined to the noncombatants or to the female sex.