Archangel's Kiss

37

Raphael’s face was expressionless. “Elena isn’t the one who orchestrated the brutalization of a child.”

Someone sucked in a breath and Elena realized it was Michaela, the female archangel’s body angled toward Anoushka though she stood to Raphael’s left.

“Lies,” Anoushka said, her breath coming easier as her body healed. “The hunter sought to make her name by killing an angel.”

It just came out. “I helped kill an archangel. I have no need to prove myself.”

Neha rose, her movement as sinuous, as silky as that of the pythons she kept as pets. “Give me your mind.”

Elena was suddenly drowning in the scent of rain, of the sea, as Raphael lifted a hand filled with angelfire. “No one will touch Elena. It’s Anoushka’s mind you should search.”

There was a blur of movement overhead and then Aodhan was landing beside Elena, though, given his angle of descent, it would have been far easier for him to land between Michaela and Raphael. The angel was covered in so much blood, it had turned his diamond-bright wings to rust. But that wasn’t what chilled the whole courtyard to silence. Aodhan had a vampire in his arms. That vampire was missing all his limbs. But he was still alive.

Elena fought not to show her horror. The last time she’d seen a vampire in that condition, the man had been a victim, tortured for days by a hate group.

“Sire.” Aodhan placed his burden on the stones. “I was detained by Anoushka’s Master of the Guard. His mind holds the truth.”

From the look on Anoushka’s face, there was no denying the vampire’s identity. Elena saw it only because she was looking directly at the Princess—a spark of pain, of loss. The angel actually felt something for this vampire. But not enough. Rising, she picked up the kukri in one of those reptilian snaps of movement, and threw it at the vampire’s neck.

Raphael caught it by the blade, his blood dripping onto the vampire’s ravaged chest. “Favashi, Titus, take his mind.”

The quiet Persian archangel closed her eyes. The big, black archangel did the same. It took less than a second.

“Guilty,” Favashi whispered, speaking to Neha. “Even if Astaad forgives the murder of his concubine, even if Titus forgives the killing of the female from his lands, even if Raphael forgives the torture of his man, the attempt on his mate’s life, you cannot save her.”

“She broke our supreme law.” Titus’s voice was incongruously soft for such a big man, the slabs of muscle on his chest gleaming around the steel gray of his breastplate.

“The abuse of a child,” Astaad murmured in an almost academic tone, stroking two fingers over his small, neat black beard, “may be the only true remaining taboo we have. Cross that line, and we may as well surrender to the darkness that stalks us all.”

“The boy isn’t dead,” Neha responded.

“Murder or vicious assault, the penalty is the same—and the child was so close to death as to make little difference.” An archangel with iron in his voice and eyes of golden brown. Elijah. “The worst is that she didn’t do it alone. She taught others to savor the pain of an innocent.”

“She planned to take other angelic children once she became Cadre,” Favashi said, her tone sorrowful but unbending, “to rule her angels by keeping their young hostage.”

“Witnessed.” Titus’s soft voice.

“Even I,” Lijuan murmured, a hint of surprise in her tone, “did not go that far.” Her eyes almost disappeared in daylight. “What have you birthed, Neha?”

What happened next was a blur. Michaela moved her hand in a brutally hard gesture. It took a second for Anoushka’s head to fall off her body, her blood fountaining in an arterial spray. Wet hit Elena’s face, her clothes, but she forced herself to stand her ground as Neha rose with a scream, her nails elongating and turning black even as Michaela continued to make those lethal slashing motions.

Sweet mercy. Anoushka was being cut apart piece by piece.

Moving at a speed no mortal would ever reach, Neha clawed Michaela’s face, leaving a spread of black. Michaela slammed her hand to Neha’s chest, shoving her back. The black marks on her face turned a noxious, putrid green. . . . then drew back, as if the poison was being rejected. By the time Neha got to her feet, Michaela’s face was whole again, the poison dripping to scar the square-cut pavings of the courtyard.

Neha twisted toward her daughter, anguish in her eyes. “She’s old enough to—”

Angelfire, cold and blue, engulfed what remained of Anoushka. Elena stared at the hard line of Raphael’s face, without mercy, an archangel passing judgment. It shook her to the core, the speed of the execution, but she didn’t disagree with it—the image of Sam’s crumpled and bloody body would be with her forever.

Neha’s scream rent the air, so piercing it was something other, something beyond comprehension. The Queen of Snakes, of Poisons, went to her knees in the courtyard, tearing at her hair with the clawed tips of her hands. Raphael stepped back and met Elena’s gaze. It was time to go. They left on foot, all of them, even Lijuan. A silent show of respect.

No one spoke even when they reached the blinding light of the main courtyard. It was empty, the first time Elena had seen it that way in all her time here. Shadows blotted out the sunlight an instant later, a heavy cloudbank rolling in from the east. Looking up, she felt a chill crawl down her spine.

It wasn’t over.

