Archangel's Consort

24

Having been away from the city when he received Elena’s call, Raphael now landed beside the Central Park pond where she stood watching the ducks. “We have been here before.” She’d been mortal then, a hunter he intended to bend to his will.

No smile on that expressive face; the rustle of the leaves were secret whispers in the air. “I wondered if you’d remember.”

“Tell me what you found.”

Elena glanced around the quiet but not deserted area. “Not here.”

Taking her into his arms, he rose up into the sky. The flight across the Hudson took only minutes, and then he was landing near the house of glass his consort so loved, his gaze on her as she flared out her wings to descend. Your control is improving.

“I’m nowhere near the level I need to be if I’m going to be effective in a hunt.” Tucking her hair behind her ears, she walked into the warm humidity of the greenhouse. “I sensed black orchids. It’s such a unique scent, it’s impossible to mistake.” Touching her fingers to a blush pink bloom, she shook her head. “The purity of it bothers me for some reason—my perfumes contact is trying to get me a sample so I can figure out why.” Gray eyes solemn with concern met his as he closed the door behind them.

Instinct and experience told him to reject her worry, her care. An archangel did not survive by being weak. He survived by being more lethal than any other. Come here, Elena.

When she shifted to stand bare inches from him, he curved his hand around the back of her neck, rubbing his thumb over her pulse. “Not many know of this particular punishment.” But he did. He’d been there, a young child who’d understood even then that justice had to be served. “My mother did not wish to be a goddess like Lijuan or Neha. Neither did she wish to rule empires like my father.”

Elena’s hair fell in a silken waterfall over his arm as she raised her head so she could watch him as he spoke. She didn’t ask questions, but every part of her stood with him, unflinching against the darkness coming inexorably closer.

“But she was treated as a goddess, and she did rule,” he murmured, “as I rule.” He had learned about ruling from his mother, learned that there was a way to do it that would inspire both respect and awe without the debilitating fear that surrounded so many archangels. “She ruled Sumeria, but there was one particular city she treated as home. It was called Amanat.”

His hunter’s hand came to rest on his waist as lines formed on her brow. “I’ve heard about it. On a TV special about lost cities.”

“Amanat and its people disappeared when Caliane vanished.” Some say she took her people into Sleep with her, so that they would be there to welcome her when she woke. Most believe she murdered them all before she took her own life, for she loved them too well to leave them under another’s rule, and that Amanat is her grave.

Elena brushed the fingers of her free hand over the edge of one of his wings. He spread them wider, giving her easier access. A drop of water from a disturbed cluster of tiny white blossoms trickled along his feathers as, taking the invitation, she touched him with a firmer stroke. “Which do you believe?”

He settled her into the vee of his thighs, bracing her so both her hands would be free. “My mother,” he said, “loved things of beauty. Do you recall the ruby on the shelf in my Tower office?” The priceless gemstone was flawless in its faceted splendor. “She gave it to me for my tenth birthday.”

“She had impeccable taste.”

“Amanat,” Raphael continued, “was her jewel of jewels. She loved that city, truly loved it. I spent many of the happiest years of my childhood running wild above its paved streets.”

“Angels are so protective of their young,” Elena murmured, continuing to caress the insides of his wings with those hands that bore calluses from weapons training—a warrior’s hands. He wanted none other on him.

“My mother,” he began, speaking of the dawn of his existence, “trusted the people of Amanat in a way an archangel seldom trusts anyone.” Memories of hot summer days spent flying above ancient buildings carved out of rock; of playing with mortal friends and being petted and adored by adults. “And they loved her. It was not the kind of worship Lijuan or even Neha inspires. It was ... untainted in a way I cannot describe.”

“You just did,” Elena murmured. “Love. What they felt was love.”

He bent his head a fraction, bringing one hand up to play with the curling tendrils of hair that licked at her temple. “She was a good ruler. Before the madness, she was what an archangel should be.”

His consort’s eyes softened to a warm, liquid mercury. “The histories Jessamy gave me to read, they said the same. That she was the most beloved of the archangels, that even the rest of the Cadre gave her their respect.”

He widened his stance, tucking her close enough that she nuzzled her face into his neck, one hand closing around his nape, the other continuing to caress the sensitive arch of his left wing. “The reason the people of Amanat loved her so”—he breathed in the spring and steel scent of his hunter—“was that she loved them in turn.”

Faded echoes of his mother laughing with the maidens who served in her temple, the sunshine of her smile as she gifted a maid about to marry with a dowry of gold and precious silks. “So when a group of vampires from outside came in and hurt two of Amanat’s women, she did not look the other way because the women were mortal and the vampires over four hundred years old.”

