Leksander felt like an idiot.
He was talking to Erelah’s crystal. “Tajael, I don’t know if you can hear this, but I need to talk to you. So… show up? Okay? I’m waiting at the weigh station outside the keep.” He sighed. And waited. But he was still alone on the rocky outcropping. So he repeated the message again. He’d been doing this for ten minutes, and each one that passed, he was losing more hope.
What if the angeling never showed? How could Leksander go after Erelah without his help? His real concern was that Markos would be the one to hear his message. But Leksander would work with the angel if that’s what it took. All that mattered was bringing Erelah back from her shadow state.
He took a breath and tried again. “This message is for Tajael. I’m Leksander Smoke, dragon prince of the House of Smoke. If anyone receives this message, please contact Tajael, an angel in Markos’s Dominion—” An over-pressuring pulse of air cut him off.
In a flash of interdimensional light, Tajael appeared on the rocky ledge. “Why are you summoning me, prince of the House of Smoke?” He looked ravaged, like he’d had even less sleep than Leksander, which was approximately zero. The dark circles under Tajael’s eyes had to mirror his own, but Tajael’s eyes were also streaked with red, and his lashes were damp. Leksander hadn’t cried over Erelah… yet.
That was too much like giving up.
He was still numb and angry and determined. “We have to go after her, Tajael.”
His face twisted in disbelief. “Have you a death wish, dragon prince? You realize she is shadow now, right?”
Leksander gritted his teeth. “I realize she has turned into this… this state… because of me. Because I tempted her.”
“Yes,” Tajael drew the word out like Leksander was crazy in the head. And a simpleton besides. “You tempted her, and she lost control of her Lust. You understand you cannot kiss your way through this? There is no tempting her back with your love.”
“For fuck’s sake, Tajael, I don’t want to sleep with her!” Leksander’s face burned with the anger and shame of what he’d done. “It’s my fault she broke her vow. I have to fix this! Now quit lecturing me and tell me how.”
Tajael just blinked and leaned back. “You do not wish her for your own any longer?”
Leksander ran both hands through his hair, tempted to tear it out. “Of course, I do! I love her. She’s everything to me. But I get it, Tajael. It took me a long fucking time, but I finally get it. She can’t be with me. Fine. But I am not going to allow this to break her. So tell me how this works, so I can undo the damage I’ve done.”
But Tajael didn’t speak, just looked long and hard at Leksander, weighing something in his mind. Fucking angelings… they definitely get that inscrutability thing from their angel half.
Finally, Tajael said, “Markos said it might be possible. I didn’t believe it, even though I wanted to…”
“Believe what?” Leksander asked angrily. “What are you talking about?”
“That Erelah could be The One.” He said it with such reverence that it cut Leksander’s anger short.
“The One to what?”
“To mate without falling.” He curled up a fist and tapped it against his lips, his gaze scanning the ledge, obviously thinking of something.
But his words were lighting an unfair hope in Leksander’s chest. “Is that possible? She’s already fallen.”
“Yes… well…” Tajael looked up. “If you asked any of angelkind, they would tell you that the fallen are eternally doomed. It is an article of faith.”
Leksander’s eyebrows hiked up. “But you don’t believe it.”
“Not least because I fell once.” Tajael’s white wings flexed, underscoring that he definitely wasn’t fallen now. At least, if Erelah and her black wings were any indication of that state.
“You came back from it.” That cruel hope in his chest surged, and he stalked forward on the narrow ledge until he was face-to-face with the angeling. “How? Tell me, Tajael!”
The angeling’s wings flexed again, making the muscles in his shoulders twitch. Like all angelings, he barely wore any clothes. His white toga fell half off his shoulder, revealing the tattoos that inked the right side of his body. Some tribal design. It was unique among angelings, at least the ones Leksander had met, and suddenly, he wondered if that was connected to Tajael’s Fall. Or that he came back from it.
The angeling frowned. “My circumstance was unique. And I was young, not yet pledged to a Dominion of the light. But my story is unimportant. What matters is that it would be different for Erelah. Yet there is at least some possibility for it.”
