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  PRAISE FOR ARCHANGEL’S SUN

  “Singh has created a world sufficiently complex to let her add to it without jarring the reader. The action scenes are clearly depicted and gripping. With sympathetic characters, an original plot, and a great mix of action and emotion, Archangel’s Sun is highly recommended.”

  —The Romance Dish

  “With the ability to build worlds and convey emotional depth that most authors only dream of, Nalini Singh packed several twists and turns, as well as a feeling of community—and hope—in her ever-changing Guild Hunter world.”

  —Harlequin Junkie

  “Fans of this series will relish seeing what is going on with other characters in this world.”

  —Smitten by Books

  “Archangel’s Sun was a fabulous addition to the Guild Hunter series and I eagerly await whatever journey this author chooses to take her readers on next.”

  —Smexy Books

  “Devoted readers will relish watching this charismatic and surprisingly playful partnership grow.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “If you are a fan of the Guild Hunter books or just love angels, danger, intrigue, an Archangel who is unapologetically himself, and an angel who is coming into her own strength then you will want to read Archangel’s Sun!”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Archangel’s Sun is a story of betrayal and revenge; recovery and revelations; friendships, relationships, and love. The premise is edgy and tragic; the characters are energetic, colorful, captivating, and strong; the slow-building romance is sensitive. Another wonderful addition to Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series!”

  —The Reading Café

  Berkley titles by Nalini Singh

  Psy-Changeling Series

  Slave to Sensation

  Visions of Heat

  Caressed by Ice

  Mine to Possess

  Hostage to Pleasure

  Branded by Fire

  Blaze of Memory

  Bonds of Justice

  Play of Passion

  Kiss of Snow

  Tangle of Need

  Heart of Obsidian

  Shield of Winter

  Shards of Hope

  Allegiance of Honor

  Psy-Changeling Trinity Series

  Silver Silence

  Ocean Light

  Wolf Rain

  Alpha Night

  Last Guard

  Guild Hunter Series

  Angels’ Blood

  Archangel’s Kiss

  Archangel’s Consort

  Archangel’s Blade

  Archangel’s Storm

  Archangel’s Legion

  Archangel’s Shadows

  Archangel’s Enigma

  Archangel’s Heart

  Archangel’s Viper

  Archangel’s Prophecy

  Archangel’s War

  Archangel’s Sun

  Archangel’s Light

  Thrillers

  A Madness of Sunshine

  Quiet in Her Bones

  Anthologies

  An Enchanted Season

  (with Maggie Shayne, Erin McCarthy, and Jean Johnson)

  The Magical Christmas Cat

  (with Lora Leigh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones)

  Must Love Hellhounds

  (with Charlaine Harris, Ilona Andrews, and Meljean Brook)

  Burning Up

  (with Angela Knight, Virginia Kantra, and Meljean Brook)

  Angels of Darkness

  (with Ilona Andrews, Meljean Brook, and Sharon Shinn)

  Angels’ Flight

  Wild Invitation

  Night Shift

  (with Ilona Andrews, Lisa Shearin, and Milla Vane)

  Wild Embrace

  Specials

  Angels’ Pawn

  Angels’ Dance

  Texture of Intimacy

  Declaration of Courtship

  Whisper of Sin

  Secrets at Midnight

  A JOVE BOOK

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2021 by Nalini Singh

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780593198155

  First Edition: October 2021

  Cover art by Tony Mauro

  Adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.8.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise for Archangel’s Sun

  Titles by Nalini Singh

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 39

  About the Author

  1

  Yesterday

  “Look, Illium.” Sharine, the Hummingbird, squeezed her toddler son’s hand.

  He was so very small, his wings no more than suggestions of what they would one day become, but he insisted on walking. Aegaeon was proud of him for his stubborn determination, boasted that Illium had inherited his will.

  What Sharine knew was that her son had more strength in his small body than she could’ve ever imagined when she cradled his infant form. He’d been such a fragile, tiny baby that the healer had worried, and Aegaeon had scowled. “How can I have fathered such a runt?” he’d said, offense in every line of his large and muscular body. “I am an archangel!”

  Aegaeon had long forgotten his initial reaction, the memory overridden by the relentless drive of this small boy who was the center of Sharine’s world.

  “Look over there.” She pointed out the similarly-sized child who played in a patch of wildflowers on the cold mountain plateau on which they walked.

  Sharine’s parents hadn’t often allowed her such unstructured play, wanting her to be controlled and disciplined . . . and quiet, always quiet, but she allowed her son all the play he wanted, no matter how dirty it made him or how out of control it became. Yes
terday, she’d discovered him climbing the kitchen pantry so he could get at the sweets she’d hidden at the very top. He’d been naked, a wild creature at home in his skin.

