Archangel's Heart

2

“We all know Her Creepiness isn’t dead.” Elena’s lip curled at the thought of the archangel who’d sought to rain death on New York, and whose reborn were shambling mockeries of life. “That would be too easy.”

“Regardless, something must be done.” Raphael’s face was all brutally clean lines, his expression that of a being who was one of the most powerful in the world. “Xi is keeping Lijuan’s territory in check, the vampires under control, but for all his strength, he is no archangel. China is beginning to fray at the edges.”

Elena had no need to ask him how he knew—Jason was the best spymaster in the Cadre and he called Raphael sire. “You’re worried about bloodlust?” Powerful vampires like Raphael’s second, Dmitri, had iron control over their urge to feed, but the newer, younger vamps? Control was a gossamer-thin thread held in place by fear of the archangels.

Elena’s mother and two older sisters were dead because a vampire had broken the leash and turned into a ravening monster.

Belle would never again throw a baseball because of Slater Patalis. Ari would never again scold then kiss Elena when she ran so fast that she fell and bloodied her knee.

And Marguerite Deveraux would never again laugh with her husband.

A husband who had died the day Marguerite took her life and who was now a man Elena barely recognized. Jeffrey might be walking and breathing, might even have another beautiful, intelligent wife, but he was no longer the man Marguerite had known, no longer the father Elena had loved before it all went so horribly wrong. Elena’s two much younger half sisters knew a stern, unsmiling, and distant father when Elena had known a father who’d once blown soap bubbles with her for an hour just because it made her happy.

I see memories in your eyes, Elena.

Raphael’s voice was the crash of the sea, the crisp bite of the wind in her mind.

They’re part of me. She’d accepted that, no longer fought them when they surfaced. And in return, the nightmares came less and less. Some nights, she still heard the blood dripping to the floor, still felt terror clutch her in a clawed fist until she woke sweat-soaked with her heart a painful drum in her chest, but other nights, she dreamed of racing through the house to hide behind her mother after Belle found her in her room.

“I was a bratty little sister sometimes,” she told the man who was her eternity. “I just wanted so much to be like my sisters that I’d sneak into their rooms and try on their shoes, their clothes, even if they didn’t fit.”

Raphael touched the back of his hand to her cheek. “Such is the way of younger siblings everywhere, is it not?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Her lips kicked up, though sadness was an iron hammer on her soul. “Belle was so hot-tempered. She’d threaten me with all sorts of things . . . then she’d take my hand and lead me to her room and do my nails or brush my hair.” Her oldest sister had possessed a wildly generous heart under the temper.

“I didn’t bother Ariel as much,” Elena added. “She was calmer, quieter, but she had this mischievous sense of humor only people who really knew her ever saw.” Memories cascaded through her, of helping Ari pull pranks, of sitting close to her sister’s warmth while she read a story aloud, of the stunning turquoise of Ari’s eyes.

Smile deepening as the wind rippled through her hair, she took a breath, released it. “I wish I could talk to Jeffrey sometimes,” she admitted. “He has so many of the same memories, things Beth wasn’t old enough to remember.” Her younger sister had been only five when Slater Patalis murdered Belle and Ari, and mortally wounded Marguerite’s soul.

He’d tortured her, too, but it was being made helpless while her daughters were brutalized that had broken Elena’s mother. “It’d be nice just to sit and talk about our family.” Instead, all they had between them were broken shards of grief and guilt and loss.

The blue of Raphael’s eyes turned dangerous. “He doesn’t deserve to carry the title of father.”

“Ah but we don’t choose our parents, do we, Archangel?” If anyone understood the complex emotions that tied her to her father, it was Raphael. His own mother had gone insane, murdered thousands, then risen over a millennia later apparently sane—and full of love for the child she’d once left shattered and bleeding in a remote field distant from any civilization.

“No,” Raphael admitted. “And I have promised not to kill Jeffrey, so let’s talk about something else before I forget my vow.”

“Fair enough.” At times, thinking of her father was enough to turn Elena homicidal, too. “Getting back to Lijuan—whether she’s dead or not matters less than the fact she’s vanished from sight?”

