"Watch our backs." Leaving the sole surviving pack with her, he went to the hole in the mountain.
The blazing sunlight made him wish he'd kept on his secret skin, but it worked best when he was naked, with nothing breaking the pattern. He didn't particularly want to be naked on craggy rocks that tore at his clothing and scratched his arms.
"So?" Andromeda asked when he returned.
"There are no scents around it from living creatures. The wing brothers apparently do not yet know of this new entrance."
Crawling with him to the hole, she winced. "It's going to be hell on my wings. Angels aren't meant to go through small holes into underground caverns."
He scowled at the idea of her being hurt. "Wait and I'll incapacitate the wing brothers inside, then you can walk in."
"That'll take too long--we have no idea how many of them are inside." A determined smile. "A few scrapes won't kill me. But you go first so you can cover me from below while I squeeze in. I think there's more risk down there than out here."
Naasir had to balance the known danger on top, with the unknown below; he finally decided she was right and the one below was more of a threat. Dropping the pack inside first, he jumped down to the sandy floor of the cavern, then stepped aside and pushed the pack out of the way so Andromeda wouldn't trip on it.
It took her at least three minutes to get in; her wings were badly scraped, feathers from darkest to palest brown falling around him by the time she succeeded.
Biting back his growl when he saw the extent of the damage and caught sight of the tears she was trying not to shed, Naasir made her stand in place in the light under the hole while he examined her.
"I'm immortal," she reminded him softly, though her voice was husky with withheld pain. "I'll heal."
He bit the tip of her ear. She jumped, then turned to take his face in her hands, her touch gentle. "I'm okay," she said softly. "Soon as this is over, we'll find a hot spring and relax."
She was lying. Naasir caught the minute change in her scent, the break in the rhythm of her pulse. What he didn't understand was why, but he'd pursue that once they'd completed their task and he'd gotten her to safety. For now, he took her hand and hooked her fingers lightly in the back of his pants after he'd pulled on the pack. "I can see in the dark." Even in places with zero ambient light.
A result of the mix between chimera and vampire.
"I won't let go."
Listening carefully to make certain the wing brothers hadn't detected them, he began to head down the corridor. When they reached a fork, he said, "Right or left?" At this point, he had no scents to use as a guide, so they had to rely on Andromeda's research.
"Right." Her wings rustled in the pitch-dark. "We're on a slight upward gradient--to get to Alexander, we need to head downward and to the north. That's the rumored location of the lava chasm."
Naasir kept her words in mind at the turns that followed.
"Can we talk?" Andromeda whispered after the third turn.
He understood what she was asking. "Yes. The caves and tunnels are structured in a way that sound won't travel if we keep our voices low."
"I feel trapped." Andromeda's fingers tightened their grip. "In a space this narrow and compact, I'm all but useless."
He thought of the wings that made her so beautiful in the sky and knew she was right. Here, those same wings were a serious handicap. "You'll still fight," he said, her courage an indelible part of her. "You won't allow your feelings of claustrophobia to trap you."
"No." She released a breath he felt ripple along the air currents. "Thanks, that helped."
Reaching behind him, he squeezed her wrist before dropping his hand. "Shall I tell you about Osiris and about how I came to be?"
A long pause. "No. Tell me in the light, under the sun and in a place that speaks to your soul."
He wanted to kiss her; his mate saw the wildness in his heart, understood that while he could navigate dark places, his choice was to live in the wind and the sun, the rain on his face and grass underfoot. "I have a special place I stay at near the Refuge," he told her. "About fifteen minutes' flight for you--it's in the forests that begin lower down the mountains." The Refuge itself was full of mountain wildflowers and other foliage, but had few tall trees.
"Really?" Andromeda's voice held a hunger to know him that was a verbal caress. "Did you build it in the trees?"
Yes, she understood him, his delicious-smelling mate. "Aodhan helped me design it." The angel was young to Naasir's way of thinking, but his mind saw in intricate patterns and shapes. "It's a house perched high in a tree and it opens out on all sides." Letting in the wind and the sun.
