Authors: Nalini Singh
34
T
rembling, Mahiya walked to lean her face against Jason’s back, his wings strong and sleek and paradoxically soft on either side of her. “I don’t know what to think.” She passed him the letter without shifting from her position tucked against his back. He didn’t force her to move, didn’t attempt to turn and take her into his arms—as if he understood she just needed to lean on his strength a little until the world stopped spinning.
“There is a sense of damp to the letter,” Jason said after scanning the lines. “But the wax carries a faint impression of her scent still, as did the room.”
Her mother hadn’t been gone long enough to be erased from the palace. “I think her pride is such that it wouldn’t allow her to do what was done to the snakes.” But she had no doubt Nivriti had known of the needless cruelty. “She must’ve departed the lake palace after killing Arav, left some of her people behind to cause further disorder.”
Jason returned his gaze to the letter. “She cannot plan a martial attack—regardless of how long she’s had to plan, Neha is an archangel with a garrison at her command.”
Mahiya knew she should be saying something to that, but she felt lost in a world that had shifted on its axis.
My mother is alive.
A crackle of paper, strong wings shifting under her touch, and Jason was turning around. Startled, afraid that he was pushing her away when she so desperately needed an anchor, needed
him
, she froze . . . until he ran his hand over the back of her head and down to press against her lower back, just enough to let her know that he was there, his strength hers to use.
A sob rocked through her, and then she couldn’t stop, her entire body jerking, her bones suddenly brittle.
Strong arms, lips against her temple, wings of midnight opening to curve around her, until Jason surrounded her on every side. His heart beat strong and steady, his hands warm on her head and against her lower back, and his heat, it was a smoldering inferno over her skin.
Black.
That was the color of Jason’s power, she knew that without any doubt. It felt as if she was surrounded by a raging storm. The sensation should’ve been frightening, but the storm didn’t so much as lift a hair on her head, the calm within filled with such protective warmth as she’d never before felt.
She didn’t know how long they stood in the center of that storm, but after a while, she could breathe again. And every breath carried the scent of black fire. She couldn’t describe the intense wildness of the scent in any other way, but to her, it was the essence of Jason. Trying to get even closer to him, she managed to tuck her feet between his boots.
“My mother,” Jason said, his voice a low rumble against her, “was my favorite person in all the world. I loved my father, but my mother? She was the one I ran to when I got out of bed in the morning.” He stroked his hand down her hair, rubbed his cheek against her temple. “Then one day, she wasn’t there anymore. If the world suddenly changed and she stood in front of me, I would run into her arms just like that little boy.”
Raising her tearstained face to his, she said, “That’s what I want to do.” The visceral reaction had terrified her, speaking of a violent need she’d never acknowledged. “But I never had a mother, never knew her. I shouldn’t be responding like this.”
Jason moved the hand on her hair to her face, wiping the remnants of her tears away with this thumb, the touch rough, familiar. “You’ve dreamed about her, thought about her, wondered what she might’ve been like your whole life. It matters.”
“Sometimes,” she said past the knot in her throat, “when I was younger, I’d convince myself that she was an awful, hateful person, that she hadn’t fought for me hard enough. When I was really angry, I’d tell myself she never wanted me at all, actually gave me up to Neha.”
She spread her fingers on his shirt, tried to smooth the wrinkles she’d made when she’d fisted the fabric as she cried. “Then other times, before I grew old enough to understand what she’d done, I’d imagine her as some kind of a goddess, a woman who was lovely and gracious and perfect, and who’d take me away to a place where I didn’t ever have to be afraid.”
Jason didn’t laugh at her. Neither did he attempt to tell her that her dreams had been normal for the lonely child she’d been. All he did was hold her and let her speak, his wings creating a protective cocoon, her body held close to his heat, to his heartbeat, to
him
.
I won’t let you go.
It was a vow. No matter what happened, what Jason believed about his inability to form lasting bonds, he was hers, and she’d fight to hold him. They needed each other, her and her angel with his wings meant for the night. He was a power, had far more knowledge of the world, but she had a heart strong enough to care for a man who might never fully open his own to her . . . because even a fragment of Jason’s heart, it would be raw, honest, a dazzling joy.
