Guild Hunter 01 - Angels' Blood

inside her chest, almost afraid of the fury of it. “I couldn’t let you be hurt. You belong to me.” Such an arrogant thing to say to an archangel.
    He closed his eyes, dropping his forehead against hers. “You’ll be the death of me, Elena.”
    She smiled. “You need a little excitement in that boring old life of yours.”
    Those eyes opened, blinding in their intensity. “Yes. So you will not die. I’ve made certain of it.”
    She was half convinced she’d imagined the wings, but the beautiful sweep of midnight hadn’t disappeared when she checked out of the corner of her eye. “How the hell did you attach prosthetic wings to my back in the course of a . . .” She paused. “Okay, no soreness from the wounds so, what, it’s been a week? No, longer.” She frowned, trying to reorder splintered pieces of memory. “I had broken bones . . . my back?”
    The archangel smiled again, his forehead still touching hers, his wings arching over to shadow them in their own private world. “The wings aren’t prosthetic and you’ve been asleep for a year.”
    Elena swallowed. Blinked. Tried to breathe. “Angels Make vampires, not other angels.”
    “There is one—how would you put it—loophole.”
    “Loophole? More like a giant cavern if I have wings.” She held on to him, the only solid thing in a shifting universe.
    “No, it is the tiniest of holes, barely a pinprick. You’re the first angel to have been Made in all the years of my existence.”
    “Lucky me,” she whispered, brushing her fingers along his nape and drinking in his sigh of pleasure. This moment, it felt frozen out of time. Here, she was simply a woman, and he was simply a man. But like all moments, it had to pass. “What are the requirements?”
    “Nothing we’ve ever been able to manipulate, though angels have tried for millennia.” Those incredible, unearthly eyes held her prisoner. “The one and only time an archangel can Make another angel is when our bodies produce a substance known as ambrosia.”
    A snapshot of memory—the golden, melting heat of his kiss, the delicate sweetness, the lush sensuality, the taste that was an erotic sensation and whispered caress in one. “The mythical food of the gods?”
    “Every myth holds a grain of truth.”
    She couldn’t help it, she kissed him again. And the taste of him rushed over her in a tumultuous wave. He was the one who broke the kiss.
    You were very badly injured, Elena.
    The aches inside her were a testament to that truth. That didn’t mean she had to like it. “Tell me about ambrosia then.” A bad-tempered command.
    “Ambrosia,” he said against her mouth, “is produced instinctively at a single point in an archangel’s life.”
    Images of his shredded wings, the living burn of angelfire. “Near death?” She touched him, checking, exploring, convincing herself he was alive.
    “We’ve all been near death more than once.” He shook his head. “No one has ever been able to pinpoint the trigger.”
    “But?”
    “But it is legend that ambrosia only rises when—”
    She held her breath.
    “—an archangel loves true.”
    The world stopped. The air particles seemed to still above her, the molecules suspended as she stared at the magnificence of the man who held her in his arms. “Maybe I was just biologically compatible.” It came out a ragged whisper.
    “Perhaps.” The possession of lips against her neck. “We have eternity to discover the truth. And in that eternity, you will be mine.”
    She thrust her hands into his hair, feeling heat spread through her body in a rolling wave. But she couldn’t surrender. Not until they got one thing straight. “Fine—so long as you don’t think that gives you the right to rule my life.”
    He came over her as she lay back down. “Why not?”
    She blinked at the cool arrogance of that question, and realized that her existence had just become a whole lot more interesting. Forget about hunting an archangel, she was about to learn how to dance with one without losing herself in the process. Exhilaration spiked through her bloodstream. “This is going to be some ride, Archangel.”

Epilogue
     
    Elena had had visions of flying in through Sara’s window and startling the heck out of her best friend, but that was before she realized that while she might be awake, actual movement was a whole other story. Which was why she was still in bed when a blindfolded Sara was shown into her room at the Refuge.
    Raphael had moved