Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter)

by Nalini Singh

  Caliane inclined her head as Raphael grabbed Illium before he would’ve toppled backward as he straightened from the bow. “Sit, child,” Raphael’s mother ordered. “You are damaged.”

  Illium didn’t argue.

  “Damaged?” Elena’s tone was sharp. “Is it something we need to worry about?”

  “No. He should recover now that the power is out of him.” Caliane leaned back in her seat, her hair pulled back in a braid and her body clad in old combat leathers much like Elena. “Though the angel in my youth died, there were rumors of another young angel who ascended too early but who survived because he had a bond of blood—and of trust—with his archangel. He was weak after the power transfer, but made a complete recovery.”

  She looked at Raphael. “The archangel, however, gained in strength.”

  Raphael felt his blood cool. “I don’t intend to steal what is rightfully Illium’s.” He’d done what he had only to save Illium’s life.

  “You may have it, sire. I insist.”

  Ignoring Illium’s slurred words, Raphael held his mother’s gaze. “I can’t forcefully stop his ascension if this is what he’s meant to become.”

  “The sudden ascensions of the too young occur only during a Cascade,” Caliane pointed out. “On all three occasions that I know of, the angel in question was either an archangel’s second or otherwise in his innermost circle.”

  “You think the power transfer is the point.” Coming over so she could look at the screen, Elena stood with her body and her wings touching Raphael’s in a quiet, potent intimacy. “But what if Raphael hadn’t been here?”

  “The Cascade is never predictable, Consort,” Caliane said, a sense of crushing age in her voice. “There’s no way to foretell if such an incident will reoccur, or if it was the only time and the boy is no longer in any danger.” Her eyes held Raphael’s. “All I can tell you is that if you don’t take the power, he’ll die and he’ll take tens of thousands with him. There is no other possible outcome.”

  “The fact you can even absorb the power,” Elena said slowly, “that’s got to mean something, right?”

  Caliane raised an eyebrow. “A salient point. A true ascension does not permit any interference, not even by the strongest Ancient.”

  They spoke further, but Caliane knew little else. Signing off, Raphael turned to find that Illium had struggled to his feet again. His face was stripped of all shields, suddenly unbearably young. “I’m not ready,” he said again, his voice shaken. “I’m not ready to leave your Seven.”

  Grabbing him by the side of his neck as he had earlier, Raphael hauled him into his arms. “I’m not ready for you to go.” His eyes met Elena’s over Illium’s head as the blue-winged angel held on tight. My mother is right. Now is not his time. Illium would become a power one day, but he had to grow into that strength, not have it forced into him by the violence of the Cascade.

  Beside Elena stood a white-faced Aodhan. He’ll need you now more than ever, Aodhan, Raphael said. Keep him in the present, not in a future that may or may not happen.

  Eyes of fractured blue and crystalline green, the shards bursting outward from jet-black pupils met Raphael’s. Yes, sire.

  Releasing Illium only after the younger angel had stopped trembling, Raphael looked into eyes that were back to their usual bright gold, devoid of the dark red flame. “Go to your suite. Rest. We’ll speak more when you wake—but know one thing. If this happens again, I’ll be there.”

  “Lady Caliane said it’s unpredictable.”

  “If the power transfer is the point as it seems to be,” Raphael pointed out, “it’ll occur while I’m nearby.”

  Illium’s shuddering relief was suddenly overwhelmed by an emotion that drew his skin tight over his cheekbones. “My mother—”

  “I’ve already told Dmitri to make sure the Hummingbird knows you’re safe and that what happened today was a simple experiment to do with your abilities and mine, gone a little awry.” Illium’s mother was still in Raphael’s territory, but she’d gone to visit with Jason and Mahiya today. “Jason will confirm and keep her away from any recordings that may have been captured.”

  The blue-winged angel’s eyes shone wet. “Thank you, sire. She . . .”

  “I will watch over her, Illium.” Raphael would never be ungentle with the Hummingbird. “Now go.”

