Trace’s silken purr whispered into her mind, reminding her of the evening past. In spite of the fact that Galen had set her free, she’d felt the betrayal keenly—and yet she’d known she must accept the vampire’s kiss. No blood, only a simple play of mouths. Trace was an expert in sensuality, and it had been a pleasant experience, but her heart hadn’t thudded in her throat; her blood hadn’t burned. All she’d been able to think was, He feels wrong.
In that instant, she’d understood any male but Galen would feel wrong.
Trace was no fool. Stepping back, he’d put his fingers under her chin and tipped up her face. “So,” he’d said in that voice meant for midnight sins, “you do belong to him.” A wicked smile. “Just as well. I don’t fancy getting my bones broken into tiny pieces.”
Catching a feather that floated down from above, she saw it was white streaked with gold. Raphael. The archangel had returned late last night, spent candlelit hours with Galen and Dmitri in his study. It was clear to her that Galen was becoming an ever more integral part of Raphael’s Tower. There was a chance he would not want to return to the Refuge.
If he didn’t…
Jessamy felt nothing but joy at the freedom that had allowed her to see the world, to fly the skies, but the Refuge was her home. Her books were there, the histories she was charged with keeping. And oh, how she missed the children. There were no children in the Tower.
A wave of wind, feathers of white-gold on the edge of her vision as Raphael folded away his wings. “What will you write in your histories about my territory?”
“That it’s a place as wild, and with as much promise, as you.” He was an archangel, but he’d also been her charge once, and sometimes, she found she forgot and spoke to him thus.
Raphael’s lips curved, but there was a growing hardness to his eyes—so blue, so extraordinary—that hurt. It was changing him. The politics. The power. “Alexander’s land?”
“Stable for now.”
“And you?” Her eyes lingered on a profile that was becoming ever more savagely beautiful, until, she knew, one day soon, no one would remember the boy he’d been.
“I have a territory to consolidate.” He stepped closer, took her hands. “You are always welcome in that territory, Jessamy—the rooms you occupy are yours.”
He saw too much, she thought, but then, that was why he was an archangel. “The Refuge is where I belong.”
“Are you certain?” He angled his head toward the squadron of angels now diving and cutting in the thin air of the clouds.
Following his gaze, she watched not the squadron, but their commander. Her soul ached with inexorable need, but she knew it wasn’t yet time. “The heart,” she whispered, “can be a fragile thing.” And this love that grew between her and Galen, even in their silence, was even more so.
13
Galen watched as Trace left the Tower, dressed in the smudged green and brown clothing of a scout. The vampire was good—Galen could glean no trace of him once he’d blended into the forest. But Trace wasn’t the only one who had noticed Jessamy now that she’d flown down from her isolated perch in the Refuge.
Galen watched, didn’t interfere… and beat Dmitri into the earth on a regular basis.
Wiping off blood from a split lip after their latest round, the vampire shook his head. “I must be a glutton for punishment, to keep coming back for this.”
“No, you’re just determined to be better.” The truth was, the vampire was real competition. Galen left with cuts and bruises more often than not, and Dmitri had even managed to injure his wings a time or two. They were learning from each other, developing into deadlier fighters.
Pouring water over his head using a pitcher set beside a pail of the cool, clear liquid, Galen pushed back his wet hair and said, “I need to get away for a day, perhaps two.” He trusted Dmitri now, knew the vampire, along with Raphael himself, would watch over Jessamy, make certain no man dared harm her.
“Another angel wants to fly her”—Dmitri’s expression was watchful—“except he’s afraid you’ll kill him.”
The pitcher shattered under the force of his grip. Ignoring the blood, he spread out his wings in preparation for flight. “I would never cage her.”
Rising into the sky, he stopped for nothing, flying hard and fast into the coming edge of dusk. Several squadrons passed him, but none attempted to intercept, as if able to sense the black mood that had all but swallowed him whole. Flying as if he was fighting for his life, he raced the air currents until the sky was a bleak emptiness on every side, the land dark and forested below him.
Alone.
After growing up as he had, he’d believed himself immured to such pain, invulnerable to the invisible cuts that could eviscerate. But the love-hungry boy he’d been, he still existed inside the man, and both parts of him bled without surcease at sensing Jessamy leaving him in a thousand tiny steps. Diving down to the ground and the edge of a small stream, he permitted himself to stop, to breathe, to think. Except his thoughts kept circling back to the same thing—Jessamy in the arms of another.
Rage tore out of him in a savage roar that went on and on, having been held inside for far too long. The autumn chill didn’t settle in his bones as he gave voice to his fury, didn’t do anything to quiet the fever in his blood. And when he soared into the air again, he knew he was going back. If he saw Jessamy flying with another man, he wouldn’t murder, wouldn’t rampage, even if it killed him.
He’d simply watch, make certain the other angel didn’t hurt her.
But when he returned, the Tower was quiet, most of its windows devoid of light. No one, barring the sentries, flew in the sky as far as the eye could see, and when he came to a silent landing on the balcony outside Jessamy’s room, he found her door open. He fought himself and lost, entered—to see her walking toward him, as if she’d been about to step out onto the balcony.
“Galen!” Hand rising to her heart, she halted, the misty green of her long-sleeved gown brushing her ankles in a soft kiss.
And he realized he’d been lying to himself. “I will fly you.” It came out a growl. “I gave you my word that I’d take you anywhere you wanted to go. Why didn’t you ask me?” Instead of accepting the offer of someone who wasn’t as strong, couldn’t take her as far, keep her as safe?
A pause, and he thought she was holding her breath. Fear? Blooded warriors had quailed at his temper and he’d unleashed it on the one person who mattered more than anything. His muscles locking, he went to back out of the doorway, but she stopped him with a simple, “Don’t you dare leave like that again, Galen.” Not fear. Fury.
He raised an eyebrow.
“You left without telling me.” Stalking across the fine Persian carpet of red and gold, she shoved at his chest with her hands, the action having no impact on his stability or balance, but sending a shock through his system nonetheless. “I had to find out from Dmitri.”
Galen’s own anger smoldered. “I wasn’t aware my presence was needed.” Or even noticed.
Jessamy had never dealt much with men on an intimate level. The past two seasons had been a revelation. She’d been flirted with, courted, and even kissed. None of it by this infuriating wall of a man who thought he had the right to yell at her. “If anyone should be complaining about being unnoticed,” she said, “it should be me.”
“Leave me alone with Trace for just a moment,” Galen said, the heated words in no way quiet or contained. “I’d pin him to the ground with my sword, rip his skinny limbs off.”
“Very romantic.” She resisted the urge to kick at him. “I am so angry at you.” For teaching her about passion, only to leave her to starve, for showing her the sky, only to use those skies to avoid her, for being so stubborn and so male! “You shouldn’t be here. Go away.”