Archangel's Legion gh-6

by Nalini Singh

  An arrogant smile as he shifted her so his rigid cock pushed against her soft slickness, the clothing between them no barrier to the sexual heat. “Could you resist me?”

  “Push me and find out.” She narrowed her eyes as they shot through the clouds and higher. Higher. And then—“God damn it!” Hair streaming down her back, she stared down at the skyscrapers getting closer at violent speed . . . and felt the adrenaline junkie in her take over, the dangerous pleasure a drug.

  When she demanded another kiss, Raphael’s response was hot and hard. But he broke the connection far too soon. “Hold on.”

  Elena had thought she’d seen Raphael fly. She hadn’t.

  Skimming down the side of a high-rise, he flipped them backward in a spiral that had her gritting her teeth to hold back a scream of exhilaration. Just when they would’ve kissed pavement, he snapped out his wings and swept back up, slicing through a gap so narrow that his wings brushed the edges of the buildings on either side, the early risers inside having no idea the Archangel of New York was giving his consort one hell of a ride.

  That was nothing in comparison to the way he spiraled around the Tower, so fast she thought they’d smash through the glass more than once, then punched into the sky in a burst of incredible speed. “Raphael, watch out for the plane!” They were on a direct collision course with a commuter jet.

  Raphael’s smile was lethal. Shooting past the nose of the plane with inches to spare, he brought them down light as a feather until her feet touched one of the metal wings, the thin film of precipitation slippery. “Careful.”

  Wobbly for a second until her boots gained traction, she said, “Got it.”

  Releasing her, he flew over and across to the other wing, so the plane wouldn’t unbalance. The young ones sometimes do this—they call it jet surfing.

  Elena laughed, her arms spread to hold her balance against the roaring wind that caught at her wings. I read a report once in a newspaper, but I figured someone had had a few too many margaritas on a flight.

  It’s highly discouraged, but I look the other way every so often.

  “Whoa!” She almost slid off when the plane banked, and Raphael was there, his arms locking around her as he lifted off before she could be sucked into the engines. Strong and protective against her, he was her everything and, all at once, she’d had enough playing. Kissing his throat, she whispered, “No more.”

  No response, but less than a minute of breathtaking speed later, they were in the privacy of their bedroom. Tugging off her clothes as he kissed her, Elena then pulled at his own until he got rid of the impediments to her touch, his body heat rough against her own. Hushed whispers and hungry caresses, their language that of lovers who know each other’s every pleasure point, they moved together with raw intimacy.

  Holding himself inside her toward the end, his thickness stretching her flesh, Raphael held her gaze. “Eternity would mean nothing without you. For no power on this earth would I trade my Elena.”

  Heart splintering at the piercing tenderness of his words, she touched trembling fingers to his lips and hoped his choice wouldn’t doom him, this man whom she loved until she couldn’t breathe.

  * * *

  With the donor blood coming into Blood-for-Less being tested around the clock, they had a hit on the tainted donor at three the following morning. Getting out of bed, Elena was dressed and at the blood café within fifteen minutes, Raphael by her side. He hadn’t slept, having escorted a fuming but compliant Michaela out of the territory, then returned to speak to Galen and Venom via a visual link to the Refuge.

  Landing at the back of Blood-for-Less so as not to alarm its customers, they met Marcia in the shadows. When the woman couldn’t get a word out at the sight of Raphael, her fear so potent that Elena saw Raphael’s expression alter in subtle anger, she took over the questioning.

  She’s probably never been near an archangel. Cut her a break.

  It’s not Ms. Blue who is the target of my anger. My angels are instructed to be brutal if necessary to keep their vampires under control, but this one’s record is clean.

  Elena hadn’t realized he’d checked Marcia’s file. You think she was abused? Given the violence and cruelty she’d seen in the immortal world, she hadn’t thought vamps doing their hundred had any rights.

  Damaging a useful tool until it’s too fragile to function is a waste, was the coldly practical answer. It seems I may need to remind certain angels of that fact.