  Waiting until the younger angel left the room, Aodhan acting as his support, Raphael turned to Elena. “So long as Illium is safe, the Hummingbird will accept a vague explanation, but we need to find a way to explain this to the wider immortal world as something other than an ascension.” Should any of the Cadre believe Illium a weak archangel, he’d become a target.

  “I have an idea.” Dmitri ran into the office. “I’ve been working on it since the instant I saw you fly toward Illium.” Raphael’s second thrust a hand through his hair, his black T-shirt stretching over his chest. “All anyone really saw was Illium and you speed up into the sky. The images taken via telescopes and satellites just show a blinding haze of light.” He put several printed images on Honor’s desk.

  Each showed a glow painful enough to cause flickering afterimages on the retinas. No way to tell who was inside the light.

  “I’ll allow it to leak that you and Illium were testing a power transfer like Lijuan can do with her troops.” Dmitri’s tone was clear, his features grim. “I’ll also let it drop that it went wrong and Illium lost the power in an uncontrolled surge that caused the rain and lightning. No one’s going to forget the sheer fury of the incident—failed experiment or not, you’re clearly no easy target.” A short pause before his lips curved in a grim smile. “The belief that you’ve been running dangerous experiments with him will also answer the lingering questions about his earlier fall.”

  “Do it.” Raphael had appreciated Dmitri’s tactical mind many times over the centuries, but never more than today. “No one wants to accept that an angel barely over five hundred years old could ascend. All we have to do is provide an alternative explanation.”

  Elena picked up one of the photographs after Dmitri left. “Raphael, is it my imagination or are you stronger?”

  Of course, his consort would feel the change. They were too intimately entwined for it to be otherwise. “What I drew from Illium didn’t leach off. It’s become woven into my body, an auxiliary generator of a kind.”

  Dropping the photograph, Elena faced him, her boots touching his. “If Caliane’s power transfer theory is right, then Illium became more temporarily because you need more power than you can generate on your own.” She spread one hand protectively over his heart, brushing the thumb of her other over his right temple, over the Legion mark. “Something bad is coming. Worse than before.”

  Enclosing her in his wings and his arms, Raphael didn’t say anything. They both knew she was right.

  Eleven archangels.

  A dangerous near ascension that could’ve annihilated an entire city.

  Two Ancients walking the earth.

  An archangel who could give a twisted form of life.

  The Cascade was gathering momentum.

  Beijing was already gone. New York and Elijah’s territory had barely survived. No one could predict how much of the world would be left standing when the Cascade ended.

  “Together, hbeebti.”

  “Always, Archangel.”

  Turn the page for an excerpt from

  Slave to Sensation

  the first book in Nalini Singh’s bestselling Psy-Changeling series.

  And don’t forget to visit her website and join her newsletter for up-to-date information on her next books, as well as free short stories set in the Guild Hunter and Psy-Changeling worlds.

  Sascha Duncan couldn’t read a single line of the report flickering across the screen of her handheld organizer. A haze of fear clouded her vision, insulating her from the cold efficiency of her mother’s office. Even the sound of Nikita wrapping up a call barely penetrated her numbed mind.

  S
he was terrified.

  This morning, she’d woken to find herself curled up in bed, whimpering. Normal Psy did not whimper, did not show any emotion, did not feel. But Sascha had known since childhood that she wasn’t normal. She’d successfully hidden her flaw for twenty-six years but now things were going wrong. Very, very wrong.

  Her mind was deteriorating at such an accelerating rate that she’d begun experiencing physical side effects—muscle spasms, tremors, an abnormal heart rhythm, and those ragged tears after dreams she never recalled. It would soon become impossible to conceal her fractured psyche. The result of exposure would be incarceration at the Center. Of course no one called it a prison. Termed a “rehabilitation facility,” it provided a brutally efficient way for the Psy to cull the weak from the herd.

  After they were through with her, if she was lucky she’d end up a drooling mess with no mind to speak of. If she wasn’t so fortunate, she’d retain enough of her thinking processes to become a drone in the vast business networks of the Psy, a robot with just enough neurons functioning to file the mail or sweep the floors.

