by Nalini Singh
It was then Raphael realized that if one monster came to waking life, it might well strengthen another.
The conversation with Jeffrey, coming as it did on top of the painful visit to the morgue, left Elena feeling as if she’d been beaten by stone fists. It was tempting, so tempting, to go home and hide, just pretend that everything would be okay when she came out again.
Except, of course, that was a child’s ploy. Elena hadn’t had the luxury of believing in hopeless dreams since she’d been a scared ten-year-old slipping and falling in a family kitchen turned abattoir. “Do you know where Jason is?” she asked Dmitri when they exited the morgue.
Dmitri pressed the car remote to unlock the flame red Ferrari parked in the employees-only lot. “Tired of your Bluebell already?” A tendril of champagne circled around her senses, cut with something far harder.
Never had she felt that harsh edge in Dmitri’s scent. She pitied the woman he took to his bed today. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m building a harem.”
Opening the door to the Ferrari, Dmitri braced one arm on top. For a moment, his expression turned probing, and she had the feeling he was about to say something important. But then he shook his head, his hair lifting slightly in the dull breeze, and pulled out his cell phone, checked something. “He’s at the Tower.”
Surprised by the straight answer, she fought off the wickedness of champagne to say, “Can you ask if he’d mind meeting me at the house?”
Dmitri made the call. “He’s leaving now,” he said, snapping the phone closed. “Nowhere for you to take off from here.”
Elena looked up. “Hospital building is high enough. I’ll head up to the roof.” Suiting action to words, she made her way back into the building and up. It was an interesting journey. There were only a few hospital staff in the lower corridors, and the ones who did see her seemed to lose the ability to speak.
Deeply bothered by that reaction from the people of a city she considered home, she found her way to the elevator and pushed the button. Because the staff used it to move beds from floor to floor, the cage was plenty big enough for wings. Then the doors opened on the first floor.
Two nurses, chattering to each other, looked up. Froze.
Elena stepped back. “Plenty of room.”
Neither woman said a word as the doors closed on their stunned faces. Variations of the scene were repeated on the next four floors. It was funny ... except it felt wrong. This was New York. She needed to belong here—though she knew she would never again fit in the same way.
“Hmph.”
She glanced up at that sound to see that the doors had opened on the fifth floor to reveal an elderly man leaning on a cane. “Going up?”
He nodded and stepped in, making no effort to hide the fact that he was staring at her wings as he used his cane to push the button for his floor. “You’re a new one.”
“Very.” She stretched out her wings for him, the knots in her soul unraveling a little. “What do you think?”
He took his time replying. “Why are you taking the elevator?”
Smart man. “Felt like it.”
He laughed as the doors opened on his floor. “You sure sound like a New Yorker!”
Elena was smiling when the doors closed, something she would’ve never predicted minutes ago as she stood beside Dmitri. When the doors finally opened on the last level, she got out and made her way to the roof with firm steps, no longer feeling as if she’d been pummeled to screaming point.
The flight across the Hudson, assisted as she was by strong winds, went by fast. Jason was waiting for her in the front yard, his wings folded neatly back, his hair in its usual queue. It was the first time she’d seen his tattoo in full light, and the detail and intricacy of it made her suck in a breath.
Damaged by Lijuan’s reborn before Elena woke from her coma, the ink had been redone with such perfection after Jason healed that no one would ever know the difference. All curves and swirling lines, it spoke of the winds of the Pacific and the soaring beauty of the skies at the same time. “Where were you born?” she found herself asking, not expecting an answer.
8
“A small Pacific atoll that no longer exists.” There was nothing in that statement. No pain, no sorrow, no anger. Nothing.
The very lack of emotion was another answer.
Letting Jason’s secrets lie, she said, “I was hoping you could teach me some tricks about flying in daylight without making myself too big a target.”