Leksander couldn’t help the curling up of his fists in frustration. “Tell me.”
Tajael eyed his fists but just calmly continued. “You should understand that Erelah is unusual in that her father was an angel of the light when he formed her.”
Leksander’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t they all?”
Tajael snorted and rubbed his eyes wearily. “No. Far from it. Most angelings are conceived in Sin by shadow angels or angelings. Usually for the purpose of building the strength of their Regiment. Markos and other angels of the light try to rescue those angelings, snatching them away before the forces of darkness can get hold of them. I was one such child. It is why the walkabout is part of an angeling’s training. When they are above the age of reason, they must make a choice of their own volition—light or shadow.”
“But Erelah was different.” Leksander wished he would hurry this along.
“Yes.” Tajael’s green eyes held his gaze steadily. “Very different. In spite of the walkabout, angelings of the light are still tempted. They still occasionally Fall, just as Erelah has, and some new angelings are created that way. But Erelah’s father… he was a powerful angel of the light. He was still in the light when Erelah was formed. Rumor has it that he was attempting a new way for angelkind… one where mating was something that could be done in righteousness.”
Leksander rubbed his temples, trying to think this through. “So her father was an angel who tried to create an angeling without turning shadow.”
“Yes. Which was why Markos thought Erelah might be able to do the same with you.”
“Wait, what?” Leksander stepped back. “Markos wanted me to mate with Erelah?” He quickly scanned his memories, but all he could come up with was Markos’s insistence that he find a mate. Never was there any indication he knew of Leksander’s love for her, much less that a mating between them might be possible.
“I didn’t realize it at first,” Tajael said with a grimace. “The angels don’t often prepare you for their lessons before you’re supposed to learn them. But Leksander… when you healed Erelah from the shadow angel’s strike, and Markos sent her to me, instead of into Penance… well, I knew something was afoot. Then, when she was taken by the fae queen, he sent me to gain your help. The only possibility of Erelah successfully mating with you would be if your love for her was True. I knew it, but Markos wasn’t convinced. But we both knew, with all the time she had spent with you…” He trailed off, looking expectantly at Leksander.
“What are you saying?” His heart was already lurching around with a panic of hope and promise. He didn’t want the angeling mincing words or holding back.
“When I said Erelah had never truly returned from her walkabout, I meant it,” Tajael said steadily. “She is far more attached to you than any angeling has ever been to a human… without falling. If that were possible, then maybe a full mating would be, too. But she knows nothing of love, Leksander.”
“Yes, I know that,” he said bitterly. “As I foolishly found out when—”
“I’m not speaking of sexual love.”
Leksander pressed his lips together. He knew that, too. “I know,” he said softly. “But I know she can’t love me if…” If his kisses alone were enough to drive her into this shadow state.
Tajael nodded slowly. “When she fell, I thought the question was answered. But perhaps not. If you still want to go after her…”
“Of course, I do,” Leksander said quickly.
“It will be dangerous,” Tajael said carefully. “It’s not a risk I take lightly, given I know the shadowkind and what they’re capable of. But Erelah is worth the risk.”
A growl rose up unbidden in his chest. “You love her too, don’t you?” It pained him to say it, but he had to know.
Tajael gave him a look like he was crazy. “Of course. And not at all in the way you’re thinking, dragon prince.” He just shook his head like Leksander was pathetic.
“Because you can’t…” He knew they could kiss if nothing else.
Anger flashed across Tajael’s face. “Are you paying attention at all? A simple kiss from you, made in passion, drove Erelah into shadow. Did you see her turn shadow after I forced that unfortunate kiss upon her?”
Leksander frowned. “You forced that?”
Tajael rolled his eyes. “She is in my cohort. And my faction. And we are angels of the light. In human terms, I love her like a sister. And for the love of all that’s holy, when this is done, Erelah needs to educate you in our ways.” Then he turned serious again. “But I would lay down my life for her, even if saving her wasn’t possibly key to saving humanity. What about you, dragon prince? Would you sacrifice yourself for her?”
“Yes.” The answer was immediate.
“Even though it risked the treaty? Your House? Possibly all of humanity?”
