Andromeda had to agree, fascinating though such a creature might've been. "I never could figure out how that would work." She tapped her chin. "But what a strange thing for people to imagine. Just like the karakasa-obake."
"I don't know that one."
So, as the rain tapered off into a fine mist, she told him about the talking umbrella with one eye and one leg, and they kept on walking.
*
Naasir was having fun talking with Andromeda, playing with her--though she didn't know it yet--when he smelled black lightning. A shadow passed overhead and then a piece of the night was separating out to land in front of them. Taking in their bloodied state, Jason said, "You eradicated the remnants of the nest."
"Yes."
Jason walked forward. "Suyin."
Naasir was unsurprised the spymaster knew the identity of the woman in his hold; as far as Naasir could work out, Jason knew everything. "She needs to go to Keir. Xi ordered one of her wings be excised, the other I had to break."
Holding out his arms, Jason said, "I'll take her. With her wing strapped down, she's easy enough cargo--I'll go to Amanat and ask Keir to travel there." He looked to Andromeda. "You'll have to stay grounded. You can't fly high enough to avoid the squadrons, but Naasir can get you out."
"Understood." She touched her hand gently to Suyin's shoulder. "Please take care of her. She's been trapped a long time."
"I will," the spymaster said, holding Suyin with arms Naasir knew wouldn't permit her to fall.
"Stay safe." Stepping back on those words, Jason flared out his wings and made a flawless vertical takeoff. He was lost in the night within three wingbeats. Naasir knew no one would ever spot him.
"Incredible," Andromeda breathed, her head turned upward.
Naasir scowled. "Jason doesn't have claws." He showed her his.
Andromeda looked at the claws, then at him, a slow smile lighting up her eyes. "Those are very sharp. Why didn't you cut me when you grabbed me?"
"I didn't want to cut you." He growled at the question that shouldn't have been asked.
"We need to find some water," said the woman who was acting and sounding more and more like his mate. "I hate being dirty and bloody."
"The water here isn't good. Tainted."
She made a face. "Then let's leave."
Deciding no further conversation was needed, Naasir began to lead them out of the forest. Squadrons flew overhead, but none landed. Naasir thought they'd dismissed him--if they even knew his identity yet. And they clearly believed Andromeda was in the sky. Stupid.
She kept up with the pace he set for the next three hours. It was slow for him, but he knew he was pushing her--angels weren't meant to cover this much ground on foot. Their power was in the air. On the ground, their wings became an extra weight that created considerable drag.
Andromeda was also wearing flimsy slippers that tore halfway through.
"It's surface pain," she said to him when he stopped to check her feet. "The cuts will heal when we stop."
Naasir didn't like seeing her feet bruised and bloody, but he knew she was tough, would make it. Still, he took care to choose a path with few rocks and stones. Finally out of the formerly reborn-infested forest, he led her to a valley between two mountains. It took another hour for him to locate a spring-fed pond, but the deep water within was crystal clear and icy cold under the now-rainless night sky.
"Bathe," he said to her, taking in the exhaustion she was trying to hide but that had made her wings begin to droop. "We can't be out in the open at dawn."
Andromeda placed her sword carefully on the grass. "Turn your back."
"I want to be clean, too." The scent of the reborn was ugly.
"I'll watch for threats while you bathe if you do the same for me." She folded her arms and stood in place. "I'm not stripping off unless you turn your back."
He bared his teeth at her, but did as she asked. Dmitri had taught him that he must never take what a woman didn't want to give.
Do not steal what only has value if freely given.
Naasir had needed to hear that. He wasn't a bad person inside, but though he could put on a cultured skin that fooled people, inside, he sometimes still didn't know how to behave. When he'd been younger and first starting to feel the urge to rut with females--and before he'd grown up to the point where many of the opposite sex found him irresistible--he'd tried to court girls by bringing them meat and shiny things.
It turned out he'd scared them.
"Most women and girls," Dmitri had told him, "don't know what to do when a man drops a hunk of raw meat in their hands."
