"Our situations are very different below the surface." Andromeda had hoped when she'd heard about the union, dug up everything she could about the princess. "The service requirement is specific to my grandfather's court."
"I hate vows," Naasir muttered. "Now that we're mated, you can't make any more."
"How about if I vow to love you forever?" A soft question.
"That one is allowed." He nipped at her nose. "I love you, too, even if you keep taking stupid vows I have to break."
She bared her teeth at him. "I didn't choose this one." Anger made her voice rough. "I don't want to go, but if I don't, Charisemnon will declare me an outcast with a price on my head. Even if Raphael doesn't care about the blood vow, someone will--or they'll just want the bounty. I'll be hunted the rest of my life." And Naasir would be hunted with her. "That's no kind of life."
"What about your father?"
"Cato would never go against his archangel."
Naasir's silver eyes locked with her own. "You know Cato isn't your father in blood. Why are you pretending otherwise? Even had Dahariel not given you an uncommon amount of attention, your wings bear markings a step removed from his."
Andromeda looked away, but Naasir gripped her jaw, made her meet his gaze again. Surrendering, she admitted the truth. "I was so happy when I realized," she confessed. "I thought he was brave and strong and intelligent--and he is, but he's also capable of gross cruelty."
She took a ragged breath. "Ten years before I left for the Refuge, I walked into a room in my parents' home and saw him torturing a mortal boy who was barely of age." It had shattered Andromeda, left her heart in pieces on the floor, the hope inside her snuffed out. "He meant for me to know," she whispered. "He could see the stars in my eyes and he wanted to erase them, to show me his true colors." To teach her that though he wasn't lost in a compulsive search for sensation like her parents, he was as pitilessly jaded.
Andromeda had begged him to let the mortal go. The man who was her father in blood had simply raised an eyebrow and flicked the whip once more on the boy's back, making him whimper as blood trickled down his ravaged skin.
A soft heart can be a fatal weakness in the immortal world, a lure for the predators. If you want to survive, you'd do well to learn from my example.
Andromeda had thrown up instead.
"Dahariel is a bastard," Naasir agreed. "But he is also Astaad's second and can request sanctuary for you. No one will interfere as you are his child."
Andromeda knew he was right; the archangels and old angels would deem it a private family matter since Dahariel--and thus Astaad--had as much right to her as Charisemnon. "I asked him," she admitted in a small voice. "Fifty years ago." She'd been desperate enough to chance the humiliation, knowing that though Dahariel was cruel, Astaad's court was nothing like Charisemnon's.
Naasir's expression hardened. "He said no to his own cub? Angels love their children."
"I think he does love me in his own twisted way." That was what made his abandonment hurt all the more. "He told me he'd given me what he was capable of giving and that he'd continue to train me, but in every other way, I was on my own."
"A lot has changed in fifty years."
"Yet he's never made the offer, though I have seen him many times for our combat sessions." She stroked back Naasir's hair. "I don't think the bond ever formed deep enough for him to claim me as his own--he didn't realize I was his until almost fifty years after my birth, when my wings settled into their final adult pattern. By then . . . it was too late for him to see me as a babe." To feel the protective instincts of a parent.
"So you want me to wait five hundred years?"
Yes. "I can't demand that," she said aloud even as her soul tore in two.
He growled at her, so loud and angry that she startled. "Are you going to rut with others in Charisemnon's court?"
"No!" She pushed at his shoulders but he refused to move. "Why would you say such a horrible thing?"
"Why would you say I shouldn't wait for you?" It was a snarl. "If you're mine, you're mine. And I'm yours. Today, tomorrow, always."
Andromeda began to cry. Hard, gulping sobs that held all her pain, all her love, all her dreams. Rolling over onto his back, Naasir crushed her close and made purring sounds in his chest as he stroked her hair and her back. "I'm sorry I growled at you," he said, nuzzling at her. "I wouldn't hurt you."
"I know," she got out through her tears.
