The Ancient’s shoulders knotted, fury distorting his beauty. “I have lived through my Cascade. It is my time to rest.”
“I do not believe this particular Cascade will let you sleep until it reaches its crescendo.” At the same instant, he contacted Illium, asked the angel to join him and Antonicus.
“I am tired.” Antonicus looked around on that absolute statement. “What is this place of steel and glass and towers that touch the sky?”
“I will explain. For now, we have recently had an earth tremor and I must ensure my city is safe.” Raphael realized he’d gotten lucky—despite the initial exchange of angelfire, Antonicus seemed stable enough. “You are welcome in my Tower. We will speak again once I return.”
Antonicus didn’t budge, wings of charcoal gray spread in a hover. “You have eyes such as I have seen on only one other being in all my existence. But Caliane had no offspring when I went to Sleep. She did not even have a mate.”
“Caliane is my mother.” Raphael cut the Ancient off before he could speak further. “My squadron leader will show you to the Tower.” He nodded at Illium, who’d stopped at a respectful distance beyond them.
“Another pup.” The Ancient snorted. “What has the world come to if only the young are awake?” He was yet muttering as he flew off with Illium.
* * *
• • •
At the same instant that tremors hit New York, the sky turned a silver-dusted aquamarine in the depths of the night in the Pacific, as geysers of water shot up from one of Astaad’s newly submerged islands, and the heavens opened up.
It was pure luck he was nearby at the time.
According to Plato, the vampire his oldest philosopher, it was almost as if the bones of the world itself had shifted, putting things out of balance. Astaad enjoyed speaking with his historians, philosophers, and scientists, appreciated the gift of intellect, but he had no patience with such explanations in the midst of a Cascade. He needed hard facts to prepare himself and his people.
The enraged Ancient who erupted out of the submerged island on a roar of sound was Astaad’s exact opposite. Known for his temper and his infamous harem, Aegaeon had been born with a weapon of war in hand.
Astaad, too, kept a harem, but his was a family. His women saw one another as sisters. He rarely took mortals into that harem, but the infrequent times he did, he loved and cared for each to the end of her life—as did her sisters. His harem mourned when one of the family was lost.
Aegaeon’s harem by contrast, had been a place of lust and ambition. Even during his short waking in Astaad’s lifetime, many of his lovers had died at one another’s hands. Aegaeon had rewarded the most deadly members with his favors while discarding those he considered weak.
Sound boomed from the throat of the heavily muscled archangel with skin that held the sunshine, and hair of a shocking blue-green. His eyes were the same blue-green, his fists huge mallets and his bare chest marked with a silver swirl that echoed the pattern in the sky. In his hand was the scythe that had become his weapon of choice, the implement from which he so often released his power.
The wings that spread out behind him were a darker green with streaks of wild blue.
“I am Aegaeon!” he roared. “I am not to be disturbed!”
Astaad wished he weren’t drenched, his tunic filthy from the work he’d been doing to save as many of his people as he could, but that was how things had fallen and he was an archangel. “I am Astaad!” He made his own voice boom, for yes, he was capable of such—he just preferred to be more refined. “You encroach on my territory!”
The scythe caught the silver from the sky, its edge glowing. “Why do you wake me?” Aegaeon’s eyes gleamed hard as gemstones. “I am not ready to wake!”
“We are in the midst of a catastrophic Cascade.” Astaad had no more answers for him than this. “It is why your island is submerged.”
Aegaeon looked down, his hair falling around the square lines of his jaw, seemed to notice the water for the first time. A curl of his lip. “Can you not clear such things?” A wave of the scythe and the water retreated.
“I prefer to save my energy for the lands that remain inhabited.” Astaad would not allow an interloper to make the rules in his lands; he would however, make use of Aegaeon’s penchant for flaunting his power. “My people are dying and islands are being submerged faster than we can evacuate them.”
“Show me!”
Every word out of the man’s mouth was headache-inducing. “Come.”
Aegaeon flew after him without argument, but Astaad knew the cooperation would soon devolve into aggression. Aegaeon was not an angel who would be satisfied with anything but a full territory.
* * *
• • •
Even as Astaad saw the first geyser of water on the island, a wave of sound hit Alexander’s territory while he stood ankle-deep in snow. The clear sky turned into a moonless night, ebony and without end.
“Zanaya is rising,” he said to his second.
Taking to the air, he soon spotted snow-covered sands in the distance from which emerged a mirage of light and darkness, a woman colored in starlight. Waist-length curls of silver washed with purple until it was a hue he’d seen on no other, skin of night, eyes huge dark orbs that he knew flickered with silvery light and lips so plush a man could look at them and think himself lost.
Until she cut out your heart and fried it to eat with her most prized wine.
Shorter than him by several inches, Zanaya wore her sword across her back because of course Zanaya would go into Sleep with a sword. It was her most beloved lover.
Her body was clad in a short wrap that hugged every curve and valley. A glittering starlight creation that covered her breasts and thighs and yet left her more alluring than if she’d been unclothed. Though, as Alexander was personally aware, Zanaya was beyond alluring when bare to the skin.
He landed in front of her with a feeling of inevitability in his gut.
“Xander.” A purr of sound, the language one he hadn’t heard for millennia even before his Sleep. “We meet again.”
“That is my grandson’s name now.”
The sparks of moonlight in her pupils grew brighter. “You jest? You are a grandfather?” A slow seduction of a smile. “I have Slept long.”
“That is a matter of opinion,” he muttered under his breath.
Throwing back her head, she laughed and the sound wrapped around him as it always had, luscious and drugging and Zanaya. “Oh, Alexander, do not say you are not happy to see me. I am crushed.”
She stretched her arms to the sky, back arched and toes digging into the snow, and it was like watching a lioness wake to the sun that even now chased Zanaya’s sudden night from the sky. “It did not snow in this desert when I went to Sleep.” She crouched down, lifted a handful of glittering ice crystals. “Does my Nile yet flow, or is it ice?”