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)
Giving a loud “Woop!” Xander took off, a dark streak in the falling darkness. Look only at the top of his wings and you’d never realize the metallic underside.
Alexander laughed and took off after him. And he thought that an awakening of only ten thousand years was worth it to have such life in his veins, such energy. Zanaya was right, had always been right. He’d just been a stubborn fool to deny her.
It won’t be easy, lover. If it was, we’d have gotten it right a hundred times over. We didn’t. If we want forever, we need to work harder than we’ve ever before done. This is our final and most important war.
She’d said that to him on the flight home, an unknowing echo of Cassandra’s prediction: This time will be the end.
44
Antonicus knew he was damaged. Knew he was not the archangel who’d woken—
His thoughts fragmented.
He couldn’t recall why or when he’d last woken, the memories flash-fire flickers in his mind. Images of a devouring black fog. Of screams so piercing they were tiny insects in his brain. Of agony unending.
He turned away from them.
That was the past.
This was his future.
Flexing his hand, he heard the fracture of ice. He’d been encased in ice, left locked in cold. They would pay. All of them.
He’d already started to win, hadn’t he?
No breath at all. No warmth. No sign of life.
She hadn’t sensed him.
A small part of him that had once been an archangel, once understood life, knew that he should be worried. Angels needed to breathe. They wouldn’t die without breath, but it was agonizing after a long enough period. But Antonicus literally didn’t need to breathe . . . wasn’t sure those organs even worked.
He glanced away from that, too.
The state of his body was . . . less than optimal.
But he could fix that. He knew how. He’d been told how inside the black fog, an insidious whisper worming its way into his mind as the dying mortals screamed and screamed and screamed.
45
Zuri and Nala proved to be as skilled and as trustworthy as Alexander had promised. They were also familiar with Zanaya’s territory, having watched over it for their brother when Titus was in the southern half of the continent—and they were generous in sharing their knowledge with Zanaya.
“Are you open to a permanent transfer?” she said a month into her new reign, “Alexander will take no insult if you wish to do so and I’ll take no insult if you don’t. The choice is wholly yours.” She had another thought. “Or perhaps you don’t wish to remain this close to Titus?”
Wild laughter from the two beautiful warriors with their long black tails of hair and sharply slanted hazel eyes over dramatic cheekbones, their skin a richness of brown and their wings an amber-hued cream dusted with green that ended up in primaries of dazzling jade. “We adore being able to visit more. Our brother, in contrast, would be delighted to get rid of us,” Zuri said. “We are a plague upon him.”
Nala, the quieter of the twins, nodded. “Our poor brother. He is besieged by sisters who love him and also think they know better.” A grin. “We can’t help it. To us, he’ll always be our little brother who we carried around as a babe.”
Zanaya couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have so many siblings who so openly loved you. And for all of Titus’s muttering about his siblings, he’d glowed with pride when he’d visited of late and she’d told him how much she valued his sisters. She hadn’t missed the fact that he’d then spent several hours with the twins of his own free will.
In their bond, she saw what Alexander had once had with Osiris, and she mourned for her lover. “Will you consider it then?” she said to Zuri and Nala.
The twins looked at one another, nodded. “We don’t need to; we’d be honored to stay on.” Both angels went down on one knee in a single smooth motion, their identical wings overlapping. “We’ve never been part of building a court and to do so at your side, Lady Zanaya, it’s a dream. We need only to speak to the sire and gain his official assent.”
Zanaya didn’t ask for ornate displays of respect from her people, but she appreciated their formal bow all the more for being made out of choice. “I couldn’t have better squadron commanders by my side,” she said, then held out both hands, one to each twin.
Accepting the offer, they rose to their feet, and the rest of their conversation was taken up by the necessities of the court. That court was a skeleton yet. Almost none of Zanaya’s old court was awake—or alive.
Only three had made their way back to her thus far.
An infinitesimal number, she thought as she stood on a high balcony looking up at the sky where a sleek young angel arrowed toward Alexander’s territory. She’d just handed the courier a letter for her consort in which she requested the transfer of the twins’ contract. Of course, it hadn’t been the least bit formal. In truth, she hoped her glee at winning their loyalty would make him laugh. She loved it when her general laughed.