Elena’s body turned rigid, her breath warm against the hollow of his neck.

He tightened his hold against the nightmare memories that stalked her. Elena.

“It’s okay, Archangel. Tell me.”

He had never spoken of these events, but they had shaped him as much as Caliane’s disappearance. “The vampires kept the women for three days. Three days in the span of a mortal lifetime can feel like three decades.” His mother’s words. “Since the women were returned alive, she decided not to execute the vampires. Instead, she sentenced them to the same kind of terror they’d inflicted.”

Elena sucked in a breath. “She hung them, in a way calculated to ensure they wouldn’t die.”

“No, Elena. She did not hang them. She made them hang themselves.”

Elena flexed her hand on his nape, the bite of her nails tiny kisses. “That explains why I couldn’t pick up any other scents on the rope or on the bodies on the bridge. They were compelled to do what they did.”

“Yes.”

“Those vampires in Amanat, the three days must’ve—”

“No, Guild Hunter. Remember ... three days of terror in a mortal lifetime can feel like three decades.” He spoke with his lips against her skin, the warmth of her, the life of her, shoving away the cold that had been inside him for so long. “Vampires live far beyond a human lifetime.”

“Three decades?” A disbelieving whisper. “How did they stay alive?”

“They were fed enough to ensure they lived, and left hanging from a specially constructed gallows in a field where crows liked to rest.”

Elena shuddered at the image that bloomed fully formed in her mind. “The birds would’ve plucked out the eyes, other soft flesh,” she whispered. “The parts would have grown back, and the crows would’ve come again.” An endless cycle. “How long did they survive?”

“The entire three decades. My mother made sure of it.”

“Your mother was a scary-ass woman,” she said. “But if those men did what I’m guessing they did, then the sentence was just.” Three days would’ve meant nothing to a four-hundred-year-old vampire. Sure, it would’ve hurt at the time but it would’ve been soon forgotten. Those women would’ve been scarred forever.

“Yes. They became as they’d left their victims.”

She nuzzled at him, realizing they were completely intertwined, her arms around his neck, his legs on either side of hers, one of his hands in her hair, the other on her lower back, his mouth against her temple, his chest hard and solid and real against hers. She’d never felt more centered, more safe, though they were speaking of a cold, deadly horror. “I understand justice. The vampires on the bridge today—do you know anything about them?”

“Dmitri tells me they are young, less than seventy. Not one has done anything that would merit such a punishment—two are steady family men, one is a writer who prefers his own company when not in service as part of his Contract, while two work in the lowest level of Tower business.”

“Under a hundred—weak, easy to control.” Especially for an archangel rising from a millennia of Sleep. She didn’t say that last aloud, couldn’t hurt him in that way.

It is all right, Elena. If my mother did this, and there is every reason to believe that she did, she has lost all that made her the once beloved ruler of Amanat.

A bleak silence.

Elena held him to her, close enough that their heartbeats melded. It was the only thing she knew to do, the only thing she could give him. If he had to draw his mother’s blood, she’d stand with him, no matter if he ordered her to keep her distance. Because they were linked, she and her archangel, two parts slowly become a whole.

The rest of the day passed by without incident, with Elena spending a good chunk of time with Evelyn. Her sister’s innocent enthusiasm, her growing confidence in her skills, was a welcome respite against the darkness on the horizon. She was feeling pretty good about things—until an out of the blue run-in with Santiago back at the house.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” the cop asked her. “That, on the bridge this morning?”

Gut going tight, Elena folded her arms. “You already know I can’t tell you everything.”

Eyes shrewd, Santiago echoed her stance, leaning back against the squad car that had brought him over the bridge and into the Angel Enclave. “So you’re not one of us now, Ellie?”

“That’s a low blow.” She’d known it would come, just hadn’t expected it so soon and from him. Never from Santiago. “But yeah, if you want to draw a line in the sand—I’m not simply a hunter anymore. I’m an archangel’s consort.” It felt strange to hear the words fall from her lips, but she’d made her choices, would stand by them.

Straightening from his slouched position, the detective dropped his arms. “Guess that puts me in my place.”

She wanted to shake him. “Why are you being so unreasonable? You’ve always been happy to let the Guild handle vampiric incidents.”

“Something about this smells.” A stubborn line to his jaw, that salt-and-pepper stubble catching the light. “I don’t want the city to become a battleground like it did last time.”

“You think I do?”

“You’re not human anymore, Ellie. I don’t know your priorities.”