"There's a landing platform for my winged friends." He hadn't told many of his secret home, and all those who knew were careful never to give away its location. "The tree trunk is so straight and high, with so few lower branches that no one who isn't like me can climb it. If my vampire friends want to visit, I drop down a rope ladder."
"What about inside? Where do you sleep?"
"In the rain and snow, I make a nest inside, but when the sky is clear, I sleep in a hammock strung out between branches outside." Where he could look up at the stars and listen to the forest. "It's warm because Illium hid small panels near it that catch the sunlight and release it at night." He reached back to touch her wrist again. "I'll make the hammock bigger, big enough for your wings."
A sucked-in breath behind him, before Andromeda whispered, "I'd like to see your home."
"I'll take you, after." If she wanted to put her things there, he wouldn't say no. It was his territory, but he'd share it with her. He wanted her scent in his space, on his things. "I only have a few books," he admitted. "Things Jessamy gives me so I'll have knowledge--but I prefer to get my knowledge from listening to people."
"You must have an acute memory."
"Yes." It was apparently an inborn gift that came from the bloodline of the boy who was part of his self. "From the hammock, you can see the stars at night, so clear and bright, and sometimes, you can see the wings of passing squadrons."
"They don't spot you?"
"The hammock is too small to see from up high and the house itself is camouflaged in the branches, part of the tree." As if Aodhan had plucked the image straight out of Naasir's thoughts. "Aodhan says there is no other house like it in the world."
"He has such incredible talent." Andromeda's voice held a heavy vein of sadness. "Something terrible happened to him, didn't it?"
Naasir knew exactly what had happened to Aodhan. He'd helped Raphael track down the younger man--who he thought of as a cub in their family unit. That cub had been so badly damaged by the time they found him that Naasir had gone a little insane in vengeance. He wasn't sorry. No one touched Naasir's family and walked away unscathed.
"He's smiling again." It made Naasir happy to remember that and he knew it would make Andromeda happy, too. "He played a trick on Illium when Illium teased him too much."
"I've never seen Aodhan do anything like that."
Naasir grinned. "He's Illium's best friend for a reason." Naasir had been a hundred and twenty the first time he met the two. He still hadn't been full-grown, but he'd been old enough to know that two tiny angel cubs shouldn't be diving off a steep cliff into a pond below.
When he'd caught them by the scruffs of their necks, the two wet boys had wiggled like squirmy fish in an effort to get away. He'd growled and carried them straight to Jessamy. The memory was one Andromeda would like. He'd share it with her later, he thought, just as she said, "Tell me about Aodhan's trick."
Naasir wanted to laugh at the cleverness of it. "He snuck into Illium's room while Illium was asleep. Normally Illium would wake at once"--the squirmy cub had grown into a seasoned warrior-- "but his mind would've known Aodhan was no threat, so he slept on." As Naasir would sleep on if Andromeda was in the room.
"Waiting until Illium turned over onto his front, Aodhan painted words on the outer surface of his wings with a spec
ial ink that soaked in but dried without leaving a sticky feeling. When Illium woke, he didn't notice anything."
Andromeda giggled. "What did Aodhan write?"
"Well, when Illium went out to join his squadron commanders for a drill, they patted him on the shoulder and said, 'Sorry, you're not my type'." Naasir had seen it all from his vantage point on a balcony.
"Don't keep me in suspense." Andromeda thumped him playfully on the shoulder.
Naasir grinned. "Free Bluebell kisses on offer."
Andromeda stifled a snort.
"The best part was that the ink didn't wash off, not for three days. Illium finally hunted Aodhan down and had him ink out the words so it just looked like he had splotches of black on his wings."
"Will Illium retaliate?"
"Of course." Illium's accident, Naasir knew, would've terrified Aodhan. "But they will always be friends, no matter what tricks they play on each other." Naasir had a feeling nothing would ever sever that bond. The two were incapable of betraying one another.
"Do you have a friend like that?" Andromeda asked, a wistfulness to her tone.
