Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,159

a hand. “Know your place!” Suyin flew back to slam into the side of a building, her wings crumpling and red streaking the moonlight of her hair, but she’d bought Raphael precious time.

He sent out two more arcs, one horizontal, one vertical. Lijuan moved just in time that the cross point of the arcs didn’t hit her face. Instead, she took the vertical line on one side of the body and the horizontal one on the heart. Raphael didn’t see what happened next because he was drowning in a rain of starlight obsidian.

He threw up a shield of wildfire. It began to buckle nearly at once.

His body, worn out from the constant fight against her proxies over the past two days, struggled to produce more wildfire and failed. Lijuan rammed herself toward him at the same instant, her hands spread out even as his wildfire crackled under her skin in an effort to take hold. If she touched him with those hands, she’d punch her poison into him at point-blank range.

Sweeping sharply to the left, he released the shield and that wildfire returned to him. Lijuan twisted to a halt, then turned to come after him again. Gathering the last of the wildfire in his hand, he held it up in a glowing ball. Come close by all means, he said. We will meet and see who survives.

A slight hesitation, her wings braking. Then she smiled and lifted her hands and he knew he’d soon be buried under a rain of death. He threw the wildfire, manipulating the energy so it would spread and encase her. It was the thinnest of barriers, but it blocked her energy for a moment or two.

He drew both his swords. There remained a limited amount of wildfire in his system, but he had to husband that on the off-chance he could get close enough to Lijuan to do what he’d done once before—send the energy directly into the bloodstream.

Tearing herself out of the thin skin of wildfire, she looked at him with irises so pale she appeared blind, her face hauntingly lovely and the ice white of her hair a silken fall. You will come to me, she said in that voice filled with ghosts. In the end, they all come to me.

Starlight obsidian rimmed her hands, her malevolent energy powerful beyond comprehension. Raphael’s left arm was already going numb, his body losing the battle with the poison she’d managed to get inside him. But he faced her with no fear—he would fight to the end to save his people. His Elena.

Archangel.

His consort in his peripheral vision, the stormfire of her hidden in the shadow of the nearest building. Then she flew forward and into the light.

Across from him, Lijuan smiled. How lovely of your consort to present herself. I will take care of her after you. A pity I will not be able to pin her up in my wing museum.

She was toying with him now. Taking her time before the kill. But she’d given something away—she didn’t realize Elena stored power for him. He and his consort had pulled off a similar action in the last battle, but Lijuan must’ve assumed all the power came from him.

To her, his consort was a former mortal and baby angel. No threat at all.

Wildfire licked across her eyeballs, danced in her hair. She shuddered and seemed to set her jaw. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. His power was having an impact, but not fast enough.

Already, she was lifting her hands, in readiness for a strike.

A sudden smile before she lowered her hands. You are no threat, she said in a laughing tone. I will absorb you in the way most pleasurable to me, then I will feed on your consort. She dove toward him, as if diving into a lover’s arms.

Archangel, here I come.

He thrust out his swords at the same instant that Lijuan stopped on the other end and laughed. What can sword wounds do to me now? Holding his gaze, her smile taunting in a face covered with moonlight skin, she pushed herself deliberately onto the blades, allowing them to sink into her flesh. I am a goddess. I will rise and rise and rise into my reign of death.

His consort touched her hand to his ankle. And the wildfire that had grown inside her over the past two days jolted into him in a direct line. It wanted to go toward the poison in his shoulder, but he shoved