Archangel's Storm

him from the corner of her eye, she’d have thought herself alone—a man gifted at becoming a shadow, was Jason, able to navigate the dark secrets of the Cadre unseen and undetected.
    However, he was nothing so simple as a spy who saw and reported. He was one of Raphael’s Seven, that tight-knit band of angels and vampires Mahiya little understood. All she knew was that the seven incredibly strong men had
chosen
to put themselves in service to an archangel—and that their loyalty was reflected in Raphael’s own.
    “Such a power is Jason.”
    Neha had murmured those words after Jason agreed to come to the fort, agreed to swear a blood vow to Mahiya. It wasn’t the only thing the archangel had said, her lips twisted into a smile that dripped poison.
    “Raphael’s Tower will be crippled when the spymaster changes his allegiance. And he will . . . for I can offer Jason something Raphael will never be able to match.”
    Mahiya didn’t care about Neha’s vengeful game playing. She cared only about the cold, practical contract that underlay the ceremony of the vow Jason had spoken, her bones filled with a chill determination to complete this task without dropping the mask of inoffensive grace that was her most powerful weapon. No one considered her a threat. Neither would this spymaster.
    Reaching the gauzy curtains of amber and gold that fluttered in the archway leading into the high central core of the palace, she took the time to tie them to the sides before waving her hand inward.
    Jason remained in place.
    “I will not have you at my back.”
    Ignoring the prickling at her nape that warned her of lethal danger, she preceded him into the echoing central chamber that rose all the way to the roof. Her stomach threatened to revolt against the stink, but she brought her gag reflex under control through sheer grim determination and practice—Neha had left Mahiya in the palace to “keep Eris company” for hours after his murder.
    “He was your father, after all. I give you time to say your farewells.”
    For once, Mahiya did not think it had been a conscious cruelty—Neha herself had returned to sit with the body until an hour prior to Jason’s arrival, her fingers stroking Eris’s hair, the deep mahogany streaked with lighter strands as a result of all the time Neha had recently allowed him to spend in the searing sunshine of the courtyard.
    “He is a creature of the sun, born on a clifftop overlooking the Mediterranean.”
    However, this windowless, sunless room with its marble floor overlaid by a thick carpet in swirls of gold and amber had been the place where Eris spent most of his time. The chandelier overhead was a masterwork that glittered light across the entire expanse, made the carnelian in the walls glow with inner fire . . . and the crystallized blood on the floor sparkle with stomach-churning beauty.
    That blood had dripped from a wide divan where Eris had so often mockingly “held court” when Mahiya came to him with a message. A glass of red wine spilled an ugly stain onto the swirling colors of the carpet, while a plate of fruit—exotic peaches and dark cherries from far off lands of cold and ice, figs and apricots from Neha’s own plantations—sat half eaten.
    Flies buzzed over the silver plate, but they weren’t truly interested.
    No, their attention was taken up by the rotting carcass of the man who lay broken half on, half off the divan, his wings spread out in a final dramatic display and his chest cracked open to exhibit a hollow body cavity. While the blood outside his body had crystallized into a brittle substance akin to shimmering pink rock salt, inside that hollow, it had hardened to the same dark, dark red as the cherries, evidence of the fact his body had attempted to repair itself and failed.
    Death rubies.
    The idea of wearing jewelry created from the blood of a dead angel revolted Mahiya, but it had been an accepted practice in times past, the gems worn as memento mori by the lovers of those angels who died in circumstances that led to the creation of the death rubies. Fitting that Eris should be beautiful in this way even in death—for in life he had been a man who was the embodiment of physical perfection, his skin shimmering gold, his eyes lapis lazuli blue.
    Jason displayed no distaste at the sight of Eris’s mutilated body, his breathing even as he examined the remains of her “father.”
    “Did I have the chance to strangle you in your crib, I would