Nalini Singh: Archangel's Consort

She followed Raphael down as he landed in the yard, the light from the stained glass turning his wings into a kaleidoscope of wild blue, crystalline green, and ruby red. You could’ve landed on one of the balconies , she said, too focused on ensuring a good landing to speak the words aloud.

Raphael didn’t disagree, waiting until she was on the ground beside him to say, “I could have.” Reaching out as she folded away her wings, he gripped her gently at the curve where her neck flowed into her shoulder, his fingers pressing into the sensitive inner seam of her right wing. “But then your lips would not have been so very close to mine.”

Her toes curled as he tugged her forward, pleasure blooming in her stomach. “Not here,” she murmured, voice husky. “I don’t want to shock Jeeves.”

Raphael kissed away her words with a slow thoroughness that had her forgetting all about his butler, her body warming with a slow, luscious sense of anticipation. Raphael.

You tremble, Elena. You are tired.

Never too tired for your touch. It terrified her how addicted she’d become to him. The only thing that made it bearable was that his hunger, too, was a raw, near-violent craving.

A lick of storm against her senses before he drew back with a hotly sexual promise. Later. A slow, intimate stroke along the upper curve of her wing. I would take my time with you. His lips parted, his spoken words far less incendiary. “Montgomery will like having you for his mistress, Elena.”

She licked her lips, tried to breathe—and heard the rapid tattoo of her heart against her ribs. Yeah, the archangel knew how to kiss. “Why?” she finally managed to say, falling into step beside him as he walked to the door.

“You’re likely to get dirty and destroy your clothes on a regular basis.” Raphael’s humor was dry, his voice an exquisite caress in the night. “It is the same reason he likes it when Illium occasionally stays here. You both give him plenty to do.”

She made a face at him, but her lips kicked up at the corners. “Is Illium coming to join us?” The blue-winged angel was part of Raphael’s Seven, the vampires and angels who had given their loyalty to the Archangel of New York—even to the extent of placing his life before their own. Illium was the only one of the Seven who saw her human heart not as a weakness, but as a gift. And in him, she saw a kind of innocence that had been lost in the other immortals.

The door opened at that moment to expose the beaming face of Raphael’s butler. “Sire,” he said in a plummy English accent she was certain could turn cold and intimidating on command. “It is good to have you home.”

“Montgomery.” Raphael placed a hand on the vampire’s shoulder as he passed.

Elena smiled at the butler, delighted by him all over again. “Hello.”

“Mistress.”

She blinked. “Elena,” she said firmly. “I’m no one’s mistress but my own.” Then there was the fact that though he chose to work in the service of an archangel, Montgomery was a strong vampire, hundreds of years old.

The butler’s spine went stiff as a board, his eyes shooting to Raphael—who gave a languid smile. “You must not shock Montgomery so, Elena.” Reaching out to take her hand, he tugged her to his side. “Perhaps you will allow him to call you Guild Hunter?”

Elena looked up, certain the archangel was laughing. But his expression was clear, his lips set with their familiar sensual grace. “Um, yes, okay.” She nodded at Montgomery, then felt compelled to ask, “Will that do?”

“Of course, Guild Hunter.” He gave a small bow. “I was not sure if you would wish a meal, Sire, but I have sent a small tray up to your rooms.”

“That will be all for tonight, Montgomery.”

As the butler whispered away, Elena looked with growing suspicion at a large Chinese vase in one corner of the hall, opposite the stained-glass wall beside the door. It was decorated with a pattern of sunflowers that seemed oddly familiar. Letting go of Raphael’s hand, she stepped closer ... closer. Her eyes went wide. “This is mine!” Given as a gift by an angel in China after Elena completed a particularly dangerous hunt, one that had taken her into the bowels of the Shanghai underworld.

Raphael touched his fingers to the small of her back, a searing brand. “All of your things are here.” He waited until she looked up before saying, “They were moved to this house for safekeeping until your return.

“However,” he continued when she remained silent, her throat a knot of emotion, “it seems Montgomery could not help himself when it came to this vase. I’m afraid he has a weakness for beautiful things and has been known to relocate an item if he feels it is not being accorded the proper appreciation. Once, he ‘relocated’ an ancient sculpture from the home of another archangel.”

Elena stared down the corridor where the butler had disappeared in refined silence. “I don’t believe you. He’s too prim and proper.” It was easier to say that, to focus on the humor, than to accept the tightness in her chest, the feelings locking up her throat.

“You would be surprised.” Touching her lower back again, he nudged her down the hall and up a flight of stairs. “Come, you can look at your belongings in the morning.”

She dragged her feet at the top of the staircase. “No.”

Raphael measured her expression with those eyes no mortal would ever possess, a silent visual reminder that he had never been human, would never be anything close to mortal. “Such will.” Leading her to a room that flowed off what she knew to be the master bedroom, he opened the door.

Everything from her apartment lay neatly stacked, slipcovers over the furnishings, her knickknacks in boxes.

She froze on the doorstep, uncertain how she felt—relief and anger and joy all battled for space inside of her. She’d known she could never go back to the apartment that had been her haven and more, a furious rebuttal against her father’s abandonment. The place wasn’t built for a being with wings—but the loss had hurt. So much.

Now ... “Why?”

His hand closed around her nape with no attempt to hide the possession inherent in the act. “You are mine, Elena. If you choose to sleep in another bed, I will simply pick you up and bring you home.”

Arrogant words. But he was an archangel. And she’d made a claim of her own. “As long as you remember that goes both ways.”

Acknowledged, Guild Hunter. A kiss pressed to the curve of her shoulder, his fingers tightening on her nape just a fraction. Come to bed.

Arousal kicked her hard, her body knowing full well what pleasure awaited her at those strong, lethal hands. “So we can talk knives and sheaths?”

Sensual male laughter, another kiss, the caress of teeth. But he released his hold, watching in silence as she stepped into the room and lifted a slipcover to run her fingers over the delicately embroidered comforter on the bed that had been her own, then she moved to explore the vanity with its store of pretty glass bottles and brushes set tidily inside a small box. She felt like a child, wanting to reassure herself that everything was here, the need visceral enough to hurt.

As she gave in to the emotional hunger, her mind disgorged images of another homecoming, of the shock and humiliation that had burned her throat when she’d found her things piled up like so much garbage on the street. Nothing would ever erase that hurt, the pain of the knowledge that that was exactly what she was to her father, but tonight, Raphael had crushed the memory under the weight of a far more powerful act.

She had no illusions about her archangel, knew he’d done it in part precisely for the reason he’d given her—so she wouldn’t be tempted to treat her apartment as a bolt-hole. But had that been his sole motivation, he could as easily have sent her stuff to the dump. Instead, every single piece had been packed with care and moved here. Some of it had been exposed to the elements when her window shattered that night, and yet now everything looked pristine, speaking of meticulous restoration.