  Sensing that Marcia was failing in her attempt to force words out through her terror, Elena motioned for Raphael to disappear farther back into the shadows and caught his raised eyebrow before he complied. I’ve got a theory—if she can’t see you, she can pretend you’re not here.

  It seemed to work.

  “We’ve had only two other donors in the time since the tainted donor, and the Tower is testing their blood now,” Marcia said in response to her question, the vampire’s eyes turned scrupulously away from the shadows that swathed Raphael.

  “Surveillance images?”

  Proving her intelligence and preparedness, Marcia held out a photograph of a thin young woman with stringy brown hair. “She has the blood that’s been marked as bad by Tower personnel.” The image shook as her fingers began to tremble.

  Elena took it before it dropped to the ground. “You’re certain?”

  Immediately hiding her hands behind her back, Marcia nodded. “I marked the time of each donation and printed out a still from the surveillance footage as soon as the donor left.”

  “Anything else we need to know?”

  Marcia swallowed, but got the words out. “I take sick donors all the time—they often need the money, and blood’s blood. Usually.” Sweat beading on her brow. “But she looked half-dead—much sicker than the last time I remember seeing her.”

  It was possible the carrier wasn’t a true carrier, simply someone who could withstand the effects of the infection for longer. “Can you pinpoint the time of her previous donation?”

  “I am truly sorry, Consort.” Marcia’s teeth began to chatter. “We a-allow anonymous donations so all I can say is that it was with-with-within the l-l-last week.”

  Elena sent the vampire back into her café before she had a fear-induced heart attack, then turned to Raphael. “I hope you terrify the fucker who did this to her, or I’ll find him and personally cut off his balls after I beat him bloody.”

  “An excellent punishment. Be assured it’ll be carried out.”

  Passing the stills to Raphael without any feelings of remorse at the sentence she’d just passed, she set aside her simmering anger and, after checking to make sure the area was clear, went over to the donor doorway. It was a carnival of scents, not unexpected given the number of vamps who no doubt moved in and around the building—the real problem was that the tainted donor was human and Elena was a bloodhound attuned to vampires.

  On the other hand, she’d sensed the presence of the disease in the drawn blood, so perhaps the carrier’s blood chemistry had altered enough to highlight her to Elena’s nose.

  This Marcia is indeed a valuable tool, came Raphael’s voice into her mind. She e-mailed the photo to the Tower as soon as the alarm was sounded and Aodhan is following up on it. Ransom Winterwolf, however, may have the better contacts when it comes to the humans and vampires who frequent this area.

  Elena stopped what she was doing to meet the painful blue of his eyes, extraordinarily pure, extraordinarily lethal. If I bring Ransom into this, she said, keeping the conversation on the mental level to avoid it being caught by the surveillance equipment, and he ends up with information you can’t permit a mortal to have, you’ll wipe his mind.

  You know our laws, Elena.

  Exactly. She thought of Illium’s punishment and knew she couldn’t ask special favors for Ransom. Raphael had already gone far beyond what could be expected of him when he’d permitted Sara into the Refuge. If Elena wanted to protect her friends, she was the one who had to put up th
e boundary walls . . . even if it meant they’d stop being a part of her life. Better that painful rupture than to watch them be treated as puppets by the immortals. Knowing those laws is why I won’t bring Ransom into this.

  You’d let innocent vampires die?

  That isn’t fair. Stepping up until they were toe to toe, she stood her ground. Ransom’s life is worth as much as that of any vampire—and I won’t be involved in stealing any part of it from him.

  Some of the vampires who may yet die will be friends of his. The wild wind, the dark sea, crashing into her mind. Do you believe he’d protect his own life at the cost of theirs?

  She knew Ransom, how loyal he was, how he’d bleed for others, but she was cut from the same cloth. You wouldn’t know about his connections if it wasn’t for me, so this decision is mine. And I won’t bring him in.

