Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(87)

Grabbing a throw from the settee by the windows, she passed it to Titus. “So you can protect your arms at least a little.” After he took it, she went back to the head of the bed. Though the reborn woman’s eyes were now crazed red with no sign of sentience, her mouth bared as she sought to bite, Sharine stroked her hair and murmured gentle words that she hoped would make this a little easier.

The screaming suddenly reached a pitch that was pain in the ears, glass shattering. The reborn angel’s body erupted in a gush of dark, dark green-black fluid as she gave birth to whatever it was that Charisemnon had planted in her. Sharine only glanced over long enough to see that Titus was safe. Her attention was on the woman, whose breathing had altered dramatically, her chest rattling.

And though she knew there was a chance of being clawed, Sharine slid one hand into the reborn angel’s. A weak grip around her own, her eyes holding Sharine’s for a profound moment of purest peace . . . then she gave one last breath and went still in a way only of the dead. The reborn did not pass in this way, but this woman had never been an ordinary reborn.

A single droplet of green-black rolled from her eye and down her cheek.

Tears burning her throat, Sharine gently closed the woman’s eyelids. By some mercy, they stayed that way. When she turned to Titus, it was to see him staring down at what he held cradled in the throw in his arms.

“Titus?” Breath lodged in her throat, she stepped over.

Her stomach churned—all she could see at first was putrid black-green. But then she saw the waving fisted hands with perfect tiny fingers, the mouth that was gasping for air in a face that Titus must’ve wiped clean, and felt an even colder horror run through her blood. Her words came out a whisper. “It’s a baby.”

“Check her fingers.” Titus’s voice was crushed stone. “See if she has claws.”

Gently wiping one fist clean using an edge of the throw, she unfurled those delicate baby fingers with care. Then she examined the babe’s feet. “Nothing. She has the same soft nails as any other infant.”

Shifting on her feet, she walked quickly into the suite’s bathing chamber and found what appeared to be an unused towel set hanging on a railing. Dampening the soft hand towel with warm water, she went back into the room and began to gently wipe down the child.

But it wasn’t enough; the slime was everywhere and it stuck. “Bring her into the bathing room.” Going ahead, she found a pitcher sitting to the side of the bathtub. It must’ve been for bathers to pour water over themselves—or perhaps for a body servant to do so.

She filled the pitcher with warm water, then made Titus get rid of the soiled throw and hold the child in the sink while she poured the water over the strangely quiet infant’s skin, washing it until it was clean all over its front. Unlike most babies this young, its eyes appeared to be able to focus and the baby watched her with eyes of a strangely familiar hue.

Deep gold with slivers of brown.

The last time she’d seen such eyes, they’d been set into a strikingly handsome male face, his lips lush and his hair a silken mahogany.

The face of an archangel.





42


        I must use my own seed.

    That is the key. That has always been the key.

    —From the journals of Archangel Charisemnon





43


Wondering if Titus had noticed the infant’s eyes yet, if he’d realized the import, she said, “Turn the little one over.”

Titus said nothing, but his big hands were careful as he turned the baby so that her back was exposed; Titus made sure to support the child’s head. It took only a splash of water to clear away enough of the slime to reveal wings. The translucent and soft wings of an angelic child, with no deformity or malformation. She took care as she cleaned all of the slime off those wings, then the rest of the child’s body.

The babe’s skin was a dark gold that echoed her father’s. It had been impossible to see the original hue of her mother’s skin under the reborn rot, but it had probably been similar to Charisemnon’s for the child to so closely echo the shade.

Only once the child had no trace of slime on its tiny body did she pick up the biggest towel and spread it out on the counter so Titus could place the child on it. With the still eerily silent little one lying on her back, she began to wipe down her skin. She kept her touch gentle, patting the water from her skin rather than rubbing. “See if you can find some powder. It’ll help her skin after all it’s been through.”

Titus hesitated.

“She can’t do anything to me, Titus. She doesn’t have any teeth, far less any claws.”

He left at last.

In the interim, Sharine picked up and rocked the child in her arms. “What are you, little one?”

The baby hiccupped . . . then, throwing back her head, wailed. Wailed as if she was being beaten, as if the world had done her the greatest insult.

“At least she has a strong voice,” Titus said in an approving tone as he walked in with several canisters of powder in hand. “I didn’t know which was the right one.”

“Hush, my sweet,” Sharine murmured, rocking the child—to no avail. Her face turned red under the gold of her skin, her sobs jerky in between the wails.