Archangel's Kiss (Guild Hunter #2)(43)

She glared at him. “What was that for?”

He waited in silence.

“Good,” she said after a few seconds, “I’m glad you’re suffering.”

He was a being who’d lived over a thousand years, thought he’d long ago lost the ability to truly laugh. Tonight he felt humor tug at his lips, despite the fact that his body remained painfully hard with need, his blood a fever. “That wasn’t very nice of you, Elena.”

A suspicious look as she pushed her hair off her face.

“After all, I brought you to your pleasure twice.”

“We’re keeping track now?” Her eyes glittered.

“Of course.”

Her nose crinkled up, and then she couldn’t hold it in any longer, her laughter bubbling out of her in a wave of pure delight. It hit him right in the heart he hadn’t been certain he still had before he met Elena. Holding her under the water, he buried his face in the dampness of her hair and smiled. When you’re back up to full strength, you’re going to be very busy catching up.

Her arms came around his neck, her body pressed to his in an open kind of affection that he knew was rare for his hunter. Trust, he thought, she was beginning to trust him. Fear was an emotion he hadn’t felt for centuries—not until the night Elena lay broken in his arms, in a Manhattan that had become a war zone—but now, it whispered through his veins.

Elena’s trust was not easily given.

But it could so easily be lost.

“Are you planning on taking off your clothes?” Her fingers were already on the buttons of his shirt.

Shifting back, he let her strip him, let her tease him, let her make him a fraction more human.

Half an hour later, Raphael watched Elena give in to sleep, her lashes pale against gold-touched skin that spoke of a land of orange sunsets and thriving markets, snake charmers and veiled women with kohl-rimmed eyes, her wings spread out in a sweep of midnight and dawn as she lay on her front. Those wings, the wings of a warrior-born, were a fitting accent to her strength. But it was the woman, he thought, kneeling down beside the bed for an instant, who was the true treasure.

Brushing her hair off her face, he ran the back of his hand down her cheek. Mine. The possessiveness had grown ever stronger since she’d agreed to be his lover. He knew it would only increase. Because in all his centuries of existence, he’d never before taken a lover he considered his on every level. He’d kill for her, destroy for her, savage anyone who dared attempt to take her from him.

And he would never let her go . . . even if she begged for her freedom.

Rising to his feet, he walked out of the room through the balcony doors, closing them gently behind himself. The snow had stopped falling, leaving the Refuge clothed in the shade of innocence. Watch over her, he said to the angel circling above.

Galen’s response was swift. I’ll let nothing reach her.

Raphael knew Galen wasn’t convinced about Elena, but the angel had given his word—and none of the Seven would ever betray Raphael. Taking off in a steep dive, he touched his mind to Elena’s resting one—the act had become habit after the year she’d spent locked in a sleep he hadn’t been able to penetrate.

The silence had been endless. Relentless.

Today he felt her exhaustion, her mind at peace, free of the dreams that so often stalked her. Withdrawing, leaving her to her slumber, he cut through the icy air toward the Medica. It was as he was about to dive from his position high above Keir’s domain that he felt another mind touch his.

Michaela.





17




The other archangel came into sight seconds later, her wings copper in a sky slowly turning from gray to light. He waited as she brought herself to a standing hover in front of him. “The boy?” she asked, her expression haunted by an agony he knew would’ve made Elena’s heart fill with pity, with sympathy.

He was older, harder. He’d seen Michaela end lives on a whim, play with men and angels as one would with chess pieces. But in this . . . she’d earned the right to know. “He will heal.”

A shudder rippled through her body, a body so beautiful that it had made fools of kings and led to the death of at least one archangel. Neha might be the Queen of Snakes, but Raphael was certain it was Michaela who’d helped push Uram to the point of no return, goading him with the most poisonous of whispers.

“Your hunter,” Michaela said, making no effort to hide her dislike, “was she able to pick up the trail?”

“Not beneath the snow. Indications are that the vampire was helped by an angel.” And if that knowledge leaked to the general populace, it would devastate what remained of the Refuge’s equilibrium. “You need to check your people.”

Her face turned to a stone mask, her bones blades against her skin. “Oh, I will.” A pause, her eyes piercing even in the dark. “You don’t think my people are loyal to me.”

“It matters little what I think.” What he believed was that fear alone, shaped by capricious whim, would never foster loyalty. “I must go. Elena will try to trace the scent again when she wakes.”

“She remains as weak as a mortal.”

“Good-bye, Michaela.” If she believed Elena weak, that was her mistake.

He landed beside the Medica with a silence born of a million such landings, the snow hardly lifting around him. The building was serene, empty, but he knew angels and vampires both would return with the rising of the sun, to reassure themselves that Sam lived, that his heart still beat.