Archangel’s Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(59)
Author: Nalini Singh

He laughed, the breeze playing through his hair and the snow caught on his eyelashes. “I’m digesting the power, for lack of a better word.” Another kiss, this one rawly sexual. “Is that better, hbeebti?” It was a private whisper, his hand on her breast in the cocoon created by his wings.

She shuddered, her breast seeming to swell to fill his palm. “One way to heat a woman up.” The ice of his new strength remained, but she could feel his c**k against her abdomen, sense her Raphael beneath the power-laced skin of the archangel. “I want to take you home and lock us in our bedroom until you’re no longer so cold.”

A squeeze of her breast, another demanding kiss before he dropped his hand and folded back his wings. “Later. For now you must go and help Illium calm the populace.”

Not wanting to leave him when he was still not quite right, but conscious they had to get the mood of the city under control, she kissed him again before flying off. If you get the sudden urge to raise flesh-eating dead, she said from the air, let me know so I can come snap you out of it.

You have my promise.

Still not sure she was happy about the whole river-of-blood/strange-influx-of-power situation, she landed on a rooftop not far from the river’s edge just as the snow stopped falling, the sun’s rays refracted off a city covered in a fine, featherlight blanket of white. The rooftop had a direct line of sight to the river, and she could see swarms of people on the piers, gesticulating wildly as they gathered around camera phones that had no doubt caught the weirdness.

Blue feathers with glittering silver filaments filled her vision a second later, followed by the wings of an angel with eyes of gold abundant in their mischief. “Come on, Ellie.” He threw her a baseball mitt, his own left hand already gloved, a ball in his right. “Let’s go play catch above the Hudson.”

Elena stared. “That’s your grand plan for managing people’s fear?”

“You ever seen angels playing catch?” A raised eyebrow. “Exactly.”

Figuring what the hell, she followed him to the river, where they were joined by three other angels from the Tower, all of whom grinned and saluted her before calling out to Illium to stop delaying and prepare to get his ass kicked. Illium shot back a colorful insult . . . and then they played catch, angel-style.

“Holy hell!” She dived and rose as the ball went in every possible direction, the players attempting to beat one another to it and/or stop it from hitting the water. Elena wasn’t anywhere near as fast as Illium or the others, but she held her own by using her brain to calculate angles, even making a couple of surprise intercepts that put her on the points table.

Less than two minutes after they began, the people on the bank stopped staring at the Hudson and started cheering for their favorite player. Factions formed, an enterprising group finding a blue scarf to wave for Illium. The idea quickly picked up steam, and soon there were five different scarves for the five players, Elena’s a distinctive hunter gold.

Had to be someone from the Guild down there, she thought with a grin.

Elena wasn’t the least surprised when a media chopper appeared in the sky, a harness-bound cameraman hanging out the side, though the crew stayed at a respectful distance. Funny how they’d been doing that since Illium made it clear that in a chopper-versus-angel fight, the chopper would come out worse. Much worse.

“Got it!” Managing to catch a throw that would’ve otherwise hit the center of the cheering crowd, she fired it high and to the left . . . where it was intercepted by an angel with eyes of splintered green and wings of icy sunlight. When he rocketed the ball toward Illium using his left hand, the blue-winged angel tumbled head over feet from the force of the powerful missile before thrusting up his hand with a grin, ball firmly in his grasp.

Elena and the other three players exchanged looks and silently retired from the game, their chests heaving as they took a seat on the edge of the nearest roof, happy to watch Aodhan and Illium showcase their extraordinary skills in the air. “Have you seen them do anything like this before?” she said to the angel beside her, an older squadron commander she’d never seen laugh before today.

“Not for two centuries.” The solemnity of his response was erased by his roar of approval when Aodhan scooped up the ball as it actually hit the water and fired it back over his shoulder without looking, his body and wings turning him into a living diamond under the piercing winter sunlight.

Stunning, Elena thought, just as her phone vibrated with an incoming message from Sara. Illium caught the ball before it would’ve hit the roof of a car crossing a nearby bridge, but his body appeared to be on a collision course with a bus. Someone screamed, but the blue-winged angel executed a perfect turn through the girders of the bridge to launch a throw that sent Aodhan flying backward with the might of it.

Ransom is taking bets on which of the two “pretty boys” loses the ball first.

Elena grinned and messaged back: Put me down as backing Illium to win. Aodhan’s too well behaved to expect Bluebell’s more sneaky moves.

Turned out she was wrong. Aodhan seemed to know Illium’s tricks inside out and vice versa. By the time it ended in a draw caused by the recall of both players to the Tower, the city had well and truly awakened to the fact that there was an extraordinary new angel in their midst. The horrifying news of a bloodred Hudson had been relegated to a secondary news item, the entire city—heck, the entire country—in fascinated discussion about Aodhan and, of course, the game.

Every single channel had roped in a baseball commentator to discuss the angels’ technique, and speculation was rife about a possible rematch, with the Manhattan-based reporters smug as cats in the cream as they said, “Watch this space for further news about our angels.”

“I’d say Illium’s ploy was a success,” she said to Raphael later that night, in the privacy of the large bath in their Tower suite. “Aodhan’s appearance topped it off.”

“He surprised all of us.” Raphael no longer looked as “other” as he had after the river ran red, but every so often she’d hear a hint of those strange whispers in his voice. “Why are you sitting so far?” he asked now, his arms spread along the tiled edge of the tub the size of a small pool. “I assure you, I haven’t been overcome by the urge to make the dead walk.”

Floating across to him, she rested her hands on his thighs below the waterline. “The power, it’s holding?” No matter if it freaked her out, he needed to grow stronger if he was to stand against the others.