Archangel's Legion(138)

A frown, Elena’s eyes going to his temple. “You’re rubbing the mark.”

Dropping his hand, Raphael stared at it. “I did not realize.”

“Does it hurt?” She brushed her fingers delicately over it.

“No, but it pulses.” Like a heartbeat. “That pulsing has increased in strength over the past hours.” Shaking his head, he cupped Elena’s face, a cut under her eye and across one cheek, her arms bearing countless nicks from the exploding windows and earlier skirmishes. Her body, too, was nearly at its limit, its ability to heal sluggish.

“I do not like that your colors are hidden.” She’d found some brown dye, used it on her hair and wings in a bid to keep Lijuan from immediately realizing who it was that flew beside Raphael.

“It’ll wash off with a couple of soapings. I’ll do it after we take care of Lijuan.” Nothing less than total confidence in her tone, though they both knew they might soon share their final kiss. “Knhebek, Raphael.”

“You are my heart.” The amber in the ring she’d given him glowed pure and beautiful as he took her mouth, passionate and with as brilliant a heart as his warrior.


• • •


Twenty minutes later, he stood on the cracked but still hold-ing balcony outside the war room and met Illium’s and Jason’s eyes, Elena by his side. The two angels would run interference in the hope Lijuan didn’t realize Raphael’s intent until it was too late—both could well lose their lives.

“Whatever price we pay this day,” he said, “whatever the outcome, know that I am proud to have had your loyalty.” On the mental plane, he made sure his message reached Aodhan and Dmitri, who even now watched their backs, and Naasir, who fought on the ground. The others would make sure his words were passed on to Galen and Venom, the two locked in battle as the peace of the Refuge was splintered with violence. “It is a point of great honor in my life.”

Both bowed their heads, but it was Jason who spoke. “The honor is, and will always be, ours,” he said, as Aodhan deflected another fury of blows aimed at the Tower. One got through, the balcony shuddering.

All four of them instinctively adjusted their stance to keep their feet.

“Did you manage to see Mahiya?” Elena asked his spymaster, and it was the question of a consort.

Jason’s face betrayed none of his emotions as he inclined his head, whatever had been shared between him and his princess, who’d worked in the infirmary throughout the fighting, a private matter. Raphael hoped it wouldn’t be the final conversation the two would ever have, for Jason had earned his happiness. To have it stolen from him, a bare heartbeat after he’d found it, would be a great unfairness—but as they had all learned in the preceding days, sometimes good did not prevail, evil triumphant.

Today, they’d do one final thing to change that, turn the tide. The ordinary fighters were ready to start the attack the instant they took off, forcing Lijuan’s forces to move before they were ready. Rocket launchers would be used to take out groups of enemy angels, his remaining winged fighters instructed to do everything in their power to create those groups by pushing the enemy together.

Those fighters understood that it was likely they, too, would die in the blasts. “If I take five of them with me,” one of his commanders had said, “it will be a sacrifice well made.”

Turning to Elena, his pride in his people absolute and the mark on his temple pulsing so hard that it seemed impossible no one else could see the movement, he said, “Ready, hbeebti?”

Elena notched a bolt into her crossbow. “Let’s go kill that murderous bitch.”

Snapping out their wings on her vow, Raphael, Elena, and his men were about to fly out through the bombardment that continued to shake the Tower when a bloodied angel came to a crash landing in front of Raphael, his blood splattering on the thin layer of snow. A crossbow bolt was embedded in his stomach.

“Azar.” Raphael knelt beside the advance scout, Jason beside him, while Illium took off to assist Aodhan in deflecting the blows now aimed at the balcony on which they stood.

“What are you doing here?” Jason asked the fallen angel. “You were stationed on the edge of the city.”

Gripping Jason’s hand as Elena called for the medics, Azar’s mouth bubbled with blood, the fluid crimson against his gleaming black skin in the dull light of the time before dawn. “I couldn’t get through on the communication lines, Sire. And you had to know.”

Raphael connected with the scout’s mind to make communication easier. While Raphael was always open to his Seven, Azar wouldn’t have been able to initiate such contact, especially from a distance. What do you have to report?