  And such mischief he’d had in his eyes when she caught him with one pudgy hand clasped around a sweet far too big for his little body. He’d giggled when she took hold of him with a stern admonishment about the rules. Oh, but then she’d laughed, too, because his laughter was a thing infectious.

  Sharine knew that was a bad way to teach a child not to be naughty. Aegaeon, for one, wasn’t pleased by her gentleness with their son. Sharine, however, had no fears about who Illium would one day become. Her boy had a good heart. He’d never be cruel. If he ended up a little spoiled, well, that wasn’t a bad thing, was it? Not if it was tempered by a kind heart and a generous spirit.

  Now, he babbled up at her, the dark gold of his eyes shining.

  Old eyes he had, her baby. Perhaps because she was such an old angel. She worried about that at times, that she was the wrong kind of mother for a bright, lively boy—too old and bruised and a little broken. But he laughed often, her Illium, so she must be doing something right.

  “Shall we go say hello?” She didn’t recognize the extremely fair-haired angel with wings of palest, palest gold who watched over the other little boy; she might be someone who worked often outside the Refuge. Or it might be that she and the boy lived on the far side of the Refuge and Sharine’s path had just never crossed with theirs. Sharine knew she could be insular, content with a small circle of those she loved.

  Illium tugged at her hand, trying to run on his wobbly little legs.

  Laughing, she speeded up, and soon, wildflowers brushed their legs. Sharine inhaled sharply at her first true look at the unknown child. He seemed a touch younger than Illium, and was a dazzlingly bright creature, as if every part of him had been designed to capture, then fracture light. His hair was delicate strands of diamonds, every filament of his nascent feathers akin to glass that had been formed into something soft and welcoming that drew light.

  And his gaze, when he looked up from his seated position among the riot of indigo and pink, yellow and white blooms, was a fracture of blue and green that erupted outward from jet-black irises. But he wasn’t looking at Sharine. He was staring at Illium, a tiny flower held in a soft baby hand.

  A moment later, he smiled, this child of light, and held out the flower to Illium.

  Sharine’s boy smiled back, babbled happily, and took the flower before plopping down across from the other child. Sharine looked from the child of light to the green-eyed woman behind him, and said, “I think, our children will be friends.”

  2

  A month before today

  Elena slid her throwing blade into a forearm sheath as she strode onto the Tower roof on the hunt for her archangel. And there he was, silhouetted against the lush red-orange glow of the early evening sunlight, the golden filaments in the white of his feathers ablaze.

  He turned toward her the instant she stepped out onto the rooftop, and though they had been lovers through a Cascade of change, their lives entwined since they met, the incandescent blue of his eyes stole her breath.

  Dangerous and beautiful, the Archangel of New York owned her heart.

  For an instant, she thought the Legion mark on his temple glittered, but then it was gone, nothing but an illusion caused by the setting sun. Her chest ached. She couldn’t stop looking for that spark of life, couldn’t stop hoping that the strange, ancient warriors who’d sacrificed their lives to protect the world from a reign of death would one day return.

  Taking the hand that Raphael held out, she joined him on the edge of the highest rooftop in Manhattan, both of them looking out at their city. Almost a year after the war and it was still being rebuilt, construction equipment a familiar sight and cranes multiplying like overly fertile birds, while four city blocks near the East River remained black and barren despite their best efforts—but New York’s heart had rebounded, unbroken. It beat with the dogged will of its people, mortal and immortal, human, vampire, and angel.

  As in front of them thrived the verdant green of the Legion building. “I kept my promise,” she said, a knot in her throat.

  “You did, hbeebti.” A kiss pressed to the top of her head. “You have kept their home alive.”

  Neither one of them spoke aloud the fear that haunted Elena: that the Legion’s green home would remain forever empty, an echoing cavern devoid of the beautifully eerie presence of the seven hundred and seventy-seven beings who’d called it home.

  The Legion, however, weren’t the only ones Elena missed with feral desperation. “Tell me Aodhan will be coming home soon.” He’d stood by Suyin’s side as her second ever since her sudden ascension to an archangel on the far edge of the war.

  Elena liked Suyin and didn’t envy her the job she’d taken on as Archangel of China, but she wanted Aodhan home, surrounded by those who loved him. Aodhan trusted so few people, leaned on an even smaller number—and that trust had been years in the making.

  She hated the idea of him being so far from all of that small group.

  “Not just yet,” Raphael said, his wing spreading in a caress behind her as the blazing rays of the sun set fire to the midnight strands of his hair. “That is why I’m out here. I’ve just had a meeting with Jason.”