A short nod. “Bloodlust has already begun to rise, though only in isolated patches. According to the report Jason sent in an hour ago, a small kiss of vampires massacred an entire village four days past.”

Elena’s spine went stiff. “Xi have the kiss under control?” The angel was Lijuan’s most trusted general and a power in his own right—though he was nowhere near as powerful on his own as he was when Lijuan was feeding him energy. “Shit. Is Xi displaying signs of being cut off from Lijuan?”

“Jason has been unable to confirm either way, but Xi did eliminate the kiss very quickly.” Raphael’s tone cooled. “He can’t keep it up, however. No one who is not Cadre can. And these incidents are only the start—let it go and the vampires will swarm a blood red infestation across China.” His voice was so cold that she found herself running her hand firmly down the edge of his wing in a silent reminder that he wasn’t only an archangel, distant and lethal; he was her lover, the man who owned her heart and whose own belonged to her.

Raphael’s expression didn’t change, his voice still chilly, but he moved his wing so she could caress more of it. “If Lijuan rises again, new decisions will be made, but for the time being, we must work on the assumption that she overextended her new abilities to the point that she caused herself significant damage.” He nodded in greeting at a passing squadron. “I do not believe her dead any more than you do, but I do think she may have chosen to Sleep.”

And when an angel chose to Sleep, it could be centuries or millennia before they awoke. Caliane had Slept for more than a thousand years, and that was barely a drop in the ocean. “I guess I better pack for the Refuge then.” Raphael’s earlier words had made it clear he wouldn’t be asking her to remain behind in New York, as he had more than once before.

At first, she’d fought the restraint, frustratingly conscious that he wanted her safe within the borders of his territory rather than in danger by his side. Later, she’d come to understand that, at certain times, Raphael needed his consort to be visible in the heart of his territory while he was gone. It settled people, because surely no archangel would leave his consort behind were the storm clouds of war gathering on the horizon?

“It’ll be nice to see Jessamy and Galen again,” she said. “Naasir and Andi, too.” Venom was also still at the Refuge, but Elena didn’t know the snake-eyed vampire as well as she did the others.

Raphael’s response was unexpected. “I’m afraid we will have to wait to see our people at the Refuge. This meeting will be held on neutral ground, with no access to any strongholds or armies. Each archangel can bring their consort should they have one, plus one other.”

Elena felt like she was racing to catch up. “I didn’t know there was any other neutral ground.” The world was sharply delineated into areas of archangelic control. The Refuge alone stood separate.

“There are a rare few small areas,” Raphael told her. “Mere acres in each case. In this particular circumstance, it is the land that was given over to the Luminata so long ago that no one knows the names of those on the Cadre that made the decree.”

“Where?”

“Lumia, the Luminata stronghold, stands in the land your grandmother called home.”

“Morocco?” Delight kicked her bloodstream. “I love Morocco!” Though she had no ties there, she’d passed through the country during her days as a single hunter, felt its heartbeat sync with her own, as if her blood recognized the hot, desert land filled with a stark, golden beauty.

“From the covert flyover I did when I was a youth,” Raphael told her with a smile, “Lumia is located on a hilly rise, an elegant stronghold that has stood for eons. There are no roads to break up the wilderness that surrounds it—to visit Lumia, you must have wings or you must brave a harsh trek made no less difficult by the high walls on the very edges of their land.”

Elena was about to ask him to tell her more when her brain finally clicked. “Hold on,” she said with a scowl, placing her hands on her hips again. “Yeah, people can’t bring armies but Charisemnon’s will be closer than anyone else’s.” The disease-causing and cowardly bastard responsible for the horror of the Falling, an event that had seen New York’s angels plummet to the earth in an agony of fear and suffering and death, was the Archangel of Northern Africa.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Raphael’s own anger was frost in the air. “But Titus will no doubt mass his army on Charisemnon’s border when he leaves for the meeting, forcing Charisemnon to do the same or leave his border open to Titus.”

