Compulsively rubbing together his hands, he said, “One of the head accountants.”
“I want a name.” How deep did this treachery run?
“Oleander Graves.”
Raphael knew all of his senior people, and that name wasn’t on the list.
“She said you’d never know,” the vampire blubbered again, bringing Raphael’s mind back to the unpleasant task at hand. “She was so beautiful.”
Weak, Raphael thought in disgust. The male was so weak, he should’ve never made it into the Tower, but even immortals sometimes made mistakes. Without further words, Raphael reached out with his power and crushed the vampire’s rib cage into his chest, piercing his internal organs.
As blood bubbled out of the man’s mouth, Raphael knew that to those outside the Tower the punishment would appear barbaric. They knew nothing of the bloodlust that lurked near the surface of so many vampiric minds, how easy it would be for the monsters to roam free. And this damage would heal in a day at most. The real punishment was yet to come. “You are to go to ground for the next decade.”
Panic in those eyes, a plea that Raphael could not heed, not if he intended to keep the Hudson from running a dark ruby red. He was an archangel—even if every vampire in the city surrendered to bloodlust, he’d gain control within hours at most, but to do so, he’d have to slaughter hundreds of the Made. “Go.”
As the vampire left, clutching broken ribs and fighting not to dribble blood on the pristine white of the carpet, Raphael turned back to the window. The sentence was just, but it would likely break a mind as weak as the one that had just scuttled out of his office. Any other punishment would’ve given encouragement to others who might seek to betray me. Reaching out to speak to Elena was not a conscious decision.
Raphael?
I sentenced him to be buried alive in a coffin-sized box, he told his hunter with the heart of a mortal. He will be fed enough to be kept alive and whole, but he will remain in that box for ten years.
Shock, worry, pain, he felt the cascade of her emotions like blows.
I’m sorry, Raphael. I’m sorry he put you in a position where you had to make that choice.
In spite of her earlier words, he’d expected her to be horrified by what he’d done, for this was not something she could have expected. It was not a human punishment. But he’d forgotten that she was a woman who’d survived a monster, who understood that sometimes there were no easy choices. Come to me after your talk with Sara. I would hold you.
Fifteen minutes later, there was a flicker of midnight and dawn on the horizon as his consort dropped down from the clouds not far from the Tower; Illium’s distinctive wings remained in shadow. The blue-winged angel had an open affection for Raphael’s hunter, and he’d let it go—would continue to let it go . . . so long as Illium never forgot that Elena was mate to an archangel. I have her.
Sire. The angel cut away in another direction.
Wait. I received a message for you earlier today.
A questioning silence.
The Hummingbird wishes to see her son.
Quiet, such quiet. I will go to her.
No. She is coming to New York.
He felt Illium’s shock. The Hummingbird seldom left her secluded mountain home, and even then, it was only to go to the Refuge. We will watch over her, Illium. Have no fear of that.
The Hummingbird had saved Raphael from excruciating pain when she’d found him on that forsaken field where Caliane had shattered his body like so much glass, and for such would’ve earned his loyalty. But Illium’s mother had gone beyond that—she’d shown a broken young boy incredible kindness at a time when his whole world was falling apart. There was little Raphael would not do for the Hummingbird.
Sire, I must—
Go, Raphael said, knowing the angel needed time to get his mind around the news. She arrives in a week’s time. He was walking out onto his private balcony as he spoke, switching the mental connection. Come, Elena.
I can’t land there. I’ll brain myself.
He almost laughed, and he had not thought he could do that after the sentence he’d just delivered. I will catch you.
That she didn’t question him after that, simply changed trajectory so that she flew into his arms ... it broke him. Then it reformed him anew. “Elena,” he whispered into her hair as he crushed her to him.
She wrapped her arms around him, his fragile consort with her incredible will and her refusal to surrender. “Tell me,” she whispered.
And he, an archangel used to keeping a thousand secrets, told her.
10
Evening shadows lay heavy on the horizon when Elena walked out across the lawn behind Raphael’s—their—home, heading for the edge of the cliff beyond the trees. After leaving the Tower earlier that afternoon, the intimacy of those moments on the balcony a tight warmth in her chest, she’d called a delighted Sam using the Web link in the library.
