by Nalini Singh
Sucking in a breath, she said, “Sex isn’t new to you,” and rocked her heat over the exquisite hardness of him. Good didn’t begin to describe how it felt. How he felt.
“No. But you are.”
“Never had a hunter before?” She grinned, nibbling on his lower lip.
But he didn’t smile. “I’ve never had Elena before.” The words were husky, his eyes so intent she felt owned.
Draping her arms around his neck, she leaned back so she could look into his face. “And I’ve never had Raphael.”
At that moment, it felt as if something changed in the air, in her soul.
Then Raphael’s hands spread on her lower back and the feeling dissipated. Nothing, she thought, it had been nothing but an overactive imagination. She was tired, frustrated, so damn greedy for this immortal who’d made no secret of the fact that, lust or not, he might yet kill her.
“The rules,” Raphael said, catching her gaze, holding it.
She pressed closer, continuing to rub her heat along his aroused length. Today, she needed the pleasure Raphael could provide. And if there was a little sensual cruelty mixed in with the pleasure, so be it. “Yeah?”
He stilled her movements with those powerful hands of his. “Until this ends, I’ll be your only lover.”
Her muscles tightened at the absolute possession in that statement. “Until what ends?”
“This hunger.”
The problem was, she was afraid this fury would never end, that she’d go to her grave craving the Archangel of New York. “Only if you meet a condition of mine.”
He didn’t like that, his bones sharp against skin gone taut. “Tell me.”
“No vamp, human, or angel honeys for you either.” She dug her nails into his shoulders. “I won’t share you.” She might be a toy, but she was a toy with claws.
His expression thawed, those cobalt eyes holding a distinct gleam of satisfaction. “Deal.”
She’d expected to have to fight him. “I mean it. Not one lover. I’ll cut off the hands they used to touch you, dump their bodies where no one will ever find them.”
He seemed amused by her gruesome threat. “And me? What would you do to me? Shoot me again?”
“I’m not feeling guilty for that.” But she did. Just an eensy bit. “Does it hurt?”
He laughed, and the open pleasure in it was a caress. “Ah, Elena, you are a contradiction. No, it doesn’t hurt. It’s healed.”
She wanted to be a tough-ass, but that smile of his was doing things to her, melting her from the inside out. “So, what turns on an archangel?”
“A naked hunter is a good start.” He pulled her harder against his cock, holding her in place when she would’ve wiggled. “My wings,” he told her, kissing her neck, finding that sensitive little spot just above her collarbone.
It made her soften, return the favor. “Wings?” She nipped at the tendons of his neck, feeling languorous heat crawl up her body—she’d thought she wanted a short, hard fuck to screw up her brains enough that she could come down from the adrenaline buzz, but now that she was in his arms, a slow descent into sensual oblivion sounded far better.
When he didn’t answer, she decided to do some exploring of her own. Moving one hand, she stroked firmly along the top edge of his right wing. He went tense against her, the waiting kind of tense, the kind that told her she’d either done something very good or something very bad. Since he was still pulsing hot and hard under her, she decided to go for good and repeated the act. This time, he shuddered.
“They’re sexually sensitive?” Eyes narrowed, she thrust a hand into his hair and tugged him up from her neck. “The Bitch Queen was brushing her wings against yours.”
He let her hold him, though they both knew he could’ve broken free in a second. “Only in certain situations.” One long finger traced circles around her nipples.
She slapped at his hand. “I’m not buying.”
He moved his finger to the dip of her elbow, making her shiver. “Is this sensitive in normal situations?”
“Hmph.” But she let go of his hair, let him kiss her properly.
When they came up for air, he said, “They’re sensitive, yes. But sexual only in a sexual context—which seems to be always with you.”
“Guess a thousand years plus teaches a lot about charm,” she said against his lips. Perfect lips. Lips she could nibble on for hours. “You’ve got all sorts of slick going on.”
