Seeking time to think, he turned to where he’d left his breastplate and other armor. He pulled it on today, complete with the shoulder, wrist, and back guards.
His fighters were tired, his people equally so. Sometimes, a symbol mattered. Sliding his swords into crisscrossing sheaths on his back, he came to a decision.
“If you’re looking for information on the disease,” he said, “it’ll most likely be at his border stronghold—he holed up there for some time prior to the war.” His mouth twisted. “I thought he was being a good ally, readying himself for the battle we all knew would come.”
“Yes, he would’ve kept his notes close by.” She searched Titus’s face. “That you didn’t immediately assume dishonor says much about you, Titus.”
Waving aside her words, he said, “We don’t know what ugliness pollutes the air of Charisemnon’s border stronghold.”
“If it’s enough to kill an angel of my age,” she said with equanimity, “then the world is indeed in trouble and it’d be better if we knew now.”
Titus didn’t want to agree with her, but she was right. He gave a curt nod.
But when dawn broke after a night of brutal work against shrieking, vicious reborn, he said, “If you wait until I’ve finished with the stragglers, I’ll accompany you.”
Sweaty and dirty and tired above the field of battle, a small woman with a giant spirit, she compressed her lips. “Will I cause a security problem by going as soon as I clean up? Do you need me in the field in the hours to come?”
He could lie to her and she wouldn’t know any different, but Titus was no liar. “No, I’m sending most of the squadrons and ground teams back home to rest and recharge.”
“What of Charisemnon’s court?” she asked. “I don’t wish to cut into your people’s precious rest time by needing to take a security detail.”
Again, he didn’t lie. “The stronghold is safe, with a permanent guard squadron.” He’d always intended to more fully investigate his enemy’s base. “It is, however, apt to be disgusting. We hauled away the bodies and blasted water over the main floors, but had no time for a deeper clean.”
“I’m not afraid of a little mess.”
No, she wasn’t, he thought, recalling how she’d helped pile the reborn carcasses for the bonfire. “I’ll assign you a fighter from the guard squadron on the off-chance we missed anything.”
Titus’s people had swept the stronghold top to bottom, but there was no point in taking chances . . . especially with Sharine, this angel who was causing a reaction in him for which he very much wasn’t ready. “I wouldn’t have angelkind after my head because I didn’t take care of the Hummingbird while she was in my keeping.”
“I’m not a relic to be hidden away.” Streaks of color on her cheeks that made her glow. “Neither do I belong to anyone but myself. I am not in anyone’s keeping.” Fire in her eyes, oh such brilliant fire.
It scalded him. And it made him hunger to burn himself in it.
He wanted to grip her chin, initiate the beginnings of a kiss. She’d probably stab him with her blade for daring. Because this woman, she wasn’t angelkind’s fragile treasure. She was Sharine, who’d bickered with him as they flew, and who’d offered him seconds of the dishes she’d noticed he liked best. A woman who was even now hovering toe-to-toe with him, her head tilted back to meet his gaze as he looked down.
He didn’t remember moving, didn’t remember her moving, but heat steamed the air between them. It was madness, but still he dipped his head and took her lips in a kiss that devoured. His hand was cupping the silken skin of her cheek before he knew it, and he well felt the shock of her own hand gripping his biceps; her nails bit into his flesh in a warning that she wasn’t happy.
But she didn’t end the kiss even when he hauled her closer and stroked one hand down to cup the lower curves of her body, his other arm locked around her upper back and his rigid cock pushing into her stomach. His head was smoke, filled with intoxication, his breathing jagged. And he craved. More and more and still more.
33
When she tore away her mouth and put air between them, they stared at one another, their chests heaving.
“No,” she said very firmly.
Mind hazed in a way it hadn’t been since he was a youth just discovering women, Titus didn’t react. Then the word finally penetrated and he took an automatic “step” back in the air; unlike some angels who burned with power, he didn’t believe that it was his right to take any woman he wanted.
He’d been raised by five very strong women, all of whom he respected to the core and all of whom would come after him with unsheathed blades if he disrespected any other woman in such a way. His mother would wake from her Sleep out of sheer disgust.
No, Titus didn’t force women. Ever.
However, there was no rule against making sure he had it right. “No for today?” he asked, because if so, she was right in stopping this—it wasn’t the time or place. He’d probably already shocked half his troops into a coma by manhandling her with such familiarity. “Or no forever?” It made his stomach tighten to ask the latter and the raw need of it terrified him, and yet he asked.
She’d dug her way under his skin, a burr he couldn’t dislodge . . . and didn’t want to reject. Surely, if he believed in such things, he’d say she’d done sorcery on him. But he didn’t believe in such things, and so he knew that this was something altogether different: a combustion between two opposing forces who’d somehow proven to be passionately compatible.
Her breathing, he was gratified to see, remained as unsteady as his when she said, “No for today.” Even as his lips began to curve, she brushed dust off her tunic and pants. “I have no desire to tie myself to any man—and you wish to remain free of entanglements also, yes?”
He blinked, disconcerted in a way that made no sense. “Yes,” he said, because of course it was so. “I’m not looking for a consort, but for a lover.”
“Then we’ll speak further when the time is not so inopportune.” Calm words, but her breathing remained uneven.
Titus knew she was right. But he took a moment to cross to her and raise his palm to her cheek—telegraphing his intent so she could pull back if she wished.
She didn’t.
Cradling the softness of skin he wanted to kiss inch by inch, he looked into eyes enigmatic and old and young at once and said, “It will be a fire between us, Shari.” Not a gentle one, either. “I wait to be burned.”
She reached up with the confidence of a woman who knew herself and gripped the arch of his wing, stroking down firmly. Erotic pleasure rocked his entire body, his blood molten. “Then we burn,” she whispered and dropped her hand. “Stay safe from the darkness, Titus. We have unfinished business, you and I.”
Her touch was a brand on his feathers and he half expected to see the marks of her possession when she broke contact, streaks of glittering champagne that laid claim to an archangel. “Your escort is on her way from Charisemnon’s stronghold.” Then, though worry for her gnawed in his gut, he left without further words.
Sharine watched Titus’s powerful body cut through the dawn sky, her heartbeat thunder and her skin hot. The gold of his armor turned him into a piece of the sun, the embodiment of archangelic strength. She felt a hushed quiet fall around her as his people looked on, drawn by that golden fire.
All the while, she had to fight the urge to press her fingers to her throbbing mouth. Never had she shared such a kiss. The embers smoldering inside her had burst into flame the instant his mouth touched her own, wrapping them both in wings of fire.