Archangel's Heart

by Nalini Singh

  Not arguing against the manipulation that could save lives, Raphael landed back in the marketplace. People were bustling this way and that in the wake of Caliane's song of warning. He knew that song would reach every corner of the town, Caliane having amped up the voltage without raising her voice.

  The boy was gone, as were his great-grandparents--along with Elena.

  Guild Hunter.

  I wanted to make sure Riad and his great-grandparents got under shelter. She appeared from around a corner even as her voice filled his mind, her wings held tight to her back. Their house is literally just behind the market street.

  Reaching him, she said, "Is there anything else we can do?" Her hands were on her hips and her eyes sharp as she took in the activity around them.

  "No, but I think the people here should be safe until the storm passes." Raphael watched a young man pick up a little girl and run into a shop that was putting up storm shutters. "These buildings are low to the ground to begin with, and most are likely to have a lower level underground, where it's cool."

  Elena nodded. "Riad said he'd take his great-grandparents down to the cool room. That must be what he meant." She looked around. "Let's do a flyby, make sure no one's been caught outside for any reason."

  Raphael took her into the sky, then splitting up, the two of them did a quarter-by-quarter flyover. They found no one in distress, children and elders and the infirm being assisted by the able-bodied, as should be in a healthy town. Clearly, this place had no problems of its own. The fear and horror came as a direct result of the Luminata situated on their doorstep.

  Elena, start your flight back to Lumia. You need a head start. His consort was dangerously vulnerable in this situation. I'll do another sweep, follow with Mother and Tasha. Both of whom were still in the town as Caliane continued to sing people to safety.

  His hunter flew down to check on a child who was being pulled inside a house, swept back up to face him. "I think everyone's inside or will be soon. Maybe we can just stay here until it passes?"

  Raphael shook his head. "Caliane and I may attract the power of the storm." The Cascade acted in strange ways and its effects were concentrated mainly on those of the Cadre. "We can't take the risk of driving lightning down on this town."

  "You promise you'll be following?" Elena asked as rain began to come down in hard stabs that had her wiping a hand across her face.

  "I promise." Raphael had no intention of abandoning her alone in the dark. "I'll catch up to you before you've covered a quarter of the distance."

  After reaching out to touch her fingertips to his, Elena turned and flew in the direction of Lumia, wings of midnight and dawn disappearing into the murk created by the rain and the rapidly falling night.

  Mother, you need to get in the air. The people are safe. He understood her weakness, understood that she was trying to make up for the horror of what she'd once done, singing the adult populations of two thriving cities into the sea. She hadn't touched the children, but they'd died nonetheless. Of sorrow, of heartbreak.

  Are you certain? Guilt in her tone, thousands of ghosts in her voice.

  Yes. The streets are all but empty and the stragglers will make it to safety in the next two minutes at most. We must fly if we are to make Lumia before the storm hits--or we may draw the lightning to this place.

  Caliane's body appeared in the distance, her wings spread, Tasha behind her.

  Waiting for them to pass, Raphael swept along behind them. As he'd predicted, they overtook Elena within minutes, his hunter's young immortal body unable to reach anything like the punishing speed Tasha was maintaining. Caliane had slowed to match her escort, now said, Raphael--

  I will bring her home, Mother. She is mine to protect. Even as he spoke, he dropped down to below Elena. Guild Hunter, collapse your wings.

  That she didn't even hesitate at what could be a deadly order undid him.

  Moving with the wind when it pushed her falling body to the left, he caught her in his arms and swept up in the same motion in an effort to get above the cloud layer, while Elena wrapped her arms around his neck as the rising wind whipped strands of hair that had come loose from the twist in which she wore it, across her face.

  "I hate being a damsel in distress!" she yelled in a distinctly disgruntled tone.

  He grinned because that description would never fit his warrior. "I can feel your crossbow digging into my arm. Be ready to shoot if anything comes at us."

  Laughing with a fierce wildness that spoke to the same in him, she tucked her face against his neck, pulling her body in even further to lower the wind resistance. He took a moment to glance behind them, saw the storm was licking at their heels. When he looked forward, he saw only a single pair of wings in flight. Mother, where is Tasha?

