Archangel's Consort gh-3

by Nalini Singh

  “Raphael,” she said when he released her far above the night clouds, “I’m serious. You can’t expect me to, to—”

  He shifted direction. “Answer to me?”

  “Yes!” she said, changing her angle of flight to follow.

  “And am I not answerable to my consort?”

  The words Elena had been about to say died in her throat. “Well,” she murmured, letting him catch her around the waist, “if you put it like that, I can’t exactly argue, can I?” It was an unexpected, breath-stealing gift, his open acceptance of her claim.

  Blue fire licked in his eyes, his mouth brushing over hers in tiny, teasing bites. Then, will you dance with me, Elena?

  She felt her eyes widen, her stomach fill with butterflies. “Now? Here?”

  Raphael’s hands played over her ribs, his thumbs brushing the lower curves of her breasts. Now. Here.

  “But—” The air left her throat as he bit at her lower lip at the same time that he rolled one of her nipples through the fabric of her tank. Wait. Wait. She had to ask him something before her brain turned to mush.

  Rain and wind around her, fresh and wild and open, the archangel’s hand closing with open possession over her breast. I do not wish to wait.

  26

  God, she was sunk, putty in his hands. Only her discomfort at the question circling in her mind gave her the will to break the kiss, to suck in a breath . . . while the angel dipped his head to close his teeth over the frantically beating pulse in her neck.

  “Surveillance!” she blurted out. “There are satellites everywhere! Won’t someone see?” She was too private, too possessive, to share this moment with anyone.

  One hand stroking down over her back, to her bottom. I am an archangel, Elena. I have enough power to blow out every satellite in the world.

  “That’s not what I—” She cried out as he bit down on her pulse then licked the small sensual hurt, her hands fisting in the thick silk of his hair.

  No one will see us. A kiss that took over her mouth. I used my power to shield us from view as soon as we flew out of Manhattan.

  She bit down on his lip this time. “Thanks for telling me.”

  One strong hand clenched on her hip. “Biting is not nice, Elena.”

  Oh, dear God. When he started teasing . . . Forget about the putty. She was melting into a big old pile of goo. Pushing away in self-defense, she tried valiantly to hover and failed. But she managed to turn her drop into a sweep that drew up into a vertical climb. Show me how angels dance, Raphael.

  A second later, he was there with her, his body spiraling around her own as she climbed, his speed and agility so stunning that everything female in her resonated in response. Mine, she thought, this magnificent creature with his wings of gold and eyes of relentless blue is mine.

  A shimmer in her peripheral vision and then ... sex. Pure sex and temptation and passion on her tongue. Dusting me again, Archangel? Licking the delicious, decadent taste of Raphael’s special blend of angel-dust off her lips, she flew through the fine, fine particles, feeling the wicked caress of it cover every exposed inch of her body—including her wings.

  Next time, I will do it when you are clothed in nothing but skin.

  She clenched her thighs at the sensual impact of that image. It would drive her mad, she thought, that level of sensation. But she’d always known that loving an archangel would be no easy matter. Smiling, she dropped without warning, simply folding her wings and plummeting to the earth.

  She flared them out again at the midpoint, sweeping away in a different direction. Raphael was nowhere to be seen. Feeling smug at having evaded him, she was startled to see angel-dust raining down around her, streaking the night sky in shimmers of brilliant gold. Pushing back her hair, she glanced over her shoulder.

  Her archangel was flying perfectly above her, his wings bigger, a midnight shadow over her body. Not fair, she complained. You’ve had a millennium and a half to learn these tricks. She tugged at the neck of her tank top, suddenly far too hot as the angel-dust worked its way through the material and into her pores to her bloodstream, the erotic kiss of it concentrated on the pulse between her thighs.

  A light touch at her neck and the tank, then the sleeves, literally fell apart in her hands. “Raphael!” I can’t go about having my clothes scattered all over the state!

