Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(96)

As one of her staff had filled up the tub after Alexander flew in and they just had to top it up with hot water, they were soon sinking into the heat. She joined him, then picked up a pitcher and poured water over his head so he could scrub his hair and face. After that was done, he began to methodically clean the rest of his body and tell her the story of two archangels who’d fallen in love.

“He was young in the grand scheme of things,” Alexander said, “but he was powerful—and he was a warrior I respected, for all that we often competed for Callie’s attention.”

Zanaya raised an eyebrow where she knelt in the water in front of him. “Did something change while I Slept?”

“No. Caliane has only ever been a friend and compatriot. I suppose I did it out of a different kind of jealousy—that of a friend who sees his friend paying more attention to another.” He looked up. “More so because my own lover Slept.”

Zanaya caught the edge there. “No, General, I will never countenance your anger on that point. I gave you a choice. You made yours and I made mine.” She softened her rebuke with a kiss. “We’ll never go forward if we look only to the past.”

Her consort, the man who’d led countless armies into battle, held her gaze with an implacable one . . . that softened until he gave a harsh sigh. “I’m making the same mistakes, aren’t I, Zani? Being obdurate and unbending.”

Unused to such a lack of confidence from him, Zanaya might’ve struggled to find an answer—except that he’d already given it to her when he spoke. She took the hand on which he wore her ring, ran her thumb over the smoothness of the onyx and amber. “The Alexander I knew before I went into Sleep would’ve never once admitted that he might be fallible.”

Cupping his cheek, she pressed her forehead to his. “Neither would I. Both of us were willing to break us to get our own way. This time, I’m not willing to break us.” It was a weapon she gave him, that knowledge.

But he crushed her close and took her mouth in a kiss so deep and boundless that it shattered her heart. “Never again, Zani.” His big, muscled body trembled, his skin slick with water and his wings aglow. “We’ve earned our right to get it right this time—but now Antonicus might be rising, and bringing back the same evil that nearly took you.”

“My love.” She kissed the side of his face, his jaw, his lips, trying to make up for the pain she’d inadvertently caused him. “I’m so sorry you had to watch me fall.” She knew exactly how being made helpless to assist her would’ve affected him.

“You were so broken, Zani.” The words came out ragged, his breath catching. “So small and so—” He bit off the rest of what he’d been about to say, but she heard the tears he refused to allow to fall.

Her own eyes turned wet, the tears mingling with the water in the bath. And it was she who held him now, she who comforted this archangel of war and courage. “We’ll make it this time, lover,” she whispered. “Lijuan’s evil won’t part us again.” It was a vow.



* * *



*

    Alexander felt naked to his core by the time he exited the bath and dressed in a simple sleeveless tunic in a cream shade, paired with the pants from a set of brown leathers. The sensation of innermost vulnerability left him wanting to strike out, wanting to put up walls, shields to protect himself. Create a front guard to defend his flank.

Fighting that urge took everything he had.

She was his consort, had every right to be inside his protective walls. Never would he shove her outside.

Zanaya smiled at him, already dressed in a wrap of glimmering blue-black held together by a jeweled clasp at her shoulder and one at her hip. The violet silver of her hair was a tumble down her back that she’d scraped away from her face with diamond-studded combs, her skin aglow with health.

“You are lovely,” he murmured. “A piece of starlit night given form.”

“You’ve always been a charmer,” she said, padding over to rise on tiptoe and kiss him.

No one else had ever thought him charming, not in this way. But perhaps it was because she was the only person he’d ever thought to charm. “Make sure to tell my grandson that when he arrives. I often think he believes me a creaky old Ancient with no skills with women at all.”

Husky laughter. “Ah, he’s young. He knows not the value of a rare and aged vintage.” A little bite of his throat before her face turned solemn. “We should make a plan in the event that Antonicus has risen and is not who he once was. We must both be on the same page.”

“Yes,” Alexander said without hesitation, and then he set aside his arrogance and took the most logical action. “You must be the lead, Zani. You have a connection to him that is an advantage.”

Zanaya looked out through the large windows to their right. “I hope that it is, lover. More, I hope that we’re all wrong, that Antonicus Sleeps and what we saw was nothing but a strange natural phenomenon, a final remnant of a terrible Cascade.”

Yet he could tell from her tone that she didn’t believe it any more than he did. Shifting to stand by her side, their wings overlapping, they looked out at the rich golden light of late afternoon . . . but saw only a fast-approaching horror.





52