Archangel's Enigma

1

Seven months Naasir had been hunting. Seven months since he’d told Ashwini he was ready to find a mate. Seven months and still his mate hadn’t made herself known to him. Didn’t she know he was looking for her?

Crouched on the railing-less edge of a high Tower balcony, he growled.

A Legion fighter who’d just flown past turned to give him an appraising look. Naasir snapped his teeth at the bat-winged male and was pleased when the fighter changed direction to head to the Legion’s new home. Naasir liked that home, even if it had walls. It was a high-rise that had been turned into a giant greenhouse, windows taken out to form balconies, walls replaced with massive sheets of glass where possible, and a flight tunnel created in the central core, a tunnel big enough to accommodate wings.

With fall now a blaze of red and orange and yellow across Central Park, the engineers had also added clever transparent “curtains” of what Illium had told Naasir was a high-tech material that allowed the Legion to fly in and out at will, but that maintained a warm, growing temperature within. Each time a fighter went through, the curtains fell automatically back in place, trapping the heat inside.

Naasir had snuck into the high-rise soon after he first returned to New York two weeks earlier. The inside was structured so that the remaining parts of the internal floors and ceilings jutted out at unusual angles; the distance between one and the next was often deep. Enjoying the lush greenery within, the vines climbing up the sides already starting to take strong hold and small trees digging in their roots as flowers bloomed, Naasir had made his way to the top regardless—without alerting the Legion he was in their territory.

He didn’t think the Primary had been pleased when Naasir appeared on the glass of the roof, but the leader of the Legion was loyal to Raphael, and Naasir was one of Raphael’s Seven, so they existed in a wary truce. Just thinking about the Legion made Naasir’s skin prickle and muscles tense.

They were so old and so other that he often had to fight the compulsion to bite them.

Despite that, or perhaps because of it, he sometimes felt that the strange fighters who flew on wings devoid of feathers, were more like him than anyone else in the entire world. Naasir might not have wings, but he was as other. Except, where there were seven hundred and seventy-seven in the Legion, he was only one.

You are angry with us because we are many, but you know deep within that you are one of us. A child of the earth. Bitterly young in comparison to our eons-long existence, but with a connection to life that is primal.

The leader of the Legion had said that to Naasir with a straight face. The other man—though man didn’t feel like the right description—truly believed his words. He didn’t understand that Naasir wasn’t anything natural. He hadn’t been born of the earth; he’d been created by a monster.

A monster whose liver and heart Naasir had clawed out and eaten.

Teeth bared, he looked down at the balcony to his left and two floors below, noting that it was one of the rare ones with a railing. Dmitri had said he couldn’t jump to the city streets because he’d end up flattened like a pancake, but this jump wasn’t far and the wind, while brisk, wouldn’t push him right to the edge. Muscles bunching a split second after his eye fell on the other balcony, he jumped.

Cold air rushed past his face, pasting his T-shirt to his body and stinging his eyes, and then his bare feet hit the hard surface of the balcony. Absorbing the impact through his entire body, having purposefully ended up in a feline crouch, he found the wind had pushed him farther than he’d expected—another couple of inches and he’d have hit the top of the railing, would’ve had to scrabble for purchase to keep from tumbling out into open air.

He was grinning at the close call when he became aware of someone rushing out onto the balcony. He didn’t need to look behind him to know who it was; Honor’s scent was as familiar to him as his own. Rising to his full height as he turned, he saw that her cheeks were pale beneath her gold-kissed skin, her green eyes huge.

“Naasir!” She ran across to him, frantically running her hands over his shoulders and down his arms. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Naasir suddenly realized he might be in trouble. “No,” he reassured her. “It was only a short jump.”

“A short jump?” Honor pressed one hand over her heart, her other hand gripping tight at his upper arm, as if she was afraid he’d fall off the balcony. “You scared me half to death!”

Moving slowly so as not to scare her any more, he wrapped her in his arms and nuzzled his cheek against her hair. “Don’t tell Dmitri,” he whispered.

