Excerpt from Archangel’s Lineage by Nalini Singh
The pathways were filled with angels and senior vampires dressed with immortal grandeur.
The sumptuous beauty of it was undeniable.
More than one person shot a glance their way, but no one approached them. “Naasir, are you glaring at people?”
A silver-eyed look over his shoulder, his expression so austere you’d never know that beneath his skin lurked a playfulness feral and unique. “I’m just looking extremely serious.”
Andi, her arm tucked into his, glanced back at them. “He’s being his most grim-faced self.” A whisper. “I am terrified.”
Leaning down, Naasir nipped at the tip of her ear with sharp tiger-creature teeth. Andi yelped, then hit him on the chest with no force at all before leaning into him, her hand curled around his biceps. The two were ridiculously adorable, even if Naasir still refused to tell Elena his exact species. Oh, and everyone else thought it was just hilarious that she didn’t know. Ha!
“Ellie! Ellie! Up here!” The hail came from one of the houses that lined the edge of the gorge, the voice small and bright. “Teacher Jessamy! You look pretty!”
When Elena glanced up to the second floor, she saw a boy with wings of brown tipped with black and hair that was all tumbled black curls beaming down at her from an open window. His small body was leaning so far out of it that only his older cousin’s grip on his jerkin kept him from falling.
Elena waved back as Jessamy did the same by her side. “Behave tonight and I’ll take you flying tomorrow!” Sam remained one of her most favorite people in the Refuge.
Even after all this time, her brain had trouble processing the slow rate of angelic growth, and she was still sometimes surprised that Sam remained such a small boy, but one thing she knew: she’d love him all her life. Kid just had that kind of heart and sweetness.
“Promise?” Sam yelled out.
“Promise!” She blew him a kiss, then waved at his cousin. “And you as well, Tarielle!”
The gangly girl, who was about fifteen in human terms, beamed. “I can’t wait!”
“Rafa! Rafa!” Sam waved at Raphael, a tiny metronome on speed. “I’m gonna go flying with Ellie tomorrow! Tari’s gonna fly, too!”
Raphael’s childhood nickname had had a resurgence among the children after one of them heard an older adult mention it. And since her archangel had always had a soft spot for children, they had free reign to address him thus.
“Perhaps I will join you. If, of course, I’m invited,” he said to the children.
Who all but exploded with excitement.
Leaving their small friends, they’d just turned the corner onto another gentle bridge when the ground shook.
No tremor this, no mere tremble. The quake was a vicious jerk that lifted up the path and sent Elena crashing down hard on one knee. Pain shot through her. Ignoring it, she grabbed Jessamy before the other woman could be thrown off the path and into the pond beside it. Ahead of them, Naasir did one of those quicksilver movements Elena couldn’t follow with the naked eye and lifted both himself and Andi off the ground as it bucked under them. He landed on feet as sure as a cat’s.
Sam! Elena yelled at Raphael, even though she couldn’t see him. He was hanging out the window. And Tari was holding onto him!
I caught both, Raphael assured her, and she knew he was talking about his archangelic power, not his arms. That power was no longer fueled by the Cascade, but it was power nonetheless.
I’m holding them until the movement stops. Can you get airborne?
No, I can’t even get to my feet.
The shaking didn’t stop for what felt like an hour. A house collapsed next to them, dust exploding outward in a gray burst that lined her tongue with grit; Elena hoped to hell the angels inside had managed to dive out into the gorge.
When she looked up, she saw flights of angels in the sky, many with children in their arms. Good. Down here, the air was turning to dust-choked mist, and the fucking water in the pond was boiling. “Jess?”
“I see it, Ellie.” Jessamy gripped Elena’s thigh with her hand, while Elena continued to keep a death grip on her arm. “I can feel the heat. It’s not just motion. It’s actual heat.”
“Fuck.” Elena transmitted the information to Raphael, who was now in the air, from which high vantage point he could help those who needed it. Galen was with him, an indication of trust in Elena that he wouldn’t have shown in the first years after she’d become Raphael’s consort—because Jessamy was Galen’s heart.
“Trace!” she called out, unable to spot the final member of their group.
“Behind you!” the vampire called back. “I’m on the path off the bridge! If this doesn’t stop soon, start crawling back toward me!”
Then it did stop. With a massive jerk and resounding crack that made Elena’s eyes widen. Hauling Jessamy to her, she rose into the air with a tearing of muscle, just as the bridge collapsed into the boiling water.
Elena wasn’t strong enough to carry another angel, but it helped that her friend was so thin and light.
She still barely made it to the area near Trace.
He caught Jessamy as Elena fell more than landed. Once upright, the three of them looked at the steaming water hot enough to scald even from a distance. Just because immortals could heal from what would be a killing injury for a mortal didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt.
The cauldron would’ve melted off Jessamy’s wings had she fallen into it.
A single second of shock was all they allowed themselves before they began to move. Jessamy broke into a run to take charge of Sam and Tarielle and any other children in the vicinity, while Trace entered a collapsed building to see if anyone was trapped inside.
Elena did the same.
Her left wing dragged and she knew she’d torn a tendon or ligament. Nothing to complain about in the aftermath of a catastrophic quake. She got on with the job.
Copyright © 2024 by Nalini Singh
New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s dangerous and beautiful world of archangels, vampires, and mortals has never faced a threat this cataclysmic…
Raphael and Elena are experiencing their first ever year of true peace. No war. No horrors of archangelic power. No nightmares given flesh. Until…the earth beneath the Refuge begins to tremble, endangering not only angelkind’s precious and fragile young, but the very place that has held their most innocent safe for eons.
Amid the chaos, Elena’s father suffers a violent heart attack that threatens to extinguish their last chance to heal the bonds between them and make sense of the ruins of their agonizing shared history.
Even as Elena battles grief, Raphael is torn from her side by the sudden disappearance of an archangel. But worse yet is to come. An Ancestor, an angel unlike any other, stirs from his Sleep to warn the Cadre of a darkness so terrible that it causes empires to fall and civilizations to vanish.
This time, even the Cadre itself may not be able to stop a ticking clock that is counting down at frightening speed…
Fantasy | Romance [Berkley, On Sale: April 23, 2024, Mass Market Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593550014 / eISBN: 9780593550021]
Can the angels save their refuge?
For a guaranteed good read, you don’t want to miss out on ARCHANGEL’S LINEAGE.
Post war lull still brings menace to angels’ world
Born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand, Nalini has been writing as long as she can remember. Her stories always held a thread of romance (even when she was writing about a prince who could shoot lasers out of his eyes). She loves creating unique characters, loves giving them happy endings and she even loves the voices in her head. There's no other job she would rather be doing.
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