Leaving Jason, Raphael made his way back toward Manhattan, flying low enough to see other angels going about their tasks above the gleaming steel and glass of the high-rises. The sun was bright today, and his city glittered like a faceted gem beneath the dazzling light—it was no wonder others in the Cadre watched it with covetous eyes. What they did not understand was that to hold this city, you could not hold humanity in contempt.

Archangel.

Angling his head at the brush of that voice kissed by spring and steel, he saw the distinctive shine of Elena’s hair sweeping around the side of the Tower. He watched his consort fly to him with slow, deep sweeps of her wings—she had been awake only months, and already, she flew with such grace and strength. Come, Guild Hunter.

She changed direction to follow the path he took over the high-rises and the rush of the East River to the roof of a small apartment building. Landing beside the translucent blue waters of the pool in the center, he turned to watch her as she backwinged to a smooth landing not far from where he stood, the tips of her wings a shimmering dawn-edged gold. “You have been practicing your landings.”

“Illium wouldn’t let me break yesterday afternoon until I got it right nine attempts out of ten. And Montgomery had brought out fresh peach pie.” The attempt at humor couldn’t quite hide the hurt in her eyes.

Anger twisted through his veins, a cold, remorseless thing that saw nothing wrong with pain, with death. “What did your father say to you?”

Pushing a hand through her hair, she strode past the large planters and to the edge of the pool, hunkering down to dip her fingers desultorily in the water. “Nothing. Just . . . the usual crap.” Then she told him about her youngest half sister, her voice hot with naked anger. “It fucking destroys his moral high ground, doesn’t it?”

“Your father doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who would ever admit to being at fault.” No, Jeffrey Deveraux was far too determined to win at any cost.

Rising, she flicked off the water. “Yeah.” Then she did something he would’ve never expected. Stepping forward, she buried her face in his chest.

Trust, he thought, as he enclosed her within the protection of his arms, his wings; there was such trust in what she had done. “I have a task for you, Guild Hunter,” he said, weaving the fingers of one hand through the pale silk of her hair, unraveling her braid.

“Good.” A rough statement.

“The vampire who spilled blood last night may be in this building. You must hunt.”

A hum of energy in the body under his hands and then she was pulling away to head for the rooftop entrance to the building. “The scent was rich, distinctive, the notes unusual. I should be able to narrow it down very fast if he is—or was—anywhere in the vicinity.”

She, Elena, he corrected, remembering the way he’d once tested her with two barely-Made vampires. She’d been shocked by their skittering, animalistic appearance but had not faltered in her task. Neha’s assassin is a woman.

“Figures.” Opening the door, she hesitated. “This place is too narrow for wings. Not a good tactical move to be trapped in there—and not necessary. The scent of oleanders in bloom ... I can almost touch it. Too strong for her not to be inside.”

“It won’t be difficult to draw her out,” he said once she returned to his side. However, when he flew down to the window that looked into the vampire’s room, what he saw had him calling off the hunt. She’s dead. There is a noose wrapped around her throat—I’m fairly certain it will turn out to be a snake.

Elena dropped down beside him. Neha decided to clean up her mess.

So it would seem. Dmitri will organize the body retrieval.

Once it’s out of there, I want a chance to double-check the scent. Just in case. Flying down below him and then back up with an awkward grace that did nothing to hide the potential of what she would one day become, Elena brushed silky strands of hair out of her eyes. Do you have time to come spar with me?

Missing Galen?

A dark word. Bastard was good. But you’re meaner when you’re in the mood.

Raphael wasn’t sure he liked that. I would never hurt you, Elena.

Of course not. She waved at a young blond angel sitting with his legs hanging off one of the high balconies of the Tower as they passed. The male beamed, waved back. But you also don’t have to worry about an archangel zapping you if you put a bruise on me. We can go at it full tilt, and I really need some no-holds-barred sessions.

Only she could speak to him thus. Only she could make him feel young in a way he had not felt for over a thousand years. We’ll train at the house. Bypassing a group of angels coming in to land on the Tower roof, he took them toward the Hudson. Afterward, he said as they hit the airspace above the water, you may thank your trainer in the most age-old of ways.

Warmth uncurling in her abdomen at the sensual order, Elena went to tease Raphael when a roaring wind came out of nowhere, crumpling her wings and threatening to send her slamming into the suddenly raging waters below. Raphael! The mental cry was instinctive, tearing out of her even as a strange, exotic scent wrapped a suffocating blanket around her senses.

The rain and the wind in her mind, a drenching storm that shoved away all other impressions. My apologies, Elena. He took control, overwhelming her will with his own as he twisted her body in a way she would’ve never done herself, allowing her to spread out her wings and find stability moments before she would’ve hit the water.