“I always knew I liked Titus.” Elena bared her teeth. “When do we leave?”

“Unless one of the Cadre refuses to attend, we go on the dawn.”

Implicit were the words that if someone did say no, it could set in motion a chain of immortal violence that would end with a devastated world. Because when archangels fought, people died and cities fell.

Two hours later, in the library of Elena and Raphael’s Enclave home, that danger was no longer a concern. According to Jessamy, who was in touch with the Luminata in her role as the angelic Historian, every single archangel had RSVP’d to the meeting. “Except Lijuan, of course,” Jessamy corrected, the other woman’s fine-boned face up on the screen placed on one wall of the library.

Elena’s blood began to pump a little faster. “That settles it then—we’ll be on the plane tomorrow morning.”

Raphael had already told their pilot to be on standby.

Had he been going alone, he would’ve probably flown on the wing, but Elena wasn’t strong enough or fast enough to do that over such a long distance. She was getting there, could now achieve a vertical takeoff nine times out of ten—though it always cost her. Her body simply wasn’t “old” enough in immortal terms, to have grown the necessary muscle strength. So when she forced a vertical takeoff, she did so knowing she’d have a shorter time in the air and could possibly rupture a tendon and be grounded until it healed.

In most cases, it made more sense for her to climb up someplace and take off from there, but at least she no longer faced being trapped on the ground if she couldn’t find a handy launching spot. And once in the air, she had far greater endurance than when she’d first woken up with wings. Though that wasn’t saying much, since she’d been about as graceful as a baby chicken on awakening.

“Has there been any word from Lijuan’s court at all?”

The Historian—and Elena’s friend—nodded at Raphael’s question, her features lit by the delicate golden light thrown by the old-fashioned blown glass lamp on her desk, the Refuge yet swathed in the deep blackness of very early morning. “Xi confirmed receipt of the Luminata’s request.”

Had it been any other man or woman, Elena had the feeling the rest of the Cadre would’ve already acted. However, the general was so utterly devoted to his “goddess” that no one had any fear he’d forget who and what he was and give in to delusions of power he simply did not possess. Xi wanted only to hold the territory for Lijuan.

The thought of the archangel who considered herself evolved beyond even the Ancients triggered another thought. Glancing at Raphael, she said, “Did the Luminata invite Alexander and Caliane as well?”

Alexander had quickly become an active member of the Cadre, while Caliane preferred to keep to her small territory, but both were Ancients who should’ve never been awake, should’ve never been in the Cadre during this time.

The Cascade, however, had other ideas.

“Yes,” Raphael answered.

“And,” Jessamy added, “since saying no to the Luminata is unacceptable, both will be attending the meeting.” The beautiful burnt sienna of her eyes lit with quiet humor. “I think Caliane might have a few words to say to the Luminata.”

Elena caught the emphasis. “Head guy?”

A nod from the other woman. “The members of the sect do have names, but the leader is referred to as the Luminata as a gesture of respect. In direct speech, archangels use the Luminata’s name—and so should you as consort.”

“Because an archangel will only bend so far,” Elena said dryly.

Similar to a guild hunter I know.

Grinning at the mental comment, one made in a very “Archangel of New York” tone, Elena leaned against Raphael’s side. “So, it looks like it’s going to be an unhappy reunion of the Cadre.” She whistled at the implications of that. “Holy hell. Is Michaela coming, too?”

Jessamy’s nod was quick, her eyes bright.

“That should be interesting.” Unlike Lijuan, the most beautiful archangel in the world hadn’t done a disappearing act, but she’d become far less visible for the span of an entire year before returning once more to the limelight—though still nowhere near at the level she’d been at before her strangely reclusive year.

Because Michaela loved attention and the media loved her.

To say that Michaela was beautiful was an understatement. With skin the shade of finest milk chocolate and wings of delicate bronze, her hair a waist-length tumble of brown and gold, and her eyes a hypnotic green, she was the definition of breathtaking. Throw in a body that turned mortals and immortals alike into slaves and it hadn’t surprised Elena to learn that Michaela had been the muse of artists and emperors through the ages.

