Guild Hunter 03 - Archangel's Consort

saw in bed.
    She couldn’t help it. Arching up, she kissed him, flicking out her tongue to taste the aggressive maleness pumping through his body. “The thing you do with your wings.” Instead of answering, he kicked her legs wider and suddenly the position was a hell of a lot more intimate. “Raphael”—a husky censure—“Montgomery is probably keeping an eye on us.”
    “He would never be so ill-bred.” A hot wet kiss against her neck. “The wings?”
    She forced her brain into gear. “You use them. Galen taught me to keep them out of the way, so I wouldn’t nick them with knives or the short sword, but you use your wings for balance, and you even go slightly airborne to avoid blows.” She’d never seen anyone move with that kind of lethal grace. Galen was a different kind of a fighter—more brutal, harsher in his movements.
    Another kiss, the feel of teeth. She hissed, went to hook her leg over him when he rose off her, extending a hand to help her up. “Galen taught you what was necessary for survival,” he said once she was back on her feet. “He had to focus on tactics he knew you could master in the timeframe we had before Lijuan’s ball.”
    Reaching up to redo her ponytail, Elena nodded. “I figured. I’m guessing using wings like you do will take me considerably longer to learn.”
    “At this stage,” Raphael said, walking over to pick up two short swords from where she’d left them on the edge of the practice circle, “your wings are more of a liability in combat.”
    She caught the swords by the hilts and watched him pick up a set of much smaller knives. “Giving me the advantage?”
    A smile with more than a hint of arrogance. “You are but a babe in arms yet, Elena.” Knives held to either side, gaze focused on her. “It would hardly be fair to take you down again so soon.”
    She settled into a crouch, wings pinned tightly to her back. “Come on then, angel boy.” She kept her eyes on the muscles in his shoulders, saw the instant one tensed.
    A split second later, they were moving in a wicked, dangerous dance of steel and bodies. She’d never really had a chance to spar with Raphael like this, and damn if it wasn’t the most fun she’d ever had. The archangel was good. Better than good. Not that that should’ve come as a surprise, she thought, blocking his blades and striking out with her own as she spun away. None of the Seven would have given their allegiance over to an archangel they didn’t respect on the battlefield.
    A lick of iron in the air.
    “Stop.”
    “Damn it.” She dropped her hands, glancing at the fine hairline scratch on her left arm. “Would that have cost me my arm in real combat?”
    Raphael saw the disgusted look on Elena’s face and had to bite back a smile of pride. Hair pulled off her face with warrior-like practicality and sweat sheening her body, her musculature fluid and graceful, this was his consort. “That was a tactical error,” he said, knowing she had the ability to become unbeatable with those blades. All she needed was a little more time to grow into her immortality—and further skilled instruction.
    “You took a chance,” he pointed out, “and dropped your guard on the left because you thought I couldn’t turn that fast, but don’t ever judge another angel’s—or even an older vampire’s—agility by your own.” She’d only been angel-Made for less than half a year. The fact that she was already blindingly good, her hunter instincts coming to the fore, was no reason to go easy on her. If anything, she needed to be pushed harder.
    She raised her blades. “Once more through.”
    “Go.”
    The clash of steel, the sweaty, slippery slide of bodies, the wild life of it all exhilarated Raphael. He sparred with his Seven once in a while, but it had always been a practical exercise to keep his physical skills sharp. Elena fought like it was part of her very self, and her joy in it infected him until it was a pulse beneath his skin.
    Then she will kill you. She will make you mortal.
    Lijuan knew nothing, he thought as he dodged the blade of one short sword and flicked his knife under the strap of Elena’s tank top, cutting it in a single swipe. He might heal slower, might injure easier, but he was alive in a way Lijuan had never been and never would be—because she had killed the human who had once, long ago, threatened to make her mortal.
    Ignoring the strap he’d cut, Elena swung back and . . . threw both blades.