Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(16)

“Then I can put your mind at rest.” He closed his hand over the arch of her wing, stroked down.

Shivering, she pressed her hand to his chest, lashes falling.

Raphael repeated the intimate caress. The nerve endings in that part of an angel’s wings were highly sensitive, and Elena’s sensitivity had grown over the preceding months, until he could have her loose limbed and heavy lidded in bed with no touch but this. He’d summarily kill any other man who dared touch her there.

“Titus has no time for formality,” he told her as she sagged against him. “He will be the easiest archangelic guest you will ever host—especially as the city will be holding a celebration at the time.”

All but purring under his touch, it took her a half minute to respond. “Titus likes to party?”

Raphael laughed. “Yes. He will take pleasure in the energy of our city and seduce five or ten very willing women in the process.”

Elena’s lashes lifted, pupils hugely dilated against the gray of her irises, the rim of silver that announced her growing immortality dramatic in the dim light. “He doesn’t have a harem of concubines?”

“No.” Though women did live at Titus’s home, they were not his lovers, but rather those he had given safe harbor. “Titus does not have long liaisons. He spoils the woman he is with at the time, and then he moves on—yet his lovers appear to feel only affection for him.” Raphael had seen that firsthand when he’d been a half-grown stripling in Titus’s army, having signed on because he knew he could learn more from the archangel when it came to the skills of a warrior than he could from any other living angel.

Of honor, too, he had learned much while in Titus’s army. “In all the years that I have known him, never have I heard a woman he has taken to his bed disparage Titus.” And because he knew it would amuse his hunter, he added, “Mostly they just sigh at the sound of his name and lose their train of thought.”

Elena’s laughter was husky, her wing warm and strong under his touch. No one in angelkind had wings like Elena’s, the evocative midnight of her feathers flowing into deepest indigo that shaded into blue and the shimmering hue of dawn, her primaries white-gold. “The man’s clearly got game.” Moaning in the back of her throat when he increased the pressure of his caresses, she nuzzled into the curve of his neck. “That feels so good. Can you do it all night?”

“If you make it worth my while.” Reluctantly halting the touch that gave him as much pleasure as it did her, his body hard with arousal, he drew her out of the room. “Montgomery will soon be seeking us out for dinner. We should not shock him.”

“I think Montgomery is unshockable at this point.”

Raphael caught the butler’s eye as they left the study—the vampire had appeared in the hallway when Raphael opened the study door. It is a quiet evening, Montgomery. A gift after war and chaos. Perhaps you should invite Sivya to a walk along the cliffs.

Montgomery’s eyes reflected alarmed distress. Sire, I assure you, we have not—

I am an archangel, Montgomery. I know those who are mine. He began to climb the stairs with Elena. To have two of my trusted people become one, it is not something to disdain. Understanding the depth of Montgomery’s loyalty, he made his approbation even clearer. You have my sanction to court her, should you need it.

Halting at the landing, he glimpsed the nervous hope in Montgomery’s expression. It was odd to see the distinguished butler thus, but love had a way of making mortals of them all. Bowing deeply, Montgomery said, Sire.

“What was that about?” Elena asked the instant they were behind the closed doors to their bedroom. “I knew you two were talking.”

Watching her remove her weapons, he said, “Why are you so heavily armed in our own home?” She’d changed into a scoop-necked T-shirt in sky blue and soft black pants that hugged her form, her feet bare. Yet she’d somehow managed to secrete away at least three knives.

“Huh.” She stared at the knife she’d pulled from an ankle sheath. “Habit, I guess.” Placing the weapons neatly in a bedside drawer, she said, “So?”

“Montgomery is courting Sivya.”

“No! Really?”

“You must pretend not to notice,” he cautioned her. “They would be appalled to think they’d been so remiss in their duties as to make you aware of their personal lives.”

Elena pursed her lips, eyebrows drawn together, and began to tug off her T-shirt. “But you noticed.” The sound came out slightly muffled.

“I am their liege. I am meant to notice and make certain they do not sacrifice their joy in the mistaken belief that I would find their coupling discourteous.” He cupped her breasts after she threw the T-shirt over the back of a chair, his need to claim her a pounding in his blood.

He had come to within a split-second of igniting them both on the battlefield in a final attempt to defeat Lijuan’s evil, come to within a split-second of never again holding Elena in his arms. The memory was yet raw. “As my consort,” he said, dipping his head to press his lips to the curve of her shoulder, “your job is to notice when they are a pair, so as to assure their duties don’t separate them any more than necessary.”

Her hands were in his hair, her lips warm and wet against the line of his jaw. “It’s weird to think of Montgomery and coupling in the same breath.” A small gasp when he tugged at one tightly furled nipple. “I’m convinced he sleeps in his suit.”