Leksander.
He was here, in the shadow realm. In her father’s Regiment. Standing unprotected in the middle of a hundred angelings of shadow. Erelah was so aghast, she couldn’t move or speak.
What kind of fool was this man?
Finally, she found her voice. “What are you doing here?” she demanded as she rushed forth from the doorway of her father’s throne room to Leksander’s side, snatching hold of his arm to drag him back into the relative protection of inside. That was when she noticed Tajael standing next to him. “And you,” she hissed at Tajael. “What kind of friend does this?” She gestured to Leksander even as she dragged him through the door. How could Tajael endanger him like this? How could he bring Leksander here? Because the only way they could be here at all was through Tajael’s doing.
Tajael trailed into the room behind them. “I can explain—”
“No, let me,” Leksander cut him off. Then he did the unthinkable and pulled her close, one hand slipping around her waist, the other suddenly on her cheek. He drew her body up against his. “You’re everything to me,” he whispered.
And then he kissed her.
The shock of it stunned her mind, but her body was already responding. Her lips moved with his. Her grip on his arm that she'd used to haul him inside to relative safety loosened… and then tightened again as she gasped against his mouth. His kiss and the sudden fire it was lighting inside her was making her clutch at his shoulders, her tongue darting and tasting and possessing him. That deep hunger surged back—the need for him—but somehow it was more under her control now. The masculine scent of him was coiling her need tight. His touches, skimming along the fabric of her clothing and teasing the bare-skinned parts, were flushing heat between her legs. And his soft moans as he kissed her satisfied something deep inside her—something very feminine that was triumphant in giving him pleasure.
But even with all that, she wasn’t made wild with it, like the out-of-control animal she had been on that rocky ledge when she literally tore his clothes from his body. She wanted more from him—so much more—but she could stop. She was in control.
She ended the kiss and stepped back, just to prove that she could.
Leksander’s breath was ragged, and his eyes dilated. “I didn’t know if I’d have the chance,” he gasped out.
Her own breathing was uneven. “Chance for what?” But she knew.
Tajael had stepped far back, all the way to the door. It was as if he stood guard, blocking it with his body and his wings.
“To tell you I love you,” Leksander was saying, stepping closer again.
She backed away, but not enough.
He closed in on her but simply took her hand. “To say I’m sorry.” He held up their joined hands, threading his fingers with hers. The magic of their touch sparked between them. He smiled a little. “It’s different now.”
“I’m in shadow,” she said, voice still rough. She couldn’t pull her hand from his as if dark magic held it in place. Although she knew it was simply the pleasure of his touch, the relief of seeing him, even here, where he wasn’t safe.
He pulled her hand to his chest, cradling it there. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen. All those times you told me. All the times you insisted this would happen. I wasn’t listening, and I’m a fool for that. A fool in love. Can you forgive me?”
Her hand against his chest. Those clear blue eyes staring into hers. The ghostly press of his kiss still swelling her lips. These were things she should run from, but what did it matter now? She was already in shadow, and all things were possible. All things were Sin, which meant, in a way, that no things were Sin. And besides, this tender feeling he was sharing, the one holding her in place… this wasn’t Sin at all, but just Love. True Love. The kind Leksander had always had for her.
“There is no Sin in Love,” she said, and the words felt like a revelation as she said them.
“Erelah.” The catch in his voice spoke to the need that still throbbed in her body. “I came here to bring you back.”
She frowned and flicked a look to Tajael. What lies had he been feeding Leksander? “There’s no going back,” she said gently to him. “And you need no forgiveness from me, Leksander. This is all my own doing.”
He gently squeezed her hand, the one pressed against his chest, and drew her even closer. Close enough to kiss, but instead, he took to whispering. “I want to bring you back. I want to undo the Fall. But now that I’m here…” He was gazing into her eyes, searching them. “I could stay with you.”
“What?” She pulled back from their close embrace, working her hand free from his.
Disappointment sagged his shoulders.
“Leksander!” she admonished. “The shadow realm is no place for a human. Not even a dragon. Especially not a dragon prince of the House of Smoke!”
He winced. “You don’t want me here.”
That wrenched her heart. “It’s not that.” She found herself pulled back to him by that dark magic, the one that whispered, Here is your beloved. Ease his pain. She reached a hand up to his face, gently sliding her fingers along his cheek. She licked her lips, suddenly trembling that she dared do this. “It’s not that I don’t…” Her voice betrayed the tremble in her body.
Leksander sensed it, and his arms were suddenly around her, gently holding her at the waist and gathering her into his warm embrace. Her hand was still on the smooth skin of his cheek, and it was a wonder to touch him like this. Not kissing, just… connected.
Her gaze never left his. “My Fall was from Lust for you,” she confided in this close space between them.
A smile tugged at his lips and shone in his eyes. “I know that’s bad for an angeling—”
She stopped him with two fingers on his lips. His eyes went wide, but she hardly noticed, as she was mesmerized by the immensely soft feel of his skin there. His lips parted under her touch, and the warmth of his breath kissed her fingers. “It is dangerous for an angeling,” she corrected him gently. She drew her gaze up to his. “For an angeling of the light.”
