Angels of Darkness

call my husband.” Angels did not marry as mortals did, did not bind each other with such ties. “We knew one another close to three hundred and forty years.”
    Noel’s scowl was black thunder. “That hardly makes him ‘no one.’”
    â€œI was two hundred when we met—”
    â€œA baby,” Noel interrupted, hands tightening in her curls. “Angels aren’t even allowed to leave the Refuge until reaching a hundred years of age.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Do release my hair, Noel.”
    He unflexed his hands at once. “I’m sorry.” Gentle fingers stroking over her scalp. “Bloody uncivilized of me.”
    Unexpected, that he made her want to smile, when she was about to expose the most horrific period of her life. “We are both aware you will never be Christian.”
    His eyes gleamed. “Now who’s walking a dangerous road?”
    Lips curving, she said, “Not a baby, no, but a very young woman.” Because of their long life spans, angels matured slower than mortals. However, by two hundred, she’d had the form and face of a woman, had begun to spread her wings, gain a better understanding of who she would one day become.
    â€œEitriel was my mentor at the start. I studied under him as he taught me what it was to be an angel who might one day rule, though I didn’t realize that at the time.” It was only later that she’d understood Raphael had seen her burgeoning strength, taken steps to make sure she had the correct training.
    Noel’s hand curved over her nape, hot and rough. “You fell in love with your teacher.”
    The memories threatened to roll over her in a crushing wave, but it wasn’t the echo of her former lover that caused her chest to fill with such pain as no woman, mortal or immortal, should ever have to experience. “Yes, but not until later, when such a relationship was permissible. I was four hundred and ninety years old.
    â€œFor a time, we were happy.” But theirs had always been the relationship of teacher to pupil. “Three decades into our relationship, I began to grow exponentially in power and was assigned the territory of Louisiana. It took ten more years for my strength to settle, but when it did, I had long outstripped Eitriel. He was . . . unhappy.”
    Continuing to caress her nape, Noel snorted. “One of my mortal friends is a psychologist. He would say this Eitriel had inadequacy issues—I’ll wager my fangs he had a tiny cock.”
    Her laugh was shocked out of her. But it faded too soon. “His unhappiness poisoned our relationship,” she said, recalling the endless silences that had broken her heart then, but that she’d later recognized as the petulant tantrums of a man who didn’t know how to deal with a woman who no longer looked upon his every act with worshipful adoration. “It came as no surprise when he told me he had found another lover.” Weaker. Younger. “He said I had become a ‘creature’ he could no longer bear to touch.”
    Noel’s expression grew dark. “Bastard.”
    â€œYes, he was.” She’d accepted that long ago. “We parted then, and I think I would’ve healed after the hurt had passed. But”—her blood turning to ice—“fate decided to laugh at me. Three days after he left, I discovered I was with child.”
    In Noel’s gaze, she saw the knowledge of the value of that incomparable gift. Angelic births were rare, so rare. Each and every babe was treasured and protected—even by those who would otherwise be enemies. “I would not have kept such a joy from Eitriel, but I needed time to come to terms with it before I told him.
    â€œIt never came to that. My babe,” she whispered, her hand lying flat over her belly, “was not strong. Keir was often with me that first month after I realized I carried a life in my womb.” The healer was the most revered among angelkind. “But he’d been called away the night I began to bleed. Just a little . . . but I knew.”
    Noel muttered something low and harsh under his breath, spinning away to shove his hands through his hair, before turning in one of those unexpected bursts of movement to tug her into his arms. “Tell me you weren’t alone. Tell me.”
    â€œFen,” she said, heart heavy at the thought of her old friend grown so very frail, the