Archangel's Heart

12

An hour after their shared bath, a towel-clad Elena had dried her hair using the dryer Montgomery had packed. As shown by the electric lights in the suite and in the hallways, Lumia had undergone a certain level of modernization at some point, so there had been an electrical outlet his hunter could use for the dryer.

That done, and still protected by his glamour, Raphael seated on the edge of the bath only inches from where she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, he watched her slip into one of the more formal gowns Montgomery had packed for her. She’d made him go out and fetch the gown, saying she felt “creeped out” dressing or undressing in any other room in the suite.

He’d gathered his own clothing at the same time, changed into it before settling down to watch his consort.

It hadn’t been a difficult task to find any of the items, since Montgomery packed in a pattern with which Raphael was long familiar after having the butler so long in his employ. Their baggage had arrived while he, Elena, and Aodhan had been exploring Lumia, having been flown in from the airport by a small unit of the Luminata’s angelic guard carrying a net for that purpose.

No one had touched it since then, as per protocol.

Archangels might be used to staff, but they were also used to privacy.

The gown Montgomery had packed for tonight’s formal dinner was in a shade of midnight blue and it had two wide pieces of fabric that came over Elena’s breasts before gathering at her waist and flaring out into a skirt that frothed around her feet.

The back was open but for the fine straps that held the top together—and the long line of the spine knife Elena had slipped into a decorative black and gold metal sheath. Because of course, he’d had to go retrieve her weapons before anything else. She wore the harness below the dress, not because it equaled a more aesthetically pleasing appearance, but so no one could tear it off her without first tearing off her dress.

“Priorities,” she’d said to him when he questioned the dangers of having the leather and metal rubbing against her skin. “And Deacon lined the leather of the harness, so I can wear it against my skin without issue.”

That lethal blade wasn’t her only weapon.

She wore a gun in one thigh sheath, a hunting knife in the other. Both of which she could reach for through invisible slits built into the froth of her gown’s skirt. All of Elena’s gowns had such adjustments.

Raphael was pleased.

He didn’t want the spine knife to be her only choice: guns might not kill strong angels, but a bullet shredding flesh would hurt even the most powerful angel at least a little. It’d give her a second or two to get into a better defensive position should all hell break loose. “You can reach your gun?”

Elena had it in her hand almost before he saw her move.

A sharp grin, then she lifted her bare foot and placed it on his thigh. Circling her ankle with one hand, he watched her hike up her dress to put the gun back into place in the sheath she wore on her upper thigh. “Montgomery makes the tailor do mock-ups of my gowns and I move in the mock-ups to make sure the adaptations work.”

Sliding his hand up the smooth skin of her thigh, Raphael made himself a promise that he’d be the one taking off the sheath tonight. “I have your blade.”

He allowed her to slip away her foot, then rose to close and buckle up the soft leather straps of the sheath on her upper arm. That sheath glittered with jewels, the buckles brilliant gold. The hilt of the blade itself was as encrusted with jewels, a suitable “show” weapon for an ordinary consort.

Elena wasn’t ordinary.

And the blade he’d given her could separate a wrist from an arm without the least problem. “Will you wear your hair sticks?” Jason’s princess had given the weaponized sticks to Elena, and Raphael had brought them in with the gown.

In return for Mahiya’s gift, Elena had gifted the other woman a crossbow commissioned for the princess that was designed to support her personal style. According to Jason, Mahiya used it every day, not wanting her skills to become rusty.

“Yes,” Elena said. “I want to have my hair up so the long knife on my back is visible. The sticks give me another hidden weapon.” She twisted up her hair with quick, practiced hands, slid in the sticks to hold the twist in place.

Willing to step out of the bathroom and the shield of glamour at last, she padded to their bedroom and found a case of cosmetics before returning to the bathroom. “This should only take a couple of minutes.”