“You are a person.” The deadly vampire who was Honor’s mate had said that to Naasir when he was only a feral child. “You are Naasir. I’ll lose a piece of me if you die and it’s a piece I’ll never get back.”

Until that instant forever seared into his memory, Naasir hadn’t actually understood that anyone considered him a real person, a person who would be missed if he was gone, and who had the right to other people’s love, affection, and care. That day, in Dmitri’s dark eyes, he’d seen pain at the idea of a world without Naasir, as well as raw anger at the fact Naasir had once again endangered himself, and it had forever changed the boy he’d been.

In many ways, that moment marked his true birth. The birth of Naasir, the person.

Even today, though he was full-grown, Naasir didn’t like making Dmitri scared for him, or angry with him—and he felt the same way about Honor. She was Dmitri’s mate and part of Naasir’s family now. She treated him as if he were hers to care for, to spoil, and to touch as family touched. That should’ve been strange, but it wasn’t. He had no trouble following Honor’s orders, no matter that he was the far more dangerous predator.

Maybe because she belonged to Dmitri . . . and maybe because she made him feel safe and protected. It made no sense, but when he was with Honor, her soft scent in his every breath, he felt like he thought a cub must feel next to the comforting warmth of its mother. She looked after him and she didn’t do it in a way that made his hackles rise.

Laughing a little raggedly now, she ran her hands down his back. “I won’t tell on you,” she promised, “but you can’t go around doing things like that.” She leaned back so she could hold his eyes with the jeweled brightness of her own. “What would I do if you hurt yourself?”

He hung his head, looking at her through his lashes. Like the choppily cut hair that slid around his face, they were a metallic, inhuman silver that marked him as different. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget to think like a human.”

Shaking her head, Honor cupped his face in her hands. “You’re perfect exactly as you are,” she whispered with so much love that he felt as if he was being hugged. “I just don’t want you hurt.”

He smiled at the last, knowing he was forgiven for having scared her. Lifting her up in his arms and off her feet, he squeezed her tight. She laughed, silhouetted against a cloudless sky of chrome blue, and, when he put her back down, said, “Be on time for dinner. I asked Montgomery for the recipe for the spiced meat you like.”

Making the promise, Naasir walked her back into the Tower and realized he’d jumped onto the balcony right outside her study. He was thinking about curling up in a sunny armchair in the corner and just napping when he felt the crashing wave, the biting, fresh touch of water, that was his archangel’s voice in his head.

Naasir, I need to speak to you.

I’m on my way, sire. Leaving Honor with a rub of his cheek against hers that she permitted with a smile, he made his way to the room in the Tower from which Raphael ran his territory. Spearing through the Manhattan sky, the city’s Archangel Tower held countless rooms, all with a purpose. Above this floor were the private suites.

Naasir had one, but he preferred to stay with Honor and Dmitri.

Why would he want to be by himself when he could be with family?

Entering Raphael’s office, he was disappointed to find that Elena wasn’t there. He liked sparring with his sire’s consort and they’d done it several times since Naasir had finally been released from long-term duty at Amanat, the city held by Raphael’s mother, Caliane.

Caliane’s forces had grown strong as more and more of those who remembered her rule returned to her and swore their allegiance once again. It was no longer necessary for Raphael to second one of the Seven to Amanat, though Naasir knew the sire would continue to assist his mother while she adapted to the modern world.

“Sire.”

Raphael’s wings were backlit by the sun where he stood behind his desk, his feathers sparking a white gold as metallic as Naasir’s hair, and his gaze on an array of blades spread out over the polished volcanic stone of his desk. Even after all these centuries of being one of Raphael’s most trusted men, part of Naasir always felt a punch of awe at the violent power embodied in the archangel in front of him. That punch came from the primal core of his nature, the part that had never been meant to be within such proximity to an archangel.

“Are you rested?” Glancing up, Raphael held his gaze with eyes of a blue so pure that as a child, Naasir had thought they must be made from actual gemstones.

Fascinated, he’d used to creep up on Raphael and try to touch them. It was to Raphael’s credit that he’d dissuaded Naasir’s persistent efforts without ever terrifying or hurting him. Only as an adult had Naasir understood just how tolerant and lenient Raphael had been with him.

