Nalini Singh - Archangel's Consort

Twisting so that she faced the last known position of the creature, she beat her wings up and sliced out with the short sword. A scream of rage and the thick, pungent odor of body fluids told her she’d scored a hit. Her elation lasted only an instant—before agony blazed down her left side and she realized the creature had spit at her again.

It felt like her flesh was being peeled off her bones. Tears streamed down her face though she tried to fight them, knowing she couldn’t give in to any vulnerability. Then her left wing began to drag, and she knew the acid had hit something vital. Fighting to keep herself afloat, she slammed into a wall inside the hole, felt the roughness of it scrape away the skin on her arms, her face, to expose her flesh to the air.

A second after that, she heard the slithering below.

Jesus. Swallowing, she beat her good wing faster in an effort to rise, but only succeeded in slowing her momentum a little. Archangel, if you have something up your sleeve, now would be the time.

A slam of crashing noise and then light, so bright that it made her cry out, shade her eyes with her uninjured arm as rocks and stone ... and wetter, slimier things, rained down from above. Ducking to the side, she scrabbled at the coarseness of unfinished stone as one wing collapsed completely. “Raphael! Down here!”

A nail tore off her finger, another, blood slicking over her skin. Hurry!

Strong hands clamping over her shoulders. Two seconds later, she was being hauled out through a gaping hole where there had once been a door. Blinking against the sudden light, she tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out past gritted teeth, the agony on her left side starting to crawl to the right.

Raphael brushed the hair off her face. “I have you, Elena. I have you.” The warmth from his hands began to soak into her skin, chasing out the vicious pain that made her feel as if her organs were caught in a massive grinder.

Giving in to the need, she buried her face against his chest and fisted her hand in his damp shirt as he used his power to heal her. He was big and strong and warm, and she wanted to strip him to the skin and wrap herself around him until nothing could touch either of them. Sucking in a breath when his hand brushed her still-burning hip, she set her jaw, holding on with a white-knuckled grip.

Sooner than she’d expected, the pain was nothing but a memory.

“How bad is it?” she asked against his chest. “My wing?” It felt dead, gone. No, please no.

His arms around her. “The creature’s poison was not as badas Anoushka’s.”

“Not reassuring, Archangel.”

“Your wing was paralyzed, not damaged—the acid didn’t have time to eat through the tendon and bone. You’ll be able to fly again in a few minutes.”

So relieved that she was shaking, she pulled away to sit up—and got a good look at her side. Her clothing had been eaten away in spots large and small to expose her flesh. And it was flesh, the skin having been burned to nothingness by the acid. Bone gleamed white through one section and the sight of it made her want to retch.

Tensing her stomach against the urge, she wiped off her tears and blew out a breath. “Not as bad as it could’ve been.”

“They go for the eyes,” Illium said, sounding coherent and functional as he stood guarding the gaping hole in the stone below the dais, his sword in hand. “Good thing it was dark in there or your eyeballs would’ve been leaking down your face by now.”

Elena stared at him. “Thank you for that cheerful thought.”

The damn blue-winged idiot winked at her, those astonishing lashes closing over one golden eye.

“Raphael, can we kill him now?” she muttered, trying not to think about the fact that she had holes seared into her flesh.

Raphael’s bones cut against his skin as he helped her to her feet. “Not yet, Elena. We may have need of him.” It was said with such frigid calm that for a moment, she thought he’d taken her seriously.

Then she followed the direction of his gaze into the dark maw of the chamber where she’d been trapped. “No.” She gripped his arm. “You’re not going in there.”

A glance so arrogant, she knew most beings—mortals and immortals both—would’ve fallen to their knees in submission. “Leave me, Guild Hunter. Illium will take you to the roof, to safety.”

“Sire—” Illium began, no hint of laughter in his expression now.

“Illium.” A single word. A command.

Illium looked as if he wanted to argue, but in the end, he bowed his head. However, Elena wasn’t one of Raphael’s Seven. She didn’t have to obey his orders. Moving around to face him, she folded her arms. “If your mother is so powerful,” she said, “then she can meet us out here just as well as in that pit.”

“Caliane is not used to coming to anyone.”

She raised an eyebrow and hoped like hell her next words wouldn’t get them killed. “Or maybe she’s only powerful when she has her prey trapped and alone. You’ve never had trouble facing anyone down in the full light of day.”

The temple shook at her feet, trembling so hard she almost tumbled into Raphael. For a moment, she was afraid the entire structure would collapse, burying them. But she’d forgotten that Caliane was a goddess in Amanat—and that her people slept vulnerable beneath the stone roof.

When the trembling stopped, everything was as it had always been. Except that Raphael and Illium had their eyes trained on the dais. On what had appeared atop the stone.

Raphael strode up to what he now realized was an altar,aware of his consort and Illium coming to stand beside him, their swords drawn. But his attention was on the stone slab before him. Six feet long and three feet wide, perhaps as deep, it was a cool pale grey and free of ornamentation. Like the door below, the slab appeared seamless, but unlike the door, he didn’t know how to unlock this puzzle.

Raphael.

Placing his palm on the stone that should’ve been cold but instead held a lingering warmth, he dropped his shields a fraction. Mother.

There was no answer, but he knew . . . “She is awake.” It was too late to kill her while she lay weak and vulnerable.

Could you have done such a thing, Raphael?

Her voice, that beautiful, haunting voice, it penetrated to his very bones, stripped him bare. I am an archangel.

Yes. Such pride in that single word, a wonder of words unsaid. You are the son of two archangels.

He spread his fingers over the stone. Are you sane, Mother?

Laughter in his mind, painful in its familiarity. Is any immortal ever truly sane?

The temple shuddered again, but this time, it was different, dust and rock raining down from the ceiling. Raphael felt the touch of death an instant before he sensed the power of another archangel. “Lijuan is here.”

“Wait!” Elena grabbed his arm when he would’ve turned, headed out. “I can taste your mother’s scent in the air—exotic and rich and sensual. Black orchids.”

“I must go, Elena.”

“But it’s leavened with a strange, unexpected note of sunflowers.” Her fingers clenched on his arm. “There were no sunflowers on the body of the tortured girl, on the bridge, on the vampires who went mad in Boston. The scent was too pure, too much the essence. Do you see? ”

Thank you, Guild Hunter. He was already moving, Elena and Illium running across the temple floor behind him.

They exited out into the streets of Amanat to see the Archangel of China in physical form, throwing arrows of power at the temple building. Each bolt was black. There was nothing inherently evil in black—all of Jason’s abilities manifested in that midnight shade—but Lijuan’s power was riddled through with a rotten core that made Raphael recoil.