Archangel’s Kiss (Guild Hunter #2)(28)
Author: Nalini Singh

They fell several more feet, their velocity accelerated by the impact, before Raphael steadied and they began to rise in a storm of speed. She wrapped her arms around his neck, shaking with relief. "Seems like you’re always catching me when I fall."

His answer was a hard squeeze.

They landed on an empty section of the cliff, the nearest angelic home hidden from sight by the jutting teeth of the craggy rock face. "Okay, lesson number one," she said, trying to relearn to breathe as Raphael put her down, "never assume there’s going to be earth beneath my feet."

"You must stop thinking like a human." Raphael’s voice was a whip. "It could’ve gotten you killed today."

She jerked up her head. "I can’t simply stop. It’s all I’ve ever known."

"Then learn." He gripped her chin between his fingers. "Or you’ll die."

Her first instinct was to strike back, but something stopped her. Perhaps it was the more important life at stake, or perhaps it was the way his wings came around her, sheltering her from the snow-laced wind even as he spoke to her in such anger. "I need to get back inside," she said, "see if I made a mistake in the track."

Raphael held onto her chin for another second before placing his lips over hers. They were still locked in the angry relief of the kiss as he rose into the air, flying her to the front entrance of Sam’s home. Shaken but determined, she walked through the house, every sense on alert . . . and came to the same conclusion.

"He went out through there," Elena said, glad Sam’s mother was no longer in the room.

It was impossible for Elena to look at her and not remember another mother’s anguish in a small suburban home almost two decades ago.

"That means he had an angelic accomplice." Raphael’s voice was toneless – and all the more terrifying for it. In this mood, the Archangel of New York might kill without remorse, torture without compassion. "You picked up the members of Sameon’s family – can you separate out the angel’s scent?"

"Raphael," she asked, needed to ask, "are you going Quiet?" He’d become someone she didn’t know in those terrifying hours before she’d shot him, an archangel who’d stalked her across New York, relentless in his menace.

No.

Her heart still erratic with fear – for him, for what the Quiet might take from him if he fell into it again – she returned to the now open doorway, attempting to intentionally trigger what appeared to be an extension of her abilities.

Spring and fur.

Apples dusted with fresh sno –

A crackle of white noise.

Disappointment stabbed her, harsh, final. "If my Making altered my hunter senses, the change isn’t complete. It seems to be cutting in and out." She shoved a hand through her hair, falling back on her training and experience. "He likely didn’t touch the door in any case – the vampire’s scent was too rich, too strong to have been diluted." Looking down into the inky depths of the ravine, she felt her cheeks turn to ice. "How strong would an angel have to be to catch someone if they knew that individual was about to jump?"

"No one younger than three hundred." His wing brushed hers as they stood side by side, staring at the dense blackness. "I’ll begin sweeps of the area." And then he said what she hadn’t been able to articulate. "There’s a chance the fall wasn’t successfully executed."

Elena’s whole being rebelled against the idea of Sam’s small body lying irrevocably broken in the cold dark. "If those bastards have hurt him, I’ll gut them myself."

That is why you’re mine, Elena.

Watching as he stepped out into the night air, she closed the door and walked back to the front. All the angels were gone, but a vampire moved out of the shadows as she exited the house. His skin was a shade that drew the eye, inviting tactile contact – a dark, dark brown with an undertone of true gold. The color was so rich, so warm that it shimmered even as the moon slid behind a cloud, enveloping the Refuge in purest night. But his eyes, a brilliant, impossible silver, pierced the darkness as if it didn’t exist. Hair of the same shade as his eyes fell around his face, sleek and cut in jagged lines that accentuated the angle of his jaw.

"A tiger," she whispered, watching him walk to her, though to call it a walk was a gross disservice. His stride was the fluid, silent prowl of the animal she sensed around him.

"You have the scent of a tiger on the hunt." Rich, vibrant, deadly.

"I am Naasir." His voice was cultured, his words gracious, but those metallic eyes watched her with unblinking focus. "Dmitri asked me to assist you."

"You’re one of the Seven." There was power in Naasir, not like Dmitri’s – sensual and lethal – but sharply feral, as if that exquisite, strokable skin was nothing but a mask for the predator within.

"Yes."

The clouds parted, throwing a beam of moonlight onto his face. And she realized the vampire’s eyes reflected as brilliantly as a cat’s.Impossible . But Naasir wasn’t the mystery she had to solve tonight. "I’m going to start canvassing the area," she said, "see if I can find a landing point." It’d be a crapshoot given how far angels could fly, but she needed to do something.

"Dmitri’s organizing the vampires and younger angels into a similar search."

And, Elena thought, they’d cover ground far faster than she could – especially when she had no starting point for a scent-track. But she needed to dosomething . Looking away from Naasir’s unblinking stare, she found her eye caught by a needlelike formation in the distance. Her heart ricocheted off her ribs. "How well do you know the Refuge?"

"Very."

"Show me to Michaela’s section." Raphael had been ruthless with the other archangel’s humiliation. Maybe the angel who’d brutalized Noel had crawled back out of his hole . . .

or maybe Michaela had decided on payback, striking at the heart of those who looked to Raphael for protection.

"This way." Naasir began to move with the preternatural grace of a being at home in the night.

She could only just keep up with what she guessed was a crawl for him.

Stepping out into an open area a few minutes later, he raised his arm in some kind of a signal before turning to her. "Michaela’s home is far on foot."

Elena felt her spine lock as Illium landed less than three feet from them. She trusted no one but Raphael to carry her. Not only did she have a problem with trust, the act seemed too intimate, too close. Especially given the near painful sensitivity of her wings.

However, tonight, there was a far more pragmatic reason for her reluctance. "I go up,"