by Nalini Singh
Silver bands clasped his biceps, and on one wrist—
Sharine fought back a scowl. Had she thought of it, she’d have expected the sight of the thick heavy bracelet to be a kick to the stomach, but all she felt was a wave of irritation. Metalwork wasn’t her forte, but she’d spent an entire month working on the piece because she’d been so enamored of her—then—new love.
If she could go back in time . . . No, she wouldn’t slap herself. She’d be kind to the woman who’d never had a chance to heal from the first mental fracture before the second widened it to a dangerous fragility.
She’d been a hurt creature who’d thought the best of people. That didn’t make her weak. Because from that same inner empathy came her art. It existed in her to this day—what didn’t were the thinly papered-over cracks that had made her susceptible to Aegaeon’s surface charm.
“Sharine.” Aegaeon smiled, folding back wings of an intense dark green streaked with a wild blue that reminded her of Illium.
Their son, mischievous and loving, whom Aegaeon had abandoned.
“I assume you’re the reason Titus altered course?” His smile now cut grooves into his cheeks. “It’s good you made it clear to him that this is a private dinner—it’ll be a delight to speak and eat in quiet intimacy.”
When he went to reach for her, she said, “I can throw bolts of power now,” in a pleasant tone of voice. “Shall I separate your hand from your wrist?”
A snort of booming male laughter along the mental link from Titus.
Shh. I must concentrate, she chided even as the warmth of his laughter filled her blood. Quiet intimacy indeed! Aegaeon truly thought he could slip in sly insults about Titus and she’d permit it? Fool.
Aegaeon’s eyes narrowed before he dropped his hand and lowered his head in a slight bow. “I’m too eager, my love—I know I must earn your regard again. I can take nothing for granted.”
Sharine had no trouble seeing the truth he hid behind the pretty words. For whatever reason, Aegaeon had decided he wanted back the toys he’d thrown away as worthless. He wanted his son, who’d grown into a man any father would be proud to have by his side, and he wanted Sharine. Why?
For the simple reason that she was now desired by another?
Then he said, “You are astonishing.” Eyes as deep and evocative as the ocean held her own, the color so vibrant she could nearly hear the waves rolling to shore. “When I saw you on the screen, I fell all over again.”
I’m about to throw up.
Ignoring Titus’s sarcastic commentary, though it did make part of her want to laugh, she said, “I’m much the same as when you left.”
“No. You’re . . . awake and vibrant and dazzling in a way I can’t describe.” Opening out his arms, he stretched. “It’s been a long journey for me. Will you not offer me mead and bread?”
“No.”
Dark clouds thundered across his handsome features, all square-jawed and powerful, but then he gave a rueful tilt of the head. “You’re so angry with me, my pet.”
“No, I’m not.” Anger, she’d come to understand, tied her to him, and she’d much rather be free, the memory of him a venomous insect crushed under her heel. “But I do have a question.”
Forehead furrowed, Aegaeon said, “You wish to know why I went into Sleep as I did.” Shoving a hand through the thick fall of his hair, he swallowed hard. “Truly, my love, I raged at myself all my years of Sleep. You were the only one of whom I dreamed.”
His expression was torn and ragged, his shoulders taut. “I loved you too much,” he ground out. “Until it frightened me to the bone. So I chose the cruelest possible way to push you away.” Rough words, his face shredded with emotion. “It makes me a coward, but I hope, in time, you’ll find a way to forgive me and see the insanity of love that drove my actions.”
Sharine stared at Aegaeon. “That’s it? That’s the best excuse you could come up with for being such a colossal ass?”
Aegaeon’s jaw fell open. “My pet, what has gotten into you?”
“Tell me the truth.” A flat demand. “Why did you do it? Why did you seek to re-create the two most horrific moments of my existence? Why?”
He stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “I’m not lying. I am Aegaeon! I don’t lie!”
