Налини Сингх - Archangel's Sun

“This isn’t about violence or power, Aegaeon.” This time her smile held an edge of sadness. “It’s about two people who once could’ve been something, but will never again have that chance.”

A shifting in his expression, a hint of the man she’d seen at times during their relationship. The man who’d played for hours with their little boy and who’d looked at her with eyes full of wonder. “So, this is to be my penance. To see you glow and know I will never again be in your orbit.”

Then, to her absolute astonishment, he bent at the waist in a bow an archangel gave no one. It swayed nothing in her, but she accepted that the gesture was one with meaning.

“Good-bye, Sharine.”

“Good-bye, Aegaeon.”

I want to drive my fist into his face, came a deep male voice in her head.

He’ll enjoy it, Sharine said. It’ll reignite his belief that I foster lingering emotions for him, causing you to act out in jealousy. She watched Aegaeon’s wings disappear into the night-dark sky. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

An ominous silence.

Sharine said nothing further. Titus had to make this decision for himself. When he landed on the roof a good hour later, she was ready to strip off his skin with her tongue. She’d handled the situation, and in a way that she knew would bite at Aegaeon for eons to come.

Rejection and disinterest were two things her former lover couldn’t take.

First, she looked Titus up and down. He appeared none the worse for wear. Folding her arms, she tapped her foot. “What did you do?”

He put his hands on his hips. “Nothing. I only followed the donkey at a distance to ensure he was indeed departing the territory.” A definite hint of sulkiness twined with real anger. “I will punch him one day, be assured of it, for he’ll show his ass again.” Dark eyes landing on her. “But today was your victory. I wouldn’t assault a man when he was already bleeding so grievously.”

How had she once thought him without charm? There it was, packaged in a scowl and all the more potent for being so rough and honest.

Walking across to him, she “fixed” the collar of his shirt, wanting only to be close to the vivid heat of his body.

When he said, “Fly with me,” she spread her wings.

48

The vise around Titus’s chest grew ever more agonizingly tight as they flew. He’d already taken out his gift; it now burned a hole in his palm. Leading them away from the village and past Lumia’s scouts, he flew toward skies that were private and dark but for the starlight.

This, what he was about to do, it needed no audience.

If she would break his heart, he’d rather bear the blow in private. It had nothing to do with pride and everything to do with pain—he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide it, not at the first feeling. His people were already battered and bruised. They didn’t need to see their archangel’s devastation.

When he landed, it was in an area uninhabited by either mortals or immortals, long golden grasses brushing against his calves and the landscape a rolling emptiness on all sides, all the way to a lake in the far distance that was a patch of cool dark. Sharine landed a few meters distant, where the grass was shorter and less apt to catch on her dress. He walked to her through the golden strands, to this extraordinary woman who’d caught him in a net she hadn’t thrown.

He was caught just the same.

When he lifted his hand to cup her cheek, she leaned into it, but her eyes, lovely and penetrating, didn’t break from his.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, the words rough. “You’ve made a hole in my heart and it causes me pain when you aren’t there to fill it.”

“It’ll pass.” Husky words. “Has it not always before?”

“No.” He knew that to the bottom of his soul. “I’ve never had a hole inside me. It’s permanent and it aches.”

“What of all the butterflies in the world? What of all the other lovers you could have?”

The answer was breathtakingly easy. “They won’t be you.” He’d been approached more than once in the time since they’d been apart, both by warriors and by civilians, all with a smile and with affection.

He’d had no desire to dance with any of them.

The hole in his heart was in a very particular shape and it could be filled by only one person. “I find myself turning to tell you clever thoughts, but you aren’t there. I wake wishing to kiss you, and sometimes, I even wake wanting to hear you flaying me to shreds with your tongue.”

No laughter, and none of the biting wit with which she’d so successfully destroyed Aegaeon. A champagne gaze that gave nothing away. “Do you ask me to be your lover for more than the now?”

Shaking his head, Titus dropped his hand from her cheek to go down on one knee among the grasses. His heart pounded, his mouth ran dry, and his sense of being exactly where he wished to be was so resonant that it felt as if he was bound to the universe itself.

“No, Shari,” he said. “Though I’ll be your lover any day you wish, what I ask is for you to be my consort.” He opened out his hand, in which lay a fine golden chain, at the end of which hung a pendant made of amber in the shape of a hummingbird soaring in flight.

* * *

. . . be my consort.

Sharine’s mind emptied of all thought, Titus the center of her universe. He was extraordinary, her Titus, strong and loyal and with a heart so huge it encompassed his entire territory.

He was also honest to a fault.

And he’d just asked her to be his consort.

She sank into the grass in front of him. “Titus.” Cupping his face, she kissed him with all the passion—and yes, love—in her heart. She’d fallen for this brash, blunt hammer of an archangel despite all her plans to the contrary, and she wouldn’t lie to herself about that, either.

Wrapping her in his arms, he crushed her close, devouring her mouth. Breathless in the aftermath, she nevertheless shook her head when he beamed a smile that engulfed her in its love, and went to put the necklace around her neck.

“Shari, you can’t kiss a man so, then reject him.” Open anguish.

“It’s no rejection.” She touched her hand to his jaw, unable to bear to wound the huge heart that loved her. “I’ll wear your amber so the world knows my heart is taken.”

The vise around Titus’s chest began to ease its grip at last. “Do you love me? Tell me, then.”

A glow in eyes that shouldn’t glow, their beauty incandescent. “I love you, Titus, Archangel of Africa.” In her voice were tones he’d never before heard, layers of love that wrapped around him with primal sensual intimacy.

“Don’t ever use that voice with anyone else,” he grumbled, “or you’ll break my heart, and I’ll break them.”

Laughter, as sensual and as addicting. “I’ll always protect your heart, for it’s mine now.” A slender hand pressed to that very organ, her voice unbending on her next words. “You, too, will wear my amber—a single piece, embedded into your breastplate.”

Titus puffed out his chest, his hands on her hips, and a smile curving his lips. “You can embed within it as many pieces of amber as you like.” He’d never budge in his devotion to her.

Running the back of her hand over his jaw, she said, “I’m not ready to be your consort.” A finger pressed to his lips. “Consorts must be aware of politics, must undertake certain duties. I can’t, not only because I watch over Lumia, but because I’ve barely awakened. I can’t be your consort before I’m complete in myself as Sharine.”

“Shari, if you grow any more radiant, I shall burn up in your light.” He pressed his forehead to her own. “But if you need a millennium or three to be ready to stand officially at my side, so be it.”