Archangel's Heart (9 page)

R
aphael, Bluebell is in the sky—I think we need to let him go.
He was in no mood to listen to anyone right now.

I'll warn Dmitri to keep a watch for him.

Returning to the house, Elena stepped inside the library to find Aodhan still in his seat. He didn't appear to have eaten anything in the time she'd been gone, and when she walked in, his eyes went immediately to behind her. “Where is he?” he asked the instant he became aware Illium wasn't about to appear.

Elena shrugged and pointed up.

Jaw going taut, Aodhan stared at his plate. “Is he all right?” The question sounded like it had been torn out of him.

Elena decided to be honest. “Angry and hurt in equal measures.”

Face flushing, Aodhan pushed back his own chair. “Sire, I will take my leave.”

“I will see you on the dawn, Aodhan. Thank you for the information on the Luminata.”

A quick nod later, Aodhan was gone in a cascade of light sparking off his feathers. So extraordinary, so beautiful.

Everyone wants to own Aodhan. He's a beautiful jewel and
the world can't bear just to look at him and wonder at his beauty. They want to break him, cage him.

Taking her seat as Illium's passionate words echoed through her mind, Elena threw back half a glass of wine before angling her body to face Raphael. “Illium told me about Remus.” She had to fight to keep her voice even. “I can see why you both reacted badly to the realization Aodhan must've been speaking to him. Why didn't you kill the bastard at the time?”

Wings sweeping to the floor in a white gold fall, her archangel leaned back in his chair, his eyes difficult to read. “It would've raised too many questions about exactly what he'd done to deserve such a final punishment.”

Exposing what the asshole had tried to do to Aodhan.

“Aodhan was correct,” Raphael added after a long pause. “He is no longer who he once was, who we have so long been accustomed to thinking of him as. He did what was necessary in his capacity as the warrior who will accompany us to the Luminata's inner sanctum.”

Elena frowned. “Why did you choose Aodhan for the trip to Lumia? You had to know it would bring up a bad time of his life.”

“I'm afraid your consort's memories let him down,” Raphael said, a darkness in his expression that she could read very well; it was old, aged anger. “Prior to that moment when Remus rose to the forefront of my mind, I saw Aodhan only as he is now—a powerful member of my Seven who fought to save my city and who makes art full of quiet wonder. Remus was dealt with centuries ago—I had long forgotten him.”

Elena nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. Aodhan's been so strong—he recovered from his battle injuries faster than anyone expected and he's far more sociable these days.” Not in comparison to most people, but for Aodhan. “No wonder you forgot.”

Drinking the last of the wine in his glass, Raphael placed the glass back on the table. “While you were outside, Aodhan told me that he was pleased to get the assignment, pleased at the silent acknowledgment that I didn't see him as too damaged to take on this task.”

“Ah.” Aodhan's coldly furious response to Raphael and Illium suddenly made even more sense. “Then you two spoiled
it by bringing up his past.” She shook her head. “How'd you fix that?”

“I'm not sure I did.” Raphael rose. “Walk with me, Elena-mine.”

Getting up, she slipped her hand into his. “Aodhan's still coming with us, right?”

“Of course. I made an error of judgment in questioning him, but I wouldn't compound it by changing his assignment when he remains more than equal to it.”

“Good. Then we'll figure things out during the trip.” Aodhan might be angry right now, but he was one of the most even-tempered of the Seven. He'd calm down . . . but then again, Elena hadn't known Aodhan before he was hurt, so she suddenly realized she might have no idea what she was talking about.

“Did he have a temper before he was taken?” While she didn't know exactly what had happened to him, she'd picked up enough to know he'd been kidnapped, held in captivity. The rest, as with Illium and his father, she had no right to know unless Aodhan chose to tell her.

Raphael's chuckle was a warm, rich sound in the night darkness. “He is a gifted artist, Elena, one of the greatest in angelkind, though he does not like it when we say thus.”

