Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,120
the death, all the evil.
Shoving up one of her thighs the instant she’d freed the thickness of him, he thrust into her while looking into her eyes. Her back arched, her hands gripping at his body, and her eyes never leaving his. Wrapping her other leg around his waist, she held him tight as he pounded her into the carpet, each stroke hard and deep and relentless.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t distant. It wasn’t the least bit cold.
Sweat slicked their bodies. His throat tasted of salt and Raphael. His groan as he drove deep into her before his body stiffened was nothing eerie or strange. It was life stripped to the core. As was the way her inner muscles clenched convulsively around him as he began to orgasm, the muscles of his body beautiful under the shimmer of sweat.
Pleasure wrecked her.
He collapsed on her afterward, his breath hot against her neck and his body heavy. She could barely breathe, but who cared about that when Raphael was stroking the side of her body and moving slightly in her as they both rode out the aftershocks. “I think I have carpet burn on my butt,” she said when she could speak again.
His shoulders shook under her hands.
And for a few more stolen seconds, they didn’t think about Lijuan or death or the fact Elena had become faster than an archangel.
49
A one-minute shower to hide evidence of their quickie from the smartasses in the Tower, a change into proper sparring clothes, then they went down to the large windowless training ring on a lower floor. “Vivek set up a recording system here for if we want to play back certain moves, figure out weaknesses.” She made her way to the control box and started the system. “I want proof.”
The two of them began as usual, but every so often, Raphael would rush her at full archangelic speed. Her body reacted to get her out of the way the first five times. The sixth time, he’d have smashed her into a wall if he hadn’t pulled himself up.
No matter how many times they tried after that, it didn’t work.
“Seven times,” Elena said, her hands on her knees and her exercise tank plastered to her body—though the stormfire of her wings never faded. “I can do it seven times in a row before it fails.”
“The problem is that you can’t control when it happens.”
“Yep, I don’t feel anything. I just go poof.” She put her hands on her hips. “Let’s invite the others to watch the footage with us.” Their senior people needed to know how she might react if startled in battle. The idea of just disappearing and dropping a fellow fighter in the shit made her grind her teeth, but at this point, all she could do was warn them it might happen.
“First, you need more sleep,” Raphael said. “This can wait a few hours.”
Illium, Dmitri, Janvier, Ashwini, and Honor proved to be in the Tower when she woke. Raphael met her in the training room and they viewed the footage again before asking the others to join them.
Elena was the one who located Honor—the other woman wasn’t far, had just finished up a session with Suyin in a smaller training area. As always when Elena ran into the architect, she felt a visceral punch. The shining hair of ice white, the sharp cheekbones, the striking upward tilt of her eyes, Suyin could’ve been Lijuan in another life.
Except that Suyin’s gaze held a bruised pain Lijuan would never comprehend. “Ellie,” she said with a soft smile that didn’t banish the sadness that shadowed her.
Elena fought the urge to hug her. Suyin was an intensely private angel, her grief and pain contained and held tight. “You’re a lot better than the last time I saw you.” The woman responsible for some of the greatest architecture in angelkind had the type of instinctive understanding of movement that made for gifted athletes and dancers.
“You are kind.” Suyin’s age pressed against Elena’s skin with a power that was uncommon; it always made Elena wonder if Lijuan had tortured and imprisoned her niece not only because Suyin knew the secrets of Lijuan’s stronghold, but because she’d seen Suyin as a possible rival.
“I know I have a long way to go.” Suyin’s voice was a haunting melody, her accent that of an old being speaking a new tongue. “As part of that, I must now do flight drills with Jurgen’s squadron.”