“You like it?”
“I like you in all your faces, Guild Hunter.” And he knew no matter which face she wore, she remained a warrior first and foremost.
Looking disgruntled, Elena put her hands on her hips. “Come on, I made a special effort with the goop.”
Rising to his feet, he cupped her jaw, took in her eyes. “The kohl is from Mahiya.”
“Yep.” She held up a fingertip smudged black. “Let me wash this off. Mahiya said there are pencils I could use, but she’s always used a tiny pot of kohl and her little finger and that works for me, too.”
“I thought you a warrior princess when you turned to me.” He kissed her on lips she’d left unpainted.
Gripping the black leather of his gauntleted forearm, she opened her mouth to his even as he claimed hers. When they broke apart, her eyes glittered, her skin flushed under a fine shield of cosmetics.
Elena washed off the faint remnants of the kohl on the pad of the smallest finger on her right hand, then checked her face in the mirror before slicking on a lipstick that made her lips appear a little bit plumper. Finished with the primping—weapon, she reminded herself, it’s another weapon—she went into the living area to see that Raphael was putting on his boots.
Since her own boots would only take seconds to pull on, she leaned in the doorway and just watched him. He’d gone for “formal warrior” in his clothing choice and she approved. Black gauntlets covered each of his forearms, the same color as his pants and shirt. That shirt had no sleeves and was patterned on fighting leathers; two thin black strips of leather ran across his shoulders, and in place of the collarless neckline of fighting leathers, this one had a raised mandarin collar closed on the right with a steel black pin that echoed the Legion mark.
Closing down one side of his chest rather than in the middle, the shirt had no visible buttons, but it not only fit flawlessly across his chest, it did the same around his wings.
Aside from the pin, which only became visible at close quarters, there was only a single point of ornamentation on his body—the ring of platinum and amber that he wore as a symbol of Elena’s claim. Elena wore her own amber in her ears—and in the blade strapped to her upper arm. It had taken her months of owning the gift to realize there were pieces of highly polished amber embedded in among the gemstones.
Her archangel was just slightly possessive.
Smiling, she walked over to join him when he rose to his feet. The stark black of his clothing threw the brilliant blue of his eyes and the Cascade mark into brutal focus. “You look like a primal warrior barely contained.” The sophistication remained, but it had a harsh edge that would remind everyone of his origins as a man honed in combat.
“Good.” Raphael watched in silence as she slipped on her soft calf-length “gown boots”—because Elena did not do heels. “Ready?”
“Let’s go show them how New Yorkers do things.”
The first person Elena saw when she walked into the glass- ceilinged Atrium—as the huge room with the high ceiling had been described by the guide who’d left them at the door—was Michaela. The archangel who’d once been known as the Queen of Constantinople and now controlled the vast majority of Europe as well as part of what had once been Uram’s territory was wearing a gown of darkest green that hugged her every curve and had a neckline that plunged almost to her belly button.
In a fairer world, that would’ve made her look trashy.
This wasn’t a fair world: the Archangel of Budapest, Michaela taking her current title from the city in which she kept her court, looked like the embodiment of beauty. Her skin had no blemishes, her curves the catalyst for a million wet dreams, her face all clean lines put together with haunting perfection and her eyes an intense green—jewels without flaw but for the ring of a lighter acidic green that, at times, appeared without warning around her irises.
Uram’s taint.
The acid wasn’t present today. Michaela had also put up her hair, into a complicated pattern it must’ve taken someone an hour to create. It revealed the swanlike elegance of her neck.
Then there were the stunning wings of delicate bronze that she held off the floor with effortless muscle control.
There was a reason Michaela was known as the most beautiful woman in existence.
Beyond her, past the cream-colored settees arranged into seating areas, and the meticulously set dinner table, right against the wall on the very far side of the Atrium, stood her psychotic pet vampire, Riker—Elena had caught his jarringly evocative scent when she entered the room: cedar painted with ice. Of course, he was handsome, too, all blond hair and eyes of darkest brown, his wide-shouldered, slim-hipped body that of a fashion model. Psycho didn’t mean ugly, not among mortals or immortals.