She moved her fingers from his lips and explored his face, tracing along his jaw, up the side, along the edge of his hair, to the feather softness of his eyebrows. She felt him shudder under her fingertips and against her body, which was now pressing against the length of his as if they were drawn together like magnets.
“I could never contemplate this,” she whispered, letting her fingers slide down to the tip of his nose, then back to his lips again, which were parted even further. His breath was laboring in and out. “I knew, deep within, that it would be the end of my time in the light.” She drew her fingers back and lifted her gaze to meet his. So much love there. “The end of my time with you. And that, more than anything, I could not bear.”
He frowned a tiny amount, a wildness overtaking his clear blue eyes. “What are you saying?” He was still breathless.
“That I loved you too much to risk losing you.” It was the truth, and she honored it with words.
Breath released from him in a low rush. “There must be…” Torment sprung to life on his face. “There must be a way for us to be together. Erelah. Please. Let me stay—”
She cut him off this time with her lips.
It was his turn for shock. A momentary stillness at her unexpected touch. Her lips making demands on his. He quickly recovered, and his lips moved against hers, erasing the line between his need and hers. There was just their need, their touch, the sweet harmony of their bodies speaking the love they felt.
For a moment, lost in the tender sweetness and ardent need of that kiss, she thought she might keep him. Have him stay here, just as he wished, in the shadow realm. Abandon the world and its demands. Forsake all allegiances and vows. The world would only contain the two of them and be full for it.
Then a shriek of angelsong split the air and shattered her misty dream.
Erelah whipped around—Tajael had turned to face the outside, but he wasn’t venturing forth. He blocked the doorway so much with his body and his wings that Erelah couldn’t see what was happening.
“Tajael!” She was working her way out of Leksander’s embrace. He didn’t seem to want to let her go.
Tajael twisted to look back at her but kept his grip on the sides of the doorway. “Run, Erelah! Take Leksander and—” Then a powerful force wrenched him from the doorway and threw him back into the throne room. His flying body barely missed her, but then he crashed into Leksander, taking them both down and skidding to the back recesses of the throne room.
An angeling appeared at the door.
Erelah charged, screaming angelsong and drawing her blade as she hurtled across the floor. The angeling backed off, stumbling away from the doorway and out onto the balcony. Erelah surged after him, breaking out into the open.
A full melee filled the air.
Angelings and blades and blood everywhere. Giant flocks whirled and spun and dove down to attack. They moved like a turbulent wind was buffeting them, more than just the individual fights themselves. She watched in horror as Razael rose up from below the balcony, fully grappling with another dark-winged angel. Then the power of their clash blasted through the air and threw her back against the wall. Momentarily stunned, she scrambled along the black crystal floor to regain her blade. The magic hurricane that was the two angels fighting had blasted through all the angelings, surging them one against another. Then Razael and the other angel dropped out of sight again, below the balcony, and Erelah could stand.
Tajael appeared in the doorway. “Erelah!” He was bloody from a head wound gushing down his face.
She jabbed her finger toward the room behind him. “Take Leksander—” A slash of pain cut her off, then she was thrown to the ground. A dark angeling pinned her to the floor, kneeling on her back. Before she could move or throw him, the cruel cut of his blade slashed through her wing. She screamed in pain and frustration.
Then she heard Tajael growl and surge forward to help her, but the angeling who pinned her grabbed her hair and wrenched her head up from the floor, baring her neck to his blade.
“Stay back!” the angeling hissed at Tajael.
He froze, blade held aloft.
Erelah could feel the bite of the dark angeling’s blade on her neck.
“Back off, half breed of light,” her captor growled. “Or I’ll take off her head.”
Tajael stepped back, eyes wild. Leksander staggered to the doorway behind him. When he saw her, he tried to push past Tajael, but thankfully, he held Leksander back.
“Let me pass!” Leksander growled.
“Yes, let him pass, Tajael,” the angeling on her back taunted. “Let us have dragon for dinner tonight.”
Holy angels of light. “Touch him, and you die,” Erelah ground out.
“Is that so?” The angeling sounded amused. His blade bit deeper.
Dizziness swam through Erelah’s head. None of this would end well. She had to make her move now. She still had her blade, but her arm was trapped under an injured wing already screaming its pain through her mind. Slowly, under cover of her black feathers, she rotated her grip on the blade, so it was pointing up. She gritted her teeth as it bit through her own wing, but now the blade was only inches from the angeling’s leg. He pressed her harder to the ground with his knee on her back. She would only get one shot at this… She tightened her grip, then sliced her blade up through her own wing and buried it deep in the angeling’s leg.
He screamed and jerked back, thankfully taking his blade with him… and away from her neck. She bucked him off her back and rolled over, knocking him free and slashing him again with her blade in one fast motion.
But then a mountain of feathers and hands descended on her, all taking an arm or a leg or a screaming-broken wing and wrenching her aloft. She struggled and thrashed, but she had no momentum, no pull against the dozen angelings who had laid hold of her and hoisted her into the air.
“Erelah!” Leksander’s voice was the last thing she heard as the angelings, as a single unit, turned and wrenched open a portal through time and space and dragged her through.