Elena hugged him again. “If she’s stuck this long, I think the foundation is set.”
“Yeah, I like to think so.” Ransom squeezed her tight. “But I’m not taking us, or Nyree, for granted.”
She’d never heard him sound so serious about a woman. Hoping like hell this Nyree didn’t break his heart, she left him straddling the bike and headed over to the chopper, Venom at her side. It startled her to realize that not only had she and Venom had a fairly reasonable conversation tonight, they hadn’t threatened to kill each other once. Huh. Probably a side effect of the adrenaline, the camaraderie that came from being in a bloody bat—
The earth moved beneath her feet.
Hard.
She clamped her wings tight to her back as the movement threw her sideways onto the concrete ... on the same side where she’d gone down in front of the warehouse. More skin peeled off her face, her palms suffering further damage as well.
Hands clamping around her ankles.
Looking down, she saw that Venom had her in a powerful grip, his own feet braced against the base of the chopper. “What the—” Following the direction of his gaze, she felt the air whoosh out of her lungs. The other side of the concrete pier was just . . . gone, a gaping hole in the earth with jagged insides that would tear apart her wings—and she was a bare two inches from the edge. Nodding at Venom, she let him pull her toward him as the earth continued to roll.
In any other situation, it would’ve felt disturbingly intimate to have his hands on her calves, her thighs, her h*ps as he pulled her down until she could brace her own feet against their transport, her wings spread over them both. “The chopper might tip!” she said in his ear, fighting to be heard over the roar of the quake.
His hair whipped off his face. “I’ve been in other quakes! This one feels like it should be over soon!” Under her wing, his hand dug into her hip as another wave struck.
With it came a whisper of scent that was darkly familiar.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the quake was over, taking the scent with it before she could even begin to break it down. But she knew she’d sensed it above the Hudson.
Scrambling away as fast as she could—her wings were screaming with sensation—she got to her feet.
Venom flowed to a standing position with that strange reptilian grace an instant later, not commenting on her jerky escape. “We need to get away before another tremor strikes.” He was already reaching for the cockpit door.
“Wait.” Her blood turning cold, she was running even as she yelled out instructions over her shoulder. “Start the engine! I need to find Ransom!”
Venom was by her side before she finished speaking. She didn’t bother to curse. Following Ransom’s familiar scent, which though not as clear to her as a vampiric trail, was more so than it would’ve been to the majority of humans, she sprinted down the narrow lane he’d taken to get out onto the main road. “There!”
The bike lay smashed on the retaining wall opposite the lane, Ransom’s body unmoving in the street. Going down beside him, she checked for a pulse. “Thank God.”
Ransom groaned. “Ellie?”
“Can you move?” she asked, running her hands over his body. “Any broken bones, problems with your back?”
Fisting his hands he pushed himself up into a kneeling position. “I’m okay, just stunned. Wasn’t going very fast when the quake hit.” His eyes were dilated, huge in his face.
“You’re coming with us,” she said, pulling him to his feet, his arm slung over her shoulder.
“My bike.” Still dazed, he glanced back at his pride and joy.
Venom took Ransom’s other side. “I’ll call one of the local vampires once we’re in the air. He’ll store it for you.”
There were no more words as they half ran, half dragged Ransom back to the chopper. They’d barely gotten inside when the earth began to pitch and roll again. Not bothering to put on his headphones, Venom just said, “Hold on!” and lifted the bird.
They shook precariously under an insufficient amount of rotor action, but jaw locked and hands steady, Venom managed to get them airborne. Elena looked down as they rose. “My God.” The city was literally bucking under them, parts of the road rising up in a rolling wave, buildings crumbling into newly created canyons. The only good news was that instead of shaking Boston as a whole, the quake seemed oddly localized—to an approximately fifty-meter radius around the spot where they’d parked the chopper.
Hardly a natural phenomenon.
She is waking.
If this was what she could do while asleep ...
Having bullied Ransom into getting himself checked out at the hospital, Elena refused to leave until his librarian arrived. Nyree was a surprise—because Elena had had no idea what to expect. The woman couldn’t have cleared five feet two inches, and had curves so lethal the prim blue cardigan she wore buttoned up to her neck was probably an attempt at camouflage. It didn’t work, even paired with a full skirt straight out of the 1950s and simple flats, both in plain black.
