Jason’s expression was unreadable, but Naasir had known him for centuries, felt the storm crackling in the air. “If I knew that to rush in would equal further torture for her, yes,” Jason said at last. “If you go in, you’ll die or be taken hostage. Lijuan will use you to make her talk, or to take revenge against Raphael. Either way, you’ll be useless to Andromeda. So you wait. Even if she bleeds.”
Naasir flexed and unflexed his hands, a growl rumbling in his chest. “I want to hurt you right now.”
“You know I speak the truth.”
He forced himself to nod. “I’ll wait.” Because Jason was clever, too. Very, very clever. He’d been in and out of Lijuan’s citadel without the archangel ever being the wiser. “Where will you be?”
“I’ll go in with you and do whatever’s necessary to divert attention from your escape route. You have a phone?” At Naasir’s nod, he said, “Message me after you learn her location so I can cause a distraction away from it. And tell Andromeda not to fly once you’re out—the sky is too heavily guarded.”
“I won’t leave you there alone.” Naasir did not leave his family behind.
“I’ll be behind you,” Jason assured him. “If you can’t send me a message to let me know your location, just keep going. I’ll find you.”
“Don’t take too long or I’ll come back for you.”
Jason held his eyes and then he did something he hadn’t done for a long time. He reached out to touch Naasir, closing his hand over Naasir’s shoulder in a firm grip. “I know,” he said. “Now, let’s hunt.”
Naasir bared his teeth again and twisted to continue his run through the grasses as Jason prepared to lift off. Perhaps, he thought, considering Jason’s touch, there were more benefits to mating than he’d realized. Even with a soft, breakable mate, Jason was happy now. Jason hadn’t been happy for hundreds of years. He’d been dark inside.
Naasir wasn’t dark inside . . . but he was alone. The only one of his kind in the entire world. He had friends, had family, but he had no one who was like him. Mating wouldn’t change that, but it would give him a person who belonged to him just as much as he belonged to her. And maybe one day, they’d have a cub and there would be another like him in the world.
He grinned at the thought of a naughty cub hanging upside down from a tree branch. No one knew if he could reproduce, but Keir said there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to; he wasn’t like Made vampires who were only fertile for about two centuries after their Making. He’d been born as well as Made . . . and he was mostly not a vampire.
What even Keir couldn’t tell him was whether he was biologically compatible with a female, mortal or immortal, vampire or angel. He’d never tried to create a cub with anyone—he knew when he was in heat, could feel it, and he never took lovers during that time.
He didn’t want his cub to have a mother who thought he—or she!—was a savage. He wanted someone he trusted to love their child. And he hadn’t been old enough to be a father. Now, he was, and he’d found an angel who wore her own secret skin, but who’d shown her real self to him.
He wanted to play more with her, find out if she could be his mate. To do that, he first had to rescue her from hell.
* * *
Andromeda had actually fallen asleep during the last part of the journey to Lijuan’s citadel. It wasn’t by chance. Dahariel had taught her that skill over a hundred years of training. A warrior who could sleep where he or she had the chance, was a warrior who’d last longer in battle—or in enemy hands. While as an angel of almost four hundred, she didn’t have to sleep every night, she couldn’t last days or even weeks without sleep.
Sleep is a weapon. Dahariel’s aquiline features in her vision. It rejuvenates and heals. Use it like any other weapon at your disposal.
She’d never appreciated the value of his training and advice more than she did today.
Her hours of sleep meant she was alert when they arrived at the citadel just before sunrise. Ordering her bonds cut off as soon as they landed, Xi allowed her to remove her blindfold herself. “Are you in any pain or discomfort?”
She wasn’t surprised at the civility of his question. Xi was a general down to his bones. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t execute or torture her should it become necessary, but until then, he’d treat her with flawless courtesy.
“A little stiff,” she said, stretching out her wings and wincing more than strictly required. “May I be permitted to do a low flight to ease my muscles?” It would give her an idea of the landscape at least.
Unfortunately, Xi was too smart to permit such a slip after keeping her blindfolded this long. “No,” he said. “But you can spread your wings in this courtyard before we go in.”
Andromeda took her time. She was stiff and she needed to move smoothly if she was to seize an escape opportunity when it arose. Going through some basic exercises taught to most angels in childhood, she did nothing to betray her training under Dahariel—or the fact she’d kept up her skill by sparring with Dahariel and Galen behind walls that protected her secret.
Both angels had agreed with her choice to keep a hidden skill in her arsenal. Galen helped her because she was one of Jessamy’s apprentices, but Dahariel’s motives were . . . complicated. Andromeda didn’t like to think too much on those motives, but her training meant she had some kind of a chance in this hostile environment.