No, he simply used and threw away people when he was done. Do you think he actually believes what he’s saying to me? She had to ask for an outside opinion, she was so flummoxed by this strange turn of events.
Titus’s answer wasn’t the disgust she’d expected. Instead, after a long pause, he said, I think, Shari, some part of you did scare him, for you are a woman with a rare light within. I don’t believe Aegaeon can love anyone but himself, not in truth, but there was something about you that made him want to be other than he was . . . and instead of taking that risk, he chose cowardice and cruelty.
Sharine heard an unmasked depth of feeling in Titus’s words, but she also heard a painful clarity. “What was the trigger?” she asked Aegaeon with conscious gentleness, not to be kind, but because she needed him to stop blustering and give her an answer.
His jaw worked before he turned away and strode to the end of the roof then back. “I began to think what it would be like to have another child and soon I started to want it,” he admitted. “Where before, I could imagine siring that child on any one of my harem, then I saw only you.”
All artifice and vanity stripped from his face, he bunched his hands, flexed them open. Once. Twice. “Our son was a delight, courageous and wild and curious, because of you. You were the reason for my joy.”
Sharine believed him. He’d orchestrated an act of inexplicable cruelty because he’d been running from his own emotions. “Yes,” she said at last, her voice soft. “You were a coward.”
He flinched, as if she’d landed a physical blow, and she knew that to Aegaeon, her words were more vicious and wounding than any cut from a blade. But she wasn’t done. “I feel no anger toward you any longer,” she said, “but neither do I feel any sense of love or affection or even interest.”
Her world was now far bigger than he would ever be; she’d outgrown Aegaeon for all that he was an Ancient. There was an incredible sense of finality in that knowledge.
“But,” she added before he could respond, “if you do anything to hurt our son, I will find a way to end you.” Absolute calm in her words because they were the truth. “I know archangels can only be killed by other archangels, but should I come after you, I won’t meet you face-to-face in battle.
“I’ll be cunning and stealthy in my vengeance, and I’ll find you when you believe yourself safe. Then I’ll cut off your head and put that head in a dark cavern where no one can hear you scream, and I’ll come back every so often to chop off any parts that have regenerated.”
Titus’s stifled laughter inside her head was nothing in comparison to the naked horror on Aegaeon’s face.
“You are yet mad,” he whispered. “I thought you were recovered, but . . .”
Sharine smiled.
One of the most powerful beings in the world took a step back from her.
“I’m quite sane,” she said in the same gentle tone filled with serene resolve. “I also have the respect of people from members of the Cadre to the most junior servant in your court. My threat isn’t an empty one. Cross me, and you’ll spend eternity screaming into the void.”
Aegaeon’s face flushed, his wings beginning to glow. “I can end you here and now.”
Shari, I’m flying to you.
“Yes.” Sharine looked at Aegaeon without fear, knowing she had to end this soon—she had no desire to embroil Titus in another battle. “If you wish to be an outcast shunned by our people for all eternity.” She was no longer the needy woman who’d fallen for his blandishments; she knew her own worth and she understood that kindness reverberated through time.
“This isn’t about violence or power, Aegaeon.” This time her smile held an edge of sadness. “It’s about two people who once could’ve been something, but will never again have that chance.”
A shifting in his expression, a hint of the man she’d seen at times during their relationship. The man who’d played for hours with their little boy and who’d looked at her with eyes full of wonder. “So, this is to be my penance. To see you glow and know I will never again be in your orbit.”
Then, to her absolute astonishment, he bent at the waist in a bow an archangel gave no one. It swayed nothing in her, but she accepted that the gesture was one with meaning.
“Good-bye, Sharine.”
“Good-bye, Aegaeon.”
I want to drive my fist into his face, came a deep male voice in her head.
He’ll enjoy it, Sharine said. It’ll reignite his belief that I foster lingering emotions for him, causing you to act out in jealousy. She watched Aegaeon’s wings disappear into the night-dark sky. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
An ominous silence.