  Flying low. She's searching for a natural lee where we can shelter should we have need.

  Raphael looked down, couldn't spot Tasha through the darkness. Tasha, it's too exposed for this lightning. Head to Lumia. They'd pass the barracks on their way, but those barracks weren't as well constructed as Lumia. The angelic guards should be fine--but they wouldn't be if Raphael and Caliane joined them and the lightning followed.

  The rain became a torrential downpour an instant later, punching a heavy weight on his wings. Having reached Caliane, he saw Tasha come up on her other side, her wings almost crumpling under the combined pressure of the rain and the wind. "Sire!" she yelled to his mother. "Go! I will be behind you!"

  Caliane didn't answer, but neither did she put on archangelic speed. Like Raphael, his mother would never leave one of her people behind. Tasha didn't waste her breath asking again, just flew on, though it was clear she was having trouble maintaining her place in the sky. Elena, meanwhile, shifted up carefully so she could look over his shoulder, leaving him free to keep his attention forward.

  "How bad?" he asked, the two of them close enough that they could hear each other over the noise of the storm without having to shout.

  "The lightning goes on as far as I can see, but it looks like the town's only being hit by scattered strikes. The heaviest mass is chasing us--or it's being dragged toward Lumia." She continued to look. "You think since there're more archangels there to draw the storm, that you and Caliane could land and have the lightning pass over you?"

  "We can't risk it." Neither Elena nor Tasha would survive even a single strike.

  Using one hand to wipe the wet strands of hair off her face, then his in turn, she said, "Then we need a plan B. Because we're not going to outrun it." Her tone was practical, not panicked. "Not at this speed."

  Mother, you need to fly Tasha. Caliane appeared slender, but she was an archangel, had power humming through her every cell.

  She will never agree.

  Raphael spoke directly to Tasha, told her what he'd suggested. This needs archangelic speed, Tasha. Don't be proud and get us all lightning-struck. If Elena can do it, so can you.

  I can't believe you are comparing me to a once-mortal, was Tasha's bitter response, but Caliane dropped below her seconds later and Tasha collapsed her wings so Caliane could capture her. Not in her arms, but in a net of sparkling white power.

  Then he and Caliane flew.

  A lightning strike singed the very tip of his left wing just as he landed at Lumia, Caliane having landed right before him. Ignoring the burn until they were under the shelter of the nearest external hallway, he placed Elena on her feet while his mother released Tasha from the net of power. Tasha's hair was an electric halo around her head, cracking with echoes of that power; her body shook a little, the tremors apparently uncontrollable.

  "My lady," she said, sounding as if she was having to form her words with utmost care, "I think I am drunk."

  "It will pass," Caliane promised, pushing back her wet hair from her face.

  Elena, meanwhile, had turned her attention directly to Raphael's wing, kneeling down so she could look closely at the injury. "Damage is deep."

  He glanced down, saw what s
he meant. The lightning strike had sheared off the very tip of his wing. He needed those feathers to maneuver, couldn't risk being without them--they'd heal, of course, but not at high speed. Wings never did.

  The idea of being grounded in Lumia, even for a day or two, was intolerable but his Cascade-born healing strength, at least the amount he could access at will, hadn't yet regenerated after he'd used it to ease Elena's wings.

  She looked up right then, her eyes shining silver. Take it from me. The words were an order. The wildfire is all about life, right? Test it, see if it'll fix your wing.

  It was a good point--he was used to seeing it as a weapon against Lijuan, but it did taste violently of the energy of life . . . and of his hunter's mortal heart. Let me attempt to direct the wildfire that lives in me.

  That attempt failed.

  He could call it to his hand, could've attacked Lijuan with it or driven out her poison, but it dissipated into his blood when he tried to direct it to his injured wing. It doesn't work.

  You don't know my wildfire will act the same, Elena insisted. It exists because of my love for you. Its only purpose is to protect you.

  When he hesitated, loath to weaken her in any fashion, her eyes narrowed. I accepted being a damn damsel in distress for you. You can be the hunky archangel in distress for once.

