Archangel’s Enigma (Guild Hunter #8)(10)
Author: Nalini Singh

“Yes.” Naasir had been carried by angels as a child and he’d liked it. No longer. Now he wanted the ground beneath his feet—he didn’t even like riding in the baskets the squadrons utilized to ferry in non-winged guests. “Tell Jessamy I’m coming for dinner.”

His smile reaching the unusually pale green of his eyes, Galen spread his wings. “She’s been watching for you since dawn.”

That delighted Naasir. Waiting until Galen had taken off in a powerful beat of wings that drew a flurry of snow up into the air, Naasir stepped up his pace even further, until to anyone watching, he’d have been a blur. More wings passed overhead an hour later, the aerial traffic increasing steadily until he began to hear the rush of landings, the beat of takeoffs, the laughter and conversation of people going about their lives.

The sky was a soft black broken only by several early stars when the snow suddenly ended, warmer air against his chilled face.

He went straight to Jessamy and Galen’s house on the cliff.

“Naasir!” A vampire, his poison-green eyes slitted like those of a viper and his dark, dark brown hair having grown to touch the collar of his T-shirt, caught him in an embrace on the paved yard outside the house.

Slapping Venom on the back, Naasir dropped his duffel to the paving stones, the small yard edged with pots bursting with flowers. “I see Galen hasn’t broken you yet.” He took in the younger man’s jeans and simple black T-shirt. “No more suits?” Venom was well known for his dangerously elegant appearance, his grace as liquid as it was lethal.

“Who cares about suits when I’m getting my ass handed to me in the training ring every day.” Venom winced and pointed to a blue-black bruise on his jaw, the color vivid against the warm brown of his skin. “Sometimes I’m not sure if Galen’s teaching me or trying to kill me.”

Naasir bared his teeth. “If Galen was trying to kill you, you’d know.” The weapons-master didn’t fight like Naasir or Venom, his style heavier and more steady, but he was a brutal and deadly force. “He’ll toughen you up.” Venom was a dangerous cub who had the gift of deadly poison in his blood, but at just over three hundred and fifty, he was the youngest of the Seven.

He needed a little more tempering.

“There you are!” Jessamy ran out of the cottage, the misty yellow of her airy ankle-length gown frothing around her legs and the chestnut waves of her hair woven into a loose braid. Her lush brown eyes glowed with welcome against the cream of her skin, her smile luminous.

Grabbing her tall and delicately slender form up in his arms, his skin brushing the insides of her wings, Naasir spun her around and around until she protested. “Oh, I have missed you,” she said with water shining in her eyes, before cupping his face and kissing him on both cheeks. “Come inside. I have a drink waiting for you.”

His stomach rumbled right on cue, but he hadn’t forgotten his mission. “The scholar, she’s safe?”

“Yes, she’s working in the Library. I thought you could rest and have a snack before I introduced you two—I’m planning on inviting her to dinner with us.”

Walking with Jessamy and Venom into the cottage just as Galen landed behind them, Naasir released a quiet breath. It was good to be with family again.

*   *   *

Andromeda tried to focus on the illuminated manuscript she’d placed on a stand at the back of the Library, but all she could see were the words of the letter that had come for her an hour earlier.

In twenty-two days, you turn four hundred. You have had many years of indulgence. We have allowed you all of it—even when you chose to forsake your bloodline.

It is now time to return home and undertake your obligation to your family and to your archangel. We shall expect you for the start of the ceremonial celebrations six days prior to your day of birth, following which, you will go to your grandfather’s court to take up your position by his side.

He has little use for scholars, but you are his sole grandchild, and as such, he is willing to overlook your failings as long as you conduct yourself as a princess of the court during your time of service. Do not disappoint him, Andromeda. Your grandfather’s mercy is not endless.

She gripped the sides of the stand, the wooden edges digging into her palms. “Indulgence” her mother called Andromeda’s centuries of learning, learning that had seen her offer help to countless immortals who came to the Library for assistance. She was a keeper of angelic histories and a teacher of their young. Yet after a bare three hundred and twenty-five years, give or take, she was a mere apprentice. There was so much more she had to learn.