"Yes. It stinks of fresh scat and of reborn." His lips lifted to reveal his fangs.
"I didn't know." Suyin's throat moved, her fingers trembling as she rubbed them on her thighs. "On my honor."
"You don't stink of lies." Naasir glanced down at the tunnel again. "It's a trap, but we can turn it on those who set it." Pulling down the trapdoor, he got up and looked at the rug and sofa they'd pushed aside. "Now we hide."
Andromeda wasn't sure that was a good idea, but she'd promised to trust Naasir, so she followed him into the walk-in closet on one side of the room, and there the three of them stood. They didn't have to wait long. Thudding bangs on the door announced either boots or shoulders hitting it, but the end result was the door breaking open and guards pouring in.
Shouts followed, then came the sound of the trapdoor being thrown back.
Andromeda took Suyin's hand when she felt the other woman begin to shake. Suyin had to be so scared of what Lijuan would do to her should they be discovered. When she felt Naasir put his arm around the wounded angel, she wasn't surprised. Naasir might be feral and uncivilized in his true skin, but he was good in a way Xi would never be.
The general's voice sliced through the air at that instant. "Go after them. Now. Do not allow the reborn to get to the scholar." Swearing low under his breath, he gave further orders. "Make sure the opposite end of the tunnel is watched, on the low chance they make it out."
"Sir."
All went quiet soon after that.
Sliding out only once Naasir confirmed no one remained in the room, the three of them headed toward an exit. This time, they encountered no one in the corridors. Stepping out into the rain-lashed night, Andromeda glimpsed a tongue of hot yellow flame shoot from a window in a distant section of the citadel.
Rain couldn't put out a fire on the inside. Yes, the spymaster was clever.
When Naasir held out a hand to her, she took it at once. Since her other hand was wrapped around the hilt of the sword, she told Suyin to grip the waist of her pants under the tunic.
The world was an opaque, punishing blackness but Naasir navigated it like he'd been born for it.
When Suyin stumbled, her legs threatening to collapse, Naasir and Andromeda put her between them and wrapped one arm each around her waist, careful not to apply too much pressure. As they helped her to a door in the inner wall, Andromeda saw a flicker of movement to her right. She acted without hesitation, slicing out with the sword to almost decapitate a vampire.
He fell gurgling to the ground.
It was the first time she'd ever truly hurt someone and part of her flinched, bile rising in her throat. That part bore the name of the girl she'd been, the one who'd run from a home where brutality was an everyday affair and kindness considered a laughable weakness. The rest of her understood this wasn't violence for violence's sake. It was about survival. Not just her own but Suyin's and Naasir's. There would be no mercy should they be caught; these same guards would mete out base torture if so ordered.
Naasir's eyes gleamed at her through the pounding rain. "Stop playing. We have to leave."
She went to scowl, realized he was the one who was playing--with her. So she wouldn't think about the blood she'd just spilled. Wanting to kiss him, she instead helped Suyin through the inner wall gate as the rain washed the scarlet stain from her sword.
That was when their luck ran out.
Three sentries came around the corner almost at once and the men were looking right at their small group. Naasir was on them a split second later but it was three against one. Leaving Suyin leaning against the wall, Andromeda swung into the fight. The sentries could not be allowed to send up an alarm.
Her target was trained, but he wasn't expecting her skill. She cut his throat, left him trying to clamp his hand over the bleeding orifice. By the time she turned toward Naasir, he'd already taken care of the other two. Seeing her sentry, he reached out and hit the man on the side of his head, slamming him into unconsciousness. "He could've seen our direction from here, betrayed us to others."
"Sorry. I was worried about you."
He tilted his head to the side, rain rolling down his skin. Then he smiled and went to pick a shaky Suyin up in his arms. Sticking to his side, Andromeda watched their backs as they ran to a small servant's gate in the outer wall. This time, no one spotted them and they were soon outside, but hardly free.
The area directly around the stronghold was grass currently being flattened by the wind and the rain, offering no hiding places. It seemed an interminable distance to the cover of the trees when winged sentries flew constantly across the sky. "How do we do this?" she asked Naasir.
