“The one in the legends is ridiculous,” he grumbled. “A lion with a goat’s head on its back? What idiot thought that up?”
She glared at him, then blinked and shook her head. “You weren’t an ordinary tiger, were you?” she whispered, seeming to notice his secret skin for the first time.
He realized at that instant that Andromeda saw him, regardless of the skin he wore.
Gentle fingers brushing over his chest, her honeyed skin dark against skin of a silvery white striped with black that made him all but impossible to spot in the glare of sunlight.
“A white tiger?” An even softer whisper.
He grinned as he allowed his usual skin to emerge. “It’s a good skin for daylight, but I don’t look ‘human’ when I wear it, so I normally wear my night skin.” One came from the boy. One from the tiger cub. Both belonged to Naasir now.
“You are a walking, talking impossibility.” In spite of the temper in her eyes, she kept stroking his hair, his shoulders.
“There’s a reason for that, a reason my kind doesn’t exist in nature.” He made her spread her wings so he could confirm she hadn’t been hit. Walking around to check the surface of her wings, he said, “I could as easily have been an insane beast or a crippled monster.”
Pain and vicious fury tore through him so suddenly that he had to press his chest to Andromeda’s back and bury his face against her neck. “There were many before me . . . my brothers and sisters in a way, though we were never alive together. I saw many of their twisted skeletons.”
Andromeda’s hands closed over his where he had them locked around her waist.
“Osiris executed all the others when they proved flawed. Of three thousand attempts, I was the only one who was physically whole and appeared sane.”
Andromeda’s fingers trembled. “He killed three thousand children?”
Nuzzling her, Naasir shook his head. “He killed six thousand children. Not all wore a human skin.” Like the tiger cub who had given Naasir his secret daylight form. “To be a chimera requires two ‘base’ entities, one human, one other.”
Tears rolled down Andromeda’s face. “How? Why wasn’t he stopped?”
Hugging her close, rocking a little, he said, “I will answer all your questions, Andi, but we must first complete our task.”
Wiping away her tears as he went around to pull on his T-shirt, his mate nodded. “I saw a possible entry into the cave system when I flew over. It looks like it’s relatively new, perhaps caused by a rockfall or a small earthquake, but it could still be a trap.”
“Show me.”
They crawled over the rough, craggy landscape, Naasir on alert for any wing brothers who might be posted this high, and Andromeda having to be careful not to get her wings caught. “There.” She pointed up ahead.
“Watch our backs.” Leaving the sole surviving pack with her, he went to the hole in the mountain.
The blazing sunlight made him wish he’d kept on his secret skin, but it worked best when he was naked, with nothing breaking the pattern. He didn’t particularly want to be naked on craggy rocks that tore at his clothing and scratched his arms.
“So?” Andromeda asked when he returned.
“There are no scents around it from living creatures. The wing brothers apparently do not yet know of this new entrance.”
Crawling with him to the hole, she winced. “It’s going to be hell on my wings. Angels aren’t meant to go through small holes into underground caverns.”
He scowled at the idea of her being hurt. “Wait and I’ll incapacitate the wing brothers inside, then you can walk in.”
“That’ll take too long—we have no idea how many of them are inside.” A determined smile. “A few scrapes won’t kill me. But you go first so you can cover me from below while I squeeze in. I think there’s more risk down there than out here.”
Naasir had to balance the known danger on top, with the unknown below; he finally decided she was right and the one below was more of a threat. Dropping the pack inside first, he jumped down to the sandy floor of the cavern, then stepped aside and pushed the pack out of the way so Andromeda wouldn’t trip on it.
It took her at least three minutes to get in; her wings were badly scraped, feathers from darkest to palest brown falling around him by the time she succeeded.
Biting back his growl when he saw the extent of the damage and caught sight of the tears she was trying not to shed, Naasir made her stand in place in the light under the hole while he examined her.
“I’m immortal,” she reminded him softly, though her voice was husky with withheld pain. “I’ll heal.”
He bit the tip of her ear. She jumped, then turned to take his face in her hands, her touch gentle. “I’m okay,” she said softly. “Soon as this is over, we’ll find a hot spring and relax.”
She was lying. Naasir caught the minute change in her scent, the break in the rhythm of her pulse. What he didn’t understand was why, but he’d pursue that once they’d completed their task and he’d gotten her to safety. For now, he took her hand and hooked her fingers lightly in the back of his pants after he’d pulled on the pack. “I can see in the dark.” Even in places with zero ambient light.
A result of the mix between chimera and vampire.
“I won’t let go.”
Listening carefully to make certain the wing brothers hadn’t detected them, he began to head down the corridor. When they reached a fork, he said, “Right or left?” At this point, he had no scents to use as a guide, so they had to rely on Andromeda’s research.