ground rules had changed. "Yes," she agreed. "My heart is yours."
A flash of satisfaction in his eyes.
"But nothing else." She locked gazes with him, refusing to back down. "So, I'm a baby immortal. Fine - but I'm also still a hunter. One good enough that you hired me."
Annoyance replaced the passion. "You're an angel."
"With magic angel money?"
"Money is no object."
"Of course not - you're richer than Midas himself," she muttered. "But I'm not going to be your little chew-toy - "
"Chew-toy?" A gleam of amusement.
She ignored him. "Sara says I can walk back into the job anytime I want."
"Your loyalty to the angels now overwhelms your loyalty to the Hunters Guild."
"Michaela, Sara, Michaela, Sara," she murmured in a mock-thoughtful voice. "Bitch Goddess angel versus my best friend, gee, which side do you think I'll choose?"
"It doesn't matter, does it?" He raised an eyebrow.
She had the feeling he knew something she didn't. "Why not?"
"You can't put any of your plans in action until you can fly."
That shut her up. Glaring at him, she slumped back against the pillows, her wings spread out on the sheets in a slow sweep of midnight shading to indigo and darkest blue before falling into dawn and finally, a brilliant white-gold. Her attempt at a sulk lasted approximately two seconds. Elena and sulking had never gone well together. Even Jeffrey Deveraux, who despised everything about his "abomination" of a daughter, had been unable to lay that sin at her feet.
"Then teach me," she said, straightening. "I'm ready." The ache to fly was a fist in her throat, a ravaging need in her soul.
Raphael's expression didn't change. "You can't even walk to the balcony without help.
You're weaker than the fledglings."
She'd seen the smaller wings, smaller bodies, watched over by bigger ones. Not many, but enough.
"The Refuge," she asked, "is it a place of safety for your young?"
"It's everything we need it to be." Those eyes of purest sin shifted toward the door.
"Dmitri comes."
She sucked in a breath as she felt the temptation of Dmitri's scent wrap around her in a glide of fur and sex and wanton indulgence. Unfortunately, she hadn't gained immunity to that particular vampiric trick with her transformation. The flip side was also true. "One thing you can't argue with - I can still track vampires by scent." And that made her hunter-born.
"You have the potential to be of real use to us, Elena."
She wondered if Raphael even knew how arrogant he sounded. She didn't think so.
Being invincible for more years than she could imagine had made that arrogance part of his nature . . . But no, she thought. He could be hurt. When hell broke and an Angel of Blood tried to destroy New York, Raphael had chosen to die with Elena rather than abandon her broken body on that ledge high above Manhattan.
Her memories were cloudy, but she remembered shredded wings, a bleeding face, hands that had held her protectively as they descended to the adamantine hardness of the city streets below. Her heart clenched. "Tell me something, Raphael?"
He was already turning, heading to the door. "What is it you'd like to know, Guild Hunter?"
She hid her smile at his slip. "What do I call you? Husband? Mate? Boyfriend?"
Stopping with his hand on the doorknob, he shot her an inscrutable look. "You can call me 'Master.' "
Elena stared at the closed door, wondering if he'd been playing with her. She couldn't tell, didn't know him well enough to read his moods, his truths and lies. They'd come together in an agony of pain and fear, pushed by the specter of death into a union that might have been years in the making had Uram not decided to turn bloodborn and tear a murderous path through the world.
Raphael had told her that according to legend, only true love allowed ambrosia to bloom on an archangel's tongue, to turn human to angel, but perhaps her metamorphosis owed nothing to the deepest of emotions and everything to a very rare biological symbiosis?
After all, vampires were Made by angels, and biological compatibility played an integral part in that transformation.
"Damn it." She rubbed the heel of one hand over her heart, trying to wipe away the sudden twist of pain.
"You intrigue me."
He'd said that at the start. So perhaps, there was a component of fascination. "Be honest, Elena," she whispered, running her fingers over the magnificent wings that were his gift to her, "you're the one who fell into fascination."