Even before he’d become an archangel, the sire had been a power.

“Yes,” he said in response to Raphael’s question. “I’m glad to be here.” He didn’t mind the work at Amanat—he liked and respected his partner in the task, and it had been fun sneaking over into Lijuan’s territory to check on the emotional pulse of it. But the posting had been distant from all his family.

If Venom, Raphael, Janvier, and Ashwini hadn’t visited Amanat during the six months since he’d left New York, Naasir might have returned to his feral roots. As it was, he’d made Janvier and Ash stay for a week longer than they’d intended, delighted to have playmates who understood the way his mind worked. “I don’t want to leave,” he said to the archangel to whom he’d given his loyalty the day Raphael had found him.

Naasir had been a tiny boy then, and at that instant, he’d been feeding in the clawed open chest cavity of the Ancient angel who’d Made him. He must’ve looked like a small blood-covered monster, but instead of killing him, Raphael had lifted his growling, ferocious body into his arms and said, “Quiet. You don’t want to eat that meat.”

Naasir hadn’t been sure what those words actually meant, since his Maker didn’t talk to him like a human, but the tone had gotten through. He’d stilled and allowed Raphael to carry him into the clouds and to his home in the angelic stronghold of the Refuge. Not once since that day had Naasir felt the urge to challenge the male who’d taken him from the ice and from the evil.

Raphael was the alpha of his family and Dmitri was the alpha’s second.

Naasir had been a cub, but he wasn’t any longer.

Coming around the desk, his wings held off the floor with the unconscious strength and discipline of a warrior, Raphael met him in the center of the room. “I know you want to stay in New York,” he said, the painful blue of his eyes continuing to hold Naasir’s gaze. “But you’re not built for this environment—you’ll start to buck at the civilized skin you have to wear in the city.”

Naasir felt his hands clench as a growl built up inside his chest. He wanted to lie, to tell Raphael that he could stay always in the city, but the lie wouldn’t come. Already, his nature was starting to rebel, to ache for open spaces where he could run and climb and explore. “My family is here,” he said instead. “I don’t want an alone task.”

“You also have family in the Refuge.”

Interest sparked in his blood. “Am I to go there?” Honor wouldn’t be there, but Jessamy would be—his relationship with her was different from the one he had with Honor, but he loved the angelic Historian and Teacher the same way he loved Honor. Venom and Galen, too, were currently based in the mountains of the Refuge.

“Your task will begin there,” Raphael said, “and while you will have to leave the Refuge and your family for a time, the task is one I think you’ll enjoy.”

Since Raphael understood him, too, Naasir waited.

“I want you to discover where it is that Alexander Sleeps.”

Naasir went motionless. The Sleeping place of an angel or archangel was a taboo thing. Even Naasir, who didn’t have much respect for rules, hadn’t broken that one. “Do you want to kill him?” If Raphael needed to kill Alexander, Naasir would help him. Because Raphael didn’t, had never, smelled like bad meat. Once, before Elena, he’d started to smell disturbingly like cold and ice, but that was gone, too.

Now he smelled of himself and of touches of Elena.

Naasir wanted to smell like his mate, he thought with an inward snarl. Why was she hiding from him?

“No, I have no desire to kill Alexander.” Raphael’s tone chilled. “Jason has been in and out of Lijuan’s territory this past month.”

Naasir hissed at the sound of Lijuan’s name. That one was bad meat through and through. As a child, he’d once thought he wanted to kill and eat her, but now he knew he wouldn’t touch her even if he was starving. He still wanted her dead, however. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

“Jason hasn’t been able to glimpse her, but all signs point to that.” Features grim, Raphael stretched out his wings before tucking them back into his body, the white fire that licked over his feathers appearing an illusion created by sunlight.

Naasir had been fascinated by angelic wings since childhood. When Raphael first found him, he’d gripped at the feathers hard, pulling off a large white one with golden filaments that he’d held possessively in his fist. He hadn’t known he wasn’t supposed to touch angelic wings, that it was an intimacy permitted only to friends and lovers, and even though he didn’t have that excuse now, he did still sometimes touch one without asking.

