He went eerily motionless, his expression altering in a way she couldn’t describe except to say that the man who’d been teasing and annoying her was suddenly not the same man any longer. “Of course,” he said, his deep voice resonant and cultured. “I apologize if I caused you any distress or offense.”

Andromeda felt her stomach knot, a sudden sick feeling inside her, but they’d reached the courtyard now lit by the gentle glow of lanterns strung up in the trees.

“I thought we’d eat out here,” Jessamy said and got a round of assent.

Hauling Jessamy close with one big hand on her nape, Galen planted a kiss on her mouth that left her breathless and flushed and smiling. A satisfied glint in his eye, the weapons-master said, “We’ll bring out the table.”

Andromeda had been startled when she’d first learned that her wise, educated, and quietly elegant mentor was madly in love with the barbarian of a man who was weapons-master to the Archangel Raphael. Two more disparate people she couldn’t imagine. Then she’d seen the tenderness in Galen’s expression when he looked at Jessamy, witnessed how Jessamy’s eyes lit up at the sound of his powerful wings.

Her heart hurt at the beauty of their bond.

“Venom, Naasir,” Galen said and the three men walked to get the table from a small building that Andromeda knew Galen used as a workshop when he didn’t want to work in the weapons arena.

That table was scarred from countless weapons being placed on it, but buffed clean. Having gone inside to get a tablecloth, Andromeda draped it over the wooden surface, hyperaware of Naasir standing on the other side before he disappeared to bring out one of the two bench seats. Minutes later, the food was out, everything ready.

Since she knew Galen and Jessamy liked to sit next to each other, she went to the bench on the opposite side. Three sets of wings competing for the same space could get awkward. Venom slid in on one side of her, Naasir on the other. Both males were careful not to touch her wings.

“First, a toast,” Galen said, splashing champagne into their glasses. “To having Naasir home with us.”

Jessamy’s face was radiant in the lamplight. “You’ve been deeply missed,” she said, raising her glass. “Next time, don’t be away so long.”

Naasir bent his head slightly in acquiescence, his expression difficult to read from what Andromeda could see of his profile, but whatever it was Jessamy saw, it made her smile deepen as they clinked glasses and drank the toast. The bubbles fizzed on Andromeda’s tongue, the taste of the champagne sunshine in a bottle.

Her homeland produced no such golden liquid, but it had a wild and heartbreaking beauty she’d missed desperately since her faux defection. At least when she returned to do her five hundred years of service, she’d be able to breathe the warm African air again, look up at the hazy blue of a sky unlike any other on this earth.

That would be her reward for each day of horror in her grandfather’s court.

“Would you like some bread?”

It wasn’t the words that startled her. It was how intensely polite they were, given the identity of the speaker. Taking the breadbasket from Naasir, she glanced up at his face and saw nothing but courteous interest. No feral glint as she’d seen earlier, certainly no attempts to annoy her.

The hairs rose on her nape again.

Disturbed by Naasir’s sudden politeness in a way she couldn’t articulate, she put a piece of the thick, warm bread on her plate and handed the woven basket to Venom. The vampire with the slitted eyes of a lethal snake and a dark sensuality that drew countless women to his bed, looked from her to Naasir but didn’t say anything except, “Thank you.”

“Here.” Jessamy passed a small bowl to Naasir. “I made your favorite. Honor sent me Montgomery’s recipe.”

Naasir took the bowl of what seemed to be rare—or was it raw?—meat of some kind, his open grin making Andromeda’s breath catch. However, the mask of civilization was firmly back on his face when he looked at her partway through the meal. “Do you require anything from this side of the table?”

Shaking her head, she took a bite of the food on her plate while Venom and Naasir sipped blood from small goblets. Venom nibbled on something here and there, but unlike Naasir, he didn’t really eat any of the solid food.

It only highlighted the fact that Naasir was no ordinary vampire.

She ate slowly, listened to the others speak . . . and felt her skin chill each time Naasir said something polite to her. Catching Jessamy’s frown at one point, she realized she was right to feel on edge. Logic told her that made no sense. People were normally polite to strangers . . . except Naasir was unlike any other person she’d ever met.

And he hadn’t been polite to her before she snapped at him.

“So, you are to find Alexander,” Galen said toward the end of the meal. “Where will you begin?”

Naasir’s silver eyes landed on Andromeda. “I was told you have possibilities for us to explore.”

“In a sense,” she said, her skin tight with a kind of cold fear that had nothing to do with Naasir’s unsettling behavior and everything to do with the fact that, unbeknownst to anyone at this table, she would soon be forced to have enemy loyalties, forced to be Charisemnon’s bonded subordinate.

Not for fifteen more days, she reminded herself. Long enough to try to save the life of an Ancient. “I never studied Alexander with the intention of finding his Sleeping place.” He had fascinated her because he was both a great statesman, and a warrior who had led his troops from the front till the day he chose to Sleep. “My suggestions are only educated guesses. I don’t presume to know the mind of an Ancient.”