“Artistic temperament? Okay, yeah, that I didn't figure.”

“He rarely gives in to it. Illium was always the more volatile of the two, but Aodhan had his moments.”

Elena worked through the idea of a hot-tempered Aodhan, began to smile. “Well, he might be pissed, but you know what?”

“What?”

“It means Sparkle really is coming back.” Artistic temper and all.

“Yes,” Raphael said with a slow smile, “you are right. Our Sparkle is indeed coming back to us.” He raised his head to look up at the stars. “I wonder how long it will take your Bluebell to understand that?”

*   *   *

A
rtistic moodiness or not, Aodhan was in an even temper in the gray predawn light the next morning when he met Elena and Raphael for the flight to the plane that'd take them to
Morocco. The baggage had already been sent forward, with Montgomery having taken full charge of that task.

“You will need gowns,” the butler had told Elena. “The Luminata would be insulted if you stalked through their hallways in hunter gear.”

Elena had scowled so hard her mother would've no doubt warned her that her face would freeze into that expression if she wasn't careful. “I am who I am.”

“Even archangels respect the ways of the Luminata.”

Well, that had shut her up. Who the hell was she to disregard rules the Cadre itself respected? “Damn it, what the heck do I pack?”

The butler's expression had been as restrained as usual, but she'd caught a glint of hidden laughter. “I will take care of it, Guild Hunter. I will also ensure that you have a gown on the plane that you can change into before you head for Lumia.”

Elena had no idea what she'd do without Montgomery. Probably insult everyone around her without realizing it. “You have to wear formal gear, too?” she asked Aodhan now.

The other angel was currently dressed in warrior leathers of a beaten gold that suited his coloring so beautifully, she knew those leathers had been made for him and him alone. “Once we get to Lumia, I mean.” Right now, she was in jeans, boots, a tee, and a thin sweater with leather straps that crisscrossed her torso.

“I am your escort,” he responded. “I'm expected to be in leathers or other clothing suitable to a warrior.”

“I hate you,” Elena said without heat.

His eyes, those strange, hauntingly beautiful eyes of crystalline blue-green shards shattered outward from an obsidian pupil, warmed. “I'll let you hold my swords if you're nice.”

“Very funny, Sparkle.”

His eyebrows drew together over his eyes at her reference to the nickname he was trying to stamp out of existence. “I'm going to kill Illium,” he said, not for the first time. But his eyes, they looked up, as if searching the skies for wings of blue and silver.

Those wings hadn't appeared by the time they took off from the Enclave. And despite Aodhan's teasing, Elena did have all her weapons. Raphael had told her that as a warrior-consort,
she was expected to have weapons on her. “If Hannah turned up armed to the teeth, that would raise some eyebrows, but everyone is aware of the fact that my consort was and is a hunter.”

That had cheered her up. Especially since Montgomery had made it a point to come out and tell her that the gowns he'd packed were such that she wouldn't be hindered in a fight should such a fight become necessary.

It was a good thing she'd made herself practice in gowns over the past two years. Her hunter friends found it a hoot to spar with her while she was glammed up, but the lunatics had helped her refine her technique. It was Ransom with his skin of copper gold, eyes of Irish green, and skill as a streetfighter who'd given her a tiny switchblade. “Even if you can't wear any other blade openly, you can hide this somewhere, use it to cut slits in your dress so you can run, find a weapon.”

Elena had shown the dangerous weapon to Raphael. “Don't get worked up about another man giving me a blade,” she'd ordered. “Ransom is very happily married, and I like this beauty.”

Her archangel had said nothing—but Ransom's switchblade had disappeared mysteriously two days later, to be replaced by an even deadlier version.

Her archangel really didn't like it when anyone but him gave her a blade, she thought with a grin as all three of them lifted off, Elena flying off the cliff and down to the Hudson before sweeping up to join Aodhan and Raphael.