“Yes.” All of that was at risk anyway. “As I told my brother, if I cannot fix this, I will be useless for anything else. I have to right this wrong I’ve done to her.”
Tajael nodded slowly, approving. “A righteous cause, then. Very well, dragon prince. Let us see if your righteousness can survive the shadow realm.” He glanced at the crystal still in Leksander’s hand. “You cannot take that. It will be seen as a weapon.”
Leksander nodded and set the crystal on a hidden ledge of the weigh station, then returned to Tajael’s side.
He set his face into a grim expression and placed his hand on Leksander’s shoulder. “Whatever happens, let me speak first.”
Then, in a flash of light, Tajael yanked them from the rocky ledge of the weigh station and through an interdimensional portal. Where they landed was dark and damp and filled with shouts of anger and pain. It took a moment for Leksander’s eyes to adjust—the darkness came from the cavern of black glass that enveloped them. It reached endlessly up from the platform they were standing on, which jutted from the jagged glass wall. A darkened doorway stared at them, but the sounds—a roar that rose and fell, a growl of pain, a chorus of dark laughter and the rustle of wings—came from below. Leksander could just peer over the edge and see the crowd gathered. A hundred dark-winged angelings, jostling on the ground and taking flight to hover above, all focused on a pair in the middle with black-glinting blades, circling in a fight.
He could see the slashes of blood glistening red even from four stories above.
He turned to Tajael to ask him what was going on, but before he could get the words out, the air popped with a sound Leksander recognized too well—someone had traveled to meet them. A dark blur punched into Tajael, knocking him from the platform and into the well of air above the crowd, but then they both stopped short mid-air.
A dark angel had Tajael by the throat.
Tajael clawed at the oversized hand at his neck, and his wings thrashed. A sound of surprise rose from below, so Leksander didn’t wait. He flung himself off the platform, shifting mid-leap to dragon form and swooping up so he could dive down again. If he could just break the hold the angel had on Tajael... he started the dive, but then a force slammed into him like a giant fist of air. It threw him across the cavern and bashed him into the dark glass wall, nearly knocking him out. But he was conscious enough to feel the slices of pain as he slid down the wall. The thing was made of dragon teeth—or at least, it felt that way, shredding his wings and scales as he tumbled and fell. He shoved away from it, catching air with his wings but mostly rising on magic. The floor below seethed with black wings. Cries of anger and fury rang out, pitched loud and powerful, and it tore at his ears. Angelsong.
Leksander gritted his teeth and pulled up, squinting to see Tajael still dangling above him. The angel who held him pulsed power through the air. His hair was dark and long, and he had tattoos along his side similar to Tajael’s but different. His wings beat in a slow and powerful stroke, and his blue eyes blazed, but otherwise, he was unnaturally still, suspended mid-air.
And clearly pissed.
Leksander hesitated. With Tajael and the angel above him and the swarming masses of angelings below, it was insanity to attack. Angels—whether light or shadow—weren’t bound by the deep magic of the treaty, the one that prevented any fae from killing a prince of the House of Smoke. But if this dark angel had meant to kill him, he would already be dead.
It seemed he wasn’t killing Tajael either. Yet.
“She is not of your realm any longer.” The angel’s voice boomed off the crystal walls.
The horde below was slowly rising, gliding on their dark wings in a slow upward spiral or slithering up the jagged glass of the cavern, hands and feet somehow immune to its cuts. Leksander rose, coming closer to Tajael and the angel still clutching him by the throat.
“Razael,” Tajael croaked out, his bright-white wings twisting and somehow flickering, like the light in them was struggling to stay on. “You were once known for your wisdom. Surely an angel of your power can afford to hear out a common angeling. I’m no threat to any in your Regiment.”
“Your markings betray you, Tajael.” The angel’s voice deepened, filling with more anger and menace. “You’re allied with Elyon.”
“No!” Tajael gasped. His wings flickered gray for a moment, then shone white again. “I am of the light! I am pledged to Markos’s Dominion. The same as Erelah.”
