Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(90)

Titus had never ached as he watched a woman walk away from him, but he was one big bruise an hour later when Sharine took off into the early-evening sky with Ozias’s elite squadron. The ground teams had departed ahead of them.

Pressing a fisted hand to his heart, he watched her until she was invisible in the sky, then took off to join the southern squadrons. It took everything he had not to turn north, in her wake, but he was an archangel. His first duty was to his people and his territory. That didn’t mean he didn’t glance over his shoulder one more time, hoping to see wings of indigo and gold in the sky.



* * *



*

Sharine felt a wrench inside her as she flew away from Titus, and she wasn’t certain she liked it. At the same time, she couldn’t help from looking for his big, solid form in the courtyard. He was wearing his breastplate and other upper-body armor, his hands on his hips, and his wings held with exquisite control against his spine—and she was pretty sure he was scowling.

For some reason, that made her want to smile.

But then her squadron gained height and she could no longer pick him out in the land far below. The ache inside her becoming a knot heavy and hard, she angled her wings north and away from the archangel who’d come into her life at a time when she wanted no man in it in the romantic sense.

She’d thought before that Titus would leave a mark.

Now she knew that mark would be deep and painful and would hurt for a long, long time to come. But still she’d take the risk. No longer was she the Sharine who’d grown up scared and afraid, a child who’d tried to cling to her parents by being always good; the Sharine she was today shot fire from her hands, she made mistakes and learned from them . . . and she took risks.

Even when it involved a man as dangerous to her as Titus.



* * *



*

Ozias sounded the first alert two hours later—because they were pacing the ground troops, they hadn’t covered as much distance as an angel otherwise might, but this wasn’t about speed; it was about ensuring they unearthed every single reborn in the landscape.

“Guild Hunter marked that hill as the site of a small nest!” the squadron commander said in a tone that’d carry to all the airborne troops. “Obren, do a high flyover, report any movement. It’s after dark so they may have gone hunting and we’ll have to track them.”

Looking down, Sharine saw the ground vehicles setting up a perimeter, vampiric and mortal warriors stepping out with weapons ready. The ground commander, a grim-eyed vampire named Amadou, was at the forefront. The ground teams called themselves the “cleaners”—their task was to eliminate any reborn that got through the angelic barrage.

Thus far, they’d seen no new signs of an angelic reborn—though Titus had briefed all his senior people that it was a possibility—so angels remained less at risk from reborn than vampires or mortals. It made sense for them to be the first line of defense. And for Sharine to do everything in her power to ensure the reborn didn’t get a chance to harm any of the team.

“Commander.” Obren was back. “Definite movement at the mouth of the nest.”

Ozias raised a hand, dropped it in a hard sweep downward.

Acting as per their plan, Sharine blasted a hole in the hill, reborn scrambled out, and the angels took off their heads. The ground crew didn’t have to fire a single shot.

The second nest, however, proved to be a—

“Fuck, this is a fucking clusterfuck!”

Sharine had no idea which one of the vampires below had yelled that and even less knowledge of what it meant, but it sounded right. The Guild Hunter who’d pinpointed this site had been correct to say it was a big nest, but what the hunter hadn’t realized was that it was a maze of interconnected nests.

Some of which were behind the ground troops.

The creatures swarmed the ground troops while the angelic fighters were caught in furious battle against a massive knot of reborn in the center. Sharine was the only one still high enough in the air to see what was happening, how the reborn were spilling out of burrows everywhere and heading to attack the ground teams.

She thought quickly. Ozias! Get your squadron in the air and out to assist the ground teams. I’ll take care of the central core of reborn.

Ozias would’ve been in her rights to question Sharine; after all, Sharine was no battle strategist, but the spymaster’s squadron lifted off near instantaneously after Sharine made the request. They stayed low as they flew in all directions to help the ground teams.

The creatures in the middle screeched and began to run after them.

Sharine set her jaw and began blasting out her power in pinpoint strikes—she’d gotten much better at it since her first strike what felt like a lifetime ago and it didn’t take her long to create an effective moat around the reborn. The creatures fell into the hollow she’d created, and immediately began to try to climb out.

But her action had given the ground teams enough backup that they were able to move in and use their weapons to pick off the creatures. Sharine stayed high, and when she saw an angel fly too low and a reborn grab their wing to pull them down, she slammed a bolt into the reborn that evaporated its frame.

Peace be with you, she thought, for all these creatures had once been someone’s child, with dreams and hopes that would never now come to fruition.