He'd learned that lesson after the girls screamed, dropping perfectly good meat he'd spent time hunting and skinning. When he'd come back with the shiny things, they'd looked at him with huge eyes and he'd smelled fear-stink. It had angered him and confused him and so he'd gone back to Dmitri.
"I'm not going to hurt them."
"Unfortunately, they see you as a threat now. Start with the shiny things next time and skip the meat. If you smell fear on a woman, back off and don't return."
Dmitri's advice had worked. Some women liked the shiny things and they liked to be naked with him, but then he'd scared them in bed. Apparently, biting wasn't always allowed, and pounding into a woman's wetness wasn't always acceptable. Those women had pushed him off and screamed that he should be "gentle" and "courteous" and not "a feral beast." Irritated, he'd found others who didn't mind if he pounded or bit.
Today, many women said he was a good lover. What they didn't know was that ever since he'd realized what was and wasn't acceptable, he no longer unleashed his full desire, even with the women who didn't mind if he was rough: they couldn't take it. And with Andromeda . . . he was so deeply sexually hungry that he wanted to turn around and pounce on her, do all the sexual things he'd never before permitted himself.
A splash sounded behind him, accompanied by a startled little squeak-scream.
Grinning, he turned around and went to crouch at the water's edge.
16
"Hey!" Andromeda splashed water at him. "You're supposed to keep your back turned."
"I won't look under the water," he promised her as he got up to prowl along the edge of the pond. "Are you cold?"
Her teeth clattered as she said, "Fr-freezing. But the b-blood. Want it off. Rain wasn't enough."
Finding what he needed, he tore up a clump and went back to her. "Come here and I'll wash your hair."
Giving him a suspicious look, she nonetheless came over so that her back was braced against the edge. He knelt behind her and tapped her shoulder with a single claw. "Here. This grass will help you be clean." The smell was sharp, lemony.
"Oh!" She looked up and smiled at him and he felt good.
Crushing the grass he still held, he retracted his claws, then unraveled her braid and used the grass like a soap. He did it quickly because she was shivering so hard her bones were almost clattering against one another. "Angels are built for cold." For the icy places high above the earth.
"Just because we can stand it doesn't mean we all like it," she said, sounding grumpy.
"Go under and rinse your hair."
Taking a deep breath, she went under and stayed under for long enough to come back up with sleek, shining hair. "I hate the cold. I hate the cold. I hate the cold."
He looked around at the clothes she'd taken off. "Your clothes are all bloody." And there was nowhere for him to steal her more.
"Let's wash them. I don't mind wearing wet clothes. The reborn stink is horrible."
He found more of the lemony grass and mashed it up with her tunic before throwing it to her so she could wash it. He did the same with her pants and with the tiny panties that didn't smell like reborn, but like her. Warm and musky and feminine and making him want to lick her.
"Take off your T-shirt and I'll do that, too," she said as she rinsed out the clothes.
Ripping it off, he handed it to her while taking her wet things an
d throwing them over the branches of the trees around them. Then, deciding there was no reason to keep on his pants, he began to strip them off. It was as he went to empty his pockets that he realized his phone was gone, likely having fallen out during the fight with the reborn.
His family would worry if he didn't make contact; he'd do so at the first opportunity.
"Naasir!"
"Close your eyes." He growled without really meaning it. "There are no threats here and I want to be clean."
Her wings faced him as she said, "Yes, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made you wait so long."
Leaving his pants on the bank with a hunk of the grass, he dove naked into the pond. The icy temperature made him grit his teeth, but he loved being in water itself, loved the cool slide of it against his skin. Breaking the surface, he pushed back his hair and saw Andromeda's eyes on him. He grinned and swam over to her. "You're looking."
"I can't see in the dark." She tried to frown at him, but he could smell the heat on her skin, as if her blood had rushed to it. "Where are your pants?"
"On the bank," he said lazily, stealing some of the grass she was holding so he could scrub off the reborn stink.
"Turn around."
