Archangel's Consort (Guild Hunter #3)(83)

It was a beautiful place, and it spoke to none of the violence that Nazarach had done. Each angel had his own way of ruling. Nazarach used fear. But it wasn’t the amber-winged angel Raphael had come to see. “Why are you in my territory, Elijah?”

The archangel who ruled South Americallooked up, his golden brown eyes haunted, his hair disordered as if he’d been thrusting his hands through it. “I come to ask you for sanctuary, Raphael.”

“Not for you.” Elijah was older than Raphael, powerful in his own right.

The other male looked unseeing into the water, his wings trailing on the mossy earth. “For Hannah.”

“You think you will harm her?” Raphael had faced the same fear after he’d executed Ignatius, taken Elena so roughly.

“I would never hurt her,” Elijah said in a hol ow voice, “but I am not always myself.”

“A rage, red across your vision?”

Elijah jerked up his head. “You’ve felt it?”

Raphael considered his answer as the heavy-limbed trees above them, around them, sighed into the silence. This could well be an act, Elijah probing for a weakness. But the South American archangel was also the one who had always stood behind Raphael in the Cadre, the one who had told him he had the potential to lead. “Yes, but not in the past week.” He examined Elijah’s tortured face. “Has it touched you in that time?”

A quick negative shake of that golden head that had inspired sculptors and played muse to poets. “But once was enough. I do not trust myself—I acted with a cruelty that will haunt me for centuries to come. The vampires in question survived only because of Hannah’s intervention.” Elijah fisted his hands. “I could’ve hurt her with the same violence.”

Raphael had learned to spot and exploit the chinks in an opponent’s armor long ago. He’d had to, to survive the Cadre. But he’d also known Dmitri for almost a thousand years, understood something of friendship. “Yet you did not, Elijah. That is the line. You did not cross it.”

Elijah was silent for a long time, the water passing with serene patience over pebble and rock as they stood unmoving on the riverbank. Across from them, the fronds of the weeping will ow swayed in a gentle motion, pulled by the tug of the water. But the birds had gone silent, and suddenly the world was a much darker place.

“If she can do this to us in her Sleep, Raphael,” Elijah said at last, “what will she do when she wakes?”




Having showered and changed after training with Illium— every one of the dril s geared to give her the strength to achieve a vertical takeoff—Elena walked into the library where Montgomery had laid out an informal dinner, and came to a complete hallt. “Aodhan.” He stood next to the window, looking out over the storm lashing Manhattan once more. The dark beyond threw the piercing bril iance of him into cutting focus.

The fact was, Aodhan would never, ever blend in, not among angelkind and certainly not in the mortal world. His eyes were shattered from the pupil outward in shards of vivid green and translucent blue, his wings fractured light, his hair glittering strands encrusted with diamonds. The whole of it should’ve made him appear a cold being of marble and ice, but his skin held an undertone of gold, warm and inviting.

“Elena.” He inclined his head in a slight bow, his voice still unfamiliar, she’d heard it so infrequently.

“Raphael should be here soon.” Walking to the table, she poured herself a steaming cup of coffee—wine would put her to sleep after the workout she’d had. “He returned from Atlanta ten minutes ago.” From the territory of an angel who would’ve given Elena the creeps even if Ashwini hadn’t warned her before she ever met him. Screams, Ash had said of Nazarach’s home, the walls are full of screams.

Aodhan said nothing, simply turned to look at the rain-drenched dark once more, a remoteness to him that she knew was deliberate. The angel fascinated her. He was akin to some great work of art, something you admired without understanding in truth. Except . . . there was far more to him. Pain, suffering, and a hurt that had made him withdraw into himself like the most wounded of animals.

Elena didn’t know the details of what had been done to him, but she knew how it felt to hurt that bad. Putting down her coffee, she poured a glass of wine. “Aodhan.”

He closed the distance between them to take the wineglass, his wings tight to his back. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Ensuring she didn’t touch him, she grabbed a seat at the table and began to slap together a sandwich. Montgomery would surely be horrified at the use to which she was putting the dishes on the table, but a good, hearty sandwich sounded perfect at that moment. She made one for Raphael, too, just to see the look on his face.

After almost a minute of silence, Aodhan moved to take the chair across from hers, his wings draping graceful y over the back designed for angels. He didn’t eat but drank the wine, and when she looked up, she found those strange, beautiful eyes on her.

“You’re an artist,” she said, wondering what he saw. “Did you notice my vase in the front hall ?”

A spark of interest. “Yes.”

Swallowing the bite she’d taken, Elena said, “You can’t have it,” with a straight face. “Montgomery would only steal it back.”

Aodhan tilted his head a few degrees to the side, as if he was trying to understand her. But he didn’t say anything, and she decided not to tease him anymore. He wasn’t Illium, who’d fire back something wicked. Aodhan needed more careful handling—which wasn’t to say he wasn’t as lethal. She’d seen him fight, knew he could be as dangerous as the two blades he wore in paral el sheaths on his back—there was a reason he was part of Raphael’s Seven. But he was broken, too, on the deepest of levels.