Nalini Singh: Archangel's Kiss

Turning, he focused the full power of those dark eyes on her, eyes that could tempt an innocent into sin, a sinner into hell itself. “When,” he murmured in a voice that spoke of closed doors and broken taboos, “have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”

Fur stroked over her lips, between her legs, along her back.

Her skin tightened in response to the potency of his scent, a scent that was an aphrodisiac to one of the hunter-born, but she didn’t back down, well aware he was enjoying having her at such a complete disadvantage. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in New York?” He was the leader of Raphael’s Seven, a tight-knit group of vampires and angels who protected Raphael—even against threats he might not yet see.

Elena was deathly certain that Dmitri would execute her with ice-cold precision should he come to consider her too big a chink in Raphael’s armor. Raphael might kill the vampire for it, but as Dmitri had once said to her—she’d still be dead. “Surely some little groupie’s crying her heart out over you.” She couldn’t help but think of that night in the vampire wing of the Tower—Dmitri’s head bending over the supple neck of a ripely curved blonde whose pleasure had scented the air in a sensual perfume.

“You break my heart.” An insincere smile, the amusement of a vampire so old, his age was a heavy weight on her bones. “If you’re not careful, I’m going to start thinking you don’t like me.” Stripping off his thin linen shirt without blinking—and there was snow on the ground up here for crissakes—he went to the top button of his pants.

“You planning to die today?” she asked conversationally. Because Raphael would rip out Dmitri’s heart if the vampire touched her. Of course, it’d be hard for the archangel to do that—she’d have already cut it out. Dmitri might be able to taunt her body to keening need with that scent of his, but Elena wasn’t about to be compelled. Not by this vampire. And not by the man he called sire.

“It’s a big pool.” He pulled off his pants.

She caught a glimpse of one sleekly muscled flank before she closed her eyes. Well, she thought, conscious of the heat blazing across her cheeks, at least that cleared up all doubts as to his coloring—Dmitri wasn’t tanned. The exotic honey of his skin was inborn . . . and flawless.

A wash of water that announced his entry into the pool. “You can look now, hunter.” Pure mockery.

“Why would I want to?” Opening her eyes, she turned her gaze toward the breathtaking mountain vista instead. Hunters weren’t prudes, but Elena chose her friends with care. And when it came to people she was comfortable being naked with—being vulnerable with—that list was even shorter. Dmitri was in no way, shape, or form in that group.

As she focused on the snow-capped peaks in the distance, she kept an eye on him with her peripheral vision. Not that she’d survive him if he came after her, not given her current physical state, but that was no reason to make herself an easy target. Fur and diamonds, sex and pleasure. The scents wrapped around her, a thousand silken ropes, but they were muted. It was his gaze that worried her right then—that of a predator sizing up prey.

It took almost a minute before he shrugged and dropped back his head, his arms braced on the rocky edge of the natural pool. He was, she was forced to admit as she glanced back, sexy as the most wicked of indulgences. Dark eyes, dark hair, a mouth that promised pain and pleasure in equal measures. But she felt nothing beyond a reluctant female appreciation. Blue was her addiction and her salvation.

A tendril of darkest chocolate wrapped around her.

Rich. Compelling. In no way muted.

She hissed through her teeth. “Turn it off.” Her body grew tight, her breasts swelling with a need as raw as it was unwanted.

“I’m relaxing.” Irritation coated in masculine arrogance—not exactly surprising given who Dmitri called sire. “I can’t do that if I have to control an integral part of my body.”

Before Elena could reply to an assertion she wasn’t sure she believed, a feather of heavenly blue edged in silver floated into the water in front of her. It reminded her of another day, another feather, Raphael’s hand opening to drop silver blue dust to the ground as possession glittered in his eyes. Using the memory to fight the sensual impact of Dmitri’s scent, she focused on the distinctive sound of wings settling behind her. “Hello, Illium.”

The angel walked around to sit on the snow-dusted rim to her right, dipping his legs into the water, jeans and all. In fact, like many of the angelic males in the Refuge, that was all he wore, his muscular chest naked to the sun’s rays. “Elena.” He looked from her to Dmitri with those breathtaking eyes of inhuman gold. “Something I should know?”

“I’ve threatened to kill him for the ten thousandth time,” Elena shared, closing her hand hard around a rock on the rim. Its edges dug into her palm as she fought the compulsion to go to Dmitri, to lick up his scent until it was all she was, all she knew. The vampire mocked her with his gaze, a silent challenge. No matter the sexual pull, this wasn’t about sex. It was about her right to be at Raphael’s side. “And he beat me to a pulp by proxy,” she completed, her voice steady though her body was screaming with arousal.

“In some circles,” Illium murmured, black hair tipped with blue lifting in the breeze, “that would be considered foreplay.”

Dmitri smiled. “Elena doesn’t care for my brand of foreplay.” Memories of blood and steel in his eyes. “Though she did—”

The scent of the sea, a wild turbulent storm, crashing into her mind. Elena, why is Dmitri naked?

The surface of the pool began to ice over.

“Raphael, no!” she said out loud. “I am not going to give him the pleasure of watching me freeze to death!”

That, I would never allow. The ice retreated. It seems I must have a discussion with Dmitri.

She forced herself to think to him, though it was far more instinctive to speak; her heart, her soul, were still unalterably human. No need. I can deal with him.

Can you? Never forget that he’s had centuries to hone his power. A soft warning. Push him too far and one of you will die.

She didn’t misunderstand. Like I said, Archangel, don’t kill anyone on my account.

The response was a cool breeze, the stamp of an immortal’s possession. He is the leader of my Seven. He is loyal.

She’d already guessed what he didn’t say—that Dmitri’s loyalty might equal her death. I’ll fight my own battles. It was who she was, her sense of self tied intrinsically to her ability to stand on her own two feet.

Even if you have no hope of winning?

I told you once, I would rather die as Elena, than live as a shadow. Leaving him with that truth—a truth that would never change, no matter her immortality, Elena returned her attention to Dmitri. “You forget to tell Raphael something?”

Shrugging, the vampire shot a speaking glance to her right. “If I was you, I’d worry more about his blue hide.”

“I think Illium can take care of himself.”

“Not if he keeps flirting with you.” A fine, almost elegant tendril of heat, champagne and sunshine, decadence in the light. “Raphael’s not the sharing kind.”

She pinned him with her eyes, attempting to ignore the twisting warmth in her stomach, a warmth he was fanning very deliberately. “Maybe you’re just jealous.”

Illium snorted with laughter as Dmitri’s own eyes narrowed. “I prefer to fuck women who aren’t covered in prickles.”

“I’m so brokenhearted about that that I can’t put it into words.”