"Hello, Illium."
The angel walked around to sit on the snow-dusted rim to her right, dipping his legs into the water, jeans and all. In fact, like many of the angelic males in the Refuge, that was all he wore, his muscular chest na**d to the sun's rays. "Elena." He looked from her to Dmitri with those breathtaking eyes of inhuman gold. "Something I should know?"
"I've threatened to kill him for the ten thousandth time," Elena shared, closing her hand hard around a rock on the rim. Its edges dug into her palm as she fought the compulsion to go to Dmitri, to lick up his scent until it was all she was, all she knew. The vampire mocked her with his gaze, a silent challenge. No matter the sexual pull, this wasn't about sex. It was about her right to be at Raphael's side. "And he beat me to a pulp by proxy,"
she completed, her voice steady though her body was screaming with arousal.
"In some circles," Illium murmured, black hair tipped with blue lifting in the breeze,
"that would be considered foreplay."
Dmitri smiled. "Elena doesn't care for my brand of foreplay." Memories of blood and steel in his eyes. "Though she did - "
The scent of the sea, a wild turbulent storm, crashing into her mind.Elena, why is Dmitri naked?
The surface of the pool began to ice over.
"Raphael, no!" she said out loud. "I am not going to give him the pleasure of watching me freeze to death!"
That, I would never allow.The ice retreated.It seems I must have a discussion with Dmitri.
She forced herself to think to him, though it was far more instinctive to speak; her heart, her soul, were still unalterably human.No need. I can deal with him.
Can you? Never forget that he's had centuries to hone his power.A soft warning.Push him too far and one of you will die.
She didn't misunderstand.Like I said, Archangel, don't kill anyone on my account.
The response was a cool breeze, the stamp of an immortal's possession.He is the leader of my Seven. He is loyal.
She'd already guessed what he didn't say - that Dmitri's loyalty might equal her death.I'll fight my own battles. It was who she was, her sense of self tied intrinsically to her ability to stand on her own two feet.
Even if you have no hope of winning?
I told you once, I would rather die as Elena, than live as a shadow.Leaving him with that truth - a truth that would never change, no matter her immortality, Elena returned her attention to Dmitri. "You forget to tell Raphael something?"
Shrugging, the vampire shot a speaking glance to her right. "If I was you, I'd worry more about his blue hide."
"I think Illium can take care of himself."
"Not if he keeps flirting with you." A fine, almost elegant tendril of heat, champagne and sunshine, decadence in the light. "Raphael's not the sharing kind."
She pinned him with her eyes, attempting to ignore the twisting warmth in her stomach, a warmth he was fanning very deliberately. "Maybe you're just jealous."
Illium snorted with laughter as Dmitri's own eyes narrowed. "I prefer to f**k women who aren't covered in prickles."
"I'm so brokenhearted about that that I can't put it into words."
The force of Illium's laughter almost tumbled him into the water. "Nazarach's arrived,"
he finally managed to say to Dmitri - even as he ran a strand of Elena's hair through his fingertips. "He wants to talk to you about the extension of a Contract as punishment for an escape attempt."
Dmitri's face betrayed nothing as he rose from the water with an inherently sensual grace. This time, Elena kept her eyes open, refusing to lose the silent battle of wills. His body was a sweep of smooth sun-kissed skin over pure muscle, muscle that flexed with power as he began to pull on his pants.
His eyes met hers as he zipped them up, diamonds and fur and the unmistakable musk of raw sex wrapping around her throat like a necklace . . . or a noose. "Until next we meet."
The scent faded. "Let's go." It was directed at Illium, the tone one of command.
Elena wasn't the least surprised when Illium rose to his feet and left with a simple good-bye. The blue-winged angel might mess with Dmitri, but it was clear that he - like the rest of the Seven, the members she'd met at least - would follow him without question.
And for Raphael, each and every one would lay down his life in the blink of an eye.
The water rippled away from her in the wash of wind caused by an angel's landing.
The scent of the sea, the rain, clean and wild on her tongue.
She felt her skin go taut, as if it was suddenly too small to contain the fever within.
"Come to tease me, Archangel?" His scent had always spoken to her hunter senses, even before they became lovers. Now . . .
"Of course."
But when she turned her head to meet his gaze as he came to crouch on the rim, what she saw made her breath catch in her throat. "What?"
Reaching forward, he pulled out the plain silver hoops in her ears. "These are now a lie."
He closed his hand and when it opened it again, silver dust fell to sparkle on the steaming water.
"Oh." Unadorned silver was for the unattached - male or female. "I hope you have replacements," she said, turning - her wings wonderfully waterlogged - so she could brace her arms on the ledge and face him. "Those were from a market in Marrakesh."
He opened his other hand and a different pair of hoops shimmered back at her. Still as small, still as practical for a hunter, but a beautiful, wild amber. "You are now," he said, putting them in her ears, "well and truly entangled."
She stared at the ring finger of his hand, possessiveness a raging storm inside of her.
"Where's your amber?"
"You haven't made a gift of it yet."
"Find a piece to wear until I can get you something." Because he wasn't free, wasn't open to invitation from those who would sleep with an archangel. He belonged to her, to a hunter. "I wouldn't want to get blood on the carpet killing all those simpering vampire floozies."
"So very romantic, Elena." His tone was clear, his expression unchanged, but she knew he was laughing at her.
So she splashed him. Or tried to. The water froze between them, a sculpture of iridescent droplets. It was an unexpected gift, a glimpse into the heart of the boy Raphael must've once been. Reaching out, she touched the frozen water . . . only to find it wasn't frozen.
Wonder bloomed. "How're you keeping it like this?"
"It's a child's trick." The breeze flirted with his hair as the water settled. "You'll be able to control such small things when you're a little older."