Free Archangel by Sharon Shinn Page A

god.”
    “The angelica, you said,” she responded, “is wife to the Archangel.”
    She had not thought he could become angrier, but it seemed she was wrong. “If it is the thought of the physical relationship which repels you, you need not be concerned,” he ground out. “They marry, but Archangels and their angelicas have often made their own arrangements.”
    She arched her eyebrows just a little. Stubborn unto death; Simon had told her that once. Stubborn just for the sake of stubbornness, and stubborn out of fear. Stubborn when there was no good reason for it except that she had never, not even in five years as a slave, learned to back down. “Edori,” she said, “do not believe in marriage.”
    “You,” he said, “are not an Edori.”
    “Nonetheless—”
    “And you,” he added, “have no choice. Don’t you understand? The god has chosen you. Not I. Were I free to take a bride of my own choosing, believe me, I would not have gone to the Caitanas
or
the Edori
or
the kitchens of the great houses of Semorrah, looking for the woman of my dreams. You have been thrust upon me as this role has been thrust upon you. I suggest you accept it with as good a grace as possible.”
    She shook her head. “No. I will admit it is an honor, but I decline it. I will not go with you to the Eyrie.”
    He gave a small, bitter laugh and tossed his hands apart. For a second, she thought she’d won. But no. “You may say you are not going,” he said. “You may resist. You may hate me, you may hate Jovah. But you are going. You cannot escape your fate. You cannot escape the dictates of your god.”
    “I have a right to choose my own life!” she cried suddenly, filled with an uprush of despair. “I have a right to refuse you!”
    “Did the Jansai give you a choice? Did they allow you to refuse?” he said with an exasperated malice. “Understand this. Your life has been given over into other hands, and your will is insufficient. We leave in two hours’ time,” he added, turning away from her. “Tell who you will that you are leaving. I will see Lord Jethro myself.”
    And he opened the door and stalked out, leaving her staring after him in mingled rage, hatred, astonishment, shock and fear. Perhaps he had not meant it as cruelly as it sounded, but she felt very much as she had when the Jansai rode shrieking into her campground and forever altered her existence. It had been an unforgivable thing for the angel to say, and she vowed right then that she would never forgive him—not for saying it, and not for doing it. Once again someone was taking her life out of her hands, just when it seemed worth living.
    It was hard to tell, Gabriel thought cynically, who was more embarrassed at the discovery that his angelica had been laboring as a slave girl in Lord Jethro’s household for five years, but the Archangel-elect felt that he concealed his discomfiture better than his host. Jethro could not have been more apologetic or accommodating; in fact, his incoherent expressions of mortification palled quickly.
    “All I ask is that you have her bonds removed as soon as possible,” Gabriel said, interrupting. “Within the hour. And that you find her some decent clothing to wear so that I am not ashamed to bring her to the Eyrie.”
    “Certainly—oh, most willingly—but, angelo, let me assure you—in my house she met with nothing but kindness. There was no mistreatment, no importuning—”
    “I’m sure of that.”
    “One thing more you can be sure of,” Jethro continued earnestly, “I will tell no one—absolutely no one.”
    Gabriel shrugged, his expression wry. “This is not a secret it will be possible to keep,” he said. “But I would appreciate it greatly if you did not facilitate the gossip.”
    He had made only one stop before heading straight to Lord Jethro’s bedroom suite to demand instant admittance. The stop had been at his brother’s room, to waken Nathan and tell him the mixed news. Even