Archangel's Kiss (Guild Hunter #2)(3)

“Christ, that hurts!” Teeth gritted, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes, she kept stretching the unused, unfamiliar muscles, folding her new-formed wings in slowly before expanding them outward. Three repetitions later and the tears had soaked into her lips until the salt of them was all she could taste, her skin covered by a layer of perspiration that shimmered in the sunlight streaming in through the glass.

That was when Raphael walked back in. She expected an explosion, but he just took a seat in a chair opposite the bed, his eyes never leaving her. As she watched, wary, he hooked one ankle over a knee, and began to tap a heavy white envelope bordered with gilt against the top of his boot.

She held his gaze, did another two stretches. Her back felt like jelly, her stomach muscles so tight they hurt. “What’s”—a pause to draw breath—“in the envelope?”

Her wings snapped shut behind her, and she found herself leaning against the headboard. It took her several seconds to realize what he’d done. Something cold unfurled within the core of her soul even as he got up and dropped a towel on the bed, then retook his seat. No f*cking way was this going to keep happening.

However, in spite of the turbulent fury of her anger, she wiped off her face and kept her mouth shut. Because he was right—she wasn’t his equal, not by a long shot. And the coma had messed her up some. But as of now, she was going to work on those shields she’d started to develop back before becoming an angel. There was a chance that—given the changes in her—she could learn to hold them for longer.

Forcing her rigid shoulder muscles to loosen, she picked up a knife she’d left on the bedside table and began to clean the pristine blade with the edge of the towel. “Feeling better?”

“No.” His mouth firmed. “You need to listen to me, Elena. I won’t hurt you, but I can’t have you acting in ways that bring my control over you in question.”

What? “Exactly what kind of relationships do archangels have?” she asked, genuinely curious.

That made him pause for a minute. “I know of only one stable relationship now that Michaela and Uram’s is broken.”

“And the Bitch Goddess is another archangel, so they were equals.”

A nod of his head that was more thought than movement. He was so damn beautiful that it made thinking difficult, even when she knew he possessed a vein of ruthlessness that was sewn into the fabric of his very soul. That ruthlessness translated into a furious kind of control in bed, the kind that made a woman scream, her skin too tight across a body that knew only hunger.

“Who are the other two?” she asked, swallowing the spike of gut-deep need. He’d held her since she woke, his embrace strong, powerful, and at times, heartbreakingly tender. But today, her body craved a far darker touch.

“Elijah and Hannah.” His eyes glittered, turning to a shade she’d once seen in an artist’s studio. Prussian. That’s what it was called, Prussian blue. Rich. Exotic. Earthy in a way she’d never have believed an angel to be until she found herself taken by the Archangel of New York.

“You will heal, Elena. Then I will teach you how angels dance.”

Her mouth dried up at the slumbering heat in that outwardly calm statement. “Elijah?” she prompted, her voice husky, an invitation.

He continued to hold her gaze, his lips at once sensual and without pity. “He and Hannah have been together centuries. Though she’s grown in power over time, it is said that she’s content to be his helpmeet.”

She had to think for a while about that old-fashioned expression. “The wind beneath his wings?”

“If you like.” His face was suddenly all hard lines and angles—male beauty in its purest, most merciless form. “You will not fade.”

She didn’t know if that was an accusation or an order. “No, I won’t.” Even as she spoke, she was vividly conscious that she’d have to use every ounce of her will to maintain her personality against the incredible strength of Raphael’s.

He began tapping that envelope again, the action precise, deliberate. “As of today, you’re on a deadline. You need to be on your feet and in the air in just over two months’ time.”

“Why?” she asked, even as delight bubbled through her bloodstream.

Prussian blue froze into black ice. “Lijuan is giving a ball in your honor.”

“We’re talking about Zhou Lijuan, the oldest of the archangels?” The bubbles went flat, lifeless. “She’s . . . different.”

“Yes. She has evolved.” A hint of midnight whispered through his tone; shadows so thick they were almost corporeal. “She’s no longer wholly of this world.”

Her skin prickled, because for an immortal to say that . . . “Why would she hold a ball for me? She doesn’t know me from Adam.”

“On the contrary, Elena. The entire Cadre of Ten knows who you are—we hired you after all.”

The idea of the most powerful body in the world being interested in her made her break out in a cold sweat. It didn’t help that Raphael was one of them. She knew what he was capable of, the power he wielded, how easy it would be for him to cross the line into true evil. “Only nine now,” she said.

“Uram’s dead. Unless you found a replacement while I was in a coma?”

“No. Human time means little to us.” The casual indifference of an immortal. “As for Lijuan, it’s about power—she wants to see my little pet, see my weakness.”