Archangel's Consort

21

Dmitri hissed out a breath. “I’ll put the Tower on alert.”

Spreading his wings, Raphael rose into the air above this chaotic, beautiful city of steel and glass and humanity that had been the center from which he’d claimed all the territory he now held. Lijuan was waiting for him in the high reaches, where the air was thin enough to kill a mortal—backlit by the cutting intensity of the sun, she was as eerily inhuman as ever, with those strange pearlescent eyes and hair of purest white.

He came to a stop across from her, noting that she wore flesh today. “I’m honored.” After the destruction of Beijing and Lijuan’s “evolution,” no one had seen her except in the pools of water she seemed to enjoy utilizing for contact.

“Of course I would come to you,” she murmured in that voice that screamed the truth of her descent. “None of the others are of any interest.”

Elena, where are you?

On my way to Guild Academy to see Eve. Do you need me?

Stay away from the house until I say otherwise. I don’t want you in Lijuan’s line of sight.

A pause, but she didn’t argue—though he knew very well she didn’t like him anywhere near the Archangel of China. Be careful, Archangel.

Having handled the conversation at the same time that he exchanged meaningless pleasantries with Lijuan, he angled his body toward the serene waters of the Hudson, light refracting off its surface in a thousand broken shards. “Come, we will speak at my home.”

“So very civilized of you, Raphael.” She laughed, the sound incongruously sweet for a woman who had made the dead rise, whose power was tinged with a putrid darkness. “Is it any surprise I prefer you above the others?”

Raphael said nothing, and neither did she, not until Montgomery closed the library doors behind himself after serving the tea. Lijuan had chosen one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace, and Raphael sat opposite, acting the host—with Lijuan, the small courtesies must always be observed. If they were, she would follow her own peculiar code. There would be no bloodshed, not while she was a guest in his home.

Sipping her tea, Lijuan let out a sigh. “There is something to be said for the physical form.”

When they had last met in Beijing, she’d told him she no longer needed food for sustenance. “Have your needs changed?”

A soft smile that appeared innocent ... if you did not see the twisted shadows that lingered beneath. “Not my needs. My wants.” Another sip. “Some things power alone cannot duplicate.” Holding the teacup in an elegant hand, she met his gaze. “How do you stand it, Raphael?”

Raising an eyebrow, he waited.

“These mortals.” She flicked a hand in the direction of Manhattan. “All around you, everywhere you go. Like ants.”

Where Aodhan had asked a smiliar question with a deep, hungry curiosity in his tone, there was only contempt in the voice of the Archangel of China. “I have always lived in the world, Lijuan.”

A sigh. “I forget. You have not yet seen the millennia I have. I, too, once lived among mortals.”

He thought of the stories Jason had uncovered about Lijuan’s past, the horrors the other archangel had perpetuated. “You were a goddess always.”

A regal nod. “Will you kill her?”

The question didn’t throw him. He’d known the reason for Lijuan’s appearance the instant he saw her. “If my mother remains mad, she must be stopped.” Given the reports he’d received from Nazarach, Andreas, and Nimra this morning, telling of young vampires going murderously insane and killing in a way that bore Caliane’s stamp, that madness seemed a more and more a certain truth.

“Would it not be better to kill her where she Sleeps?” Lijuan put down her teacup with a sigh of pleasure. “She is not yet at her full strength. Once awake, she may well be unstoppable.”

The idea of Caliane raining pain and fire upon the world was a nightmare. But . . . “That is not our way.” Angelkind had very few laws. The only one that mattered most of the time was the absolute prohibition against harming angelic children. Neha’s daughter, Anoushka, had lost her life for breaking that law.

But there was a second, even more ancient law. To kill an angel in Sleep was considered an act of murder so heinous that the penalty was instantaneous and total death. Because even an archangel could die—but only at the hand of another archangel. “I will not be a coward and strike her while she is helpless.”

“Your mother is hardly helpless,” Lijuan argued. “You see the effects of her power all around—death drenches the landscape and even now, the molten core begins to boil with rage.”

