Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Her eyes flared, then she gripped his jaw. “My ability to Sleep is currently compromised—but it’ll heal. I’ve been wounded too many times not to sense that it’s not a permanent injury.” The certainty of an archangel. “But even if it doesn’t, I don’t intend to live until madness eats my mind, swallows all I am. I intend for my rule to end.”
That was the natural order of life, of immortality. “I won’t do this, lover, until you promise that you will Sleep. Should I not be able to Sleep, well . . . that will be the end of Archangel Zanaya, and you’ll be free.”
Zanaya pressed a hand over Alexander’s mouth when he would’ve spoken, her heart thudding as if she stood once more in the ice of the Refuge, Alexander in front of her. A moment that had altered the trajectory of her destiny. “Not soon. You have your grandson, and I’m only just awake. In ten thousand years at the most.”
A scowl. “Why ten?” he said when she dropped her hand.
“Because that’s a sprawling span of life,” she pointed out. “Long enough for us to love . . . but not so long that we’ll squander it as we’ve squandered most of eternity. Wasting time because we believed there’d always be more, an infinite hourglass. We need to shatter the hourglass for it is a seductive cage that keeps us stuck in time.”
Harsh words. Brutal in their truth.
“And this Cadre?” she added. “It’s too full of Ancients. It’s lopsided and wrong. We should always have a balance of young to old, or we’ll remain static. From there, it’s not too long a journey to stagnant.”
Alexander looked out at the ocean for a long time. She wasn’t affronted. She’d rather he contemplate the point, be sure where he stood. Because once they declared themselves consorts, there’d be no coming back. Becoming a consort was a choice and a risk so precious that to turn their backs on it would be to spit upon the very structure of angelic society.
And they, neither one of them, was an oath breaker.
Alexander turned to her. “Ten thousand years or less.” It was a promise. “And Zani, if you can’t Sleep, if you move beyond the veil, have no doubt but that I’ll follow.”
Zanaya felt her entire world tremble, break, reshape into a new form. Because a promise from the Archangel of Persia was a thing bound in stone. “Alexander, Consort of Archangel Zanaya,” she said, the words husky, “I pledge my being and my life to you.”
His wings glowed, his eyes fierce. “Zanaya, Consort of Archangel Alexander, I pledge all I am and all I will be to you. To the end, my Zani. Till we are the merest echo of existence in the cosmos.”
Hands shaking, she curled her fingers around his nape as she pressed her forehead to his. “To the end, my general. Until time itself stops.”
43
Alexander hovered face-to-face with Zanaya at the point at which they had to go their separate ways. He didn’t want to leave her with the bond between them newborn and fragile, but he was an archangel—as was she; they had duties to the people who looked to them for stability and protection.
Things had calmed in the years since the war, but the scars lingered. Especially after the post-war vampiric uprising, where thousands of vampires across the world had given in to bloodlust and ravaged the mortal populations.
Alexander had come down hard on the vampires in his territory, his capacity for patience murdered when Lijuan forced him to kill children. “The ones who helped contain the uprising,” he told Zanaya after catching her up on that piece of history, “and the ones I know have their bloodlust under vicious control, they of course continue to have my trust.”
Alexander had never been one to quickly give—or retract—his faith. “But the others must now earn back the trust of not only the Cadre, but the rest of society. Far too many vampires thought to take advantage of the aftermath of war and some in your lands might consider stirring during the transition of power.”
“I thank you for the warning,” Zanaya said, her hands on her hips and her features grim. “You’re still content to lend me a few of your people?”
“For as long as you need them. All are eager to help set up a territory and I know full well I risk defections.” A grin. “How can I blame them when you own my heart, too? So if you wish to make offers in time, I won’t consider it a mortal betrayal.” He clutched at his heart.
Her laughter was startled and bright. “I plan to steal vast numbers of your people, General. Be warned.”
“I will then be honor bound to lure some back.”
Smile yet a brightness in her gaze, she said, “Titus advised me that he’d lend me a few of his trusted people, too.” She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not wont to trust strangers bearing gifts, but I feel nothing but goodwill from him.”