Her mind was her own again a split second afterward.

The whole thing had happened so fast she hadn’t had time to feel much beyond the adrenaline pumping through her body, but now, as she winged herself to a balanced position, she blew out a breath. Once, when they’d first met, Raphael had said something to her.

I could make you crawl, Elena. Do you really want me to force you onto your hands and knees?

“I thought you couldn’t do that anymore,” she whispered out loud, knowing he remained connected to her. “I thought I had shields now.”

You do, but you must focus to hold them. Panic throws you wide open.

“Hell.” She knew he was right. She had panicked. Flight was still new to her—and the terror of falling was one so visceral, it was hard to hold on to logical thought in the face of it.

Dropping down to join her at the lower altitude she was just managing to maintain, her muscles taut with shock, Raphael flew by her side as she pushed herself home. It felt like it took forever, but she came to a staggering stop on the grounds below their bedroom at last. Raphael swept down in front of her an instant later, catching her shaky form with a hold on her upper arms.

“Thanks,” she said, bracing herself with her palms on her thighs when he released her. “Not just for now.” She looked up. “For before.”

His eyes pulsed with surprise. “I expected your anger.”

“I’m not stupid. Stubborn, but not stupid.” Rising to her full height, she blew out a breath. “I don’t like the fact that I’m still so vulnerable to you, but fact is, that isn’t going to change overnight.” She’d taken an archangel as a lover knowing the disparity of strength between them.

“You know I’d fight you to my last breath if you attempted to coerce me in a normal situation. What happened over the water”—her heart raced in remembered shock—“was in no way a normal situation.” A blast of wind crashed into them right then, ripping the last words from her lips, clawing at her wings as if it would tear them off.

Raphael tugged her into the protection of his body, spreading his wings over them as the wind punched again and again. Do you sense it?

She went motionless at his question. The wind ... it carried a scent. Faint. So, so faint. And so unusual that she couldn’t pinpoint it—except she knew it was the same thing she’d scented the instant her wings crumpled. What is that?

A rare black orchid found in a rain forest deep in the Amazon.

She shivered. “It truly is her?”

So it would seem.

When the rage of wind finally died away with a last cutting whip, she looked up and brushed midnight strands of hair off Raphael’s face, revealing the incredible masculine beauty that had the power to make mortals weep. “She isn’t that strong yet.” The entire thing had only lasted a minute at most.

“No.” But it appears she has noticed my consort.

“God, I’m slow today.” That blast of wind on the Hudson hadn’t been a chance gust. It had been an arrow meant to shatter her bones when she hit the water at high velocity. “So she’s conscious?”

Raphael shook his head. “I’ve had Jessamy doing some research,” he said, mentioning the woman who was the repository of angelic knowledge, the keeper of their histories . . . and one of the kindest angels Elena had ever met. “Come, we will speak of it inside.”

They walked into the house, turning in the direction of the library, a room that sang to the curious heart of her nature. The first time she’d entered it, she’d noticed only the books arranged on the wall-to-wall shelves on the ground level, the fireplace to the left, the gorgeous wooden table and chairs set below the window.

But like all angelic rooms, this one had a soaring ceiling—and that ceiling was a work of art, the wooden beams carved with painstaking attention to detail and inlaid with darker pieces that were perfectly contoured to fit. “Aodhan?”

“No,” Raphael said, following her gaze. “That was done by a human, a master at his craft.”

“Amazing.” She wondered at the pride the man must’ve felt to build such a room for an archangel.

Raphael stroked his hand down her hair, his touch oddly tender.

“Archangel?”

“I’m far more powerful than when Caliane disappeared.” His words held a haunting sense of pain, of memory. “But I am still her son, Elena. Thousands upon thousands of years younger.”

Elena shook her head. “You were younger than Uram, too. Yet you won.”

“My mother is beyond Uram, beyond Lijuan.” Raphael’s words sent a chill down Elena’s spine. “She lived as an archangel for tens of thousands of years. There is no knowing what she has become.”

Thinking of what Lijuan had done to Beijing, the stench of smoke and death that was said to linger over the empty crater than had once been a vibrant, living city, Elena felt fear attempt to take a clawhold on her heart. She refused to allow it, her love for this archangel far stronger than any imagined foe. “She doesn’t know what you’ve become either, Raphael.”

Her archangel’s expression didn’t change, but she knew he’d heard her. “Jessamy,” he said, “tells me that Caliane is likely in a half-dream state at present. She has some semblance of consciousness but may have no real knowledge of the acts she’s committing.”

“She could think this is all a dream?”

Closing his hand around the back of her neck, he tugged her closer. “Yes.” His kiss was more than a little dangerous. But we did not come here to talk about Caliane.