Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13) - Nalini Singh Page 0,1

not a man to have many friends. So perhaps it was his art that would be remembered and she thought he would’ve liked for that to be his legacy.

A sob rocking through her, she fell to her knees on the stony ground. “Angels aren’t meant to die,” she whispered, but there was no one to hear her.

The wind ripped the words straight from her mouth and smashed them against the mountaintop. Her wings—wings Raan had called a gift of indigo light—spread out on the snow and the stone, grew cold and numb, and her knees froze into position, but still she didn’t rise. Part of her kept on hoping that he would wake and tell her it had all been a terrible mistake.

She was only one hundred and sixty years old and the love of her life lay cold and dead. At that instant, the winds howling around her, she couldn’t imagine a more terrible pain.

Alone in the falling snow, she mourned.

Angels aren’t meant to die.

2

Three thousand five hundred years ago . . .

Sire, I have borne a son, strong and with such a voice to him that he keeps the entire Refuge awake! He will not flinch from anyone, this child of mine.

My eldest says that he has my eyes and my temper. The twins already believe he will follow their warrior ways, while Euphenia is the only one who can get him to sleep when he is determined to stay awake and roar out his battle cry.

His father is in astonishment at having helped create such a child. I tell him it will pass, and he will be a good father. He has a patience I lack—but this boy of mine will not be afeared of even his mother, this I know.

I will name him Titus.

—Letter from First General Avelina to Archangel Alexander

3

One month ago . . .

He couldn’t remember his name.

His lungs fought to suck in air, his vision blurred . . . and his wings lay heavy and useless on his back. Still he crawled forward, dragging himself out of hell and toward the sunlight.

His eyes fell on the back of his hand, on his formerly ice white skin. Skin he’d pampered and protected and examined with care in the mirror each day. Skin that had highlighted the intense topaz shade of his eyes. Skin that was now mottled with green.

He had to get out.

He had to find a healer.

But he was so weak. How would he . . .

Snatching out a skeletal hand with reptilian speed, he gripped the small creature that had scuttled across his path, had his teeth sunk into its small furred body before his conscious mind could process the decision. The creature’s furless tail whipped in panic, but it had little blood and died soon.

Throwing the creature aside, he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth . . . and felt a spurt of energy. So, was he a vampire now? No, that couldn’t be. Vampire-angel hybrids existed only in tales spun by mortals. Immortals understood the fundamental truth that vampires and angels weren’t biologically compatible . . . but that he’d gained energy from the creature’s blood was indisputable.

His head jerked toward the small corpse.

Again, he snatched it up without thought. This time when he bit in, it was to eat the raw flesh, spitting out only the bristled fur. A tiny part of his mind, a mind that had once been of an urbane courtier in an archangel’s court, screamed and gibbered, but it was a distant, faded sound. It couldn’t stand against the rush of energy hitting his bloodstream.

Now he knew how to fly again.

How to stop the crawl of green beneath his skin, foul and debilitating.

How to clear his mind so he could think.

As for the coughs wracking his frame and the green-black sputum he couldn’t stop from spitting out, it would all heal. He just needed enough fuel. Enough flesh plump and red and dripping with life.

Hawking out the chewy, indigestible tail on another cough, he crawled on, his clawed nails creating furrows on the tile and the flesh sloughing off his legs to leave a liquid trail. Caught within that sludge were feathers lovely and unique, a deep brown threaded with filaments of topaz.

4

Present day

Sharine stood on the railingless and flat roof of her new home in the sands of Morocco, and looked out at the buildings gilded by the rays of the setting sun. The light had an almost molten quality,