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