Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(11)

“It was not built for winged residents.”

The eerie, risen-from-the-depths male was getting verbose on her, she thought dryly. “Yes, there’s a lot of work to be done.” Railingless balconies had to be added, internal walls knocked down, windows turned into doors—what was safe and comfortable for mortals and vampires was annoying and stifling for winged beings.

The overhaul would take time, but a technical assessment by a specialist team had shown it would still be faster and more efficient to modify an existing building to the Legion’s requirements than to build a new one from the ground up.

“Are your people handling it all right for now?” One thing the Primary had told them was that while the Legion did not need sleep, his men didn’t do well cut off from one another so soon after their rising.

“Yes. We gather on the roof.”

Elena knew that. The first night she’d looked across from the Tower at midnight and seen their crouched forms, those hairs on the back of her neck had stood straight up. She wondered if the Legion had any idea how seriously other they could sometimes be. “If the snow’s too cold, we can organize—”

“The roof is acceptable.”

“Do you miss the sea?”

A long pause, the answer halting, as if she had asked him a question he hadn’t considered until that instant. “Yes . . . there was peace . . . and wonder . . . more than mortal or immortal eyes . . . ever see.”

Elena could do nothing but nod; she’d had but a glimpse of the Legion’s domain, and it had been of haunting beauty in the endless dark. “I had another home, too, once,” she told him, pointing past the Tower. “An apartment in that building with the serrated roof.”

The Primary’s response appeared a non sequitur, but she could almost see how he’d worked his way to it. “You are not mortal and yet you are.”

“I guess that describes me pretty well.” Angling her face to the caressing wind, she drew in the myriad scents of her city. A city made of spirit and grit and sheer bloody-mindedness.

Just like its people.

And then the fresh kiss of the rain, the crash of the sea was in her mind, Raphael’s wings magnificent in flight as he took off from the Tower balcony where he’d been speaking with Dmitri and Jason. Breath in her throat at the power and skill of his flight, Elena didn’t move. Five seconds later, he brought himself to a hover a few feet from her, making the maneuver look effortless when Elena knew from experience that holding a hover took brutal muscle control.

Dressed in sleeveless combat leathers similar to the Primary’s, though his were a deep brown, he looked to the leader of the Legion. “My second wishes to speak to you.” A ray of the setting sun struck the violent wildfire blue of the complex and extraordinary mark that ran from his right temple to the top of his cheekbone.

A stylized dragon, that was what Elena’s mind had said of the mark the first time she’d seen it as a whole, but the truth was that it was difficult to clearly describe. The impact was visceral, as if the jagged lines held an impossible power.

“Sire.” The Primary took off in silence.

Elena shivered. “I can’t get used to the fact that their wings don’t rustle.” The Legion had wings more comparable to bats’ than angelkind’s, strong and webbed and frighteningly quiet.

“They are built for stealth,” Raphael answered, the shattering hue of his eyes focused on her alone, the blue so pure it almost hurt. Homeward, hbeebti?

Everything in her resonated at the incredible power of that question, of the foundation that lay beneath it. Home was a truth for them both now. “Yes, unless the drug situation you mentioned means we have to stay at the Tower.” She didn’t like the sound of this Umber stuff.

“Dmitri has the matter in hand, and Illium will take the night watch over the Tower, with Aodhan for company.” A glint of laughter in his eyes, her archangel who was no longer the glacial, inhuman being who’d made her close her hand over a blade, her blood dripping hot and red to the Tower roof. “Naasir is to arrive this eve.”

Elena scowled. Raphael continued to refuse to tell her the truth about Naasir, the vampire who was unlike any other vampire she’d ever met. “Revenge will be mine,” she threatened. “I’d sleep with one eye open if I were you.”

The covetous wind pushed strands of the obsidian silk that was his hair across his cheek. “I remind you of your own conclusion that our butler would not be impressed with blood-drenched sheets.”

His solemn words startled her into a grin. “I’m surprised Naasir was able to get back here so soon.” The vampire had returned to Amanat, the territory held by Raphael’s mother, Caliane, just over two and a half weeks past. “Don’t we need him to keep an eye across the water at Lijuan’s territory?” Jason went in and out, but the spymaster couldn’t always be in one place.

“Venom has taken Naasir’s place temporarily.” This time, the amusement that shaped Raphael’s lips was acute. “My mother called to ask what else I have in my menagerie.”

Elena snorted, in no doubt of Caliane’s acerbic tone. “Can you blame her? First you send her a tiger creature who eats people he doesn’t like, and then a vampire with the eyes and fangs of a viper.” She held up a finger. “Oh, and let’s not forget the mortal you keep as a pet.”