Archangel's Legion (Guild Hunter 6)

No, not on them. On Raphael.

Okay, creepy. They’re staring at you.

Or something is.

The birds rose into the air in a mass of wings the next instant, dispersing so fast it was difficult to imagine they’d been there as a cohesive force—until she looked at Raphael. His skin burned with cold power, as if a cool blue light glowed beneath the surface of his skin.

Come, Consort.

Heart thumping against her ribs at the piercing ice of his mental tone, she ignored the cringing crew to turn into his arms for the liftoff. He released her as soon as they’d gained the correct altitude, both of them angling toward the Tower in silence. Aodhan was waiting on the balcony outside Raphael’s office, his eyes reflecting the glittering night of Manhattan in jagged shards.

“No casualties or injuries,” the angel said, “no reports of anything except for garbled messages originating from a barge on the Hudson.”

“Thank you, Aodhan.”

Waiting until the angel left, she walked to stand beside Raphael on the very edge of the railingless balcony that looked out over the nightscape of their city. “Archangel.”

“Yes.” He turned, and on his face, the red blemish pulsed.

Again, he was distant. But this time, she didn’t wait. Shifting to stand toe to toe with him, she drew him into a kiss that tasted of the sea and of darkness, cold, silence. Heavy and old, so old, as if the silence had grown for thousands upon thousands of years, until it was an entity that lived and breathed.

Shivering, she pressed closer, her br**sts crushed against his chest, his hand fisted in her hair. It wasn’t until she broke the passionate ice of the kiss, her chest spiderwebbed with frost, that she saw. “Your irises”—that incredible, unearthly blue—“they’re black.”

“A temporary effect.” Raphael could feel the darkness as it crawled through him, chill and drenched with a strange, potent power. It sank into his cells, an intruder the angelfire inside him attempted to eliminate.

He fought his instincts, knowing he needed to own this power, hold it—except it threatened to own him. Even now, his blood felt as if it crystallized into frost, his view of the world filtered through a layer of chilling remoteness, until only Elena was drenched in color. Vibrant and alive and with the wings of a warrior, she burned against a backdrop of gray, the rest of the world meaning nothing to him.

If he needed to obliterate this city to win the war, it would be an inconvenience that could later be remedied. Millions would die, but he was an immortal, knew others would replace them given enough time. All that mattered was the power, holding on to it, shaping it, becoming it.

Fingers on his cheeks, the silver ring around Elena’s irises liquid fire in the night. “No.” It was a deadly quiet word. “It can’t have you. You’re mine.”

And he knew. Shoving Elena behind him so she wouldn’t unbalance and fall, he rose into the sky, high above the clouds, past where even Illium or Aodhan could fly. Land! It was an order blasted out to every single angel in the vicinity.

Then, and with only the slightest hesitation at the loss of the profound violence of power, he released the dark matter of it in a lightning storm that cracked the sky.

• • •

Elena fought the screaming urge to go to Raphael, the need a raw compulsion in her chest as she tried to use the sense of reason she hadn’t used earlier. Not only were her wings in bad shape, she’d be struck down by a lightning strike within seconds of takeoff. There was too much of it in the air to avoid.

She could see angels landing wherever they could all over the city, many who’d been up high simply folding their wings so they’d plummet closer to the ground in an attempt to outrace the lightning, before snapping out their wings at the last minute. She witnessed a few close calls but no injuries, Raphael’s warning having come in just enough time, but her archangel, he burned in the center of a cold white storm.

“Ellie.” Illium’s hand on her nape, Aodhan on her other side. “The Sire has gained another ability.”

No, she thought, he’d just rejected one, but kept her silence.

An hour, an eon later, there was no more lightning in the sky and Raphael winged down to hold out a hand toward her. Taking it, she stepped off the edge, their hands parting as she swept around to fly side by side with him, heading homeward—though she was dead certain he had her in his sights the entire time, ready to catch her if her injured wing threatened to collapse. But she made it home, where Raphael used his healing ability to ameliorate the damage.

She wouldn’t have been surprised if the reminder of her injury, and how it had come about, reignited his temper, but he sent his power into her in silence, the warmth of it an embrace. “You’ll be fine now, Guild Hunter.” A kiss on the back of her neck.

Skin heating in response, she turned in his arms, the glow from the library fireplace gilding them both in gold. “Talk to me, Archangel.” If she had a tendency to shut down, pretend things didn’t matter, then Raphael had the habit of handling everything himself. Not surprising, given his status as an archangel, but he had her now.

Walking to the square crystal decanter on a side table, he poured a splash of amber liquid into a tumbler and threw the liquor back in a single hit. Alcohol didn’t affect angels as it did humans, and it had no effect on Raphael, but he’d told her he liked the kick of heat, the taste. “If this is the emergence of a new power,” he said, the fire reflecting off the faceted tumbler, “then it’s one I cannot control.”

Taking the tumbler from him when his fingers tightened, threatening to turn the crystal to dust, she put it down. “You’ve only had two chances to—”

“It changes me,” he said, cutting through her words. “You sensed it attempting to take control. You were right.” His fingers clenched on the mantelpiece, his wings arcing to the floor in a display of white fire. “I could murder millions in the grip of it and not blink.”

Her stomach lurched, her eyes rising from the stunning beauty of his wings to his face. “Drop the glamour.” The instant he did, she swore.

Striding over, she traced the dark red with a fingertip. “It’s grown.” Not only that but it had curved with a jagged edge, the line thicker, darker. “This can’t be coincidence—it’s linked to the power fluctuations in some way.”

Raphael shoved away from the mantel. “It matters nothing, not when to utilize the power, I must allow it to erase my personality. I may as well give the city to Lijuan if the Raphael who rules it is one forever in the Quiet.”