The only reason Dmitri hadn’t ended the other man’s life then and there had been the true confusion in the question. The angel had no comprehension of love, and that was a tragedy so terrible, Dmitri could offer no harsher punishment. Love had savaged him once, but it had also given him the greatest joys of his life.
The memory of his children’s sweet faces might be painful beyond bearing, but no evil could ever steal the tender joy that was the sensory echo of holding them in his arms, of Misha’s laughter and Caterina’s gurgling smile. And then had come Honor, bringing with her an incandescent light.
“I think you’re right about the hidebound old ones,” he said to the angel across from him. “Now, Sparkle, are you intending to move or do you concede defeat?”
Aodhan was, in many ways, the most even-tempered of all the Seven. So when he looked up with eyes glowing and power crackling at his fingertips, it was an unexpected sight. Especially given the lighthearted provocation. Then the angel smiled slowly and moved a single piece on the board. “Check. And mate.”
Dmitri looked down in disbelief. “No,” he said, trying to figure out how Aodhan had pulled off the impossible.
“There, there,” said a new voice. “You can beat me and feel better about your skills.”
All three of them looked up and muttered various imprecations, Illium’s the most creative welcome. Naasir bared his teeth in return, silver eyes reflecting the candlelight.
“How the fuck did you get into the city without alerting any of the sentries?” Dmitri had put the entire security team, as well as the general warrior population, on high alert. This time around, he’d also alerted the Guild to be on the lookout, his respect for their abilities having grown during the course of the battle.
It was all part of a game Naasir had been playing with the others in the Seven for centuries. As a child, when he’d first been brought to Raphael’s stronghold, he’d tended to lie in wait below Dmitri’s desk or pounce from the top of the bookshelves in the stronghold library, giggling like a maniac when he was found out—or when he captured his “prey.”
Naasir had been tiny then, as small as Misha had been when he died. Four in human terms, but he’d lived three decades by then. Still, he’d been a child. A feral one, but a child nonetheless, and the game was one of the few things he did that was free from the rage inside his small body. So Dmitri had let him play, Raphael in agreement with his decision.
As Naasir grew from babe to boy, he’d found it funny to sneak into places where he shouldn’t be—on one memorable occasion, he’d decided to infiltrate Lijuan’s dining room. He’d apparently been seated at the head of the table pretending to eat a live pet cat when the Archangel of China discovered him. Lijuan, relatively normal back then, had found the incident amusing, and Naasir had escaped with his life.
It had been one of the few times Dmitri had come down hard on him, managing to drum it into his head that Lijuan and the others in the Cadre were dangerous. He’d never forget what Naasir had said to him when Dmitri yelled that he didn’t intend to bury another child and that Naasir needed to have a care for his life.
“Am I a person, Dmitri? Will you be sad if I die?”
Hardened and cruel though he’d become, the innocent question had shaken him. “Yes,” he’d said, as honest in his answer as Naasir had been in his question. “You are a person. You are Naasir. I’ll lose a piece of me if you die and it’s a piece I’ll never get back.”
Naasir had stared at him for a long time before coming over to hug him. “Okay, Dmitri. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was a person before.”
As a result of the fact that Naasir had grown up under Dmitri’s care, their relationship was unlike the relationship he had with the others in the Seven. Naasir still obeyed his every order, still asked him questions a child might ask a father. Dmitri often thought the sliver of humanity that had survived in him until he found Honor, had survived because of the tiny, feral boy with silver eyes who had pelted out to see him when he returned to the Refuge after an absence.
The same way Misha had run to him after his trips to the market.
It had torn his heart to pieces each time Naasir did the same, but Dmitri had caught him in his arms without fail, unable to bruise the spirit of the wild boy who didn’t know that Dmitri was meant to be without heart, without hope.
That boy had never lost his delight in his favorite game.
These days, Naasir liked to sneak into cities and territories. Not only did the penchant make him the best scout in Raphael’s forces, but Naasir’s abilities were an excellent test of a city’s defenses. The fact that it amused him was a bonus.
Coming down to the carpet in a movement as graceful as a cat’s, the vampire who wasn’t quite a vampire grabbed a large plate that held an entire chicken. “The sentry on the building with the blue lights almost caught me,” he said, ripping off a drumstick after sniffing at the meat and making a face. “She’s good.”
“Do we have holes in our defenses? If so, they have to be immediately plugged.”
“Only if the scout is someone better than me.”
Dmitri relaxed. Naasir’s skills at covert infiltration were unmatched, part of the reason he’d led the small team of saboteurs during the battle. “I just received a message from Janvier.” It had come in while he spoke to Aodhan about angelkind’s inability to comprehend certain truths. “He’s heading this way.” The news, the vampire had indicated, was bad.