* * *
J
ason watched Mahiya walk to the lip of the crater within which rippled the lake that housed Nivriti’s water palace. She’d wanted to return here, and given the contents of the letter, he’d seen no reason to stop her. With its use of a name Vanhi alone had known to date, that letter had to be genuine, and so this was meant to be a safe haven for Mahiya. Still, he would take another look at Vanhi, make sure the vampire played no deep game of her own.
Eyes free of the tears that had earlier smudged their wild brightness, Mahiya stood with her wings to him, the peacock blue and vivid green striking in the mountain sunlight. Had he been on his own, he would’ve chosen a far more concealed position, and even now, he stood in the faint shadow cast by a large tree that had dug in enough roots to nurture itself to a sturdy thickness.
But Mahiya, though she’d been forced to learn to navigate the shadows of an unfriendly court, was a creature of the light. Yet she didn’t seem disturbed or repelled by the black flame that was the manifestation of his own power—when he’d held her, she’d tried to burrow closer into him, until he’d felt every soft curve and dip of her body. As he thought of the protective need that had compelled him to hold her tight, she turned to look over her shoulder, those tawny eyes pinpointing him with unerring accuracy.
“There’s one thing,” she said, walking to join him. “I agree a military assault is unlikely, but we have no idea of how long she’s been free—the attack on Eris was merely the start of this ‘test.’”
“Thus she may well have gathered far more support than we realize.” Jason nodded. “Anoushka’s death had a deep impact on Neha, could have caused her to lapse in her oversight of Nivriti’s incarceration.”
Mahiya looked down at the ground, lines marring her forehead, glanced back up. “Or . . . Neha might have left my mother to rot for years without bothering to check up on her—isolation is a punishment she likes to use.”
Darkness roared within him, a violent wave of black fire. “No one will ever again imprison you,” he said quietly, aware he was making a promise that might well put him in the firing line of an archangel.
Mahiya’s face shone with a radiance that held him captive. “I know.” Spreading her wings, she touched her fingers to his cheek, the tenderness in it as powerful as a knife blade, until he had the disorienting sense his world had forever shifted.
“Give me tonight,” he said, wrenching calm from chaos. “I may be able to shed more light on the situation.” He had contacts and people across this territory—he just hadn’t known the right questions to ask until this moment.
Breaking the touch that connected them, Mahiya gave him a funny laughing look. “You’re wonderful.”
His defenses ignited. “Mahiya, don’t see more in me than there is.”
She tilted her head a fraction to the side. “Perhaps I am my mother’s daughter after all—I have decided on you, Jason. And if that is a foolish choice, it is also one I will never regret.”
He clamped his hand over her wrist when she would’ve turned away, holding her to him. Instead of struggling, she stilled, her eyes glimmering with determination and another emotion far more dangerous.
“I can’t give you what you want,” he repeated, some unknown thing tearing and ripping inside him at the thought of having to sever his connection to her, when it was the first time in his life he’d trusted even a part of himself to a lover.
A soft smile. “Did I make any demands, hmm?” Lifting her free hand, she ran her fingers along his jaw. “I have so much love inside me, Jason. So
much
.
And I have never been allowed to shower it on anyone—no one has wanted it. Let me stretch the wings of my heart with you.”
He could feel his fingers tightening on her wrist, forced himself to loosen his hold. “Will it be enough to love and not be loved?” he asked, knowing it was a brutal question. “To give and never receive?”
Her smile grew impossibly more luminous. “You have no idea what you give me.”
Jason didn’t release her wrist. This could only end in tears—there was no other possibility. But when he would’ve spoken, she pressed her fingers to his lips. “Do not be arrogant, and I shall not have to be sharp in return.” Teasing words but her intent was pure steel. “I am a woman grown,” she said. “I know who I am, and I understand the choices I make—if what you can give me isn’t enough, I’ll walk away. I will not blame you for my choice, so let it be
my
choice.”