Raphael thought of the bloodrage that had gripped him as Caliane’s power rippled around the world, of Astaad beating his concubine and—according to Jason’s most recent report—Titus executing the innocent. “Yes.” His mother had never been helpless.

“Then you agree. She must be killed before she wakes and terrorizes the world.”

“No, she must be woken.” Perhaps there remained within him a piece of the child he’d once been, but his decision was that of an archangel—this law could not be defiled, no matter the target. For once done, it could not be taken back. The slope would turn ever more slippery, as all those who Slept became fair game. “If we can rouse her before she is ready, she will rise weak. It’ll give us the advantage as we seek to learn whether or not she is sane.” Whether or not she would have to die.

Lijuan’s expression remained serene, but a ring of black appeared around her irises, a thick, oily color Raphael had never before glimpsed. Something in it whispered of the reborn, the corpses Lijuan had animated to mute, hungry life. “She escaped all those years ago,” the Archangel of China pointed out, the black ring shifting with an almost living awareness, “because the combined power of the Cadre wasn’t enough to keep her contained.”

“But they did not have you.” Raphael deliberately played to Lijuan’s vanity.

The other archangel’s gaze turned distant. “Yes. Caliane did not evolve as I have.” A small, satisfied smile. “You will walk me to the door, Raphael.”

“I am not your pet, Lijuan”—a soft reminder—“and never will be.”

Lijuan’s hair flew back in that eerie breeze that seemed to affect only her. “Pets are so easily disposable, Raphael. I have something far more permanent in mind for you.” A whisper of power licking around his face. “You could rule the world.”

All he’d have to do, he thought as he watched her take flight into the blue skies above his city, was give up his soul.

Rain drenched the city again that night, coming down so hard and fast that Elena wrapped her arms around herself as she stood by the flames of the fireplace in Raphael’s private study, staring out at the bleak landscape beyond. “Illium’s mother arrived safely?”

“Yes. We dine with her tomorrow eve.”

“I figured she’d want to rest tonight.” She shivered as a particularly brutal burst of rain hit the windows, but wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the rainstorm. Her skin had been creeping ever since Raphael told her of his meeting with Lijuan. “Could you fly in this?”

The archangel who stood looking at papers at a solid desk set in the center of the room, his wings sheened with amber light, nodded. “You could do it, too, but only for a short period. Your feathers are designed so as not to become waterlogged, but the pressure of the rain and wind would mean you’d have to push harder with every wingbeat to keep yourself aloft.”

Before, when she’d watched angels taking flight from the high balconies that ringed the Tower, she’d been filled with a quiet awe. Not the sickening and worshipful adoration that gripped the angelstruck, but a simple, deep appreciation for their otherworldly beauty and grace. “I never considered the mechanics behind flight until I grew wings.” Wings that gave her a freedom beyond anything so many people would ever know.

The Archangel of New York watched her as she walked to stand beside him in front of the desk, his eyes a crystalline blue licked with the yellow orange of the flames in the fireplace. “What is on your mind, Elena?”

“Does vampirism cure paralysis?” Blinded by the entitled idiots she hunted on the job, she’d never been able to figure out why anyone would want to sign up for a hundred years of slavery just to live longer. But Venom’s flip remark about his balls growing back had gotten the wheels turning enough that she’d done a bit of research at the Academy library. “I know the process heals a lot of other illnesses, but what about spinal damage?”

“It is not an instantaneous process,” Raphael said. “Depending on the severity of the injury, it can take up to five years for the vampirism to advance far enough in the cells to repair the damage. Not many angels are willing to wait that long.”

Elena bit her lower lip.

“You need to get his blood.”

She’d known he wouldn’t say no, but still ... her heart clenched. “I’ll have to steal it. I won’t give him the option unless he qualifies as a Candidate.” Vivek had been hurt quite enough. “Give me a while to figure out how to do it.”

Raphael’s hair caught the firelight as he nodded. “I heard you talking to Sam earlier.”

