Naasir’s expression hardened. “He said no to his own cub? Angels love their children.”
“I think he does love me in his own twisted way.” That was what made his abandonment hurt all the more. “He told me he’d given me what he was capable of giving and that he’d continue to train me, but in every other way, I was on my own.”
“A lot has changed in fifty years.”
“Yet he’s never made the offer, though I have seen him many times for our combat sessions.” She stroked back Naasir’s hair. “I don’t think the bond ever formed deep enough for him to claim me as his own—he didn’t realize I was his until almost fifty years after my birth, when my wings settled into their final adult pattern. By then . . . it was too late for him to see me as a babe.” To feel the protective instincts of a parent.
“So you want me to wait five hundred years?”
Yes. “I can’t demand that,” she said aloud even as her soul tore in two.
He growled at her, so loud and angry that she startled. “Are you going to rut with others in Charisemnon’s court?”
“No!” She pushed at his shoulders but he refused to move. “Why would you say such a horrible thing?”
“Why would you say I shouldn’t wait for you?” It was a snarl. “If you’re mine, you’re mine. And I’m yours. Today, tomorrow, always.”
Andromeda began to cry. Hard, gulping sobs that held all her pain, all her love, all her dreams. Rolling over onto his back, Naasir crushed her close and made purring sounds in his chest as he stroked her hair and her back. “I’m sorry I growled at you,” he said, nuzzling at her. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I know,” she got out through her tears.
Sniffing away the last of the tears several minutes later, she just lay against him. “I wasn’t crying because of that. I was crying because you’re wonderful and I can’t bear to think of leaving you.”
“There must be a way.”
“It’s a blood vow.”
“I’m a chimera who was made of a small, fierce boy and an equally small, equally fierce cat. I can think of a way out.” He wasn’t going to let his mate end up in the court of the Archangel of Plague and Disease.
49
A day later, however, he had to watch her leave for that very court.
“Five hundred years,” she said, one hand on his chest, over the heart that beat for her. “Will you truly wait?”
“If I have to,” he said, taking her mouth in a ravenous kiss. “But I won’t. Watch for me. I’ll be coming to get you.” He fisted both hands in her hair. “Stay alive.” He knew the ugly rules of Charisemnon’s court, knew the horrors she’d face.
“I will,” she promised, but in her eyes, he saw the knowledge that it might not be enough.
Death had many forms. Not all were of the body.
50
A week after that parting, Andromeda couldn’t help looking out through the balcony doors of her bedroom and out over the landscape. She knew it was impossible for her wild chimera to find an answer to a blood vow owed an archangel, but she waited nonetheless. He’d sneak in to see her as soon as he could, that she knew beyond all doubt, though they’d had zero communication since they parted.
Andromeda didn’t dare carry a phone. It could be taken from her, and once taken, Charisemnon would know Naasir was her heart, not a simple sexual dalliance. Her grandfather would find a way to use that, to twist the pure into the ugly.
Five hundred years.
She would fight to survive . . . but she might not come out the same on the other side.
Today, her grandfather had summoned her for a special task. She’d seen the vampire staked out in the courtyard, seen the implements of torture, knew she would not pick up those implements. So they would be turned against her.