  Even as she spoke, she saw tiny flickers of blue light up the night and realized he’d destroyed the fragments of her clothing. But that wasn’t at the forefront of her mind. It was the fact that she was nude above the waist. It made her feel painfully vulnerable.

  No one can see, Elena. I promise you this.

  Only Raphael could’ve made her believe that, made her trust. Taking a deep breath, she dropped the arms she’d crossed over her chest and looked around. She had no idea where they were, but it was pitch-dark below, so dark that it had to be—“The sea.” While they’d been flying above the clouds, Raphael had taken them out into the Atlantic, so far out that no matter which direction she turned, she couldn’t see any sign of light, of human civilization.

  Exhilaration burst through her bloodstream, and she thought, what the hell. Do your magic, Archangel. She kicked off her shoes, somehow managed to get off her pants and underwear—though her flight path probably looked like that of a drunken bumblebee. Her clothing disappeared in flashes of blue, her skin sighing at the release. Flaring out her wings to their greatest width, she gave in to the hunger inside of her and rode the air currents with an untamed, open joy.

  She’d never felt as carefree.

  Raphael winged over her, slow and easy, almost lazily, and she got the feeling he was letting her play. It made her lips kick upward ... and then she tasted the angel-dust glittering in the air. Pure sex. The damn sneaky archangel had flown circles around her, until there was nowhere she could go to escape the exotic, aphrodisiac stuff. You realize this is war? she said, licking the dust off her lips, vividly conscious of it caressing every secret corner of her body.

  No answer.

  Her instincts kicked in.

  Utilizing her recent flight training, she did a hard turn to her left and went up. Raphael shot by a bare millisecond later, missing her by a fraction of a feather. As he caught himself and turned to head back up, she swept right ... diving just when he’d come too far to stop. But this was an archangel she played with. He managed to run his fingers over her wings in teasing promise as she plummeted.

  Strong, warm hands closing on the naked skin of her waist. Too fast, hunter. A kiss pressed to the side of her neck as he rose up before releasing her. But when she would’ve turned to fly in another direction, he gripped her again, holding her naked body flush against his semiclothed one.

  Every tiny inch of her skin crawling with sensation, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her breasts to the muscled plane of his chest as he propelled them ever higher. “Kiss me, Archangel.”

  Later.

  Too hungry to listen to the order, she nipped at his throat, sucked and kissed until the hands on her waist squeezed, his erection a pulsing brand between them. Not yet, Elena. There was a hoarse quality to his mental tone, the glow coming off his wings sparking electric blue.

  The sight threw a switch inside her—she wrapped her legs around Raphael’s waist, her wings tight to her back as she trusted him to hold her up. Then she concentrated on getting him to lower his head.

  Bites along his jaw, nips over his throat, suckling kisses on his pulse. When that didn’t work, she ran a hand down to circle one flat male nipple. He gripped her hand, his hold shifting to her lower back, and for a moment, she thought she had him. Then his jaw firmed.

  And he flew higher.

  Higher.

  Until they were well above the cloud layer, at an altitude where it should’ve been freezing cold. Except that the blaze coming off Raphael seemed to have created a cocoon around her—not that she needed the heat, not with angel-dust in every pore and every cell. She could feel herself
lushly damp against his abdomen, wanted only to ride him until he begged for surrender.

  “Raphael. Now.” It was a demand fueled by near-painful need.

  He stopped.

  High, high, high above the earth. Then, his mouth was on her own, stealing her breath. Ready?

  Yes!

  Clamping his arms tight around her, he angled them so they faced down toward the water, and then he . . . dropped.

  She screamed into the kiss even as she felt an electric burn of heat against her and then the warm muscle of his suddenly unclothed body. He tumbled them over and over as they fell, and she would’ve been lost at the first tumble, but he held her in unyielding arms until there was no fear ... only the feel of him—hard and demanding sliding into the melting heat of her body.

  Tiny shocks of pleasure radiated out from that most intimate of joinings.