  The feel of her hand tightening on the organizer jolted her back to reality. If there was one place she couldn’t break down, it was here, sitting across from her mother. Nikita Duncan might be her blood but she was also a member of the Psy Council. Sascha wasn’t sure that if it came down to it, Nikita wouldn’t sacrifice her daughter to keep her place on the most powerful body in the world.

  With grim determination, she began to reinforce the psychic shields that protected the secret corridors of her mind. It was the one thing she excelled at and by the time her mother finished her call, Sascha exhibited as much emotion as a sculpture carved from arctic ice.

  “We have a meeting with Lucas Hunter in ten minutes. Are you ready?” Nikita’s almond-shaped eyes held nothing but cool interest.

  “Of course, Mother.” She forced herself to meet that direct gaze without flinching, trying not to wonder if her own was as unrevealing. It helped that, unlike Nikita, she had the night-sky eyes of a cardinal Psy—an endless field of black scattered with pinpricks of cold white fire.

  “Hunter is an alpha changeling so don’t underestimate him. He thinks like a Psy.” Nikita turned to bring up her computer screen, a flat panel that slid up and out from the surface of her desk.

  Sascha called up the relevant data on her organizer. The miniature computer held all the notes she could possibly need for the meeting and was compact enough to slip into her pocket. If Lucas Hunter stuck true to type, he’d turn up with paper hard copies of everything.

  According to her information, Hunter had become the only ruling alpha in the DarkRiver leopard pack at twenty-three years of age. In the ten years since, DarkRiver had consolidated its hold over San Francisco and surrounding regions to the extent that they were now the dominant predators in the area. Outside changelings who wanted to work, live, or play in DarkRiver territory had to receive their permission. If they didn’t, changeling territorial law went into force and the outcome was savage.

  What had made Sascha’s eyes open wide in her first reading of this material was that DarkRiver had negotiated a mutual nonaggression pact with the SnowDancers, the wolf pack that controlled the rest of California. Since the SnowDancers were known to be vicious and unforgiving to anyone who dared rise to power in their territory, it made her wonder at DarkRiver’s civilized image. No one survived the wolves by playing nice.

  A soft chime sounded.

  “Shall we go, Mother?” Nothing about Nikita’s relationship to Sascha was, or had ever been, maternal, but protocol stated she was to be addressed by her family designation.

  Nikita nodded and stood to her full height, a graceful five eight. Dressed in a black pantsuit teamed with a white shirt, she looked every inch the successful woman she was, her hair cut to just below her ears in a blunt style that suited her. She was beautiful. And she was lethal.

  Sascha knew that when they walked side by side as they were doing now, no one would place them for mother and daughter. They were the same height but the resemblance ended there. Nikita had inherited her Asiatic eyes, arrow-straight hair, and porcelain skin from her half-Japanese mother. By the time the genes had been passed on to Sascha, all that had survived was the slightest tilt to the eyes.

  Instead of Nikita’s sheet of shimmering blue-black, she had rich ebony hair that absorbed light like ink and curled so wildly she was forced to pull it back into a severe plait every morning. Her skin was a dark honey rather than ivory, evidence of her unknown father’s genes. Sascha’s birth records had listed him as being of Anglo-Indian descent.

  She dropped back a little as the door to the meeting room drew closer. She hated encounters with changelings and not because of the general Psy revulsion to their open emotionalism. It seemed to her that they knew. Somehow they could sense that she wasn’t like the others, that she was flawed.

  “Mr. Hunter.”

  She looked up at the sound of her mother’s voice. And found herself within touching distance of the most dangerous male she’d ever seen. There was no other word to describe him. Well over six feet tall, he was built like the fighting machine he was in the wild, pure lean muscle and tensile strength.

  His black hair brushed his shoulders but there was nothing soft about it. Instead, it hinted at unrestrained passion and the dark hunger of the leopard below the skin. She had no doubt she was in the presence of a predator.

