The vise around Titus’s chest began to ease its grip at last. “Do you love me? Tell me, then.”

A glow in eyes that shouldn’t glow, their beauty incandescent. “I love you, Titus, Archangel of Africa.” In her voice were tones he’d never before heard, layers of love that wrapped around him with primal sensual intimacy.

“Don’t ever use that voice with anyone else,” he grumbled, “or you’ll break my heart, and I’ll break them.”

Laughter, as sensual and as addicting. “I’ll always protect your heart, for it’s mine now.” A slender hand pressed to that very organ, her voice unbending on her next words. “You, too, will wear my amber—a single piece, embedded into your breastplate.”

Titus puffed out his chest, his hands on her hips, and a smile curving his lips. “You can embed within it as many pieces of amber as you like.” He’d never budge in his devotion to her.

Running the back of her hand over his jaw, she said, “I’m not ready to be your consort.” A finger pressed to his lips. “Consorts must be aware of politics, must undertake certain duties. I can’t, not only because I watch over Lumia, but because I’ve barely awakened. I can’t be your consort before I’m complete in myself as Sharine.”

“Shari, if you grow any more radiant, I shall burn up in your light.” He pressed his forehead to her own. “But if you need a millennium or three to be ready to stand officially at my side, so be it.”

As long as she wore his amber.

As long as she made him wear hers.

“I’m telling you now, so you can’t accuse me of falsehoods later,” he said, because he’d never lie to her, “but I’ll treat you as I would my consort, and though you don’t take the title, the world will know who you are to me.” He couldn’t hide it; he wasn’t built that way.

Sharine searched his face. “Will it not cause you hurt if angelkind questions why I don’t take the title of Consort?”

“No. All I care about is your love.” His pride in being loved by her was a thing so huge, it could withstand endless raised eyebrows and pointed questions. “As long as you’re my Shari, and I’m your Titus, I’ll be an archangel who struts about like a cock in the roost.”

Joyous laughter from his love, her kiss soft and wet and deep.

Groaning, he allowed her to pull him down over her, so that he lay braced above her as she lay on the grasses.

“I accept your intentions,” she said in that voice private and for him alone. “I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be ready to be your consort, and I’ll push back firmly against anyone’s attempt to make me fill that role, but I’ll always be your Shari.”

Titus’s heart boomed, loud as thunder.

When he went to put the necklace on this time, she lifted her head to make it easier for him. The hummingbird settled perfectly in the hollow of her throat. Smug and happy, he lifted the pendant to press a kiss to that hollow.

Hand on his neck, she murmured, “You do know the amber in your breastplate is going to be in the shape of a hummingbird, don’t you?”

He groaned, but it was half-hearted at best, his delight too obvious to hide. Her dancing eyes said she knew that well. Pushing at his chest until he’d moved aside, she rose to her feet and reached up to the shoulder clasps of her gown.

A second later, it fell to her feet in a pool of starlight, her body nude under the moonlight but for the gossamer fabric that covered her mound. Stepping out of her slippers, she held his eyes as she removed the final barrier between his gaze and her body.

Then she stretched, a small goddess with gentle curves and hair that tumbled a golden black rain down her back, her eyes aglow in a way that said she was a rare and powerful creature. He wasn’t aware of getting up, wasn’t aware of stripping. But his skin burned against hers when he clasped her hips and bent his head to kiss her throat.

Shivering, she slid her arms around his neck. “Dance with me, Titus.”

He covered her in his glamour even as he vaulted them both to the sky, glamour a gift of archangels. It made them private, unseen by any other eyes as they tangled limbs and wings, kissing and touching and claiming. He’d said they’d burn together, and they did, but there was also a luminous joy to it all, happiness so profound that it was melded into his bones.

Sharine’s wings shimmered with angel dust of pale gold that coated his skin, entered his mouth. He dusted her in turn, until she glittered against the moon and the stars, the glow of her eyes echoed by the faint glow emanating from her wings. Titus gripped the arch of one wing, stroked with intimate possessiveness.

She repeated the caress on him.

And they danced.