  Breaking the kiss to gasp in a breath, she saw the water coming at them at overwhelming speed. “Raphael!” A single pulse of fear before he executed a turn so sharp it thrust him soul-deep inside of her.

  An overload of sensation. Crackling electricity across her skin.

  Not fighting the agonizing bite of pleasure, she reclaimed his lips as he pushed them both through the clouds again, his body shifting with each wingbeat to caress her with excruciating intimacy. Clenching her fingers in his hair, she rubbed herself against the solid heat of his chest, needing, wanting, hungering.

  Dance with me, Elena.

  He bit at her lips when she squeezed her inner muscles in a sexual caress, kissing his way across her cheek and down her neck before he took her mouth again.

  Then they fell once more.

  She came apart on a scream halfway through the dive, every nerve in her body igniting with pleasure, with sensation, with the wild exhilaration of dancing with an archangel. Lights exploded behind her eyes, blue and gold and filled with the wicked, wicked glimmer of angel-dust. And all around her, she felt sleek, warm muscle, until she didn’t know where she ended and he began. With me, Archangel. A demand saturated in pleasure.

  But I am not finished with you, Hunter.

  He rose again, skimming so close to the water that she felt the spray cool and wet against her overheated skin.

  Thigh muscles quivering like jelly, she locked her ankles at his lower back, resting her head in the curve of his neck. Too bad. I think I’m dead.

  A laugh, husky and male in a way that shouted sex. It did something to her, that sound, blew air onto the embers of a passion so recently satisfied. Her skin stretched taut in anticipation, and she found herself kissing his neck again, caressing him every way she could. With her mouth, with her fingers, with the most secret parts of her body.

  Elena. His hold tightened. Once more.

  “Once more.” With that, she locked her mouth to his as they plummeted in a dizzying spiral awash in the erotic gold of angel-dust.

  She was so focused on the male who owned her heart, her soul, that she didn’t see the sea rushing up at them until it was too late. Raphael! she screamed as they hit ... except there was no pain, and she was tumbling, tumbling down with her archangel, the water held at bay by a shield of shimmering light streaked with blue.

  Heart thudding triple-time, she gripped his face. “Scaring me out of my wits is not good foreplay.”

  Reaching between them as they came to a lazy stop, he touched the hot, slick bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs . . . and she threatened to fracture. Clenching her inner muscles, she met those eyes so much bluer than the Atlantic. Move.

  One hand under her butt, the other on her back, the archangel decided to obey an order for once.

  Then there was no more thought.

  Raphael leaned on his forearm the next morning as he lay watching his consort sleep. Exhaustion had her limp, her arms curled around her pillow as she lay on her front. He smiled, running a single finger down the centerline of her back.

  She made a sound, but it wasn’t a complaint, so he continued to explore.

  Last night ... She’d been magnificent. Stronger, faster, more willing than he’d ever expected. He hadn’t meant for her introduction to that most intimate of dances to be so sensually rough, but when she’d ridden every wave with him without flinching, he’d given in to temptation and taken her in a way he’d never have chanced with another woman.

  Because immortal or not, they would’ve been terrified.

  “Hey.” A sleepy grumble as she shifted closer to him, until his knee brushed against her body, her wings spreading till one lay across his hip and thighs.

  He ran a hand over the sleek indigo of her primary covert feathers with proprietary pleasure. “Good morning.”

  Her hand came to rest on his thigh below the sheets, perilously close to the part of him that had the most unquenchable hunger for her. “Careful, Guild Hunter.”

  A drowsy curve of her lips, but her eyes were very much alert. “So, you going to tell me what happened last night?”

  He’d known she’d push. That was who she was. As he’d said, it would have been easier were she malleable—but he’d never have taken her for his consort then. “I told you my mother and I always shared a strong mental bond.” He fought the pull of memory, of a time when Caliane had been exactly that—his mother. “It seems that bond did survive. She can reach me even through the vestiges of Sleep.”

  Elena stroked her hand over his thigh, anchoring him to the earth, to the present. “What did you see?”