  Then he turned his head and she saw the right side of his face. Four jagged lines, reminiscent of the claw marks of some great beast, scored the muted gold of his skin. His eyes were a hypnotic green but it was those slashing markings that grabbed her attention. She’d never been this close to one of the changeling Hunters before.

  “Ms. Duncan.” His voice was low and a little rough, as if caught on the edge of a growl.

  “This is my daughter, Sascha. She’ll be the liaison for this project.”

  “A pleasure, Sascha.” He tipped his head toward her, eyes lingering for a second longer than necessary.

  “Likewise.” Could he hear the jagged beat of her pulse? Was it true that changeling senses were far superior to those of any other race?

  “Please.” He gestured for them to take seats at the glass-topped table and remained standing until they’d done so. Then he chose a chair exactly opposite Sascha.

  She forced herself to return his gaze, not fooled by the chivalry into dropping her guard. Hunters were trained to sniff out vulnerable prey. “We’ve looked at your offer,” she began.

  “What do you think?” His eyes were remarkably clear, as calm as the deepest ocean. But there was nothing cold or practical about him, nothing that belied her first impression of him as something wild barely leashed.

  “You must know that Psy-changeling business alliances rarely work. Competing priorities.” Nikita’s voice sounded utterly toneless in comparison to Lucas’s.

  His responsive smile was so wicked, Sascha couldn’t look away. “In this case, I think we have the same ones. You need help to plan and execute housing that’ll appeal to changelings. I want an inside track on new Psy projects.”

  Sascha knew that that couldn’t be all of it. They needed him but he didn’t need them, not when DarkRiver’s business interests were extensive enough to rival their own. The world was changing under the noses of the Psy, the human and changeling races no longer content to be second best. It was a measure of their arrogance that most of her people continued to ignore the slow shift in power.

  Sitting so close to the contained fury that was Lucas Hunter, she wondered at the blindness of her brethren. “If we deal with you, we’ll expect the same level of reliability that we’d get if we went with a Psy construction and design firm.”

  Lucas looked across at the icy perfection of Sascha Duncan and wished he knew what it was about her that was bugging the hell out of him. His beast was snarling and pacing the cage of his mind, ready to pounce out and sniff at her sedate dark gray pantsuit
. “Of course,” he said, fascinated by the tiny flickers of white light that came and went in the darkness of her eyes.

  He’d seldom been this close to a cardinal Psy. They were rare enough that they didn’t mingle with the masses, being given high posts in the Psy Council as soon as they reached any kind of mature age. Sascha was young but there was nothing untried about her. She looked as ruthless as the rest of her race, as unfeeling and as cold.

  She could be abetting a killer.

  Any one of them could be. It was why DarkRiver had been stalking high-level Psy for months, looking for a way to penetrate their defenses. The Duncan project was an unbelievable chance. Not only was Nikita powerful in her own right, she was a member of the innermost circle—the Psy Council. Once Lucas was in, it would be his job to find out the identity of the sadistic Psy who’d stolen the life of one of DarkRiver’s women . . . and execute him.

  No mercy. No forgiveness.

  In front of him, Sascha glanced at the slim organizer she held. “We’re willing to offer seven million.”

  He’d take a penny if it would get him inside the secretive corridors of the Psy world but he couldn’t afford to make them suspicious. “Ladies.” He filled the single word with the sensuality that was as much a part of him as his beast.

  Most changelings and humans would’ve reacted to the promise of pleasure implicit in his tones, but these two remained unmoved. “We both know the contract is worth nothing less than ten million. Let’s not waste time.” He could’ve sworn a light sparked in Sascha’s night-sky eyes, a light that spoke of a challenge accepted. The panther inside him growled softly in response.

  “Eight. And we want rights to approve each stage of the work from concept to construction.”

  “Ten.” He kept his tone silky smooth. “Your request will cause considerable delay. I can’t work efficiently if I have to traipse up here every time I want to make a minor change.” Perhaps multiple visits might allow him to glean some information on the murderer’s cold trail, but it was doubtful. Nikita was hardly likely to leave sensitive Council documents lying around.