Raphael loved watching Elena ready herself to head out into the world—even more, he loved that while she could spend ten minutes getting the position of a weapon just right, it really did only take her a minute or two to “paint her face” as she put it.

“It’s a weapon, too, you know,” she said as she focused on dusting her eyelids with finely shimmering color. “The face, I mean. Distraction and obfuscation. Took me a while to understand that.”

Raphael admired his hunter-consort’s wings of midnight and deepest blue and dawn and so many shades from black to white gold. “Michaela is an expert at it.” The other archangel had long ago learned to use her extraordinary beauty to blind others to her power and ambition.

“Yeah, she’s good.” Elena picked up a small flat disk that she opened to reveal some kind of hard-pressed powder. “Sara’s been helping me learn ‘next level’ stuff—beyond my usual routine.”

“I would not think the head of the Hunters Guild would care much for such niceties.”

“You kidding? Sara has to deal with powerful immortals every day.”

And those immortals, Raphael realized, often put too much emphasis on beauty and aesthetics, forgetting a hunter’s skill was her greatest weapon. “What has your friend taught you?”

“I’ll show you in a minute. Mahiya taught me something, too, the last time she and Jason came over to stay.” A pause. “Don’t look at me in the mirror. I want to surprise you.”

“I will admire the curves of your body instead.” And he did, particularly the long, nearly bare sweep of her back.

Not long afterward, she put down a tiny pot and turned toward him: a warrior princess who looked at him with eyes of wild silver that appeared huge in the dark gold skin of her face, her cheekbones razors and her throat a long line.

“You like it?”

“I like you in all your faces, Guild Hunter.” And he knew no matter which face she wore, she remained a warrior first and foremost.

Looking disgruntled, Elena put her hands on her hips. “Come on, I made a special effort with the goop.”

Rising to his feet, he cupped her jaw, took in her eyes. “The kohl is from Mahiya.”

“Yep.” She held up a fingertip smudged black. “Let me wash this off. Mahiya said there are pencils I could use, but she’s always used a tiny pot of kohl and her little finger and that works for me, too.”

“I thought you a warrior princess when you turned to me.” He kissed her on lips she’d left unpainted.

Gripping the black leather of his gauntleted forearm, she opened her mouth to his even as he claimed hers. When they broke apart, her eyes glittered, her skin flushed under a fine shield of cosmetics.

Elena washed off the faint remnants of the kohl on the pad of the smallest finger on her right hand, then checked her face in the mirror before slicking on a lipstick that made her lips appear a little bit plumper. Finished with the primping—weapon, she reminded herself, it’s another weapon—she went into the living area to see that Raphael was putting on his boots.

Since her own boots would only take seconds to pull on, she leaned in the doorway and just watched him. He’d gone for “formal warrior” in his clothing choice and she approved. Black gauntlets covered each of his forearms, the same color as his pants and shirt. That shirt had no sleeves and was patterned on fighting leathers; two thin black strips of leather ran across his shoulders, and in place of the collarless neckline of fighting leathers, this one had a raised mandarin collar closed on the right with a steel black pin that echoed the Legion mark.

Closing down one side of his chest rather than in the middle, the shirt had no visible buttons, but it not only fit flawlessly across his chest, it did the same around his wings.

Aside from the pin, which only became visible at close quarters, there was only a single point of ornamentation on his body—the ring of platinum and amber that he wore as a symbol of Elena’s claim. Elena wore her own amber in her ears—and in the blade strapped to her upper arm. It had taken her months of owning the gift to realize there were pieces of highly polished amber embedded in among the gemstones.

Her archangel was just slightly possessive.

Smiling, she walked over to join him when he rose to his feet. The stark black of his clothing threw the brilliant blue of his eyes and the Cascade mark into brutal focus. “You look like a primal warrior barely contained.” The sophistication remained, but it had a harsh edge that would remind everyone of his origins as a man honed in combat.

“Good.” Raphael watched in silence as she slipped on her soft calf-length “gown boots”—because Elena did not do heels. “Ready?”

