Archangel's Prophecy (Guild Hunter #11)(87)

“Someone tell me what’s happening.”

Elena responded to Jessamy’s demand. Galen was too focused on Raphael’s hands, his big body all but vibrating in readiness. And Elena knew that if he thought Raphael was hurting Jessamy, he’d unsheathe his broadsword and take on an archangel himself.

“The light coming off Raphael is almost too much to look through now.” Elena’s eyes teared even though she’d narrowed them as much as she could without totally cutting off her sight. “He’s moving his hands closer to your wing.” She blinked away the tears. “The energy’s touching you. Small lightning bolts arcing against your wing.”

“I can’t feel the touch,” Jessamy said, attempting to look over her shoulder.

“Be still.”

Jessamy went motionless at the command, and Raphael—

Everything blurred in an incandescence of overwhelming gold, light sparking behind Elena’s lids as she instinctively closed her eyes. When she opened them back up a millisecond later, the light was retracting back into Raphael, sucked in until it no longer lay like a second skin on his arms and his hair and his eyes.

The breaks in his skin sealed up in front of her gaze.

Elena jerked her attention to Jessamy’s wing. Disappointment slammed her in the gut, an ugly two-fisted blow. It was exactly as it had been, and she saw from the angry sadness on Galen’s face that he was an inch away from punching Raphael.

About to tug away her archangel so the weapons-master could focus on his beloved Jessamy, she halted at a keen of sound from the angelic historian. “It hurts.”

Galen moved in a burst of raw strength, cradling her trembling form against his chest. “Where?” His voice was like stone, murder in the pale green of his eyes.

But Jessamy pushed back from his chest, her hands braced against it and her nails digging into his shirt. Another animalistic keen of pain, a helpless creature with its limb caught in a trap.

“Sire, you must fix this,” Galen demanded.

“It is an old and tight muscle,” Raphael said with unnatural calm, his gaze yet intent on Jessamy’s wing. “It has not been stretched in nearly three thousand years.”

“Jesus.” Elena saw it then, saw what was happening. “Galen, look at her wing.”





37




Keeping one arm around Jessamy’s waist, his features set in brutal, unforgiving lines, the weapons-master came around Jessamy’s other side so that he could look at her back. The twisted part of Jessamy’s wing was moving. The motion was slight, but it was there.

“Has it ever moved before?” Elena asked both Jessamy and Galen. “Jess, have you ever been able to manipulate that part of your wing?”

Gripping hard at Galen’s forearm, Jessamy shook her head. “I can feel it now.” Her words were breathless, pain dripping from each one. “Before, it was a knot. It didn’t hurt except for the odd cramp, but there was no flexibility in it, either. This . . . it is the most horrifying agony I’ve ever experienced.”

Breaking unwritten angelic law, Elena pressed a hand against Jessamy’s wing on that sensitive upper section. “Stop.”

“Elena,” Raphael warned, even as Galen’s hand rose toward her.

Elena broke contact. “Jess, really, stop.” She fought for the words to explain. “We need to get one of Vivek’s physiotherapists in here. Regardless of your final range of movement, we’re talking about the rehabilitation of a part of your body that hasn’t been used for close to three thousand years.”

All three immortals in the room froze.

Jessamy turned to stare at her. Her eyes were dark hollows in her face, pain a purple bruise under them, and her bones striking. “Physiotherapist?” So much disbelief it was gray fog in the air. “Such practitioners are not used by angelkind.”

“Um, we’re not exactly in a normal situation.” Honestly, angels could be aggravating at times. “Vivek goes to physiotherapy every single day, sometimes twice a day. We’re talking about exactly the same thing here, bringing to life part of your body that hasn’t been used your entire lifetime. Being an angel might mean your process moves faster, I don’t know, but given your pain and the way your wing looks to the naked eye, no way can it be immediate.”

“Elena is right.” Gripping the back of Jessamy’s neck on those surprising words, Galen pressed a kiss to her temple. “I know you are impatient, my love. But we must take this slowly.”

Jessamy nodded at last, pressing her face into Galen’s chest. “I can feel it,” she whispered again, her voice wet. “As if I could open it if only I tried hard enough.”

Galen ran his hand over her hair and tenderly across the painful wing, before looking to Raphael. “Sire . . .”

Raphael shook his head. “If you had caused Elena pain, Galen, I would’ve taken off your head too.”

And that was that.

Elena had taken those moments to call the physiotherapist, a honey-skinned and gently muscled vampire who’d been born in what was now Vietnam four hundred years ago. As a senior member of the Tower team, Nga was fully aware of Jessamy’s wing. Elena had also deliberately called her rather than her male counterpart. Galen was already at the limit of his patience—and she didn’t think Jessamy would be as comfortable with a male, especially since the treatment would mean hands-on contact.