“He’s a chatterbox.” The kid had a way of getting to her. “He said Jessamy made him write an extra essay because he did something naughty, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.” It had delighted her to hear him sounding so very much like himself. His memories of the trauma he’d suffered, she’d been told, would resurface slowly, giving him time to adapt.

“Have his parents begun speaking to him of it yet?” Raphael asked, following the train of her thoughts with piercing accuracy.

She leaned into the muscular warmth of his body. “He asks me the odd question at times, but mostly he’s interested in how everyone in the Refuge was looking for him. He thinks that’s amazing.”

“Clever of his mother and father,” Raphael murmured, his wings heavy against her own as he spread them out. “Even when the memories do rise, that search, the fact that he is so loved, is what will remain at the forefront, not the pain and terror.”

“Yes.” At that moment, her eye caught on the papers on his desk. “What’s this?” She picked up what appeared to be some kind of an expensive invitation, the paper heavy, embossed with an E and an H intertwined.

“Open it.”

Conscious of him watching with an enigmatic expression on his face, she lifted the flap and removed a card—to read words written in the most delicate calligraphy, the rich silver-black ink flowing faultlessly across the page.

We invite you and your consort to our home, Raphael. It will be a delight to have a meal with another couple who understand that love is not a weakness. Do come.

It was signed with a graceful signature, the H in the name curlicued with great care until it was a work of art. Elena smiled in delight when she found herself tracing the sinuous from of a mythical serpent. “Hannah,” she murmured, bringing the page closer to her eye so she could see the fine detail hidden within the single letter. “Amazing.”

“Hannah is an artist.” And the consort of the Archangel Elijah.

Elena looked up at him, her eyes shimmering dawn in this light. “Are there any other long-term couples in the Cadre I don’t know about?”

“Eris is Neha’s husband, but not consort.” Raphael had not seen him for three hundred years, and even before that, Eris had never been anything but Neha’s creature.

Elena placed the invitation back in the envelope and set it down. “I’d like to meet Hannah.”

“Elijah is the one archangel,” he said, sliding the papers on his desk aside and putting his hands on her waist to lift her onto the solid surface, “who I might one day trust.” Making a space for himself between her thighs, he placed his hands on either side of her hips on the desk. “But I will not take you into the heart of his territory. Not yet.”

His hunter’s expression shifted, became contemplative. “No,” she murmured. “Not yet. I’d make you too vulnerable. But I assume Hannah is powerful enough by now that Elijah doesn’t mind bringing her into your territory?”

Raphael closed one hand over the sleek muscle of her thigh. “I have never asked.” As the only archangelic consort before Elena, Hannah had always been considered off-limits, protected. It was a courtesy that hadn’t been extended to Elena, not just because she’d once been mortal—but because she was hunter-born . . . warrior-born.

Elena wrapped her arms around his neck. “Send the invitation. I want to talk to her—there’s so much I could learn from her.”

Settling his free hand on her rib cage, just below the curve of her breast, he spoke against her parted lips. “I cannot ask, Elena. The invitation was sent by Elijah’s consort, and must be responded to by mine. It is protocol.”

Elena scowled, brows pulling together. “How can it be protocol when there are only two consorts around?”

“Do you call me a liar?” He’d never enjoyed teasing anyone before he met his hunter.

Stroking her fingers through the hair at his nape, she used her teeth on his jaw. “I don’t know how to do all that fancy stuff.”

“You are my consort.” A kiss placed on her cheekbone. “You may do things any way you wish.”

Gray eyes rimmed with a very, very thin circle of purest silver met his as her fingers pressed on the back of his head. “Yeah? In that case, I think I’d like to distract you.”

He allowed her to bring them closer, angling his head so he could take that stubborn mouth, those soft lips. She tasted of wildness barely contained, a brilliant, blinding mortal fire. Ready for the blaze, he was startled to feel her hands move to cup his face, her hold tender in a way that leveled his defenses as she whispered, “Let me love you tonight.”

