Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Alexander! This happened before the war. Titus’s voice in his mind.
It’s Zanaya. Alexander barely kept his mental voice from shaking when he caught a wave of scents lovely and unknowable. She wakes. And this time, she did so on her own terms, with her song and her scents.
A second longer, and he had it, her location. He couldn’t do this with any other archangel and he didn’t know if any other archangel could do it with anyone else. Usually, the members of the Cadre woke with a show—but in secret. No one not in close proximity would ever see them rise.
She’s in your territory, he told Titus even as he set himself a hard pace in Zanaya’s direction. He didn’t want his friend surprised into aggressive action, wanted Zanaya to have a peaceful waking. Somewhere in the north.
Well, makes sense, Titus said with his customary pragmatism. We need an archangel there.
So they did. Titus was only Archangel of all Africa because there was no one else to take on the duty. The other archangel far preferred to handle only half the continent, truly give his people the care and attention he felt was an archangel’s duty.
Zanaya wouldn’t have to fight for territory.
She must be healed. Titus’s voice was a happy boom of sound. That gives me hope for Astaad, Michaela, and Favashi.
Alexander had no room in his thoughts for the other three, Zanaya his sole priority. Flying with archangelic fury, his body a scythe through the intense beauty of her sky, he soon landed atop a dune in a small desert region just beyond what had been the north/south border when Titus ruled only half the continent.
His wings ached from the strain he’d put them under, his heart a drum. Trust Zanaya to wake in just the right place, he thought on a wave of raw hope, but though the sky remained a velvety black evocative with scents exquisite, he saw no sign of her.
It made him wonder if he’d got it wrong after all.
Had she woken elsewhere? That didn’t matter to him. The only thing he cared about was if she’d woken.
Titus, is there word from any other part of the world of her waking?
No. Her night covers the planet, but no one has yet reported a sighting.
It was taking far too long. Given how distant he’d been, she should’ve emerged long before his arrival. Worry gnawed at him . . . as the dune melted from under him without warning.
Startled, he flew up into a hover before coming down on what was now a flat area of sand that glittered with diamond fire in the center. He took another few steps back, giving her the space she’d need.
The sand swirled as it rose, spinning faster and faster the higher it got, until the silver glitter of it was a small tornado that blew back his hair and made him stagger on his feet. Arm braced over his eyes to protect them from the grit in the air, he tried to see her through the whirlwind, but that proved impossible, the wind a maelstrom.
The tornado dropped with unexpected suddenness, revealing the back of a woman with hair of purple-washed-silver, her stature small but her curves dangerous. She had a sword strapped to her spine, its hilt studded with opals as well as a single piece of scarlet amber. He’d made sure his Zani had Firelight with her in Sleep.
Now, as he watched with hope and disbelief warring within, she stretched luxuriantly, a cat waking from a nap.
He searched the parts of her body visible to him, found not a single scar or other indication of Lijuan’s evil. His Zani had healed.
Then she turned to face him.
He sucked in a breath. “Zani, your eyes.”
Smile wiped away, she pulled out Firelight to examine herself in the gleaming metal. The curses that erupted from her mouth were in a language long extinct but that Alexander knew very well—because its repertoire of curses had always been the most interesting.
“That creature born of a dung beetle and a half-dead ass marked me!” She poked at the skin just below the startling pearl gray of her eyes.
Those eyes should’ve been midnight dark speckled with silvery light, a beautiful and luscious richness that had seduced him throughout time. “Zani.”
Striding forward, he took his life into his hands and wrapped her up in his arms. Instead of prodding him with the blade for his temerity, she actually dropped her favorite sword to hug him back as tight. “Is she dead?” A rough whisper against his chest.
“Yes. We ended Lijuan that day.”
“Good.” Short, sharp, satisfied. “I hope my lifeforce gave her indigestion.”
Laughing, shaky, Alexander kissed the top of her hair, the side of her face, and then their lips were meeting and it was as if they hadn’t been separated by a cold, hard decade. They fit as perfectly as if they’d been designed to interlock. Her lips so soft and plush, his firmer. Her hold fierce, his wings a protective embrace.