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)
Alexander was convinced of his choice.
Zanaya was convinced of her choice.
He saw in her refusal to even consider his point of view the impulsive stubbornness of a young archangel. She saw in his rejection of her stance an infuriating condescension.
There was no middle ground.
But Alexander refused to strike against her and she wouldn’t strike against him. Neither, however, did they support each other. The aftermath was as bitter as the fruit on Osiris’s island that even the animals wouldn’t eat, both of them angry at the other for their choice and unable to forgive.
“It’s damaging to what the mortals call the soul,” Caliane said to him after war’s end. “What you and Zanaya do to each other. Perhaps my friend, this love story is not meant to have a happy ending.”
Her words inflicted a wound, for Alexander had begun to realize the same awful truth. Zanaya was to him what no one else had ever been or ever would be—a literal piece of his heart—but they were akin to two opposing elements that, together, could create great beauty . . . or great carnage.
* * *
* * *
Despite his acceptance that he and Zanaya just weren’t meant to be, two people whose love wasn’t enough to bridge the differences between them, Alexander fell back into her orbit more than once in the eons that followed—as she fell into his. In time, they grew past covetousness and jealousy, in no doubt that their hearts belonged to each other alone. It was a truth evident and unassailable that no one could ever truly come between them.
Their trust in one another was profound, their loyalty to each other unquestioned by even their worst enemies. All knew that Alexander would never make war against Zanaya, as she’d never make war against him. There was no point attempting to even foment such a thing, for that line Alexander and his Zani would never cross, not even in the darkest maw of anger. But the rest . . . the struggles of power, of two immovable opposing forces with their own scars . . . that, they could not navigate.
“We have to stop doing this, lover,” she said one day when she’d long been an archangel, her wings brushing against him as he lay on the tumbled sheets of their bed while she sat on the side with her feet on the floor. The tiny kitten he’d gifted her slept undisturbed in its plush basket against the far wall.
“I know.”
Then they did it again and again and again, locked in a cycle of hurt and love until one brutal day, when Zanaya threw up her hands. “I came here to make love with you for I plan to go into Sleep. And you do this!”
Alexander’s blood ran cold. “Sleep?” Gripping her shoulders, he said, “What are you talking about?”
“I’m tired, Alexander.” Shoving him away, she stalked to the other end of the room to stare out the window at the rolling sands of his territory. “We’ve dealt with more wars in the past ten thousand years than in many of the eons before.”
A shift on her heel, a glance back at him. “You’re tired, too, though you’re too stubborn to admit it.”
“Archangels don’t get tired.”
She snorted. “You keep telling yourself that and you’ll end up a mad archangel just like Sha-yi.” An unerring blow. “I promised myself I’d never allow you to go that far, but I was a hopeful fool. I didn’t know how the lure of power would hold you to the world—to the point of ignoring the very real threat that looms over all our heads!”
“I’m in full control of my faculties!”
“You’re old! So am I!” Thrusting her hands through her hair, she said, “Your compatriots, including Caliane, have all Slept for long stretches. You’re the only one who refuses! Don’t do this, Alexander! Don’t be what Esphares almost became! Don’t allow your hunger for power to destroy you! Remember the words you told me you said to him. Do you wish to dim flicker by small flicker?”
Alexander shoved aside that irrelevant worry. “When will you Sleep? Where?” He couldn’t bear knowing that she planned to go so far from him, to a place even an archangel couldn’t reach.
“No, lover, this I will do in privacy.”
He froze. “Do you not trust me to watch over you?” It injured him to the core that she’d believe he’d use her vulnerability to hurt her.
“Oh, Alexander.” A sigh, her throat moving. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I trust you too much.” Walking across, she took his hand, lifted it to press a kiss to his palm.
Star-flecked eyes locked with his. “We are each other’s obsession, lover-mine. Should you know where I Sleep, you won’t ever Sleep for the need to watch over me.” A shake of her head. “I won’t do this to you. We may be the worst for each other, but this I won’t do to you. For I have loved you more than I have loved anyone else in my entire existence.”