than any other she’d faced save Neha, she walked up the steps of the palace where Jason would stay for the duration. Though it wasn’t overtly guarded, only a fool would assume it wasn’t under constant watch.
When she walked through the open doors and turned to welcome Jason inside, he paused. “You live here.”
“Yes.” And had done so since she returned from the Refuge school, but it wasn’t home and never would be.
Soon,
she promised herself
,
soon I will have a home where I will be safe, free from Neha’s bitter hate and the shadow of a father who didn’t know the meaning of fidelity.
Lowering her head in an apparent gesture of subservience lest Jason see too much, she said, “I’ll show you to your room.”
He followed her upstairs and into the sprawling room that overlooked the courtyard. Once, that had been the room she’d shared with Arav, believing herself loved. Desperate for happiness, she hadn’t wanted to see the truth until it slapped her in the face.
“You have been a most amusing diversion.” A laughing, condescending pat on the cheek at her bewildered expression. “And rather delightful. But Neha has approved my territorial proposal, and I’m afraid I must return to my lands and cease partaking of your pleasures.”
That heartbreakingly young, naïve girl was long gone, but Mahiya refused to allow the poison of Neha’s hatred to infect her—she knew full well Arav had only used her as he had because he’d divined her pain would please the archangel. That was a stain against his honor and said nothing of Mahiya’s own. She
would
love again, and she would love with all her heart, living her life in a brilliance of hope and joy.
“Will you be needing anything?” she asked the spymaster, who, feminine instinct whispered, was far more dangerous to her than Arav had ever been.
“No.”
Stepping back, she pulled the wooden doors shut and walked quickly to her own room, situated right next to his. However, she knew she’d be too late and she was. By the time she opened the doors to their shared balcony, Raphael’s spymaster had disappeared into the gray twilight that was the first harbinger of night’s fading kiss.
* * *
G liding on the cool winds of the hour before dawn, Jason came to an easy landing on one of the walls of the heavily fortified Guardian Fort. It overlooked Archangel Fort and was considered an extension of it, a place where a considerable number of Neha’s angelic guard made their homes. Seen from its strong walls, Archangel Fort was a great lady yet asleep, though the scattering of lights burning in the windows told him the place never truly closed its eyes. As it should be. The Tower in New York never slept, either.
He saw an angel come in to land at the lower fort at that instant. From the way he brought himself to a harsh stop with two simple backbeats, Jason pegged the flyer as one of the warrior guards. Those guards were not exclusively angelic—Neha had her share of vampires in all positions, displaying no bias that could be utilized as a vulnerability.
If the archangel had had vulnerabilities, they’d been named Anoushka and Eris.
Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the small object he’d secreted away even as he passed Mahiya the heavy gold ring. He’d taken the masculine ring exactly for that purpose but hadn’t actually expected her to catch the movement. Something else to add to his growing mental file on the princess who watched him with eyes that saw far too much for a woman who’d been cloistered within sumptuous palace walls her entire adult existence. Now, he used his extraordinary night vision to examine the find he hadn’t returned.
7
T he ring was a woman’s from the look of it: fine strands of gold woven around an opal at the center. Quite aside from the feminine quality of the design, the ring was too small to have fit even the little finger of Eris’s hand. And, Neha was known to dislike opals, considering
When she walked through the open doors and turned to welcome Jason inside, he paused. “You live here.”
“Yes.” And had done so since she returned from the Refuge school, but it wasn’t home and never would be.
Soon,
she promised herself
,
soon I will have a home where I will be safe, free from Neha’s bitter hate and the shadow of a father who didn’t know the meaning of fidelity.
Lowering her head in an apparent gesture of subservience lest Jason see too much, she said, “I’ll show you to your room.”
He followed her upstairs and into the sprawling room that overlooked the courtyard. Once, that had been the room she’d shared with Arav, believing herself loved. Desperate for happiness, she hadn’t wanted to see the truth until it slapped her in the face.
“You have been a most amusing diversion.” A laughing, condescending pat on the cheek at her bewildered expression. “And rather delightful. But Neha has approved my territorial proposal, and I’m afraid I must return to my lands and cease partaking of your pleasures.”
That heartbreakingly young, naïve girl was long gone, but Mahiya refused to allow the poison of Neha’s hatred to infect her—she knew full well Arav had only used her as he had because he’d divined her pain would please the archangel. That was a stain against his honor and said nothing of Mahiya’s own. She
would
love again, and she would love with all her heart, living her life in a brilliance of hope and joy.
“Will you be needing anything?” she asked the spymaster, who, feminine instinct whispered, was far more dangerous to her than Arav had ever been.
“No.”
Stepping back, she pulled the wooden doors shut and walked quickly to her own room, situated right next to his. However, she knew she’d be too late and she was. By the time she opened the doors to their shared balcony, Raphael’s spymaster had disappeared into the gray twilight that was the first harbinger of night’s fading kiss.
* * *
G liding on the cool winds of the hour before dawn, Jason came to an easy landing on one of the walls of the heavily fortified Guardian Fort. It overlooked Archangel Fort and was considered an extension of it, a place where a considerable number of Neha’s angelic guard made their homes. Seen from its strong walls, Archangel Fort was a great lady yet asleep, though the scattering of lights burning in the windows told him the place never truly closed its eyes. As it should be. The Tower in New York never slept, either.
He saw an angel come in to land at the lower fort at that instant. From the way he brought himself to a harsh stop with two simple backbeats, Jason pegged the flyer as one of the warrior guards. Those guards were not exclusively angelic—Neha had her share of vampires in all positions, displaying no bias that could be utilized as a vulnerability.
If the archangel had had vulnerabilities, they’d been named Anoushka and Eris.
Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the small object he’d secreted away even as he passed Mahiya the heavy gold ring. He’d taken the masculine ring exactly for that purpose but hadn’t actually expected her to catch the movement. Something else to add to his growing mental file on the princess who watched him with eyes that saw far too much for a woman who’d been cloistered within sumptuous palace walls her entire adult existence. Now, he used his extraordinary night vision to examine the find he hadn’t returned.
7
T he ring was a woman’s from the look of it: fine strands of gold woven around an opal at the center. Quite aside from the feminine quality of the design, the ring was too small to have fit even the little finger of Eris’s hand. And, Neha was known to dislike opals, considering
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