“Ellie!” His grin had stretched from ear to ear. “You didn’t forget me!”
“Of course not.” Laughing as he bounced in his seat, those wings that looked too big for his body rising and falling in excitement as loose black curls tumbled over his forehead, she’d asked him how his day had gone.
“Father took me flying again!”
Since Sam had been forbidden from using his wings for another month, his father had begun to carry him up into the sky in his arms, his love for Sam a fierce thing no one could miss, in spite of the fact that he was a man of few words. “Was it fun?”
An enthusiastic nod. “He can go so fast.”
Their conversation had lasted half an hour, with Elena exchanging a few words with Sam’s mother as well. The tiny angel with hair of the same lustrous blue black and wings of dusty brown streaked with white, still touched her baby with protective care, but she smiled just as often—and for the first time, Elena truly believed that the small family would be okay.
She’d spent the remaining time doing flying drills, all of them geared to build up her muscles, with an oddly subdued Illium. Having discussed it with Keir, Raphael had told her that she wouldn’t be able to achieve a true vertical takeoff without wing strength of a kind she simply did not have. It was a physical impossibility.
“Your immortality,” he’d murmured as they stood on the balcony, “has not yet grown deep enough into your cells. But,” he’d added, “given your hunter strength, you may well be able to learn to do a bastardized version that relies not on the power of your wings, but on sheer muscle.”
It’d be a much harder road and each takeoff would hurt like a bitch even after she mastered it, but Elena wasn’t about to be a sitting duck, not if she could do something about it. Maybe she was an immortal new-Made, she thought now, trying to see through the straggling clouds, but she would not be easy prey.
There.
The magnificent breadth of Raphael’s wings came into view as he descended to join her on the clifftop, the tips flaming as they caught the last vestiges of a sun that had finally made an appearance late that afternoon. “You go to visit the Guild Director and her family?”
Pushing off strands of hair that had escaped her braid, she said, “Come with me.”
A slow blink. “They are your closest friends, Elena. They wish to have you to themselves for this night.”
“I’m becoming part of your world—come become part of mine.” She saw the surprise on his face, saw, too, that he’d very much not expected the invitation.
His body was a hard wall of muscle against her as he pulled her close, until her br**sts pressed against his chest. “What will Sara and Deacon say to that?”
She ran her hands down the wings he spread for her, indulging in the ability to touch him as she pleased. “Not scared of a couple of hunters are you, Archangel?”
A flare of absolute blue as his lashes lifted. They may choose to sever their friendship with you rather than welcome me into their home. You cannot forget the actions I took in the Quiet.
“No.” But she also knew something else beyond any shadow of a doubt. “You have your Seven. I have my friends—they’d cut off their right arms before they’d shove me out into the cold.”
Such loyalty, Raphael thought. He wouldn’t have believed mortals capable of it except that he had known Dmitri when he was human ... and he had known Elena. “The invitation is very welcome,” he said. “I will accept it another day. Tonight, I must remain here.”
Pale gray eyes sparked with intelligence. “What’s happening?”
“I have a meeting with Aodhan.”
“Here? In New York?”
“I, too, am surprised.” Aodhan preferred the seclusion of the Refuge. “We meet at the Tower.”
Tucking back another flyaway strand of hair, his consort looked him full in the face. “I want to talk to you about something else, too.”
“What would you have of me, Guild Hunter?”
“I don’t need a bodyguard anymore—Illium’s trick today with the helicopter seems to have gotten the message across to the media hounds.”
You are my heart, Elena. He would not allow anything to happen to her.
She took a step back. “No chains, Raphael.”
He closed his hand around her nape, refusing to permit her to distance herself. “I have allowed you much freedom, but on this I will not budge.”
Temper sparked off her. “It’s not up to you to allow me anything. I’m your consort. Treat me as one!”
Yet she was so very mortal still—even the Angel-born remained vulnerable for over a hundred years, and Elena had started out mortal. Immortality had barely kissed her blood, had had no real chance to intertwine with her cells. You will not win this argument, Hunter.
“Fine, but it’s one we’ll continue to have every single day till you start acting reasonable.”
Until her, no one had challenged him on this level. Until her, no one had loved him with all the strength in this hunter’s soul. “According to Dmitri, the most sensible act would have been to kill you the instant we met.”