“Lijuan has broken the heart of an ancient civilization. So many of China’s treasures are gone, destroyed during the horror of the black fog that murdered. But the biggest lost treasure is the population. All those minds and hearts and their gifts and skills erased from existence.”

Titus tried to imagine it, failed. “Even after the destruction of Beijing”—a destruction caused in the wake of the Cadre’s effort to rein in Lijuan’s lust for power—“I’m used to thinking of China as a place of deep history and culture, with a thriving populace.”

“Last we talked,” Sharine said, “Aodhan spoke of how eerie it is to fly over cities that should be bustling with enterprise and hope and yet sit silent, waiting for its people to come home. People who are long dead.”

“Once, Lijuan was another angel.” An angel with whom he’d never had a friendship, but an angel he’d respected. “A thousand years ago, I couldn’t imagine her doing what she did. Is young Aodhan well?”

“He says he is, but the child feels deeply. I know it’s difficult for him to see so much evidence of death over and over.” A tone to her voice that he’d heard in his mother’s more than once . . . and yet the maternal edge did nothing to dilute his response to her.

Sharine never spoke to him with that tone in her voice; she didn’t see him as a child—and he’d have dared her to try if she’d given that indication. Titus was no one’s child but the first general’s.

“Aodhan is also far from his own people,” Titus said, having heard enough of the angel to know that he wasn’t a man who trusted many. “Is there anyone nearby with whom he can let down his guard?” It’d be impossible with Suyin right now—she needed Aodhan too much for him to ever be in any way vulnerable with her.

“Every warrior must put down his sword at times,” Titus added. “Not even an archangel can go on day after day after day without respite.” It was a lesson he’d learned at his mother’s knee—the value of good comrades, friends, and family. His sisters drove him to lunacy, but it was to them that he went when he wished to just be their petted, harried, and beloved Tito for an hour or two.

“I’ve told him he must fly across to Caliane’s territory to take a break,” Sharine responded. “Even if he won’t be with close friends, he’ll be with warriors he knows from his ordinary life, and it’ll be, as you say, a respite from the heavy duty that lies on his shoulders.”

“I think Suyin feels the same weight.” Her face had been thin and drawn during the last meeting of the Cadre. “But she can’t leave her territory, even to gain a breath.”

“I hope she’s building a support structure around herself.” Sharine’s voice remained fierce and maternal. “Aodhan is too loyal to follow my advice and go to Caliane’s lands for respite, but he can’t stay forever—he’s critical to Raphael’s own tower.”

“Has anyone asked him if he’d be amenable to a permanent transfer? Being second to an archangel is a position many covet.”

A pause before Sharine said, “You must understand—for Aodhan, the Seven and Raphael are family, the bonds between them far beyond flesh and bone and blood. It is a thing elemental. Though he’ll serve Archangel Suyin with all his heart, he’ll always fly home in the end.”

Sharine sighed. “Suyin, that poor child. It must be difficult for her to know who to trust, especially after being kept captive by Lijuan for so long. She can’t trust anyone from the old court, for she has no way to know if the people with whom she speaks were involved in her captivity.”

“Suyin isn’t a child.” She was older than Titus.

Laughter that fell like a sparkling rain against his senses. “You’re all children to me.”

He swore he saw a glint in her eye, was near-certain she was baiting him. Unbelievable of the Hummingbird . . . but not of Sharine.

Deciding to be the mature party in this conversation, he responded to her earlier comment. “As far as the Cadre has been able to confirm, everyone loyal to Lijuan died with her—Suyin doesn’t have to fear sabotage from within.” He curled his lip. “I truly can’t see Lijuan leaving behind anyone, not when she wished to amass a force the size of a small nation.”

Sharine rode a thermal for a while, her wings beginning to dip against the deep reds and oranges of the early-evening sky but not yet to the point where it was dangerous. Titus just watched her; she was lovely in flight, a graceful and jeweled creature akin to the bird whose name she carried.

Fire sparked on the gold in her hair.

He scowled at the timely reminder that this same angel could strip his skin off his bones with her tongue alone . . . but the reminder did nothing to soften the tightness in his body, the heat in his blood.

“I’d like to believe the same,” she said upon returning to him, “but do you not think Lijuan might’ve left behind a small group, one tasked with retrieving her remains should she fall? They would’ve been told to put her in a safe place where she might regenerate.”

