Free Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) by Anna Erishkigal Page A

the Emperor, and by 'okay,' he asked, 'will the Emperor really be okay with the fact that while the Alliance is falling down around our ears, you and I just broke every law he has prohibiting fraternization between active members of the Alliance military?'
    Jophiel's unearthly blue eyes waxed almost as pale as her white-blonde hair and snowy white wings. Raphael caught his breath. Whenever she met his gaze, it felt as though he stared at a mirror into his own soul.
    "He gave me leave to follow my heart," Jophiel said. She tucked her wings against her back and schooled her features into the mask of their Supreme Commander-General. "Besides, the Emperor would not have wanted me to miss a heat cycle. Given the intrigues Lucifer forced upon us, I had few options other than to draw upon my previous partners."
    That sensation of feeling whatever she did ever since they'd cast all caution to the wind and declared their love let Raphael know she rehearsed a lie. After Lucifer's breathtaking rebellion, she'd been forced to take refuge in the palace, stripped of rank and ordered to submit to an interrogation by Lucifer's Parliament, an order the Emperor had politely declined. Abaddon really searched for him … and the 97 ships the Emperor had placed under his command.
    Uriel's pet gorock trotted at Jophiel's heel as they moved towards the inner sanctum. Raphael could feel something troubled her, but he doubted she feared the Emperor would punish them for consummating the marriage which was now real in every aspect except for name. There was no undoing a sacred union once the Bond of Ki had been forged. They had declared their love before a higher god and their spirits were now so intertwined the thoughts of one echoed within the heart of the other.
    Raphael could see now why the Emperor had forbidden hybrids to marry. If left to their own inclinations, Angelics really did mate for life. What good was an army where, if one died, the Emperor lost two soldiers instead of one?
    "How went your test?" Raphael asked.
    Jophiel's hand slipped down to rest upon her lower abdomen. Sadness. Disappointment. Apprehension. Raphael sensed her emotions as though they were his own. Jophiel was stoic, but she could not hide the sob of disappointment which echoed in his gut.
    "It was so soon after we created Uriel," Raphael soothed her. He cuddled the toddler who nestled, asleep, against his chest, a result of their first union which had been contrived as all hybrid mating appointments were to prevent them from consummating a lifemate bond. "Perhaps we were mistaken about it being your heat cycle?"
    "The test came back inconclusive!" Jophiel sniffed. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Twelve babies I have born this Alliance, and the first time I try to conceive one out of love instead of duty, She-who-is rejects us by refusing to bless our union!"
    "We still have Uriel." Raphael slipped his fingers into her silky white feathers. "No other hybrid has ever borne as many children as you have to fill the ranks of our Emperor's armies. Perhaps She-who-is feels your body deserves a rest?"
    Jophiel paused under a fresco of a round, many-winged species which stared down at them from the palace walls, its dozen eyes painted so realistically they appeared to follow them as they walked the hallway beneath it. They were Wheles, a species which had gone extinct within their lifetime. Jophiel glanced at Uriel's small red wings rising and falling against his back as he breathed in the worry-free sleep of the very young, and then back at the scarlet-winged species which no longer graced the material realms.
    Extinct. As they soon would be if Raphael let anything deter him from his mission…
    "I never even got to hold the other eleven!" Jophiel's voice warbled. "If Abaddon hadn't sent them here to make me personally tell them I was no longer their commanding officer, instead of bashing down the Emperor's front door like Parliament wanted him to do, I still might