29
Raphael watched Elena sleep, not the least surprised when she began to twist restlessly, a thin sheen of perspiration on her skin. She’d come to him with pain in her eyes, what little she’d told him of her time with Beth enough that he hadn’t left her even after she fell asleep.
Wake up, Guild Hunter. He used what she called his “Archangel” tone, the words a command. It hadn’t worked when she lay silent for a year after they fell together the day Manhattan went dark, but today, her eyes opened in a flicker of silver-gray.
“Raphael.” A whisper, her fingers weaving into his hair. “I need you.”
“I am here.” Covering her body with his own, her skin clammy, he cupped the side of her face as he initiated a tender kiss that told her what she was to him. When she shivered and wrapped her arms around him, he moved his hand down to caress her breast and the line of her hip.
It was only skin he touched on her top half, his consort having come to bed without her sleep T-shirt after discovering one of the wing-slit buttons had fallen off, but she wore panties from her lusciously impractical collection. Soft peach satin edged in white lace, this pair cupped her with exquisite perfection. Breaking the kiss to run his lips along her throat, he continued to stroke her breast to hip until her skin warmed, her breath no longer unsteady.
When he raised his head from her throat, it was to find her sensual eyed and lazy limbed, but she pushed at his chest, nudging him onto his back. He went, his hands on her hips as she straddled him, her wings draped behind her and her breasts lush temptation. “Would you lead the dance this night, Guild Hunter?”
Shadows yet in her eyes, she leaned forward and, bracing her arms on either side of his head, dipped her head for a wetly sexual kiss, all tongue and teeth. “Yes,” she whispered in the aftermath. “So lie back and take it.”
Raphael laughed, the masculine sound a rough caress over Elena’s skin. Shivering, she said, “Stop that,” knowing full well he’d pitched his voice to arouse.
“Stop what?” It was a purr, a thousand strands of exquisite fur.
Moaning, she kissed her way down his throat and chest, her panties having gone from damp to wet in the space of a heartbeat. “So not fair, but”—she licked her way along the fine line of hair on his navel—“this should even the stakes.”
No warning, no buildup, she took his cock into her mouth.
He jerked, his hand fisting in her hair as a groan left his chest. Whimpering at the way that sound rubbed across her intimate flesh, she swallowed deeper, pressing her tongue along the underside as she laved him with affection, the pleasure as much hers as his. Her scalp smarted when he tugged . . . so she grazed him with her teeth.
“You are playing dangerous games with your consort,” came the rough warning from the magnificent man who was her own.
Sucking hard, she drew her mouth oh-so-slowly off the long, thick length of him. “You mean you didn’t like it?” she asked as innocently as she could.
He flipped her off him and onto her front so fast, she had no idea how he’d managed it without tangling their wings. “Now”—a dark warning—“it is your turn to be good and take it.”
“Oh, God.” Hands fisted in the pillows, she bit her lower lip in anticipation of his touch and shivered when he slipped his fingers under the sides of her panties.
Hot breath, his mouth on the dip at her spine, his tongue flicking out to taste her skin before he drew her panties down over her butt and lower. Halting with them tangled around her thighs, he turned his attention to kissing her inner thighs, the panties trapping her when she tried to widen her stance.
“Raphael.”
Nipping at her thigh in retaliation for that sensual complaint, he tugged off the panties and rose up over her again, his cock rigid against her back and his weight delicious as he leaned down to murmur in her ear. As he spoke, describing the erotic pleasures to which he’d like to introduce her, his hand slipped under her body to squeeze her breast, tug at her nipple. When he asked her to let him into her mind, she didn’t hesitate, the trust between them such that she knew he’d never take advantage.
Pleasure flooded her body in slow waves, ripple after ripple, as if he’d turned a switch in her mind. “I can,” he said against her throat, “do this to you at any time.” His body shifting, the blunt head of his cock nudging at her hypersensitive entrance, her flesh creamy with welcome. “So long as I can touch your mind, I can bring you pleasure . . . even in the midst of a crowd.”
