Angels' Flight

this.” Success would take him from her, from the Refuge, but she would never stand in the way of this magnificent creature.

“Dmitri suggested I come to you.”

“He was right,” she said, wondering if Galen had the personality to absorb what she had to say. She didn’t make the mistake of thinking him stupid. No, she’d spoken to several knowledgeable people from Titus’s territory in the hours after she’d first felt the impact of those eyes that reminded her of an unusual gem called heliodor, curious in a way she hadn’t then been ready to accept.

A little subtle direction and she’d learned that Galen wasn’t considered only a master tactician, but a man capable of building loyalty and leading armies onto enemy soil—and coming out the winner. Titus was furious to have lost him, though Orios was not—a true compliment from a weapons-master considered the best in the Cadre.

However, Galen’s mind, from what she’d learned of him, was a place of clean-cut lines, of good and bad, shades of gray few and far in between. He would bleed for those he gave his loyalty, and once given, that loyalty would be enduring.

The woman he took as his own would never, ever have to fear betrayal.

Consciously relaxing her grip on the wooden spoon she was using to stir the mixture, she took a deep breath, but he spoke before she could. “We don’t need to focus on the small intrigues.” He spread his wings, folded them back in neatly. “Putting aside any personal connections you have with other angels, your position itself is considered sacrosanct, given the impact your loss would have on the children—enemies would band together to avenge any harm done to you. To chance such reprisal, the stakes must be high.”

She halted in the process of pouring the mixture inside a small pot that was the only thing she’d found to bake in. “You’re right.” She had so much knowledge inside of her, she sometimes got lost within it. “Alexander’s planned aggression against Raphael is unquestionably the most important thing happening at present.”

“Yet it is no secret,” Galen said, his movements displaying a wild grace she wouldn’t have believed possible of such a big man. “So if your knowledge is connected to Alexander, it must relate to a hidden aspect.”

“If so, Alexander himself can’t have known of the planned assault,” she said, certain beyond any doubt. “He’d consider it an insult to his pride to corner me in my home in such a brutal fashion.” Had Alexander wanted her dead or incapacitated, one of his assassins would have quietly, efficiently taken care of it—she’d never have felt an instant’s fear.

Galen’s nod was firm. “Agreed. Who else?”

“I’ll think on it.” The blast of heat from the oven seared her skin when she opened it to place the pot inside, but it was the quiet warmth inside her that was the more dangerous—because this, being with Galen, talking with him as if they had spent many a night doing the same, it was the kind of emotional intimacy she craved. “Alexander surprises me with his intransigence about Raphael.” To be an archangel was to be Cadre. It was as simple and as immutable as that. “He has never before been unreasonable to this degree.”

“Raphael’s far stronger than he should be for his age,” Galen said, picking up the sword harness he’d left by the stool and hanging it up. “Titus has openly said he has the potential to lead the Cadre.”

“And Alexander considers that his position.” While the archangel was a great leader, he also had the arrogance of an ancient being of power, would’ve considered any such whisper a challenge.

“But,” she said, pouring hot water for some tea after she’d finished cleaning up, “we cannot discount Lijuan.” The oldest of the archangels after Alexander, Zhou Lijuan had committed atrocities it had chilled Jessamy to record in the secret histories she kept on each member of the Cadre. “She appears to have a partiality for Raphael, but her intrigues run deep.”

“Her troops are currently scattered across her territory, with no indication they’re planning to amass for an assault.”

Leaving the tea to steep, she looked up just as Galen shoved his hair back again. “You need to cut that.”

“I meant to do it last night.” Pulling off the knife at his belt, he hacked off a chunk.

“Galen!”

A questioning look.

Incensed, she grabbed the knife from him. “Sit down before you butcher all this glorious hair.” The color was so vibrant, it seemed to glow with life.

He obeyed with suspicious meekness, not saying a word as she trimmed his hair with care. It was only when she was halfway done that she realized she was standing in the middle of his parted thighs, his breath warming her through the thin material of her gown. A languid heat curling her toes, she finished and stepped back. “There,” she said, voice husky. “You can clean up.”

He stood instead, his face all hard, blunt lines, his body brushing her own… and his thumb rubbing her lower lip. The touch tugged at things tight and low in her body, until she ached, her breath coming in soft pants.

Galen had behaved for far longer than he’d thought himself capable of behaving where Jessamy was concerned. He’d flown with her so trusting and delighted in his arms, imagined her sleeping in his bed, and luxuriated in her presence as she filled his kitchen with warmth. It had taken all his willpower not to put his hands on her hips while she stood between his thighs, and tumble her into his lap.

Now…

Her skin was delicate under the roughness of his own, her breath sweet, and her lips when he claimed them parted on a soft gasp. Hand clenching on her back, he forced himself not to thrust his tongue into her mouth, not to maraud. Part of him was waiting for her to shove him away, and when she didn’t, he had to fight a roar of savage satisfaction. In its stead, he pressed down on her chin and slanted his mouth more fully over hers, his cock pushing against the fabric of his pants and into the gentle curve of her abdomen.

A flutter on his chest, a slender hand spreading over his skin as Jessamy rose on tiptoe to follow his mouth. Groaning at the feel of her high, taut breasts rubbing over his chest, he licked his tongue across her lips, wanting to know that he was welcome before he swept in to devour, to savor. Her nails dug into his skin, a tiny bite that made his entire body throb… before she pushed at him, turning her head away at the same time.

Freezing, he dropped his hand from her cheek and took a step back, making no effort to hide the jut of his arousal. “Should I apologize?”

Jessamy gave him an incredulous look out of those pleasure-smudged brown eyes… Then she laughed, the vibrant color of it filling his aerie, sinking into his bones. But the laughter faded between one breath and the next, her expression betraying a stark bleakness before she blinked and he was faced with warm elegance again, so gentle, so unimpeachable. “I’m the one who should apologize,” she said, fixing her gown though it needed no fixing.

His eyes narrowed. “Is it because I’m not learned?”

“No!” She reached out a hand, dropped it midway. “No, Galen.” Distress darkened her eyes, made her face pale.

There. A weakness, a chink in her armor he could use to batter his way inside. Except sometimes, it was better to allow your opponent to believe she’d won. “Perhaps I’m not learned,” he said, quickly cleaning up the area where she’d trimmed his hair, “but I understand I need to know what you can teach me. Will you?”

Jessamy hadn’t felt so turned around since she was a child. “I—of course,” she said, the answer instinctive. “Perhaps in the evenings after you’ve taken care of your own students.”

A nod. “So, Alexander, perhaps Lijuan. Anyone else who might find your knowledge problematic?”

She watched in silence as he strode to the cushions in the living area and sprawled with his hands under his head, looking up at a ceiling that glittered with the minerals embedded in the stone. Just like that, she thought, anger simmering in her veins, he’d moved past a kiss that had aroused her beyond need, beyond want. A lick more and she’d have allowed him to bare her to the skin, stroke those big hands anywhere and everywhere he pleased, pin her against the stone wall if he so desired… except it appeared only one of them had been so deeply affected.

Wanting to shake him and kiss her way across the muscled breadth of his chest at the same time, her emotions jerking between one extreme and the next, she went to take a seat on the stool, when he said, “It’s more