Light edged her fingertips where they touched Raphael's skin. She feared his power, would've been a fool not to. But she couldn't let him cross that line, couldn't let the hunt drag him into the abyss. "Raphael."
"There is," Raphael murmured, his eyelids lowering to hood the ice of his gaze, "a dark music in the screams of your enemies."
"Don't," she whispered, trying to reach him. Cruelty, as he'd once told her, seemed to be a symptom of age and power. But she refused to surrender to that, to let him be consumed by the violence of his own strength. "Don't."
But he wasn't listening. "Would you not like to stroke a stiletto across his throat, Elena?"
His own hand closed around her neck, sensual, gentle, lethal. "Would you not like to watch him beg for his life?"
Chapter 16
"Part of me," Elena whispered, admitting to the angry need within, "wants to do exactly that, wants to torture the bastard until he whimpers, until he crawls."
"But you will pity him when the time comes."
"My heart is human." And that heart was his. Ignoring the hand he still had around her throat, she pulled his head down to hers. As their lips met, she felt the slow burn of his power grow until it pulsed against every inch of her flesh. It was a reminder that no matter if she now had wings, she was very much mortal in comparison to this archangel.
His energy surrounded her, soaked into her very pores, his lips taking hers with a terrible, beautiful cruelty. There was no attempt to harm, no pain. No, Raphael kissed her like the immortal he was - with the heartless skill of a man who'd kissed so many women across the ages, their faces had to be a blur by now. It was a direct, unmistakable display of the ruthless heart that beat within his chest.
You can't scare me, she thought to him.
A lie, Guild Hunter. I can feel your heart thudding like a trapped rabbit's.
I'd be stupid not to be afraid. But I'm not going to back away from us just because you're feeling a little extra snarly.
A split second when his lips stopped, then she felt them curve, his hand rising from her throat to cup her cheek. The white-hot burn of his power faded, was replaced by the erotic touch of his skin.Only you would ever dare say that to me.
Needing to breathe, she broke the kiss, her entire body a humming flame. Man, but the archangel knew how to kiss. "We have to go."
A small nod, his hair sliding across his forehead before the wind pushed it back. "Where do you want to start?"
"How about the school - he might've been watching Sam or the other kids to decide which one to take."
Raphael's face went quiet, but though his eyes turned a deep indigo lit from within, he didn't flame with power again. "I'll fly you to the school grounds."
However, though Elena searched until the early hours of morning, when the snow began to come down in white sheets, she didn't find even the faintest trace of the vampire who'd laid brutal hands on a child in a place meant to be the safest of havens. More angry than anything else, she walked into their bedroom and began to strip off snow-wet clothes, her bruises stiff with cold.
"Let me." Raphael placed his hands on her shoulders. "Your wings are dragging on the floor."
"I'm tired," she admitted, allowing him to peel off her sleeves, undo the straps of her top, and pull it from her body. "I'm used to being stronger than the people around me.
Here, I'm pathetically weak."
A kiss on the bare skin of her shoulder, warm hands on her stomach. "Strength comes in many forms, hunter. Yours is deeper than you know."
Leaning back into him, she let her body relax, trusting him to keep her upright. "This is nice. Having someone to hold me when I'm tired." It was an intimacy, a gift she'd never expected.
A long pause. Another kiss on her shoulder, those hands quietly possessive. "Yes."
It had been a leap in the dark to admit that much, that she was coming to rely on him -
she, a woman who hadn't relied on a man since the day her father threw her out on the street - but she'd never expected that he'd honor her trust with his own. Closing her hands over his, she dropped her head to one side, exposing her neck.
He took the hint, kissing a line up the curve of it. "Shower?"
"Bath." She didn't think she could stand unaided.
"You'll fall asleep." His lips pressed to the quickening beat of her pulse, the possessive strength of his body reaching through her exhaustion to awaken the most primal of needs.But I'll hold you up.
It was another kiss, that offer. "Promise?"
"Promise."
Upper body na**d, she stayed in place as he remained behind her.
"So many bruises." His hands were gentle over them, his voice holding a thrum of anger.
"Get used to it," she said with a laugh. "I seem to have a knack for getting myself in trouble."
A slow smile against her cheek, his hands on the button of her pants. "As you did the first time we met."
When she was bared to the very skin, her pants kicked away, she reached back to wrap her arms around his neck, arching her body in a sinuous stretch.
