Elena's hands, covered by the strength of Raphael's, clenched on the age-smoothed stone of the railing. "She'd debase them that way? I thought she considered them her creations?"
"Some, it seems, are more favored than others." He slid his hands up her arms, holding her to him. "Tomorrow morning, I meet with the Cadre. Take care when you walk the grounds - Lijuan may find it a game to pit one of them against you."
"Who's my bodyguard?"
"Aodhan." A pause. "You're not happy."
"I don't like the fact that I still have a babysitter."
"It's necessary."
"For now."
A dangerous quietness, and she knew this was one battle she'd have to fight again. She could handle that - and so, she thought, could Raphael. "You chose a warrior, remember?"
A kiss on the sensitive skin just below her ear. "As you chose an archangel."
She'd always known he'd be no easy lover. But then, neither was she. "I've never sparred with you." A playful invitation. "Do you like knives?"
The barest hint of a smile on the mouth he brushed against the same spot he'd tantalized before. "We'll dance with blades after the ball."
It was difficult to think with him so close, the Forbidden City humming with beauty below. "You didn't bring that many men with you." Jason had flown in with them, and with Aodhan, that made only two of the Seven in attendance.
"If it comes down to a fight, it'll be too late."
Elena finished putting her hair into the sleek French twist that Sara had taught her - the slithery strands anchored with what felt like five hundred pins - and examined herself in the mirror. The cap-sleeved ice blue dress was backless, didn't even come to midthigh -
with slits up both sides - and, in spite of the shards of crystal embedded on the surface, slicked over her body like a second skin. She'd stared at the tailor when he'd first presented it to her, but the vamp was no idiot. Paired with thigh-high boots and tights, both in black, it turned her from arm candy to sleek assassin while leaving her plenty of freedom should she need to move.
Warm male hands on her hips. "Perfect." The raw hunger in that single word silvered over her body like a long, lazy stroke, her nipples beading against the soft fabric.
"Makeup," she gasped.
He relaxed his hold enough that she could brush some bronzer over her cheekbones, slap some mascara on her eyes. Opening the box included with the clothes, she found a tube of lipstick. It turned out to be an intense scarlet. "This isn't my style."
"Think of it as camouflage," Raphael said, pulling her back against his half-dressed body as she held the lipstick, his cock a brand against her back, her wings burning with the most erotic of sensations. "Allowing you to blend into enemy territory."
"I don't look much like the vampires and angels I saw out there." Her dress/tunic was in no way demure. Then there were the knives. Not to mention the gun. They were all concealed tonight, a courtesy that had gone against the grain after Lijuan's games. But she was learning to pick her battles. "I wouldn't know how to flutter a fan if you hit me over the head with one."
"No, you're too much the hunter." A glance so heated, she half expected the mirror to melt. As it was, she had to clench her thighs to fight the urge to take him to the floor, to ride him to screaming ecstasy.
"But she won't see that," he murmured. "She'll see only a young, weak angel -
intriguing because of the way she came to be, but otherwise not worthy of notice."
"Good." It'd give her the freedom to watch Lijuan unawares. Elena had no illusions she could physically do anything to stop the oldest of the archangels, but maybe she could get an insight into her psyche, some small thing that might help Raphael.
Releasing her, Raphael walked to the side table. "Illium asked permission to give you a present."
Curious, she turned . . . to meet chrome blue. "What did he do to jerk your chain this time?"
A slow curve to his mouth, an archangel's dangerous humor. "Knives and sheaths," he murmured.
She touched the top of her right boot. "I've got mine - "
"Hmm." Taking something from a smooth wooden box, he moved to her. "But you have not got mine." His hand at her nape, a kiss so dark and full of possession it made her want to claim him in turn.
"We won't get to dinner if you keep that up." She held his gaze, held the beauty and cruelty of it, her palm on his bare chest.
His slid his hand up over the back of her thigh, his fingers brushing the oh-so-sensitive flesh between her legs. She sucked in a breath. "Teasing, Archangel?"
Teeth grazed over her lips. "Know this Elena - you'll never wear another man's knife."
She blinked. "He wanted to give me a blade? What's wrong with that?"
"Blades," he whispered, "and sheaths go together. And your sheath will only ever hold my blade."
It took her a second - desire had fogged up her mind. Her face flamed. "Raphael, that's - " She shook her head, unable to find the words. "Fighting is not sexual."
"Oh?" Eyes full of sea storms, violent and wild and exhilarating.
The heat turned to smoldering embers inside her, lush with the knowledge that his dangerous, beautiful man belonged to her. "Possession goes both ways, Archangel."
"Acknowledged, hunter." Stepping back, he opened his hand.
