Archangel's Prophecy (Guild Hunter #11)(56)

A slow exhale, her breathing beginning to even out as she turned into his body and fell into a deep, restful sleep. Raphael didn’t sleep. He watched over her. The attack on Harrison entwined with the voice that spoke ominous things to her, and the changes in her, they were clearly stirring up the darkest memories of her childhood.

Raphael could open her brother-in-law’s mind without effort, discover what it was Harrison Ling had done that had made him a target. Except that would cut Elena to the quick. She would feel complicit in his violation of Harrison’s mind—because that was how she’d see it: as a violation.

If Raphael acted now, he did so knowing it would bruise her and cause a fissure in their relationship. Such a fissure might heal over time, but enough fissures and the whole thing would break apart.

“Love,” he said to his warrior, “is a most inconvenient thing.” She stirred, a soft smile curving her lips . . . and he saw a small feather of darkest blue detach from her wing to lie orphaned against the white of the sheets.





24




Raphael watched his consort dress after breakfast; she’d slept a bare three hours before waking. He hadn’t pushed her to attempt more rest—he knew Elena. She wouldn’t truly rest until she’d nullified the threat to her sister and niece. As it was, she’d eaten and drunk five times what she normally would, but her facial bones were starting to become more obvious nevertheless, her clothes a fraction looser on her frame.

Her body was burning fuel at a phenomenal rate.

“Where do you go this morning, Elena?”

She strapped on her crossbow. “To talk to Andreas—I’m going to see if I can track down some sketchy friends of Harrison’s.”

He settled slightly; the senior angel was loyal to the core. “Pass on my greetings to him.”

“You know I don’t like him.” Scowling, she slid her long blade home in its spine sheath. “He’s got a streak of cruelty in him that’s disturbing.”

“So did I.” Raphael had once broken every bone in a vampire’s body to the size of small pebbles, turned the vamp into nothing but a fleshy sack incapable of conscious movement—and he’d made sure the male stayed awake through all of it. “Perhaps Andreas needs to fall madly in love with a hunter.”

Elena shuddered. “I wouldn’t wish that on any hunter—and no, he’s way worse than you.” A pause, then grudgingly, “Though I guess my perspective is skewed since I’m passionately in love with you.” She watched him put on leathers of gunmetal gray with an appreciative gleam in her eye. “I mean, Honor’s a sane woman with advanced degrees, and she married Dmitri, of all people, so maybe being part whackadoodle is a prerequisite to falling in love.”

He clasped on wrist gauntlets of beaten steel not because he needed them today but because Elena had given them to him. “Such romance you give me, hbeebti.”

Laughing, she zipped up her jacket, a lethal black-clad woman who took no prisoners. “What are you doing today dressed up like the sexiest warrior I’ve ever seen?”

“Archangel business.”

Her eyes danced at his deliberately arrogant tone. Closing the distance between them, she rose on tiptoe, her hands gripping his bare biceps to demand a kiss that held naked need. Raphael gave and he took and they broke apart on a rasp of breaths.

“Will you be in the city?” his consort asked, her fingertips tracing the lines of the Legion mark.

“No.” Much as he wished to keep Elena in his sights so he could catch her if she fell, such suffocating protectiveness would be a small death for her, and he did in fact have archangel business to which to attend. “I go to meet Elijah. I want to ensure he’s heard about Favashi’s recent actions and that he’s willing for us to work together to protect our territories—and such discussions between archangels are a thing better done in person.”

The Archangel of South America had once been a general in Caliane’s army, and even after he ascended to become an archangel, he hadn’t forgotten that old loyalty. He treated Raphael’s mother with a deference unusual among archangels, and he treated Caliane’s son with the warmth of an older brother who wished to see his sibling succeed.

Raphael didn’t always know what to make of that, but he trusted Eli. While friendship was a complicated thing between archangels, they had the beginnings of it, a foundation on which their relationship over the centuries to come could be built.

“Tell him to say hi to Hannah for me.” Elena’s phone buzzed with an incoming message on the edge of her words. “It’s been a while since we’ve had dinner together.” Digging out her phone, she quickly checked the message before securing the phone back in a pocket. “Maybe we should organize something before the Cascade causes even more chaos.”

“I leave that in my consort’s hands.”

“Don’t think that I don’t see you laughing.” She pointed a finger at him. “But Andreas’s secretary just confirmed he’s home and willing to meet me, so I’ll deal with you later.”

He walked her to the balcony, running his hand down her spine one more time as they stepped out into the frosty morning air. His healing energy was limited, merely what had regenerated while she slept, but she gave him a grateful look. His jaw hardened. “Your wings are worse?”