Sniffing away the last of the tears several minutes later, she just lay against him. "I wasn't crying because of that. I was crying because you're wonderful and I can't bear to think of leaving you."
"There must be a way."
"It's a blood vow."
"I'm a chimera who was made of a small, fierce boy and an equally small, equally fierce cat. I can think of a way out." He wasn't going to let his mate end up in the court of the Archangel of Plague and Disease.
49
A day later, however, he had to watch her leave for that very court.
"Five hundred years," she said, one hand on his chest, over the heart that beat for her. "Will you truly wait?"
"If I have to," he said, taking her mouth in a ravenous kiss. "But I won't. Watch for me. I'll be coming to get you." He fisted both hands in her hair. "Stay alive." He knew the ugly rules of Charisemnon's court, knew the horrors she'd face.
"I will," she promised, but in her eyes, he saw the knowledge that it might not be enough.
Death had many forms. Not all were of the body.
50
A week after that parting, Andromeda couldn't help looking out through the balcony doors of her bedroom and out over the landscape. She knew it was impossible for her wild chimera to find an answer to a blood vow owed an archangel, but she waited nonetheless. He'd sneak in to see her as soon as he could, that she knew beyond all doubt, though they'd had zero communication since they parted.
Andromeda didn't dare carry a phone. It could be taken from her, and once taken, Charisemnon would know Naasir was her heart, not a simple sexual dalliance. Her grandfather would find a way to use that, to twist the pure into the ugly.
Five hundred years.
She would fight to survive . . . but she might not come out the same on the other side.
Today, her grandfather had summoned her for a special task. She'd seen the vampire staked out in the courtyard, seen the implements of torture, knew she would not pick up those implements. So they would be turned against her.
Because she was a princess of the court, her naked body would be staked out in a dungeon, not in public. And her torture wouldn't be at inexpert hands, but at the hands of Charisemnon's Master Torturer. The tall, thin angel's aim would be to break her piece by piece. Until she became like Cato, like Lailah.
Daughter and fosterling raised side by side.
Empty shells repainted in Charisemnon's image.
For the first time, she understood that perhaps her parents were together because no one else could understand what they'd survived. A broken kind of love, but love nonetheless.
Gut churning and skin going hot, then cold, she put on her uniform: dark brown pants and a lighter brown tunic with the pattern of a tree printed in black down the front left side--the same kind of tree under which she'd loved with Naasir. The memory a secret held inside her, she pulled her hair back into a tight braid and strapped on her sword.
No more time.
Naasir. Fight for Naasir. Don't allow them to steal him from you.
She stepped out, striding down the hallways into Charisemnon's inner court. The smell of alcohol, as well as of strong narcotic substances that had an effect on immortal physiology, lingered in the air, a number of courtiers still slumped over the tables where they'd been last night.
Wings trailed limply on the sticky floor, and a glutted vampire slept on a chaise longue with his arm possessively around a slender mortal boy who couldn't have been more than sixteen. Hearing a grunt, she looked up and saw one of her grandfather
's angelic generals copulating with a female vampire who already bore bruises from his meaty grip, but who seemed to be enjoying being fucked on a dining table.
Carrying on through the court without stopping, skirting sleeping and fallen bodies and ignoring slurred propositions, she walked to the great doors beyond. Carved with exquisite care and inlaid with gold and precious stones, the doors were as striking as her grandfather's heart was rotten. The guards--sharp eyed and alert--opened them for her at once, and she continued on to the inner sanctum.
She swallowed her revulsion before pushing through the unguarded door at the end, having to fight her way through hanging silk curtains to the bedroom. Charisemnon lay in bed, his previously healthy and muscled body shriveled and marked with scars. The disease he'd spread had turned on him like a vicious dog. The fact he was regaining his health, regardless, was no surprise.
He was, after all, an archangel.
The scars would eventually fade. The rumpled mahogany silk of his thinned-out hair would thicken, his muscle mass return. He'd be a beautiful man on the outside again, a dark-haired archangel with skin of deep gold and eyes the same shade but for slivers of brown within, his flawlessly shaped lips lush with sensual promise.