"Go low and let the wind bend the grass over you." He put Suyin on the ground, then gently rubbed dirt over the bandages on her back to make them less white. "On your bellies. Be the cat creeping up on its prey."
"My wings?"
"Hold them as tight as you can. No big movements. Go!"
The ground was wet and muddy, but Andromeda did exactly what Naasir had ordered, the three of them spread out enough that from above, each one would be nothing other than another muddy patch of grass. It was hard and relentless and they had to go motionless more than once when an angel flew too close overhead. Breath coming harsh and low, Suyin did her best, but she lost consciousness halfway through.
Andromeda helped put her on Naasir's back and he took the hurt angel the rest of the way.
By the time they reached the trees, Andromeda's muscles were quivering and the front of her body coated in mud. Using the rain dripping from her hair to wipe off her face, she saw Naasir had already placed Suyin in a seated position against a tree.
"I can't believe that worked." Turning into the rain in the hope it would wash off more of the mud, Andromeda looked out over the distance they'd covered.
"The rain helped. Otherwise, we'd have had to hide and wait for another chance." Picking up Suyin after that short break, he led Andromeda through the trees that didn't do much to hold back the rain. "Jason probably drove out most of the reborn, but their scent is still thick, so one or more may remain."
Sword held at the ready as the rain continued to thunder down, Andromeda kept her eyes on alert for the shambling half corpses that were the reborn. When Naasir hissed and said, "Left," she pivoted, sword already coming up.
A severed head rolled to the ground seconds later. The reborn's body gushed blood as it fell, but Andromeda stepped out of the way of the spray just quickly enough. "Thank you for the warning." Again, the rain washed her blade clean.
As it had her father's when he methodically cut a vampire to pieces once.
Naasir's gaze searched her face, as if he could sense how disturbed she was at her unhesitating ruthlessness. "It's us or them. You aren't torturing or harming the reborn without cause--you are fighting for your survival. That is the right of any creature."
Andromeda jerked her head in a nod. "Yes." The reborn may have been innocent prior to their transformation, but they were an abomination now. As for the guards, they would've killed Naasir given the slightest chance.
Her jaw firmed, hand tightening on the hilt of the sword. "I won't let anyone hurt you."
Instead of laughing at what must seem a ridiculous statement when it came to a man so dangerous and capable of looking after himself, Naasir's lips curved in a satisfied smile. "I knew you liked me."
Surprised into a soft laugh, Andromeda reached out to check Suyin's pulse. It was even shallower than she'd expected. "She could fall into anshara." Normally, the semiconscious healing sleep was a helpful thing, but it could be a serious handicap if Naasir had to carry Suyin the entire way.
"Angels would be much more efficient if they could drink blood," Naasir said conversationally.
"Well . . . I suppose that's true." A feed would've given Suyin an immediate jolt of energy. "Do you ever feed anyone?"
Naasir shot her an intrigued look. "Do you want to taste me?"
She wasn't put off by that questio
n as any civilized scholar should've been. "No," she said at last, and had the feeling she was telling a lie.
"I want to taste you." A wicked smile. "Will you feed me if I need it?"
"Of course," she said, trying to sound pragmatic when the idea of Naasir feeding from her made her insides turn molten. "You're my only hope of getting out of here."
He growled at her and didn't say anything else for the next ten minutes as they made their way through the forest. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore. "Stop sulking."
Another rumbling growl. Turning, he snapped his teeth at her.
She jumped even though she'd thought she was ready for an aggressive reaction. Teeth gritted, she glared at his infuriating face. "Growl at me again and I'll bite you." She didn't know where the words came from, probably from aggravation.
Staring at her, he went as if to speak. His nostrils flared. "Reborn," he said, and placed Suyin against a tree with a wide-enough trunk that her back was fully protected.
Andromeda didn't need to be told where to stand; she stood with Naasir behind her, Suyin to her left. His back pressed into her wings, but she knew he wasn't being provocative for once.