“For a warrior perhaps.”
She was too interested in kissing him to answer right away, her entire body focused on his, her skin so sensitive she thought she might explode. “In the bath?”
He shook his head. “I want to see you in my bed.”
“Another fallen hunter,” she murmured. “Where’s the soap?”
He reached along the rim and picked up a near-transparent bar. As he lathered up his hands and began to stroke them over her shoulders, a clean bright scent that echoed his own—water, wind, forest—rose up around her. “Do many fall?” he asked, running his hands down to soap the exposed parts of her breasts.
It made her lower body tighten another notch. “Vampires are sexy,” she teased. “Angels are usually too snooty to bother with humans. I figured you lot were too evolved to enjoy getting down and dirty.”
He looked up through lashes dark with wet, soapy hands sliding below the waterline to do things to her that were surely illegal. “Then you’ll be getting an education tonight.”
She moved on his fingers, inciting him to do more. “Yes, please.”
The archangel handed over the soap, but kept his other hand where it was, stroking her with patience most men wouldn’t learn if they lived to be ten thousand years old. “Come, hunter, it’s your turn to educate me.”
“Lesson one”—a breathy statement—“always give the hunter what she wants.” Holding his gaze as he drove her to an inevitable crescendo, she lathered up her hands, and began to explore that body of his. Muscle and sinew and strength, he was delicious in every single way. “Oh!” Dropping the soap, she clutched at his shoulders with slippery hands as he pinched her clitoris, threatening to throw her over the edge into orgasm. “Stop that,” she whispered, and he obeyed . . . only to slide two fingers deep into her.
“Let go,” he said, kissing the taut line of her neck. “Let go.”
Let go? During sex? She never had, not since the first time. In her innocence, she’d held on so tight, she’d broken her lover’s collarbone. But Raphael wasn’t human—he wouldn’t break, wouldn’t call her a freak. And then raw pleasure made the decision for her. The archangel took her lips in a savage kiss, a duel of tongue and lips, even as his fingers jackhammered into her in hard, fast thrusts. She came in an exquisite burst, her body clenching so tight it almost hurt.
In the aftermath, she was aware of Raphael finishing off the soaping. When he told her to lean back and rinse out her hair, she did so with a dreamy smile. She could get used to this, she thought, refusing to think of the future. Because the truth was, her life span was unlikely to be anything close to an ordinary human’s. Hunters lived dangerous lives to begin with. And she was tracking a deranged archangel.
“Up.”
She rose, kissing Raphael as he followed. A flicker of surprise lit his eyes. “How long can I look forward to such easy compliance?”
“Wait and see.” She let him lead her to the shower, where he rinsed off the last bubbles of soap before grabbing a huge sky blue towel. She took it from him and dried herself, wanting to watch him as he did the same with efficient movements that told her he had no idea of what it did to her to watch him. That intrigued her.
Raphael clearly knew how beautiful he was, how he affected mortals. But seeing him like this, she realized that beneath the arrogance was a lack of vanity—it made sense when she thought about it. Strip away the layers of civilization, and he was, at the core, a warrior, his looks simply another tool in his arsenal.
Without warning, he snapped out his wings, showering he
r in millions of fine droplets. “Hey!” But she was already wrapping the towel around herself and reaching for another with which to pat his wings dry.
He watched her approach. “They’ll dry on their own.”
“But will it be as much fun?” She glanced meaningfully at his erection, sliding the soft material over his wings with extreme care.
“Hurry up, Elena.” That cobalt lightning had returned. “I’m ready to fuck you into oblivion.”
Oh, dear God. Dropping the towel, she pulled down his head and kissed the hell out of him. He liked it if his reaction was any indication. Pushing away the towel that clothed her, he lifted her up until she was wrapped around him. Breaking the kiss, he began to walk out of the bathroom. “My turn, hunter.”
32
Raphael dropped her lightly on the bed.