Sharine said nothing further. Titus had to make this decision for himself. When he landed on the roof a good hour later, she was ready to strip off his skin with her tongue. She’d handled the situation, and in a way that she knew would bite at Aegaeon for eons to come.
Rejection and disinterest were two things her former lover couldn’t take.
First, she looked Titus up and down. He appeared none the worse for wear. Folding her arms, she tapped her foot. “What did you do?”
He put his hands on his hips. “Nothing. I only followed the donkey at a distance to ensure he was indeed departing the territory.” A definite hint of sulkiness twined with real anger. “I will punch him one day, be assured of it, for he’ll show his ass again.” Dark eyes landing on her. “But today was your victory. I wouldn’t assault a man when he was already bleeding so grievously.”
How had she once thought him without charm? There it was, packaged in a scowl and all the more potent for being so rough and honest.
Walking across to him, she “fixed” the collar of his shirt, wanting only to be close to the vivid heat of his body.
When he said, “Fly with me,” she spread her wings.
48
The vise around Titus’s chest grew ever more agonizingly tight as they flew. He’d already taken out his gift; it now burned a hole in his palm. Leading them away from the village and past Lumia’s scouts, he flew toward skies that were private and dark but for the starlight.
This, what he was about to do, it needed no audience.
If she would break his heart, he’d rather bear the blow in private. It had nothing to do with pride and everything to do with pain—he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide it, not at the first feeling. His people were already battered and bruised. They didn’t need to see their archangel’s devastation.
When he landed, it was in an area uninhabited by either mortals or immortals, long golden grasses brushing against his calves and the landscape a rolling emptiness on all sides, all the way to a lake in the far distance that was a patch of cool dark. Sharine landed a few meters distant, where the grass was shorter and less apt to catch on her dress. He walked to her through the golden strands, to this extraordinary woman who’d caught him in a net she hadn’t thrown.
He was caught just the same.
When he lifted his hand to cup her cheek, she leaned into it, but her eyes, lovely and penetrating, didn’t break from his.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, the words rough. “You’ve made a hole in my heart and it causes me pain when you aren’t there to fill it.”
“It’ll pass.” Husky words. “Has it not always before?”
“No.” He knew that to the bottom of his soul. “I’ve never had a hole inside me. It’s permanent and it aches.”
“What of all the butterflies in the world? What of all the other lovers you could have?”
The answer was breathtakingly easy. “They won’t be you.” He’d been approached more than once in the time since they’d been apart, both by warriors and by civilians, all with a smile and with affection.
He’d had no desire to dance with any of them.
The hole in his heart was in a very particular shape and it could be filled by only one person. “I find myself turning to tell you clever thoughts, but you aren’t there. I wake wishing to kiss you, and sometimes, I even wake wanting to hear you flaying me to shreds with your tongue.”
No laughter, and none of the biting wit with which she’d so successfully destroyed Aegaeon. A champagne gaze that gave nothing away. “Do you ask me to be your lover for more than the now?”
Shaking his head, Titus dropped his hand from her cheek to go down on one knee among the grasses. His heart pounded, his mouth ran dry, and his sense of being exactly where he wished to be was so resonant that it felt as if he was bound to the universe itself.
“No, Shari,” he said. “Though I’ll be your lover any day you wish, what I ask is for you to be my consort.” He opened out his hand, in which lay a fine golden chain, at the end of which hung a pendant made of amber in the shape of a hummingbird soaring in flight.
* * *
* * *
. . . be my consort.
Sharine’s mind emptied of all thought, Titus the center of her universe. He was extraordinary, her Titus, strong and loyal and with a heart so huge it encompassed his entire territory.
He was also honest to a fault.
And he’d just asked her to be his consort.
She sank into the grass in front of him. “Titus.” Cupping his face, she kissed him with all the passion—and yes, love—in her heart. She’d fallen for this brash, blunt hammer of an archangel despite all her plans to the contrary, and she wouldn’t lie to herself about that, either.