Elena entered their rooms behind Raphael, with Aodhan bringing up the rear. Jason had made a rare daylight appearance to take Anoushka’s Master of the Guard to healers, leaving Aodhan free to return with them. “Sire,” the angel said after they were behind the closed doors. “I’m injured.” It was a calm statement.

Elena watched as he peeled off his bloody shirt to reveal a gash so deep he’d been all but been cut in half. “Jesus. How the hell did you fly to us?”

Aodhan didn’t reply, speaking to Raphael as he came to stand in front of him. “I may be a little slow tonight.”

“Stay,” Raphael said, raising his hand, that warm blue fire ringing his palm.

Aodhan’s face showed emotion for the first time. Panic, rage, fear, it was a twisting viciousness in his eyes. But he stood in place, let Raphael touch him, his flinch not noticeable unless you were looking very carefully. Raphael removed his hand a few moments later. The gash no longer looked as raw, as red.

Relief flooded Aodhan’s expression but Elena wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the fact that his wound was well on the way to being healed. She didn’t speak until after he’d left to return to his own room. “He doesn’t like being touched.”

“No,” Raphael confirmed, pulling off his own shirt and wiping his bloody hands on it.

Wondering what—or who—could have damaged an immortal so much that he flinched from even the most casual of touches, Elena began to remove what weapons she had left. “Good thing I brought spares.” Checking her thigh, she saw that while the wound was still pink, it didn’t need a dressing. “Shower?”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t until they’d both showered and were sinking into the wet heat of a desperately needed bath that she said, “You’re the reason Sam is recovering faster than anyone expected.” Her heart overflowed with a fierce kind of pride.

“I’ve evolved,” he said, his eyes holding an almost lost look. Blue fire ringed the hand he lifted out of the water. “The gift is new, weak—I couldn’t heal Sam fully, though I returned many times.”

“But you sped up the process.” Moving to cup his face in her hands, she touched her forehead to his. “The scales are balanced, Raphael.”

“No,” he said. “They will never be balanced. I must never forget what I became in the Quiet.”

She thought of the swiftness of the justice meted out tonight, thought too of the thin line between power and cruelty, and knew he was right. “Well, one thing’s for sure—if you hadn’t been there tonight, I’d be dead.”

His eyes turned that forever, endless blue that made it seem as if she was falling into another universe. “You must never let Neha touch you,” he said, gripping her nape, pulling her even closer. “I was only able to stop Anoushka’s poison because it was on the surface. Neha’s is a thousand times more venomous.”

She didn’t resist his touch, sensing a fear the archangel would never admit aloud. It did something to her to know that her life mattered that much to him. Part of her, a part that was still that scared young teenager standing on the doorstep to the Big House, was so afraid that he’d tire of her, that her love wouldn’t be enough.

“So many nightmares,” he whispered, stroking his hand up her back as she straddled him.

“She left me,” Elena whispered. “She loved me, but she left me.”

“I’ll never leave you, Elena.” A glimpse of the archangel he was, used to power, to control. “And I’ll never let you go.”

Other women might’ve rebelled against such a claim, but Elena had never belonged to anyone. Now she did, and the knowledge began to fix something broken inside of her. “Two-way street, Archangel,” she reminded him.

“I think I enjoy being claimed by a hunter.” Hands on her hips, strong, demanding. “Come, take me inside. Make us one.”

The words were gentle, the hard thrust of his cock anything but. Spreading her hands on his shoulders, she slid down the dark heat of him, shuddering as her flesh stretched to accommodate that unforgiving length. “Raphael.” Whispered against his mouth as her body closed around him.

He gasped, dropping his head for an instant. His lips brushed the pulse in her neck and she felt teeth. A bite. Not gentle. A hiss of air escaped her as he licked over the small hurt, as he moved his mouth up her neck, across her jaw. You didn’t call me when Anoushka attacked.

She weaved her fingers through his hair, biting at his lower lip when he lifted his head. I called you when I needed you.

A frozen moment, their eyes locked into each other.

It felt as if he was looking through her heart, through her soul, through to the very core of who she was. But she saw him, too, this magnificent being full of power and secrets so deep and old, she wondered that she’d ever learn them all.

The kiss stole her breath, her thoughts, her everything. Moaning, she ran her fingers over the arch of his wings, felt him grow impossibly harder inside her. It was almost too much. She rose, her body releasing his with tortuous slowness, his mouth taking hers until she was a creature of the flesh, her senses awash in pleasure.

Tightening his grip on her waist, he pulled her back down. She went, needing the intimate friction, the earthy pleasure. “Raphael.” He broke the kiss to move one hand up to cup her breast, running his thumb over the part of her nipple that peeked above the waterline.

There was something unbelievably erotic about watching him touch her, his eyes a brand, his fingers so long and sure. Clenching her own hand on the slope of his wing, she moved impatiently against him. His head jerked up, eyes glittering like gemstones. The hand on her back shifted, fingers stroking the oh-so-sensitive inner curve of her wings.