Her eye was dazzled, her mind entranced. "Are those stones real?" She was already taking it from him, already pulling the sweet, sweet blade out of the sheath that had been designed specifically for it. It gleamed razor-sharp in the light, warring with the brilliance of the jewels in the hilt, in the sheath, for dominance.
"Of course."
Of course. She played the knife in and over her hand, testing its heft, the balance. It was perfection in her grasp. "God, it's gorgeous." The jewels were breathtaking, but it was the blade that held her interest, the delicacy and strength of it. "Throw me that scarf."
Picking up the piece of gauzy, airy fabric, Raphael flicked it up. It came down in a mist .
. . parting on either side of the blade as if it had broken flawlessly in half. "Oh, man." So sharp, so sweetly sharp. "You had this made for me?" Crossing the distance between them, she kissed him without waiting for an answer.
Raphael's eyes were glittering brightly enough to outshine the diamonds and blue sapphires on the hilt and sheath when she drew back. "You sound like you're having sex."
"A blade this sweet is as good as sex." She turned the sheath around, looking . . .
admiring. She wasn't acquisitive by nature. Only with her apartment - a stabbing hurt -
had she been different. But this blade, it spoke to that same part of her.Mine , she thought. "I need a - "
Raphael was already lifting a holster out of the box. Made of a soft, sleek black leather, it had a belt that slid into the slits on either side of the sheath, before fitting snugly over her upper arm. "Perfect." She slid the weapon into place. "The knife and sheath are light enough that it won't slip. And so pretty that they'll come across as decorative."
Raphael watched his hunter play with her gift, astounded by the pleasure he received from her joy. This gift meant something to her. He'd gotten it right.
He'd also almost killed Illium for daring to try to impinge on something that was his.
"Do you think I don't already have such a gift for my mate?"
"Sire, I meant no disrespect."
"Go, Illium. Before I forget she loves you."
It had been an irrational reaction, focused on an angel who'd long ago proven his loyalty, who'd bled for Elena. Raphael wasn't used to feeling so out of control, not for anyone.
"Then she will kill you. She will make you mortal."
He'd taken that to mean a physical weakening, but what if Lijuan had been warning against this - the slow warming of his heart, until it clouded the cold reason that had colored his rule for so long? "Reason or emotion," he said to Elena as she slid the knife back into its sheath after a complicated set of moves. "Which would you choose?"
She gave him a funny half smile over her shoulder. "It's not that simple. Reason without emotion is often a mask for cruelty; emotion without reason can allow people to excuse all sorts of excesses."
"Yes," he said, remembering the pitiless monster he'd become in the Quiet.
Turning, Elena walked over to him, her hips swaying in a way that was pure provocation, the spike heels of her boots bringing her height to just above his jaw.
"Remember what I said about possession going both ways?"
"I will not betray you Elena." That she'd think to question that caused a ripple of anger in him.
"Don't get snarly on me, Archangel." Slipping past him, she opened one of the side zippers of the bag that had held her weapons and retrieved a small box. "I have a gift for you, too."
Surprised pleasure spread its wings inside him. He'd been given many, many things over the centuries. But most had meant nothing, mortals and immortals alike courting him for power, for prestige, for gain large and small. "Did you purchase it in the Refuge?"
"No."
"Then how did you get it?"
"I have my ways." Coming to stand before him, she opened the small box to retrieve a ring.
A ring set with amber.
"You," she said, sliding the ring onto the appropriate finger of his left hand, "are well and truly entangled."
His heart tight in a way that he had no experience with, he brought the ring up to his eyes. The band was platinum, thick and solid, the amber a square polished chunk. But it was dark, the darkest amber he'd ever seen . . . with a heart of pure white fire. Intrigued, he slid off the ring to bring it up to the light. The colors changed constantly, now dark, now light.
It was then that he saw it, the inscription on the inside.Knhebek.
He had lived in the Maghreb for a while, traveled through Morocco before he became an archangel, had heard that word whispered by eager youths to dark-eyed, blushing beauties.
I love you.
The tightness in his chest grew ever more powerful. Sliding the ring back onto his finger, he said,"Shokran ."
Her face broke out into a delighted smile. "You're welcome."
"Do you speak the language of your grandmother?" He closed his fingers into his palm, possessive about an object for the first time in centuries.
"I only know a few words my mom used to say." A smile filled with memories - happy ones. "She'd mix up the Moroccan Arabic with Parisian French and English all the time.
But we grew up with her, so we all understood." Even Jeffrey.
He'd laughed then, she thought, remembering. Her father had laughed at her mother's mishmash of languages - laughed at himself, not her.
"Have pity." Holding his head in his hands. "I'm a poor country boy. I don't know no fancy languages."
"Girls." Sparkling eyes, pale silver and bright with mischief. "Don't believe a word your papa says. He speaks French like a native."
"Ma cherie, you wound me." Dramatic hands slapping over his heart.