Mortal and immortal alike did not always wear their ugliness on their skin.
Keeping her eyes scrupulously off the barely budded girls who lay naked around Charisemnon, Andromeda looked straight into her grandfather's face. "Sire," she said, the address sticking in her throat.
"Ah, my dear Andromeda," Charisemnon replied in a voice that had gone scratchy after his illness. "My steward tells me you are settling in."
"Yes, sire."
Charisemnon didn't immediately respond, distracted by a girl who'd awakened. Those girls, Charisemnon's young concubines, were so brainwashed that they would stab each other in the back to stay in his good graces.
When they became too old for his tastes, the girls became courtiers and ladies' maids who groomed other girls to take their place. It sickened Andromeda, but she could see no way to stop it. She'd tried speaking to the newer crop of girls, offered to find them a way out, but they'd laughed and told her they felt lucky to be in the court.
"If I serve the sire," one pretty child had said, "my value will increase when it comes time for marriage. My husband will be honored to marry me."
The sad thing was that she was right: Charisemnon had conditioned his people to accept his perversions as honor. All Andromeda could do was keep watch for any girl who didn't appear to be so willing. If and when that happened, she'd find a way to help her.
"I have a task for you, granddaughter," Charisemnon said, one hand on the newly blossoming breast of the child in bed with him.
Nausea twisted her gut. "Sire." All she had to do was stay alive. If she was alive, there was hope. Naasir was fighting for her. She'd fight for him. Until her last breath, she'd fight and she'd hold on to her sanity and her soul.
"Hmm." Charisemnon's smile was twisted. "I had intended for you to prove your bloodline to the court this morning, for none of my line can be seen as weak."
"You have witnessed my skill with the sword."
Charisemnon waved that away. "You are known as a scholar. A princess of the court needs be more ruthless."
Sweat broke out along Andromeda's spine. "Yes, sire."
"As I say, that was my plan, but it'll have to wait for your return."
Andromeda didn't feel any relief at the reprieve, aware worse could be waiting. "My return?"
"It appears Alexander wishes to speak to you."
Too stunned and off-balance to hide it, she just stared at her grandfather.
Charisemnon's smile deepened, as if he enjoyed her shock. "He feels you deserve a reward for your part in saving him."
Chest tight and skin cold, Andromeda stepped carefully. "My actions did not have a deleterious effect on your relationship with the Archangel Lijuan?" She'd been waiting for that particular ax to fall since her return.
Charisemnon pushed away the girls. Trained and obedient, they slipped out of bed and headed out without anything to cover their naked flesh. Leaving the bed himself while she averted her eyes, Charisemnon pulled on a robe the color of aged merlot and turned to her.
"It could have and you will be disciplined for not clearing your actions with me," he said, and all at once, he was no longer a man with sickening appetites but an archangel, his power blinding. "However, as Alexander clearly has gentle feelings for you, there's no reason we can't capitalize on that."
"You wish for me to cultivate Alexander?" she asked, her expression polite and respectful, though she felt as if she was attempting to balance on a tightrope so thin, it cut into the soles of her feet. "Would that not anger Lijuan and threaten your alliance?"
"Alexander is an Ancient." Charisemnon poured himself a drink from an opaque bottle. "If we can gain his favor, Lijuan becomes less important."
Andromeda didn't fool herself that her grandfather was taking her into his confidence. "Of course, sire."
Charisemnon's lips flattened after he put down the glass, his eyes chips of ice. "Lijuan should never have taken a child of my bloodline, and she should've informed me of her plans for Alexander."
Ah. Andromeda knew she meant nothing to Charisemnon as a person, but as a symbol of his rule, yes. Lijuan had crossed a line there. But even that, she suspected, wouldn't have been enough without the latter transgression.
Tightening the robe of his belt, Charisemnon sneered. "I would have been able to ensure the success of the mission. She was a fool to disregard me."
