Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter)(72)

Elena’s skin chilled. “Yeah, I guess.” Releasing his hand, she gripped the front of his white shirt and tugged him to her. “Don’t you dare ‘evolve’ on me.” She couldn’t follow him into that other state, though she’d kill herself trying.

Raphael’s lips curved. “Have no fear, hbeebti,” he said. “I am too fond of the flesh.” A caress of her hip, a luscious kiss.

Yet even as the crashing windswept sea of him infiltrated her senses, Elena knew even an archangel couldn’t hold back the possibly catastrophic changes wrought by the Cascade. “I’ll follow you,” she whispered against his lips. “No matter where you go, I’ll be right beside you.”

Eyes of endless blue burned with an incandescent flame. “Together, Elena-mine. Always.” Wrapping her in his wings, he held her until her heart calmed, the fear receding under a tide of furious determination: no one and nothing would steal her archangel from her.

“I heard a bit of gossip from Amanat,” she said once she could speak again.

“How can you hear gossip from Amanat? Unless you and my mother have become the best of friends?”

She elbowed him. “Very funny.” Elena and Caliane might have called a truce, but Caliane remained an Ancient and her freaking mother-in-law. “I made some other friends on our last visit.” Including a smart, funny maiden who danced as gracefully as Elena’s sister Belle had danced before a murderous vampire stole her life.

“Belle! Belle! Can I dance with you?”

“Come on, squirt. Stand like this.”

Chest achingly tight at the memory of a loss she would carry with her forever, she said, “Apparently, there’s a high chance Naasir and his scholar are no longer just colleagues.”

He looks at her as I’ve never seen Naasir look at anyone. As if she is a treasure he wants to keep, wants to protect.

“You catch your consort by surprise,” Raphael murmured. “Particularly as the scholar has taken a vow of celibacy.”

“We’re talking about Naasir here.” Elena grinned. “He has a certain charm. Just like his archangel—I never planned to be naked with you, either.” Deadly and inhuman, the Archangel of New York was not a man with whom Elena Deveraux, Guild Hunter, had ever intended to mess.

A glint in the eyes that held oceans, even in the darkness. “Plan it now,” he said, lifting off with her still in his arms. “We have not danced in the sky for too long, and today, I feel a need to celebrate life.” His jaw grew hard.

Stroking it as her skin turned electric, Elena pulled his head down to her own. “Life,” she whispered before their lips met in a storm of sensation.





30


Two hours of hiking later, Andromeda and Naasir found themselves on the outskirts of the village that was the last bastion of civilization before the cave system, the homes built around what, from the air, was a startlingly clear blue-green lake. A small jewel in the ocean of sand that surrounded the oasis on every side, the lake wasn’t a perfect sphere.

No, it was an elongated teardrop.

The village was based around the fat upper curve of the tear.

It would’ve been far easier had they been able to jump on the other side of the oasis, but not at the cost of crashing the plane.

Settling in to wait for the early evening to turn to full dark, they were careful not to alert the villagers of their presence.

The two of them ate the dried trail foods they’d bought, but Andromeda knew while that would sustain her, it wasn’t enough for Naasir. “Sip on me,” she said, lifting her wrist to his mouth.

He drew in a deep breath, eyes molten and fangs flashing. “I’ll drink you up.” It was a rough warning.

“No, you won’t.” She knew exactly how protective he was. “Drink or I’ll start to think you don’t like me.”

Growl rumbling in his chest, he gripped her wrist when she would’ve pulled it away, nuzzled her pulse point. It felt as if all her blood rushed to that spot, pouring toward him.

“Andromeda.” It was a warm, luxurious purr before he scraped his fangs over her skin.

Secret inner muscles clenched, her breath catching as her breasts ached; jealousy captured her in vicious claws, dug into her desire. “Is this how you feed from others?”

He licked her skin. “I’m not feeding.” Another lick, a hot breath. “I’m seducing you.”

Yes, he was. Slowly and with primal patience. When he scraped his fangs over the delicate skin of her inner wrist again, she shivered and leaned closer, her wings curling around them to create a shadowed, private enclave.

The bite was a bright pain that shuddered into searing pleasure. Barely stifling her cry, she wove her fingers into his hair and held him to her, but he raised his head too soon, licking over the bite location with small, playful flicks of his tongue until the tiny wounds were closed and all that remained was a faint bruise.

“Did you take enough?” The question came out husky.

Hair brushing her skin in a thousand tiny caresses, he pressed a kiss to her pulse point before lifting his head. His eyes glowed. “For now,” he said, stroking his hand up her arm to cup her elbow. “You’re delicious.”

Goose bumps broke out over her skin. Raising her hand, she placed it against his cheek and bent until their foreheads touched and their breaths mingled. “Am I food?”