Raphael turned to the last member of his Seven who remained, Galen and Venom having signed off to return to their task of holding the Refuge stronghold secure. “How many more do you need in your team?” he asked Naasir. The vampire had arrived forty-eight hours before, fed well, and was at full strength.
“The team is complete,” was the response, Naasir’s silver eyes intelligent as only a predator’s could be. “Janvier and his hunter.”
“I wouldn’t call Ash that to her face,” Elena pointed out, wondering what it was Naasir planned to do. If she had to guess, given the team members and their abilities, she’d say it was about causing sabotage and disorder among the enemy camp.
A feral grin that said Naasir still found her interesting, and then he was gone.
Alone with Raphael for the first time in hours, Elena touched her fingers to his face and he lifted the glamour to expose the mark on his temple. It had grown at an accelerated rate since the river altered color . . . to the point where it was now clear it had nothing to do with disease—no, it was a symbol both savage and dangerously elegant. Created of complex but jagged lines, it curved down his temple to the top of his cheekbone on one end, the other end curling in on itself.
“Raphael, it’s not red anymore,” she whispered, astonished at the primal beauty of a finished design that reminded her of a stylized dragon. “It’s the color of us.” An incredible violent blue lit with searing white fire, so drenched with light and color that it appeared alive.
Reinitiating the glamour until they were in the bathroom of their suite, Raphael dropped it to examine the mark in the mirror. “I’ve seen this design before,” he said, to her surprise. “In old places in the Refuge, from times so long gone, no one has any memory of when the carvings were created.”
She hitched herself up on the counter so she could continue looking at the mark that no longer terrified, but compelled. “Any hint as to its meaning?”
“No. I asked Jessamy once, and she said she’d looked in the texts herself and found no mention of them. ‘Perhaps they are an enigma left behind by our ancestors to inspire us to search for knowledge,’ was what she said to me.” Shifting into the space between Elena’s legs, he was patient as she traced the vibrant, living mark with her fingertips.
“It’s truly beautiful.”
Raphael raised an eyebrow. “Many would say it’s savage.”
“Savage can be beautiful.” It suited him, her archangel whom she’d seen fight the reborn with raw ferocity, his twin blades moving so fast, she’d wanted only to watch him. “I don’t think there’s any longer any question that you’re evolving.”
That hard, pragmatic look back on his face. “Not fast enough. The mark may be complete, but in power, I’m no different than I was yesterday. We must focus on the factors we can control.” He stepped back, the glamour going up. “I need to reconfigure squadron placements. You should wake the leaders of the Guild and vampire shooting teams and do the same.”
Elena nodded. “One thing, Archangel.” She drew him to a stop with a touch on his wing. “I don’t think you should hide the mark come morning.”
“Fool the enemy into believing I’ve gained more power than is true?”
“And give our own forces heart,” Elena said, pushed by the same instinct that told her his wings were changing in more ways than in surface appearance. “There’s nothing to lose.”
• • •
Hours later, with the sky shifting from darkness to gray, Raphael left Aodhan on watch and walked up to the suite, having sensed a disturbance in Elena’s sleep patterns. He’d kept an eye on her since she’d finally gone to bed two hours past, knowing her tiredness and the tension-filled day made for optimal conditions when it came to the horrors that stalked her dreams.
When he reached the bedroom, he found her restless but not yet in distress. Lying down beside her, he spread his wing over her body in a protective wave and murmured words of love from an archangel to his consort until she sighed and sank into a deep, peaceful sleep. “Sleep well, hbeebti,” he said softly, brushing a kiss to her temple.
Not needing to rest, he had every intention of leaving the bed in the next few moments . . . but then he was dreaming, with no awareness of having closed his eyes. This time, he wasn’t on that lonely, forgotten field, but in a place so dark, it was beyond the rich black of night. He could hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing, the blackness pressing down until it felt as if it would suffocate the life out of him.