“I’ve made my choice.” He began to cool down, conscious of Raphael doing the same beside him. “If there’s no place for me here, it’s not to Titus’s court that I would go.”
“Where, then?”
Galen considered his options. “There aren’t many for whom I might choose to raise my sword, fewer still who are strong enough not to consider me a threat. Elijah would head the list.” The archangel was older than Raphael, but not lost to the cruelty power engendered in so many. “However, he has a weapons-master he trusts and respects.”
“You have the potential to rule within an archangel’s wider territory,” Raphael said, resettling his wings as he brought himself to a halt. “Why not petition the Cadre for a change in status?”
Galen, too, came to a standstill. “I am a weapons-master.” It was what sang to his blood.
Picking up a set of throwing knives, Raphael gave them to Galen before taking a set for himself. When he raised his eyebrow, Galen grinned and looked up. “Let’s see how fast you really are, Bluebell.”
“Bluebell?” The archangel laughed as Illium swore to get even, and then the first knife was flying from his hand.
Twenty knives later—ten each—Illium smirked from his high perch. “Oh, you both missed.” Faux disappointment, embellished with theatrical sighs. “Poor, poor dears.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I am an archangel,” Raphael reminded the irreverent angel, his tone dry.
Illium grinned, unrepentant. “Want to try again? I’ll move extra slow—you are both so much older, after all.” The last words were a conspiratorial whisper.
Galen glanced at Raphael. “How has he survived this long?”
“No one can catch him.”
As Illium laughed and attempted to get Raphael to commit to a wager, Galen felt a sense of absolute rightness. This, this was his place, with these warriors tied together by more than fear or subservience, but most of all, with the woman who had marked him with the erotic promise of her kiss.
He wondered when Jessamy would realize what he’d done.
Jessamy said, “Saraia,” in a stern tone.
“Sorry, Jessamy.” Pulling her drooping wings back up, Saraia looked to Jessamy for praise.
She smiled. “Good girl.”
Satisfied, Saraia continued reading out the passage she’d been assigned.
Jessamy knew her charges thought her merciless for the way she constantly reminded them to raise their wings, but the fact was, their bones were still forming. The more effort they put into the task, the stronger they’d grow, until the heaviness of their wings became near weightless.
However, in spite of her correction, her mind wasn’t completely with the children. Part of her remained in Galen’s arms, her mouth burning with the imprint of his own. When he’d offered to fly her, she’d felt such guilt for the awful thought that had wormed its way into her mind earlier, but Galen had certainly not minded her efforts at a silent apology.
“You’re seducing me to get your own way.”
A giddy smile more suited to an adolescent threatened to break out over her face.
“Jessamy?”
Glancing up, she saw Saraia looking at her with a hesitant smile, the book closed.
“Well-done,” she said, wrenching herself back to the present, and to these precious souls who needed to learn what she had to teach them. “You have a lovely way of reading.
“Now,” she said, once Saraia had returned to her firm but comfortable stool in the circle of young ones, Jessamy’s older students having already had their lesson, “it’s time for our discussion. Have you all thought of a subject to talk about?”
A hand went up, waving wildly.
“Yes, Azec?”
The boy’s wine-dark eyes sparkled as they met her own, the naughtiness in them so apparent she had to fight a laugh. This one reminded her of Illium—whom she’d had to threaten with dire consequences more than once when he wouldn’t concentrate on his lessons. He’d always kissed her on the cheek afterward and apologized with such sincerity, the little mischief-maker.
“Miss Jessamy,” Azec said, all but vibrating with excitement, “do you like the new angel, the big one?”
“Galen,” the girl next to him supplied in a loud whisper. “My mother said his name is Galen.”
Jessamy blinked, so startled she could only say, “Why?”
Azec stood, wings spread, and hands thrown victoriously in the air. “Because you were kissing him!”
Giggles erupted around the room, while Azec sat back with a bright grin, satisfied he’d trumped all his classmates. But his elevated status didn’t last long.
“I saw, too!” another girl cried. “Up on the cliff.” Kicking out her legs, she beamed at Jessamy, her wild tumble of sun-colored curls held back with a pretty lilac ribbon. “I could tell it was you because of your wing,” she said with the unvarnished honesty of youth.
