Archangel's Storm

11

Pure, unmitigated panic. “Who has started that rumor?” It was a whispered hiss as she looked around for anyone who might overhear. “Neha will execute me if it reaches her ears. God, she’ll probably torture me first, keep me alive for years.”

Jason said nothing, watched her turn to Mahiya, her fangs flashing. “Tell me, or I’ll have you whipped again.”

“If I were you, Komal,” Mahiya said in a tone cool with warning, “I’d forget about making trouble and stay out of sight for the time being.”

Paling even further, the vampire turned and ran off inside, her figure-hugging gown dragging along the gray stone used in this part of the fort. Jason let her go, certain she had neither been, nor had any knowledge of, Eris’s illicit lover. Her shaken response to the accusation and nasty nature aside, Komal wasn’t smart enough to have pulled off such an intrigue. She’d have boasted to someone, been caught long ago.

“Why were you whipped?” he asked the far more complex, intelligent woman by his side.

No hitch in Mahiya’s stride. “Which time?”

His nails dug into his palm. “The last time.”

“I was disrespectful to a high-level courtier.”

“Was he worth respect?”

Unsurprised at the question from this male who didn’t follow any of the rules of accepted behavior and who’d incited a rage in her that had made her forget herself to a dangerous extent, Mahiya said, “No.” Pointless to lie to him now.

“Then the whipping was worth it.”

It was a strange sensation, being totally liberated of the need to conceal her true thoughts. As if she were drunk. “No,” she said, her fury still cold enough to burn, “because after I was beaten and weak, he received what he wanted.” Mahiya had had to prostrate herself at his feet, beg for forgiveness for the slight she’d done him. Only her stubborn refusal to become anything like Neha had kept her from stewing in the bitterness and hate that had sought to bloom in her that day. “I learned to choose my battles.”

Jason’s eyes, so very dark—like the finest chocolate, rich and decadent—lingered on her for a long, endless moment before he gave a small nod. “So long as you continue to fight.”

Anger surged through her veins once more, until it took everything she had to bite out an outwardly civil response. “Yes, my lord.”

A motionless pause that reminded her she was taunting a man so lethal, he met the eyes of an archangel without flinching. Then he said, “I apologize. I do not know anything of the battles you’ve already fought or the choices you’ve had to make to survive.”

No man had ever apologized to her, and hearing it from this man shook her enough that she didn’t say a word when he turned and began to walk the pathways of the fort, leading rather than being led. She knew he heard more than she did, saw more than she did, though she walked beside him.

He was beyond fascinating.

Dangerous and unpredictable and frighteningly intelligent. A threat. And yet she wanted to run her finger over the blade of him even if it made her bleed, wanted to dance too close to the flame, wanted to take a risk that could destroy her.

Her gaze went to the pitch-black of his wings, her fingers aching to explore, as if her silent admission of just how much he drew her had opened a doorway she hadn’t been aware of locking. Except—

Her eyes skated past him, though she knew he was right there.

Snapping back to full alertness, she realized most of the guards didn’t even notice his presence, though they all greeted her with curt nods. Watching him with a focus that caused a dull headache to throb behind her eyes, she saw the outline of him, but an instant later, he stepped into a shadow created by a spray of flowers high up on a wall and was gone.

Unthinking, she reached out, her fingers brushing the edge of his wing, the feathers sleek and warm under her fingertips.

He froze, every muscle tense.

Heat flooded her cheeks, and she dropped her hand as she realized the altogether unacceptable nature of her behavior. “I’m sorry . . . but I couldn’t see you.”

“I’m very good at remaining unseen.” His voice held none of the displeasure she would have expected after witnessing the way he’d warned Komal off from laying a finger on him. “I’ve had hundreds of years of practice.”

She didn’t believe him, but it didn’t take a genius intellect to realize the spymaster would not tell her his secrets. “Again, I apologize.” Her fingers continued to tingle from the fleeting contact. “I had no right.”

“Actually, you did,” he said to her surprise, his tattoo a tactile temptation in the sunlight. “I swore a blood vow to you. Skin and feathers are far closer to the surface than blood.”