Only of his friends and family, however. Only people who wouldn’t look at him as if he’d done a terrible thing. Yesterday, he’d lain on the grass with Elena after a sparring session, and she’d put her wing across his chest so he could stroke the sleek beauty of it as much as he wanted. Black and indigo and midnight blue and dawn and white gold—Elena had such fascinating feathers that he’d been tempted to steal one of each shade, except the colors blended seamlessly into each other.

Then she’d fallen asleep on the grass beside him.

He’d thought about reminding her that he was dangerous, but since he wasn’t ever going to hurt her, he’d let her sleep and played with her feathers instead. He was as fascinated by Raphael’s wings, but he resisted the temptation to grab at them when Raphael turned to head to the balcony. He wasn’t sure the unpredictable white fire wouldn’t burn.

Naasir followed the sire, going to crouch at the edge in his favorite position. He could see a stream of tiny yellow cabs from here, flowing along the straight ribbon of the road. The scents this high were faint but he caught a hint of the river and of the green, growing things in the Legion’s home. The green smells made him want to break free, to stretch out in a way he couldn’t, even in Central Park. “Is Lijuan searching for Alexander?”

“Jason isn’t certain, but he’s seen hunting parties being dispatched from Lijuan’s citadel. A member of one had a little too much to drink when they halted for the night, and Jason heard him boasting of how they were planning to find Alexander.”

“He’s not like Lijuan, is he?” Naasir had only been two hundred when Alexander went to Sleep, didn’t remember much about the silver-winged angel with golden hair. He did, however, have one faded memory of a powerful being hunkering down in front of him when he was yet a boy, the silver eyes that met his gaze as near to Naasir’s own eyes as he’d ever seen. “I think he gave me one of his feathers once. I wanted it because it was like my hair.”

At the time, he’d been too young to understand the why behind the unusual echo.

“I can well imagine him doing that.” Raphael’s tone was difficult to judge. “He was never cruel or callous, certainly never to children. And you he kept an eye on until you were full grown.”

Frowning, Naasir tried to bring the memory of his meeting with the Ancient into focus, but he’d been too young. “He was a good leader?”

“He was a great one,” Raphael said quietly, so many layers to his voice that Naasir couldn’t unravel them all. “He was also a viciously powerful archangel who preferred the old ways to the new, and who thought me an upstart. As a result, he almost started a war with me, but in the end, he chose to Sleep rather than indulge in violence.”

Wings whispering as his feathers slid against one another, Raphael came to stand right beside Naasir. His power burned against Naasir’s skin, but the pressure was familiar after so many centuries at his side.

“It’s possible Lijuan believes he might be an ally because of his past aggression toward me,” Raphael continued, “but given her delusions of godhood, it’s far more likely that she wants to kill everyone who might have the power to oppose her.”

Naasir’s hunting instincts rose to the fore. “Is Alexander powerful enough to do that?” If he was, maybe this time Lijuan would stay dead.

“Unpredictable. He was stronger than her when he went to Sleep roughly four hundred years ago, but Lijuan’s power has grown exponentially in that same period, while he’s been in stasis.”

Naasir knew that when angels Slept, they didn’t change, but that wasn’t his concern right now. “I need a scent to track and Alexander has been gone too long from the world.” Even Naasir couldn’t track a ghost.

That annoyed him; he didn’t like not being able to find his prey.

Like his mate. Who was hiding from him.

“You’ll have help,” Raphael replied, then paused to watch a solitary squadron fighter do a number of intricate flight moves while practicing with a crossbow. “Jessamy has a scholar studying under her who has specialized in the Sleeping archangels. Your task is to keep her safe and explore the locations she suggests.”

Naasir frowned. “Is her specialization known to others?”

“Yes.” Raphael’s voice was cold enough to frost the air. “It’s unlikely even Lijuan would order the abduction of an angel right from the Refuge, but given her track record of breaking angelic taboos, I have Galen and Venom keeping an eye on Andromeda regardless.”