“Nice.” She sighed at the decadent feel of the sheets against her skin, her eyes locked with those of an archangel. His gaze was so hotly male, so proprietal that she wondered, for a fleeting second, if she’d made a mistake. What if he wanted to keep her? “Did you ever have a slave?” she asked.
His lips curved slightly, but it was an amusement tempered with sensual demand. “Many.” He gripped her ankles, spread her legs. “All very eager to serve—in every possible manner.”
She tried to kick out but he hauled her closer, face drawn in a way that was intrinsically sexual. “Some of them had spent years learning to drive a man to ecstasy. The vampires had had hundreds of years to practice.”
“Bastard.” A cutting denunciation, but her stomach was tight with anticipation, her breasts hot.
“However”—he pulled her up to meet his thrust as he buried himself inside her in one powerful stroke—“none of them did I forbid from taking other lovers.”
Her back arched as she tried to assimilate the impact of his entry into her body, the extreme fullness, the stretched ecstasy. When she could finally draw breath, she found him in the same position, as if he, too, was fighting for control. “You don’t strike me as the sharing type.” Her voice was raw.
“No. If one went to another man”—he began to pull out with slow deliberation—“there were dozens ready to take her place. It mattered little to me.”
She was almost beyond thought now, her entire being focused on the point where their bodies joined. What reason remained collapsed under the heady, seductive force of his words.
“If you take another lover, Elena”—he thrust back in, making her gasp—“what I do to him will become a nightmare etched in human memory.” And then there were no more words, only movement—the slick motion of body against body, the thrust and parry of male and female, the lush, erotic explosion into ecstasy.
The last thing Elena remembered was thinking that maybe she’d underestimated the force of their combined hunger.
She woke to the realization that she was sleeping on something warm, soft, and silky. Spreading her fingers, she found herself petting—“Oh!” She jerked upright, horrified. A heavy male arm pushed her back down.
“Your wings,” she whispered, stroking her hand down the splendor of one.
“They’re strong.” A lazy masculine statement, full of . . . something.
She was about to turn and look at him when she saw the state of her body. “Oh, no, you didn’t!” She glittered from head to toe, angel dust in her pores, on her eyelashes, in her mouth. The special blend.
He caressed his hand over her hip, along the dip of her waist, over her breast. “It was . . . not on purpose.”
Was that embarrassment she heard in his voice? Frowning, she licked some of the glittery stuff off her lips. It made her body all warm and tingly—as if she wasn’t already burning up from the inside out. “Is this like—um—being a little quick off the mark?”
He squeezed the arm he had around her midsection. “Any complaints?”
She smiled, realizing she was right—the archangel had lost control. “Hell, no.” Twisting in his arms, she wiggled up to look into his face. Her smile faded. “You look . . . different.” Nothing she could explain, nothing she could touch. But . . .
His expression grew shadowed. “You’ve made me a little more human.”
Flashes of memory. Raphael bleeding out from a gunshot wound. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” His kiss was a fever and he was inside her before she knew it, their coupling fast, furious, and utterly magnificent.
Much, much later, as they faced the promise of a new day, she tried to wash off the angel dust, with only marginal success. Her skin continued to shine but it wasn’t as noticeable. And thankfully, the stuff didn’t, in fact, glow in the dark. “If someone tastes this,” she said to Raphael as he watched her dress from his relaxed position by the fireplace, “will they want to jump my bones?”
“Yes.” Those eyes gleamed. “So don’t let them taste.”
She stilled at the menace in his command. “Don’t go around killing people on my account, Raphael.”
“You made your choice.”
To sleep with an archangel.
“I think the sexual high is starting to wear off,” she muttered, pulling on a new pair of cargos in dark khaki, and a black T-shirt. She threw on a black sweater as well. It was early morning and still dark outside, the temperature having dropped along with the rain. “I mean it, Raphael, you go around killing innocent people, I’ll hunt you.” She didn’t bother to hide her weapons—including the special gun—from him as she pulled them out of the overnight bag and concealed them on her body.