  Elena, my city is under a stealthy attack. Raphael’s tone was a blade, his face coolly expressionless in a way that made her want to push at him until he dropped the mask. I can’t allow you to protect a friend at the cost of losing my territory.

  Is that a threat you’ll go over my head? Aware her temper had been hair-trigger of late, she tried to maintain her grip on it. You’d make me an accomplice in the betrayal of a friend? It was a breach of trust she’d never expected. What if it was one of your Seven?

  He isn’t. He’s a mere mortal.

  17

  The cold response was an emotional slap, another reminder that when push came to shove, mortals remained disposable to Raphael.

  Fine, she said, conscious that something precious was about to break between them, a fracture that could never be repaired. You do what you like, but you have to know I’ll never again trust you the same way.

  A faint glow, his wings white fire in the darkness. Emotional blackmail?

  No. No anger now, simply a spiraling sense of incipient loss that made her chest hurt, her jaw clenched so hard that pain shot up her temples. I’m fighting to retain my sense of honor, of loyalty. If I can’t trust you not to abuse the information I give you about my friends, how can you ask me to tell you anything?

  Our conversation isn’t over. Hauling his consort bodily around when she turned back to the donor station, Raphael extended his glamour to cover her.

  What else is there to say? A hardness in her eyes that he hadn’t seen since the very beginning of their courtship. A mere mortal, isn’t that your final judgment?

  No one could push him to the edge faster than Elena, slamming right through centuries of unyielding control. I allowed Sara into the Refuge. It had been an act that went against their most deeply held laws, permitted only because he took full responsibility for Sara’s silence. The others believe I erased her memories. Only for you did I leave her mind untouched.

  That’s supposed to make me grateful forever? A red flush high on her cheekbones, the ring of silver around her irises glittering against the paler gray. Love doesn’t work like that.

  Yet it allows you to turn your back after throwing such words at me? A memory of the question she’d asked that had sent him hunting Jeffrey, a reminder of the poison that continued to act on her, years after it had been introduced into her life.

  He realized he couldn’t allow her to remain blind to that toxic influence. I’m not your father, Elena.

  Her breath coming fast and shallow, she shook her head. Jeffrey has nothing to do with this.

  He has everything to do with it, Raphael countered, thrusting his hands into her unbound hair as she raised her own hands to grip at his arms, as if she would shove him away. We will not go through eternity with you expecting the worst from me.

  A visible flinch, but his stubborn, furious consort refused to back down. That’s not what I’m doing. Her body trembling from the force of her emotions, she said,I know you, and I know how you see humans: as fireflies that live and die in a heartbeat, not worth anything.

  I fell in love with a mortal! Until she was his eternity. Do you question that, too?

  Her eyes widened at the enraged question. “No,” she whispered aloud, before returning to mental speech. Your love is the one constant in my life, but I’m so afraid of what immortality will demand from us, what it’ll steal.

  It can take nothing we do not give.

  Then you need to listen to me. Stubbornness again, her expression that of the warrior she was, one who’d fight to the death to protect those who had earned her loyalty. My friends, they’re my family. I need to be able to protect them—if you take that away from me, you may as well cut out my heart.

  It had been an age since he’d seen mortals as she did, since he’d formed a friendship with a simple farmer who’d come to be a man he trusted not only with his life, but with Elena’s. I have forgotten, it seems, that I, too, once had a human friend I wished to protect. He’d failed, Dmitri’s life torn asunder—and the failing had marked Raphael, too, changed him in ways that could never be undone.

  Then you understand. Elena’s hair shone white in the harsh light that lit up the donor doorway. It’s not safe for my friends to be drawn deeper into the immortal world. Not unless you trust them to keep—

  No. Our laws exist for a reason. And it wasn’t simply because angels thought humans beneath their notice. The games immortals play would break mortals in a heartbeat.

  Silence from his consort, followed by a simple, resolute declaration. Then he can’t be here.

  He can’t be here, Raphael agreed, his mind playing back the memory of the day he’d found Dmitri gripping a blood-drenched knife, his chest a ruin, the other man having attempted to carve out his heart in an attempt to join his murdered family.