Jason narrowed his eyes, his attention going to her wings. “There are a few techniques you can use straight away, but for the rest, you’ll need to practice until you can pull yourself high above the cloud layer in a burst of speed.”
“Do you have time to give me a lesson now?”
A small nod.
“I flew a longer distance than usual today,” she admitted, “so I might be off the pace.”
“We’ll be moving slowly—it’s not about speed below the cloud layer, but about utilizing light and shadow to your advantage.”
Nodding, she fell into step beside him as he led her toward the cliffs. Evening shadows had fallen by the time he pronounced her proficient enough to continue the drills on her own. “I leave Manhattan tonight.”
“Take care, Jason.” As Raphael’s spymaster, he walked dangerous roads.
He looked at her straight on with those eyes as dark as the blade he carried along his spine. “What is it like to be mortal?”
Startled, she took a second to think, to consider. “Life is much more immediate. When you have a time limit, every moment gains an importance that an immortal will never know.”
Jason spread those amazing wings designed to blend into the night. “What you call a time limit, some might call an escape.” He was rising into the sky before she could answer; he was a shadowy silhouette against the first wash of night.
But his weren’t the only wings she spotted. Does Jason want escape so very much, Archangel?
Yes. His sole tie to the living world is through his service to me.
“Was it a woman, like with Illium?” she whispered as he came in to land with a rush of wind that blew the hair off her face.
“No. Jason has never loved.” Closing his arms and his wings around her, he turned his head to look out over the Manhattan skyline as it flickered to glittering life. “It would be better if he had—then he may have had some good memories to fight the dark.”
Elena tried to hold on to that thought as she fell into sleep that night, tried to tell herself to remember the laughter and the joy. But it was a nightmare that came after her, choking her with the smell of rancid blood and the gurgling whispers of a dead child lying on a morgue slab, the sounds shaped as fine, sticky strands that were very much real. The cobwebby filaments wrapped around her until she lashed out in panic, tearing herself awake to jerk up into a sitting position.
Her hand, she realized after long moments, was clenched tight around the hilt of the knife she’d hidden under the mattress on her side of the bed, the metal cold against her palm. Adrenaline pumping, she turned her head—to see Raphael awake and rising from the bed.
“Come, Elena.”
It took conscious effort to release the knife from her white-knuckled grip. Placing it beside Destiny’s Rose, the diamond sculpture that was a priceless work of art ... and a gift from her archangel, she took the hand he held out, let him tug her to a standing position. “Are we going flying?” Skin jittery, heart pounding double-time, she felt as if she would break apart.
Raphael gave her wings a critical appraisal. “No. You strained them today.” A glance at the wall clock. “Yesterday.”
It was five a.m.; the world was still cloaked in night when Raphael led her outside. He’d dressed only in a pair of flowing pants that moved like black water over his form, while she’d pulled on sweatpants and a white silk shirt much too large for her frame. Raphael had said nothing when she’d taken it from his closet, simply sealed the wing slots with a minu
te flicker of energy so they wouldn’t flap around her.
It was crisp out, making her cheeks tingle. “Where are we going?” she asked as Raphael led her to the woods on the opposite side to the one that separated his home from Michaela’s.
Patience.
Looking around the area she hadn’t yet explored, she realized two things at once. One—Raphael’s estate was huge. And two—they were on a delicately constructed path designed to meld into its surroundings.
Curiosity fought the remnants of anger and fear. Won. “How about a clue?”
Raphael brushed his wing over her own. “Guess.”
“Well, it’s black as pitch, and we’re in the woods. Hmm, not sounding too good . . .” She was tapping her lower lip with a finger when the path curved—to bring them to within ten feet of a small greenhouse lit from within with what looked like three yellow orange heat lamps.
“Oh.” Pleasure rolled through her. “Oh!”
