Archangel's Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(18)

She shouldn’t have done it, not with having already strained her wings once today, but she made a vertical takeoff, ignoring the words Jeffrey spoke as he reached for her. And when tears poured down her face, she told herself it was from the pain in her muscles. It wasn’t a total lie, her body screaming at the abuse.

Two minutes later, a tendon tore with an audible snap, and she realized she was now not only useless to Ransom, but that, in her unthinking fury, she might have made a fatal mistake.





7





She barely made it to the Tower, her knees slamming hard onto the concrete of the balcony outside the suite she’d left only twenty-five minutes earlier. When a tiny blue feather fluttered to the hard surface as she leaned on her palms in an attempt to fight the bright pain of the impact, she knew she wasn’t alone.

Illium landed beside her an instant later, his hands going to her shoulders and his wing sliding across her own. “Ellie, you’re hurt.”

She shrugged him off, still able to feel Jeffrey’s grip on her arms. “How long have you been following me?”

“Only a minute—it didn’t look like you were going to make the landing.”

“Well, I did, so go,” she said. “Go. Go!”

An instant after the words were out, she raised her head to apologize, but Illium was already dropping off the balcony. Hating herself for allowing Jeffrey to mess her up until she’d hurt one of her closest friends, she crawled and dragged herself into the living area of the suite, collapsing flat on her face the instant she was concealed from the windows, the carpet against her cheek and the crossbow digging into her hip. Reaching down, she managed to get it off, along with the miniature flamethrower, placing both on the left side of her body.

A whisper of sound not long afterward told her Illium hadn’t been offended—he’d simply gone for stronger weaponry. “Guild Hunter.” Words deadly and cool from the Archangel of New York. “You’ve hurt your wings.”

Fingers digging into the carpet, she admitted her mistake. “I did two hard vertical takeoffs today.”

“Lie still. I will attempt to fix the damage.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said through the screaming agony. “The others—”

“Will be bedbound for weeks or months, regardless of my actions. Your stupidity, meanwhile, I may be able to mend immediately.”

Lashed by his tone, she struck out. “I didn’t ask for your help!”

“No, instead you did your best to ensure I’d have to deal with a dead consort when you are meant to be helping to protect the city by evidencing your strength.”

Jaw clenched against the anger dammed up inside her, she didn’t say a word, and a bone-melting warmth invaded her wing muscles a second later, trickles of it reaching her knees, as if Raphael’s ability had sensed the fractures that cracked her kneecaps. The pain began to dim almost at once, and she realized he’d become far stronger than he’d been even a month before . . . but that didn’t alter the fact that, in stark contrast to the violent physical abilities manifesting in the rest of the Cadre, Raphael’s new power was a pacific one.

Ironically, his ability to heal might end up being a lethal weakness.

“There will be a war,” he’d predicted weeks earlier as they watched midnight come to their city, the night winds thrusting covetous fingers through his hair. “It’s inevitable during a Cascade—from all we know, one or more of the Cadre will either touch madness or gain a power that so eclipses the abilities of the others, he or she will seek to seize the world. I can’t afford to stagnate, to have only the strength that has always been at my command.”

“Your power negates Lijuan’s,” she’d pointed out. “And she’s the biggest threat.”

“A negative power won’t be enough to win, and, while she may be the biggest threat, she isn’t the only one.” The cold-eyed candor of a man who’d held his territory for half a millennium. “Neha creates fire and ice, Astaad is rumored to control the sea, and there are whispers Favashi holds the winds in the palm of her hand. For the Cadre to remain in balance, I cannot stand in place.”

Now, the guilt that had been gnawing at her since that conversation combined with her impotent anger at Jeffrey to create a caustic mess in her gut, corrosive and damaging. Raphael would never blame her, but it was Elena who’d made him a little bit mortal, a little bit weaker—exactly as Lijuan had once warned.

“You tore a tendon.” The ice in his tone hadn’t thawed. “Do that again and I’ll leave you to heal on your own. Perhaps then you’ll develop some respect for your body.”

“I was pissed off and I acted before I thought,” she said, giving him one truth even as she hid the more noxious one that continued to eat at her. “I know it was childish and dangerous—you don’t have to tell me.”

“Jeffrey?” Raphael said, allowing her to sit up, which she did without a twinge of pain.

“He hurt Eve.” Raphael knew her well enough to understand what that meant.

Chrome blue eyes flat with renewed fury. “Is she well?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Twisting her braid in his fist with that single word, Raphael tugged back her head and took her mouth in a kiss that was hot red passion and the cool brush of an archangel’s anger. If you did not love him, he said into her mind, his hand closing possessively over her breast, I would sever this man from your life like the diseased limb that he is.