Waving to Montgomery when she saw the butler standing perfectly suited on the lush green of the lawn, she luxuriated in the cool air that ran over her wings and tugged at the small strands of hair that had escaped her tight braid. Aodhan had gone high, as he preferred, but Raphael was flying nearby. And his wings, they were dangerous white fire.

He could've outpaced her in a heartbeat, but he stayed on the same drafts, and when she looked over to him, he glanced back with a smile that was for her alone. They didn't speak; there was no need for it, the two of them in perfect harmony as they dipped and angled and rode along the winds. It felt as if they arrived at the airport far too fast.

Landing first, Raphael waited for her to join him, then the
two of them watched Aodhan descend. He was a fracture of light, so bright even in the pale dawn sunshine that Elena had to slide on sunglasses to continue to watch. Every part of him seemed to shimmer as he landed in front of her and folded back his wings.

The captain descended the steps of the plane at that instant. “Sire.” The vampire inclined his head.

Elena had been around the Tower long enough to have caught on to the subtleties in the greetings Raphael received. Dmitri never bowed his head, his and Raphael's friendship far too deep, their trust too cemented to need it. As slight a bow as the captain had offered meant the other man was a powerful vampire who held Raphael's trust and respect.

Elena smiled at the medium height male built like a tank, all muscle and power. “Hey, Mack.”

Dougal Mackenzie gave her a quelling look. “Consort.”

He was such a stick in the mud. It put paid to all her ideas about Scottish lairds. Okay, fine, she hadn't actually had any ideas about Scottish lairds before meeting Dougal, but it just seemed wrong that he was so by-the-book. Maybe he was still sore that his clan had said he couldn't be laird for any longer than the span of a natural human life. Not fair to the coming generations to have a vampire laird who could live for thousands of years.

Of course, she was just speculating since Dougal had never deigned to satisfy her curiosity. Today, he met Raphael's eyes, said, “We're ready to take off on your word.”

Dougal headed back inside after Raphael acknowledged the statement, while Elena raised her eyes to the sky once more.
Come on, Bluebell
.
You know he needs you.
Aodhan might be getting ever stronger, but he still permitted only Illium to touch him freely.

He wouldn't shrug off Elena's touch or Raphael's, but he wouldn't welcome it, either. It was more that he'd learned to bear it—no, that wasn't right. He'd held on to her hand when she needed it, given her comfort. It was better to say he could break through his trauma to make contact. Only with Illium was that barrier nonexistent.

That told Elena a lot about how far Aodhan still had to go.

“Raphael, you know what happened with those two last
night?” she asked when the other angel removed his dual swords and harness and took them to store inside the plane, where they would be within arm's reach.

Raphael shook his head. “Dmitri told me both were missing all night, that is all.”

“From the way Aodhan looked at the sky before he went into the plane,” Elena said, her own eyes lifting up once again, “I have a feeling he didn't find Illium. You think . . .”

“I do not know if your Bluebell will come here,” Raphael said. “Illium rarely takes offense—and when he does, it is often over in a flash. He forgives more generously than any other angel I know.”

That fit with everything Elena understood about Illium herself. “Then why?”

“Because this,
hbeebti
, isn't only about anger.”

She thought of how Illium had fought not to cry, his body rigid. “He was really hurt.” Looking over her shoulder as Aodhan came back out to stand beside the plane, she switched to mental speech.
Can we wait a little longer?

Eyes of heartbreaking blue landed on the angel who shone like a star under the sunlight.
I'm afraid not.
Her archangel's voice was the cool mountain wind against her senses. “There is no more time.”

They headed up the steps of the plane on the heels of his words.

Aodhan was the last one to board, and he kept his eyes turned toward the window as the plane began to roll down the runway. He didn't look away even after they were in the clouds . . . not until they'd gone too far for even Illium to catch up to them.

