Honor wrinkled her nose but didn’t fight.
“Very not sexy,” she muttered afterward and made him laugh, the tension leaching out of his body.
“Trust me, it gets sexier.” Kissing her, he forced himself to lay her back down. “Ready?”
“I want it done.” She cuddled into his body. “Want to be with you.”
He reached down to reactivate the drug that would take her under once more. “I’ll be here, waiting for you when you wake again.” He’d waited near to a thousand years—nothing would induce him to move from her side. “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”
44
Mahiya sat on the roof of the Angel Enclave house that was home to the Archangel Raphael and his consort, scarcely believing it had been but a week since she left her mother’s palace. The city of shining metal and sparkling glass she could see across the water fascinated her, almost as much as the angel with hair of near-white who swept toward the roof.
Elena landed beside Mahiya with an open joy that made her smile. “Ten points for certain,” she said, having played this game with the other woman earlier in the week
“You’re being nice. I had to take an extra step to balance the landing.”
“Nine point three, then.”
“That, I’ll take, even though you’re still being nice.” Folding those haunting wings of midnight and dawn, Elena took a seat. “Are you waiting for Jason?”
“He’s inside, talking to Raphael.” Having grown up around an archangel, Mahiya wasn’t affected by them as another angel of her age might be, but she never forgot that they were other and thus to be treated with caution. “I came to admire your city so busy and bright, and to listen to the water.” The river rushed past just beyond the cliff, and not far in the distance, she could see two water vessels about to pass.
Drawing up one knee, Elena hooked her arm around it. “Will you stay?”
Mahiya had considered that, ruled it out—New York was dazzling, a beautiful city, but with jagged edges that overwhelmed. “I think I would like to visit.” Taste it in small bites. “But this is not my place.”
Elena nodded. “She’s not for everyone, my city, but I adore her.” Undoing a lightweight crossbow from her outer left thigh, she placed it beside her on the roof.
“Were you on a hunt?” It astonished Mahiya that the consort to an archangel did such a thing, but it also astonished her how Raphael looked at Elena and how Elena looked at the archangel in return. The searing depth of their connection was something she’d never expected, no matter what she had heard of their bonding.
“No, I was running a training session at Guild Academy. My turn on the roster.” She lifted her face to the wind, and they sat in companionable silence for almost ten minutes before Elena shifted to look at her. “Jason,” she said in a quiet voice, “you will look after him, won’t you?”
Startled, Mahiya said, “He isn’t a man who needs anyone’s protection.”
“But,” Elena said, eyes of silver-gray incisive, “I think he needs you.”
Yes. The question was, would Jason allow her to give him what he needed, or would he shy, as a wild creature might? It wasn’t the best of analogies, for Jason knew the ways of sophistication and civilization as well as any court male. Yet, he was not of them, part of him still that boy alone in the middle of an ocean. “I feel such things for him,” she whispered, “that it terrifies me.”
“Good,” Elena said with a shoulder nudge. “You’d never fit in our club otherwise.”
She blinked at the startling statement. “What?”
“It’s for those of us who are insane enough to fall in love with seriously badass men more sensible women would run from screaming. You’ve now superseded Honor as the newest member.” Elena grinned. “I’ll teach you the secret handshake.”
Mahiya laughed, and it was the laughter one shared with a friend. Elena was consort to an archangel, had access to power beyond imagining. She had no need to cultivate a relationship with Mahiya, and yet Mahiya knew why she did so. Not only because of an inherent kindness that had made her feel welcome from the first, but because Jason was one of “theirs.”
Mahiya did not mind being adopted into such a family. There was joy here, loyalty, and best of all, no one wished to use her as a pawn in some political game. Oh, she had no doubts about Raphael’s instincts, but she also knew the archangel would treat her with the courtesy due to the lover of one of his Seven.
Except she wasn’t certain she was that lover, that her spymaster wasn’t simply waiting for her to find her wings. Don’t go, Jason. Words she’d never say, chains she’d never wrap around him, but oh, it hurt to think of never again feeling the rough heat of his touch, never again seeing that wild black fire in eyes of deepest brown.
* * *
Walking out of his study and onto the lawn, Jason by his side, Raphael headed for the edge of the cliff.
Hello, Archangel.
His lips curved. Hello, hbeebti. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw his consort sitting on the roof with the princess Jason had brought home. The women had their faces turned toward one another, Elena’s hair a white flame, Mahiya’s ebony silk gathered neatly into a knot at the nape of her neck.
If he had ever considered the woman who would get through Jason’s shields, it would not have been this elegant princess from Neha’s land, with her flawless politeness and a personality that seemed a serene mirror without depth. And yet . . . Jason was his spymaster, skilled at seeing behind shields and beyond defenses. What do you think of Jason’s princess? he said to his consort.