Her heart feeling as if it had a crushing weight on it, and the knot in her stomach a lump of stone, Andromeda didn’t allow her gaze to linger on the bed but headed straight for the large bathing chamber. The already-filled and steaming pool of water to her left made her moan in want, but afraid she’d fall asleep, she indulged for a bare minute, then rose and washed under the shower.
As the fat droplets crashed onto her skin, she would’ve done anything to be where she’d been the last time she’d taken a proper bath, in that icy pool in the valley. She could almost feel Naasir’s strong fingers in her hair as he washed it, the sneaky touch of his hand on her feathers, the way he’d raced with her. “Hurry,” she whispered, her hand reaching out as if she’d catch him through space and time itself. “I miss you.”
24
Naasir wasn’t surprised when Jason landed beside him soon after he hit the shores of Japan. The barge hadn’t brought him all the way—he’d transferred onto another friendly and much faster vessel soon after Andromeda took flight. When he’d dived from the barge to swim across to the sleek little freighter, both crews’ mouths had fallen open. Someone had screamed.
He didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t swim.
“Andi?” he said to Jason as the two of them spoke on a deserted part of an otherwise busy dock.
“Isabel tells me she’s safe inside Amanat.” Lines of tiredness marked Jason’s ordinarily impassive face. “I just returned from the border between Titus and Charisemnon.”
“War?”
The black-winged angel shook his head. “A small skirmish neither side appeared to want to fan into full flame.”
“That won’t last.” Titus and Charisemnon had disliked each other for centuries if not millennia, and with the world going to hell, that dislike would collide into all-out war sooner rather than later.
“No,” Jason agreed as one of his feathers drifted to the scarred and stained concrete of the dock. “But the region’s stable enough right now that Raphael doesn’t have to worry about any ripple effects.”
Naasir had always liked Jason, but as he grew, he’d started to see that the strong, black-winged angel was lonely. Perhaps even lonelier than Naasir. He’d tried to draw Jason out, instinct telling him it wasn’t good for the angel to exist so tightly within himself, but Jason had stayed contained and remote. No longer.
“Your mate must be missing you,” he said. “You should go home.”
Jason’s dark eyes flickered the tiniest fraction but in that flicker, Naasir saw his friend’s raw need to return to his princess. “You and Andromeda will require backup.”
“If we do, I’ll contact the Tower.” Naasir had thought the plan through during his and Andromeda’s escape, discussed it with her. “Locating Alexander isn’t a sure thing.” Andromeda had made it clear her expertise only went so far—no one could predict an archangel’s actions with pinpoint accuracy.
“And it’s better if it’s a team of two,” he added. “We’ll have to move with stealth so no one spots us and alerts Lijuan’s people that they’re in the wrong place.”
Jason stretched and resettled his wings in silence. “You know I have people scattered across the world. If you need immediate assistance, call me.”
“I’ll buy a new phone before I leave the country.” He had money on a card stored in a thin waterproof case in his back pocket. At first when Illium had given him such a card, he’d spent hours staring at it, trying to figure out how it worked. He’d finally made his brain understand that the card was a kind of machine that moved money from one place to another.
When he used it in a shop, the card moved money from his own treasury to that of the shop’s. Dmitri and Illium kept an eye on his money, so he didn’t really have to think much about the mechanics of it all. What he did know was that he had plenty of funds. Raphael had always been more than fair toward his Seven, and Naasir was very good at hunting down treasures everyone thought lost.
Treasures like the stupid Grimoire book.
“Tell me what you know about a book called the Star Grimoire,” he ordered Jason, because Jason knew everything.
A raised eyebrow. “It’s a mythical book coveted by those who collect such things.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Jason’s eyes narrowed, his expression intent. “No . . . but two hundred years ago, I met an old one of our race who spoke of the Grimoire’s red leather binding and golden edges.” A pause, Jason’s form motionless in a way Naasir had never seen another angel replicate.
He didn’t interrupt. Immortals had long memories, but Jason’s was near flawless. The other man just had to track down the right piece of it.
“And this book of mysteries untold had a golden clasp carved with the fearsome image of a crouching griffin.” Jason’s voice held a rhythm not his own.
Memory stirred in Naasir, hinting tantalizingly at a clue, but stayed annoyingly out of reach when he lunged for it. “Was there anything else unique about it?”
“Yes,” Jason said after almost an entire minute of silence. “A mythical beast in gold, stamped or engraved in the leather on the front.”
Memory whispered again, only to fade. No matter. Naasir had the bit between his teeth now. First he’d find Alexander, then he’d find the Grimoire. Because Andromeda was his mate and he wanted to claim her. She might not agree with him yet, but she smelled like his mate and she liked him in his true skin, and she was as fierce as his mate should be.
He liked everything about her except her vow of celibacy.
At least if he found the Grimoire, he could court her in truth. He wanted to seduce her, wanted to make her melt. Mostly, he just wanted to keep her.
Andromeda woke to skies streaked with the vivid violets and golds of sunset.
Still wearing the robe she’d discovered on the back of the bathroom door, she got up to find her wings rested and her feet no longer as sore. Maybe she was getting stronger now that she was nearly four hundred. Rubbing her eyes on that sleepy thought, she wandered into the bathing chamber and threw cold water on her face before drying off and going to explore the options in the closet.
There were four gowns in various rich shades, three tunic and pants sets, and even a pair of jeans and a shirt. She chose a black pants and tunic set, the stark lines of it offset by the delicate silver pattern painted around the neckline. It reminded her of the color of Naasir’s eyes.
Where was he?
Dressing as that question pounded in her blood, she gathered up her crazy mass of hair—thanks to falling asleep while it was yet damp—and somehow tamed it into a braid, then slipped her feet into a pair of outdoor slippers. There were also boots in the closet in various sizes and she knew she’d be wearing a pair when she and Naasir departed Amanat.
Why wasn’t he here yet?
Leaving her sword in the room—she didn’t think Caliane would be impressed by a visitor who came to pay her respects wearing a blade—she stepped out to look for Isabel. The other woman wasn’t in her home, so Andromeda stopped a passing man to ask for directions to the temple. She used the language she’d heard spoken when Avi showed her to Isabel’s courtyard.
Beaming, the handsome ebony-skinned citizen of Amanat replied in the same tongue, offering to act as her escort to her destination. “Thank you,” she said, “but I’d like to go slowly and fully absorb this wondrous city.”
Cheeks creasing again, he gave her what she needed and she carried on.
The light show of sunset had begun to fade to a paler palette, but there was yet no need for the tall standing lamps that bordered the pathways. When she peered up, she saw that despite the weathered iron that gave the impression of having grown old apace with Amanat, the lights within were electric.