Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter)(86)

“The sire scrambled him?” An awed whisper.

“Simply because he Sleeps, it does not mean he isn’t aware of the world around him.” A thick clink that could’ve indicated a crossbow bolt being put back with others. “Remember, it is said Caliane rose before her time because she heard Lijuan plotting to kill her son.”

That wasn’t quite the truth, but the point was well made.

Naasir listened further but the two wing brothers moved on to talking about a man the female one wanted to approach. Silently wishing the hopeful wing brother good luck in her courtship, Naasir led Andromeda away from the entrance and to a space that felt safe, free of fresh scents and formed in a way that meant sound wouldn’t carry.

Then, putting his lips to her ear, he told her what he’d heard. Having her so close, her warmth soft and female, it made him want to stop being civilized and sensible. He just wanted to take, to give in to the primal core of him that didn’t understand why he should wait.

When she tugged him down so she could reply, he put his hand on an undamaged part of her wing in an effort to ease his need. Stupid Grimoire book, he thought, and again caught a flicker of memory—of a small red book with a drawing in gold on the cover.

His mind kept telling him he’d seen it. But where?

“It’s true,” Andromeda said, her lips brushing his ear and shocking jolts of pleasure over his skin. “The record from that explorer was disjointed and jerky. Almost like a delusion. The single reason I took it seriously was because I knew that as a very young angel, Alexander lived in the oasis.”

That truth had become lost in time, buried by Alexander’s ascension and eventual control of this entire territory. Andromeda had the knowledge because, a hundred years earlier, she’d tracked down Ancients still in the world and listened to them. Unlike Caliane and Alexander, these Ancients weren’t powerful, but they were often wise.

The ones she’d spoken to were all once more Sleeping, having awakened together for half a century to “taste” the new world. Having decided against living in it, the three had told her they’d see her in another thousand years. “Save your other questions for then, child. It is quite lovely having young ears eager to listen to our tales.”

One of the tales they’d told her had been of going to a newly adult Alexander’s oasis home for a “warrior party” where mead was drink and the dancing was wild.

“He never forgot us,” one of the Ancients had said. “Even when he became a powerful general, then an archangel, we still had an open welcome to his home—whether it be an archangelic palace or a hunting cabin—and he’d sit with us and drink a glass or five and laugh over old stories.”

The others had nodded, their smiles holding a deep and true affection for an archangel who to them was a friend they’d grown up alongside. “I hope one day when we wake, he, too, is awake. I should like to share a drink with him and see what he makes of this world where metal machines fly in the air and an archangel keeps no court.”

Thinking of all her conversations with the Ancients, she braced herself with a hand on Naasir’s chest and said, “If Alexander is in some sense aware of people in this cave system, then we may be safe. He wasn’t capricious or heedlessly cruel.”

“But if it’s an autonomous defense as with the locusts, then we could end up catatonic,” Naasir completed in the low, slightly growly tone that she loved.

“Should we leave and attempt to get far enough away that the phone works?”

“I missed the check-in call—Raphael is already on his way.” Naasir closed one warm, rough-skinned hand over the one she had on his chest. “But it’ll take Alexander time to rise, and Lijuan has a shorter distance to travel than Raphael. We need to try to start the process so Alexander isn’t helpless if Lijuan realizes this is his location and arrives first.”

Andromeda thought of how Lijuan’s physical form had faded in and out, of her thin face and missing limbs. The Archangel of China was clearly weak, but according to the news Andromeda had received from Jessamy while in Amanat, there was a chance Lijuan had killed Jariel—an angel rumored to have been strong enough that he might one day soon have become an archangel.

And Alexander was currently helpless should she strike.

“What are we waiting for?” she said to Naasir, her blood hot. “We have to go annoy an Ancient and hope he doesn’t turn us into gibbering idiots.”

Naasir’s chuckle was soft, the teeth that grazed the tip of her ear sharp. “I knew you were my mate.”





36


Lijuan had only gone a quarter of the way to Rohan’s palace when her strength ran out. Heading to the ground before she fell out of the sky, her wings yet weak and useless appendages, she became corporeal.

Rage burned in her as she lay helpless on the earth, a torso with wings that barely moved when she attempted to flip herself over onto her front. Not that it would’ve mattered. She couldn’t even crawl fast; her single fully regenerated arm was as weak as her wings, the muscles trembling at the least exertion.

Unable to contain the fury, she struck out with one red-tipped hand. Black shards erupted, demolishing the trees in front of her to dust. She jerked . . . and then she smiled. This humiliating weakness was bearable if her deadly abilities were returning to their full strength. A Sleeping Alexander would have no defense against them. She was a goddess, while he had spent the past four hundred years in stasis.