For an instant, he didn't understand. Then he did and it made his blood turn to ice. "She has the ability to influence me?" He hadn't been under any creature's control since escaping Isis's tender mercies ten centuries ago.
"Would you kill her if she does?"
He'd killed Isis-it had been the only way to break free of the powerful angel bent on keeping him prisoner. He'd killed others, too. "Yes," he answered, but part of him was no longer so sure.
Is rape what turns you on?
The impact of those words still reverberated in the endless night he called a soul. His eyes flicked over Lijuan's face. "If she was controlling me, it wasn't conscious." Otherwise, she wouldn't have accused him of rape.
"Are you sure?"
He stared at her, in no mood to play games.
It made her smile widen. "Yes, you are a smart one. No, your little hunter does not have the power to bend an archangel to her whims. Are you surprised I know who it was?"
"You have spies in my Tower, like you have spies everywhere."
"And do you have spies in my home?" she asked, her tone a razor.
He threw up a shield, reflecting back her cutting power. "What do you think?"
"I think you're far stronger than the others realize." Calculation filled her gaze, even as she dropped into less formal speech.
Raphael would've cursed himself for having made a mistake except that he knew this was part of Lijuan's modus operandi. To speak with her, you had to be, if not an equal, at least strong enough to make things interesting. "If you weren't a woman, I'd say you have a need to prove whose cock is bigger."
She actually giggled but the sound was somehow . . . off. "Oh, that I'd found you when I was still interested in such things." She waved a hand. "You would've made a fine lover." Her lips turned sensuous, some faded remembrance lighting sparks in the winter chill of her eyes. "Have you ever danced with an angel in flight?"
Memory hit Raphael like a body blow. Yes, he had danced. But it had not been in pleasure. However, he said nothing, simply watched, listened, knowing he was her audience.
"I had a lover once who actually made me feel human." She blinked. "Extraordinary, isn't it?"
He considered what kind of a young angel Zhou Lijuan might've been and found he didn't like the answer. "Is he with you still?" he asked for form's sake.
"I had him killed-an archangel can never be human." Her face shifted, becoming less and less of this world, a caricature of angelic features, paper-thin skin over bone glowing from within. "There are some humans-one among half a billion perhaps-who make us something other than what we are. The barriers fall, the fires ignite, and the minds merge."
He stayed absolutely silent.
"You must kill her." Her pupils had expanded to devour the irises, her eyes black flame, her face a burning skeletal mask. "Unless and until you do, you can never be certain when the barriers will fall again."
"What happens if I don't kill her?"
"Then she will kill you. She will make you mortal."
Ransom stopped the motorcycle in the bowels of Guild HQ. Pulling off his helmet, he hung it on the right handlebar. "My, but you lead an interesting life, Elieanora."
She rubbed her cheek against the braid hanging down his back, too happy with him to tell him to stop using that stupid name. Not only was it not her name-okay, maybe on her birth certificate-it made her sound about a hundred years old. According to Ransom, she'd been drunk the night she confessed her secret shame. She thought it was more likely he'd hacked into some database and stolen the intel.
Reaching back, he patted her thigh. "Am I going to get lucky tonight?"
"You wish." Grinning, she slapped away his hand and got off the bike.
His too-handsome-to-live face bore a wide grin. "It was worth a try." With high cheekbones and rich copper-gold skin inherited from his Cherokee ancestors, not to mention green eyes from Ireland-via a short sojourn in an Australian penal colony-he was pretty enough to lick up like ice cream.
It was almost a pity they were just friends. Almost. "The night I sleep with you, you'll cry like a baby."
His eyes widened as he unzipped his leather jacket. "I know you're into knives, but in bed? Isn't that taking it a little far?"
Leaning in, she put her hands on his shoulders. "The instant we have sex, we stop being friends. Tear-time, honey pie." It was a relief to be doing something as normal as bantering with Ransom.