“I would never take advantage of the vow in such a fashion.” Fisting her hand in resistance against the compulsion to commit an even worse breach by tracing the wild beauty of his facial markings, she turned her gaze forward and continued to walk. Her skin burned then went icy cold, her heart stuttered . . . and she realized that in spite of her deepening fascination with Raphael’s spymaster, she was afraid.

Jason, with his quiet voice and watchful eyes, was infinitely more dangerous to her than Neha had ever been. He listened when she spoke, had already learned things about her no one else knew. Such a man wouldn’t use his physical strength to overpower her, nor lies to trick her. He’d just know her so well that he’d get her to contribute to her own downfall.

Sweat dampening her palms, she realized too late they were headed for a part of the complex Neha would not want him in under any circumstance. “We can go no further in this direction.”

“Why?”

“This area is for Neha’s private use, off-limits except by her invitation.”

“Very well.” Flaring out his wings with that suspiciously quick agreement, he made a vertical takeoff so fast that she had no hope of catching him.

Compelling . . . and deadly.

It was a truth she could not permit herself to forget, no matter the temptation to touch the blade. Too much was at risk—her entire existence, her very life. Jason was a dream she’d have to save for another life . . . but first, she had to make it out of this one alive.

Losing him above the puffy white clouds that had crept across the sky, she returned her gaze to the pathway of red stone and to the small palace she’d warned Jason not to enter. Neha was secluded at Guardian, would not return till morning. Jason had left Mahiya alone. She’d have no better chance to grab the brass ring.

The trickle of sweat down her spine a chilled bead, she stepped forward.

None of the guards attempted to stop her—Neha often called her in when she wanted something done. But then, Mahiya only ever entered the front rooms. Today, taking advantage of the fact that no guards were permitted within, she continued down the corridor and toward the room at the very center of the palace, a room within which she could sense things that made her hindbrain skitter in warning, jibbering at her to run!

Mahiya wrenched the primal urge under control. This wasn’t her first foray into the forbidden section. The last time had been in the depths of the night, while Neha was actually inside the room at the center. It had taken gut-clenching courage and grim determination, her heart pulsing in her mouth with every jagged breath. What she’d seen that night had been disturbing, but the discovery hadn’t been enough to complete her plan.

Today, the smooth marble walls weren’t encrusted with ice, her breath didn’t fog the air, and her bones didn’t hurt with the pain of extreme cold. Touching her fingers to the marble, she walked quickly and silently down the long final corridor, the door to the room within sight. It had been so hardened with ice the previous time, she hadn’t been able to glean the handle.

Now, the knob shone bright gold. Mahiya went to put her hand on it, hesitated at the last instant. This was far too easy. Forcing patience, she hid herself in a small alcove while she considered the situation from every angle—to discover what Neha was up to, she had to get inside that room, but getting inside that room might well mean her death. Because Neha was an archangel, with abilities both secret and overt.

Her most overt one was the way she could control and manipulate reptilian creatures of every kind. Like the golden vine snake wrapped around the doorknob. Mahiya’s heart punched against her ribs as the creature flicked out its red tongue and she realized what she’d taken for an ornate design was a living being.

A poisonous living being.

Because one of her more covert abilities was the fact that Neha could create poison glands in nonvenomous species. Touching that knob would have meant a bite that left Mahiya paralyzed and helpless for hours.

However, that was unlikely to be the only security feature, because while Neha was an angel of old, she was in no way blind to the benefits of modern technology. Now that Mahiya was thinking properly instead of being driven to act by the knowledge of how quickly her time was running out, she realized that even were the door unlocked, Neha would have set it with a silent alarm that alerted her to any trespass.

Once inside, would an intruder find the room unoccupied . . . or herself surrounded by hundreds of snakes irritated to hissing anger at being disturbed?

A hint of noise, a whisper.

Freezing, she hoped whoever it was—a maid?—had only entered to take care of something in the front rooms.

“So,” said a tempered, familiar voice from the left of the alcove, “you seek to unearth Neha’s secrets.”

A bolt of terror hitting her bloodstream, she shifted into the light to face Jason. “I came to get something I’d forgotten,” she said, then considered her empty hands. “I didn’t find it.”

Near-black eyes watched her without blinking. “You’re very good at lying, but I’m even better at detecting it.” Turning his attention to the closed door guarded by the vine snake, he looked at it for several careful seconds before shifting on his heel and saying, “We need to talk in privacy.”