"Elena." A husky warning even as his hands stroked up her rib cage to close over her br**sts.
Breath shaky with want, she pushed into him, her ni**les aching for a rougher touch.
"More." A brazen demand.
"As you command, hunter."
Her thoughts splintered as he pinched her ni**les, sending a sudden, sharp ache straight through to the heat between her thighs. She moved, restless, wanting something only he could give her. "Raphael." His lips met hers as she angled her head to reach him, his hands soothing the ache he'd aroused with slow, easy movements. He was intensity contained, passion leashed. Breaking the kiss, she met the blazing cobalt of his eyes. "I think I've got my second wind."
The slightest of smiles, one hand leaving her breast to slide down her body and over the sensitive plane of her stomach to circle her belly button. She wiggled. "Tickles." Her bottom rubbed over the jutting hardness of his arousal, turning the heat between her legs liquid.
When he moved his hand farther down, she didn't resist, letting him part her with stark intimacy. He toyed with her, flicking his thumb over the ultrasensitive bundle of nerve endings at the top, but not giving her the hard pressure that she needed. Shuddering, she moved her body against him, tempting, arousing . . . teasing.
He grazed his teeth along her neck. "Doing that will get you punished."
"Oooh, I'm scared."
He pinched her clit. Pleasure short-circuited her system, her body tightening into a bow, ready, so ready . . . but the pressure eased a moment too soon. "Raphael." A sensual complaint, her skin shimmering with a fine layer of sweat.
"I warned you." It was an intimate reminder as he thrust two fingers inside her, pumping hard and deep. She rode him, rode those wicked fingers, her breath coming in harsh little pants, her body moving with a will of its own. On her breast, his other hand was a possessive brand, molding and shaping. His mouth touched her neck, her shoulder, his lips marking her without hesitation, without any attempt to hide that that was exactly what he was doing.
So tight and slick and mine.
Blatantly possessive, hotly male.
Her bottom rubbed against him with every undulation of her body, driving her to a fever pitch. "I need more."
You can't have my cock, Elena.
She trembled, tried to find her mind. "Why not? I'm rather fond of it."
That got her another teasing brush across her clit. Sparks flared behind her eyelids, and she barely heard him through the buzz in her head.
You're not strong enough to take what I want to do to you.
Half insane with need, she rode him harder, faster. "Give me more."
Are you sure?An explicit sexual question.
"Yes."
She cried out as he spread his fingers inside her, making room for a third. The extreme fullness threw her to the edge. Then he pressed down on her cl*t with his thumb and she fell. The orgasm rocked through her, a hard, almost violent release that left her limp in his arms.
Raphael drew in the scent of Elena's satisfaction, holding back the dark passion within him by the narrowest of margins, passion that wrenched at the restraints, hungering to take her with a fury he wasn't certain she'd survive even at full strength.
A year he'd waited for her. A year he'd heard only silence when he spoke to her. He didn't have much patience left in him. "Soon," he murmured, speaking to the voracious need within him.
When he began to withdraw his fingers from the tight slickness of her body, that need kicked him hard, making his c*ck throb. He wanted to throw her onto the bed, splay her legs wide, and thrust.I'll bite your br**sts , he told her, taking his time removing his fingers, enjoying the way she clenched on him as he spoke.But mostly, I plan to f**k you until you can't walk.
Her body spasmed, and he realized his hunter was ready once more. Taking advantage, he slid a single finger back into her body, the second no longer able to inch in now that she was so lushly swollen with pleasure.After I sate myself, I'll spread your legs, make you hold them open for me.
A slow, lingering thrust.
"Raphael."Her voice was husky.
Then I'll take my time tasting the sweet, plump flesh between your thighs.
Another thrust, another stab of pleasure-pain as her buttocks rubbed over his cock.
Mine, Elena, you are mine.
Moving up a hand, he pulled her back with his fingers on her jaw and took her mouth as he gave her a final, exquisitely intimate caress that pushed her over into orgasm once more. Her sexuality was earthy, wild, honest. It sang a siren song to him that hazed his brain, threatened to make him lose all control.
Holding her up when she finally tumbled down from the peak, he removed his finger and maneuvered her around until he could pick her up in his arms, her wings as limp as her limbs. But this time the limpness had come from passion well sated. Even if he hadn't felt the damp evidence of it on his fingers, her sloe-eyed gaze as she looked at him from beneath her lashes was all the proof he needed.