Archangel's Heart(106)

He glanced down, saw what she meant. The lightning strike had sheared off the very tip of his wing. He needed those feathers to maneuver, couldn’t risk being without them—they’d heal, of course, but not at high speed. Wings never did.

The idea of being grounded in Lumia, even for a day or two, was intolerable but his Cascade-born healing strength, at least the amount he could access at will, hadn’t yet regenerated after he’d used it to ease Elena’s wings.

She looked up right then, her eyes shining silver. Take it from me. The words were an order. The wildfire is all about life, right? Test it, see if it’ll fix your wing.

It was a good point—he was used to seeing it as a weapon against Lijuan, but it did taste violently of the energy of life . . . and of his hunter’s mortal heart. Let me attempt to direct the wildfire that lives in me.

That attempt failed.

He could call it to his hand, could’ve attacked Lijuan with it or driven out her poison, but it dissipated into his blood when he tried to direct it to his injured wing. It doesn’t work.

You don’t know my wildfire will act the same, Elena insisted. It exists because of my love for you. Its only purpose is to protect you.

When he hesitated, loath to weaken her in any fashion, her eyes narrowed. I accepted being a damn damsel in distress for you. You can be the hunky archangel in distress for once.

Lips twitching despite the danger of the moment, he used the contact of her hand against his wing to pull at the wildfire that lived in her, as if a rope connected them and he was wrenching on his end. Her teeth clenched, her free hand fisted, but otherwise, she gave no outward indication of what he’d done.

His mother and Tasha, behind her, had no reason to suspect anything.

A heartbeat later, pain burned through him as if he was lightning struck on the inside, even as a white-hot glow pulsed off the injured section of his wing. Her wildfire had arrowed directly to the wounded part of his body, his once-mortal consort loving him with a fierceness that was a storm wilder than the one that raged outside.

Releasing a shuddering breath, Elena rose to hug him tight. He noticed her legs were a little shaky, tightened his own grip so no Luminata watching might guess that she’d literally just given him a piece of herself. And his heart, it pounded like a thousand horses across a wild plain because only now did he allow himself to think how close they’d come to disaster.

A single strike and Elena could’ve been erased from the world.

He hadn’t known fear before loving Elena. He hadn’t known life, either. Hbeebti?

I’m good, she replied, running one hand down his back. You?

My wing is healing. As for the other—love meant learning to live with fear.

As he released her, his mother turned from where she’d been watching Tasha to ensure her escort steadied with no ill-effects. Her eyes reflected the lightning just beyond the covered hallway. “It appears,” she said, “that we may not be leaving Lumia at dawn after all.”

Elena hissed out a breath.





33


Pissed off at the idea that they might be trapped in this place with its ugly secrets and its dark whispers and its walls that watched them, Elena stalked through the corridors with Raphael by her side. They were taking a shortcut to their suite that she and Aodhan had figured out, one that involved passing through hallways so narrow, she and Raphael couldn’t have walked side by side had they minded their wings overlapping.

Water dripped from her hair down her back and onto her face, while their wings tracked water through Lumia despite the fact they’d both shaken off those wings before heading to their suite. Not that it mattered—as wet as they were, it wasn’t as if they could avoid leaving a watery trail.

Lumia was eerily quiet around them, though, despite the lightning-seared darkness, it wasn’t that late. “Wonder if people are prepping for dinner,” she said, one of her throwing knives in her hand without her conscious volition.

“Perhaps.”

Yeah, clearly her archangel didn’t buy that explanation, either.

Wiping off the water dripping into her eyes, she stifled a sneeze. “Damn it. Shouldn’t I be immune to sneezes by now?”

Raphael’s smile made her want to kiss him.

Instead, she wove her fingers through his, uncaring of who might see. If people didn’t know they adored each other by now, they had rocks in their head, she thought just as she turned the corner and saw a robe-clad body crumpled on the ground. The fallen angel lay on his side, his wings exposed and limp, another distressed-looking angel kneeling beside him, his trembling hands hovering above that crumpled body.

“Ibrahim!” Knife held in readiness against a threat, Elena strode to the downed angel’s side . . . and saw Ibrahim’s bloodied face, the crushed pulp of his right hand. That wasn’t the worst of it. His robe was sunken in on the side she could see, as if his ribcage had been crushed inward.