"But the cruelty in her eyes." Elena shivered at the memory. "She enjoyed hurting me, enjoyed it in a way that reminded me of Uram." The bloodborn angel had kicked at her broken ankle, sent her screaming. And then he'd smiled.
"They were mates for a reason." Another stroke, his heart so warm and vibrant under the cheek she'd pressed to his chest. But he was also the man who'd punished a vampire with such icy practicality that New Yorkers avoided that once bloodstained patch of Times Square even now.
"What did you do to Michaela?" she asked, her skin going cold with the realization that humiliation alone would have never been enough for Raphael. He didn't act capriciously, but when he did act, the world shivered.
A midnight breeze in her mind.I told you once, Elena. Never feel sorry for Michaela.
She'll use that to rip out your heart while it is still beating.
The heart he'd referred to gave a panicked beat of memory, the muscle bruised, painful.
"How was she able to do that, reach inside me that way?"
"It seems Michaela has been hiding a new power." His voice dropped. "It's no coincidence that she gained it so soon after coming close to death with Uram."
"He had her alone for long enough," Elena said, remembering the raw fear in Michaela's eyes when they'd rescued her. It had been the first time she'd seen an archangel afraid, and it had rocked her. "Do you think he changed her somehow?"
"His blood changed the woman, Holly Chang. She's neither vampire nor mortal now. It remains to be seen what becomes of Michaela."
Elena was ashamed to realize she'd forgotten about the only surviving victim of Uram's attacks. "Holly? How is she?" The last glimpse Elena had had of her, she'd been naked, her skin caked with blood, her mind half broken.
"Alive."
"Her mind?"
"Dmitri tells me she'll never again be who she was, but she isn't lost to madness."
It was far more than Elena had expected, but she caught the things he didn't say.
"Dmitri's still got people watching her, hasn't he?"
"Uram's poison altered her on a fundamental level - we must know what she's become."
And, Elena understood without asking, if Holly proved too much Uram's creature, Dmitri would slit her throat without hesitation. Instinct warred with harsh reality -
Uram's evil could not be allowed to spread. "You never answered my question," she said, hoping Holly Chang would spit in her attacker's face, that she'd save herself. "What did you do to Michaela?"
"I left her in a public place with your dagger in her eye. The eye had already healed around it."
"What does that mean?"
"Pain for Michaela when she pulls it back out, when she reheals." There was no mercy in him. "It's why Noel's attackers drove shards of glass into his flesh."
She knew he'd linked the vicious beating and his own actions on purpose. Another reminder of who he was, what he was capable of. Did he expect her to run? If he did, he had a lot to learn about his hunter. "You did something else."
You think you know me so well, Guild Hunter.
At that moment, he sounded like the archangel she'd first met, the one who'd made her close her hand over a knife blade, his eyes devoid of mercy. "I know you well enough to figure out you'd never let an insult pass unanswered." She'd seen that in his relentless search for Noel's attackers - his resolute determination likely the reason the angel behind it had gone to ground.
"In your travels around the Refuge, did you ever see a rock that reaches toward the sky on the other side of the gorge?"
"I think so. It's very thin, sharp . . ." Her mind made the connection with sickening ease.
"You dropped her on that rock, didn't you?"
She would've ripped out your heart. I simply returned the favor.
Goose bumps crawled over her skin at the ice in his tone. Crushing the fabric of his shirt under her hand, she took a deep breath. "What would you do to me if I ever did something to make you that angry?"
"The only thing you could do to make me that angry would be to lie with another man."
A quiet statement against her ear. "And you would not do that to me, Elena."
Her heart clenched. Not at the darkness in his words. At the vulnerability. Again, she was shaken by the power she had over this magnificent being, this archangel. "No," she agreed. "I would never betray you."
A kiss pressed to her cheek. "Your hair is damp. Let me dry it."
She stood motionless as he stepped back and picked up another towel, drying her hair with the careful gentleness of a man who knew his own strength far too well. "You closed your mind to me."
"I might not be human any longer, but I'm still the woman who stood against you on the Tower roof that first day." Now that terrifying male she'd met was her lover, and she knew if she gave in to his demands, the relationship between them would be irrevocably, unalterably damaged. "I can't accept your right to invade my mind as you please."
"It is said Hannah and Elijah share a mental bond," he told her, putting the towel down and tugging her hand to lead her into the bedroom. "They are always with each other."
"But I'm betting their link goes both ways." She stroked the arched line of his right wing - rising gracefully from his back. His shirt draped easily over his muscular frame, the back designed to accommodate wings. "Doesn't it?"
"In time," Raphael said, his voice changing, becoming deeper, "we will have that."
She stroked the ridge again, dropped a kiss to the center of his back. "Why do you sound so certain when so many things about angelic power seem to depend on the angel?"
You speak to me with the ease of a two-hundred-year-old already. You'll gain the power.
"That's good to know." She walked around to face him. "But until I do, I won't allow one-way traffic."
His eyes were arctic, so very, very blue she knew the color would follow her into her dreams. "If your mind had been open," he said, "I would've known of Michaela's arrival the moment you did."
Okay, he had her there. But - "If you let me have my privacy, then I won't mind calling out to you when I need you."
His hand on her cheek, a protective, possessive touch. "You didn't call today."
"I was taken by surprise." She shook her head, took a deep breath. "No, I'll be honest. I haven't yet learned to rely on you. I'm used to dealing with things alone."