Strong, wet hands on her waist. “How much does it hurt?” Sensual lips, eyes full of a dark male promise, but his expression made it clear they’d be doing nothing interesting until she came clean.
Blowing out a breath, she pointed to a rib. “That one hurts but not so much that it bothered me while we were engaging in gymnastics in the bedroom.” The near-painful hunger to touch, to take and be taken had wiped out every other sensation, every other need. “My left wing is tender—I might’ve strained something.” She held up her palms. “The cuts seem to be healing.”
Raphael raised his hand, blue fire licking over his palm. Her stomach went taut at the reminder of the sheer power he carried within. But this flame, it was nothing that would harm. When he placed his hand against her ribs, all she felt was a warmth so deep it infiltrated her very bones.
“Oh!” The soft cry escaped her lips as the sensation spread in a burst of electric heat, arrowing to the places where she hurt the most—but a hint of it pulsed in every vein and artery ... and there was a whisper of sex to it that had nothing to do with healing. “Archangel, if you make everyone feel like this when you heal,” she said in a husky tone, “I’m going to have a problem with it.”
His lips didn’t curve, and yet there was a sinful amusement in the voice that came into her mind. It is a special blend, Elena. For you.
The last time he’d said that to her, he’d covered her in angel-dust. Erotic, exotic, and designed to kiss every inch of her skin with shimmering arousal. “Good,” she replied, leaning forward to nip at his lower lip. “Then you may heal others.”
I appreciate the permission.
Her lips kicked up at the solemn statement paired with the wicked sensuality she glimpsed in his gaze. That look ... it was still new. Raphael didn’t often allow the young angel he’d once been—reckless and wild and cocky—to rise to the surface. But when he did . . . “Are you done?” she murmured against his mouth.
His answer was to slide his hands to her hips and tug her forward, over the steely hunger of his body. “Come, hunter,” he said, using his teeth on the sensitive curve where her neck flowed into her shoulder, “take me.”
And she did.
Elena wandered into the dining room the next morning to find it set with a delicious array from which to choose. Grabbing two croissants and a large cup of black coffee, she walked out into the crisp air, following her instincts until she found Raphael standing on the very edge of the cliff that plunged down into the Hudson. “Here,” she said, passing over a croissant. “Eat or Montgomery’s feelings will be hurt.”
He took the offering but didn’t put it to his lips. “Look at the water, Elena. What do you see?”
Glancing down at the river that had been, in one way or another, a part of her life since she was born, she saw churned up silt, sullen waves. “It’s in a bad mood today.”
“Yes.” He stole her coffee, took a sip. “It appears water is in a bad mood across the world. A massive tsunami just hit the east coast of Africa, with no apparent link to an earthquake.”
Stealing back her coffee, she bit into her croissant, savored the buttery texture before swallowing. “Any definite word yet on where she might be Sleeping?”
“No. However, Lijuan may have something—we will see.” Finishing off the croissant she’d given him, he took the coffee. “You visit your father again today.”
The food she’d eaten curdled in her stomach. “No, not him. I visit my sister, Eve. She needs me.” She would not allow Jeffrey to treat Evelyn as he’d treated Elena—as something ugly, something worthless. “I still can’t believe he lied to me for so long about the hunting bloodline.” It had been a lie of omission, but that made it no less terrible.
“Your father has never been a man who values honesty.” A cutting denunciation before he turned to her. “Five days hence, your presence is required here. Tell the Guild you will be unavailable.”
Spine stiffening at what was unquestionably an order, she grabbed her coffee from him, not amused to find it all gone. “Do I get to know the reason for the royal summons?”
A raised eyebrow, her archangel’s night black hair whipping off his face in the breeze coming off the churning waters of the Hudson. “The Hummingbird has asked to meet my consort.”
All her snippiness disappeared under a surge of near-painful emotion. After Beijing, when she’d been forced to rest so her body could recover, she’d often curled up in an armchair in Raphael’s office at the Refuge. But instead of reading the history books Jessamy had assigned her, she’d ended up speaking to him about so many things.
Sometime during that period, he’d told her pieces of what Illium’s mother had done for him when he’d been at his most vulnerable. As a result, Elena felt a deep sense of allegiance toward the angel she’d never met. “I’ve wondered—is that why you took Illium into your service?” she asked. “Because he was hers?”
“At first, yes.” He closed his fingers over the back of her neck, tugging her to him. “The Hummingbird has my loyalty, and it was a small thing to accept her son into the ranks of my people when he came of age.”
In spite of everything he’d shared, Elena had always had the feeling that she was missing a vital detail when Raphael spoke of the Hummingbird, and today was no different. There was something in his tone, a hidden shadow she couldn’t quite discern—added to Illium’s subdued presence the day before yesterday, it made her wonder ... but some secrets, she’d learned, belonged to others.
“However, Illium soon proved himself,” Raphael continued. “Now, my bond with the Hummingbird is a separate thing.”