Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(105)

The archangel smiled again, his forehead still touching hers, his wings arching over to shadow them in their own private world. "The wings aren't prosthetic and you've been asleep for a year."

Elena swallowed. Blinked. Tried to breathe. "Angels Make vampires, not other angels."

"There is one-how would you put it-loophole."

"Loophole? More like a giant cavern if I have wings." She held on to him, the only solid thing in a shifting universe.

"No, it is the tiniest of holes, barely a pinprick. You're the first angel to have been Made in all the years of my existence."

"Lucky me," she whispered, brushing her fingers along his nape and drinking in his sigh of pleasure. This moment, it felt frozen out of time. Here, she was simply a woman, and he was simply a man. But like all moments, it had to pass. "What are the requirements?"

"Nothing we've ever been able to manipulate, though angels have tried for millennia." Those incredible, unearthly eyes held her prisoner. "The one and only time an archangel can Make another angel is when our bodies produce a substance known as ambrosia."

A snapshot of memory-the golden, melting heat of his kiss, the delicate sweetness, the lush sensuality, the taste that was an erotic sensation and whispered caress in one. "The mythical food of the gods?"

"Every myth holds a grain of truth."

She couldn't help it, she kissed him again. And the taste of him rushed over her in a tumultuous wave. He was the one who broke the kiss.

You were very badly injured, Elena.

The aches inside her were a testament to that truth. That didn't mean she had to like it. "Tell me about ambrosia then." A bad-tempered command.

"Ambrosia," he said against her mouth, "is produced instinctively at a single point in an archangel's life."

Images of his shredded wings, the living burn of angelfire. "Near death?" She touched him, checking, exploring, convincing herself he was alive.

"We've all been near death more than once." He shook his head. "No one has ever been able to pinpoint the trigger."

"But?"

"But it is legend that ambrosia only rises when-"

She held her breath.

"-an archangel loves true."

The world stopped. The air particles seemed to still above her, the molecules suspended as she stared at the magnificence of the man who held her in his arms. "Maybe I was just biologically compatible." It came out a ragged whisper.

"Perhaps." The possession of lips against her neck. "We have eternity to discover the truth. And in that eternity, you will be mine."

She thrust her hands into his hair, feeling heat spread through her body in a rolling wave. But she couldn't surrender. Not until they got one thing straight. "Fine-so long as you don't think that gives you the right to rule my life."

He came over her as she lay back down. "Why not?"

She blinked at the cool arrogance of that question, and realized that her existence had just become a whole lot more interesting. Forget about hunting an archangel, she was about to learn how to dance with one without losing herself in the process. Exhilaration spiked through her bloodstream. "This is going to be some ride, Archangel."

Elena had had visions of flying in through Sara's window and startling the heck out of her best friend, but that was before she realized that while she might be awake, actual movement was a whole other story. Which was why she was still in bed when a blindfolded Sara was shown into her room at the Refuge.

Raphael had moved her to the angelic stronghold soon after his own recovery, but had managed to keep her hidden. Only the Seven and trusted healing and medical personnel knew about her. However, he hadn't even tried to argue when she asked to see Sara.

Her friend folded her arms and gritted her teeth as she was led across the carpet by Dmitri, who seemed to take perverse pleasure in wrapping his scent around Elena while she was too weak to defend herself. To everyone's surprise, she'd come through the transformation with both her hunter abilities and weaknesses intact.

She and Raphael were continuing to "discuss" her status as Guild Hunter.

The lush caress of liquid satin across her skin, tempting and inviting. Rubbing her arms, Elena scowled at Dmitri and was about to speak when Sara blew out a breath. "I don't know what your boss thinks he's going to achieve by abducting me. We're not going to end the strike."

Strike? That explained Raphael's cheery mood this morning. If the hunters were refusing to do their job, vampires had to be reneging on their Contracts left, right, and center. "Now my head's really swollen."

Sara froze, then scrabbled to pull off her blindfold as Dmitri slipped out of the room, closing the door behind himself-but not before encasing Elena in another decadent wave of scent. She was still getting her breath back when Sara's blindfold dropped to the floor.

Her friend's eyes went wide. Then she turned sheet white under the exotic beauty of her skin.

"Christ, Sara, don't faint!" Elena yelled, reaching out as if to catch her.

Sara braced her weight against a chair. "I'm hallucinating. Or that fish they fed me on the plane was laced with LSD."

"Sara, if you don't come and hug me, I'll shoot you." That gun Sara had put under her pillow had saved not only her own life, but Raphael's as well. "It's me, you idiot!"