Archangel's Legion: A Guild Hunter Novel

by Nalini Singh

  Flexing his hands as if in readiness for battle, he took a step forward . . . and walked into a wall of whispers. Hundreds of voices, each one raspy and somehow unused, the words interlaced and incomprehensible. They came from every side, yet when he rose up into that sky of cutting clarity, he saw nothing but the gnarled bodies of the trees that surrounded the field, sentinels of such age that they had stood through eternity.

  And still the voices whispered and murmured, pushing at him in waves that ebbed and flowed, until at last, he heard a single strong voice slice through the chaos. The other whispers died away, but did not fade altogether as that one voice asked him a question. “Who are you?”

  Feet touching the grass once more, the dew wet on the very tips of his wings, he felt a roaring surge of anger. “Who are you to ask questions of an archangel?”

  The murmurs rose again, the volume rising to a thunderous crescendo.

  Archangel. Archangel. Archangel!

  4

  “Archangel.” Elena gripped Raphael’s shoulder, his skin strangely cool under her fingertips. “It’s time to get up.”

  He always woke at her first touch, but today she had to call him a second time before his lashes lifted, the relentless blue of his eyes shadowed by a darkness that muted their vivid hue. “It’s daylight,” was the first thing he said, his gaze taking in the lacy streamers of light coming in through the study windows.

  “You were in such a deep sleep, I thought I’d give you a few extra minutes.” It was the only gift she could give; to protect an archangel was an impossibility. “It’s barely dawn.” Watching him get to his feet, this magnificent and lethal male who was her own, she rose and pulled on her robe. “You had an angry look on your face at the end. Bad dream?”

  “Not bad so much as strange.” He didn’t speak again until they’d both showered and begun to dress, their bedroom drenched in dawn sunshine from the skylight and open balcony doors. “I dreamed of the field where I fought Caliane.”

  Tying off her braid, she busied herself checking her crossbow, though she saw nothing of the weapon, every ounce of her being concentrated on Raphael. He spoke rarely about that agonizing day, and she hadn’t pushed him, because the whole “time heals all wounds” thing? It was a load of bullshit. “Was your mother in the dream?”

  “No.” Walking to the balcony, his upper body bare, he spread his wings as if soaking in the sun’s rays, the golden filaments hidden in the white sparking with a fire so brilliant, Elena found herself brushing her fingers along the living silk.

  “What do you see, Elena?”

  “There’s a kind of fire in your feathers now.” She almost expected to capture a piece of piercing white flame in her hand. “It’s incredibly beautiful.”

  Raphael glanced at his wing, shrugged. “So long as they work.” Folding them in, he turned to pick up one of her throwing blades and slid it into the sheath on her left arm. “The dream was not . . . what it should be,” he said, as she made a minor fix to one of the sheath straps. “Of course, yesterday was no ordinary day. It’s not inexplicable that I should dream of violence.”

  “It could be that simple.” Elena held out her right forearm, sheath in place, so he could slide in the other throwing blade. “But I’ve seen way too much freaky stuff since you first summoned me to do your bidding to take anything at face value.”

  “You were abysmal at doing my bidding.” It was a cool reminder. “I thought you the most fascinating creature I had ever met.”

  “You did not.” She pointed a gleaming knife at him before slotting it into a thigh sheath strapped over her slimline black leather pants, her clothing designed to reduce drag in the air. “You thought I was a nuisance you might have to throw off the side of the building in order to teach me manners.” As it was, he’d made her close her hand over a blade, her blood dripping to stain the roof, a being so terrifying she’d seen nothing of humanity in him. “You were kind of a bastard, if we’re being brutally honest.”

  Lips curving, he picked up the long, thin blade she wore hidden along her back in a sheath built into her long-sleeved black top, the fabric tough enough to take the demands of a hunter’s life. “You,” he said, sliding the blade into place when she turned, “are the only individual who would ever say that to my face.”

  “Remind me to tell you sometime about how I decided I should get Big Idiot tattooed on my forehead.” Facing him once more, she smoothed her hands over his gorgeous shoulders. “And what does it say about me that I thought you were fascinating and sexier than sin, even after you made me cut myself?”

