Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,10

the earth.

Panic a trapped butterfly in her skull, she closed her free hand over his and held on to her archangel while the power howled around him, into him. His hair blew back in the gale-force winds that existed inside the storm. His skin cracked with veins of gold that healed in a heartbeat, only for it to happen again and again. His hair turned gold with the sheer amount of energy pouring into him. His eyes were molten gold shattered with lightning.

When she tried to connect her mind with his, all she heard in return was roaring static, as if he stood in the middle of a wind tunnel, his words stolen before they ever reached her. Her own hair blowing back from her face and lightning strikes hitting her skin only to bounce off, she came as close as she could with their clasped hands between them. Never would she let him go.

A blinding blaze that forced her eyes to shut, a final roar of sound in her ears, followed by a “pop” as the pressure equalized . . . and it was over. She blinked open her eyes to utter calm. The earth around them continued to glow—but it was pulsing red now. As if so much heat had been released into it that things that shouldn’t burn had begun to burn. The golden Cascade-born energy no longer swirled above and around them.

It was inside Raphael.

Motionless, she stared.

The crashing sea in her mind, salt-laced and familiar . . . but infinitely colder. Until her veins were ice and her breath was particles of frost.

So? asked her archangel.

She gave a slightly hysterical giggle. “Talk about glow-in-the-dark.” His skin was lit from within, his eyes a vivid living gold, his hair tipped with flames. When she batted at it, the damn energy just hopped over to her hand and danced over her skin. “I guess the Cascade isn’t keen for you to be without power.” Her stomach was one big knot.

“It seeks only chaos. There is no chaos in one power.” Raphael shaped the Primary’s words with intricate concentration, as if doing something as mundane as forming words was far beneath him now. As if he’d ascended beyond being an archangel.

Fuck that.

Elena smashed a fist through the ice, kicked the stomach-knotting fear to the curb. She hadn’t survived being consumed by a goddamn chrysalis, then come back to life with an archangelic heart inside her chest, and a torturously sensitive tattoo instead of wings, to lose Raphael to a power that wanted to shape him into a being monstrous enough to fight Lijuan.

Fucking Cascade could go take a fucking hike.

Breaking their handclasp, she grabbed his face in her hands and slammed her mouth over his. Her entire body keened at the deep sense of homecoming, of being exactly where she needed to be. I missed you, Archangel. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she held him tight and deepened the kiss.

Raphael’s mind cleared in a single passionate second, the taste of Elena slicing through the grasping cold of enormous power. He’d never been this powerful, not even prior to the chrysalis. Until he felt that his mind could reach all corners of his territory. Until he could be a god.

Elena licked her tongue across his.

Carnal need and searing love collided, and he was once more very much a man, earthy and of this world. Not an archangel with delusions of godhood. Not Lijuan’s mirror. He was Raphael and he was with his strong, stubborn, dangerous consort. There was no distance with his hunter, and never would be.

Thrusting one hand into her hair, he gripped the strands in a powerful fist, and drank her in. He was furious with her for being so hurt, for making him slice off her wings. Knowing she’d had no control over it didn’t matter. Not in this moment.

He couldn’t hold the fury inside.

She felt it—and kissed him back even harder, the steel and warmth of her in his mind and sharp tugs on his scalp from the hands she’d locked in his hair. Running his palm down her side, he flinched at the barely sheathed bone of her rib cage. “You need food.” His breath was harsh pants; inside him, the power continued to rage, a hurricane without end.

Elena stared at him for a long second . . . before throwing back her head and laughing from deep within her belly. If her kiss had grounded him, her laughter owned him. He just watched