Archangel's Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(20)

“Elijah offered, but I told him we’d like to see him and Hannah at our table.” Folding his wings tightly to his back, he walked out onto the balcony, the winter air a cold blast as she followed. “I think it’s time we began to build some true friendships among the Cadre. Other alliances are already forming that may be destructive in the war to come.”

Rubbing at her bare arms, she tried to remember if she’d left spare full-length sheaths at the Tower. However, it wasn’t only the wind and the thickening cloud layer that had the hairs rising along her arms. “You’re thinking about Neha and Lijuan.” The two powerful archangels were neighbors, had always had a cordial relationship.

“It could be a lethal liaison.”

Elena thought of a Manhattan under siege from a hail of fire and ice, while the reborn fed on mortal flesh in a bloody plague across the city, and felt her gorge rise. “Jason said he’s positive Neha hasn’t been taken in by Lijuan.”

“Neha also has a twin in her territory who may yet lead her army against Neha,” Raphael pointed out. “And she blames me for the death of her child.” A reminder that no matter Neha’s acceptance of Jason into her territory in the recent past, certain wounds continued to fester. “Lijuan, meanwhile, has been very polite about keeping both her reborn and her forces away from their shared border.”

Put that way Elena could see the alliance forming in front of her eyes. “Elijah and you—you’re friends already.”

“Of a sort. He has always offered his support to me in matters of the Cadre.” Acknowledging a passing squadron led by Illium, who looked every inch the blooded fighter she so often forgot him to be, Raphael shot out a random bolt of energy.

Elena sucked in a breath as Illium gave a single command and the squadron split to avoid the bolt . . . which Illium deflected with the sword he’d pulled from his back. It hit the Tower without causing damage, and Illium saluted them with a grin before continuing onward. “That wasn’t angelfire.” An archangel killer, angelfire could shatter concrete.

“No, it was a weak strike meant to test the squadron’s alertness.” Eyes on the city, Raphael returned to their earlier topic of conversation. “If Elijah and I are to create a true friendship, an alliance that’ll hold in the fighting to come, then I must not only invite him into my territory, but trust him on a level beyond.”

“You’re going to tell him the full effects of the Falling?” Open surprise in his consort’s tone.

“No.” He trusted none of the Cadre enough to share the compromised status of his defenses. “Elijah may have offered the olive branch of friendship, but he has also held his territory for longer than I’ve been an archangel. He is as ruthless as any of us.”

“How bad is it?” Elena asked quietly. “Now that you’ve had a chance to assess all the injuries.”

“We’ve begun the process of transferring in men and women from outlying areas to bolster our defensive force, but Tower personnel are chosen for a reason. They’re the best of the best, each personally tested and selected by Galen.” Furthermore, his weapons-master made it nonnegotiable that each fighter return to the Refuge once every two years for intensive training.

“The outlying areas—they won’t be left vulnerable?” Checking the gun she carried in an inner thigh holster, having swapped out one of her blades for the sleek piece, Elena slid it back, the fine lines of her face troubled in the stormy light. “Since we’re taking their people.”

It was exactly the kind of question a consort was meant to ask, one that challenged without judgment. He knew Elena often thought she didn’t know the “rules” of immortal behavior, but knowledge of pomp and ceremony was useless without the heart to love their people and the courage to speak her mind. “It’s considered cowardly to nibble away at a territory and no archangel wishes such a stain on his or her honor.”

“Well,” she said, as a spit of rain hit her cheek, the sky holding the deluge for now, “I guess that’s good news.”

“In a sense. But there’s no shame in being clever about your invasion.” Immortals valued intelligence as much as strength. “To soften up a city for an attack by engineering an event such as the Falling? It would be considered a good strategy in the aftermath.”

“The diseased vamp.” Eyes of winter gray met his, the rim of silver faint in this light. “It can’t be a coincidence.”

“We’ll know nothing for certain until Keir completes his tests, but I’ve told all senior angels and vampires to report any aberrant or troubling behavior. No such disease can be permitted to gain a foothold anywhere in the territory.” He looked to the clouds once more. “Complete your task for the Guild, Elena. Be visible in the doing. Our objective remains the same—not to give our enemies any indication that the city has been so grievously wounded.”

“Far as I’m concerned,” Elena bit out, “if the Falling was a planned attack, it wasn’t clever but cowardly. Murder from a distance.”

Words he’d expect from a warrior.

A fleeting kiss, her weapon-roughened fingertips on his cheek. “I won’t be late.”

He watched her leave in a sweep of midnight and dawn, her wings unlike any other, and he knew he’d damn his own honor and take vengeance on the world should anyone dare lay a finger on her.