Releasing Raphael’s hand, she covered the remaining distance at a run to push through the door and into the humid embrace of a place clearly built to accommodate wings. She was aware of Raphael entering behind her, but her attention was on the luxuriant ferns that hung from the ceiling baskets, their fronds curled and fine; on the sleepy plum-colored blooms of the petunias to her right; and—“Begonias.” Back before Uram, she’d babied her own until they bloomed proud and lush. These sported brown leaves, pitiful flowers. “They need care.”
“Then you must do what is necessary.”
She shot him a glance, her fingers itching to pick up the gardening implements she could see sitting on a small bench in the corner. “You have a gardener.”
“This is not his territory—he was instructed only to ensure the plants did not die in the interim. It was built for you.”
She couldn’t speak, her chest too tight, too full. Instead, as the Archangel of New York watched with endless patience, she explored the gift he’d given her, something infinitely more precious than the most exclusive clothes, the most expensive jewels. If he hadn’t already owned her heart, she’d have handed it to him right then and there.
Some time later, Montgomery appeared with a steaming carafe of coffee, buttered slices of toast, small bowls of fruit salad, and a selection of tiny pastries. The butler, dressed with his usual attention to detail, was seemingly not the least nonplused at finding one of the most powerful beings in the world holding up a branch while she trimmed the deadheads. “Good morning, Sire, Guild Hunter.”
“Good morning, Montgomery.” Raphael took the coffee the butler held out, and it struck her then.
Home.
She was home.
Two hours later, her heart overflowing with a quiet, intense happiness, she was on her way to see Sara prior to her meeting with Jeffrey when her cell phone rang. Landing on the nearest flat roof, she answered it to hear her father’s voice. “We’ll have to meet tomorrow,” he said at once. “I have an unexpected business situation to deal with today.”
She should’ve let it go, but the abandoned teenager in her struck out. “Family always takes second place, doesn’t it, Jeffrey?”
A sucked in breath, and for an instant, she had the disorientating sensation that she’d wounded him. But when he spoke, it was to thrust the knife into her own heart. “Family is hardly your specialty, Elieanora.”
No—because he’d made sure of it.
Snapping the phone shut, she took off again, her mood shattered. To top it off, Sara wasn’t at the Guild. Frustrated and needing to do something, she decided to head to Ignatius’s apartment. It was unlikely she’d find anything there to explain his bizarre behavior, but—
A feather of heavenly blue edged with silver tumbled down in front of her.
Delight had her shrugging off the lingering echoes of Jeffrey’s taunt. Grabbing at the feather, she craned her neck to search for its owner. But on this field, he had her at a massive disadvantage, her ability to hover and turn nowhere near fast enough to catch the angel Galen had called Butterfly.
Sliding the feather into her pocket to add to the collection she planned to give Zoe, she continued on her way. She glimpsed a whisper of blue with her peripheral vision moments later. “When did you get in?”
For an answer, Illium arrowed his body, his feathers sleek against his back, and dropped toward the skyscrapers as if he was made of stone. She just barely bit back her cry and was pretty sure she was doing a good job of acting nonchalant when he missed a peaked roof by what looked like a millimeter at best and flew back up to hover in front of her, his upper body bare.
“Aw, Ellie.” Eyes like ancient gold coins, even more startling against those incredible black lashes tipped with blue. “No screaming? You stole all my fun.”
“That’s me. A nasty ole fun stealer.” But her lips wanted to quirk, her heart ridiculously soft where it concerned the only one of Raphael’s Seven she considered a friend. “You get stuck with bodyguard duty already?” She and Raphael were going to have to have a talk about his habit of ordering people to shadow her, but she wasn’t going to refuse the protection right this second—because much as it galled, she was a big fat media target at this point, if nothing else.
She’d already had to detour well out of her way to lose a news chopper that had threatened to send her tumbling down into the steel forest of Manhattan. Unlike Illium, she wouldn’t have been able to pull up in time to avoid massive injury. The idiot reporters didn’t realize she wasn’t as strong as other angels—she couldn’t hold her own against the disruption caused by chopper blades as they sliced through the air.
