Lijuan’s face had turned into a skull, her eye sockets black hollows crawling with maggots that screamed. It lasted a split second before her face was normal again, but Andromeda would never forget the horror. Raphael’s right temple now bore a vibrant and ancient mark in a wild blue lit with white fire, while the newest reports from Titus’s territory said he was developing a stunning tattoo-like marking in deep gold across the mahogany of his broad chest, but none of the archangels had developed anything so macabre.
Of course, no one had seen Charisemnon in months. And Michaela . . . she’d been missing from public view as long, highly unusual for a woman known for her love of the camera. Andromeda could’ve asked Dahariel, who was reputed to be Michaela’s lover, but Andromeda and Dahariel’s relationship was a small, tightly defined thing. He taught her to fight and if she asked, he spoke to her about angelic politics and how to understand the complexity of it.
That was all. And it was all it would ever be.
Lijuan’s face changed again, and this time Andromeda couldn’t hold back her gasp. If the first change had been horrific, this was so far beyond beauty as to bring tears to the eye and make the heart hurt. The Archangel of China glowed from within, the light of her power a blinding white that made her luminous with a fierce, primal sense of life that reminded Andromeda of Naasir. Lijuan’s features seemed softer, her eyes sparkling, her eyelashes deeper and thicker.
It was as if Andromeda was seeing a glimpse of the angel Lijuan had once been.
So perhaps . . . perhaps the other was who she would eventually become.
* * *
Naasir fed rather than rested. He didn’t kill, didn’t harm. He just made his way to the outskirts of a small, isolated village and smiled at a maiden out in her fields; she smiled back at him, her lips parting. When he walked up to her, she didn’t run and he could hear her pulse thudding, her scent changing as her body readied itself for him.
“I am hungry.”
Shivering at his words, she angled her neck and he drank, one of his hands cradling her head as her breath came in harsh gasps and her eager body pumped more and more of her rich, hot blood into his mouth.
He was gentle, didn’t gorge or take more than she could afford to give, and when he was done, he made sure she’d bear no marks. He always treated his food well, aware that without food, he’d die. “Thank you.”
She gripped at his wrist, stars in her eyes. “Will you return?”
“No.” Lying to his food wasn’t good treatment, so he didn’t do it. “Don’t wait for me.”
Two fat tears rolled down her face. Leaving her watching wet-eyed after him, he disappeared back into the woods, rejuvenated from her gift of blood. He’d had countless similar conversations in his lifetime. When he was a child, he’d fed from Dmitri or Raphael or Keir. At the time, he hadn’t understood the depth of the honor he was being given. He’d known only that three men who were very definitely not food, were allowing him to feed from them—as a result, he’d been on his best behavior.
All three were also so powerful that he’d only needed a sip once every two days at most. It would’ve lasted even longer had he been able to feed more deeply, but he’d been small, only able to handle a tiny taste of such potent blood. Dmitri was the one he’d gone to most often. The older vampire had disciplined him more than anyone else, but Naasir liked that, liked knowing Dmitri cared enough to teach him things. When he’d needed to feed, he’d found Dmitri and Dmitri had held out his wrist.
Never once had he withheld it, not even when Naasir was in trouble.
The times when all three men were gone from the Refuge, he was meant to feed from Jessamy, but in his childish mind, he decided she was too weak to spare blood, and so forced himself to drink the bottled backup blood Dmitri stocked for him.
All that changed as he grew into a bigger boy, then almost a man. He’d discovered that girls liked him. And not just girls. Women, too. Vampires, angels, mortals when he snuck out into the world, women of all ages and races were drawn to him. Their scents melted when he neared.