Archangel's Storm

mad.
    Mahiya blinked at Jason’s flat assessment.
No, Neha is sane. Coldly so. She knows you’ll be a strong, dangerous, intelligent consort.
Jason was a man any woman would be proud to have by her side.
And you are beautiful. Neha has always been drawn to beauty in a man.
Though Jason was a naked blade to Eris’s pretty ornament.
    Only madness would make her blind to the fact that it would be a very stupid man who’d accept the offer of a woman who imprisoned her last consort for three hundred years.
    Mahiya’s mouth threatened to fall open.
Well, when you put it that way . . .
    “I need a consort,” Neha said, walking to the edge of the garden once more, her gaze on the lake, its surface a mirror of the blue sky touched with curling edges of red and orange. “I do not want you for a lover, so you may keep Mahiya as a diversion if you wish, but I am offering you power you will never gain in Raphael’s court.”
    Jason was quiet for a long moment. “I did not expect such an offer,” he said at last, as if Neha had caught him unawares and he sought time to get his thoughts in order.
    Yes, Mahiya thought, watching Neha’s face as she turned back to Jason. That was the right tack. To refuse her outright would be an insult the archangel would not forget, never forgive.
    “A consort must walk beside an archangel,” he added. “I prefer the shadows.”
    “My last consort was a creature of the light, shining and handsome, and he betrayed me.” Brittle words.
    Some assistance, Mahiya Geet.
    Startled at the tenderness in his mental tone, something she’d never heard in his spoken voice, it took her a second to reply.
She’s still in love with Eris, and you’re too proud a man to be with a woman who mourns another.
    I am?
    Her lips twitched. Jason’s laughter was hidden deep within, where the light did not often reach, but it was there.
You are
, she said firmly, taking advantage of Neha’s preoccupation with Jason to get to her feet.
    “This time,” the archangel continued, “a consort who stands in the shadows would suit me well.”
    Jason bowed deeper than Mahiya had ever seen him bow, his wings spread to their full breathtaking width, the colors of sunset playing over the jet in a display that turned it into a canvas of black flame. When he rose back up, his expression was as inscrutable as always, but his voice gentle. “I am truly flattered.”
    “But.” The edge in Neha’s voice was a scythe.
    “But though he may have betrayed you, Eris holds your heart.”
    Neha’s sucked-in breath was loud in the silence. “I am not offering you love.”
    “I know.” Jason folded in his wings with neat care. “But I am one of the Seven—I have seen a true archangel-consort match, one bound by the heart, and so I will always know the lack.”
    Neha’s anger whipped her hair back from her face, a faint glow coming off her wings. “Raphael’s consort should be dead.”
    Elena, Mahiya remembered too late, had been critical in Anoushka’s execution.
    “Yet,” Jason said, not missing a beat, “Raphael would take on the Cadre rather than allow her to come to harm. You would not do the same for me.”
    Neha stared at him, a faint confusion in her expression. “I didn’t expect such a romantic heart from you, Jason.” Her gaze snapped to Mahiya. “Do you expect to find such a love with
that
?”
    Mahiya felt a storm lick against her senses, realized it wasn’t her own emotions she was sensing.
Jason.
    “I expect nothing but amusement,” Jason said in a tone so calm that had she not been swamped by his rage, she would’ve never guessed at its existence, “but I want it on my terms, on my turf.”
    Neha’s wings swept over the velvet grass nurtured by the gardeners to luxuriant life, as she turned away. “I will give her into your keeping if the knowledge you hold proves as valuable as you believe.”
    Mahiya knew that was the best they would get. Neha would take any further attempt to negotiate as an attack on her honor.
We must accept.
    And roll the dice.
“The murderer of Eris and the others is not in your court.” Jason walked to stand beside Neha, his wings a stark contrast to the indigo-dusted white of hers. “Neither is she any longer in the area, but my sources tell me she returns here in the hours after sunset.”
    Mahiya’s heart ached at the idea of her mother so very close. She knew Jason had been surprised at the discovery of how soon the assault would begin, but it did