Looking to Donael, Raphael said, “You should inform Gian what has happened.” His words were a command. “Tell him we’ll speak with him after my consort and I have had a chance to get out of our wet clothing.”
Inclining his head, Donael went to leave—but he paused on the doorstep. “We are not who we once were.” Melancholy in his tone. “This would’ve never happened in the time of Reed.”
Waiting until after Donael closed the door behind himself, Raphael left Aodhan on watch while he and Elena retreated to the bedroom to change. “Don’t waste energy on glamour,” Elena said, her eyes dangerously focused. “I’m going to check the walls, and this time, I’m not stopping until I figure out what the fuck is making my skin crawl in this room.”
Raphael did the same, but it was Elena who found it almost thirty minutes later.
Hearing her mutter a harsh word under her breath, he moved to join her. Wisps of her damp hair had begun to curl around her face, her clothing stuck to her, but her concentration was a laser. “Where?” he asked.
She pointed the tip of a knife at a detail in the painting at which she was staring; it was the artist’s impression of a knot of wood on a tree. The hole was a pinprick, but it was very much there. Wings glowing in blinding fury, Raphael pulled the painting off the wall and threw it on the floor, exposing the hole beyond.
Elena thrust her knife into it. “No screams. Too bad. I was hoping to stab out someone’s eye.”
Not satisfied with that, Raphael punched a hand into the wall with archangelic strength. It collapsed in a spiderweb of cracks about four feet in diameter. He tore out the pieces to expose the entire interior.
Elena looked inside the hole after waving away the dust. “It’s a goddamn hidey space built between two rooms.”
“Maybe so the spy or spies can watch both.” Raphael stepped inside, saw that the hole apparently connected to nothing on either end. But there was a door in the center. “The entrance is via the other room.”
Squeezing past him, Elena opened that door—which proved to be the back of a closet. “Bet you the room’s empty.”
It was—and there was no clue as to who’d been utilizing the hole.
“At least we frustrated the spy or spies the entire time we’ve been here,” Elena muttered in cool satisfaction. “I hope they enjoyed watching an empty room.” She secured the door by thrusting a blade through the locking mechanism so no one could open it from the other side, then the two of them stepped back fully into their room.
Staring at the wall that had concealed the hole, Raphael spoke through the ice-cold anger chilling his veins. “This will not go unpunished.”
“Your wings are glowing, Archangel.” Elena ran the edge of his wing through her fingers. “Don’t explode just yet. Keep it in reserve for when we find out who hurt Ibrahim and which of these assholes have been terrorizing the town.”
It took at least a minute for Raphael to get himself under control. Then he and Elena, in silent agreement, checked the other walls again. There were no more peepholes, but despite Elena’s admonitions to save his power, he threw his glamour around himself and his consort. He would allow no one to spy on her.
As for their voices, no one would be able to hear them if they kept the volume quiet.
Elena, her own temper still shimmering a silver light in her eyes after she finally stripped off her damp clothing, pressed her naked body to his in a silent statement that they were one. Always. It calmed him enough that he could think. “We’ll find the answers hidden in this place, hbeebti. Even if we have to come back a hundred times.”
Rising up on tiptoe, Elena kissed him soft and tender. It was a delicate touch from his tough hunter, but he was used to such kisses now and then. Because Elena had a well-hidden core of softness that only came out with the vulnerable, and with those she loved. Stroking his hands over the sleek line of her back, down to the toned lower curves of her body, he sank into the kiss, sank into her.
It felt as if she breathed life into him, washing away the darkness that lingered so heavy on the horizon. Closing his wings around them to protect her even further, though his glamour hid them from all eyes, he kissed his lover, his warrior, was kissed in turn.
“I love you, Raphael.” A whisper against his lips, eyes full of ghosts holding his. “Don’t ever go.”
“Elena.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “You are thinking of your mother and your sisters again.” The loss haunted her, made her afraid of losing the people who mattered to her as she’d once lost Marguerite, Belle, and Ari.