Archangel’s Enigma (Guild Hunter #8)(123)
Author: Nalini Singh

46

Naasir hated the cold. Hated it. But he had to go into it to find the Grimoire. Everyone thought it was a legend, but during the flight home from Alexander’s territory, he’d finally realized why it seemed familiar: he’d seen it.

It had been long, long, long ago, when he’d still been two. The tiger cub was the one who’d seen the red book with the golden etching on the front. It wasn’t something that would’ve registered on the cub except that the chimera experiment had happened that night, the boy and the tiger forcefully merged into one. The tiger’s memories had become the boy’s and the boy’s had become the tiger’s, but because they were two such different species who should’ve never been one, nothing had made sense for a long time.

It had been a confusing, terrifying period and the chimera he’d become had long forgotten the book the tiger had seen. But when Jason had described the Grimoire, the memories had surfaced as all parts of him worked together to win his mate. So he knew where that book had once been and where it should still be. Unfortunately, that place was now buried under tons of ice and snow.

Running over the cold white stuff, his body protected by thick clothing and his feet by insulated boots, Naasir growled at the snow that hit his face and wasn’t the least surprised when a black-winged angel landed not far from him. He was at the end of the world, but it made perfect sense to him that Jason would be able to find him. That was what Jason did—know secrets.

“What are you doing in Antarctica?” Jason asked, folding back his wings. “How did you even get here?”

Naasir shrugged. “I jumped out a plane.” Far, far from his actual destination on the continent, which was why he’d had to run so long and spend two nights on the ice. And because it was important to keep this secret, he’d asked Illium to make any eyes in the sky look away until he was out of here.

No one but his family and his mate could know of this place.

“You should’ve worn white clothing and dyed your wings,” he pointed out to the member of his family standing in front of him. “You stick out in this place without shadows.”

“There’s no one to see me except you—and you hate the snow.” Jason didn’t budge. “So what are you doing here?”

“I’m going to get the stupid Grimoire book.” He growled as a flake of snow touched his nose. Brushing it off, he looked to Jason and caught his sudden stillness—as close to betraying surprise as Jason ever got.

“You know where it is?” the spymaster asked.

“I know where it once was.” And since Osiris had a habit of clinging to his possessions, and the entire stronghold had been buried as it was, it should still be there. “Do you want to come with me?” Jason was sneaky in ways Naasir appreciated—he might be able to think of a faster method to get under all that ice and snow. “Will your mate be angry?”

“Mahiya’s the one who ordered me to go find you when Illium told us where you’d disappeared to. My princess likes you.” The other man spread his wings in readiness for takeoff. “Why didn’t you ask one of us? We would’ve come with you.”

“Illium wanted to come, but the healers wouldn’t let him, and I knew you’d find me.” Jason had as much curiosity inside him as Naasir, only he hid it better.

A faint smile. “You understand people better than anyone realizes.” He took off in a wash of cold wind that drove snowflakes into Naasir’s face. Gritting his teeth, Naasir growled up at him. He almost thought Jason laughed. That intrigued him because Jason never laughed.

Unless . . . he did it with his princess.

Making a note to visit Jason and Mahiya so he could catch Jason laughing, he began to run again, the pack on his back doing nothing to slow his speed. He had frozen blood in that pack. It hadn’t started out frozen, but this place was a giant refrigerator. He hated frozen blood. Unfortunately, before Jason’s arrival, there’d been no one around he could’ve fed from . . . and he didn’t think Andromeda liked it when he took blood from others.

Because he was her territory.

He grinned. He liked being her territory. If she wanted him to feed only from her, he would feed only from her. Until then, he’d drink bottled blood—or eat the disgusting cold ice cubes currently in his pack. And he’d dream of feeding from her while his cock was snug inside her and he’d already come once so that she was sticky with him and had his smell deep in her skin.

Heart thumping both from his speed and his arousal, he carried on into the white.

“Are you lost?” Jason yelled down several hours later, Naasir having forced himself not to go at full-tilt because he couldn’t afford to just stop to allow his body to recover.