“Watch our backs.” Leaving the sole surviving pack with her, he went to the hole in the mountain.
The blazing sunlight made him wish he’d kept on his secret skin, but it worked best when he was naked, with nothing breaking the pattern. He didn’t particularly want to be naked on craggy rocks that tore at his clothing and scratched his arms.
“So?” Andromeda asked when he returned.
“There are no scents around it from living creatures. The wing brothers apparently do not yet know of this new entrance.”
Crawling with him to the hole, she winced. “It’s going to be hell on my wings. Angels aren’t meant to go through small holes into underground caverns.”
He scowled at the idea of her being hurt. “Wait and I’ll incapacitate the wing brothers inside, then you can walk in.”
“That’ll take too long—we have no idea how many of them are inside.” A determined smile. “A few scrapes won’t kill me. But you go first so you can cover me from below while I squeeze in. I think there’s more risk down there than out here.”
Naasir had to balance the known danger on top, with the unknown below; he finally decided she was right and the one below was more of a threat. Dropping the pack inside first, he jumped down to the sandy floor of the cavern, then stepped aside and pushed the pack out of the way so Andromeda wouldn’t trip on it.
It took her at least three minutes to get in; her wings were badly scraped, feathers from darkest to palest brown falling around him by the time she succeeded.
Biting back his growl when he saw the extent of the damage and caught sight of the tears she was trying not to shed, Naasir made her stand in place in the light under the hole while he examined her.
“I’m immortal,” she reminded him softly, though her voice was husky with withheld pain. “I’ll heal.”
He bit the tip of her ear. She jumped, then turned to take his face in her hands, her touch gentle. “I’m okay,” she said softly. “Soon as this is over, we’ll find a hot spring and relax.”
She was lying. Naasir caught the minute change in her scent, the break in the rhythm of her pulse. What he didn’t understand was why, but he’d pursue that once they’d completed their task and he’d gotten her to safety. For now, he took her hand and hooked her fingers lightly in the back of his pants after he’d pulled on the pack. “I can see in the dark.” Even in places with zero ambient light.
A result of the mix between chimera and vampire.
“I won’t let go.”
Listening carefully to make certain the wing brothers hadn’t detected them, he began to head down the corridor. When they reached a fork, he said, “Right or left?” At this point, he had no scents to use as a guide, so they had to rely on Andromeda’s research.
“Right.” Her wings rustled in the pitch-dark. “We’re on a slight upward gradient—to get to Alexander, we need to head downward and to the north. That’s the rumored location of the lava chasm.”
Naasir kept her words in mind at the turns that followed.
“Can we talk?” Andromeda whispered after the third turn.
He understood what she was asking. “Yes. The caves and tunnels are structured in a way that sound won’t travel if we keep our voices low.”
“I feel trapped.” Andromeda’s fingers tightened their grip. “In a space this narrow and compact, I’m all but useless.”
He thought of the wings that made her so beautiful in the sky and knew she was right. Here, those same wings were a serious handicap. “You’ll still fight,” he said, her courage an indelible part of her. “You won’t allow your feelings of claustrophobia to trap you.”
“No.” She released a breath he felt ripple along the air currents. “Thanks, that helped.”
Reaching behind him, he squeezed her wrist before dropping his hand. “Shall I tell you about Osiris and about how I came to be?”
A long pause. “No. Tell me in the light, under the sun and in a place that speaks to your soul.”
He wanted to kiss her; his mate saw the wildness in his heart, understood that while he could navigate dark places, his choice was to live in the wind and the sun, the rain on his face and grass underfoot. “I have a special place I stay at near the Refuge,” he told her. “About fifteen minutes’ flight for you—it’s in the forests that begin lower down the mountains.” The Refuge itself was full of mountain wildflowers and other foliage, but had few tall trees.
“Really?” Andromeda’s voice held a hunger to know him that was a verbal caress. “Did you build it in the trees?”
Yes, she understood him, his delicious-smelling mate. “Aodhan helped me design it.” The angel was young to Naasir’s way of thinking, but his mind saw in intricate patterns and shapes. “It’s a house perched high in a tree and it opens out on all sides.” Letting in the wind and the sun.
“There’s a landing platform for my winged friends.” He hadn’t told many of his secret home, and all those who knew were careful never to give away its location. “The tree trunk is so straight and high, with so few lower branches that no one who isn’t like me can climb it. If my vampire friends want to visit, I drop down a rope ladder.”
“What about inside? Where do you sleep?”
“In the rain and snow, I make a nest inside, but when the sky is clear, I sleep in a hammock strung out between branches outside.” Where he could look up at the stars and listen to the forest. “It’s warm because Illium hid small panels near it that catch the sunlight and release it at night.” He reached back to touch her wrist again. “I’ll make the hammock bigger, big enough for your wings.”
A sucked-in breath behind him, before Andromeda whispered, “I’d like to see your home.”
“I’ll take you, after.” If she wanted to put her things there, he wouldn’t say no. It was his territory, but he’d share it with her. He wanted her scent in his space, on his things. “I only have a few books,” he admitted. “Things Jessamy gives me so I’ll have knowledge—but I prefer to get my knowledge from listening to people.”
“You must have an acute memory.”
“Yes.” It was apparently an inborn gift that came from the bloodline of the boy who was part of his self. “From the hammock, you can see the stars at night, so clear and bright, and sometimes, you can see the wings of passing squadrons.”
“They don’t spot you?”
“The hammock is too small to see from up high and the house itself is camouflaged in the branches, part of the tree.” As if Aodhan had plucked the image straight out of Naasir’s thoughts. “Aodhan says there is no other house like it in the world.”