  Lips twitching despite the danger of the moment, he used the contact of her hand against his wing to pull at the wildfire that lived in her, as if a rope connected them and he was wrenching on his end. Her teeth clenched, her free hand fisted, but otherwise, she gave no outward indication of what he'd done.

  His mother and Tasha, behind her, had no reason to suspect anything.

  A heartbeat later, pain burned through him as if he was lightning struck on the inside, even as a white-hot glow pulsed off the injured section of his wing. Her wildfire had arrowed directly to the wounded part of his body, his once-mortal consort loving him with a fierceness that was a storm wilder than the one that raged outside.

  Releasing a shuddering breath, Elena rose to hug him tight. He noticed her legs were a little shaky, tightened his own grip so no Luminata watching might guess that she'd literally just given him a piece of herself. And his heart, it pounded like a thousand horses across a wild plain because only now did he allow himself to think how close they'd come to disaster.

  A single strike and Elena could've been erased from the world.

  He hadn't known fear before loving Elena. He hadn't known life, either. Hbeebti?

  I'm good, she replied, running one hand down his back. You?

  My wing is healing. As for the other--love meant learning to live with fear.

  As he released her, his mother turned from where she'd been watching Tasha to ensure her escort steadied with no ill-effects. Her eyes reflected the lightning just beyond the covered hallway. "It appears," she said, "that we may not be leaving Lumia at dawn after all."

  Elena hissed out a breath.

  33

  Pissed off at the idea that they might be trapped in this place with its ugly secrets and its dark whispers and its walls that watched them, Elena stalked through the corridors with Raphael by her side. They were taking a shortcut to their suite that she and Aodhan had figured out, one that involved passing through hallways so narrow, she and Raphael couldn't have walked side by side had they minded their wings overlapping.

  Water dripped from her hair down her back and onto her face, while their wings tracked water through Lumia despite the fact they'd both shaken off those wings before heading to their suite. Not that it mattered--as wet as they were, it wasn't as if they could avoid leaving a watery trail.

  Lumia was eerily quiet around them, though, despite the lightning-seared darkness, it wasn't that late. "Wonder if people are prepping for dinner," she said, one of her throwing knives in her hand without her conscious volition.

  "Perhaps."

  Yeah, clearly her archangel didn't buy that explanation, either.

  Wiping off the water dripping into her eyes, she stifled a sneeze. "Damn it. Shouldn't I be immune to sneezes by now?"

  Raphael's smile made her want to kiss him.

  Instead, she wove her fingers through his, uncaring of who might see. If people didn't know they adored each other by now, they had rocks in their head, she thought just as she turned the corner and saw a robe-clad body crumpled on the ground. The fallen angel lay on his side, his wings exposed and limp, another distressed-looking angel kneeling beside him, his trembling hands hovering above that crumpled body.

  "Ibrahim!" Knife held in readiness against a threat, Elena strode to the downed angel's side . . . and saw Ibrahim's bloodied face, the crushed pulp of his right hand. That wasn't the worst of it. His robe was sunken in on the side she could see, as if his ribcage had been crushed inward.

  She knelt down beside him.

  Sliding her hand gently under his head after putting away her knife because, trained response aside, Raphael had her back, she looked hard at the angel with eyes of dark gray and hair of silver who knelt on his other side. The one she'd met on the lower floor of the Gallery: Donael. "What happened?"

  "I do not know," he said, his features stark. "I've just found him. This is Lumia." His voice shook. "There is no violence here."

  Jaw tight, Elena took in Donael's spotless robe, the lack of injuries on his knuckles or anywhere else on him, and was forced to believe him. Ibrahim's injuries looked very recent from the lack of any apparent healing, and she didn't think the strong young angel would've gone down without trying to fight back.

  Raphael's wing was heavy over hers as he knelt down beside Ibrahim, the warmth of the still-healing tip pulsing through her own feathers. "He is badly hurt," he murmured. "Crushed windpipe. That's what's keeping him under."

  And Raphael's healing ability was wiped out for the moment. "What can we do?" The idea of just leaving Ibrahim to hurt was not something she could accept.