When he obeyed, she rewarded him by working the crushed grass through his hair. He leaned back, a deep sound rumbling in his chest. He felt her pause, but she started again a heartbeat later, her strong, clever fingers massaging his scalp. When she moved her hands to rub the grass over his shoulders and back, he felt his already-hard cock throb.
It was a good thing she couldn't see in the dark or she'd probably leave.
He didn't want her to leave; he wanted to play with her.
"Down." She pushed at his shoulders.
Going under, he washed out the grass from his hair. This time when he came back up, she was paddling over to grab his pants so she could wash them out. Her wings were spread out on the water, the blood having sluiced off, and he really, really, really wanted to touch. Sidling closer, he ran one hand over her primaries.
She jerked and shot him a look over her shoulder. "You know that's bad behavior."
Heading to the bank, he reached up and grabbing his wet but clean T-shirt, threw it at a tree. It hooked on a branch and opened out. The night air would dry it a little at least. "I'm often bad," he said honestly. "I like your wings."
Instead of continuing on the topic, her skin suddenly flushed red hot. "Um, here are your pants. I rinsed them out."
"Thank you." He knew it was polite to say that when someone did a nice thing for you. "Why are you red?"
She swam away instead of answering. Throwing his jeans toward a tree and managing to get them hanging over a branch, he swam after her, his pulse racing. Was she playing with him? But when he came up beside her after having dived under the water, she gasped. "You said you wouldn't look!"
"I didn't. I closed my eyes." It had been tempting to break his promise, but promises were to be kept. It was one of the first things Dmitri had taught him--by keeping his own promises.
"I'll bring you the cured meat you want when I return."
"Promise?"
"Yes."
Dmitri had been gone a long time in the child's mind--it must've been three months at least. Naasir hadn't forgotten the promise, but he hadn't really expected Dmitri to remember. He'd just been excited at the return of the man he saw as his father.
"Dmitri!" He pelted out the door, escaping the hapless vampire set to watch over him. "Dmitri! Dmitri!"
Strong arms grabbing him tight and lifting him off the ground, Dmitri's dark eyes sad even though his mouth smiled. Naasir didn't know why Dmitri was sad but he'd seen the way Dmitri's eyes began to warm after they were together for a while, so he knew he wasn't what made Dmitri sad.
"Have you been behaving, Naasir?"
Naasir ducked his head. "No." He'd eaten the school's pet bunny. He hadn't meant to--but it was right there in front of him and he'd been so hungry. "I'm in big trouble."
"Ah." Deep male laughter that made him look up and bare his teeth in a feral smile because he could see Dmitri wasn't angry. "You can tell me about it while you eat this."
Naasir took the package and tore it open to find the gift for which he'd asked. "You remembered!"
Sadness in his eyes again, Dmitri ruffled his hair. "A man keeps his promises, Naasir."
"Naasir?"
He shook off the memory of childhood to hold Andromeda's pretty, sparkly gaze. "I didn't look," he repeated. "If I look, it'll be because you invite me."
Cheeks hot, she smiled at him. "Want to race?"
"I'll beat you," he warned. "Your wings will slow you down."
"Give me a head start to make it competitive. You don't start until I'm halfway across."
Delighted at the idea of a private game with her, he nodded. "Okay." Elena had told him cheating was allowed when one party was weaker than the other in some way. As when they'd sparred, Andromeda was cheating, but it was the good kind of cheating. It meant they could play together.
When Andromeda struck out for the opposite end of the pond, he saw she was more graceful and faster than he'd expected. His mate had been keeping more secrets. Laughing inside at her trickiness, he waited until she was at the halfway point, then began to slice through the water. He'd been born knowing how to swim.
Having reached Andromeda, he could've overtaken her at any point, but he did something sneaky. He lowered his speed as if tired, so he could swim with her. And when they reached the end of the pond, he let her lunge out and grab the bank first. "I win!" she said, her whole face alight. "You owe me a forfeit."
"What do you want?" he asked, bracing his arms on the bank as she did the same beside him. "I have a treasure of shiny things."
"Really?" Her eyes widened but she shook her head. "I don't want a shiny thing this time--maybe next time I win."