Enchained, he made no protest when she slid off the desk, switched off the lights, and turned to tug him to the warm glow of the fireplace. As he watched, she undid the straps that held her black top snug to her body and dropped it to the rug—to reveal lush breasts he’d marked with his kiss more than once. Tonight, it was the fire that marked her, flickering over her skin and burnishing her in red gold, creating sultry shadows he wanted to explore with his mouth, his body.

She sighed in pleasure when he slid his hand over the curve of her waist, but her fingers were on the buttons of his shirt. He shrugged it to the floor the instant it was open, wanting her hands on him. She gave him exactly that. Palms flat on his chest, she stroked over his pectorals, his rib cage, his abdomen. “I could do this,” she mumured, exploring the ridges and dips of his body with a slow intensity that made his cock throb, “for hours.”

Palming the erotic weight of her breasts, he bent to press a kiss to her shoulder. “I’m afraid your consort does not have such patience.” He used his thumbs to tease her nipples as she twined her fingers through his hair, as she tugged him up, as she seduced his mouth with her own.

When she drew back to kiss her way down his neck to his chest and lower, he permitted it. The night was yet young and he’d discovered he had a weakness for being loved by Elena. What wicked things are you planning to do tonight, Guild Hunter?

Kneeling in front of him, her wings spread behind her in an extraordinary display—gleaming midnight shading to indigo, to a deep, haunting blue before whispering into dawn and a shimmering white gold kissed by the firelight—she tilted up her head to give him a provocative smile. “You’ll just have to wait and see.” Reaching up, she undid the fastenings on his pants, brushing the rigid push of his cock with her fingertips as she did so. He had no compunction in helping her strip off the remainder of his clothing, in standing naked and aroused before her.

So proud, Elena thought, so beautiful. Fisting him with her hand, she stroked once, tight and smooth. His hand clenched in her hair, and when she looked up, she saw he’d thrown back his head, the cords of his neck standing out so strong and taut that she wanted to rise up, bite down on them. Then there were his wings, magnificent in their power.

He was pure addiction. And he was hers. To take. To pleasure.

Placing the palm of her free hand flat on the thick muscle of his thigh, she leaned in to lick at the head of his cock.

Elena. A warning not to tease.

Another night, she might have done just that, but tonight, she wanted to love him hot and sweet. Sliding her grip to the base of his arousal, she closed her mouth over the head. His shout was gritted out, those muscular thighs unyielding as rock as his hand pulled at her hair. And the taste of him ... Moaning around the rigid length covered by velvet-soft skin, she took an inch more. Sucked wet and deep.

A harder tug on her hair. Now, Elena.

She hadn’t had her fill, nowhere near close, but there were other ways to satiate her hunger. Releasing him after laving her tongue over the thick vein that ran along his arousal, she rose up and nudged him backward until his knees hit the back of one of the chairs not far from the fire. “Sit.”

A raised eyebrow, pure masculine arrogance.

Lips curving even as things low in her body pulsed with the darkest of sexual cravings, she stepped back to pull off her jeans and panties. This time, when she pushed at the muscled silk of his chest, he went down into a sitting position, his hands sliding over her rib cage to settle on her hips. Instead of tugging her forward as she’d expected, he leaned down to press a kiss to the dip of her navel. Hunter mine.

Heart aching under the rush of emotion, she weaved her fingers through his hair. “I love you, Archangel.” Her body trembled at the intimacy of his breath against her skin, the rough caress of his jaw. When he lifted his head, she didn’t wait, couldn’t wait. Shifting to straddle him, she fitted him to the ultrasensitive entrance to her body, sliding down that hard heat oh-so-slowly, his hands possessive brands on her hips.

A shudder rippled through her as she succeeded in sheathing him. Holding him within her, caressing him with intimate muscles until he whispered promises of retribution, she put her own hands on his shoulders, squeezed. “Brace me, Archangel.”

Would you ride tonight, hbeebti? Strong hands moving down over her thighs to grip her just below the knees as he sucked on her lower lip before inciting a languorous tangling of their mouths.

Oh, yes. Then, as the storm continued to rage outside, she took her archangel, slow and deep, and again, until the crashing wildness of pleasure swept them both under.