He looks at her as I’ve never seen Naasir look at anyone. As if she is a treasure he wants to keep, wants to protect.
“You catch your consort by surprise,” Raphael murmured. “Particularly as the scholar has taken a vow of celibacy.”
“We’re talking about Naasir here.” Elena grinned. “He has a certain charm. Just like his archangel—I never planned to be naked with you, either.” Deadly and inhuman, the Archangel of New York was not a man with whom Elena Deveraux, Guild Hunter, had ever intended to mess.
A glint in the eyes that held oceans, even in the darkness. “Plan it now,” he said, lifting off with her still in his arms. “We have not danced in the sky for too long, and today, I feel a need to celebrate life.” His jaw grew hard.
Stroking it as her skin turned electric, Elena pulled his head down to her own. “Life,” she whispered before their lips met in a storm of sensation.
30
Two hours of hiking later, Andromeda and Naasir found themselves on the outskirts of the village that was the last bastion of civilization before the cave system, the homes built around what, from the air, was a startlingly clear blue-green lake. A small jewel in the ocean of sand that surrounded the oasis on every side, the lake wasn’t a perfect sphere.
No, it was an elongated teardrop.
The village was based around the fat upper curve of the tear.
It would’ve been far easier had they been able to jump on the other side of the oasis, but not at the cost of crashing the plane.
Settling in to wait for the early evening to turn to full dark, they were careful not to alert the villagers of their presence.
The two of them ate the dried trail foods they’d bought, but Andromeda knew while that would sustain her, it wasn’t enough for Naasir. “Sip on me,” she said, lifting her wrist to his mouth.
He drew in a deep breath, eyes molten and fangs flashing. “I’ll drink you up.” It was a rough warning.
“No, you won’t.” She knew exactly how protective he was. “Drink or I’ll start to think you don’t like me.”
Growl rumbling in his chest, he gripped her wrist when she would’ve pulled it away, nuzzled her pulse point. It felt as if all her blood rushed to that spot, pouring toward him.
“Andromeda.” It was a warm, luxurious purr before he scraped his fangs over her skin.
Secret inner muscles clenched, her breath catching as her breasts ached; jealousy captured her in vicious claws, dug into her desire. “Is this how you feed from others?”
He licked her skin. “I’m not feeding.” Another lick, a hot breath. “I’m seducing you.”
Yes, he was. Slowly and with primal patience. When he scraped his fangs over the delicate skin of her inner wrist again, she shivered and leaned closer, her wings curling around them to create a shadowed, private enclave.
The bite was a bright pain that shuddered into searing pleasure. Barely stifling her cry, she wove her fingers into his hair and held him to her, but he raised his head too soon, licking over the bite location with small, playful flicks of his tongue until the tiny wounds were closed and all that remained was a faint bruise.
“Did you take enough?” The question came out husky.
Hair brushing her skin in a thousand tiny caresses, he pressed a kiss to her pulse point before lifting his head. His eyes glowed. “For now,” he said, stroking his hand up her arm to cup her elbow. “You’re delicious.”
Goose bumps broke out over her skin. Raising her hand, she placed it against his cheek and bent until their foreheads touched and their breaths mingled. “Am I food?”
Hand closing over her nape, he nipped at her lower lip. “You are mine.” Words that didn’t sound wholly human.
“Naasir.” A whispered plea.
He tumbled her against him as he leaned his back on a tree trunk. Then he . . . petted her. Long lazy strokes of his hand over her wings, his fingers through the hair he’d pulled out of its braid.
She slept with her head against his shoulder and his arm around her below her wings. She’d never slept with anyone before—even as a child, she’d always slept alone. Feeling him warm and strong against her, his heart beating steadily, it gave her a sense of safety that dropped her into a deep, dreamless rest.
She could’ve kept on sleeping, snuggled up to him, but she’d set her body clock to wake after two hours. Naasir nuzzled at her when she lifted her lashes, the scent of him primal and sensual and familiar. “Sleep,” he said. “We have another ninety minutes to two hours, depending on the villagers’ habits, before the night is deep enough that we can get to the caves unobserved.”
Running her fingers through his hair, she shook her head. “It’s your turn to rest and don’t argue—we both have to be at full strength if we’re going to find Alexander.”
He growled at her as the trees rustled in a sudden wind. She wanted to kiss him. Sitting up and taking position against a tree trunk, she tugged him to her. “Sleep.”
His chest still rumbled, but he stretched out in his favorite position, his head in her lap, and closed his eyes. Quickly rebraiding her hair so she’d be ready to move when it was time, she kept watch, listening to the muted sounds of the last of the villagers going to sleep. More often than not, she petted his hair the way he liked, and just drank him in, determined to remember every tiny detail of their time together.
It was about forty minutes after everything went silent, the moon a spotlight in the sky, that she heard it. A low buzz that seemed to be getting closer. “Naasir.”