The Archangel of Africa and an angel so unique that she couldn’t be classified as anyone but herself: Sharine, Guardian of Lumia, and Hummingbird in flight.

Bodies locked together against the velvet night, they fell and fell . . . into the cold waters of the lake that would ripple azure blue in daylight. Aware of her strength now, he hadn’t shielded them from the water, and it was a shock of cold against the heat of their bodies, but they tumbled deeper and still deeper until the pleasure became sunlight exploding through their veins.

Titus surfaced together with her, and she was a sylph who pushed her hair off her face and smiled at him. Titus fell all over again.

Epilogue

Dearest Caliane,

The phone device is most excellent and I become more enamored with it each hour that passes, but Charisemnon’s journals show me that there is value in taking the time to follow the old ways, too. So today, I write you this letter that I’ll send by courier to wherever you intend to be in the coming days.

I know you continue to assist young Suyin, and Neha, too.

I think, dear friend, you’re right in what you said to me when we last spoke—the Archangel of India is tired beyond bearing. Her heart is shattered. So much so that Titus tells me even her twin has laid down her arms; she refuses to fight a Neha who will not, or cannot, fight back.

Neha does her duty, that much we all see, but I think when the world is once more sane, we’ll lose her to Sleep. I can’t blame her, or any of her people, who make that choice. The horrors unleashed on their border should never have existed and will be a blot on our history forever more.

At least the last of the victimized children have been discovered and given mercy.

I know you, too, bear many more bruises on your heart as a result of this same evil. I understand it has awoken old pain. I’m here for you in the daylight hours and in the deepest night. Do not ever hesitate to come here, or to make contact. Please, my friend, don’t let the bruises fester and turn into sores.

You know I’ll hold your words close, repeating them to no other.

The news from Africa is much the same as when we spoke. We discover the odd reborn now and then, but the people are much better situated to fight them, and north and south both know they can call on their archangel’s troops. No more infected angels have surfaced, but the cure team continues to manufacture and store more doses in the hope they will never be needed.

I’m certain we stopped Charisemnon’s evil here, before it could begin to spread, but that’s no reason to be complacent. You’ll want to know of Zawadi—the babe is happy and beloved of her foster mother. I see her often, as does Titus. The little one has more likelihood of being spoiled rotten than to lack anything in life, but even knowing this, I’ll continue to enjoy spoiling her.

Her history is dark enough. Let her future be full of light.

You asked me how it went with Titus. My friend, I’ve never known such contentment and joy. It lives in me each moment of each day. I miss him desperately while he’s in Narja or at another one of his citadels, and he’s open in allowing me to see that his heart breaks each time he leaves me.

Yet his pride in me, in what I’ve achieved in Lumia . . . I don’t need anyone’s approval, not anymore, but there is much to be said for a lover who boasts about me to anyone within earshot. Here, I’ll boast about him in turn, for Titus is extraordinary in his ability to love. Such a heart he has, Caliane.

His love is a joy I never expected, and it’s a gift as great as my son.

Illium has begun to call him Stepfather when they speak, and Titus threatens to pluck his new-grown feathers for the cheek every single time. Then Illium laughs and my being overflows with delight, that these two people whose names are written on my heart like one another, too. My boy is young yet, but Titus says he’s becoming a power.

You know how I feel. I worry about him. I’ll always worry about him.

Our familial world has tilted the right way after being too long imbalanced. Illium no longer has to watch over me. At last, I watch over him.

Oh, how could I forget to tell you about the visit from Titus’s sisters! All four of them descended on Lumia some days past, and now I understand why he has such a voice, and such blunt ways. It’s a survival mechanism. I’m happy to report that I, too, survived the storm that is Phenie, Charo, Nala, and Zuri.

I laughed with them, but my laughter has faded in the past day, with the news from Suyin. I can’t help but agree when she calls it the nexus of darkness. Stay safe, my friend, and look after Aodhan. I carry your names on my heart, too. As I can’t stop you from flying to help Suyin, I can’t stop Aodhan from being an angel loyal and courageous, nor would I try.

But I will hope. And I’ll worry until I hear from you both.

With all my love,

Sharine