Angels Dance

with pretty, useless butterflies. “I can usually intimidate most with brute strength alone.” Not only had Dmitri failed to be intimidated; he’d fought with practiced grace.
    The vampire inclined his head, dark eyes appearing lazy—if you didn’t look beneath the surface. “A compliment indeed from the weapons-master Titus is furious to be losing.”
    Galen shook his head. “He has a weapons-master—and Orios has earned his position.” There’d been no room for Galen, except as Orios’s subordinate. Galen had felt no discontent in occupying that position when he first reached maturity, aware Orios was the better fighter and leader. But things had changed as Galen grew older and more experienced, his power increasing at a rate that far outstripped his peers. “Orios was happy when I told him of my desire to leave Titus’s court.”
    “The men are becoming confused about who to look to for leadership,” the weapons-master had said, his near-black skin gleaming in the African sunlight. “It would have cost me should we have been forced to meet in combat to decide matters.” A big hand squeezing Galen’s shoulder. “I hope we never go against each other in battle. Of all my students, you are the one who has flown the highest.”
    Galen had made certain Orios knew of his own respect toward the man who had never withheld knowledge from his student, no matter that Galen threatened his position, and they had parted on good terms. “Titus is simply posturing in an attempt to gain concessions from Raphael.”
    “A fool’s game,” Illium said, running his hand along the edge of the blade Dmitri had been using. “Raphael is no less an archangel for being the newest member of the Cadre.” Hissing out a breath after slicing a line on his palm, he closed his fingers into a fist. “Why didn’t you set your sights on Charisemnon’s or Uram’s courts? They’re both older and stronger, with far more men at their command.”
    Galen shoved back his sweat-damp hair, thinking he must remember to cut it off—he couldn’t afford to have his sight compromised. “I’d rather be a second-tier guard in Titus’s court than work under either Uram or Charisemnon.” Titus might be a brute on occasion, might be quick to anger and even quicker to declare war, but he had honor.
    Women were not to be brutalized when his troops marched in battle, and children were not to be harmed. If a man fought only to protect his home, he was to be shown mercy, for Titus appreciated courage. Any fighter found to have broken the archangel’s rules was summarily drawn and quartered, the lumps of meat that had once been his body hung up from the trees in display.
    While Raphael’s style of rule was very different, his anger a cold blade that cut with precision in comparison to Titus’s sometimes indiscriminate rage, in the century since he’d become one of the Cadre, Raphael, too, had shown the kind of honor that didn’t allow him to subjugate the weak and the defenseless.
    “Is there room in this court for me?” he asked, blunt because that was the way he was. He’d been born of two warriors, had come to age in a warrior court. The civilized graces had never been a part of his education, and while he had seen the effectiveness of a silver tongue, it was a skill that would fit him as well as a dainty rapier would his hand.
    “Raphael doesn’t keep a court,” Dmitri said, sliding out a small, gleaming blade from a wall bracket, and throwing it toward the high ceiling of the salle without warning.
    Illium flew up as if he’d been thrown from a slingshot, snapping the blade out of the air one-handed and spinning it back at Dmitri in the same motion. The vampire gripped it by the hilt just before it would’ve slammed into his face. Baring his teeth in a feral grin at a smiling Illium, he said, “Doesn’t see the point of pretty people floating around doing nothing.”
    Galen watched Illium land with a precision he’d witnessed in no other, the beauty of the youth’s wings doing nothing to hide the muscle strength required to pull off the maneuver, and realized the other angel gave the impression of being an ornament, handsome and amusing, on purpose. No one would ever suspect him of dangerous intent.
    Illium’s response to his candid appraisal was a bow so graceful and ornate, it would have done one of Lijuan’s stuffy courtiers proud, his wings spread in stunning display. “Would you like a dagger in your throat for