His face was expressionless as he watched her, his wings backlit by the flames, his magnificent body naked but for a pair of black pants. “The honeymoon is over?”
She walked across the carpet to stare up into a face she knew she’d see in her dreams the rest of her life. “Nope.” Fisting her hands on his naked chest, she waited for him to lower his head, and then took a kiss. “Here’s a tip—you want to call me your toy, go ahead. Just don’t expect me to be one.”
A hand on her nape, a warning grip. “Don’t attempt to manage me, little hunter. I’m not—”
The rest of his words disappeared in a crash of white noise.
Come here, little hunter. Taste.
“Elena.” The sharp word pulled her back to the here and now.
“Fine.” She cleared her throat. “Glad we sorted that out. The rain’s stopped—”
“What do you see?”
She met his eyes, shook her head. “I’m not ready to tell you.” Might never be.
He didn’t threaten to take it from her by force. “It’s still drizzling lightly. That should help keep him in Stupor.”
“Yeah.” Drawing back, she folded her arms. “I didn’t think about that. They don’t like the cold, do they?” It was a rhetorical question. “Especially after a glut.”
“But then again, Uram isn’t a vampire.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “Then what the hell is he? Tell me!”
“He is an Angel of Blood.” He walked to the window, but she knew he saw things far more sinister than the predawn gloom. “A true abomination, a thing that should never have existed.”
The anger that emanated from him was an almost physical force. “Is he the first?”
“He’s the first archangel to become bloodborn in my memory. But Lijuan says there have been others.”
Elena’s mind filled with the images she’d found of the oldest of the archangels. Lijuan was the only one of the Cadre who showed even the first signs of age. It did nothing to detract from her exotic beauty—her face, her bones, her pale, pale eyes. And yet, there was something subtly wrong about Lijuan. As if she didn’t belong in this world anymore.
“The first archangel you know of,” she murmured, thinking that through. “What about ordinary angels?”
“Very good, Elena.” He didn’t turn from the window, as remote as he’d been on that rooftop what felt like weeks ago. “Those others were easily contained. Most were young
males with little of the intellect Uram seems to have retained after his transition.”
“How many?” She stared at the back of his head as if she could force him to speak. “One a year?”
He met her eyes in the window’s dusky reflection as she came to stand behind him. “No.”
Biting back her frustration, she moved around to lean against the glass so they were face-to-face. “You’re obviously very good at covering the tracks of the bloodborn—humans don’t even have legends about this.”
“In most cases, the victims alone learned the truth—and they did so minutes before their deaths.”
“That makes me feel extra special.” She found herself tracing the delicate gold edging of a feather near his biceps. “Tell me—these bloodborn, is it a madness they’re born with?”
A sweep of sinfully rich lashes against skin she’d kissed not so long ago. “We all carry the potential to become bloodborn.”
Startled at the straight answer, she dropped her hand. “What, no warnings about too much knowledge?”
“You already know too much.” A smile that hinted at age, at ruthlessness, at things better left unimagined. “It’s good you’ve come to my bed. No one will dare touch my lover.”
“Too bad immortals have such fleeting interests.” The cold of the glass at her back was beginning to seep into her bones, but she didn’t move. “Since I already know so much, tell me why an angel turns vampire.”
His face closed over. “You’re still human.”
She barely restrained the urge to kick him. “I’m also a hunter tracking an archangel. You pulled me into this. Give me the tools I need to fight.”
“Your job is to find Uram. It’s your ability we need.”
We. The Cadre of Ten.
“How am I supposed to do that job if you insist on hobbling me?” It took extreme effort to keep her temper. “The more I know about the target, the better I am at predicting his movements!”
He traced a finger over her cheek. “Do you know why Illium lost his feathers?”
“Because you were in a bad mood?” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Stop trying to change the subject.”