Naasir liked the idea of more games.
"I want you to do something for me," she said.
"What?" He moved surreptitiously closer, so that her wing brushed his arm.
"Go with me to a dinner held by my parents."
Naasir blinked. Women liked to rut with him, but he'd never been invited home for dinner, and since Andromeda didn't want to lie with him, he didn't understand her request. Unless . . . "Do you want to shock your parents?" Naasir was different and unique. Many in the world wanted him for his skills, but he was also deeply other.
He accepted himself. His mate would have to accept him, too, not treat him as a freak.
Andromeda laughed as if he'd told a great joke.
Scowling, he began to get out of the water.
*
Seeing the water sluicing off Naasir's muscular body, Andromeda lost her mind for a second. Only when the upper curve of his buttocks was exposed did she squeak, and, placing a hand on the taut strength of his arm, hauled him back down. "You're naked!" she reminded him.
He shrugged, looking at her with silver eyes that glowed white-hot. "I don't care."
"Well, I do." Her heart was still racing at the sight of him. He was built like the most beautiful statue she'd ever seen, only he was flesh and blood.
"I'm cold. I want to be out."
She'd forgotten the cold, she'd been having so much fun with him. "Oh." Disappointment a lead weight in her stomach, she closed her eyes. "You can get out."
He didn't move. "Why did you laugh?"
"What?" Her eyes flicked open at his harsh tone.
Seeing the anger he made no effort to hide, she belatedly realized he'd taken her laughter in the wrong way. "My parents are incapable of being shocked," she admitted with a shrug that hid the echoes of childhood hurt. "Ever."
Expression altering to disbelieving fascination, Naasir leaned in close. "Even by me?"
"Even by you," she assured him. "If there is a debauched thing on this earth, they've indulged in it." Sex, brutal violence, rare narcotic substances, that was Lailah and Cato's way of life, their compulsive desire to do more, f
eel more, endless. "They'll probably proposition you."
Frown lines on his forehead. "But I would be with you."
"They have no boundaries." She thought of the young angel with whom she'd been in puppy love, of how she'd walked into the great living room one day to find him and her mother naked and in the midst of copulating. Her father had been sitting in an armchair watching while a male vampire sucked on his erect penis.
Her gorge rising, Andromeda had to go under the water to wash off the memory. Some things no child should ever have to see. The awful thing was that the nauseating incident had been far from the first or the only one. Andromeda had too many such images stored in her mind, images that she resolutely refused to think about, but that would not fade.
Taking position beside Naasir again after wiping the water off her face with one hand, she went too close. So close that her arm pressed into his and her wing touched his back . . . but he didn't push her away, instead looking at her with those wild eyes that were suddenly painfully incisive.
"I will not rut with your parents." A solemn promise. "That would hurt you and I will not hurt you."
Her eyes stung, her throat thick. She couldn't speak for a long time. When she did, her voice came out husky. "The dinner is technically in my honor. It's mandatory for those of my blood to return home on our four-hundredth birthday."
She knew she should tell him she wouldn't leave again for five hundred years, but the words stuck in her chest, hard and taunting. "I thought you'd make the dinner more fun."
Naasir's cheeks creased, his eyes glinting. "We'll have fun," he promised. "I'll bring your parents a present."
Her instincts shouted an alert. "Ah, Naasir--"
Laughing at her dubious tone, he pulled himself up and out of the water without warning. She saw the hard curve of his buttocks, the strong muscle of his thighs, the sleek strength of him as he stood on the bank and shook himself dry like a big cat. His silver hair glittered even in the darkness.
He began to turn toward her.
Skin so hot it seared her from the inside out, she forced herself to shut her eyes and go under the icy water, staying there until she was no longer in danger of combusting. When she came back up, she saw Naasir had pulled on his wet pants. He didn't look happy about it, though. Nostrils flaring, he picked up a couple of things he must've left on the ground and slid them back into his pockets, then examined his T-shirt and finally started to pull it on, no doubt figuring it'd dry faster on his body.