As Nyree neared Ransom’s cubicle, Elena saw that her skin was a light brown, her features so unusual it was difficult to pinpoint ethnicity—but it was her eyes that stole the show. Huge and chocolate-dark, and overflowing with worry.
She didn’t even see Elena standing to the side of the cubicle, she was so focused on her man. “Ransom!” Stroking Ransom’s hair off his face where he sat on the bed, she checked his wounds with delicate, tender touches. “Baby, you’re so hurt.”
To Elena’s surprise, tough as nails Ransom didn’t shake off his lover’s hands, but instead leaned into the touch. It was the first time in Elena’s life that she’d seen him allow anyone to tend to him—and it made her deeply curious about the woman who’d captured his heart. That curiosity, however, would have to wait until another day. Keeping to the shadows, she slipped out while they were wrapped up in each other.
By the time she jumped off the chopper onto the wet green of the grass outside the house, it was well after midnight. “You bunking here tonight?” she asked Venom.
Shaking his head, he pulled the door shut in her face.
“Well,” she muttered, “goodnight to you, too.” Wings dragging like that of an exhausted angelic child, she walked straight into the arms of the archangel who waited for her. Those arms clamped around her as he shifted a few degrees to shield her from the wind generated by the rising machine.
Drawing the rain-laced scent of him into her lungs, she released a breath, then repeated the action until she felt something inside her sigh and lay down its weapons. “How was your night, Archangel? Mine was interesting.”
You carry marks on your skin, Elena. It was a demand for an explanation.
When they’d first met, she’d probably have bristled at that. Now ... it was kind of nice coming home to someone who bothered to notice that she’d gotten a little banged up on the job. “I’ll tell you if you feed me and let me use that decadent bath of yours.” The bath where they’d first touched each other in a hungry passion that still made her breath catch each time she thought about it.
“Come.”
Feeling a frisson of awareness at the sexual edge in that command, she slipped her hand into his as he drew her inside the house and toward their room. That was when she saw the blood on his shirt. “Hey!” She stopped. Or tried to.
When he kept going, she decided to beard him in the bedroom.
Soon as the door closed, she broke away and put her hands on her hips, the cuts on her palms no longer tender, though they didn’t look pretty. “Take off your shirt.”
Raising an eyebrow, he pulled the shirt over the top of his head, the wing slots sliding over the glory of his wings with a soft hush of sound. A second later, he dropped the shirt to the side, his expression moody in a way that made her want to push him to the bed and ride him until both their brains were scrambled. Fighting the temptation, she circled around to his back. “You’re hurt!”
Three massive gouges marked his skin.
Blinking, she looked closer, felt her mouth fall open. “They’re healing right before my eyes.” Which either meant the injury was recent, or the damage had been worse before. She glanced at his shirt, measured the blood, decided the injury had been worse.
“I’m an archangel, Elena. It is but a scratch.” Turning, he slammed her body to his. “Take off your top.”
It was suddenly difficult to think, but she sucked in a breath, found the will. “How did you get so badly hurt?”
Placing his hand on the shoulder of her long-sleeved black top, he gripped ... and tore. Her top was in shreds around her a second later, her br**sts bare to his gaze since the bra had been built in. Abdomen taut with need, chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm, she licked her lips. “Feel better?”
His answer was to dip his head, bend her over his arm, and suck one tight little nipple into his mouth.
Shuddering, she thrust her hands into his hair and pulled. He used his teeth on her. She hissed out a breath. “Raphael.” It was meant to be an admonishment but it turned into a moan as he covered her other breast with his hand, squeezing and caressing with a confidence that turned her knees to butter.
That was when she thought, “Hell with it,” and arched her body into the voracious hunger of his mouth. It didn’t surprise her in the least when he moved the hand on her breast down to the front of her jeans . . . and tore them off. Her panties were next. A second later, she was being thrown onto the massive sea of a bed, her wings spreading out on the cool softness of the comforter even as Raphael gripped her legs at the knees and pushed up and out, baring her to him.
Searing blue met her eyes when she looked up. Then his wings began to glow. She hadn’t seen him get rid of his pants and cried out as his erection began to part her most delicate flesh. “Raphael.”
A kiss that demanded, his body all golden muscle and heat above her own.