"Be careful of your wings."
She suddenly remembered his bare hands. "Do you have weapons?"
A joyous laugh. "Yes."
And then there was no more time to talk. The slavering, blank-eyed and ferociously hungry creatures who were Lijuan's reborn boiled out of the woods around them.
15
Naasir drew deep on the primal heart of his nature. His claws released and his canines elongated, his vision a knife blade through the dark and his sense of smell acute. All trappings of civilization gone, he wanted to turn and nuzzle at the neck of the woman who smelled like his mate, but that had to wait.
First, he had to kill the foul creatures howling toward them.
They were shambling and laughingly slow in comparison to his speed, but their infectiousness made them a threat against which he couldn't risk using his teeth. From all evidence to date, it appeared the reborn needed to kill their victim for that victim to become reborn, but Naasir wasn't going to take the risk that the creatures hadn't mutated and become strong enough to infect living flesh.
His teeth might be out, but he utilized his claws like blades, slicing and ripping and tearing. At his back, he could feel Andromeda moving with a fighter's grace, her sword slicing through the air on a deadly whistle of sound.
Heads rolled to the leaf-strewn earth around him.
"Naasir?"
He growled in answer at the concern in her tone. He couldn't speak quickly when living in this skin that was another aspect of his nature, but he was pleased she was thinking about him.
A clean slice of sound as her sword moved again, blood spraying the air.
He clenched his teeth against the putrid smell and reached out to rip a reborn's head from its shoulders. That emptied more blood around them, splattering him, but it was worth it to get rid of the tainted creatures. Kicking out with clawed feet, he disemboweled one while decapitating another. He didn't like to cause the reborn unnecessary pain--Lijuan had likely used innocent villagers as her fodder--but he couldn't rip off two heads at once.
Behind him, he could hear Andromeda breathing hard. She leaned against him. "Are they all dead?"
He took care of the one he'd disemboweled and thought hard about the words he'd been taught as a child after Raphael carried him to the Refuge. "Yes." It came out a growl so deep, he knew he didn't sound human.
Shifting to face Andromeda, he gripped her jaw with a clawed and bloody hand. He turned her head--gently--to one side then the other before checking her neck and body. Her wings were bloodied, but it was from spray. "You're not hurt," he got out just as part of him realized he'd probably scared her.
Women didn't like his claws, didn't like the way his eyes glowed after a hunt.
Andromeda pushed off his hand and grabbed his jaw. He was so surprised he let her pull him forward and turn his face this way and that. Releasing him, she walked around to his back and pushed up his T-shirt, then came around to do the same to the blood-soaked front.
"You're not hurt either." She looked down at his feet. "Did you get cut or bitten there?"
He snorted at the ridiculousness of her question. Dropping her hand from his T-shirt, she scowled at him. "Are those things all dead or do you think we'll run into more?"
Thinking about it, about words and how they worked, he said, "They would've come toward the scent of blood."
"Good." She knelt down to look at Suyin. "Can you carry her the whole way?"
"Yes." It would slow them down, but he didn't leave helpless people behind to be eaten by monsters or imprisoned by Lijuan.
*
Andromeda rose to her feet as Naasir bent to pick Suyin up with an effortlessness that betrayed his strength. He was splattered with blood, his silver hair streaked with it. She wanted to scrub it all away; Naasir was as real and honest as the reborn were unnatural abominations.
At least the rain washed off the worst of it as they walked.
"Why did you decide to study the Sleeping archangels?" Naasir asked some time later.
She noted that his voice was less growly now--she liked it either way. The only voice she didn't like was the cold, cultured tone he'd used when she'd first made him angry. "I'm just fascinated by the idea of all these powerful beings resting in hidden places on and in the earth."
"How many?"
"No one knows. The Ancestors are stories we tell children, but there are more credible legends of Ancients who've Slept so long that they, too, have become myth." She bit her lip and admitted her secret wish. "Jessamy says Alexander could sometimes be coaxed to speak of times of myth. They are his memories. With him and Caliane both in the world, we could find out so much."
