He looked up, his heart painful it was beating so fast, and found his strong, courageous mate in the air. She was winging her way to Lijuan, and by some miracle, hadn’t yet been spotted by the half of the squadron that had survived the lightning bolts. “Keep the angels busy!” he yelled to the wing brothers who could hear him and they renewed their efforts with the crossbows.
The snipers on the cave roof were trying to reach Lijuan with their bolts, but she stayed out of range. The longer-range missiles had ceased to be of any use as soon as Alexander rose; given his diminished strength, an aerial shockwave could take him down. As it would Andromeda.
Naasir bared his teeth and silently promised his mate he would punish her for this, but on the ground, he grabbed a portable missile launcher from the supplies they’d hidden throughout the area, and put it on his shoulder. The shock wave from this weapon should be far more contained. As Andromeda shot crossbow bolts at Lijuan’s back in an effort to give Alexander a little more time to gather his strength, Naasir unleashed the missile.
Lijuan managed to avoid it, but the maneuver left her off-balance long enough that Andromeda was able to drop like a stone and arrow herself toward the trees. Naasir’s blood pulsed in a roar as Lijuan spun around and tried to come after Andromeda, but Alexander hit her with his silver lightning again and this time, her shield was down.
Screaming high and shrill, she turned to throw that hard jewel-like black rain at Alexander. The Ancient couldn’t avoid it this time. It hit, and where it hit, his skin grew black, as did his hair and his wings.
Alexander began to fall to the earth, as if those large, powerful wings no longer worked right.
Ice white hair turned a lustrous black and crackling with power, Lijuan threw back her head in laughter Naasir could see from the ground. As she raised her single regenerated hand to deliver the killing blow, Naasir loaded up a second missile, was about to shoot when he felt the crash of the rain, the fresh bite of the sea in his mind.
Focus on the squadron, Naasir. I will take care of Lijuan.
42
Raphael didn’t bother with subtlety.
Falling through the heavy cloud layer in a controlled dive, he hit Lijuan hard and fast with the wildfire that came from inside him but was kissed by his hunter’s mortal heart, and was the antithesis of Lijuan’s deadly rain. She hadn’t expected him, hadn’t seen him, and so her body was totally unshielded.
His hands slammed into her back, right above her heart, and the wildfire crawled all over her, burrowing through her wings and clothing to touch skin as it fought to get to her internal organs. Though she screamed, he could tell she was fighting it off.
He hit her again.
This time, she turned and began to wing away. He had a choice at that moment—go after her and try to do fatal damage, or to save Alexander. It was one of the most difficult of his life. If he killed Lijuan, he could be saving tens of millions of lives. But if he allowed Alexander to die, he would lose a powerful ally who might help in the fight against Lijuan should she survive.
There was no guarantee the wildfire was strong enough to kill her—she’d survived his and Elena’s last attempt to end her, and before she’d run today, he’d seen the way the black rain ate at the wildfire, seen how it had put up shields against the ravages. Whatever she’d become, Lijuan was no longer like the rest of the Cadre, and Raphael had the gut instinct that no one archangel would ever be able to execute her.
Dropping down toward Alexander while Naasir and the other defenders fired up at the squadron that had turned to follow Lijuan, he landed beside Alexander’s fallen body. The Ancient, his clothing not so different from that of his fighters, had come down hard on the rough stone that covered the caves, some distance from the snipers Raphael had spotted.
Leave this place, he ordered those snipers. Go assist your brethren.
Alexander’s left wing was crumpled under him, his right leg shattered so badly that had he been mortal, it would’ve been impossible to put him back together. Blood dripped from his mouth, but his eyes were open and they were pure obsidian.
Remembering his own blindness under Lijuan’s attack, Raphael took the Ancient’s hand. “Alexander, it is Raphael.” He reached out with his mind, the interference that had stopped him from contacting Naasir—likely caused by Alexander’s waking presence—no longer a problem. It had cut out as Alexander fell.
I’m sending something into your body to counter Lijuan’s poison. Don’t fight it. With that warning he hoped the stubborn warrior would heed, he released a tiny ball of white gold fire swirled with luminous blue, directly onto Alexander’s wing.
The Ancient’s body went rigid as the wildfire entered his system, tendons and muscles stretched and his hand crushing Raphael’s, but Alexander made not a sound. He was a general, would suffer pain in silence. As Raphael watched, the black slowly receded from that part of his wing.
Breathing heavily, Alexander stared blindly toward Raphael. Your cure is as bad as the disease.
Raphael hadn’t heard that deep voice with its touch of Ancient arrogance, in four hundred years. And though Alexander had been threatening to go to war against him at the time, he felt an unexpected welcome inside him for this man he’d always respected. I must be careful. The wildfire may kill you if I use too much. Any more than needed to counter the poison and it became a weapon in itself.
Alexander suffered excruciating pain throughout the operation. He bore it with the grace of a warrior and when his eyes cleared at last, he looked at Raphael and said, “Well, young Rafe. It’s as well that I didn’t kill you, isn’t it?”
Raphael felt his lips curve at the name no one had ever called him—no one but an Alexander who refused to see the archangel he’d become. “Try to remember that, Xander.”
Alexander’s smile at the familiar address he permitted only intimates, was fleeting. “She took my son from this world.” Rage boiled in every word. “I will not stop until I hunt her down and cut out her venomous heart.”
That, Raphael thought, was what many people had forgotten about Alexander: he was wise and strong and a great peacemaker, but he’d begun life as a warrior and it was the bloodthirsty heart of a warrior that beat in his chest.
“I will be at your side.” Raphael moved down Alexander’s body to see if he could speed up the Ancient’s healing. This much damage on the heels of an early waking could leave Alexander broken for days.
“What has become of Lijuan?” Confusion beneath the blood fury. “She was many times arrogant after her ascension, but she showed signs of greatness.”
“That was true enough even a hundred years earlier.” Raphael had found Lijuan disturbing at times, eerie more than once, but the old ones of their race were often a touch removed from the world. He’d asked her advice on countless matters over the centuries, received genuine responses.