  Elena hadn’t realized the spymaster had returned from his latest trip. Hardly a surprise. The black-winged angel took pride slipping in and out of places. “He was in China?”

  “He dropped by.” A faint smile in Raphael’s tone. “As Jason is wont to do now that one of our own calls it home.”

  “Did he speak to Aodhan?” Shifting so she could see Raphael’s face, the sheer masculine beauty of him still a punch to the gut every single time, Elena resettled her own restless wings.

  “Yes. He is strong, Aodhan, stronger than any of us realized. He does his duty.”

  “That tells me exactly nothing,” Elena muttered with a scowl. “Is he okay? Homesick?”

  “Jason found it difficult to judge—the two are blood-loyal to one another, but they don’t have the kind of relationship where such intimacies are discussed.”

  Placing both hands on her hips, over the supple and well-fitted leather of her hunt-suitable pants, Elena snorted. “You mean they’d both rather slit their own throats than acknowledge they have the dreaded fee-fees?” Jason was the quietest and most reserved of the Seven, Aodhan not much better.

  Raphael laughed, the sound a crash of joy in her veins. “Mahiya would disagree with that opinion.”

  “We all know she’s the sole exception to the rule when it comes to Jason.” Elena was glad for the spymaster that he’d found a lover he trusted with all of himself. Aodhan, however . . . “Sparkle is far from home, with none of his people around him.”

  “Yes, that concerns me, too.” Raphael paused before adding, “I think it has been good for him to be independent from all of us this past year. I also believe it’s time to remind him of home—I would not have him make the choice to come in a vacuum.”

  Elena didn’t push for the why behind the first part of Raphael’s statement; she knew Aodhan’s past held a terrible darkness. Enough that he’d retreated from the world for a long, painful time.

  He was so hurt, Ellie . . . the part that makes Aodhan who he is, it was so badly damaged that I thought I’d lost my friend forever.

  Words Illium had spoken to her once, a wrenching agony to him.

  The memory had helped her understand why Raphael had allowed it when Aodhan volunteered to stand as Suyin’s second—so that Aodhan, in his full power now, no longer wounded or secluded, would have options, and wouldn’t stay loyal to Raphael only because that was all he’d ever known.

  Her archangel loved Aodhan enough to set him free.

  “A choice?” Elena said, her stomach in knots. “So Suyin’s done
it? Asked him to stay on permanently as her second?” All of them had expected it—Aodhan was too strong, too intelligent, and too good at the tasks required of a senior member of an archangel’s court for it to be otherwise.

  To her surprise, Raphael shook his head. “She spoke to me of her desire to do so mere moments before Jason’s arrival. She didn’t wish to make Aodhan a formal offer behind my back.”

  “Yeah, she’s not sneaky.” It was part of why Elena liked her—and why Aodhan did, too. He’d said as much to Elena when they’d spoken prior to his move to China. “She has honor, Ellie, a bone-deep well of it. There are no masks with Suyin, no lies. If anything, she’s too tied to behaving with integrity in all things. I can work with such an archangel.”

  Elena had no need to ask Raphael what answer he’d given Suyin—he’d never hold Aodhan back from taking the prestigious position, even if it broke his archangel’s heart. “This is his time,” she agreed, her voice rough. “And being second, new court or not . . . even I know it’s a big fucking deal.”

  “Exactly so.”

  “But we’re going to fight for him, right?” Elena said, while the last rays of the sun played on the side of her face, a touch of warmth on this cold day as the world slid from fall into winter.

  “That would be a possessive action, and I have never been known to be such.”

  She grinned. “Of course not.” Leaping into his arms, she pressed her lips to his as he wrapped her up in his wings. The passion between them was a thing of wildfire heat that made the world shimmer, a desert mirage of need and love and devotion.

  “When are we going to fetch him home?” she demanded. “New York doesn’t feel the same without him.”

  Raphael shook his head, no more humor to him, his face an unearthly creation of stark lines and cold power. “I don’t think the time is right for him to make such a momentous move, nor that Suyin is the right archangel for him, but he must make the choice, Elena-mine. Freedom is the one thing I will never take from Aodhan.”

  Seeing the echoes of old rage in his eyes, hearing it in his tone—so frigid, the anger an old, old one—Elena stroked his nape, his hair heavy black silk against her fingertips. “Part of me wants to tell him to take the promotion and not look back.” He was magnificent, their Aodhan, more than worthy of the position he’d been offered. “The rest of me wants to drag him home.” A kiss pressed to Raphael’s lips. “I’ll keep it under control, though. I won’t be anything but supportive.”