It wasn’t an invitation.

Mahiya would’ve liked nothing better than to refuse the order, but if he mentioned this to Neha, she’d be dead and nothing else would matter. Frustration, fear, and anger boiling a caustic brew in her veins, she followed him out into the light, blinking against the brightness . . . to find that he was no longer beside her.

“It wouldn’t do for Neha to learn that I’d been in there,” he said several minutes later, having rejoined her once she reached a more public area.

“How did you get in?” Even as she spoke, she remembered all those guards simply not seeing him.

His only answer was to glance at her wings, ask, “Can you do another vertical takeoff?”

“Yes.” She was slow, not weak. “Where are we going?”

“Follow me.” Rising into the sky, he held his position until she joined him, then swept out across the city, farther, until they were flying over villages where excited children ran and waved at them, and stacks of blue pottery sat ready to be decorated, while sleepy cattle dozed in a rare green pasture fed by a stream nearly concealed by tall grasses.

I will miss this.

It was a thought that made her heart ache with sorrow. This land of desert and color and hidden oases was all she’d ever known. She couldn’t imagine living in a place without rolling sand dunes, the sight of camels with their swaying walk as familiar as those of the regal elephants. Animals were treated with affection and care under rules Neha had set in place long ago, and many roamed over land set aside for them, as with the herd of camels below, their necks bent as they grazed.

A lone herder, her long skirt and hip-length tunic a sun bright yellow, looked up, raising her hand in a wave. Mahiya waved back, struck once more by Neha’s many—sometimes violently opposed—aspects. She was a queen, could be cruel, but she was also beloved by her people for her generosity and fairness, the angels from her court welcome wherever they went.

Should Mahiya land in the village below, she would be received with warmth, given tea hot from the pot and savories fresh from the oven. There was fear in the populace, of course, but it wasn’t crippling, simply a quiet acknowledgement that the immortals were stronger and more dangerous, that it was better to live peacefully with them, to serve when called than to rebel.

However, it wasn’t to one of those villages that Jason took her, but to a small, deserted field. Landing under the branches of a tree whose roots went deep enough that it thrived even when there were no rains, its light green leaves lacey and delicate, he folded back his wings, watched her come down. She felt graceless in comparison to his shadow silent descent, her wings rustling, her feet too heavy.

“Now,” Jason said when she’d settled, “we will talk.”

The desolate vista in front of her, the land lying fallow, was nonetheless home, and it gave her courage. “What would you have me say?”

Jason looked into Mahiya’s eyes and saw a steely determination. She wasn’t a woman who would easily break . . . and he was not a man who would ever shatter a woman’s spirit. However, there were other ways of getting what he wanted—and he didn’t have time to play games. “We both know I hold the cards here.”

“You swore a blood vow to me,” she pointed out, though her skin had paled under the soft shade created by the fine leaves of the tree under which they stood. “You cannot cause me harm.”

“Remember the words we spoke,” he said, crushing his primal response to her refusal to surrender. “I am charged only with unearthing Eris’s murderer and protecting your family’s interests as I do so. And it appears you have traitorous intent.”

She clenched her jaw. “What will you tell her?”

“It depends on whether or not we can come to an accommodation.” So long as he completed his task and discovered the identity of the killer, he was not bound to report everything he found to Neha.

A hardened jaw, flinty eyes. “And what is your price, my lord?”

The last two words may as well have been an insult. “Tell me about that room,” he said, his gaze dropping to lips thin with anger, “about what goes on within.”

“I don’t know,” she grit out. “I’ve never been able to get inside.”

True enough, he thought, watching a face that was incredibly expressive if you took the time to learn the subtle movements that betrayed her every thought. And Jason had taken the time. “But you’ve seen something.”

Her wings rustling restlessly, she blew out a deep, shuddering breath. “Ice. It coated the walls, covered the door. My breath frosted, and I could feel my blood beginning to freeze.” She shivered. “My veins . . . they stood out against my skin, and when I pressed down, they felt hard.”

Angels were built for flight, and as such, did not feel the cold as mortals did. And what Mahiya was describing was a cold so terrible, it was an impossibility in this particular region. Yet, as far as he knew, Neha’s archangelic abilities did not include the capacity to manipulate the elements.

“Was Neha alone in the room?”

The tiniest hesitation.