  Raphael would never forget Dmitri’s grief and the horror that had preceded it . . . and he would not have Elena carry such memories for all eternity. I will not force you to drag your friends into our world.

  * * *

  Emotionally shaken as a result of an argument she knew had drawn a bright line in the sand of the life she was building with her archangel, their relationship coming out of it stronger rather than fatally damaged, Elena returned to the task of untangling the complicated murk of scents around the donor door.

  Even so focused, she couldn’t forget what Raphael had said: We will not go through eternity with you expecting the worst from me.

  She’d argued against his perception, but now found herself considering if it was true. Had her father scarred her so badly as a child? No, it was far more complicated than that. “The greatest breach of trust,” she found herself saying softly, having moved away from the area under surveillance, “was my mother’s.”

  His eyes told her he knew her meaning. Understood the agony that had shredded her as she stood mute beside Marguerite’s grave, Beth’s tiny hand clasped in hers. Jeffrey had been behind them, his hands on their shoulders, his body their rock, strong and there.

  “I was so angry at him for not stopping her.” Catching a suspicious concentration of scent, she went down into a crouch, her wings on the cold asphalt. “After the funeral, I struck out at him, screaming that it was his fault when I knew it wasn’t.” Her mother hadn’t survived Slater Patalis and what he’d done to her two oldest babies, no matter if her body had made it out alive.

  “You were a child.”

  Elena shook her head at Raphael’s response. “I was old enough to know better, but you know what? Jeffrey never, not once, argued against my irrational accusations. Because he blamed himself, too.”

  She hadn’t thought about those first days after her mother’s suicide for years, only what came after, when Jeffrey’s broken heart had translated into a cold rage that had him erasing Marguerite from the house and their lives. “Every time I think I understand what we are—Jeffrey and I—I discover another facet and suddenly it’s not so sim—”

  Putrid rot, the miasma of death, an undertone of burnt flesh.

  “There’s something here.” Her senses hummed. “It’s faint, hard for me to sink my teeth into even though I can sense eac
h of the notes.” Ugly, fetid, unnatural. “Possibly because it’s from a human.”

  “Can you follow it?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “I’ll keep watch from above.” Walking a short distance away so as not to disturb the scents, he took off and was lost behind a veil of glamour.

  It took painstaking patience to tug on that one faint thread among the dozens that blanketed the area. Blood-for-Less might be on the fringe of the Vampire Quarter, but it apparently got plenty of business—unlike on her previous visit, Elena had heard the heavy murmur of voices from within that indicated Marcia had a full house tonight.

  The deeper she got into the Quarter, the more heavily trafficked it became, the central section a favorite among hip young vamps—and suburbanites who wanted to walk on the wild side without going into the more dangerous parts of town. Leggy models, mortal and immortal, were as ubiquitous a part of the landscape as slickly dressed vampires on the prowl, everyone congregating around the clubs that opened their doors after nightfall.

  No one dared get in her way.

  Keeping her wings folded tight to her back, she made sure her blades were in full view as she tracked. Not that she was afraid of being tackled by a fashionista vamp, she thought with an inward snort. Then again, stilettos were fucking lethal weapons as far as she was concerned.

  Ten more minutes of meticulous tracking and she passed out of the central zone and into the Flesh Market. Most tourist guidebooks told visitors to “exercise extreme caution” in this part of the Quarter. Because while the vamps in this area were as stylishly dressed and as urbane, they were older, with darker appetites. Club Masque, up ahead, had a sign at the top of the mortal queue that said, Fresh Meat.

  And still the young and nubile and stupid lined up.

  Raphael, she said after another block, the stores here shut up for the night and empty of traffic except for a couple who crossed the street when they saw her and a drug dealer who suddenly had urgent business elsewhere. I need to go down this passageway. It wasn’t quite an alley, but according to what she could see with her acute night vision, it was close enough for the homeless.