Ilona Andrews: Angels of Darkness

Augustus actually growled at her, betraying the years he’d spent as a warrior in Titus’s court, conquering and pillaging. “I waited for you, and you throw me over for a pretty-boy vampire?”

Nimra knew she should have been angered but all she felt was an exasperated affection. “Do you really think I don’t know about the harem of dancing girls you keep in that castle of yours?”

He had the grace to bow his head a fraction. “None of them are you.”

“The past is past,” she whispered, placing a hand on his chest and rising up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his jaw. “Eitriel was a friend to us both, and he betrayed us both. You do not have to pay the penance.”

His arms came around her, solid and strong. “You are not penance, Nimra.”

“But I am not your lodestar, either.” She brushed a hand down the primaries of his right wing. It was a familiar caress, but not an intimate one. “Go home, Augustus. Your women will be pining for you.”

Grumbling, he glared at Noel. “Put a bruise on her heart and I’ll turn your entire body into a bruise.” With that, he was gone.

Noel stared after the angel until he disappeared from sight. “Who is Eitriel?”

Nimra’s gaze glittered with anger when it slammed into his. “That is none of your concern.” The door to the library banged shut in a display of cold temper. “You are here for one purpose only.”

Very carefully worded, Noel thought, watching as she walked to the sliding doors that led out into the gardens and pushed them open. Anyone listening would come to the obvious conclusion.

“As I said, Noel,” Nimra continued, “take care you do not go too far. I am not a maiden for you to protect.”

Stepping out into the gardens with her, he said nothing until they came to the edge of the stream that ran through her land, the water cool and clear. “No,” he agreed, knowing he’d crossed a line. Yet he couldn’t form an apology—because he wasn’t sorry he’d intervened. “You have an interesting court,” he said instead when he was certain they were alone, the scent of honeysuckle heavy in the air, though he couldn’t see any evidence of the vine.

“Do I?” Tone still touched with the frost of power, Nimra sat down on the same wrought-iron bench he’d used earlier, her wings spread out behind her, strands of topaz shimmering in the sunlight.

“Fen is your eyes and ears and has been for a long time,” he said, “while Amariyah was only Made because it soothes his heart to know that she’ll live even after he is gone.”

Nimra’s response had nothing to do with his conclusions. “Noel. Understand this. I can never appear weak.”

“Understood.” Weakness could get her killed. “However, there’s no weakness in having a wolf by your side.”

“So long as that wolf does not aspire to seize the reins.”

“This wolf has no such desire.” Going down on his haunches, he played a river-smoothed pebble over and through his fingers as he returned to the topic of Fen and Amariyah. “Are you always so kind to your court?”

“Fen has earned far more than he has ever asked,” Nimra said, wondering if Noel was truly capable of being her wolf without grasping for power. “I will miss him terribly when he is gone.” She could see she’d surprised Noel with her confession. Angels, especially those old and powerful enough to hold territories, were not meant to be creatures of emotion, of heart.

“Who will you miss when they are gone?” she asked, deeply curious about what lay behind the hard shield of his personality. “Do you have human acquaintances and friends?” She didn’t expect him to answer, so when he did, she had to hide her own surprise. Only decades of experience made that possible—Eitriel had left her with that, if nothing else.

“I was born on an English moor,” he said, his voice shifting to betray the faintest trace of an accent from times long gone.

She found it fascinating. “When were you Made?” she asked. “You were older.” Vampires did age, but so slowly that the changes were imperceptible. The lines of maturity on Noel’s face came from his human lifetime.

“Thirty-two,” he said, his eyes on a plump bumblebee as it buzzed over to the dewberry shrub heavy with fruit on Nimra’s right. “I thought I had another life in front of me, but when I found that road cut off, I decided what the hell, I might as well attempt to become a Candidate. I never expected to be chosen on the first attempt.”

Nimra angled her head, conscious that angels would’ve fought to claim him for their courts, this male with both strength and intelligence. “This other life, did it involve a woman?”

“Doesn’t it always?” There was no bitterness in his words. “She chose another, and I wanted no one else. After I was Made, I watched over her and her children and somewhere along the way, I became a friend rather than a former lover. Her descendants call me Uncle. I mourn them when they pass.”

Nimra thought of the wild windswept beauty of the land where he’d been born, found it fit him to perfection. “Do they still live on the moors?”

A nod, his hair shining in the sunlight. “They are a proud lot, prouder yet of the land they call their own.”

“And you?”

“The moor takes ahold of your soul,” he said, the rhythms of his homeland dark and rich in his voice. “I return when it calls to me.”

Compelled by the glimpse into his past, this complex man, she found her wings unfolding even farther, the Louisiana sun a warm caress across her feathers. “Why does your accent disappear in normal conversation?”

A shrug. “I’ve spent many, many years away from the moors, but for visits here and there.” Dropping the stone, he rose to his feet, six feet plus of tall, muscled male with an expression that was suddenly all business. “Fen, Asirani, Christian, and Amariyah,” he said. “Are they the only ones who have access to you on that intimate a level?”

“There is one other,” she said, aware the moment was over. “Exeter is an angel who has been with me for over a century. He prefers to spend his time in his room in the western wing, going over his scholarly books.”

“Will he be at dinner?”

“I’ll ask him to attend.” It was difficult to think of sweet, absentminded Exeter wanting to cause her harm. “I cannot suspect him, but then, I cannot suspect any of them.”

“At present, there’s nothing that points to any one of them beyond the others, so no one can be eliminated.” Arms folded, he turned to face her. “Augustus—tell me about him.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Snapping her wings shut, she rose to her feet. “He is a friend who thinks he needs to be more, that I need him to be more. It has been handled.”

Noel could see that Nimra wasn’t used to being questioned or pushed. “I don’t think Augustus believes it has been handled.”

A cold-eyed smile. “As we discussed earlier,” she said, “such things are not in your purview.”

“On the contrary.” Closing the distance between them, he braced his hands on his hips. “Frustrated men do stupid and sometimes deadly things.”

A hint of a frown as she reached up to brush away a tiny white blossom that had fallen on her shoulder. “Not Augustus. He has always been a friend first.”

“No matter what you choose to believe, his feelings aren’t those of a friend.” Noel had glimpsed untrammeled rage on the big angel’s face when Augustus had first realized what Noel apparently was to Nimra.

White lines bracketed Nimra’s mouth. “The point is moot. Augustus visits, but he wasn’t here when the Midnight was put into my tea.”

“You said certain servants are trusted with your food,” Noel pointed out, an exquisite, enticing scent twining through his veins, one that had nothing to do with the gardens. “Yet your focus is clearly on your inner court in the hunt for the traitor. Why?”