Archangel’s Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(68)
Author: Nalini Singh

A thought and the mark was gone, erased with the illusion of glamour.

“Don’t! Don’t hide things from me!” Elena realized what she’d said as soon as the words left her mouth, her eyes locking with those of a hue so pure, it had no true parallel on this earth.

He was still angry at her, that much was clear, that heartbreaking blue kissed by an icily metallic edge. Yet even in his anger he held her safe, when she’d done her best to break every bone in her body with her reckless flight.

Not once. Twice.

“Shit,” she muttered, and when he raised an imperious eyebrow, said, “I’m sorry.” Her Guild trainers would’ve kicked her ass if she’d dared do something this lamebrained as a cadet. “I can’t believe I almost f**ked things up so badly a second time.”

“Will there be a third?” The question snapped like a whip.

“No. Even a hardheaded hunter like me learns her lessons after two near-lethal mistakes.” If she didn’t, she’d have been long dead by now. “Thank you for the assist.”

“I’m glad to know I have some use.” A voice so cold, it was a wonder she didn’t have hypothermia.

“That’s not fair.” She might’ve been an idiot with the flight, but that didn’t mean he could walk all over her. “I’ve never been more intertwined with anyone my entire adult life!”

“And it makes you afraid.”

Her breath caught, and she wanted to say no, to remind him she was a blooded hunter, fear nothing but a tool. But what she said was, “Yes,” because this fear threatened to strangle the life out of her. “I haven’t been this afraid since I realized the monster was in our house.”

“Do you think I don’t understand?” Every muscle in his body went taut, his voice so rigidly controlled, she knew he battled brutal emotion. “Have you forgotten what I said?”

“I didn’t know fear until you, Elena. Use the power wisely.”

Shaking her head, she wrapped her arms tight around his neck. “I haven’t forgotten.” Lips against his, she reminded him of something, too. “I cut you some slack when you went all caveman. Cut me some here.”

“I didn’t almost kill myself when I went ‘caveman,’” he said, his kiss hard and hot and possessive, all of it spiced with molten anger. “I didn’t make you watch as I did my best to cause myself mortal harm.”

30

Her seriously pissed-off consort flew Elena almost the entire way home.

Now that the madness of the fear-laced anger had passed, she was damn well embarrassed. Not only that, but her wings felt like jelly where they weren’t threatening to (painfully) detach from her flesh. Still—“I can’t have you carrying me into Manhattan. If Ransom spots me on his high-powered telescope, he won’t stop teasing me until I’m at least eighty-seven.” The truth was, her returning home in Raphael’s arms might be seen as a sign of possible weakness by their enemies, should any be watching.

Raphael’s responding glance told her he knew the real reason for her request. “No lies, no half-truths. Can you deal with any flight?”

Elena took her time assessing her body. “Yes, as long as we keep it lazy, like we’re out for a stroll.” It would hurt like a bitch later if her archangel decided she should suffer for her sins and refuse to heal her—and she’d deserve it if he did—but a few extra minutes of gentle flight wouldn’t alter that for the worse.

“Be ready to open your wings.” Releasing her with care, Raphael positioned himself above her.

She knew it was so he could grab her if her wing snapped. Archangel?

Yes, Consort?

Yup, he was definitely still supremely pissed. I just wanted to tell you something I probably don’t say enough, she said, as they flew over the George Washington Bridge, her altitude low enough that she could see the late-night commuters. I love you.

That has never been in question.

His icy answer made her grin. Yes, the love had never been in question—on either side. I wonder if Montgomery has cake in the kitchen. Back when she’d been mortal, she’d sometimes wondered why no one ever saw an overweight angel. Now she knew exactly how much muscle strength it took to fly, energy burning off with each wingbeat. She was eating five times what she’d done as a hunter, and just barely managing to keep her weight at a healthy level. Do immortal bodies run at a higher metabolic rate?

No one has ever tested that to my knowledge, but yours is undoubtedly doing so as immortality grows deeper into your cells.

That made sense, she thought, just as the sky in the distance began to boil black and thunderous. “Raphael.”

Land on the closest surface. Now!

Looking down, she saw a passing barge and was down three seconds later, Raphael landing beside her. The crew stared slack jawed, but didn’t approach. “I have my cell phone,” she said, having stuffed it into a pocket from force of habit. “I can call Aodhan—”

“It’s done.” Raphael’s eyes remained on the roiling blackness as he spoke. “All of the angels in the air have received the instruction to land.”

Skin crawling at the phenomenon, Elena made a different call. “There might be another incident,” she told Sara, knowing that as Guild Director, her best friend had access to an automated warning system that could send out a text message to every hunter in the vicinity. “Tell everyone to watch for—shit, tell them to watch for anything.”

“Got it.”

Hanging up, Elena stood with her body aligned to Raphael’s, their eyes skyward as the barge continued to move along the river. The crew had their heads tilted back now, voices pitched high and words tumbling one over the other as they spoke rapidly in an unfamiliar language.

Elena’s faint hope that the unnatural clouds would just disperse or float out to sea died a quick death when the boiling patch settled right over the barge, following it as the watercraft traversed the river. Then the cloud began to fall at high speed, causing the crew to scream, duck, but Elena and Raphael kept their eyes on the sky.

So they saw the “cloud” wasn’t a cloud at all.

“They’re not falling.” That alone distinguished this phenomenon from the one that had begun the strange events.

As they watched, hundreds—thousands—of birds landed all around them, until the tiny winged beings completely covered the barge, their combined weight making it sink deeper into the water. The truly eerie thing was their absolute silence. No chirping, no fighting even where they sat on top of one another, nothing . . . but for the fact that every single set of tiny bird eyes was locked on them.