Angels of Darkness

streaked with white, his arms folded across his massive chest. “You are a woman, Nimra,” he boomed. “It’s unnatural that you should be this alone.”
    Other female angels would’ve done something nasty to Augustus by now. Theirs was not a society where men alone held power. The most powerful of the archangels was Lijuan, and she was very much a woman. Or had been. No one knew what she’d become since her “evolution.”
    It was Nimra’s cross to bear that Augustus was a childhood friend, less than two decades older than her. Nothing in the scheme of things, given the length of angelic lives. “Friendship,” she said to Augustus, “will only get you so far.”
    The idiot male smiled that huge smile that always made her feel as if the sun had come out. “I would treat you as a queen.” Dropping his arms and folding back his wings, he moved across the room. “You know I am no Eitriel.”
    Her heart pulsed into a hard knot of pain at the sound of that name. So many years now, and yet the bruise remained. She no longer missed Eitriel, but she missed what he’d stolen from her, hated the scars he’d left behind. “Be that as it may,” she said, stepping nimbly to the side when Augustus would have taken her into his arms, “my mind is made up. I have no wish to tie my life to a man’s again.”
    â€œThen what am I?” came a rough male voice from the doorway. “A meaningless diversion?”

CHAPTER 4
    S tartled, Nimra looked up to meet the frigid blue gaze of a vampire who shouldn’t have been there.
    â€œWho,” Augustus roared at the same time, “is he?!”
    â€œThe man Nimra has chosen,” Noel said with what she knew was deliberate disrespect in his tone.
    Augustus’s massive hands fisted. “I’m going to break your scrawny neck, bloodsucker.”
    â€œMake sure you rip it off or I’ll regenerate,” Noel drawled back, settling his body into a combative stance.
    â€œEnough.” Nimra had no idea what Noel thought he was doing, but they’d deal with that after she sorted out the problem of Augustus. “Noel is my guest,” she said to the other angel, “and so are you. If you can’t behave like a civilized being, the door is right there.”
    Augustus actually growled at her, betraying the years he’d spent as a warrior in Titus’s court, conquering and pillaging. “I waited for you, and you throw me over for a pretty-boy vampire?”
    Nimra knew she should have been angered but all she felt was an exasperated affection. “Do you really think I don’t know about the harem of dancing girls you keep in that castle of yours?”
    He had the grace to bow his head a fraction. “None of them are you.”
    â€œThe past is past,” she whispered, placing a hand on his chest and rising up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his jaw. “Eitriel was a friend to us both, and he betrayed us both. You do not have to pay the penance.”
    His arms came around her, solid and strong. “You are not penance, Nimra.”
    â€œBut I am not your lodestar, either.” She brushed a hand down the primaries of his right wing. It was a familiar caress, but not an intimate one. “Go home, Augustus. Your women will be pining for you.”
    Grumbling, he glared at Noel. “Put a bruise on her heart and I’ll turn your entire body into a bruise.” With that, he was gone.
    Noel stared after the angel until he disappeared from sight. “Who is Eitriel?”
    Nimra’s gaze glittered with anger when it slammed into his. “That is none of your concern.” The door to the library banged shut in a display of cold temper. “You are here for one purpose only.”
    Very carefully worded, Noel thought, watching as she walked to the sliding doors that led out into the gardens and pushed them open. Anyone listening would come to the obvious conclusion.
    â€œAs I said, Noel,” Nimra continued, “take care you do not go too far. I am not a maiden for you to protect.”
    Stepping out into the gardens with her, he said nothing until they came to the edge of the stream that ran through her land, the water cool and clear. “No,” he agreed, knowing he’d crossed a line. Yet he couldn’t form an apology—because he wasn’t sorry he’d intervened. “You have an interesting