He had hoped that some of those he’d led would follow him, but had not expected it of such experienced warriors, both of whom held high posts in Titus’s army. “You are welcome,” he said, clasping her forearm in a familiar greeting, “but you will have to prove your loyalty to Raphael.”
A raised eyebrow. “You think me a spy?” No insult, only the curiosity that made her such a gifted scout.
“I think being weapons-master has far more nuances than I ever before understood.” He nodded at her to follow him back into the stronghold—she was too dangerous in her strength not to be brought immediately to Dmitri’s attention. “How is Orios?”
“Content. Proud as a father.” Another sparkling smile. “Titus is a wounded boar torn between the same pride and fury at being stripped of your skill, but the flitterbies know how to soothe him.”
Children were rare, so rare among the immortals, and Titus had none of his blood, but he’d adopted the children of his warriors who had fallen in battle, given the little ones lives that had resulted in their becoming spoiled, indulgent adults who were nonetheless sweet of nature. “They do have their uses.” It was only once he and Zaria were inside the cool stone walls of the stronghold that he said, “My parents?”
“Your father keeps an eye on Alexander’s forces.”
Galen had expected as much; his father was Titus’s second.
“Your mother”—Zaria deliberately touched her wing to the stone, as if testing the texture—“has begun to train the new crop of recruits.”
Tanae had to have known of Zaria’s decision to defect—it was an expected and watched-for consequence on the departure of a commander—and yet she’d sent no message with the scout. His father, Galen had never expected anything from beyond his warrior’s education, but he’d spent decades trying to earn a word of praise from his mother… all the while knowing the quest to be a futile effort.
The fact of the matter was that Tanae was an anomaly among angelkind. A warrior, talented and proud, she had never wanted a child. To her credit, she had raised Galen with scrupulous care, and while the flitterbies had attempted to make a spoiled pet of him—an attempt he’d repudiated with childish fierceness—it was always Tanae he strove to impress. Until he’d understood that her indifference wasn’t feigned to motivate him to greater heights. It ran bone-deep.
The realization had broken the heart of the boy he’d been.
“I’ll need to return to Titus’s court to take my formal leave,” Zaria said, her tone telling him she’d thought nothing odd of his questions. “I can carry a letter back to your parents.”
The wounded boy he’d once been was long gone, replaced by a man who had never hidden from anything, no matter how devastating. “No, there’s no need.” So distant from the court his mother called home, he could finally give Tanae the one thing she’d always wanted—the liberty to forget she’d ever been forced into despised weakness by the child she’d carried in her womb.
“Keir comes,” Jason said, an instant before the healer’s face appeared in the doorway of the library room where Jessamy sat. Old eyes in a youthful face, the slender, graceful body of a dancer, Keir was angelkind’s most gifted healer, his features so fine they were almost feminine… but no one would ever mistake him for a woman.
Entering on feet as silent as those of the feline weaving around his ankles, he took a seat across from her, the golden brown of his wings stroking down to kiss the thick copper-hued carpet. “Hello, Jason.” The cat jumped up to settle on the table beside him as he spoke, a small smoky gray Sphinx with eyes of luminous gold.
“Keir.” The black-winged angel whispered away and out of the room, pulling the door shut behind himself.
“I worry about our beautiful Jason,” Keir said, his gaze on the heavy slab of wood beyond which Jason stood guard. “When you’ve survived what I suspect he has, there really is nothing left to fear.”
Jessamy’s hand fisted in the pale yellow of her gown, her mind circling around the quiet panic that had colored her interactions with Galen. “Isn’t that a gift?”
Keir shook his head, his silky black hair brushing his shoulders. “We should all have something to fear, Jessamy.” The feline purred as he stroked slender fingers through its fur. “As we all should have something to hope for. Jason has neither.”
“And such a man,” Jessamy whispered, “has no reason to go on living.” Worry pierced her soul for the angel who had a voice so haunting it rivaled Caliane’s, but whose song made tears form in her heart. “Raphael,” she said, her voice trembling with relief. “Jason has given his loyalty to him, and Raphael will not let him go.”
“Yes. There is something to be said for that young one’s arrogance.” A slight smile, because Keir had a favorite, too. “So, I hear the big brute Raphael has accepted as his weapons-master is courting you.”
Jessamy jerked up her head. “Jason’s knowledge, I understand, even if I can’t explain it. But you’ve been working in the Medica for days.” A fragile newborn, the first child born in the Refuge for five long years, was commanding Keir’s interest. “The babe?” Keir had forbidden visitors—for the hall of healing would’ve been buried in wings otherwise.
“Her angry screams summoned me deep in the night; tiny she might be, but she does not like being ignored. I rather think our little sprite will be a warrior.” Eyes sparkling with a light that was unique to Keir, he leaned forward on the gleaming wood of the table. “As for your brute—you allowed him to fly you. Did you think no one would notice?”
Jessamy swallowed. “It can’t be, Keir.”
“Why?”
Forcing her fist to unclench, she held that warm gaze of uptilted brown, tore the scab off her most vicious wound. “I think he does truly want me”—a memory of the hard length of him pushing into her abdomen, his mouth so hungry on her own, his hand gripping her jaw with masculine possessiveness—“and I will not deny the depth of my own attraction.” Such a pale word that was, to express the wildness of what Galen aroused in her.
“Yet something’s holding you back.”
“Even knowing I’m thinking too far ahead,” she said, rubbing a hand over her heart in a futile attempt to still the ache within, “I can’t help but imagine his bitterness when he realizes that being with me means having his wings clipped, his lineage ended.” For Jessamy would never chance subjecting a child to the same painful existence she’d endured. “I will not be the weight that drags him out of the skies.”
Keir’s tone was soft when he replied, his words without mercy. “Galen does not seem to be a man who lacks in courage. That you say this about him makes me think less of you, old friend.”
Ice trickled down her spine, Keir’s words a painful echo of what Galen had said on the ledge outside his aerie. “You’re calling me a coward,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “You’re saying I’m hiding behind my wing.”
7
“I didn’t say that, but you heard it.” Reaching across the table, he closed his hand over her own, his skin smooth, so unlike another man’s far rougher touch. “Is that how you see yourself?”
Emotions choked her throat, tore up her chest, turned her voice raw. “I’m making the right decision; you must see that. If I allow him in and he rejects me, I couldn’t bear it.” Not when it was her infuriating, maddening, magnificent barbarian, a man who looked at her as if she was beautiful, awakening dreams she’d buried deep so she could survive and be content, not a resentful creature eaten up with envy.
Keir’s expression was tender. “Everyone learns to survive heartbreak.” Releasing her hand, he rose and came to lean over the back of her chair, his arms around her neck, his cheek rubbing against her hair. “Your disadvantage is that you did not have to face it early, when you were younger, more resilient. Now, sweet Jessamy, I think you are afraid.”