“Rafe,” I growled.
“You mean Dr. Angelus? I invited him, actually,” Lily said with a smile as she turned to face me.
“You what?” I sputtered. “Why would you do that? He lied to us about being a human and used that lie to get close to us, to examine us. Doesn’t that worry you at all? He could be the enemy, for all you know, gathering intel. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“He’s not our enemy,” Lily stated with assurance.
I frowned at her. “And just how can you be sure of that?”
“Call it intuition.”
Sometimes Lily could frustrate me, especially when she pulled her all-knowing shit, but even I had to grudgingly admit, thus far, she’d always ended up right. But even if Rafe and his kind weren’t foes, another fact hadn’t changed. “Fine. I won’t throw him in the dungeon, but I still don’t understand why you’d invite him. He’s made it clear his people won’t help us, so I don’t see his use.”
“Help or not, I want to know who and what he is.”
“What? Didn’t your intuition tell you?” I asked sarcastically.
Lily arched a brow at me and I clamped my lips shut. Friendship only went so far. “I actually have a fair idea of what race he belongs to, but I prefer to deal in absolutes, not conjecture.”
It didn’t surprise me Lily had an inkling of what species Rafe belonged to. Oldest of all the vampires, her knowledge surpassed several times over what the most learned scholars could claim to know. I’d tried in the past to discover her history, how she came to our lifestyle, but somehow she always managed to evade answering. Liking my head on my shoulders, I’d never pushed the issue.
“I don’t understand why you need me present while you sate your curiosity,” I complained. I really wanted to leave before he arrived and threw me even more off kilter. Not that I’d fully regained my balance since meeting him. The jerk. I hated the lack of control he created in me.
“I want you present so you can hear what he has to say because I got the impression from your report on your dealings with him that he knows something about the daemons. As my general, I would have thought that fact alone would make you want to pick his brain.”
I simmered at her logic and refused to reply. Childish, petty, I didn’t care. Rafe brought out the human in me.
A knock sounded. “Speaking of whom, that must be him.” Lily waved her hand and the door to her parlor swung open on her ghostly will.
I turned away from the doorway and the man standing in it, but not before his image burned itself into my mind-and my heart beat sped up.
I tried counting humans jumping over a fence-naked-to distract me, but the rumble of his voice shot that plan to hell.
“Your majesty, thank you for seeing me.”
Lily tittered and I gnashed my teeth. “Oh, Dr. Angelus, the pleasure is all mine.”
“Please, call me Rafe.”
While they made idle chit chatter and seated themselves, I paced over to the window and gazed down upon the inner bailey. The moonlight lit the courtyard and the blurring action of my troops. On my order, the vamps in my army practiced their daemon takedown skills to an avid audience. The sidelines were jammed with my newly allied shifter’s, Ursic at their head.
The plan was to have the alphas learn what we knew of the daemons so they could devise strategies to incapacitate the dark creatures with the least amount of casualty possible. Their rapid healing ability made them, like the vamps, able to attempt the more daring moves that would kill a human. We’d vetoed the use of guns for battle because the risk of casualty to our own was much too high. Besides, the daemons fought with their fists, so the least we could do was beat them at their own sport.
Watching my troops didn’t hold enough of my attention, the awareness of Rafe behind me too hard to ignore. I also couldn’t stall forever. I turned to face the man I both longed for and feared. When I finally awoke just before sundown I’d come to the realization that I cared for Rafe. More than cared. I didn’t want to see him hurt or killed, especially by me. The shock of it still had me reeling. Other than my queen and my children, lost to me a long time ago, I didn’t care for anyone. Not entirely inaccurate, I cared, but not to the crazy extent Rafe inspired. It had even occurred to me that I’d perhaps fallen in love with him. Ridiculous of course. The man was a liar and an admitted coward. But even knowing how much he pissed me off, I couldn’t help wanting to throw myself at him and at the same time protect him. These conflicting, so human emotions were why I had to get rid of him.
This decision did not make me a happy vampire general and it showed in my tone when I interrupted. “Cut the crappy small talk. I think it’s about time you told us what you are. Then while you’re at it you can explain why you and your kind are too chickenshit to join us in our fight for survival.”
Lily’s mouth rounded into an ‘O’ of surprise, but her eyes glinted with humor.
Rafe’s eyes glittered as well, but I didn’t recognize the emotion in them.
Lily spoke first. “I apologize for my general’s brash manner, but she does have a point, about divulging what you are that is.”
Rafe sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Very well. But I warn you, it’s kind of unbelievable.”
I rolled my eyes. “Gee, and vamps, shapshifters and daemons aren’t?”
He shot me a rueful smile before sucking in a breath to say, “I’m an angel, an archangel to be exact.”
I laughed. “Fuck off. What do you take us for? Gullible ninnies?”
Rafe stood and, with his blues eyes holding mine prisoner, he changed and my jaw hit the floor.
Rafe grew taller, wider and began glowing bright enough to make my eyes hurt. But that was nothing compared to the massive snowy wings that sprang from his back.
“Holy shit.” I sat down hard on a chair.
“Believe me now?” he said with a wry grin and a flutter of his wings.
“I think there’s no doubt your claim is true,” Lily replied dryly. “Now sit and tell us what we’re missing.”
“Yeah, because if you’re an angel, then aren’t you guys supposed to fight daemons?” I hadn’t entered a church or read a bible in quite some time, not that it actually hurt me. I just didn’t see the point once I turned. But my recollections on angels were quite clear. The army of light fought that of darkness. Or used to. What changed?
Rafe’s glow faded and his wings shrank until they disappeared again. He sat back down and I wanted to bang my head on the wall for not realizing from day one that he was far from a geeky human. How could I have missed the power residing in him? His otherness? His better than human good looks?
I simmered silently on the chair I’d commandeered. It didn’t sit well that he’d so aptly pulled the wool over my eyes. I watched him with predatory eyes, looking for an outward sign of his angelic nature, but found nothing.
“So what gives, Rafe? Why don’t the angels want to fight against the daemons? I thought that was what you guys did. You know, the whole army of light thing.”
“It’s not that we’re cowards,” he began.
I made a buzzing sound. “Wrong answer.”
He glared at me. “Would you let me speak?”
I returned his irate stare with a glacial one of my own. “Why? So you can give me a list of excuses?”
He turned his attention to Lily. “May I have permission to throttle her?”
Lily’s “Yes, you may,” went almost unheard under my screech of annoyance.
I jumped up from chair in a move meant to tower over and intimidate Rafe, but he sprang up as well and ended up looking down on me. “I am not afraid,” he said through clenched teeth. “And I want to fight.”
“Then why don’t you?” I shouted as we glared at each other almost nose to nose.
“Because, if I join your battle, I’ll be banished from Heaven forever.”
Well, that kind of took the wind out of my sails, but I had plenty of blustery hot air to take its place. “Then maybe you should reevaluate if Heaven is a place you want to be,” I retorted. Even as I said the words, I wanted to shake my head at myself.