“Let’s go show them how New Yorkers do things.”

The first person Elena saw when she walked into the glass- ceilinged Atrium—as the huge room with the high ceiling had been described by the guide who’d left them at the door—was Michaela. The archangel who’d once been known as the Queen of Constantinople and now controlled the vast majority of Europe as well as part of what had once been Uram’s territory was wearing a gown of darkest green that hugged her every curve and had a neckline that plunged almost to her belly button.

In a fairer world, that would’ve made her look trashy.

This wasn’t a fair world: the Archangel of Budapest, Michaela taking her current title from the city in which she kept her court, looked like the embodiment of beauty. Her skin had no blemishes, her curves the catalyst for a million wet dreams, her face all clean lines put together with haunting perfection and her eyes an intense green—jewels without flaw but for the ring of a lighter acidic green that, at times, appeared without warning around her irises.

Uram’s taint.

The acid wasn’t present today. Michaela had also put up her hair, into a complicated pattern it must’ve taken someone an hour to create. It revealed the swanlike elegance of her neck.

Then there were the stunning wings of delicate bronze that she held off the floor with effortless muscle control.

There was a reason Michaela was known as the most beautiful woman in existence.

Beyond her, past the cream-colored settees arranged into seating areas, and the meticulously set dinner table, right against the wall on the very far side of the Atrium, stood her psychotic pet vampire, Riker—Elena had caught his jarringly evocative scent when she entered the room: cedar painted with ice. Of course, he was handsome, too, all blond hair and eyes of darkest brown, his wide-shouldered, slim-hipped body that of a fashion model. Psycho didn’t mean ugly, not among mortals or immortals.

And Elena didn’t think Michaela tolerated physical imperfection.

Catching her glance, Riker smiled . . . and licked his tongue over his lips.

Creep.

She didn’t give him the benefit of a response, focusing her attention on his mistress.

Michaela was looking up at Titus and laughing at something the warrior archangel was saying. Big and heavily muscled, his skin gleaming jet and his smile a dazzling thing, his wings powerful, Titus was no slouch in the looks department, but it was his sex appeal that most impacted women. Obviously, even Michaela wasn’t immune.

“I don’t think I’ve ever before seen Michaela actually laughing,” she said to Raphael, the two of them far enough away and the room cavernous enough that no one could hear them. “Not when she’s not putting on an act.” It made the other woman even more extraordinarily beautiful.

And Elena could see how men would fall for her.

“At least Titus has the brains not to bite down on any lures she may throw out,” was Raphael’s response. “He has seen through her for an eon.”

“Good. I really like Titus.” The big angel said what he meant and meant what he said. “I don’t see Dahariel.”

“Astaad likely left his second in charge at home, as we did Dmitri.”

“Right, I keep forgetting that while Dahariel might have slept with Michaela, his loyalty is to Astaad.” That messed with her mind. “I don’t know if I could ever sleep with a man who wasn’t loyal to me.”

The crashing wind, the salt-laced sea of Raphael’s voice in her mind. That will never be an issue, Consort. Since you will only ever be sleeping with me.

Laughing at that icy response, she turned to lock her gaze with his. “Just don’t forget—that goes both ways. I’ll use the pretty blade you gave me to hack off the head of any woman who touches you.”

His lips curved. “Of course.” Not shifting his eyes from her own, he said, “It seems Gian is intrigued by you.”

“I could feel the back of my neck prickling. Figured it was Michaela shooting poison at me with her eyes.” Elena turned back toward the others, keeping her motions natural, as if she was simply taking in the room once again. “I’d quite like to talk to the guy, get his measure.”

“This is a good opportunity. It may be nothing but curiosity, but if he’s interested in testing the strength of a mortal hunter turned consort, you’ll be safer here than if he catches you alone.”

Elena tried not to frown. “You think he’s dangerous?”

“I’ve just remembered where I know the name from.”