"Yes, sire." Andromeda waited to see if there was anything further, but Charisemnon dismissed her after stating that Alexander would be at her parents' home the next day and she was to fly there today in readiness.
Fighting not to throw up in relief at the temporary stay of torture, Andromeda left at once, turning down an offer of an escort from the Master of the Guard. She was a warrior scholar and the mate of a wild chimera; she could get herself from one side of the territory to the other without guards.
Taking off, she stayed below the white cotton-candy clouds, low enough that she could see the lands over which she flew. It took about thirty minutes to get out of the city at the center of which stood Charisemnon's sprawling stronghold, and into the wilderness of this awe-inspiring territory. A herd of antelope ran below her for at least a mile, as if racing her shadow, and she saw elephants walking with regal pomp, hippos swimming in the rivers, groups of baboons chattering and fighting below the widely spaced trees.
Her heart swelled.
It seemed so unjust that all this bounty lay in Charisemnon's disease-causing hands. If life were fair, he would have a land as barren as his soul, and Lijuan's black rain wouldn't manifest with the beauty of black diamonds glimmering with water.
Sweeping along an updraft, she forced her mind off that dark path, instead filling her thoughts with Naasir's love for her homeland. He'd told her he snuck in as often as he could, just to run with the animals. She loved that, loved that someone so courageous and honorable and pure found pleasure in this land. He should be the one in charge of this territory--though he probably wouldn't want the job.
She stopped for a while on the shore of a small lake that rippled with sunlight, loathe to spend any more time in her parents' home than necessary. It was better than Charisemnon's court, but better was a matter of degrees. Her sympathy for Lailah and Cato's childhood didn't extend to the vileness they meted out.
Night had fallen by the time she finally arrived, and though she tried to sleep, she spent the night on the roof, staring up at the stars. "Naasir," she whispered, her faith in his love the foundation of her new existence. "I miss you, my heart."
He didn't appear out of the savanna this time, didn't tumble her to the earth.
There was only the night and the silence.
*
Early the next morning, she flew out to perch on a hill and watched the skies turn from whi
spering gray to light-shattered dawn, then to a dusty, soft blue seen nowhere else on this earth. If she could, she'd meet Alexander out here. But when the archangel appeared in the sky ninety minutes later, his wings glinting in the sunlight in a way that brought Naasir vividly to mind and choked her throat with longing, he dipped his wings to show he saw her, but carried on to her parents' stronghold.
Andromeda forced herself to do the same.
Unlike Andromeda's simple sea-green tunic and tapered black pants, Lailah and Cato had come out dressed in formal clothing. Andromeda made the introductions, hoping she was following the correct protocols. She'd never had reason to learn how to introduce an Ancient to other powerful angels, but since no one censured her, she must've muddled through it.
"Please," her mother said, leading Alexander into the formal receiving area, elegant and hung with priceless artworks.
It took Andromeda a few minutes to realize both Lailah and Cato were intimidated by Alexander.
"Your daughter put her life on the line to save mine," Alexander was saying, his body clad in the clothes of a warrior, the colors charcoal gray and stark black. "I'm not a man who forgets such things."
"She has always been strong, always had a will more formidable than many an adult."
Astonished and startled at the pride she heard in her mother's tone, Andromeda stared at her, but Lailah had already returned her attention to Alexander. Her face was fine boned in profile, her smooth skin of dark honey flawless, and her tightly curled hair worn in a graceful updo.
Beside Lailah, Cato appeared ghostly pale, his skin having never held the warmth of the sun and his eyes a washed-out blue that were nonetheless haunting in their beauty. Fine blond hair fell to his shoulders, his face one that many an artist had sketched. They always drew him as an innocent.
"Yes," Alexander said into the small quiet that had fallen. "Your child is strong for one of her age and has enough courage to shoot a crossbow at one archangel to save another." A faint smile. "It is for that reason I would like her in my new court."
Andromeda froze.