The angel’s cold fury didn’t change… but he hesitated. Then he dropped his gaze to squint at Leksander. A flicker of recognition opened his eyes, then the angel—Razael—focused back on the angeling in his grasp. He opened his hand, and Tajael fell a half dozen feet before catching wind with his wings and swooping up again. Tajael lifted his chin to Leksander, bidding him to rise up and join him in facing Razael, which Leksander quickly did.
Razael studied him. “You are the dragon she spoke of.”
Leksander’s heart lurched. What did Erelah say? That he drove her to shadow? He wanted to ask her exact words, how she spoke of him, but he was still in dragon form, and projecting thoughts into the angel’s mind seemed unwise. If it were even possible—he’d only tried it with Erelah, and she was half human.
Tajael spoke for him. “This is Leksander Smoke, dragon prince of the House of Smoke. A treaty between the House of Smoke and the fae has protected humanity for ten millennia. But that treaty is at risk unless Erelah returns to the Dominions of light.”
“Returns?” Razael’s gaze whipped back to Tajael. “There is no return. I should know.”
“But you do know,” Tajael insisted. “You must know.”
Razael glowered at him, but Tajael seemed to ignore that, tipping his head to Leksander and gesturing for him to return to the platform where they had originally landed. Leksander followed him and alit next to him. He quickly transformed to human again, catching Tajael’s intent—he wanted Leksander to argue his case.
“I only want to speak with her,” Leksander said to the angel, who had watched them regain their perch. Leksander flicked a glance at the crowd of black-winged angelings gathered below and around them. They all bore the same tattoos on their chests that Razael had. “If she wishes to stay with your Regiment, that’s her choice.”
“She is already pledged to me,” Razael rumbled, his voice still just below angelsong level.
“As befits her place in the shadow realm,” Tajael said, making peace with his calm tone. “You are her father.”
Leksander dashed a look to Tajael. Her father?
Tajael flicked a cool look to Leksander but kept a steady, placating expression on his face. “It is good that she found her way to your Regiment,” Tajael continued, smoothly, “but there is much in the human realm that depends on her. People she cares about, Razael.”
“She cannot return,” Razael said again, his voice booming louder. Leksander couldn’t tell if he truly believed it was impossible or if he simply wouldn’t allow it. Leksander gritted his teeth. This was the angel who was her father! How could he compete with that? An angeling who had never known her parents, now suddenly reunited with one of them?
She might not want to return.
He swallowed down that thought. Focus, Leksander. Although he hadn’t the faintest idea what he would say to her.
“Perhaps you are right,” Tajael said. “Maybe she can never return. But what would you give, Razael, for one more chance to say goodbye to your beloved?”
Leksander dashed a look at Tajael again. Was he saying that Erelah loved him? But then the hum of the air kicked up a notch, vibrating with the power of the angel who held their fate in his hands. If he was pissed before, now his expression was pure murder.
Leksander swallowed, then ventured, “I’m not here to make her suffer in any way. I’ve done enough of that already. I’m just here to see if it’s possible. If she wants to return. And to undo the harm I’ve done. The instant she wishes us gone, we will leave.”
Razael’s fury was turned on him, but he didn’t rage… just studied Leksander in that piercing way Markos did. As if he was reading Leksander’s soul.
“You love her.” It was a statement.
“Yes.” The answer was easy enough. He’d known it forever.
“And her love of you caused her Fall.”
Leksander’s throat closed up. Her love of him? He tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Tajael dashed a look between him and Razael then quickly said, “As you can see, such a love deserves a hearing. A chance, Razael. That is all we seek. Not for us, but for your daughter, you would grant this.”
Leksander was still struggling for words, so he kept silent.
After a long moment, Razael said, “My Regiment will stand guard.” He gestured to the darkened doorway at the back of the balcony. “She is summoned.”
A gush of relief went through Leksander.
And when he looked back to the doorway, Erelah was standing there, dead sexy in a skin-tight outfit of black that somehow covered most of her skin but revealed every luscious curve he’d ever drooled over. Her black wings crowded the door, and her long blond hair floated in a magical breeze around her, but her mouth had dropped open with surprise.
And her eyes were wide with horror.