“Stop that,” she said against his lips, unable to halt the slow, hot caress of her flesh on his, a tight release and sheathing that made her heart thunder.

So sensitive, hbeebti.

She didn’t understand it, and yet she did. He’d said something beautiful to her in a language that she only ever heard in hazy dreams now, a language that—no matter the associated memories of pain and loss—had always meant love.

Taking his hand, she brought it to her lips. The kiss she pressed to his palm was soft, his response a blaze of cobalt. And then there were no more words. Only pleasure. Searing, bone-deep pleasure. She broke apart, held in the arms of an archangel who would never let her fall.

“Mama?” Why was her mother’s high-heeled shoe lying on the tile of the foyer? Where was the other one? Mama hadn’t worn high heels for . . . a long time. She’d probably just gotten sick of it and kicked it off. Yeah, that must be it. But if she’d started to wear them again . . . maybe things would get better, maybe she’d smile and it would be real.

Her chest hurt with a painful kind of hope.

Stepping inside the cool wealth of the Big House, the house that had turned her daddy into a man she didn’t know, she went to reach for the shoe lying abandoned on its side. That was when she saw the shadow. So thin, swinging so gently.

She knew.

She knew.

She didn’t want to know.

Her heart a savage knot of barbed wire, she looked up. “Mama.” She didn’t scream. Because she knew.

The sound of tires on gravel, Beth being driven home from elementary school. Elena dropped her bag and ran. She knew. But Beth must never know. Beth must never see. Grabbing her sister’s small body in her arms, she pushed past the man who’d once been her father and out into the bright sunshine of a cloudless summer day.

And wished she didn’t know.

Elena dressed with quiet determination the night of the ball. But the past, it lay like a thick black blanket over her, heavy, suffocating. She wanted to claw at her neck, to gasp in desperately needed air, but that would betray weakness. And here, any weakness would be blood to the sharks that circled below the music that permeated the city.

Turning, she spied the sweep of blue the tailor had designed for the ball. It was a dress. But it was a dress for a warrior. Already wearing panties and the spike-heeled black boots that came up to her thighs, her weapons strapped to her body, she picked up the dress, the fabric like water against her fingertips.

“You tempt a man into mortal sin.”

She sucked in a breath as she saw her archangel, his chest bare, his legs clad in formal black pants. “Look who’s talking.” He was beauty cut by time, a lethal blade honed through the ages.

Lifting the dress, she stepped into it. The material slid against her legs as she drew it up, the top half pooling at her hips. Raphael prowled to her, his eyes skating over the naked flesh of her breasts. Possession glittered in those eyes, and that was all the warning she got before the storm of his kiss, the touch of his fingers . . . the angel dust that filtered into her very pores.

She held the kiss when he would have broken it. “Not yet.” Then she took her archangel, drinking in the taste of him until it suffused her veins, infiltrated her cells.

“You,” Raphael said against her mouth when she finally set him free, “will kiss me like that tonight.”

It was an order she could live with. “Deal.”

Stroking both hands down over her breasts, Raphael lifted the two pieces of fabric that made up the top to her shoulders—after crisscrossing them below the neck—and began to tie a knot at her nape.

“I guess,” she said, licking her lips, feeling her thighs clench, “I don’t need makeup now.” Angel dust shimmered like diamonds on her skin.

Placing one hand on the naked plane of her stomach after ensuring the knot was secure, Raphael pressed a kiss to her nape, bared since she’d put her hair up in a tight bun. She’d considered spearing that knot with chopsticks, but her hair was too slippery to hold the ornamentation. Instead, she’d tucked in a small hairpin detailed with the image of a wildflower.

Simple. Perfectly adapted. Hard to kill.

It had been a gift from Sara, tucked beside the ring Elena had asked her best friend to order. The amber had come from a dealer who’d owed Elena a favor, the specific piece one she’d seen in his private collection. Balli had paid up the favor because it had been a matter of honor, but she knew it had to have hurt. Of course, once he saw where his amber had gone . . . The thought of his round face wreathed in smiles made her heart lighten.

Raphael played his fingers over her abdomen, his ring catching the light. “Your injuries?”

“Nothing to worry about.” Her thigh ached enough to remind her of Anoushka’s attack, but the cuts on her arms had scabbed over.

“Can you move?”

She spun out, reaching for the blades hidden in the butter-soft black leather arm sheaths she was wearing openly tonight, protocol be damned. The skirts of the dress parted like liquid, as if attuned to her every move. She lobbed a knife toward the archangel who watched her.

Catching it with lethal ease, he threw it back. She tucked it into the arm sheath, before testing how difficult it would be to get to the gun strapped to her left thigh. Not hard at all. “No problems.”

As she rose, the dress fell seamlessly around her body, all the slits elegantly concealed. “What are the chances I won’t need to use my weapons tonight?”

Raphael’s answer was terrifying in its starkness. “Lijuan’s reborn walk the halls.”