It hurt worse not just because they’d been friends for years, but because he’d been so accepting of her since her return. Clenching her fists, she gave him a deliberately expressionless face. “I guess that makes us even—I don’t know who you are anymore either.”

She thought he flinched and was almost certain he was about to say something, but then he got in the squad car, slamming the door shut. Only after he’d driven off did she double over, feeling as if she’d taken a punch to the gut. Breathing past it, she rose back to her full height and walked into the house to call Venom. She needed to pound her aggression out on someone, and the vampire had a way of provoking her past all reason—it was exactly what she needed today.

Venom wasn’t only free, he was in a hell of a temper. As a result, she fell into bed that night bruised and battered and exhausted. Raphael raised an eyebrow at her condition when he came to join her. “Why was the mortal here?”

Of course he knew. “He wanted to talk about the case.”

An ominous silence that spoke louder than words.

Thumping her fist into the pillow, she turned onto her side. “It’s not important, not with everything else that’s going on.”

“I could always ask the mortal.”

She scowled and turned to stare down at him where he lay on his back on the bed. “Blackmail doesn’t work well with me.”

Arms folded behind his head, he looked at her with blue eyes gone dangerously quiet. “I’m not making a threat.”

Her hands curled into tight, bloodless fists. “It’s nothing!”

An unblinking gaze.

“Fine.” Slamming down on her back, she stared at the ceiling. “It’s just ... hard being torn between two worlds.” With the words out, her anger disappeared, to be replaced by a far more hurtful emotion—tight and hot and abrasive in her chest.

Raphael rose up to lean on his elbow beside her, his hair falling over his forehead. It was impossible to resist the temptation to lift her hand, run her fingers through the midnight silk of it. “I didn’t tell you before,” she said, the words wanting out, “but Beth, she said something to me. That she’d die and I’d still be alive.” Emotion burned at the backs of her eyes. “I’m not supposed to outlive my baby sister, Raphael.”

“No.” A solemn answer. “But would you change this? Would you change us?”

“No. Never.” An absolute truth. “It still hurts to know that I’ll stand over her grave one day.” A single tear escaped her control to trickle down the side of her face.

Raphael leaned down until their lips brushed. “Your mortal heart causes you much pain, Elena—but it makes you who you are.” A kiss that stole her breath. “It will give you the strength to bear the costs of immortality.”

He had touched her in so many ways, but that night, he touched her with a tenderness that broke her heart. He kissed the salt of her tears away, his lips so firm, so gentle on her cheek, her jaw, her mouth. And his hands, those powerful, dangerous hands ...

Never had she been handled with such exquisite care. Never had she felt so cherished.

Yet, at the end, he called her, “Warrior mine,” this archangel who had seen her at her weakest. Those were the words she took into a deep, dreamless sleep, Raphael’s heartbeat strong and steady beneath her palm.

Raphael.

Elena jerked awake at the whisper, glancing over to see her archangel asleep on his front, his magnificent wings spread out until they covered her, too. He had a habit of doing that in bed, she thought, heart aching at the memory of his tenderness earlier. But even as she stroked the white-gold of his feathers with one hand, she retrieved the dagger she’d secreted down the side of the bed with the other.

If that was Lijuan whispering into the inky dark of the bedroom, then a dagger wouldn’t do much good, but Elena felt better with the kiss of steel against her skin. Pushing tangled hair off her face with her free hand, she searched the room with her gaze. There were no intruders, nothing that shouldn’t be there. But her heart continued to pound, as if—

Raphael.

Ice in her bloodstream, her eyes arrowed toward a rippling pocket of air at the bottom of the bed. Almost a mirage, but not quite. It was as if the fabric of the world itself was being twisted as something tried to take shape and failed. Throat dry, she reached out without taking her eyes off that thing and shook Raphael’s muscular shoulder. It amazed her that he’d slept through this—he tended to wake the instant she did, because the fact was, he didn’t need to sleep.

Solid muscle under her hand. But Raphael didn’t wake.

Archangel, she said into his mind, wake up. There’s something in the room.

Silence. Emptiness.

Her entire body went stiff, hand clenching on his shoulder. Nothing, but nothing, had ever stopped Raphael from responding to a mental plea from her. He’d found her in the middle of New York when Uram had held her captive in a charnel house of a room. He’d tracked her across the Refuge when Michaela went nuclear at the Medica. He’d broken a meeting of the Cadre itself to save her life in Beijing. There was no way he’d sleep through a call from her when she was sitting right next to him.

Staring at the strange near mirage, she set her jaw and lifted the steel in her hand. “Go to hell.” A soft whisper as she threw.