Angels' Dance Read Online Free

those bright firefly lives were extinguished. He’d never felt such depth of love, but he could comprehend grief. “Jessamy,” he said, his mind on a woman who wasn’t mortal, but whose slender form seemed far too vulnerable for his peace of mind, “does she have a lover?”
    Dmitri’s sophisticated elegance broke to reveal utter astonishment. “What?”
    “Jessamy,” he repeated patiently. “Does she have a lover?”
    “She’s the Teacher .”
    “She’s also a woman.” And if the men around her had been too stupid to notice, Galen wasn’t going to lose sleep over it.
    A startled pause, a shake of Dmitri’s head that had blue– black highlights glinting in the sun. “No,” the vampire finally responded, “she doesn’t have a lover as far as I know.”
    “Good.”
    Dmitri continued to stare at him. “You do realize she’s over two thousand five hundred years old, speaks at least a hundred languages, and has such a depth of knowledge the Cadre comes to her for advice and information?”
    Galen had no doubt all of that was true. “I don’t intend to get into an intelligence contest with her.” No, he wanted her in a far more primal way.
    Dmitri blew out a breath. “This should be interesting.”
    They watched several angels wing their way out of the aeries that lined the gorge, the light making their wings shimmer and glitter. “Trust,” Dmitri said when the last of them rose up into the cerulean blue sky, “is earned.”
    “Understood.”
    “For now, you’ll remain in the Refuge, charged with training the young ones who have joined Raphael.”
    “They say Lijuan likes him,” he said, mentioning one of the oldest members of the Cadre.
    “She might not wear cobras like Neha,” Dmitri muttered in a voice stripped of all traces of civilization, until it was a naked blade, “but Lijuan is no less poisonous.”
    Galen thought over what he knew of Lijuan, realized it wasn’t much. “Such information was not shared with me in Titus’s court. If I am to be a true weapons-master, I must know of the politics that might inform tactics.”
    Dmitri’s smile was slow. “In that case, you should talk to Jessamy.”
    Folding his arms, Galen met the vampire’s innocent gaze. “Should I?”
    “What many don’t know is that aside from being the Teacher, Jessamy keeps our histories. I’d say there’s no one better if you want to learn the subtleties of the politics that underpin and maintain the balance in the Cadre.”
    Galen knew Dmitri was amusing himself by pointing him in Jessamy’s direction, but he now had a reason to be in her company. Nonetheless, he said, “Have you forgotten that I am quite capable of killing you?”
    “That was a lucky strike, Barbarian.” The vampire thrust a hand through his hair, said, “Your skills as weapons-master may be necessary sooner than you realize,” in a far more serious tone. “Alexander has begun amassing his army—he has never believed Raphael should have become Cadre at so young an age, and now it seems he is willing to use force to impose his will.”
    Alexander was the Archangel of Persia, had ruled for thousands upon thousands of years. “He’s stronger than Raphael.” Age had edged his power to a piercing gleam.
    Dmitri’s expression was inscrutable. “We shall see.”
    Galen wondered if Dmitri had told him of the looming war only because it was already being whispered of among the populace. It was no secret. But then, as the vampire had made clear—trust was earned. Galen had expected nothing less. “He will have spies in Raphael’s territory, in the Refuge and out.”
    “Of course. So keep your eyes open.”
    Galen’s eyes were wide-open that afternoon as he flew over the gleaming white buildings that hugged the craggy landscape of the mountain stronghold, having tracked Jessamy to a small clifftop house on the far edge of Raphael’s Refuge territory. For a woman who was so beloved of children and adults both from what he’d