Angels' Flight (guild hunter)

by Nalini Singh

  It had been the first time she’d asked him to fly her since she’d arrived in this burgeoning city, and it had felt like coming home, the scent of him familiar enough to hurt. She hadn’t wanted to release him when they’d returned to the Tower, and he’d held her a fraction too long, too. But though his need had been raw, unhidden, he’d stepped back, stepped away.

  Her lips tingled with a hunger that was beginning to claw into her very bones.

  “Sweet Jessamy.”

  Trace’s silken purr whispered into her mind, reminding her of the evening past. In spite of the fact that Galen had set her free, she’d felt the betrayal keenly—and yet she’d known she must accept the vampire’s kiss. No blood, only a simple play of mouths. Trace was an expert in sensuality, and it had been a pleasant experience, but her heart hadn’t thudded in her throat; her blood hadn’t burned. All she’d been able to think was, He feels wrong.

  In that instant, she’d understood any male but Galen would feel wrong.

  Trace was no fool. Stepping back, he’d put his fingers under her chin and tipped up her face. “So,” he’d said in that voice meant for midnight sins, “you do belong to him.” A wicked smile. “Just as well. I don’t fancy getting my bones broken into tiny pieces.”

  Catching a feather that floated down from above, she saw it was white streaked with gold. Raphael. The archangel had returned late last night, spent candlelit hours with Galen and Dmitri in his study. It was clear to her that Galen was becoming an ever more integral part of Raphael’s Tower. There was a chance he would not want to return to the Refuge.

  If he didn’t…

  Jessamy felt nothing but joy at the freedom that had allowed her to see the world, to fly the skies, but the Refuge was her home. Her books were there, the histories she was charged with keeping. And oh, how she missed the children. There were no children in the Tower.

  A wave of wind, feathers of white-gold on the edge of her vision as Raphael folded away his wings. “What will you write in your histories about my territory?”

  “That it’s a place as wild, and with as much promise, as you.” He was an archangel, but he’d also been her charge once, and sometimes, she found she forgot and spoke to him thus.

  Raphael’s lips curved, but there was a growing hardness to his eyes—so blue, so extraordinary—that hurt. It was changing him. The politics. The power. “Alexander’s land?”

  “Stable for now.”

  “And you?” Her eyes lingered on a profile that was becoming ever more savagely beautiful, until, she knew, one day soon, no one would remember the boy he’d been.

  “I have a territory to consolidate.” He stepped closer, took her hands. “You are always welcome in that territory, Jessamy—the rooms you occupy are yours.”

  He saw too much, she thought, but then, that was why he was an archangel. “The Refuge is where I belong.”

  “Are you certain?” He angled his head toward the squadron of angels now diving and cutting in the thin air of the clouds.

  Following his gaze, she watched not the squadron, but their commander. Her soul ached with inexorable need, but she knew it wasn’t yet time. “The heart,” she whispered, “can be a fragile thing.” And this love that grew between her and Galen, even in their silence, was even more so.

  13

  Galen watched as Trace left the Tower, dressed in the smudged green and brown clothing of a scout. The vampire was good—Galen could glean no trace of him once he’d blended into the forest. But Trace wasn’t the only one who had noticed Jessamy now that she’d flown down from her isolated perch in the Refuge.

  Galen watched, didn’t interfere… and beat Dmitri into the earth on a regular basis.

  Wiping off blood from a split lip after their latest round, the vampire shook his head. “I must be a glutton for punishment, to keep coming back for this.”

  “No, you’re just determined to be better.” The truth was, the vampire was real competition. Galen left with cuts and bruises more often than not, and Dmitri had even managed to injure his wings a time or two. They were learning from each other, developing into deadlier fighters.

  Pouring water over his head using a pitcher set beside a pail of the cool, clear liquid, Galen pushed back his wet hair and said, “I need to get away for a day, perhaps two.” He trusted Dmitri now, knew the vampire, along with Raphael himself, would watch over Jessamy, make certain no man dared harm her.