  “That you’re a warrior who knew she’d finally met her match.”

  Elena snorted. “It says I’m a dumbo who doesn’t know when to be meek and subservient and save my ass, that’s what it says.”

  Smile deepening until his cheeks creased with it, Raphael curved one hand around her nape, using the fingers of his other to caress the sensitive upper arch of her wing with long, firm strokes. “Had you been meek and subservient,” he murmured as her knees threatened to melt, “I would’ve never summoned you to do my bidding.”

  His kiss threatened to finish what his strokes had begun. Licking her tongue against his, her breasts crushed against the hard muscle of his chest, Elena wanted nothing more than to stay in this stolen minute, to forget the outside world, but the ugly reality that awaited couldn’t be ignored.

  “I’ve been away from the Tower for over six hours,” Raphael said when they drew apart, his expression shifting in a way that reminded her he wasn’t simply her lover, wasn’t simply the man who wore her ring on his finger. No, he was an archangel, responsible for the lives of millions, mortals and immortals alike.

  “Finish dressing.” Releasing him, she headed for the door. “I’ll bring up some food. You need to refuel after all the healing you did.”

  By the time she returned, the transformation was complete, the Archangel of New York a grim-eyed power beside her as they ate standing on the balcony. He’d chosen to wear a simple black shirt and pants, the cut pristine, rather than the leather combat gear he often chose. All part of the illusion, she realized, an elegant “fuck you” to whoever had dared attack his city and harm his people.

  Elena watched him slice through the biting cold of the wind only minutes later, the early morning sunlight sparking white fire off the altered filaments in his wings, and felt her heart tighten in a deep, chill fear. Never had she expected to find him, to fall so deeply, wildly, insanely in love—and sometimes, her soul-deep joy in their passionate entanglement terrified her, the fear of losing him as she’d lost her sisters, her mother, a stealthy intruder in her mind.

  After yesterday, that intruder had forced its way to the forefront of her consciousness.

  Fingernails digging into her palms, she returned to the bedroom to pick up her phone. She didn’t currently have an active assignment, but she could put in some time teaching a class at Guild Academy—not as high visibility as a hunt, but perfect in its utter normality. However, as part of her contribution to Raphael’s “fuck you,” she stopped at a rooftop coffee stand set up by a human shrewd enough to realize angels liked coffee, too.

  She made herself laugh at the barista’s joke, heard phone cameras clicking quietly as the businesspeople from the building took advantage of her proximity to update their social media pages. Take that and smoke it, she thought to the unknown enemy who’d caused such carnage and loss. You might have managed to kill five of us, but you haven’t come close to breaking this city.

  Anger a rock in her throat as she thought of the biers even now on their way to the Refuge, she took off in a showy sweep that ignited more photo taking, the coffee held in hand.

  The head trainer at Guild Academy was more than happy to have her take the advanced crossbow class, the staff used to adjusting the schedule to take advantage of active hunters who had some downtime.

  Lesson complete, she’d just walked onto the roof in preparation for takeoff toward Guild HQ wh
en her phone rang. “Eve,” she said with a smile, “I was just thinking we needed to talk.” Much to Jeffrey’s anger and disgust—the damn hypocrite—Elena’s youngest half sister was also hunter-born.

  “E-Ellie, can you c-come now?” Sobs in Eve’s usually ebullient voice.

  Smile fading, Elena said, “Are you at school?” Both Evelyn and her older sister, Amethyst, had been boarders at a private school upstate until the bloody events there this past spring. It was in the aftermath that Eve’s hunting abilities had come to light, leading to a transfer to a private school closer to Guild Academy. Amethyst had chosen to come with her.

  Eve sniffed. “Y-yes. I’m hiding.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Her sister must’ve been watching for Elena from her hiding place, because she ran from around the imposing redbrick building just as Elena landed on the manicured lawn out front.

  Eve had turned eleven a week earlier, but she appeared much younger today, her face blotchy, her sobs deep and silent and heartbreaking. “Sweetheart,” Elena said, waving off a teacher who’d appeared on the front steps.

