The scrutiny discomfited her, but it was understandable—people needed time to get used to her, and she had to be visible for that to happen. As long as they kept their distance, she wasn’t too fussed.
However, she hadn’t factored one simple thing into the equation—the awe that kept most individuals from approaching an angel was muted almost to nonexistence in her case. She’d once been mortal, once been just like them. So they fol owed her, a growing press of humanity. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath.
You will call me. No hesitations, no thinking, no waiting until the last possible moment. If you’re in danger, you will call me.
She assessed the situation with her peripheral vision, saw the wonder on those shining faces, and knew no one meant her harm. But there were too many of them. If one tried to touch her wings, so would another and another and another. They’d stampede her to death in their eagerness. Archangel, she said, hoping Raphael would be able to hear her. I need you.
The wind and the rain against her senses. Where are you, Elena? When she gave him the location, he said, I’m only minutes from you.
An edgy mix of relief and frustration churned in her abdomen. I’m probably overreacting. This was her home, these were her people—she hated the realization that they both might be lost to her now. Even as that horrible, painful thought passed through her mind, she dropped a knife into her free hand and began to play it over and through her fingers in an apparently absentminded motion.
The crowd hesitated, fel back a step as light glinted off the steel.
Good, she thought. They needed to remember that she wasn’t simply a woman with wings. She was hunter-born, could handle vampires twice her size without blinking. The crowd might overpower her, but not before she took down a significant percentage of their number.
Noting that the wal s of humanity had blocked al other traffic on both ends of the street, she walked to stand in the middle . . . and looked up at the sky.
And there he was, his wingspan creating a massive shadow as he swept down to land in front of her. “Are you wel , Consort?”
Silence held their audience in thral , their awe now licked with dread.
“They’re only curious.” She saw the danger in his eyes, knew he had the capacity to execute every human on the street. “I should’ve considered it. I just
... forgot that nothing’s the same anymore.”
Raphael’s hair lifted in the wind as he put his hands on her hips. Sliding away her knife, she placed one hand on his shoulder, holding the box in her other arm. She expected him to rise, but instead he turned his head to run his gaze over the assembled crowd. From the whimpers and the rapid urge everyone had to disperse, she had a good idea of what they’d glimpsed.
When Raphael and Elena did lift, it was with a slow, powerful grace meant to stun.
Only when they were high in the air did she say, “This is going to sound so ungrateful—but I hate that you had to rescue me.” Her sense of loss was acid in her gut, harsh and corrosive. “I’m not a woman who needs rescue. That’s not who I am.” Not who he’d taken as his consort.
“I’l speak to Il ium—your vertical takeoff training must take priority over al else.” Pragmatic words, his hands warm on her. “Once you master that, it wil be impossible to trap you in such a way.”
A painful burst of sensation inside her chest. Unable to say anything, she let him see her heart in her eyes. Thank you. Not just for giving her city, her home, back to her . . . but for stil ing her hidden terror that he wouldn’t want her anymore.
The tender ferocity of Elena’s parting kiss imprinted in his skin, Raphael was on his way to the Tower when Dmitri’s mind touched his. Sire, Favashi wishes to speak to you. It was a toneless statement.
I’ll be there in a few minutes.
The Persian archangel’s face was on the view-screen when he entered, and for the first time, he glimpsed a crack in the serenity of her countenance.
“Favashi. Does this concern Neha?”
“No. She appears busy within her own territory at present.” Favashi’s tone was distracted, her attention clearly on another topic. “We have a problem, Raphael.”
Unlike some of the others on the Cadre, he’d never underestimated the Archangel of Persia. Though she ruled with a velvet glove, there was stil a steel hand within it. “Who?”
“Elijah. His behavior has turned erratic.”
That was a development he’d never expected. “How erratic?” Elijah was one of the most stable members of the Cadre.
“Reports are, he’s become violent. That would be no surprise with Charisemnon or Titus, but Elijah?”