T
his part of Morocco was an arid brown and gold landscape broken up only by hardy mountain wildflowers, waving grasses, and occasional groves of deep-rooted trees that provided an unexpected kiss of green to the landscape, but it was spectacular in its starkness.

Elena had been looking forward to the feast to the senses that was Marrakech, noisy and crowded and her kind of place, but they landed even deeper inland, at a private airstrip a considerable distance from the city with which she was most familiar. From there, they flew on the wing over and into the Atlas Mountains and to a sloping peak on which sat a stronghold that was all graceful curves and arches.

Lumia was formed of thousands of small sand-colored bricks that blended into the landscape, and rather than being one big block, it was a sprawling stronghold with myriad pathways and sections that flowed into one another, giving the place a delicate and almost ethereal air. She also glimpsed two domes far apart, one of which looked like glass, the other opaque.

“It's like the Taj Mahal,” she said to Raphael when he flew close enough. “This huge thing that somehow has an air of
beautiful fragility.” The Taj, too, appeared to float against the sky.

“Lumia was designed on the principles of perfect serenity, as understood by the Luminata. Each brick, each pathway in the garden, all of it.”

While the courtyard gardens she could see from the air appeared to be manicured and green with precise placement of foliage, mountain flowers covered the hillsides that swept down to gorgeous golden meadows on which it appeared no development had ever taken place.

But for the Luminata complex, there were no other buildings or roads within sight. No vehicles. Not even people on less modern means of transport. She couldn't even glimpse the walled border that Raphael had told her protected Lumia on three sides. There had been no wall on the side over which they'd flown, the mountains providing a natural bulwark. “When you said the Luminata like their privacy, you meant it. Are the borders patrolled?”

Raphael maintained his position at her side with a minute change in his wing balance. “The sect has a small complement of guards who ensure no one breaches Lumia's peace, but for the most part, the people here—mortal and immortal—know that these lands are forbidden to all except by invitation.”

“They have a lot of land if we can't see the walls.”

“Not so much in the scheme of things. Perhaps an hour's flight from the mountains to the far border at most.” Eyes of unfathomable blue met her own. “Is it all you imagined?”

Elena took another look at the compound getting closer with every wingbeat. “I'm not sure. I think I was expecting something more like the Refuge Library.” Stately and with a heavy sense of age about it. “Or maybe an austere monastery. This is more grand in a way. Peaceful and quietly lovely, but with an awareness of its own beauty.”

She deliberately “nudged” at him with a wing, their primaries barely brushing. “What about you? Is it as you remember?”

*   *   *

R
aphael hadn't flown wingtip to wingtip with anyone for a long time before Elena. Smiling deep within at the playful contact, the youth he'd once been rising to the fore, he nudged
her carefully back. He was far stronger than Elena, and while she had incredible grace in the air, she'd only been in flight for a mere flicker of time.

Laughing as his nudge spun her to the left, she said, “Whoop!” and flipped over onto her back for a moment that had his heart crashing against his ribs as he prepared to catch her fragile not-yet-fully-immortal body.

If she hit the earth from this altitude, she'd break. She'd die.

But she angled her head down in a gentle curve, her body following, and was right-side-up again in a matter of seconds.

“I am going to kill your Bluebell,” he said, dropping two feet so they were wingtip to wingtip again.

A grin. “How did you know he taught me that?”

Raphael just raised an eyebrow.

Laughing again, his unrepentant consort blew him a kiss. “Don't kill Bluebell. He's teaching me to do a downward spiral roll right now.”

“Clearly, Aodhan is not the only one suffering pangs of boredom.” Raphael felt his lips kick up, the stab of fear retreating under a wave of memory featuring an intrepid little boy with wings of extraordinary blue. “Did he tell you who taught him the spiral roll?”

Elena's mouth fell open. “It was you!” she guessed.

