Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13) - Nalini Singh Page 0,130

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