“That,” he said, holding a gaze gone stormy with warning, “is not something I ever doubted.” Never did he forget that behind her delicate build and feminine beauty lay an immortal who was said to be so cruel that she caused bone chilling terror in even those of her own kind.
CHAPTER 3
The first person Noel met when he stepped into the huge room at the front of the house was a tall, dark eyed, dark haired angel who had the look of arrogance Noel associated with angels beyond a certain level of power but with an edge of condescension thrown in for flavor. “Christian,” the angel said, his wings a soft white with a few sharp threads of black … the same wings Noel had seen from his bedroom window earlier that morning.
Nodding, he said, “Noel,” and held out his hand.
Christian ignored it. “You’re new to the court.” A smile as serrated as a saw blade. “I hear you come to us from the Refuge.”
Noel didn’t miss the unspoken message Christian knew what had been done to him, and the angel would use that knowledge to twist the knife deeper when he wished. “Yes.” He smiled, as if he hadn’t caught either the warning, or the implicit threat. “Nimra’s court isn’t what I expected.” There was no overt opulence, no miasma of fear.
“Don’t be taken in,” Christian said, his eyes as hard as diamonds though his facade of arctic politeness never slipped. “There is a reason the others fear her teeth.”
Noel rocked back lazily on his heels. “Been bitten?”
The angel’s wings spread a fraction, then snapped tight. “Insolence will only be tolerated so long as you warm her bed.”
“Then I better warm it for a long time.” Noel shot him a cocky grin, figuring he might as well play the part to the hilt.
“Is Christian giving you a hard time?” The question came from a long legged female dressed in a tight black knee length skirt and white shirt that flattered a slender figure with graceful curves. Paired with those legs and uptilted eyes of a deep impossible turquoise against sun golden skin, it made her a stunner. Not an angel, but a vampire old enough that immortality had worked its magic on what had surely been a spectacular canvas to begin with.
Noel deepened his smile in response to her flirtatious wink. “I think I can handle Christian,” he said, holding out his hand once again. “I’m Noel.”
“Asirani.” Her fingers closed over his own. He allowed it but he felt nothing. He’d felt nothing ever since he’d been taken … except for that odd, unexpected ember of sensation stirred awake by Nimra’s laugh.
Releasing Asirani’s hand, he looked from the vampire to the angel. “So, tell me about this court.”
Christian ignored him, while Asirani twined an arm through his own and led him across the huge central room that appeared to function as the audience chamber when necessary, but was otherwise the center of the court. “Have you eaten?” Thick black lashes lifted, turquoise eyes looking meaningfully into his.
“I’m afraid Lady Nimra doesn’t like to share,” he murmured, thinking of the sealed bags of blood that had been left in the small fridge in his room. “I thank you for the offer.” Whatever her motive, it had been a considerate question.
Fact was, taking blood from a human or vampiric donor wasn’t something he’d had any inclination to do since waking from the assault. The head healer at the Medica, Keir, had been very good about providing him with stored blood without question. Maybe Nimra’s courtesy, too, was as a result of Keir’s influence. The healer seemed to command a great deal of respect from angelkind even the archangels themselves.
“Hmm.” Asirani squeezed his arm, her fingers brushing his biceps. “You are a surprising choice.”
“Am I?”
A throaty laugh. “Ah, cleverer than you look, aren’t you?” Eyes dancing, she stopped beside a window, her face to the room. “Nimra,” she said in a low tone, “has not taken a lover for many years. Christian always believed that when she chose to break her fast, it would be with him.”
Noel glanced over at the angel, who was now talking to an older human male, and found himself wondering why Nimra hadn’t invited Christian to her bed. In spite of the appearance he gave of being a stuffy aristocrat, the man was clearly sharply intelligent, and he moved in a way that said he’d had training in how to fight. No useless fop, but an asset.
As Asirani was no vacant hanger on.
“Do you all live here?” he asked her, intrigued that this court appeared to be made up of the strong.
“Some of us have rooms here, but Nimra maintains a wing that is hers alone.” Leading him to the long table set with food to the side of the room, she released his arm to pluck a plump grape from an assortment of fruit and pop it into her mouth. Though vampires couldn’t gain the nourishment they needed from food, they could digest and appreciate the taste Asirani’s hum of pleasure made it plain she enjoyed utilizing every one of her senses.
Noel had no interest in such sensuality, but he was moving to pick up a couple of blueberries so as not to stand out, when the hairs rose on the back of his neck. Not fear, but an instinctive, primal awareness. He wasn’t the least surprised to turn around to discover that Nimra had entered the room. The others receded from his consciousness, his eyes locking with the power and intensity of her own.
“Excuse me,” he murmured to Asirani, crossing the gleaming wood of the floor to come to a halt in front of the angel who was proving to be an irresistible enigma. “My lady.”
Her gaze was impenetrable. “I see you have met Asirani.”
“And Christian.”
A slight tightening of her mouth. “I do not think you have met Fen. Come.”
She led him toward the elderly human man Noel had seen with Christian. He sat surrounded by papers at a desk in a sun drenched corner of the room. As they neared him, it became clear the man was even older than Noel had first guessed, his nut brown skin lined with countless wrinkles. Yet his eyes were dark little pebbles, shiny with life, his lips mobile. They lifted in a smile as Nimra got closer, and Noel realized the man’s eyesight was deteriorating in spite of the flashing brightness of his gaze.
Nimra stopped him with a hand on his shoulder when he began to struggle to his feet. “How many times must I tell you, Fen? You’ve earned the right to sit in my presence.” A smile so vibrant, it cut at Noel’s heart. “In fact, you’ve earned the right to dance naked in my presence should you so wish.”
The old man laughed, his voice cracked with age. “That would be a sight, eh, my lady?” Squeezing her hand, he looked up at Noel. “Have you let a man make an honest woman of you at last?”
Leaning forward, Nimra kissed Fen on both cheeks, her wings brushing inadvertently against Noel. “You are my only love, you know that.”
Fen’s laughter segued into a deep smile, his fingers lighting on Nimra’s cheek before dropping to the desk once more. “I am a blessed man indeed.”
Noel could almost feel the history that ran between the two of them, but no matter their words, there was nothing loverlike in that richness of memory. There was instead an almost father daughter element to it, in spite of the fact that Nimra remained immortally young, while the march of time had caught up with Fen.