“The Hummingbird wouldn't speak to me for a month afterward,” Raphael admitted with a grin of his own. “As for Lumia, the stronghold doesn't appear to have changed in the time since I overflew it—and the splendor of the landscape, yes, that fits what I know of the Luminata way.” He'd never truly thought much about the sect, but when he had, it had been to see them as removed from life but not ascetic in the way of the monks Elena had referenced.

“As a very young man,” he told Elena, one long-ago memory sparking another, “I once met a mortal mystic, as you did the holy man. He was thin—only tendon and muscle over bone, no fat. Just enough flesh to sustain his mortal body.” Raphael remembered wondering how anyone could survive in such a state. “He had a long gray beard, and his skin was cured by the sun from all the hours he'd walked the landscape, but his soul, it emanated perfect contentment.”

Raphael been a young and arrogant angel at the time—akin to a mortal youth who'd left home for the first time—but in that instant, he'd felt humbled. “I felt he knew far more than I could ever imagine, though his lifespan could not have been more than six decades to my two hundred at the time.”

He'd ended up walking with that mystic for miles, curious and respectful and aware for the first time in his existence that immortals weren't necessarily the pinnacle of existence. “Unfortunately, the lessons I learned in my days of walking by his side didn't hold in the millennium that followed. I had forgotten him until this instant.”

“Don't knock yourself, Archangel.” His consort's voice held both her warrior spirit and her fierce love for him. “I learned things as a teenager and young hunter that I forgot in the years that followed. Life isn't static, and sometimes, we don't realize the value of knowledge or even of people, until farther down the track, when we're mature enough to truly understand.”

At times, Raphael's hunter consort surprised him with her perceptiveness about mortals and immortals both. “The Luminata,” he replied, “they're not and have never been like my mystic or your holy man. Their members join after at least one thousand years of existence—no one younger is permitted to become an initiate. And by that stage, they are used to a certain way of life.”

“I get it.” Elena swept down on a wind current, her joy in flight an incandescent light he could nearly touch. The deep blue of her sleeveless gown glittered in the sun, almost as bright as the blade that glinted with jewels high on her arm.

Her hair was a shining banner of silken near-white.

Montgomery had done well, having chosen a gown with a sleek and tight silhouette that caught no air and created very little drag, but the skirts of which Elena could unzip at the sides once on the ground, freeing up her stride. There was also a cunning opening high up on her thigh on the right. It was only three inches and could be closed with tiny buttons that looked decorative.

But when open, it allowed Elena to wear her crossbow strapped to her thigh—as she was doing now. Not to mention the forearm gauntlets that held her throwing blades as well as
a limited number of crossbow bolts, the long knife she wore against her spine under her dress, and the gun hidden in an ankle holster she wore over her boots.

Guild Hunter Elena Deveraux, Consort to the Archangel Raphael, would be landing at Lumia not as a pretty accessory as some older angels were apt to expect, but as a woman deadly in her own right.

Raphael smiled in grim satisfaction.

The Luminata have given up the world
, his warrior consort said in his mind,
but their version of giving up temptation is the comfortable immortal version rather than the austere mortal one.

Just so.
Raphael moved to join Elena in her meandering flight over the landscape around Lumia. It was dead certain they were being watched—by the Luminata's guard, by the Luminata themselves, by any archangels who'd arrived before them—but what did he have to hide? The world knew that the Archangel of New York loved his consort.

That he'd fly with her for no reason but to fly with her gave no one any extra ammunition. That didn't mean he'd lower his guard. Not here. Not with the Luminata an unknown and the Cadre a danger he knew too well.
Aodhan, stay high. Alert me of any approach.

I see other wings in the sky in the distance.
A pause.
Silver wings. Solid silver.

Alexander.
No one else in angelkind had wings like those of the Ancient who was once again the Archangel of Persia.
Is he alone?

No. I see two other pairs of wings. I will need to get closer to identify them.

Stay with us.
He wanted any watchers to be aware that his consort would never be alone, because while he knew Elena could defend herself, he also knew immortals had a tendency to see her mortal heart first, her weapons second.
We'll find out soon enough.
Then he rose high, only to drop down beside Elena in a hard, fast dive that required precision timing.

