Archangel's War

25

Caliane’s tone was frosty when she called Raphael that night. “You did not have to keep your consort’s lightning wings secret from me.” Her eyes were the same shade as his and at that instant, they were Arctic ice. “I am not the enemy.”

“No, Mother, you are not.” She had fought for him since her return. At the same time, she had once been an insane archangel who’d left him to die on a forgotten field, his blood rubies on the green, green grass.

Raphael couldn’t forget, saw both sides of her. And so, he chose his words with care. “We did not wish to speak of it until we knew all there was to know about Elena’s new physical state. Unfortunately, an accident with a child altered the timeline.”

“I see.” The slightest thaw. “I will accept that as a warrior’s decision not to expose her strength to all the world while it is nascent.” A raised eyebrow. “Where is your consort?”

“Right here, Lady Caliane.” Stepping into frame, Elena inclined her head just enough that it was polite without calling her own status as Raphael’s consort into question. “Would you care to see my wings more closely?”

Appearing mollified by the offer, his mother nodded.

Elena’s wings erupted out of her back in a flash of electric lightning, a storm surge barely contained. She shifted so that Caliane could get the full effect.

Raphael had rarely seen his mother lost for words, but today, Caliane was silent until she said, “You, my child, are a being of change.” It wasn’t an indictment. “My son will certainly never suffer ennui with you as his love.”

His mother signed off soon afterward.

Of course they flew that night.

Elena’s wings dazzled against the ebony of the sky. I look like a giant lightbulb, don’t I? One of those ones they have at the science center with all the arcs of electricity inside.

Raphael felt his cheeks crease. You are extraordinary. So preternaturally beautiful that he knew anyone looking up at the sky would be spellbound. A career as a spy, however, might be beyond your reach.

She burst out laughing, and they flew on. They danced. An archangel and his consort tangling limbs and bodies in a carnal union that made them both whole.

It was as they were returning home, their clothes lost over the ocean and Elena held in Raphael’s arms so that his glamour would cover her, that her wings spluttered out. Frowning, she bit down on her lower lip. “I can’t make them come back.”

“You may have overexerted yourself.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” But her face was tight, her body tense.

Being unable to give her solid answers, being unable to fix this, it had his power calcifying into granite edges inside him, hard and cutting.

After arriving home, he wrapped her up in his arms and wings and kissed her until nothing existed but the two of them.

Breathless in the aftermath, Elena tugged Raphael into the bedroom. “I think we need round two today.”

They fell into bed together, with Elena lying on Raphael’s chest, his wing over her body. She stroked his hair back from his face. “I’ve complicated your life, haven’t I, Archangel?” He was one of the Cadre, a being used to control—but he could do nothing to control what was happening to her and it was savaging him.

She’d tasted the cold fury of it in his kiss.

“It rages through me, the anger,” he told her, the lines of his face flawless in their masculine beauty and his voice a thing of frigid death. “I want to break the world.”

“That’s the Cascade pushing you. It wants violence, death, anger.” Fisting a hand in his hair, she said, “Fight it. Stay my Raphael.”

Cold immortal eyes. “No matter who or what I become, I will always be yours.” As he gripped the back of her head and drew her down into a kiss, she realized he’d never made the promise she’d demanded.

While Raphael fought the rage that wanted to take root inside him, his consort spent the coming days testing her wings, figuring out their endurance.

“I must go to China,” he told her two weeks after she first flew. “It is my turn to oversee the territory. You’re coming with me.”

She looked up from where she was polishing her brand-new knives, barefoot and in pajamas, her choppy hair tucked carelessly behind her ears. “Yes, Your Archangelness.” A tug of her lips. “I can’t let you out of my sight, either.”

Raphael wasn’t certain he’d ever reach that point.

“My endurance isn’t as high as yours,” Elena added as he removed the top of his leathers. “I’ll probably need to land in places—but if you dare set a single foot on that poisoned land, I’ll shoot you.”