All at once, Jessamy remembered how Galen had blocked the view with his own wings when things became heated—he’d known their silhouettes would be visible from certain areas of the Refuge, had to have realized the kiss would be all over the angelic city by morning. She had been, she realized, expertly outflanked. No wonder so many people had looked at her with secret smiles on their lips this morning. Not smirks, but smiles full of delight.
Such as those on the faces in front of her.
Their joy for her shattered something inside her, some brittle, hard shield. “I did kiss Galen,” she admitted, because you couldn’t lie to children and expect to keep their trust.
Azec and Saraia both spoke at the same time, their voices tangling in playful innocence. “Did you like it?”
“Yes.” Until she didn’t know the passionate, demanding stranger she’d become.
Having caught more than one speculative look directed his way as he walked through the artisans’ section of the Refuge later that day, Galen bit back a smile of primal satisfaction. No one was now in any doubt about his claim when it came to Jessamy.
Illium knocked on the door of the home where he’d led them, eyes of deep gold narrowing when his gaze fell on Galen. “It might be better for your health not to look like the cat that got into the cream when you see Jessamy next.”
Galen bared his teeth. “A man has a right to declare his courtship.” And make it clear that anyone who got in the way would be eviscerated.
The blue-winged angel shook his head. “Barbarian, there’s declaring and then there’s beating the point home with a club.”
Right then, they heard a faint “It’s open” from within the house.
Following the flirtatious wind in the hallway, they came out onto a railing-less balcony that hung out over the gorge, appearing to be suspended against the cerulean blue of the sky. The angel who sat with his back to the house, his face and hands streaked with red and blue and yellow, a color-drenched canvas on the easel in front of him, was created of fractured pieces of light.
His wings were diamond bright, refracting and breaking the piercing beams of sunlight; his hair the same pale, paradoxically dazzling shade; his eyes, when he turned to glance over his shoulder, splintered outward from the black pupil in shards of crystalline blue and green. A sculpture in ice, but for the fact his skin held a golden warmth that likely made him an object of desire, though he was a youth yet.
Rising the instant he saw that Illium wasn’t alone, the angel took a respectful stance beside his easel, the blue paint on his cheek a primitive tattoo.
“Galen, this is Aodhan. He serves Raphael.” Illium made the introduction with a courtly grace that wouldn’t have been out of place in the palace of Neha, the Queen of Poisons. “Aodhan,” the angel continued, “meet Raphael’s new weapons-master.”
“Sir.”
Raphael’s people, Galen thought, fit no predictable pattern … but one. “Your aerie is well situated,” he said, considering the quiet, implacable loyalty he’d sensed in both Dmitri and Illium. An archangel who inspired such fidelity in men of strength was indeed a power Alexander should fear.
Aodhan’s wings rustled as he moved to join Galen near the edge of the balcony. “The light,” he said, a shy smile in his eyes, “it’s perfect for painting.”
Shy perhaps, Galen thought, but intelligent, and, from the way he moved, highly capable in some kind of combat. “The blade,” he murmured. “Rapier?” The delicate but deadly sword would fit the angel’s graceful step.
But Aodhan shook his head. “Too light for me. I prefer a more solid blade.” He pushed back his hair, leaving a red streak on his forehead and in the strands. The color glittered.
“You returned to the Refuge this morn?” He’d give the young angel time to rest, after which he wanted to see him in the salle—as weapons-master, he had to know the strengths and weaknesses of all of Raphael’s trusted people.
“Yes. I’ve been acting as a courier for the sire this past year.”
“You’re very young for the task.”
“I was given special dispensation,” Aodhan began, just as wings of white-gold swept down from the sky to land on the balcony, the wind of Raphael’s descent blowing Galen’s hair back from his face.
“You’re all here,” the archangel said, folding his wings tight to his back. “Good.”
Caught by the tone of his voice, they converged around him.
“It’s time I returned to my territory,” Raphael said. “It seems Alexander is stirring. Galen, you come with me.”
Cold in his veins. He’d always known he would be needed at Raphael’s side should war beckon. Except— “We can’t leave Jessamy unprotected.” His fury reignited as he remembered how she’d cried against his chest, his strong, intensely private Jessamy.
“Aodhan, Illium, and Jason, when he returns tonight, will make certain she’s never in any danger.” Raphael glanced at the other two angels, received immediate nods. “Jessamy is a woman of intelligence—she will not foolishly put herself in harm’s way.”