“Will be bedbound for weeks or months, regardless of my actions. Your stupidity, meanwhile, I may be able to mend immediately.”
Lashed by his tone, she struck out. “I didn’t ask for your help!”
“No, instead you did your best to ensure I’d have to deal with a dead consort when you are meant to be helping to protect the city by evidencing your strength.”
Jaw clenched against the anger dammed up inside her, she didn’t say a word, and a bone-melting warmth invaded her wing muscles a second later, trickles of it reaching her knees, as if Raphael’s ability had sensed the fractures that cracked her kneecaps. The pain began to dim almost at once, and she realized he’d become far stronger than he’d been even a month before . . . but that didn’t alter the fact that, in stark contrast to the violent physical abilities manifesting in the rest of the Cadre, Raphael’s new power was a pacific one.
Ironically, his ability to heal might end up being a lethal weakness.
“There will be a war,” he’d predicted weeks earlier as they watched midnight come to their city, the night winds thrusting covetous fingers through his hair. “It’s inevitable during a Cascade—from all we know, one or more of the Cadre will either touch madness or gain a power that so eclipses the abilities of the others, he or she will seek to seize the world. I can’t afford to stagnate, to have only the strength that has always been at my command.”
“Your power negates Lijuan’s,” she’d pointed out. “And she’s the biggest threat.”
“A negative power won’t be enough to win, and, while she may be the biggest threat, she isn’t the only one.” The cold-eyed candor of a man who’d held his territory for half a millennium. “Neha creates fire and ice, Astaad is rumored to control the sea, and there are whispers Favashi holds the winds in the palm of her hand. For the Cadre to remain in balance, I cannot stand in place.”
Now, the guilt that had been gnawing at her since that conversation combined with her impotent anger at Jeffrey to create a caustic mess in her gut, corrosive and damaging. Raphael would never blame her, but it was Elena who’d made him a little bit mortal, a little bit weaker—exactly as Lijuan had once warned.
“You tore a tendon.” The ice in his tone hadn’t thawed. “Do that again and I’ll leave you to heal on your own. Perhaps then you’ll develop some respect for your body.”
“I was pissed off and I acted before I thought,” she said, giving him one truth even as she hid the more noxious one that continued to eat at her. “I know it was childish and dangerous—you don’t have to tell me.”
“Jeffrey?” Raphael said, allowing her to sit up, which she did without a twinge of pain.
“He hurt Eve.” Raphael knew her well enough to understand what that meant.
Chrome blue eyes flat with renewed fury. “Is she well?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Twisting her braid in his fist with that single word, Raphael tugged back her head and took her mouth in a kiss that was hot red passion and the cool brush of an archangel’s anger. If you did not love him, he said into her mind, his hand closing possessively over her breast, I would sever this man from your life like the diseased limb that he is.
I’m not sure if I love him or hate him, she confessed as he took her down to the carpet once more, but Beth, Amy, Eve, they need him.
A gasp, her back arching; Raphael had burned away the laces that held her top together to bare her br**sts to the air. His mouth touched her sensitive flesh an instant later, his teeth grazing her nipple. Hissing out a breath, she dug her nails into his shoulders and tried to flip him using her legs, wanting the advantage . . . but her lover was an archangel, and he didn’t want to be moved.
He bit down deeper, until it skated the edge of hurt. When you decided to continue flying, did you think about the fact I might have to scrape you off the street? Releasing her breast with that angry question, he ravaged her mouth and, at the same time, ripped open the fly of the cargo pants she’d changed into a half hour earlier.
His fingers speared through her damp flesh, her panties who the hell knew where. “I’m sorry,” she gritted out as he rubbed his thumb deliberately hard against her clit, knowing it would send her over the edge . . . only to relax the pressure right when her body hovered on the brink of excruciating pleasure.
“Fuck.” Chest heaving, she stared into a masculine face that held more than a hint of cruelty right this instant. “That was mean.”
“I’m feeling mean, Guild Hunter.” He touched her again, thrusting two fingers inside her and using his thumb to play with her clitoris as he bent his head to her exposed breast once more, his teeth marking her soft flesh. Very mean.
Body quivering as he denied her an orgasm for the second time, Elena snarled and raked her nails down his back, tearing the fine black fabric of his shirt. Blood scented the air, Raphael’s head snapping up to reveal eyes gone incandescent, his wings glowing above her. Slamming his mouth down on her own, he tore open his pants and she felt the blunt hardness of his c**k pushing against her . . . but he didn’t thrust, clearly still in one hell of a mood.
Do it! Biting down on his lower lip hard enough to break skin, she locked her legs around his h*ps and jerked her own upward.
A single hard inch, and then all of him as he thrust deep, stretching her tight flesh with his thickness. Elena came without warning, her body clenching around his so possessively that he broke the kiss to brace his fisted hands on either side of her head. Refusing to lose that connection even as her body spasmed in a near-painful orgasm, she grabbed his face, initiated another kiss that was all tongue and heat and fury.