Angels of Darkness

of Nimra’s estate. The angel had been flying over her lands, seen the girl, carried her home in her own arms. She’d nursed Violet back to health and, when the teenager shied at the thought of school, hired a tutor for her. Though Nimra expected no service from one so young, the proud girl insisted on “earning her way” with her duties in the mornings, the afternoons being set aside for her studies.
    â€œI adore her,” Violet had told Noel with fierce loyalty. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Lady Nimra. Anything.”
    Now, Noel looked up. “Violet is more apt to ambush me on a dark night, if she considers me a threat to you, than flirt with me.”
    Fen cackled. “He has the right of it. That child worships the ground you walk on.”
    â€œWe are not gods, to be worshipped,” Nimra said, a troubled look on her face. “I would not wish it of her—she needs to spread her wings, live her own life.”
    â€œShe’s like a rescued pup,” Fen said, coughing into a trembling fist. “Even if you cast her out, send her into the world, she’ll return most stubbornly to your side. You may as well let her be—she’ll find her own happiness faster if she’s able to do what she can to ensure yours.”
    â€œSo wise.” Nimra made no effort to assist the old man as Fen struggled to get to his feet.
    Help, Noel understood as he rose as well, would neither be welcomed nor accepted.
    The walk back was slow and quiet, Nimra’s wings brushing the grass in front of him as she walked arm in arm with Fen. Strolling along behind them, Noel felt content in a way that was difficult to describe. The humid Louisiana night, the air filled with the sounds of frogs croaking and leaves rustling, Nimra’s soft voice as she spoke with Fen, it was a lush sea that embraced him, blunting the raw edges within, the parts yet broken.
    â€œGood night, my lady,” Fen said when they reached the small, freestanding cottage that he shared with Amariyah. To Noel, he said, “I’ll think on what you said. But I’m an old man—she’ll go when I am no longer here in any case.”
    Nimra’s wings made a rustling sound as she resettled them before joining Noel to return to the house. Skirting the main rooms in unspoken agreement, they turned toward her personal wing—Noel’s room was next to her own, the area private. “Amariyah may have her faults,” Nimra said at last, holding out her arms when Mimosa stirred again, “but she does love Fen.”
    Noel passed the cat over with care.
    Purring happily in her mistress’s embrace, Mimosa returned to her slumber. Noel did up a couple of the buttons on his shirt but left the rest undone, the night breeze languid against his skin. “Did you know that Asirani is in love with Christian?”
    A sigh. “I was hoping it was an infatuation, would pass.” She shook her head. “Christian is very rigid in his views—he believes angels should mate only among our own kind.”
    â€œAh.” That explained the intensity of the angel’s response to Noel. “It’s not a common view.” Especially when it came to the most powerful vampires.
    â€œChristian thinks angel-vampire pairings are undesirable, as such a pairing cannot create a child—and we have so few children already.”
    Noel thought of the angelic children at the Refuge, so vulnerable with their unwieldy wings and plump childish legs, their trilling laughter a constant music. “Children are a gift,” he agreed. “Is it something you—” He stopped speaking as Mimosa made a tiny sound of distress.
    â€œMy apologies, little one,” Nimra said, petting the cat until it laid its head back down. “I will not squeeze you so tight again.”
    A chill speared through Noel’s veins. When Nimra didn’t say anything else, he thought about letting it go, but the slowly reawakening part of him insisted on engaging with her, on discovering her secrets. “You lost a child.”
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    I t was the gentleness in Noel’s voice that tore the wound wide open. “He didn’t have the chance to become a child,” Nimra said, the words shards of glass in her throat, the blood pooling in her chest as it once had at her feet. “My womb couldn’t carry him, and so I lost him before he was truly formed.”