Archangel’s Enigma (Guild Hunter #8)(105)
Author: Nalini Singh

She screamed as they fell again. The smell of burning feathers filled the air. It felt as if her blood was a heartbeat away from boiling, her eyes so hot she couldn’t keep them open.

Naasir’s voice was no longer in any way human, the words he spoke guttural. “I’ll come back from death you ancient relic, hunt down your immortal ass if you harm my mate!”

“Brotherhood,” Andromeda managed to whisper, sure Alexander’s bond to his sentinels was their only hope of reaching him.

Naasir pressed his cheek to hers, trying to curve his body as much as possible around her own. “As for your sentinels, Lijuan might decide to make them reborn. Shambling, living dead who hunger for the flesh. You are no sire if you permit that!”

No warning before they were pushed up at the same suicidal rate they’d been pulled down. Up and up and up until the air was cool and they could breathe.

The voice, when it came, was everywhere.

I am waking. Prepare for battle.

*   *   *

Naasir and Andromeda found themselves shoved out of the wind tunnel and dumped on the sandy floor of the stone chamber again. The chasm that had sucked them in closed up so seamlessly that there was no sign it had ever been there.

Getting up with muscled, feline grace, Naasir crouched in front of her as she sat up. He ran his hand over her hair, then very gently over the arches of her wings—it was a highly sensitive area, the touch intimate, but she burrowed against his chest, needing the tenderness, wanting nothing more than to be close to him.

Death, she’d realized in that tunnel, could come at any instant.

“Kiss me,” she said, lifting her face to the primal masculinity of his. “If death comes, I want to go having known your kiss.”

He nipped sharply at her lower lip instead. “We’ll kiss after I find your stupid Grimoire book.”

Forehead scrunching up, Andromeda shook her head. “Forget the Grimoire.”

Naasir gripped her chin, his eyes—so haunting and beautiful—locking with hers. “Your honor is important to you. It is as important as your heart. Kill one and I will kill the other.”

She cried then, because he knew her heart. His arms came around her, his breath against her cheek as he rubbed the side of his face against her, but she knew they didn’t have time for her sorrow. Stealing one more moment against the heat and strength and fierceness of him, she got to her feet.

Her soles were severely burned, causing excruciating agony, but she could already feel her body attempting to make the repairs. More important, she could still walk as long as she didn’t focus on the throbbing pulse of pain. “My wings should hold me for short periods,” she said, stretching them out. “I can fly up, search for a way out.”

Naasir’s eyes were flames of liquid silver as they took in her blackened and burnt feathers but he nodded. “Go. I’ll look down here. There’s still something about the air currents.”

It was only when he turned that she saw his back. A pained cry leaving her mouth, she reached out instinctively before pulling back her hand lest she harm him with her touch. “Your back.” Her voice shook with fury. “Alexander hurt you.” His T-shirt had been almost totally burned away on that side of his body, leaving only exposed and charred skin.

Turning toward her, he cupped her cheek, his thumb scraping over her cheekbone. “It’s only a minor burn. It’ll be gone within hours.”

Old and strong, she reminded herself. He was older and stronger than her, and he was a legendary chimera. “Is it true that you can heal as well or sometimes even better than an angel?” That was a “fact” she’d just remembered, something she’d come across during her studies into mythical creatures.

“Yes.” Leaning in, he rubbed his nose over hers as he’d done at the end of their tunnel ride. “I’ll tell you all about chimeras after we get out.”

She felt her lips twitch at his tone—as if he was offering her a treat. And the truth was, he was: she was a scholar, loved new information . . . and this wild chimera had figured that out because he looked at her and saw who she was. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Spreading her wounded wings on his smile, she rose into the air. Vertical takeoffs took more strength than a glide, but as a result of the training regimen Dahariel and Galen had taught her, she usually had no problems. Today, however, it felt as if a thousand thin spikes were stabbing into every inch of her wings, trying to hold her down.

Gritting her teeth and refusing to consider failure, she got aloft and began to circle around. Other than the impossible-to-climb chute down which they’d slid into this pit, there didn’t seem to be any other fissures or tunnel mouths.