Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,58
the grass, leaving a dance of fire that didn’t scorch.
“I’m serious.” She ran her fingers through his hair, locked her gaze to his. “I’ll never let you fall. We do this together.”
She was a young immortal, with no power when compared to him . . . but he knew she would keep her word, hold him to account, not let the cold of immortal power win. “Always,” he said.
A fierce kiss before she turned her attention to the shield less than fifty meters away. “Shall I?”
“My mother will be most disappointed if you do not.”
A wicked grin. “Also, I want to show off.” Light burst out of her back and in the colors of sunset sparked wings as extraordinary as his consort.
“Elena, they are no longer pure white-gold and lightning.” Color had begun to bleed out into the fire. Black at her back that faded into indigo, deep blue, and the whispered shade of dawn. The same colors as the wings he’d been forced to amputate to save her from further pain—but lightning danced through them now, violent and beautiful.
Instead of looking back to see the change, she touched the fingers of her free hand to his jaw. “No brooding. We survived. And I got retractable wings out of it. I’m not sorry.”
“Neither am I.” If he hadn’t done what he had, made the choices he had, she might not have returned as his Elena, with her own memories and thoughts and emotions. “But I will never forget slicing off your wings.” It would haunt him forever, that image.
“I know it was a fucking nightmare.” Both hands on his face now. “But those wings were dead already. Because of what you did, I was able to turn into a butterfly.” She frowned. “Okay, I suck at metaphors, but you get what I mean.”
“You are a butterfly with warrior’s wings.” He kissed her hard, holding that image in his mind, of her emerging from a chrysalis into a being of beauty and strength.
Light lived under Elena’s skin when they parted.
At last she looked at her wings. “Guess these are my colors and I’m determined to have them.” A satisfied look in her eye, she ran her fingers through the energy.
It was thus, both of them afire, that they walked through the shield and came face-to-face with the woman who was the template from which he’d been cast.
27
Caliane was no longer the oldest Ancient awake in the world—the Cascade had been stirring up many things, including Sleepers who had lain dormant in secret places for eons upon eons—but she was unquestionably one of the two most powerful.
She wore a gown of cerulean blue with bejeweled clips on the shoulders and sleeves that flowed down into cuffs embroidered with delicate care. Her skirts floated to brush the earth, her midnight hair soft waves down her back.
Seeing her this way, regal and elegant, no one would believe that she was a warrior angel. Her voice was renowned in angelkind, but Caliane could make music with her blade, too. The wings of purest white that sloped gracefully down her back were capable of split-second turns and rapid acceleration in battle, and her fighting leathers were as well-worn as his. She had been his first teacher when it came to the sword.
His mother was a woman of many faces, the one she showed him today luminous with maternal warmth. “My son. My Raphael.”
He bent his head and she pressed her lips to his forehead, her hands on his biceps. “My heart sings to hold you thus, to see you standing strong and alive before me.” She turned without warning to take Elena’s face in her hands. His hunter’s hand clenched on his, her body stiff. Caliane had softened toward Raphael’s “most unusual consort,” but she didn’t treat Elena as a mother did her child.
Today, however, she pressed her lips to Elena’s forehead and said, “And you, my son’s heart, I feel joy to see you walk into my city as a warrior once again.” She reached for Elena’s hair, running the short strands through her fingers and examining the tiny feather at the end of one.
“There is nothing I despise more than those who seek to see a strong woman fall.” With that cutting denunciation, she broke contact. “Come, you must be hungry after the journey. We will break bread, and I will tell you what has been happening across the water in China.”