  “The past and the future.”

  “Raphael.” A whisper so quiet it was almost not sound. “Raphael.”

  A prick of consciousness, of awareness. “Mother?” Eyes opening, he found himself standing on a verdant green field, the sky above him the brilliant shade of a blue jay’s wings, the air perfumed with a thousand unnamed flowers.

  He frowned. This place, it was hauntingly familiar . . . right down to the droplets of dew that sparkled like gemstones against the jade green stalks of grass. But his mind, it was playing games with him, refusing to divulge the name of the field where he stood.

  Crouching down, he broke off one of the stalks, touched his finger to the dew.

  A sigh on the wind ... and her fine, delicate feet walking across the grass, the edge of a long white gown flirting with her ankles.

  His heart stopped beating as he watched her come toward him, an archangel of such piercing beauty that she’d spawned legends and caused empires to fall. Her hair was a waterfall of ebony down her back, thick and wild with silken curls his father had loved to fist in his hands as he kissed her, her eyes a piercing hue that he saw in the mirror every single day of his life.

  Caliane had given him her eyes, her power . . . perhaps her madness.

  But his height he’d gained from his father.

  Rising to his feet, he saw her smile as she came to a halt before him, a woman who barely reached his breastbone. “My Raphael,” she whispered. “My darling boy. How you’ve grown.”

  He towered above her, but even now, he felt the child. When she put her fingers on his chest, he couldn’t move away, his heart aching with a sense of loss that had followed him through time. “You broke me on this field.” He’d remembered at last, remembered the blood and the agony. Remembered the sight of her walking away.

  Sorrow in her gaze, the blue turning to midnight. “I was mad, Raphael.” Said with a clarity that reminded him of the stunning power of a song that had once held the world in thrall. “But I fought for you.”

  He thought of his shattered bones, his body crushed and broken into so many pieces that it had taken a long, long time for him to become whole again. “Did you?”

  Raising her hand, she touched her fingers to his jaw in a maternal caress that threatened to send him back to his youth. “The madness whispered that I should kill you, that you carried within you the potential to transcend my power.”

  Raphael knew his own strength, but he also knew that the archangel in front of him was millennia older, her abili
ties unparalleled. “You are an Ancient, mother. I am yet young.”

  “The youngest angel to ever become an archangel.” There was a pride in her tone that cut him to the quick. “I watched over you even as I Slept, my darling boy. And I see a future in which you will fly far higher than either I or Nadiel ever dared to dream.”

  He was her son. He’d mourned who she’d once been even as he’d tried to execute her. It was impossible for him not to step forward and take her slender body into his arms, to bury his face in her hair and inhale the sweet woodsmoke of home. “You are Sleeping.”

  “No, I am Waking.” Damp against his cheek, a mother’s tears as she stroked her hand over his hair. “I sense a vein of mortality in you, Raphael.”

  He blinked, pulled away, shook his head. Elena. He’d forgotten Elena. How was that possible when she was the most important element of his life? “What are you doing to me, Mother?”

  Her eyes blazed the color at the heart of the sun, so pure it burned. “Reminding you of who you are. The son of two archangels. The most powerful child ever born.”

  Shaking his head, he met that brilliant, blinding gaze. “I have made myself. I will never be your creature.”

  The fire flickered with searing blue. “I will not permit you to be hers, either. You are far too magnificent to belong to an immortal with a weak mortal heart.”

  He knew then that Caliane would kill Elena if she could.

  27

  Elena couldn’t pretend every hair on her body wasn’t standing up on end by the time Raphael finished, but she had other priorities right now. “You broke her hold,” she said, knowing he needed to hear it said aloud. “She couldn’t keep you in that dream or vision or whatever it was.”

  Midnight shadows crossed his face. “It was difficult—perhaps would’ve been impossible if I hadn’t had you to draw me back. She is my mother, and as such, has known me since I was born. She understands how to circumvent my every shield.”