Archangel’s Enigma (Guild Hunter #8)(99)
Author: Nalini Singh

“Here.” Andromeda held out one of her feathers, this one a pale brown that turned dark at the tip. “It was about to fall off anyway.”

He gently stroked her calf, knowing her wings had to be hurting. Being immortal didn’t mean suffering no pain.

When he leaned forward, one hand still on her, and brushed away the sand, he found what he’d expected. “It’s a pressure switch.”

Andromeda’s calf muscle tensed. “I don’t think the ceiling cracks are accidental,” she said slowly. “This cave is rigged to collapse.”

“Burying all intruders with it.” Naasir rose to his feet. “We can’t risk crossing it—no way to know how many switches lie under the sand.”

Making it safely back out into the tunnel by retracing their steps, it took them another thirty minutes to find a downward sloping tunnel again. It also brought them far too close to the entrance to the caves. So close that at one point, Naasir heard two wing brothers talking—a male and a female.

He immediately pressed a finger to Andromeda’s lips so she’d know to be silent.

“. . . in the caves.”

“No sign so far, but if they are, they can’t get past us.” A gritty voice, holding a weight that spoke of experience. “All possible entry points to the chamber are tightly guarded.”

“That explorer got in,” said the first speaker, her youth apparent.

“Shavi was a new wing brother at the time. Green as grass. He fell for a distraction. Just as well the explorer went insane or we would’ve been knee deep in the curious and the dangerous.”

A long pause. Naasir was about to move on when the younger wing brother said, “I always wondered about that.” Her voice was diffident. “The others have told me he went inside sane and cocky, came out screaming having clawed out his eyes. That that’s why we didn’t kill him—because it would’ve been dishonorable to kill a madman.”

A chuckle. “They’ve been playing with you, girl. The part about why he was permitted to live is true, but the explorer didn’t scream or claw out his eyes.”

“Oh.”

“He made it to the nearest city, thanks to the luck fate offers the mad and the stupid, but ended up catatonic in a hospital ward soon afterward. When he woke a year later, he had gaping holes in his memories and so rarely made sense that no one paid his ramblings any attention.”

“The sire scrambled him?” An awed whisper.

“Simply because he Sleeps, it does not mean he isn’t aware of the world around him.” A thick clink that could’ve indicated a crossbow bolt being put back with others. “Remember, it is said Caliane rose before her time because she heard Lijuan plotting to kill her son.”

That wasn’t quite the truth, but the point was well made.

Naasir listened further but the two wing brothers moved on to talking about a man the female one wanted to approach. Silently wishing the hopeful wing brother good luck in her courtship, Naasir led Andromeda away from the entrance and to a space that felt safe, free of fresh scents and formed in a way that meant sound wouldn’t carry.

Then, putting his lips to her ear, he told her what he’d heard. Having her so close, her warmth soft and female, it made him want to stop being civilized and sensible. He just wanted to take, to give in to the primal core of him that didn’t understand why he should wait.

When she tugged him down so she could reply, he put his hand on an undamaged part of her wing in an effort to ease his need. Stupid Grimoire book, he thought, and again caught a flicker of memory—of a small red book with a drawing in gold on the cover.

His mind kept telling him he’d seen it. But where?

“It’s true,” Andromeda said, her lips brushing his ear and shocking jolts of pleasure over his skin. “The record from that explorer was disjointed and jerky. Almost like a delusion. The single reason I took it seriously was because I knew that as a very young angel, Alexander lived in the oasis.”

That truth had become lost in time, buried by Alexander’s ascension and eventual control of this entire territory. Andromeda had the knowledge because, a hundred years earlier, she’d tracked down Ancients still in the world and listened to them. Unlike Caliane and Alexander, these Ancients weren’t powerful, but they were often wise.

The ones she’d spoken to were all once more Sleeping, having awakened together for half a century to “taste” the new world. Having decided against living in it, the three had told her they’d see her in another thousand years. “Save your other questions for then, child. It is quite lovely having young ears eager to listen to our tales.”