  “Another angel wants to fly her”—Dmitri’s expression was watchful—“except he’s afraid you’ll kill him.”

  The pitcher shattered under the force of his grip. Ignoring the blood, he spread out his wings in preparation for flight. “I would never cage her.”

  Rising into the sky, he stopped for nothing, flying hard and fast into the coming edge of dusk. Several squadrons passed him, but none attempted to intercept, as if able to sense the black mood that had all but swallowed him whole. Flying as if he was fighting for his life, he raced the air currents until the sky was a bleak emptiness on every side, the land dark and forested below him.

  Alone.

  After growing up as he had, he’d believed himself immured to such pain, invulnerable to the invisible cuts that could eviscerate. But the love-hungry boy he’d been, he still existed inside the man, and both parts of him bled without surcease at sensing Jessamy leaving him in a thousand tiny steps. Diving down to the ground and the edge of a small stream, he permitted himself to stop, to breathe, to think. Except his thoughts kept circling back to the same thing—Jessamy in the arms of another.

  Rage tore out of him in a savage roar that went on and on, having been held inside for far too long. The autumn chill didn’t settle in his bones as he gave voice to his fury, didn’t do anything to quiet the fever in his blood. And when he soared into the air again, he knew he was going back. If he saw Jessamy flying with another man, he wouldn’t murder, wouldn’t rampage, even if it killed him.

  He’d simply watch, make certain the other angel didn’t hurt her.

  But when he returned, the Tower was quiet, most of its windows devoid of light. No one, barring the sentries, flew in the sky as far as the eye could see, and when he came to a silent landing on the balcony outside Jessamy’s room, he found her door open. He fought himself and lost, entered—to see her walking toward him, as if she’d been about to step out onto the balcony.

  “Galen!” Hand rising to her heart, she halted, the misty green of her long-sleeved gown brushing her ankles in a soft kiss.

  And he realized he’d been lying to himself. “I will fly you.” It came out a growl. “I gave you my word that I’d take you anywhere you wanted to go. Why didn’t you ask me?” Instead of accepting the offer of someone who wasn’t as strong, couldn’t take her as far, keep her as safe?

  A pause, and he thought she was holding her breath. Fear? Blooded warriors had quailed at his temper and he’d unleashed it on the one person who mattered more than anything. His muscles locking, he went to back out of the doorway, but she stopped him with a simple, “Don’t you dare leave like that again, Galen.” Not fear. Fury.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “You left without telling me.” Stalking across the fine Persian carpet of red and gold, she shoved at his chest with her hands, the action having no impact on his stability or balance, but sending a shock through his system nonetheless. “I had to find out from Dmitri.”

  Galen’s own anger smoldered. “I wasn’t aware my presence was needed.” Or even noticed.

  Jessamy had never dealt much with men on an intimate level. The past two seasons had been a revelation. She’d been flirted with, courted, and even kissed. None of it by this infuriating wall of a man who thought he had the right to yell at her. “If anyone should be complaining about being unnoticed,” she said, “it should be me.”

  “Leave me alone with Trace for just a moment,” Galen said, the heated words in no way quiet or contained. “I’d pin him to the ground with my sword, rip his skinny limbs off.”
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br />   “Very romantic.” She resisted the urge to kick at him. “I am so angry at you.” For teaching her about passion, only to leave her to starve, for showing her the sky, only to use those skies to avoid her, for being so stubborn and so male! “You shouldn’t be here. Go away.”

  A rustle of wings, that big body suddenly closer. “You’re angry with me?”

  The heat of him seeped into her bones, threatened to melt her anger to molten desire, but she mustered up the strength to stand firm. “Very.”

  “Good.”

  Her mouth dropped open… and he took it, took advantage, his tongue licking intimately against her own as he ignored the preliminaries to demand a raw, wet, openmouthed kiss. Legs about to buckle, she gripped at the thickness of his arms in an effort to stay upright. Galen made a low, deep sound in his chest at the contact, and slipped one arm around her waist, pinning her to him as he marauded. This was no tender caress, no gentle loverlike touch. It was a primal assault on her senses, a rough need that would only be satisfied with her utter surrender.