“If she did, it was a foolish hope.” Titus made no effort to hide his disgust; he’d lost all respect for Lijuan when she began to treat her people as expendable. “She is dead in a way that means she’ll never again rise. But do not fear—I stay alert, as does Raphael.”

He thought Neha, too, was paying sharp attention now that she’d risen from anshara, and Caliane would no doubt be the same. Titus missed Elijah’s wise counsel and acute perception, but the Archangel of South America was yet healing, his consort by his side.

As for Alexander, he was physically fine, but Titus knew the Ancient too well not to understand that he was wounded within. It had to do with Zanaya, another archangel who might never again rise, her wounds had been so grievous. Not that Alexander would talk on the topic; Titus had tried to bring it up and been firmly rebuffed.

When it came to Lijuan, Alexander had come too late into the old Cadre to have the necessary knowledge of her court, but Titus knew Alexander would back him if Titus made a call on the point. The two of them might be friends, but they weren’t always on the same page when it came to Cadre business—but on this subject, they were in full agreement. “We won’t allow a viper to infiltrate Suyin’s court.”

“You’re protective of her.”

“She has ascended at a terrible time. Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t have a time of relative peace in which to grow into her strength.” Titus’d had a good four centuries before Charisemnon began to show his ass over the border. “The only mercy in all of this is that with the entire world in chaos, she doesn’t have to worry about territorial challenges.”

Darkness had begun to touch the horizon in the distance, and now it spread over them, wingbeat by wingbeat, breath by breath. Until at last Sharine said, “I can’t go any further without resting.”

Titus was glad of the survival skills he’d gained from having four sisters; another man might not have held his tongue when he first noticed the dip in her wings. “I’ll carry you.” Keeping his eyes scrupulously off her chest, he held out his arms.

He half expected an argument, but she flew to hover just above him. “If you drop me,” she muttered, “I will ferment reborn blood, then pour the resulting foul concoction over every inch of your sleeping quarters.”

“Then I’ll just sleep outside,” he snapped, incensed by her lack of trust. “I’m an archangel, Sharine. I don’t drop things.”

“What’s it like to be so arrogant?” she asked musingly. “Do you spend at least an hour a day imagining all the ways in which you are wonderful?”

“Do you wish to come or not? Or you can land and I’ll pick you up on the way back.” They both knew he wasn’t going to make good on his threat—he wasn’t about to leave her to the mercies of the reborn that crawled across the landscape. But a man had a limit.

Folding back her wings, she dropped—right into his arms.

Only once she’d looped one arm around his neck, her wings pressed tightly against her body to reduce drag, did he realize that this was going to make things extremely difficult. Because now, not only did he have the soft warmth of her pressed up against him, he could see down her neckline, to the rounded mounds of her breasts. If that wasn’t enough, every part of her that was bare rubbed against his own bare skin.

The Hummingbird. The Hummingbird. The Hummingbird, he chanted silently. This is not a woman. This is the Hummingbird. A great artist. A treasure of angelkind.

“What do your myriad lovers think of being fleeting conveniences?”

24

A treasure of angelkind.

More like a jackhammer drilling into his brain.

“Why do you believe my lovers are fleeting conveniences?” he asked with a scowl, because holding her was like holding light and air; he’d have to ensure she ate properly whilst in his court or she’d waste away.

Only . . . how could a woman be so light and have such soft breasts and curving hips?

Hummingbird. Hummingbird. Not a woman with breasts and hips and nipples. THE HUMMINGBIRD. An artist. A treasure—

“Oh, come now, Titus.” Her breath whispered warm and soft against his neck, her voice husky and her lush lips curved. “I may have been at a distant outpost of late, and I may have been quite insane prior to that, but I never lost my hearing. The revolving door to your sleeping quarters is well-known.”

Titus didn’t know which one of those statements to address first. In the end, he decided to go for the most unexpected one. “What do you care about the door to my sleeping chamber?” It came out rough and edgy, his cock growing hard in his pants.

He grit his teeth and thanked the skies that she couldn’t see his arousal from her position in his arms. Arousal! He couldn’t be aroused by the Hummingbird! It’d be like being aroused by a great work of art. You weren’t supposed to touch such masterpieces.