“Show-off.” Admiration glinted in her eyes.

And he felt young again, as he felt only with Elena. Not the archangel responsible for millions of lives, mortal and
immortal, but a man with his lover. Raphael with Elena. “I must not disappoint our audience.”

“Good point.” Elena pulled her crossbow free, retrieved a bolt from the forearm gauntlets Deacon had modified for her so she could carry five bolts on her even when it was impossible for her to wear a full quiver. “How about a game, since we're early anyway?” She shot a bolt toward the earth without warning.

Raphael collapsed his wings, dropped like a bullet . . . and caught the bolt. Then he raced up to catch a second she shot across the sky, went sideways to catch a third.

The voice that came into his mind as he caught the final one, which she'd shot so close it nearly grazed his wing, was a familiar one. Ancient and commanding and with more than a touch of arrogance.
My grandson has just fallen in love with your consort, Raphael. He tells me he wants a lover who shoots at him, too.

Lips curving, Raphael winged his way to Elena to return her bolts to her. As she slotted them away, having already strapped on her crossbow with the ease of long practice, he told her what Alexander had said. She grinned, the wind sweeping her hair back from her face. “Boy has good taste.”

Alexander and his grandson—named Xander, in honor of his grandfather—were now visible in the distance. Alexander's golden hair and silver wings marked him out well before the Ancient came close enough for his face to be clear. As for Xander, he was an amalgam of his parents but he was also very clearly Alexander's grandson.

His hair was a rich, dark brown, his skin a brown so light it was dark gold, and his wings a deep black that faded into darkest brown with touches of gold—but spread out, those wings bore an underside of purest silver.

Your grandson flies well
, he said to Alexander.
I'm surprised you brought him with you.
At two hundred, Xander was young, green, and Alexander had already lost his son.

Sire
, Aodhan said at the same instant.
Alexander's third. I recognize him. Valerius.

The name was familiar to Raphael: Valerius was one of Alexander's most loyal angelic generals, a man who'd been
loyal to that family line for so long that to think of Valerius was to think of Alexander.
You break the Luminata's laws?

Alexander was close enough that Raphael could see the shake of his head.
The children of the Cadre are always permitted to any such meeting, so long as they are less than two and a half centuries of age.
Anger and sorrow hardened his features.
My son is dead, so my grandson is permitted to attend.

Raphael hadn't known that rule—but then, he'd never needed to know it.
Are you certain he'll be safe?

Not answering, Alexander came to flank Elena, maintaining a respectable three feet of distance between their primaries. The Ancient was nothing if not traditional. “Consort,” he said in greeting.

“Archangel Alexander,” Elena replied, since she and Alexander didn't have a relationship of informality, as she now did with Titus. “No offense, but why did you bring that gorgeous kid?” She nodded at the young male, who'd dropped to fly low over the landscape.

Alexander could've pointed out that Xander was two hundred years old, give or take a year or two, while Elena had barely passed the three decade mark, but they all knew immortals didn't age as mortals did. Xander wasn't actually the kid Elena had named him, but neither was he considered full grown. He was a stripling—around twenty, maybe twenty-one years of age in human terms.

For angels, their third century of life tended to be the defining moment between childhood and adulthood. Some angels were considered true adults after two centuries and a quarter, others required a little more seasoning. From what he knew of Alexander's bloodline, Raphael wagered the stripling would transition to adulthood in a quicksilver heartbeat. Mere decades at most.

But today, in this moment, he remained a youth.

*   *   *

“I
t heartens me that you and your consort both ask after the safety of my grandson,” Alexander said. “Perhaps there is hope for the Cadre.”

You know I will not betray you unless you do the same first
,
Raphael said, connecting Elena into the conversation through his own mind.
You are the reason one of my Seven is currently able to live freely with his mate.