Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,4

it hers.

Never had Raphael been afraid except when it came to his warrior lover. He was an archangel. Beyond fear. But in that moment fear closed its cold hands around his throat. Breath tight in his lungs, he made himself take in the rest of her face. Short strands of near-white hair lying across her cheek. Fine bones under her translucent skin—but that skin was Elena’s dark gold. The glow hadn’t faded.

As if her blood was liquid gold and the light of it shone through.

She blinked, shook her head a tiny fraction. Around her fell the last pieces of the chrysalis as her legs unfurled to their full length. Her eyes opened again and when they met his, they were clear, a pure silver without the gray of humanity. That, however, could mean the worst had happened. That his Elena was immortal but lost to him forever, a container of energy without soul or self.

I would rather die as Elena than live as a shadow.

His hand flexed painfully then fisted again, dirt and grit crushing into his skin. He would do what he had promised. He would end her if she was no longer his Elena. He would not allow an empty shell, a corruption of life, to walk around with his consort’s face. He would not allow the Cascade to degrade his Elena. But first, he would know.

Every muscle in his body locked, he reached out with his mind. Elena-mine.

No response, no sense of a presence inside his head.

He clenched his jaw. It wasn’t over yet. Her ability to speak to him mind-to-mind had been stolen long before the chrysalis. What they’d done together, wrenching her out of the chrysalis, shattering it before it was done consuming her, that might’ve compounded the harm. The piece of his heart that he’d given her held incredible power, but her body might not have known how to utilize it to protect her mind against the forces tearing at it.

She’d been his Elena in the dream where they’d met before he released his power, but he had no idea how much time had passed in the dream. Had it taken him seconds to expend his power? Days? Months? What had happened to his consort’s mind and self during that time?

“Hbeebti.” His voice was raw. And his heart, it was in pieces inside him. A new heart would grow in its place, was already beginning—though it faltered and stuttered, slowed by his lack of power. “Elena.”

Nothing, no response.

He had no weapon, no energy to form angelfire, but he was an archangel. His base strength was enough to break her neck, tear her limb from limb.

Mouth opening in a yawn, she blinked again and gave a harder shake of her head, strands of her hair floating up into the golden energy, and her forehead lined in a frown. His pulse pounded, his regenerating heart sucking energy from his limbs—because arms and legs weren’t a priority when you had a heart to grow.

There wasn’t much that could kill an archangel. Burned to a cinder by an ordinary fire, they would wake—perhaps after years, but wake they would. Blown to pieces by anything but the powers of another archangel, they would eventually regenerate from a single piece and rise again. Only another archangel could kill an archangel.

Some laws of nature were fundamental. Even the Cascade could not alter them.

His growing heart continued to draw energy from other nonessential parts of his body.

Raphael might lose some flesh during the process, might even lose an arm or a leg, but it would not be anything in the scheme of his immortal life. Nothing akin to Elena’s fragility. His hunter, who had never been fragile, would swear a blue streak at becoming conscious of her current state.

He couldn’t wait to feel her ire, fight with her over her stubborn need to quickly regain her strength. She’d probably want to begin lifting weights before she could walk. He’d hand her the damn weights himself if she’d just talk to him, tell him they’d made it, that the Cascade hadn’t won this battle.

Around them the golden energy continued to glow and form small eddies in the air, tiny lightning flashes hidden within it.

He reached once again for her mind. Elena, do you hear me? His chest ached.

If she was gone, this was it for him. He had lived over a thousand five hundred years. It was enough. If Lijuan had risen monstrous while he and Elena slept, he’d do what he could