“I’ll look after her.” Naasir could be a good guard dog when needed.

“You will also have to watch her,” Raphael said. “She is Charisemnon’s granddaughter.”

Naasir bared his teeth at the name of the archangel who had caused the Falling, the terrible event that had hurt or killed so many angels. Charisemnon was also responsible for a deadly vampire disease. “Why are we working with her?”

“Jessamy assures me that Andromeda is a scholar right down to the bone, one who cut all ties to her family when she arrived at the Refuge, and who is horrified at the thought of the murder of a Sleeper. Galen backs Jessamy’s judgment.”

Naasir nodded. “Galen has good instincts.” Jessamy was smart but with too tender a heart. “I’ll be able to tell if the scholar lies.” Immortal or mortal, liars had an unmistakable and sour scent. “But since Lijuan’s people are searching without success, Galen and Jessamy seem to be right about her loyalties.”

“Yes, close as Lijuan is to Charisemnon, he would’ve shared the knowledge if he had it. We will give this young scholar the benefit of the doubt and a chance to prove herself.”

“Who’ll watch over her when I need to explore the locations she suggests for Alexander’s Sleeping place?”

“You’ll take her with you.”

Naasir looked up at Raphael.

Blinked.

Then snarled. “I can’t be dragging around a historian. They break.” As a boy, he’d once broken Jessamy’s arm by jumping on her from a high shelf, he’d been so excited to see her. She’d told him not to worry, that she knew he hadn’t done it on purpose and that she’d heal quickly, but he’d never forgotten her cry of shock and pain—or the horrible crunching sound her arm made as it snapped.

“It’s your task to make sure she doesn’t break, Naasir.” The midnight of Raphael’s hair whipped around his face as the wind rose in a sudden gust. “Andromeda is our greatest chance of reaching Alexander first—we can’t forget Lijuan’s age or the age of the scholars in her court. She may have access to information that gives her a head start.”

Turning his attention back toward the metal and glass and glittering water of the city, Naasir tried to sound human as he spoke. He didn’t wholly succeed, his words guttural. “How am I supposed to find my mate if I’m dragging around another woman?”

“You’ve survived six hundred years without a mate.” A touch of amusement in Raphael’s tone. “Why are you so impatient now?”

“Because it’s time.” Naasir lived according to the rhythms of his blood and of his soul, and that rhythm was now pounding a single beat. “Is this scholar wild and interesting?” he asked hopefully, because like his sire, he didn’t judge a person on their bloodline, only on their actions.

“Not according to your definition. It appears Andromeda has taken a vow of celibacy.”

Naasir groaned. “I think I should jump off into traffic. It’d be less painful than such torture.”

Naasir liked sex, liked touching women’s soft, warm bodies, liked driving his cock into their tight, wet sheaths as they screamed his name. He hadn’t done it since the night he decided to go mate hunting, so he wasn’t frustrated by the vow of celibacy because he planned to seduce the scholar—no, he was frustrated because that vow confirmed she wasn’t his, and now he was going to be stuck with her for who knew how long.

No mate of his would ever be so ridiculous as to take a vow of celibacy. “What kind of strange person takes a vow like that?” Angelkind wasn’t exactly known for its lack of excess.

Raphael laughed, the big, open sound one Naasir hadn’t heard for a long time before Elena came into the sire’s life. That was what Naasir wanted—a mate who’d play with him, who’d make him laugh, who’d challenge him. And who’d rut with him. Over and over. No idiotic vow of celibacy permitted.

“There are the odd few,” Raphael said after his laughter faded. “Scholars sometimes believe cutting out physical distractions heightens the mind.”

“In that case, I’d rather stay unenlightened.” Rising to his feet, Naasir held Raphael’s gaze. “I will go, sire.” He’d miss dinner with Honor and Dmitri, but they would understand—and when he returned, he’d be welcome at their table.

Raphael shook his head, the inky strands of his hair crossing over the painful blue of his eyes as the gust returned. “Not tonight, Naasir. Tonight, you’ll spend with family in New York.”