“I have no desire to be infected by whatever Lijuan left behind.” Bare to the waist, but with his pants and boots yet on, he picked up one of her knives, testing the balance. “You have a piece of my heart. You may be susceptible.”

“If I am, let’s find out while you’re full of wildfire that can burn out the poison.” She slipped a blade into a thigh sheath. “But, the toxin is keyed to archangels and I’m a weirdo hybrid. Never thought that’d be an advantage.”

“Get so much as a scratch on your body and I will lock you in a steel-reinforced room for the rest of your life.” He wasn’t certain he wasn’t speaking the absolute truth.

Rising, she hauled him close and took a kiss that was slow, deep, defiant. “I’d just break out.” Another kiss. “I know you’re freaked out. So am I.”

“Archangels do not get ‘freaked out.’” But he kissed her anyway. “Pack a gown. Mother has been making noises about an evening event to celebrate our ‘triumphant return.’”

Elena groaned and banged her head against his sternum.

The anger and fear knotting up his insides softened. “Your favorite angel, Tasha, will be present.”

“I’ll get you back for that.” A glare. “But your taunt has found its mark, curses on you. I’ll now have to rustle up a fabulous evening gown so Tasha McHotpants can’t show me up by being all gorgeous and competent.”

That, he thought, was what annoyed her the most: Tasha was someone Elena might actually like if not for the fact that Tasha had made it clear she’d enjoy picking up where she’d left off with Raphael. It had been foolishness on Tasha’s part, with no chance of success, but it meant Elena and Tasha would never be friends.

“Montgomery has no doubt already assembled a suitable wardrobe for you.” Most of what his consort called her “fancy clothes” had burned up in the inferno of Raphael’s power. “Speaking of which—Maeve is asking if we’d like the house rebuilt as it was, or if we want changes.”

“It was a spectacular house.”

“How about a special room for all your knives?” he said in a small joke between an archangel and his consort, but Elena lit up like a candle.

“Really? You don’t think that’s excessive? It could be a small room. Just with lots of wall space.” A sudden frown. “Were you making fun of me?”

“A little, but now I will build you the best knife display room you’ve ever seen.”

Elena’s lips twitched. “Don’t forget the spot for my crossbow.”

“It will have a podium of its own with a dedicated spotlight.”

“As it should.” Feet bare and grin wide, she stood on his booted feet. “Talking about blades makes me hot.”

“Any more sharp objects on you today?” he murmured against her ear.

“You’re safe.” Her mouth was wet and soft on his chest, her tongue licking him up in tender flicks.

His blood felt so cold at times these days, but never when he was with her.

Hand pressed against his heart, she threatened a playful bite . . . then paused, her head cocked slightly and tiny lines flaring out at the corners of her eyes. “Put your finger on the pulse in my neck.”

“I have never partaken of this deviant sexual act.”

“Funny man. Fingers, neck.”

When he obeyed, she said, “Listen. To your pulse and mine.”

As with most living beings, Raphael wasn’t aware of his pulse in the course of normal day-to-day life. It took him a second to tune in to the sensation. “Our hearts are beating in time.” In perfect synchronicity.

“It can’t happen all the time, or we’d be constantly out of tune with our surroundings.” A kiss pressed to his skin. “Must be a resting-state effect. I like it.” The eyes that lifted to meet his were liquid silver, haunting and immortal.

But her kiss . . . it was Elena. Mortal, courageous, untamed.

She would not be taken by the Cascade, would not be broken. Raphael wasn’t so certain about himself. Because the frigid cold of his new power, it was seeping deeper and deeper into his cells with each day that passed. The more he owned it, the more it became a part of him . . . and the more he had to fight to be Elena’s Raphael.

Yet without that power, he could not make enough wildfire to defeat Lijuan.

For she would rise into her reign of death.

Cassandra had foreseen it. And Cassandra was never wrong.