Archangel's Shadows(168)

            Ash had taken the news better than Janvier. It was Ash who’d held him, who had comforted him. His strong, beautiful lover.

            “There,” she whispered now, putting down the second urn. “I felt them go. I think they were waiting to make sure I was all right.” The long white cotton scarf she wore around her neck, the same color as her tunic and leggings, threw the sorrow on her face into sharp relief, the wind blowing back the rich silk of her hair.

            Sliding his arm around her, he stood with her on the mountaintop and he thought of the promise she’d asked him to make. “If you’re right and people sometimes come back, then I’ll come back with you.” He couldn’t imagine it any other way. His soul would find hers, no matter the unknown beyond death.

            “You are an awful, mule-stubborn man.”

            “I love you, too.”

            A quiet, husky laugh as she tilted up her head. “I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let this thing in my head take you, too.”

            “I’m over two hundred years old,” he reminded her. “By rights, I should already be dust in the earth. Eternal life for its own sake has no meaning for me—I’m angry only because I won’t get to live it with you.”

            Reaching up to stroke her fingers through his hair, she sighed. “Let’s have hope in Tanu’s dream and discuss your stubbornness another time.” A hard pull of his hair that made him wince. “When I have a kukri at your throat.”

            He nipped her lower lip, smiled. “Full throttle all the way, cher.”

            Her eyes warmed. “All the way, cuddlebunny.”





43


            Titus arrived with only three warriors the night before the block party was scheduled to begin. Elena didn’t have to be told that the small unit was both a gesture of trust and a display of his confidence in his own strength. Folding in his wings as he landed on the Tower roof, his warriors coming down behind him—two males and one female—Titus headed toward Elena and Raphael.

            “Titus.” Raphael walked forward to meet the other man halfway and held out his arm. “You are welcome.”

            Titus grabbed Raphael’s forearm, Raphael’s own hand closing over his in the clasp of warriors. “I am glad you are here to welcome me, Raphael,” he said, his words a boom that made Elena realize the archangel usually modulated his voice so as not to drown out everyone else in his vicinity. “You are a pup, but a strong one I’d have at my back in any battle.”

            “And I would have you, though you are heading toward frail old age.”

            Titus’s laugh at Raphael’s riposte was huge. “Well met, young pup. Well met.”

            Breaking the handclasp with a deep smile, Raphael turned to Elena. “My consort.”

            She stepped forward. “Archangel Titus,” she said, keeping it formal until he gave an indication that informality was welcome.

            Her restraint was thanks to Jessamy. Elena had been in Remedial Protocol School that afternoon, since this was the first time she was welcoming an archangel to her city who had no consort and who was unrelated to Raphael, but who’d known Raphael as a boy and had, in fact, helped train him.

            All of which, apparently, changed everything.

            At this rate, she thought with an inward snort, she’d have the protocol thing sorted in, oh, another nine hundred years, give or take. “You made good time.”

            Titus made his reply in the softer tone she was used to hearing from him. “A good wind.”

            “If you and your people would follow us,” she said, hoping Raphael was right and Titus was laid-back enough that she could soon drop the protocol crap. It was making her head ache. At least she hadn’t had to put on a gown for this. “We have prepared suites for you.”