Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,49

her head, and Dmitri moved.

Her blades flew like silver fire, streaking through the air with lethal accuracy.

23

One month after the ridiculously fun session with Dmitri—not that either one of them would admit that even on pain of hideous torture—and Elena wasn’t yet as muscled as she would’ve liked. Her weight was only up to eighty-five percent of her normal, so she still felt a bit too insubstantial, but she no longer had any appearance of illness.

The sex mojo had returned twice more in the week after the knife session. Her body had stopped glitching after the second boost. After that, anything she’d achieved, she’d done so through teeth-clenched hard work.

When she applied to the Guild to return to active duty, Sara said, “You have to pass the post-injury physical.”

Elena would’ve been insulted at any other response. Guild medics gave her a clean bill of health, though lightning fissures did still break out over her body at times—as if a bite of Raphael’s power had woven itself into her bones, the heart in her chest strong enough to manage archangelic energies.

Her status on the taxonomic tree however, continued to give everyone fits. She was immortal, of that there was no doubt. Not an almost-immortal like a vampire, not a baby immortal as she’d been before the chrysalis, but equivalent to an adult angel of around three hundred.

Except she wasn’t an angel. Her DNA was distinctly odd and the only wings she had were phantom ones that tormented her with how real they felt. At times, she had to check in a mirror, confirm there was nothing on her back, no graceful arches, no feathers of midnight and dawn.

Elena struggled with that until Naasir, of all people, decided to pay her a visit. “I am the only one of my kind,” he said to her as they sat on the edge of a balcony, their feet hanging over it and the metallic silver of his hair choppy and striking against the rich dark of his skin, the undertone of gold reminiscent of a leopard’s coat.

Elena pinned him with a narrow-eyed gaze. “Do tell me more about your unique kind. I’m all ears.”

Naasir threw back his head and laughed, a beautiful wild creature who delighted in playing this game with her. She’d forbidden Raphael from answering the question, from telling her of Naasir’s origins or where he fit in a world of angels and vampires and mortals; this was a mystery she’d solve herself.

Naasir leaned in close, the metallic silver of his eyes in no way human, and whispered, “I have the pelt of a tiger sometimes.” He held out his arm and, as she watched, his skin turned striped.

Gasping, she grabbed his arm without thinking. She and Naasir weren’t close as she was with Illium, but he didn’t reject her touch. Rather, he sat with the patience—and smirk—of a smug feline.

“I came here because Jessamy told me that you are now a one-being, too.” A penetrating glance, his head cocked in a way that wasn’t human, wasn’t angel, wasn’t vampire. “Before, I was lonely. Then I found my family.”

She knew he was talking about Dmitri and Raphael and all the others of the Seven.

“Then I found Andi.” Pure delight at the thought of his mate. “I am a one-being, but I am not alone. You are not alone.”

No, she wasn’t alone. And she was deeply, fiercely loved. “Thank you,” she said to the wild creature who’d come such a long way because he’d known she needed him. “Will you stay?”

“Only today.” A smile that was all teeth. “I will go home via the India-China border. The current quiet makes my fur stand up the wrong way—I smell the darkness building. I’ll spy for Jason.”

“Yeah, I have that itchy feeling, too.” As if a volcano was getting ready to blow—but none of the archangels or their spymasters had found anything of note. Even the unexplained disappearances in China had stopped. So had the ice storms, geothermal disturbances, flooding, and swarms of wasps.

The world was at peace.

But as Caliane had pointed out: “The eye of the storm is always dead calm.”

Everyone was waiting for storm winds to hit again.

She waved Naasir off only hours later, then turned to her archangel. “Any news?”

A grim shake of his head before he took a hard kiss, then rejoined a squadron training exercise. He was putting all his spare time into helping their people become stronger, more prepared for whatever was about to hit. Elena, for her