Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(105)

Laughter, as sensual and as addicting. “I’ll always protect your heart, for it’s mine now.” A slender hand pressed to that very organ, her voice unbending on her next words. “You, too, will wear my amber—a single piece, embedded into your breastplate.”

Titus puffed out his chest, his hands on her hips, and a smile curving his lips. “You can embed within it as many pieces of amber as you like.” He’d never budge in his devotion to her.

Running the back of her hand over his jaw, she said, “I’m not ready to be your consort.” A finger pressed to his lips. “Consorts must be aware of politics, must undertake certain duties. I can’t, not only because I watch over Lumia, but because I’ve barely awakened. I can’t be your consort before I’m complete in myself as Sharine.”

“Shari, if you grow any more radiant, I shall burn up in your light.” He pressed his forehead to her own. “But if you need a millennium or three to be ready to stand officially at my side, so be it.”

As long as she wore his amber.

As long as she made him wear hers.

“I’m telling you now, so you can’t accuse me of falsehoods later,” he said, because he’d never lie to her, “but I’ll treat you as I would my consort, and though you don’t take the title, the world will know who you are to me.” He couldn’t hide it; he wasn’t built that way.

Sharine searched his face. “Will it not cause you hurt if angelkind questions why I don’t take the title of Consort?”

“No. All I care about is your love.” His pride in being loved by her was a thing so huge, it could withstand endless raised eyebrows and pointed questions. “As long as you’re my Shari, and I’m your Titus, I’ll be an archangel who struts about like a cock in the roost.”

Joyous laughter from his love, her kiss soft and wet and deep.

Groaning, he allowed her to pull him down over her, so that he lay braced above her as she lay on the grasses.

“I accept your intentions,” she said in that voice private and for him alone. “I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be ready to be your consort, and I’ll push back firmly against anyone’s attempt to make me fill that role, but I’ll always be your Shari.”

Titus’s heart boomed, loud as thunder.

When he went to put the necklace on this time, she lifted her head to make it easier for him. The hummingbird settled perfectly in the hollow of her throat. Smug and happy, he lifted the pendant to press a kiss to that hollow.

Hand on his neck, she murmured, “You do know the amber in your breastplate is going to be in the shape of a hummingbird, don’t you?”

He groaned, but it was half-hearted at best, his delight too obvious to hide. Her dancing eyes said she knew that well. Pushing at his chest until he’d moved aside, she rose to her feet and reached up to the shoulder clasps of her gown.

A second later, it fell to her feet in a pool of starlight, her body nude under the moonlight but for the gossamer fabric that covered her mound. Stepping out of her slippers, she held his eyes as she removed the final barrier between his gaze and her body.

Then she stretched, a small goddess with gentle curves and hair that tumbled a golden black rain down her back, her eyes aglow in a way that said she was a rare and powerful creature. He wasn’t aware of getting up, wasn’t aware of stripping. But his skin burned against hers when he clasped her hips and bent his head to kiss her throat.

Shivering, she slid her arms around his neck. “Dance with me, Titus.”

He covered her in his glamour even as he vaulted them both to the sky, glamour a gift of archangels. It made them private, unseen by any other eyes as they tangled limbs and wings, kissing and touching and claiming. He’d said they’d burn together, and they did, but there was also a luminous joy to it all, happiness so profound that it was melded into his bones.

Sharine’s wings shimmered with angel dust of pale gold that coated his skin, entered his mouth. He dusted her in turn, until she glittered against the moon and the stars, the glow of her eyes echoed by the faint glow emanating from her wings. Titus gripped the arch of one wing, stroked with intimate possessiveness.

She repeated the caress on him.

And they danced.

The Archangel of Africa and an angel so unique that she couldn’t be classified as anyone but herself: Sharine, Guardian of Lumia, and Hummingbird in flight.

Bodies locked together against the velvet night, they fell and fell . . . into the cold waters of the lake that would ripple azure blue in daylight. Aware of her strength now, he hadn’t shielded them from the water, and it was a shock of cold against the heat of their bodies, but they tumbled deeper and still deeper until the pleasure became sunlight exploding through their veins.

Titus surfaced together with her, and she was a sylph who pushed her hair off her face and smiled at him. Titus fell all over again.





Epilogue


    Dearest Caliane,

The phone device is most excellent and I become more enamored with it each hour that passes, but Charisemnon’s journals show me that there is value in taking the time to follow the old ways, too. So today, I write you this letter that I’ll send by courier to wherever you intend to be in the coming days.

I know you continue to assist young Suyin, and Neha, too.