The artists were mostly alive, since Michaela liked those who paid homage to her beauty—no, that was bitchy. The truth was that Michaela did have a reputation as a generous patroness of the arts. But the emperors and other powerful men who’d been her lovers, well, they were pretty much all dead as doornails. The second-to-last one had died at Raphael’s hands in an exchange of angelfire above New York that had left Elena broken and on the cusp of her own death.

It kind of pissed Elena off that Michaela had been partially responsible for her meeting Raphael right back at the start. Without the other archangel’s poisonous encouragement, her lover would’ve never turned into an insane serial-killing nightmare. One who’d ended up ripping out Michaela’s heart and replacing it with a glowing red fireball that may well have fouled her bloodstream with a noxious poison.

“Our pregnancy theory,” Elena said to Jessamy, concerned what the poison, if it did lurk within Michaela, would’ve done to a child in the archangel’s womb. “You heard anything to confirm that?”

“Nothing,” Jessamy replied, then bit her lower lip. “I shouldn’t gossip, but I so want to know.” Switching her attention to Raphael, the other woman asked if Jason had discovered anything.

“There is not even a faint whisper of an angelic babe in Michaela’s territory. Though that doesn’t mean anything—Michaela has properties hidden in multiple difficult-to-reach locations.”

“If there is a child, I hope he or she is safe and healthy.” With those gentle words, Jessamy went to sign off. “I just heard Galen land. He’s been out for hours with the current batch of trainees—I want to make sure he gets something hot into him.”

Saying good-bye to the kindest angel she knew, Elena waited until the screen turned black before heading out of the library and toward her greenhouse, Raphael by her side. Licked by the rich sunlight of late afternoon, the glass shimmered in welcome.

“Dahariel must know if Michaela gave birth.” Astaad’s second was no longer Michaela’s lover, but he had been at the critical time.

“Not necessarily.” Raphael’s answer had her frowning. “It’s the archangel who makes all the decisions when the other parent is not their official consort.”

“Not exactly fair.”

“No, but archangels have enemies.” Raphael’s voice turned to midnight, his eyes dark. “Given the current state of the world, I wouldn’t blame Michaela if she didn’t trust anyone with the safety of her child, even the father of that child.”

“He is a cruel bastard,” Elena admitted grimly, well aware of Dahariel’s penchant for torture. “I wouldn’t trust him with my baby, either—if I had a baby. Which won’t be for many, many, many, many moons.”

The white gold of his wings shimmering in the sunshine, Raphael opened the greenhouse door for her. “Your body is not yet strong enough to bear an immortal child. In our terms, you are a baby and I am robbing the cradle.”

Elena stepped into the humid warmth of one of her favorite places on the earth. “Rob away, Archangel.” She was painfully glad she couldn’t physically have a child for decades at least—according to Keir, it was more apt to be a hundred years. Terror gripped her when she thought of trying to keep a child safe, of protecting that vulnerable life from harm.

If she ever had to watch her child be hurt, ever had to bury a tiny innocent who’d looked to her for love and protection . . .

She swallowed.

At times like this, she understood why her father was the way he was; not only had he lost his hunter mother to violence, but he’d then had to bury two beloved daughters and an equally cherished wife. It had killed something vital in him. What had been left hadn’t been enough to love a daughter who walked into possible death every time she went to do her job. He’d been fine with her younger sister, Beth—maybe not the father he’d once been, but not awful, either.

It was only with Elena that he’d become so . . . hard. The daughter who lived with danger on a daily basis instead of staying safe, staying protected.

Yes, sometimes she understood Jeffrey.

“The memories haunt you today.”

Elena began to snip off the spent blooms on a cheerful pot of daisies that had been a gift from Illium. “I guess it’s probably because I’m thinking about Morocco.” Putting the neatly snipped off blooms in the hand her archangel held out, she showed him where to drop them so they’d return to the earth.

Only the dry, brown flowers uncurled the instant they touched his palm, gaining color and softness until he held a palmful of bright yellow daisies.