  Gripping the side of his neck with one hand, she flattened the other over the thudding beat of his heart, the rapid pace a tattoo that matched her own. And below… The hardness of him jutted demandingly against her abdomen, barely constrained by his pants and her gown. Gasping again, she found her mouth taken even more thoroughly. More out of passion-drenched desperation than technique, she stroked her tongue into his own mouth.

  A sudden, absolute motionlessness.

  And then she was being crushed and lifted until her mouth was even with his and he was devouring her like she was a delicacy he’d waited a lifetime to taste. A woman would have had to be stone of heart to remain unaffected, and Jessamy was nothing close to stone when it came to Galen. She sucked on his tongue, licked over his lips, used her teeth in playful bites that made his chest rumble against her breasts, her nipples tight, hard points.

  One arm locked around her waist, Galen moved his other hand down to sit proprietarily on the curve of her hip, before shifting down to stroke her lower curves, his touch firm, utterly possessive. Gasping, she broke the kiss to stare into eyes gone a deep, smoky emerald. His lips were bruised from her ravaging kisses, his skin flushed with heat. And his hand… “Galen.”

  He nuzzled at her throat, continuing to shape and pet her with scandalizing thoroughness. “Let’s fly.”

  “Yes.” She wanted to be alone with her barbarian.

  The air was crisp against her skin, the night silent, but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking they were the solitary beings out here, not until Galen had flown them far beyond the Tower and toward the mountains in the distance, the world hushed around them. Landing in a small grassy clearing surrounded by trees majestic and huge, he slid her down his body with erotic deliberation, her gown whipping around to tangle with his legs as her body demanded she rub harder against him.

  She went to pull away the strands of hair that had licked across her face, but he was already doing it, his skin rough against her own. Turning her face, she pressed her lips to his palm. “If you disappear like that again, I’ll beat you with your own leg.”

  “You’re a terrifying woman, Jessamy.”

  Shoving gently at him for the tease, she stood on tiptoe and spoke against his dangerous, passionate mouth. “You, Galen. I want you. Only you.” It didn’t matter if she hadn’t had a hundred different lovers, she knew what he was to her—everything. If she’d met him at the dawn of her existence, or at the end, it would not have changed that simple, immutable fact.

  Moving both hands down to her hips, he aligned them chest to toe. “I should wait, I know.”

  Her breath locked in her throat, her heart clenched.

  “But I can’t.” A primal confession.

  A single beat later and she was arching into his kiss once more, arms rock-hard with muscle clasping her close, her breasts crushed against his bare chest, his thighs set wide until she was nestled between.

  Possessed.

  Seduced.

  Cherished.

  If any part of her hadn’t already belonged to him, it became his when he cradled her face in his hands, and whispered, “Tell me to stop, Jessamy.” It was the plea of a man who had lost control.

  It wrecked her that the weapons-master known for his calm under the most brutal pressure felt such hunger for her. “I don’t want you to stop.” Weaving her fingers into the liquid fire of his hair, she tugged his head back down.

  When he said they should return to the Tower, so that she wouldn’t have to lie in the grass, she stroked her hand down the ridged lines of his chest and over the proud hardness that thrust against her abdomen. Only with Galen could she be this bold, this shameless. He made a low, rumbling sound that made her thighs clench, and then there was no more talk of delaying. Her clothing all but torn off her, she found herself spread out on the grass like some pagan sacrifice while he looked down at her as he undid the closure on his pants, a big man who should’ve scared her.

  She parted her legs. “Galen.” Maybe she’d been sheltered, but she was a woman grown, a woman who had found her passionate lover.

  His hand was gentle on her thigh when he came down over her, the touch of his blunt fingers even gentler as he worked her until she was whimpering and so needy it hurt. Chest heaving, he said, “Jessamy?”

