Staring at the strange near mirage, she set her jaw and lifted the steel in her hand. “Go to hell.” A soft whisper as she threw.
25
The knife sliced through the air to dig home in the opposite wall, the hilt quivering at the impact. The mirage, though it didn’t disappear . . . sort of fractured. That was when she caught the whisper of a scent that shouldn’t have been there.
Lush, sensual, exotic.
Black orchids, but it was somehow different from what she’d sensed on the murdered girl’s body, on the men hanging from the bridge.
But there was no time for her to process the notes, because a split second after the fracture, a wing was rising under her touch. Moving so fast she couldn’t track him with her eyes, Raphael was up and standing beside the bed, the white-hot glow of him so vivid as to erase the lines of his form, to turn him into a blazing torch. Stunned, Elena threw a hand over her eyes and ducked her head in preparation for crawling out of bed so she could retrieve the weapons she’d hidden underneath, do what she could to assist.
But one blink and the blinding heat of his power was gone.
Looking up, hand itching for a weapon, she saw that the thing in the center of the room had disappeared, no hint of black orchids in the air. But she didn’t drop her guard until Raphael said, “My mother is no longer here, Elena.” There was a remoteness to his voice she didn’t like.
Pushing off the blankets, she began to slide out.
Raphael was already pulling on a pair of pants over that magnificent body. “I’ll be back before dawn. She will not return tonight.”
“Wait!”
He didn’t even pause at the balcony doors, pushing them wide open. She managed to cover the distance just in time to see him disappear into the starry night sky, flying so far and fast that she lost track of him in the space of a few piercing seconds. Anger stabbed through her, hot and determined. Damn if he was going to do this—especially after the intimacy of the moments they’d shared not only tonight, but since she’d woken from the coma, after the bonds they’d forged.
Stalking back into the bedroom, she pulled on her own pants, slapped on one of the supportive tank tops that had been designed to fit around her wings using straps, then slid on the warm, lined sleeves that fit snugly over her upper arms and left her hands free. She was back on the balcony bare minutes after he’d taken off, very conscious of the tendrils of dark chocolate and fur curling beneath the bedroom door as the male behind the scents got ever closer—Dmitri had come over for a late meeting with Raphael, opted to stay the night in one of the rooms reserved for the Seven.
Now, it was clear Raphael had told him to watch over Elena.
That, too, she thought with teeth-gritting focus, was going to stop.
Looking down, she realized she had no hope of making a flight from her current position, not with her concentration shot to smithereens. So instead, she jumped over the balcony, using her wings to slow her descent. Then she ran through the trees at the edge of the cliff to dive out over the Hudson, beating her wings—stronger, more resilient—hard and fast to sweep herself up off the choppy water and into the clear beauty of the night sky, the stars sparkling ice on black velvet.
The wind was cool against her skin, liquid soft over her wings. Below her, Manhattan was a midnight sea scattered with glittering jewels. New York. It could be a hard place, a hard city. Just like the archangel who ruled it.
But it was home.
As the archangel was hers.
Raphael.
She made the effort to arrow the thought only to him, having worked with him over the past few days to fine-tune what mental abilities she already seemed to have. According to Raphael, she’d gain other abilities with time, and she was happy with that—she had more than enough on her plate right now without having to deal with some unexpected superpower.
No response, but some tug in her soul made her turn, head roughly in the direction of Camden, New Jersey. Raphael had bonded to her on some level deeper than the heart. The hunter she’d once been would’ve scoffed at such thoughts, but that was before she’d tasted the golden pleasure of ambrosia as Raphael fed it into her mouth, as he kissed immortal life into her dying body.
Who was to say that such an act wouldn’t have even deeper consequences?
Go home, Elena.
Startled, she dipped and glanced over her shoulder to see Raphael in the sky high above her. We’ll be going home together.
You can’t hope to keep up with me. Such arrogance in those words, but that made them no less true.
Instead of answering, she continued to fly, riding the night winds to give herself a break when she could. Some time later, they left the last edges of the cityscape behind, the streetlights below them speaking of quiet neighborhoods locked up in the arms of sleep.
A sweep of air against her face as her archangel shot down in front of her before rising with heart-stopping speed. He’d shown off for her before. But this wasn’t play. This was an archangel pointing out how very puny she was in the scheme of things. Newsflash, Archangel. I already know I’m as weak as a baby compared to you. Hasn’t stopped me from dancing with you anytime yet.
As the words left her mouth, she remembered something else, a sensual promise he’d made to her at the Refuge. You said you would show me how angels dance.
I am in no mood to be gentle, Guild Hunter.
She raised an eyebrow. Consort.
You’re tiring. I can see your wings beginning to falter.
Cursing under her breath because he was right, she looked for a place to land. When her eyes lit on a thick branch high above the ground, the tree situated in what looked like a deserted local park, she dropped without hesitation. Maybe she’d break some bones, but hell, she was training so freaking hard for a reason—playing it safe wasn’t it.
At the last minute, right when she knew she was assuredly going to break some bones, Raphael slipped into her mind and corrected her angle of descent so that she was able to grab the branch and pull herself up to straddle it without damage. She glared in his direction. Stop taking over whenever you feel like it.
A dangerous pause. Would you have preferred to spend the next few weeks in a cast?
I’d prefer to learn to do this myself.
Yet you attempt to pierce the clouds when you can barely fly in a straight line.
Anger bubbled through her bloodstream. Come down here and say that to my face.
Her hair whipped back in a gust of wind an instant later, and then Raphael was hovering next to her branch, the angles of his face starkly masculine, his eyes blazing that metallic chrome that never augured anything good. “You shouldn’t be flying such long distances, much less hunting,” he said with the arrogance of an immortal who had lived well over a thousand years. “You need to spend another few years at the Refuge at the very least.”