"Caliane speaks to you?"
"No--to Jessamy. Even then it's not often, but Jessamy visited her soon after you left Amanat; she said Caliane was most gracious and generous." Andromeda knew the Historian, her wing twisted and unable to take her aloft, remained highly conscious of not being glimpsed by ordinary mortals, for angelkind could not be seen to be weak in such a way, but that wasn't an issue in Amanat.
When Jessamy wanted to view things in more populated environs, she skimmed the landscape in a light plane or in a helicopter modified to fit angelic wings while hiding the occupants from view. Usually the occupant was a single slender angel. Jessamy had quietly learned to operate both those vehicles.
Andromeda saw in Jessamy's determination a woman who was her hero. The other angel had survived thousands of years before inventors gave her a way to take to the skies on her own. Andromeda could survive five hundred years in a court devoid of hope.
"According to Caliane," she said, setting aside the inevitable for this night, "counting Alexander, there are seven archangels who Sleep."
"What if they all wake up at once?"
"It would be catastrophic." Archangels couldn't be in close proximity for long periods without a dangerous rise in their aggression. Ten was the perfect number spread out across the world. One or two more could be accommodated, but after that . . . "We'd end up with back-to-back wars until the balance was restored."
"Natural law," Naasir said bluntly. "Nature will always seek to maintain balance."
"Yes." She checked on Suyin again, shook her head when Naasir looked at her. "No improvement."
Face set in harsh lines, Naasir kept on walking.
"I don't only study Sleeping archangels," Andromeda said in an effort to keep their minds off the bleak situation. "If you promise not to laugh, I'll tell you about my other studies."
Open curiosity. "Tell me."
"Promise you won't laugh first."
Lips curving, Naasir snapped his teeth playfully at her. "How can you ask me to make the promise after that?"
She glared because he'd made her jump again, but told him. "I study creatures," she said, waiting for the condesce
nding amusement she saw so often on the faces of her colleagues. "Like shape-shifters," she continued when he just listened, "mermen and mermaids, griffins, chimera, walkers . . . things like that."
"Why study the impossible?"
"Because the stories must've begun somewhere. And . . . I like to think there remain mysteries in the world."
"I think mermen and mermaids make sense."
"You do?" She narrowed her eyes but he didn't look like he was making fun of her. "Why?"
"The world is covered in water. Why shouldn't a species have evolved to live in that water?" A silver-eyed glance. "You should ask the Primary. Maybe the Legion are the truth behind the legend. They did live an eon in the deep."
The hairs rose on her arms. "I've been desperate to speak to them," she whispered, her historian's heart overflowing. "I know Jessamy's had some contact with the Primary, but I didn't want to ask for his time for my little subspecialty."
"I'll introduce you when you're ready," Naasir said. "I'll even sneak you into their new green home."
Andromeda almost danced on the spot, forgetting for a moment that she wouldn't have the freedom to do such things soon. "What about griffins?"
He took time to think before speaking. "I think the stories must come from large birds of prey in primordial times."
"That's my theory, too." Childishly happy to discover that his mind was so open, she said, "Skinwalkers?"
"No. But, I knew a medicine man once who walked with a spirit guide. He understood the land and all its creatures better than anyone I've ever since met." His tone held unvarnished respect. "Mortals die too quickly. The medicine man was wiser than many an immortal, but he was gone almost before I knew him."
"You miss him," Andromeda said softly.
"He was my friend."
Her throat grew thick. "Will you tell me about him?"
"Yes, later." A curl of his lip over his fangs. "My friend was a man who lived on the plains under an open sky. He does not belong in this forest tainted with reborn. What other creatures are on your list?"
"Chupacabra."
"I hope it exists. It has the best name."
Andromeda giggled. "Chimera?"
"A snake-tailed animal with a lion's body and a goat's head attached to its spine?" He snorted. "His goat head would unbalance him before he ever took a step, and he'd immediately get eaten by something bigger. And wouldn't the lion head constantly be trying to eat the goat head?"