Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(24)

Today, she watched from her seated position against a tree as Aureline flopped over onto her stomach beside Meher, then leaned across to kiss him. “You sell yourself short, sweetheart. You’re steady and relentless and indefatigable. You just need a cause or a leader you trust—and we have that.”

There went Auri, being so gently wonderful again, Zanaya thought as she picked up her goblet of cider, her hound, Maslan, lying quiescent under her hand. Of her cherished Balan’s line, his coat was a glossy black in the sunlight, his body lean and long. To look at him thus, you’d never know him for a master of the hunt.

“We are both off duty today, are we not, Maslan?” she murmured with a smile as she scratched him between his pointed ears before taking a sip of the cider.

It had been a gift from Aureline and Meher, the bottle left to chill in a cold stream well before the ceremony that had elevated Zanaya to her present rank. Aureline had also sweet-talked the kitchen staff into packing them a near-banquet, and Meher had scouted this sun-dappled location in which to gather.

Mivoniel had joined them for the first half of the celebratory meal, having been invited to the ceremony by Archangel Inj’ra herself. It was a thing of great honor to Zanaya that her archangel valued her enough to make such an effort, but she’d been even more honored and overjoyed that her mentor had traveled so far to witness her triumph.

“If I ever decide my old bones wish to once more join an archangel’s troops,” he’d said, “I’ll be applying to you.” A grin. “Have to use those connections.”

It had been a laughing joke, but Zanaya had responded seriously. “I’d have you at my back anytime, Mivoniel. You’re one of the best fighters I’ve ever known—but more than that, I trust you to the core.”

A thoughtful look from the most influential figure in her life. “You know, I decided I wanted out of all this”—a wave at the archangelic stronghold in the distance—“about the time I met you. Too many years of fighting, too many battles for nothing but pride. A quiet life suited me . . . but now . . . Perhaps I’ll apply to you one day after all, my young Zanaya.”

Now, with Mivoniel homeward bound, she sat in the sun with her friends and she thought about the archangel who’d been her obsession at one point in time. It had been nine centuries since they’d last crossed paths—an immense span of time by mortal standards, but little enough when it came to an archangel newly ascended and a woman determined to control her own destiny.

Especially when Inj’ra and Alexander were friendly. Zanaya had no reason to come up against him or his troops, and the same for him.

Be honest, Zanaya. You avoided him purposefully at the start.

True enough, she admitted. But that had been an age ago. Theirs were just lives that had never again intersected. Angelkind sprawled across the world, their numbers on the rise this past millennium as a result of the peace that had held since Rumaia and other warlike Ancients vanished from the living world.

Would it still be there between them? That brutal bolt of attraction?

It should’ve been an amusing memory, nothing but a reminder of the folly of youth, but she’d never quite been able to reduce it to that. Part of her remained hung up on the echo of her long-ago obsession. Well, she’d get the chance to confront memory with reality soon; generals of her new stature moved in circles that included frequent contact with members of the Cadre.

What she didn’t expect was to come face-to-face with Alexander mere days hence, during a visit to Inj’ra’s Refuge territory. Muscles tight from her long flight, she’d decided to go for a walk, shake things loose. But the ice and snow on the outskirts of the angelic homeland chilled her to the point that she was muttering at herself for having become soft, when she felt a prickle along her spine.

She turned . . . and there he was, in this same remote corner of the Refuge, far from the bustle of the inhabited core. It felt akin to taking a blow from the spiked ball at the end of the hard shaft of a morning star—a bright explosion of need potent enough to claw through her armor, break her. But she didn’t go to him, this golden angel in the snow.

Hell no.

Zanaya would beg after no man. Ever.

Putting her hands on her hips, she held his gaze and raised an eyebrow.

His irises that astonishing silver she’d convinced herself she must’ve misremembered, he walked to her while holding his wings with perfect warrior precision. The air between them was suddenly no longer the ice of their surroundings. It burned as hot as the heart of the turbulent volcano she’d overflown on her journey.

“First General Zanaya,” he said, coming to a halt less than half a foot from her. “It suits you. As did Squadron Leader and Wing Commander.”

Though her heart was thunder, she maintained an outwardly cool expression. “Keeping track of me, are you?”

“Always. From the first moment I saw you.”

It shook her, how he admitted that without hesitation. “Some would call that obsession.”

A shoulder lifted in a lithe shrug. “You could as equally call it devotion.” Lifting his hand, he cupped her cheek.

Zanaya could’ve easily avoided or rebuffed the touch. But she wasn’t here to play those games. Not when the slight contact had reignited a firestorm of raw need that she’d only ever experienced with him. That need was far from being only of the body—obsession, devotion, whatever name you put on it, this thing between them allowed neither heart nor mind to stand separate.