Guild Hunter 03 - Archangel's Consort

mother’s going to lose, Raphael.”
    Raphael’s body shuddered, his wings pure black, his skin without life.
    Archangel!
     
     
    Raphael heard Elena, but he couldn’t answer her, his mind overrun with a searing burn so hot, it flared incandescent white against his vision, turning his world from cold black to a piercing conflagration.
    The instincts of over a thousand years of survival urged him to fight the rage of flame . . . but then he saw what it was doing. Eating away at the black, obliterating it in a fury as wild as angelfire. As it did so, it left a lingering “taste” on his senses, one he couldn’t quite define, and yet knew to the depths of his soul.
    Raphael, don’t you dare leave me. Together! Your promised me if we fell, it would be together!
    Even in the midst of the brutal fight taking place in his body, her demand made him want to claim her lips with his own, to stroke his hand over those warrior’s wings in open possession.
    A spear of lightning scored down his spinal cord and spread in a nuclear burst through his wings, blistering with such heat that he half expected his body to turn to ash. But when the burn faded to a dull, throbbing hum, when he lifted his lashes, he saw Elena’s face staring down at him, determination in every line of her. I won’t let you go, Archangel. I won’t! Then, heartbreakingly quiet, “I can’t do this without you, Raphael.”
    Raising his hand, he cupped her cheek. “I am not so easy to kill, Elena.” Except he should be dead. He was an archangel, but Lijuan had evolved to another plane of existence. Her power was beyond that which was known, which could be fought. It tasted only of death to mortal and immortal alike.
    Elena’s entire frame shuddered, and she pressed her forehead to his for a long, broken second. A single, painful droplet splashed against his cheek before she raised her head and he flowed to his feet beside her. Every part of his body ached, but he’d fought feeling far worse—even the violent heat that continued to spark within him, searching out and eradicating the final traces of Lijuan’s taint, was no longer the overwhelming inferno it had been.
    Raphael. My son.
    Looking up, he saw Caliane’s right wing crumple as Lijuan managed to slam her against the side of a building.

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    “Go,” he said to Elena. “My mother’s people will be waking. Get them moved to safer locations.”
    Elena didn’t fight him, stepping back so he could take flight. Take care, Raphael. You belong to a hunter.
    With her words circling his heart, he flew up and caught his mother’s falling form, protecting them from Lijuan by throwing out a spray of angelfire that made her swerve and lose concentration. He took the opportunity to lower Caliane gently onto a rooftop. She would heal, he thought, having seen the damage. It had not been a heart-blow like his . . . and it did not seem to affect her as it had him. But then, his mother was far older.
    Her eyes shimmered an aching blue as he rose to meet Lijuan once more. You fight for me.
    I fight against Lijuan. His mother might yet act the monster once she regained her strength, but there was no question that Lijuan already was one. If she wasn’t brought under control, her brand of death would soon crawl across the world—Caliane at full strength might be the only one capable of keeping her in check.
    So you would use one monster to cage another? A voice that still held its haunting magic.
    All archangels carry the threat of darkness within.
    Lijuan rained a fury of black down on him. Throwing up a shield, he slammed the bolts into another wall, crumbling an edifice that had stood for centuries upon centuries. Sensing movement below, he saw Elena’s distinctive wings as she half carried, half dragged a dazed citizen of Amanat to another area of the city. Elena, stay out of sight , he ordered, knowing Lijuan would go after her if she saw the chance.
    Focus on keeping your neck in one piece, Archangel. I’m not the one Lijuan’s got a hard-on for.
    Laughing at the acerbic reply, he threw several balls of angelfire, positioning himself just above Lijuan. She weaved out of the way, but he had her on the defensive, and using that, he maneuvered her to the edges of the city, where the buildings were more apt to be empty of mortals.
    Lijuan’s wings had turned black during the course of the battle, as had her hair. That wasn’t as important as the fact that she no longer seemed to be able to