Illium, with his wings of silver-kissed blue and a face designed to seduce both males and females, not to mention his ability to do the most impossible acrobatics in the air, would provide a worthy diversion. The fact that he’d decided to ditch half his clothing was just icing on the cake.
Having shifted position to fly beside her, he now said, “I asked,” answering her earlier question. “I know I’m your favorite.” He brushed his wing over hers when she didn’t reply.
“I swear to God,” she muttered, fighting a laugh, “if you’ve dusted me with blue, I’ll tie your balls in a knot and hang you up by them on the nearest sharp object I see.” The last time he’d glittered blue angel-dust over her wings, Raphael had—eventually—seen the humor in the situation. She couldn’t guarantee Illium’s health if it happened a second time.
Illium dipped low, stroking back up with movements that looked lazy but took considerable muscle strength. “Be nice to me or I won’t give you your present.”
“Idiot.” But he was her favorite of the Seven. How could he not be when he saw her human heart not as a curse, but as a gift? When he would lay down his life for the archangel who was Elena’s? When he laughed with the same easy joy as the children in the Refuge? “Sam,” she murmured, her throat thickening at the thought of the boy who’d been so terribly hurt. “Is he—”
“He’s well, Ellie. We watch over him.” A quiet reminder that for all his laughter and beauty, Illium, too, was a member of Raphael’s Seven. And that he had no qualms over issuing the bloodiest of punishments. She would never forget the sight of him standing in that strange, blooming winter garden, skin bloody and sword flashing lightning-bright as he sliced the wings off angels who’d come to do harm.
“He misses you.”
A silly, happy smile erased the shadow of memory. “I’ve only been gone a couple of days.”
“I made a solemn promise that I would tell you to call him every night. Don’t make me a liar.”
“Never.” Elena adored little Sam, had spent hours with him when she’d been confined to the Medica during her recovery after Beijing. “What about Noel?” The adult victim of the archangel Neha’s daughter, Anoushka’s, vicious craving for power had healed of his physical injuries weeks ago. But those weren’t the deepest hurts.
“He is ...” Illium paused for a long time. “Broken. Inside, he is broken.”
Elena knew about being broken. But she also knew about survival. “The man who survived what was done to him”—blood and meat, that’s all he’d been when they’d found him—“will survive that, too.”
“He’ll have to,” Illium said. “Raphael has assigned him to Nimra’s court. She doesn’t play overt games of power—but even Nazarach does not dare step foot in her territory without invitation.”
Elena frowned, making a mental note to ask Raphael why he’d sent the damaged vampire into what sounded like a deadly field. Nimra had to be both brutal and cruel if she managed to hold Nazarach at bay, and Noel needed to heal, not fight for his next breath.
A chopping-slicing sound. Distinct. Unwelcome.
“Is that—” Her eyes widened at the black dot growing larger on the horizon with every slap of sound. “Damn it to hell!” It was the same news crew that had been hounding her the entire morning.
Illium zipped in front of her. “They dare do this?” His voice was suddenly that of the man who’d amputated angelic wings in cold, clear-eyed retribution. “I will ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
“No, Illium.” She managed to grip the muscular warmth of his upper arm. “No blood, not here. This is my home.”
That incredible hair—ebony dipped in crushed sapphires, startling and impossible—blew back in the increasing turbulence caused by the chopper. “If you don’t teach them a lesson now,” he said as she tightened her hold on him to help maintain her position, “the vultures will see you as weak. You cannot be seen as weak, Ellie.”
Because she was Raphael’s consort.
And weakness in an archangel could be fatal.
“Shit.” Strengthening her hold, she screamed against the wind. “How strong are you?” He was five hundred years old, had survived a deathly plunge into the Hudson, and once glowed with power to her naked eye. But she had no idea what that translated to in terms of physical might.
“Strong enough to break that machine in half.”