  The suit-clad older man frowned but returned through the heavy wooden doors carved with some kind of a crest.

  Gathering Eve’s school-uniform-clad body in her arms, Elena gritted her teeth and achieved a vertical takeoff through sheer strength of will. According to every known fact of angelic development, she shouldn’t have been capable of the maneuver yet, her body not having formed the necessary musculature, but the idea of being grounded and helpless was untenable—so she’d learned to lift. It wasn’t graceful, and it hurt, but she could do it.

  She caught the excitement at the school’s windows as they passed. Good. No one would tease Eve for her tears now; the other students would be more interested in her stories of flight. “It’s okay,” she said when Eve, realizing her feet were no longer on the ground, clutched at her. “I’ve got you.”

  A few more sniffles before her sister began to crane her neck to see around Elena’s wings, her hair whipping in the wind. By the time they landed at the Enclave house, her face was gleeful, cheeks happily windburned.

  “If you’re going to play hooky,” Elena said, relieved to see Eve’s tough spirit rising to the surface, “do it in style.”

  That got her a bright-eyed grin, the gray of Eve’s irises a stamp Jeffrey had put on them both. “Can we do that again?”

  “After we have a snack. Come on.” Walking past the house, dead certain Montgomery wouldn’t let her down, she took Eve to her greenhouse.

  “Oooh.” Eve touched her fingers to the petals of a wildly blooming daisy inside the heated enclosure. “Did you grow this?”

  “Yep. You should see this one.”

  It was only three minutes later that Montgomery proved her faith in him once again.

  “Hot chocolate and cakes for your guest, Guild Hunter,” he said, placing the tray he carried on the little wrought-iron table Elena had situated in a cozy corner the first time Sara came to visit.

  “Thank you,” she said, aware of Eve standing politely by her side, hands folded in front of her. “I don’t think you’ve met my youngest sister, Evelyn.” Of her three living sisters, only Beth had been to the Angel Enclave house and she’d been so overawed she hadn’t spoken a peep the entire time. “Eve, this is Montgomery.”

  An elegant bow. “Miss Evelyn.”

  Eyes wide, Eve stuck out her hand. “Hi.”

  Elena had never seen Montgomery shake anyone’s hand. Expecting him to be scandalized by the idea, she found herself charmed instead at the solemnity with which he accepted Eve’s hand.

  “If you need anything further,” he said, after the formalities were over, “I will be at the house.”

  Wiggling into one of the chairs at the table after the door closed behind Montgomery, Eve leaned in close to whisper, “Was he a butler?”

  “The best one you’ll ever meet.” Picking up the gorgeous little teapot, Elena poured hot chocolate into delicate cups she’d never before seen, the edges curlicued and the white china surface painted with tiny pink flowers.

  Perfect for a young girl.

  “Wow. We have a housekeeper, but I don’t know anybody who has a butler.”

  Elena grinned, thinking of her own reaction the first time she’d seen Montgomery, and put a cupcake on Eve’s plate, the frosting swirls of yellow decorated with crystallized violets. “Now,” she said, once her sister had finished the confection, “tell me what made you cry.” She’d never have been so direct with Beth, but Eve was built tougher, for all that she was a child.

  Face falling, her sister pushed a crumb around her plate. “I feel dumb now. I shouldn’t have called you—I know you must be sad and busy because of the Falling.” She squashed the crumb, staring at it as if it were the most important thing on the planet. “I was scared you’d fallen, and Amy was, too. Thanks for messaging me back.”

  “No thanks needed.” Elena reached over to tuck the deep black strands of Eve’s hair behind her ears. “Remember what I said? I’m always here for you.” The angry bitterness between her and Jeffrey might’ve kept her a stranger from her half siblings for most of their lives, but that was a mistake Elena would never again make. “It was nice to get your message yesterday, and I’m glad you called me today.”

  A hiccuping breath, and Eve looked up, eyes huge and wet. “I know I shouldn’t have, but this morning I told Father about how I aced an exercise at the Academy.”