“Don’t. You. Dare,” she managed to get out between gasps as he thrust in with exquisite slowness, the hard steel of his cock relentless against her swollen flesh.
Masculine laughter, his hand continuing to squeeze and pet her breasts; his mouth shifting to the inner curve of her wings. The instant he licked directly along the edge where her wings emerged from her back, she went off like dynamite, clenching around him until he gripped her hip, pinned her down, and began to ride her, hard and deep.
Bucking up against him, her body out of control, she cried out his name as the orgasm peaked with a fury and felt him fall with her in a final, powerful thrust.
? ? ?
Later, as they lay tangled in bed, the near white of Elena’s hair tumbling across his skin and her head on his shoulder, he gently squeezed her nape. “What did you dream?”
She went motionless, her hand folding into a fist against his chest. “You woke me up before anything really happened.”
“You’re getting into a bad habit, Elena.” His voice was hard, the echoes of pleasure fading rapidly under a wave of anger.
Rising off his chest, his consort shoved her hair out of the way. “Don’t use that tone on me.” It was a furious command, her eyes angry and alive and beautiful. “We’re more than that.”
“If we’re more than that,” he said, his own anger honed to a deadly edge, “then why do you keep lying to me?”
White lines around her mouth, she swung away without replying. When she got out and began to dress, he did the same. His consort, he’d begun to realize, did not do well in contained areas when driven by anger and nightmare, so he’d give her the sky. The one thing he would not give her was distance.
They flew out three minutes later, heading seaward. The waves were high tonight, the sky dark once they left the lights of Manhattan behind. Elena flew and flew and he knew that, once again, she was pushing herself well beyond her limits when it came to the physical strength needed for endurance flights.
It had nothing to do with determination and everything to do with physiological fact.
Elena’s body simply hadn’t developed the necessary musculature, immortality yet growing into her cells, but he didn’t stop her headlong flight. Words would mean nothing, not when she was like this; no, she had to come face-to-face with the perilous risk she took without thought to the consequences.
And worse, this was the second time she’d done the same thing. A third could well be lethal.
If she fell from this height? It was doubtful she’d survive. Even if her luck held, she’d break every bone in her body, her organs collapsing from the impact. Young as she was, that would kill her—either the actual injuries or the inevitable drowning. Unlike him, she couldn’t yet survive without air.
Flying above her, high enough that she wouldn’t feel hunted, he knew the exact instant she realized the danger. Immediately sweeping left and around, she headed homeward, but her wings had begun to falter, her body dipping lower to the water in erratic drops before she stabilized herself. Only for the pattern to repeat, her body dropping faster and longer each time.
Still she didn’t ask for help.
Teeth gritted, he dropped close enough to assist, unable to allow her to cause herself harm, even to teach her a lesson. Are you planning to let your pride drag you to the bottom of the ocean?
Silence, her right wing so strained, he knew it could collapse at any instant. Winging his way in front of her in a burst of speed only another archangel could match, he turned and flew directly at her, grabbing her in his hold. He was careful to ensure his arms slid under her wings to avoid any further damage. “Close your wings.”
“No, let me go.” Jaw set, she shoved at his shoulders, her open wings causing significant drag. “I didn’t ask for your help.”
“The tendons on your right wing are about to go. Just like last time. Do you wish to cripple yourself?” He wanted to shake her. “Injure the same area over and over, and you’ll be grounded for years!”
“I’m fine.” Slamming fisted hands against his chest, she twisted, almost freeing herself because he hadn’t expected such an irrational move.
“Let me go or I swear to God I’ll—”
“Use one of your blades on me?” he asked, his arms steel around her. “Would you draw my blood in earnest, Guild Hunter?”
Fisted hands going still, she looked away, but folded in her wings at last. Her silence rasping against his senses, he gripped her chin with one hand, intending to tug her face toward him, force her to acknowledge his presence. She resisted . . . and then he felt a single hot droplet splash onto his hand.
“Elena.”
