Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(43)

Sharine seemed to snap out of wherever it was that she’d gone. “Yes, let me try.” She took his hand in her clean ones.

Light glowed.

It felt . . . like a tickle across his palm, the gentlest power he’d ever sensed, yet it was paradoxically old and heady. He should’ve worried about what power lay dormant inside her, but as the blood and other fluids fell away into dust, he became aware of the softness of her hand, the gentle way she held him. As if he wasn’t so powerful he could break her in half with his physical strength alone.

It was all he could do to stand still while she cleansed his other hand, too.

“Thank you.” It came out stilted. “That’ll make it easier to fly. Can you take the stains out of our clothes, too?”

As a distraction technique, it proved a marked success. “No,” she said after trying multiple times. “At least the sun is hot enough to bake away the scent rather than causing the fluids to rot.”

Shuddering at the idea, he decided on another option. After removing his sword harness, he released the wing slits of his tunic, then pulled it off over the top of his head and threw it into the flames.



* * *



*

Sharine sucked in a quiet breath, struck by the blunt force of Titus’s masculinity. From the lack of differentiation in the hue of his skin, being shirtless was nothing new to the Archangel of Africa. His skin was smooth and silky-looking, his muscles flexing powerfully as he bunched up the filthy shirt and threw it into the flames.

The stunning sunlike golden marking on his chest—a marking that had emerged during the chaos of the Cascade—was a thing of beauty, potent yet oddly delicate in line and composition. It served to draw her eye back and back again to the raw beauty that was Titus.

Her mouth dried up.

Stunned and shocked by her visceral response, she forced herself to look away as he went to put his sword harness back on. It had been . . . a very, very long time since she’d felt the bite of physical attraction. She’d never been a woman of strong sexual appetites, more focused on looking for companionship and friendship and love. For an end to the loneliness that had haunted her since she was a child.

Her parents had left her long before they’d gone to Sleep.

It wasn’t that she’d become celibate after Aegaeon. Some spark of the Sharine who’d flown with a battle army had remained in the Hummingbird and she’d fought against the fragmentation of her mind, tried to cling to the shreds of herself that remained. Part of that had included a foolish effort to find an anchor using her body.

Foolish, for she wasn’t a woman for whom the physical had ever been a priority.

After finally realizing the futility of it, she hadn’t missed being a sexual creature, as her life hadn’t otherwise been devoid of touch. She’d had a son who’d hugged her often. Aodhan and Raphael, too, had been there for long periods. Her boys. Surrounding her with so much love and affection that she’d never even thought of the carnal, of the deeper needs of the body.

Today, however, her body had awakened with a vengeance, sexual need punching through her hard and brutal. For Titus, a man even more beautiful than Aegaeon. Though she still didn’t understand the superlatives about his charm. Titus was too blunt a hammer.

A fact he demonstrated to good effect when he said, “Are you wearing anything under that tunic? If you are, I suggest getting rid of the tunic. Reborn fluids tend to be disgusting in the extreme even when they dry—they grow black mold.”

Sharine hesitated; she was wearing a garment Tanicia had called a singlet. Soft and shaped to Sharine’s body, the white item held her average-size breasts in place, the wing slits fastened with small enclosures. But never in her life had she worn anything so revealing as outerwear.

She shifted on her feet . . . and got a whiff of her own odor.

Stomach threatening to turn itself inside out, she reached back to undo the wing slits on her tunic, then pulled the garment over her head and threw it into the flames. “I liked that tunic,” she muttered. “Now I only have one. My entire wardrobe in your stronghold is filled with dresses and gowns.” She scowled at him, careful to keep her eyes strictly to his face.

His square-jawed and rough-edged and altogether-too-handsome face.

“Don’t talk to me of gowns and clothing,” he grumbled. “I’m a warrior, not your dresser.”

“And how do your clothes appear, my lord Archangel? By magic?”

He threw back his head and roared to the sky, his shoulders bunched and his hands clenched as hard as his jaw. The sound was thunder that made the birds take flight from the trees and her own bones vibrate . . . but not in fear.

Holding her ground, her heart pounding, she met his gaze without flinching.

“I respect my people.” His eyes flashed. “That means I leave them to their duties. My steward should be able to point you to the right person.”

“Thank you for your kindness in sharing that information,” she said, not sure why she was taking such pleasure in antagonizing him—never in all her existence had she behaved this way; it was oddly exhilarating. “I’m sure I wouldn’t have figured that out for myself.”

Titus stared at her, just stared at her. “Tell me the truth—have you taken up drinking some concoction that turns a sane woman into a shrew?” It was a solemn question and maybe that was why the meaning of it took a moment to penetrate.