  "Make him comfortable so he can heal. And keep him safe." Sliding his arms under Ibrahim, Raphael rose with the broken male in his hold. Can you scent another angel or a vampire on him?

  Elena tried, shook her head. No vamp but I don't know about an angel. Her ability to scent normal, non-toxin-maddened angels continued to be hit and miss.

  "His quarters are through here," Donael began, but Elena shook her head, her crossbow in hand so she could watch Raphael's back as he carried Ibrahim.

  "We're taking him to our suite," she said, having no need to check with Raphael on that--she knew her archangel, had heard the fury in his tone.

  Donael didn't argue. "Of course, of course." His breathing was ragged, white lines bracketing his mouth. "I don't understand. We do not have violence at Lumia."

  The repetition of the patently untrue words had Elena snapping. "Yeah?" she said, her tone harsh. "What about the violence visited on the townspeople? That's apparently okay?"

  Donael looked at her with a complete lack of comprehension as he tried to keep up with her and Raphael's long strides. "I have no reason to go to the town. There is no peace there, as is oft the case with mortal places. Always moving this way and that, always living their lives in fast-forward."

  The sea rolled into her mind, touched with floes of ice. He is old, Elena. Truly old. He may not ever go into the town.

  Maybe. And maybe he's just a really good actor.

  "Why would anyone harm Ibrahim?" Donael's voice had settled, but his expression remained shaken. "He is a child, one with a calling, but a child nonetheless." A careful look at Raphael. "We have many non-Luminata here."

  "And I've seen Gian and others practicing martial arts," Raphael's consort bit out. "Violence isn't off-limits in Lumia."

  "Controlled violence," Donael protested. "A form of movement to aid meditation. It's different from this atrocity."

  "True," Raphael responded. "But we can debate who it was that hurt Ibrahim later. For now, do you have a healer in Lumia?"

  "There is only the one called Stillness." A
n angling of his head, a pause that said he was riffling through his memories to find the correct one. "The boy had another name once, and under that name, he was a student of healing."

  Aodhan, Raphael said, reaching out with his mind. We need a healer. Can you find Laric?

  I'm with him at this moment, sire. Where shall I bring him?

  To our suite.

  When they reached their rooms, Raphael laid Ibrahim down on the bed he and Elena had moved to the living area, and as he did so, Ibrahim's right arm slid down the injured male's side. The movement was so strangely fluid that Raphael gently pushed up the sleeve of the man's robe.

  "His arm is in pieces," Elena gritted out, her free hand fisted, the one holding her crossbow pointing it safely down and away from anyone in the vicinity. "Like it's been deliberately smashed."

  Elena was right. It was as if whoever had harmed Ibrahim had focused his rage on this one arm after taking the angel down. But the rest of Ibrahim's body hadn't escaped insult by any measure. When Raphael opened Ibrahim's robe and tore open the fine tunic he wore beneath, he saw the man's ribs had been crushed inward, likely perforating his organs and causing bleeding on the inside if the swelling in his abdomen was anything to go by.

  His face, too, was battered and fractured.

  Bruises bloomed on every part of him that Raphael could see.

  Though Donael called Ibrahim young, he had to be over a thousand years old to have been permitted to become a Luminata initiate. "He'll survive," Raphael told Elena, because his hunter knew very well that immortals could be killed. "He may, however, go into anshara." The healing sleep might be the best thing for him.

  Aodhan entered the room without knocking, the hooded Luminata by his side short of stature and small of form with shoulders that were hunched in and a gait that was hesitant. Laric came to Ibrahim's side at once, the hands he placed on Ibrahim's broken body an icy white marked with ridged scars of dark pink.

  Stepping back to give the healer room to work, Raphael and his hunter both turned to Donael. It was Elena who spoke first. "Did you see or hear anything before you found him?"

  A deep frown before Donael nodded slowly. "Yes. I heard muted thumps." Dark gray eyes lingering on Ibrahim. "Such as could be made by punches being thrown into flesh. I did not like the sound, knew it was wrong in this place, so I called out." His hands trembled as he tucked them into the sleeves of his robe. "I soon heard footsteps moving quickly away and there was no one but poor young Ibrahim in the hallway when I arrived."