  Elena’s stomach twisted. She knew what was coming, but she listened anyway, because Eve needed to release the poison before it could fester—as it’d festered in Elena and in Jeffrey, until it’d worn a jagged hole through the once-strong fabric of their relationship.

  “He’s always so proud when I do well at school,” Eve continued. “I thought he’d be proud of this, too . . . even though I know he hates hunters.” Lower lip trembling, she swallowed. “I thought if I could make him happy, then maybe he’d be nice to you, too, except h-he told me to get out of his sight.”

  “Oh, Eve.” Chest aching for her sister’s hurt, she went around the table to kneel beside Eve’s chair.

  Sobbing in earnest now, Eve threw her arms around Elena, her face wet against Elena’s neck. Elena said nothing, simply stroked her sister’s back, let her cry out the pain. It was better this way. As a child, Elena had swallowed her own pain again and again until it had become a knot inside her she wasn’t sure anything could unravel.

  Some wounds were inflicted too young, scarred too deep.

  It took time, but Eve finally cried herself out. Wiping her sister’s cheeks with a napkin she dampened using water from the small jug Montgomery had left on the table, Elena kissed each in turn. “Jeffrey hurt you, and he has no right to do that, no matter if he’s your father.” Even as she spoke, she knew she had to tread carefully, make sure her scars didn’t color Eve’s view of Jeffrey.

  Because notwithstanding the bastard he’d become as far as Elena was concerned, he’d apparently been a good if remote father to Eve and Amy. Not the same man who’d thrown Elena into the air as a child and danced with his first wife in the rain—that part of him was buried in the same grave as Marguerite—but a father Eve and Amy could rely on nonetheless.

  Elena would never do anything to damage that bond, not when she knew what it did to a child to be estranged from the man who was meant to protect her at her most innocent and vulnerable. “The truth is,” she said gently, her wings spread on the greenhouse floor as she continued to kneel beside Eve’s chair, “Jeffrey’s not rational on this one thing.”

  I have no desire to house an abomination under my roof.

  Words Jeffrey had thrown at her during the final, ugly fight that had destroyed the last, brittle threads of the bond that had once tied them together.

  “But why?” Eve fisted her hands, jaw jutting out as she asked the one question Elena had never been able to answer. “If I’m hunter-born and you’re hunter-born, doesn’t that mean t
hat Father must be hunter-born, too?”

  5

  “No,” Elena said, answering the question she could, “it means someone in his family was, and he carries the genes for it.” A fact he’d consciously hidden from Elena until the emergence of Eve’s ability had thrown a grenade onto that particular secret. “But the ability isn’t active in him, like it is in me and you. Do you understand?”

  A thoughtful nod, frown lines marring the creamy skin Eve had inherited from Jeffrey’s second wife, Gwendolyn. “Like he’s asleep and we’re awake.”

  “Yes.” Elena got to her feet, spreading her wings in a light stretch that had the white-gold primaries grazing a pot of chrysanthemums in bloom. “I think that’s a good way to put it.” However, their father couldn’t keep on being asleep, continue his willful, damaging blindness. Elena would not allow him to hurt Eve as he’d hurt her.

  “He might never understand, right, Ellie?” Eve said with her customary openness of nature a few minutes later, as they got ready to leave. “That’s why he’s always so mad at you.”

  Elena squeezed her sister’s hand, her calluses encountering the ones just beginning to form on Eve’s soft palms. “Jeffrey and I,” she said, “have other problems.”

  Slater Patalis had been drawn to their suburban home because of Elena. Until that awful, cruel day a lifetime ago, they’d been a family of six. Jeffrey, Marguerite, and their four girls. Mirabelle, with her hot blood and wild affection. Ariel, even tempered and bossy and protective. Elena, who wanted to do everything her older sisters did, and Beth, too young to truly remember now who they’d been together before Slater Patalis walked through the kitchen door.

  Where the murderous vampire had butchered Ari and Belle in a horrifying reign of blood, tortured their mother over and over . . . tortured the woman who was, and would always be, Jeffrey’s greatest love. Beth hadn’t been home, but Elena had. And though it was all her fault, she was the one who’d survived.