Her tears shocked him; he’d seen his consort cry, but never during a fight between them. Such emotional manipulation was beyond her, and even now she dashed the wetness away, as if to refute their existence. “Are you in pain?” he asked, concerned she’d snapped a tendon before he caught her.
“No, I’m fine.”
Her answer infuriated him anew. “You’re clearly not fine.” His tone ice, he jerked up her chin. “Tell me—”
This time, it was Elena who interrupted. “Or what? You’ll take it from my mind?”
“You question my honor now? Is this the trust you have in me?”
Instead of looking shamefaced, she responded with unmasked fury. “I trust you more than anyone else in the universe! That’s the problem.”
“You find it a burden to give me your trust?” Fingers tightening on her chin, he spoke through white-hot anger. “You are mine, Elena. Your trust is my right.”
“Something is happening to you!” It was a scream, her fisted hands raining blows onto his shoulders and her eyes locked on the spreading line of darkest red along his temple.
“I am going nowhere,” he said, realizing the shape of the fear that had stalked her dreams.
“You can’t know that! We don’t know what’s happening.” Her fingers on his temple. “Every time you drop the glamour, I see how much further it’s spread, how much more of your skin it’s begun to cover.”
“I’m not dying.” It took conscious control to keep his rage at those who’d done this to her, seeded such a grave fear into her heart, out of his voice. Marguerite Deveraux, after all, was forever out of his reach. “I am an archangel.”
Chest heaving and cheeks red, she gritted out her reply. “I don’t need you to placate me with arrogance.”
“It’s not arrogance. It’s reality,” he said, holding her gaze so she’d hear him through the roar of her anger. “There are very, very few things on this earth that can kill an archangel, and disease is not one of them. Never in our history has an archangel succumbed to illness.”
“Vampires aren’t meant to die of disease, either,” she snapped back, but her fingers were gentle as she touched the blemish on his face again. “Every time I look at this, I get so scared. I thought I had a handle on it, but it’s like this constant icy fist around my heart. I can’t breathe, I can’t think.”
A thought and the mark was gone, erased with the illusion of glamour.
“Don’t! Don’t hide things from me!” Elena realized what she’d said as soon as the words left her mouth, her eyes locking with those of a hue so pure, it had no true parallel on this earth.
He was still angry at her, that much was clear, that heartbreaking blue kissed by an icily metallic edge. Yet even in his anger he held her safe, when she’d done her best to break every bone in her body with her reckless flight.
Not once. Twice.
“Shit,” she muttered, and when he raised an imperious eyebrow, said, “I’m sorry.” Her Guild trainers would’ve kicked her ass if she’d dared do something this lamebrained as a cadet. “I can’t believe I almost f*cked things up so badly a second time.”
“Will there be a third?” The question snapped like a whip.
“No. Even a hardheaded hunter like me learns her lessons after two near-lethal mistakes.” If she didn’t, she’d have been long dead by now. “Thank you for the assist.”
“I’m glad to know I have some use.” A voice so cold, it was a wonder she didn’t have hypothermia.
“That’s not fair.” She might’ve been an idiot with the flight, but that didn’t mean he could walk all over her. “I’ve never been more intertwined with anyone my entire adult life!”
“And it makes you afraid.”
Her breath caught, and she wanted to say no, to remind him she was a blooded hunter, fear nothing but a tool. But what she said was, “Yes,” because this fear threatened to strangle the life out of her. “I haven’t been this afraid since I realized the monster was in our house.”
“Do you think I don’t understand?” Every muscle in his body went taut, his voice so rigidly controlled, she knew he battled brutal emotion. “Have you forgotten what I said?”
“I didn’t know fear until you, Elena. Use the power wisely.”
Shaking her head, she wrapped her arms tight around his neck. “I haven’t forgotten.” Lips against his, she reminded him of something, too. “I cut you some slack when you went all caveman. Cut me some here.”
“I didn’t almost kill myself when I went ‘caveman,’” he said, his kiss hard and hot and possessive, all of it spiced with molten anger. “I didn’t make you watch as I did my best to cause myself mortal harm.”