Nalini Singh - Archangel's Consort

Instead of landing, he dipped and dived far enough away that she could see him—admire him—before changing direction to come straight to the balcony outside the suite. Walking out to meet him, she shook her head. “Show-off.” Before he could say anything in response, she wrapped her arms around the muscular heat of his body and pressed her lips to his pulse, needing to feel the living, beating heat of him.

His hands tightened on her hips. “I would kill anyone who saw you this way.”

She nipped at his jaw as he walked her backward into the suite. The instant he reached back to pull the doors closed, she jumped up to wrap her legs around his waist, the towel falling to the floor. “Windows,” she muttered against his throat, kissing her way up the strong column.

Carrying her without effort, his heartbeat ragged against her lips, his skin hot, he reached out and flipped the switch that turned the windows opaque. Then his hands moved up the backs of her thighs and up over her butt, his hold raw and possessive. When he turned to pin her against the wall, she instinctively spread out her wings on either side, clamping her hands on his shoulders.

His mouth was on hers before she could draw breath, his hand closing over her bare breast. She tried to meet the kiss, but he was so wild that she had to give in—to his mouth, to his kiss, to the hand he shoved between them to stroke at her damp heat with firm, demanding strokes that had her arching into him.

He removed his hand much too soon, and she would’ve protested if he hadn’t claimed her lips for another deep kiss. Gasping in air when he released her mouth for a second, she moaned as he bit at her lower lip hard enough to sting before taking her again, his tongue stroking against her own. An instant later, she felt his cock nudging at her core.

A single, powerful thrust and he was buried to the hilt inside of her.

She screamed, her back arching off the wall, her nails digging into his shoulders as pleasure short-circuited her system, inner muscles clenching and unclenching over and over again. If she’d had any hope of holding on to even a hint of rational thought, it went out the window when he bent his head and bit down on her pulse. Hard enough that she knew she’d be wearing his mark.

After that, there was only touch and taste and the hotly intimate friction of skin against skin.

Elena lay sprawled on top of Raphael, a surely stupid smileon her face. “Wow,” she murmured into the warm curve of his neck. “That was ...”

He ran his hand over her back, fingers brushing the sensitive inner curves of her wings. “I was rough.”

“That you were.” Nuzzling into him, she licked at the salt of his skin. “It was perfect.” That he’d trusted her with the full fury of his emotions ... Smile growing deeper, she stroked her hand down the ridged musculature of his chest. “When did you get rid of your clothes?”

“Hmm?”

He sounded so lazy and sated that laughter bubbled out of her. “Hey.” She slapped his chest. “No going to sleep.”

I’m the archangel. I give the orders.

Her laugh turned into a startled grin. He had a sense of humor, her archangel, but not long ago, he’d have meant it when he said that. Placing her hand over his heart, she listened to the deep beat that wasn’t yet steady. She should’ve felt sleepy, but all she wanted to do was stroke him, kiss him, feel him warm and alive under her hands. “What happened, Raphael?”

He understood without further explanation. “It was a fatal blow. Even had Keir been beside me the instant after I took it, he wouldn’t have been able to heal me.”

The words chilled the embers of passion. “Lijuan’s that powerful?”

Yes. “But her power has twisted and changed from our last confrontation. It now carries total death, even for immortals.”

“You were scored on your wings and shoulders before the chest hit.”

“I think that type of a glancing blow would’ve killed a weaker, young angel.” His hand closed around the back of her neck, gave a little squeeze. “I’m old enough and strong enough that she needed to strike me either in the head or in the heart.”

“God, Raphael.” The idea of his death made her scrabble inside in panic. “I can’t lose you.” She’d lost two of her sisters, her mother, and in every way that mattered, her father. If she lost Raphael, that would be it. She wouldn’t make it.

“I live Elena.” Quiet words, his arms holding her close. “Because of you.”

She jerked up her head. “What?”

“My mother said even my blood carries your mark.” Reaching up, he ran his finger down the shell of her ear.

“I thought she was being insulting.”

“No.” Raphael thought back to when he’d first met Elena, when he’d first begun to feel the impact of the nascent bond between them. “Lijuan told me you would make me a little mortal and, in so doing, kill me.”

Guilt colored her expression. “I have made you weaker, Raphael. You heal slower—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “I should’ve considered the source. Everything came from Lijuan.”

“I don’t understand.” Lines formed on her brow as she spoke. “You’re saying she somehow twisted the truth? Tried to sabotage you from the get-go?”

“I don’t think she would have thought of it in that fashion.” Moving his hand down to curve around her throat, he rubbed his thumb over her pulse ... over the mark he’d put on her.

Elena arched into the touch. “She does seem to like you in that weird, creepy way of hers.”

“Such flattery will go to my head, Guild Hunter.”

“Someone’s got to keep you humble.”

“Lijuan deals in death,” he told her, her laughter sinking into his skin, an invisible mark of her own. “A mortal is very much alive and of the moment.” Humans didn’t have the luxury of wasting years or decades, their lives beginning and ending in a firefly flicker.

Elena’s eyes went wide, that thin ring of silver not apparent in this light, but he knew it was there, a silent meter of how deep immortality had grown into her cells. “The change in you,” she said, “whatever it is, means you have the ability to resist her powers?”

“Not only resist, but neutralize.” Giving him an incredible advantage against the most powerful member of the Cadre, barring his mother. So long as he managed to get to safety long enough to recover from a strike, Lijuan could not kill him.

Elena whistled. “She knew. She knew that might happen.”

Raphael wasn’t so sure. “I think she had an idea of it, but I also believe part of what she told me was the truth—she did once have a lover who threatened to make her mortal.”

“And,” Elena completed, “she chose to kill him because he endangered her power. He scared her.”

“Yes.” He watched the expressions fly across her face. Such passion in that mortal heart, such a hunger for life. “Come here, Elena.”

She leaned down until her hair created a soft intimacy around their faces. “You worry that you have the seeds of madness in you”—a soft whisper husky with passion—“but you’ll never become what she is. Never. ” Because Raphael had chosen to love when it had seemed the worst possible option.

His gaze was a cold mountain lake and the cool heart of a gemstone. “We may have unleashed a horror, Elena.”

She knew they were no longer talking about Lijuan. “If we’d killed her in cold blood as she Slept, or as she stood weakened before us, we’d be no better than monsters ourselves.”

“Then we wait.”

Three days later, Raphael looked across the semicircle ofthe Cadre at a glowing Michaela. Whatever the nature of her relationship with Astaad’s second, it seemed to be making her happy—for the time being at least. Flanking her sensual beauty were Charisemnon and Astaad himself.