Jason released her wrist before he did damage to bones so fragile under his strength. Regardless of her eloquent promise, his instincts raged at him to end this, protect her from pain of which he’d be the cause. But the quiet challenge that vibrated in every inch of her body made it crystal clear she wouldn’t easily accept his decree. No, this princess who had lived a life that would’ve broken most, and come out of it believing in hope, in love, was made of far tougher stock.
Mahiya would fight to hold on to him.
A strange violence of emotion crashed inside him . . . and he knew he wouldn’t make the rational decision. Not when it came to Mahiya. “I didn’t tell you something,” he said, wishing the pathways inside him had not been stunted by the lack of light, that he was capable of giving her what a man should give his woman. “Venom did find fresh tracks in some of the other tunnels.”
No exultant victory on Mahiya’s face at his unspoken decision, just a silent joy that scared him on a level nothing had touched for an eon. “And old as the tunnels are,” she said, “some exits and entrances must’ve been forgotten, left unguarded.”
Jason recalled what Venom had said.
“Only reason I even know the ins and outs of the entire labyrinth is that when I was first Made, I was . . . closer to the otherness in me. I can’t work out how anyone else would’ve known some of the oldest parts of the tunnels—but that’s where I found the footsteps.”
“Twin siblings,” he murmured, “one of whom had an affinity for snakes, would’ve turned those tunnels into their playground.” Where Neha might have forgotten the complexities of the underground system, Nivriti had had nothing but time and the driving desire for vengeance to hone her memory. Still—“I don’t see Nivriti using them for a large-scale attack. It’d take too long to bring in her people one at a time, leave them vulnerable to extermination if they were spotted.” A fire within the tunnels would annihilate.
Mahiya wrapped her arms around herself. “I want my mother alive, but should Neha die, the entire territory will be thrown into chaos, millions of lives at stake.”
Jason shook his head. “Only another of the Cadre can kill Neha. Had Nivriti joined their number, the whole world would’ve stood witness.” All ascensions to the Cadre initiated worldwide phenomena that could not be ignored, as if the archangels were locked into the very fabric of the planet.
On the day that Raphael crossed the border, the seas had turned a violent, impossible blue, as had every river and every lake across the world. Even the rain that fell from the sky was a glorious gemstone blue, and when it shattered, it left behind a sparkling residue, faceted diamond dust in the palm.
“We must stop your mother,” he said, thinking of the power contained within the bodies of the Cadre. “She’ll never survive a confrontation with Neha.” The Archangel of India would need but a single strike to end Nivriti’s existence forever. “Speak to Vanhi, see what else you can discover.”
“I can’t tell her that my mother might be alive—Vanhi is loyal to both Neha and Nivriti, and might take it upon herself to attempt to negotiate peace.” Her hands fisted, her skin drawn tight over the fine bones of her face. “I just hope I will not have to mourn my mother before I ever meet her.”
* * *
J
ason began to connect with his informants even as they returned to the fort, gathering fragmented pieces of data from across his network. Venom was gone, having left for the Refuge right after calling Jason about the tunnels.
“I stay any longer and Neha will consider me a spy.”
However, another one of the Seven arrived an hour before sunset, just as Jason returned from a meeting with a vampire who’d only today come from an area about four hours flight time from the fort.
“Aodhan,” he said to the angel who appeared to be made of fractured pieces of light, from the diamond brightness of his hair to wings whose filaments seemed coated in shards of broken mirrors. Only the golden sheen of his skin and the crystalline blue green of his eyes, the irises shattered outward from the pupil, saved him from being a sculpture in ice. “I did not expect you.”
“I cannot stay—Neha won’t permit another of the Seven here. Venom is an exception.”
Jason nodded. “You have something for me?” Aodhan was very, very good at filtering the information that flowed continuously through the Refuge. He would have made an excellent spymaster if not for the fact that there was no place in the world where Aodhan would not stand out.
Instead, the angel had long been Galen’s right hand in the Refuge. Now, he went to New York and the Tower, and would take up many of Dmitri’s duties while the leader of the Seven helped his wife through her transition. Whether the transfer would work, no one knew. As joint head of Tower operations, Aodhan would have to deal with any number of people, when he was a male who could not handle touch and sought isolation as often as not.