Archangel's Consort (Guild Hunter #3)(100)

Laughing at the acerbic reply, he threw several ball s of angelfire, positioning himself just above Lijuan. She weaved out of the way, but he had her on the defensive, and using that, he maneuvered her to the edges of the city, where the buildings were more apt to be empty of mortals.

Lijuan’s wings had turned black during the course of the battle, as had her hair. That wasn’t as important as the fact that she no longer seemed to be able to shift to her noncorporeal form. It made her vulnerable in a way she hadn’t been since Beijing, but she was far from easy prey.

Flinching as she managed to singe one of his wings again, he felt a renewed burn as that incandescent fire arced through his veins to neutralize the black. It made him wonder . . . Reaching deep within, he coaxed the near-uncontrol able wildness of it to his hands, then released it as he would angelfire.

In every other way, his power manifested as either blue or a blinding blaze, but this was a luminous white-gold with iridescent edges of midnight and dawn

... and when it hit Lijuan, she bled.

Her shock obvious, she stared at him as the dark red stain spread across her front. Capitalizing on her disbelief, he hit her again, but the fire within him was already fading, and this hit was nowhere near as potent as the first. But, it was enough. It caught one of her wings, and she shrieked in rage before changing direction and slamming through Amanat’s shield, out into the rain-lashed night.

Raphael went after her, the rain slicing at his face like so many sharp knives . . . but the Archangel of China was gone. Hovering to a standstil , he searched the forested landscape, thinking her wing might’ve col apsed, crumpling her to the earth. But the forest lay undisturbed, the storm-dark skies empty.

She’d had a reservoir of power, he realized, had used it to escape by taking her other form for a short period. There was no way to track her—but she was vanquished for now and would think twice before attacking him or his own again. Now . . . now he had to face the monster who had given birth to him.




Elena, having moved the last of the men and women of Amanat to safety, away from the damaged buildings, ran up to a small rooftop, then took flight, Illium at her side. It didn’t take long to spot Raphael’s mother on another, much higher rooftop. Caliane’s white gown was streaked with black, that face of impossible beauty burned on one side, but all that was superficial to an archangel.

Landing, Elena looked for signs of the blackness that had overtaken Raphael like a creeping poison. Caliane’s wings bore scars of the oily slickness, but ... “I think she’s got it contained,” she said to Illium.

“I am the most powerful of archangels,” said a voice of such faultless clarity that it almost hurt to hear it. “Lijuan is yet weak.”

Raphael’s mother’s eyes were as pristine a hue as his, a shade no mortal would ever possess, but there was something in them . . . something unknown and old, so very, very old. Stepping back, Elena stood, watching as Caliane flowed to her feet, elegant in spite of her injuries and torn clothing.

Already, the scars of black were noticeably smaller.

The archangel’s eyes bored into her. “My son calls you his consort.”

“I am his consort,” she said, holding her ground. Caliane didn’t have the creepy Lijuan factor, and neither did she put out the bitch vibe like Michaela, but there was an alien quality to her, something Elena had never felt with any other archangel, no matter how old—as if Caliane had lived so very long, she’d become something truly other in spite of the fact that she continued to maintain a physical form unlike Lijuan.

Caliane raised a hand, flames of unexpected yel ow green licking over her fingers, and Elena heard Illium unsheathe his sword in a shush of sound, knew he was going to move in front of her. “Illium, no.”

The blue-winged angel didn’t obey. “You told me to choose my loyalty, Elena. It is to Raphael, and you are his heart.”

Knowing she’d never be able to budge him, she instead took a step to the side so she could meet Caliane’s gaze. “He doesn’t want you to be mad.”

She more than half expected a whiplash of temper—archangels did not like being spoken to in such a way by mortals, or angels newly-Made.

But Caliane turned her head, her hair lifting in the breeze. “My son.” Unbridled pride. “He is of Nadiel and I, but he is better than both of us.”

Raphael winged in to land in front of Caliane then, and Illium shifted aside enough that Elena was able to watch mother and son come face-to-face for the first time in more than a thousand years.




Raphael’s heart, a heart he’d thought had turned to stone before he met Elena, stabbed with daggers of pain at the expression of love on his mother’s face. It brought back memories that usual y broke through only during anshara, the deepest of healing sleeps.

He remembered not simply that she’d left him broken on that forsaken field, but that she’d held him when he’d cried as a child, wiping away his tears with long, elegant fingers before kissing his face with tenderness that had made him throw his arms around her, hold her tight. “Mother,” he said, and it came out quiet, husky with memory.

Her responding smile was shaky. Reaching forward, she raised her hand to his cheek, her fingers cool against his skin, as if her blood had not yet begun to truly pump through her veins. “You’ve grown so strong.”