"I have family. I have friends." Far more than he'd ever imagined he might have when he'd been a feral boy who didn't understand what it meant to be civilized. "Janvier and Ashwini see me, understand me, are my friends." Like the others in the Seven, as well as Raphael, they had never asked him to be anything but exactly what and who he was. "But they belong to each other first." As it should be. "I will be always-friends with my mate."
Andromeda's voice was small. "She'll be a lucky woman."
He scowled; who did she think he was talking about? Before he could challenge her, however, he caught the first traces of a scent. "We have to be quiet now," he murmured. "This scent is old but it means the wing brothers patrol here."
The tunnel widened soon after that point and Andromeda was able to walk next to him, her hand in his. His eyes penetrated the darkness as if it was nothing, but he knew that for her, it must be a stygian nothingness. Yet she walked into it without flinching.
Lifting her hand to his mouth, he kissed her knuckles.
Her wing brushed over his back in a silent, affectionate response just as the darkness of the tunnel became suffused with a soft light.
Hearing nothing and scenting nothing fresh, Naasir continued on until they found the source of the light. It was inside a large cave--part of the roof was slightly cracked. Not enough to allow access, but enough for a shaft of sunlight to spear in.
"We're still far too high," Andromeda said, her lips brushing his ear. "We need to go deeper."
Nodding, Naasir did a careful scan of the cave. "That's the easiest downward option." He pointed to the tunnel entrance across the cave. "No fresh scents, but old ones are buried within."
"A trap?"
"My gut says yes." He and Andromeda walked across with utmost care. He felt the minute change in the slope of the sand beneath their feet an instant before Andromeda put her foot forward.
35
Hauling her back before her foot could land, Naasir pinned her to his chest, her scraped and cut wings between them. "There's something beneath."
Fine white lines bracketed her mouth, but she just nodded. "I won't move."
Releasing her after making sure she had her balance, he crouched down and went to brush away the sand when he realized his fingers might create too much pressure.
"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."
One of the tales they'd told her had been of going to a newly adult Alexander's oasis home for a "warrior party" where mead was drink and the dancing was wil
d.
"He never forgot us," one of the Ancients had said. "Even when he became a powerful general, then an archangel, we still had an open welcome to his home--whether it be an archangelic palace or a hunting cabin--and he'd sit with us and drink a glass or five and laugh over old stories."
The others had nodded, their smiles holding a deep and true affection for an archangel who to them was a friend they'd grown up alongside. "I hope one day when we wake, he, too, is awake. I should like to share a drink with him and see what he makes of this world where metal machines fly in the air and an archangel keeps no court."
Thinking of all her conversations with the Ancients, she braced herself with a hand on Naasir's chest and said, "If Alexander is in some sense aware of people in this cave system, then we may be safe. He wasn't capricious or heedlessly cruel."
"But if it's an autonomous defense as with the locusts, then we could end up catatonic," Naasir completed in the low, slightly growly tone that she loved.
"Should we leave and attempt to get far enough away that the phone works?"
"I missed the check-in call--Raphael is already on his way." Naasir closed one warm, rough-skinned hand over the one she had on his chest. "But it'll take Alexander time to rise, and Lijuan has a shorter distance to travel than Raphael. We need to try to start the process so Alexander isn't helpless if Lijuan realizes this is his location and arrives first."
Andromeda thought of how Lijuan's physical form had faded in and out, of her thin face and missing limbs. The Archangel of China was clearly weak, but according to the news Andromeda had received from Jessamy while in Amanat, there was a chance Lijuan had killed Jariel--an angel rumored to have been strong enough that he might one day soon have become an archangel.
And Alexander was currently helpless should she strike.
"What are we waiting for?" she said to Naasir, her blood hot. "We have to go annoy an Ancient and hope he doesn't turn us into gibbering idiots."
Naasir's chuckle was soft, the teeth that grazed the tip of her ear sharp. "I knew you were my mate."
36
Lijuan had only gone a quarter of the way to Rohan's palace when her strength ran out. Heading to the ground before she fell out of the sky, her wings yet weak and useless appendages, she became corporeal.