  Wrapping her legs around his waist, she rubbed the pulsing slickness between her thighs against him in answer. He gave a shuddering groan, and then he was pushing inside her. She’d heard the stories other women told, but nothing could describe this wild, beautiful sensation of being possessed and possessing at the same time. Crying out at the burning pain as her tissues struggled to accommodate him, she twined her arms around the man who loved her, and breathed in the dark musk of his scent, her wings shifting restlessly against the cool blades of grass.

  A callused hand stroked her leg off his waist, spreading and bending it at the knee. The act opened her wider, Galen’s hardness settling deeper inside her. It tore a gasp out of her, but when he hesitated, she kissed and caressed him until he moved again. Shallow and slow, allowing her to get used to the weight and power of him.

  “Jess.” Muscles strained taut, lips against her ear. “Is it too much?”

  Yes. Gloriously, wonderfully too much. “Don’t stop.” Arching up beneath him with a sumptuous roll of her hips, she welcomed his strokes. He continued to slide in and out so very slowly, but went deeper with each stroke, his mouth claiming hers at the same time—in a kiss that mimicked the carnal ecstasy of their mating.

  The shock of her body coming apart without warning had her breaking the kiss, her head thrown back, the dark beauty of Galen’s wings spread in powerful silhouette above them. He rode her through the clenching pleasure, one big hand squeezing and shaping the slight but exquisitely sensitive mounds of her breasts as he laved kisses down the line of her throat, the other fisted in her hair to arch her neck for him.

  Wrung out, her body feeling hotly, erotically used, she wove her fingers into flame red silk as the final opulent wave of pleasure rippled through her… and held him when he shuddered and spent himself inside her in hard pulses of liquid heat, calling her name at the end, whispering it over and over as his body continued to thrust into hers until he trembled, stilled, burying his face in the curve of her neck.

  My man. Mine.

  Autumn bled into winter and then into the very heart of snow and ice. As the days shortened and darkened, Jessamy spent her nights tangled in Galen’s arms when he wasn’t on watch or leading a night-training exercise, and reading into the dawn hours when he was. It was a time of discovery and play and joy, but for the quiet, creeping knowledge that her big barbarian was being very, very careful not to break her.

  She hadn’t understood at first, too blinded by the splendor of what they did to each other to realize that loving wasn’t only a slow dance. But now that the naked edge of their hunger had been soothed, now that she’d spent more than one night explori
ng Galen’s beautiful body while he “suffered” for his lady’s pleasure, she could feel the taut tendons, the rigid muscles as he held himself back from expressing the violent force of his passion.

  It hurt her that he never set himself free to take the intensity of pleasure he lavished on her, but she felt no anger. How could she be angry with a man who looked at her as Galen did? He might never say poetic words of love, but she knew what he felt for her in every fiber of her being, felt his devotion in every caress, every new wonder he searched out to show her… every secret he shared.

  “My mother has written to me,” he’d said last night as they lay in bed.

  Aware of the painful relationship he had with Tanae, she’d placed her hand over his heart and simply listened.

  “She tells me to return, says Titus has agreed to give me command over half his forces. Orios will remain weapons-master, but I would be his lieutenant.”

  Rising up on one elbow, she’d scowled. “Why would she offer you a lesser position than you have with Raphael?” Perhaps Raphael’s army was not yet as impressive as Titus’s, but it was Galen’s to train, to lead. Even Dmitri, Raphael’s second, bowed to Galen’s expertise when it came to their troops.

  Galen’s smile had held a bleakness she’d never before seen in her warrior. “Because she knows I have ever striven to please her. As a child, I thought if I was good enough, strong enough, I could earn her love.”

  Her smoldering anger at Tanae, having built over the seasons with every small truth Galen betrayed about his barren childhood, had ignited. “You have no need to please anyone, Galen. You are magnificent, and if she can’t see that, then she is a fool.”

  A dawning light in the sea green, until it was translucent. “Magnificent?”