Archangel's Consort (Guild Hunter #3)(59)

“And will I be invited into this part of the nest?”

“Perhaps.” The tease had gotten her a less than amused look. Smiling, she’d reached for a small box about the size of a memo cube that she’d kept to the side. “I have something for you.”

As with the last time she’d given him a present—the ring that burned with amber fire—he’d appeared both surprised and delighted. “What do you give me?”

“It’s for your suite at the Tower.” Hoping he’d understand, she’d handed over the box.

He’d opened it to remove a chunk of black rock glittering with what looked like deposits of gold. “Pyrite,” he’d murmured, identifying the mineral as it flashed fire in the sunlight. “Shokran, Elena.”

He’d stolen her heart all over again with the way he handled the gift with such care. “There’s a second part,” she’d added. “Tonight, I’ll tell you about the strange, haunted mine where I picked up that hunk of rock. There might be a former voodoo priest turned vampire involved.”

Raphael’s expression had shifted, the intimacy in those eyes stealing her breath. You give me a memory, Consort mine. I am honored. A bow of that dark head, the rock being placed careful y back into the box.

Of course then, she’d had to go into his arms, this man who treated her memories as if they were precious jewels. She hadn’t realized until much later, as she fel asleep covered by the heavy warmth of his wing, that Raphael had never chall enged her right to claim partiallownership over a home he had to have lived in for centuries. It had made something in her settle, dig another root into this new life, this new existence.

But fussing with her solar was something she did in her spare time—usual y, when her muscles felt like jel y. Because most of the past four days she’d spent either in the gym she’d discovered in the sprawling basement under the house, up in the air with a number of angelic instructors, or out on the makeshift practice circle, sparring against Raphael and, occasional y, Dmitri.



Today, her opponent was neither her archangel nor his second.

“Last time we fought, you ended up unconscious.” Slitted green eyes watched her without blinking.

Elena bared her teeth. “I also almost took your ball s off.”

“They would’ve grown back.”

“You sure didn’t seem keen to lose them at the time.” Raising her short sword, she said, “Shall we play?”

A small nod, Venom’s upper body gleamed a warm, inviting brown in the sun, his legs covered by those flowing black pants most of the males seemed to prefer to work out in. “Since you ask with such sweetness.”

As they stabbed and darted out at each other, Venom attempting to go for her wings, while she tried to take him to the ground, she ensured her gaze never met his ful on. She’d learned her lesson the last time, when he’d almost entranced her. That lesson had saved her life in Beijing, but she hadn’t much liked the learning of it and had no intention of repeating the experience. Her short sword hit hard against the curved blade he used, and she felt the vibration all the way up her arm and in her teeth.

He brought up his second blade to block the knife she’d been about to put to his abdomen. “Stalemate.” A viper’s eyes tried to catch her gaze as his muscles locked in place.

Elena wasn’t stupid. Venom was somewhere around the three-hundred-year-old mark by her guess. That meant that physical y, he had a massive advantage. “Don’t hold back.” It was a gritted-out command as she broke the deadlock and danced out of reach.

“I have to,” he said, circling those blades as if they weighed nothing, the sun glancing off them in a pattern that could quickly turn hypnotic. “Face it, Ellie, you can’t win if it comes down to brute strength.”

“Don’t cal me Ellie.” That was reserved for her friends.

He hissed at her, spitting poison.

Elena dived and rolled, kicking his feet out from under him before he could shift position in one of those reptilian bursts of speed.

“Stop!” Illium’s voice as he strode into the circle. She’d been surprised to see him this morning, as the Hummingbird was meant to have arrived last night. However, according to Illium, his mother had been delayed by a storm and wouldn’t be landing for a few hours. “Both of you, up.”

Rising to a standing position, Elena watched as Venom flowed up, just itching to kick him flat again. “You could’ve blinded me.”

A liquid shrug. “You would’ve recovered, but it would’ve hurt like a bitch. And next time, you’d remember.”

Elena closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said, raising her lids.

Venom blinked, those slitted eyes contracting when he lifted his lashes back up. “You leave me at a loss for words.” But not for actions it seemed, because he bent to give her the most elegant of bows before rising to blow her a kiss. “Another round?”

Illium, his expression subdued as it had been for too many days, turned to her. “Mind if I have a go?”

“Kick his ass.”

Stripping off his shirt and boots, Illium held out his hand for one of Venom’s blades. Lips curving, Venom passed it over. “Sure you can handle me, pretty, pretty Bluebel ?”