Wrapping her in his arms, he crushed her close, devouring her mouth. Breathless in the aftermath, she nevertheless shook her head when he beamed a smile that engulfed her in its love, and went to put the necklace around her neck.
“Shari, you can’t kiss a man so, then reject him.” Open anguish.
“It’s no rejection.” She touched her hand to his jaw, unable to bear to wound the huge heart that loved her. “I’ll wear your amber so the world knows my heart is taken.”
The vise around Titus’s chest began to ease its grip at last. “Do you love me? Tell me, then.”
A glow in eyes that shouldn’t glow, their beauty incandescent. “I love you, Titus, Archangel of Africa.” In her voice were tones he’d never before heard, layers of love that wrapped around him with primal sensual intimacy.
“Don’t ever use that voice with anyone else,” he grumbled, “or you’ll break my heart, and I’ll break them.”
Laughter, as sensual and as addicting. “I’ll always protect your heart, for it’s mine now.” A slender hand pressed to that very organ, her voice unbending on her next words. “You, too, will wear my amber—a single piece, embedded into your breastplate.”
Titus puffed out his chest, his hands on her hips, and a smile curving his lips. “You can embed within it as many pieces of amber as you like.” He’d never budge in his devotion to her.
Running the back of her hand over his jaw, she said, “I’m not ready to be your consort.” A finger pressed to his lips. “Consorts must be aware of politics, must undertake certain duties. I can’t, not only because I watch over Lumia, but because I’ve barely awakened. I can’t be your consort before I’m complete in myself as Sharine.”
“Shari, if you grow any more radiant, I shall burn up in your light.” He pressed his forehead to her own. “But if you need a millennium or three to be ready to stand officially at my side, so be it.”
As long as she wore his amber.
As long as she made him wear hers.
“I’m telling yo
u now, so you can’t accuse me of falsehoods later,” he said, because he’d never lie to her, “but I’ll treat you as I would my consort, and though you don’t take the title, the world will know who you are to me.” He couldn’t hide it; he wasn’t built that way.
Sharine searched his face. “Will it not cause you hurt if angelkind questions why I don’t take the title of Consort?”
“No. All I care about is your love.” His pride in being loved by her was a thing so huge, it could withstand endless raised eyebrows and pointed questions. “As long as you’re my Shari, and I’m your Titus, I’ll be an archangel who struts about like a cock in the roost.”
Joyous laughter from his love, her kiss soft and wet and deep.
Groaning, he allowed her to pull him down over her, so that he lay braced above her as she lay on the grasses.
“I accept your intentions,” she said in that voice private and for him alone. “I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be ready to be your consort, and I’ll push back firmly against anyone’s attempt to make me fill that role, but I’ll always be your Shari.”
Titus’s heart boomed, loud as thunder.
When he went to put the necklace on this time, she lifted her head to make it easier for him. The hummingbird settled perfectly in the hollow of her throat. Smug and happy, he lifted the pendant to press a kiss to that hollow.
Hand on his neck, she murmured, “You do know the amber in your breastplate is going to be in the shape of a hummingbird, don’t you?”
He groaned, but it was half-hearted at best, his delight too obvious to hide. Her dancing eyes said she knew that well. Pushing at his chest until he’d moved aside, she rose to her feet and reached up to the shoulder clasps of her gown.
A second later, it fell to her feet in a pool of starlight, her body nude under the moonlight but for the gossamer fabric that covered her mound. Stepping out of her slippers, she held his eyes as she removed the final barrier between his gaze and her body.
Then she stretched, a small goddess with gentle curves and hair that tumbled a golden black rain down her back, her eyes aglow in a way that said she was a rare and powerful creature. He wasn’t aware of getting up, wasn’t aware of stripping. But his skin burned against hers when he clasped her hips and bent his head to kiss her throat.
