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.
34
“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 shift to her noncorporeal form. It made her vulnerable in a way she hadn’t been since Beijing, but she was far from easy prey.
Flinching as she managed to singe one of his wings again, he felt a renewed burn as that incandescent fire arced through his veins to neutralize the black. It made him wonder . . . Reaching deep within, he coaxed the near-uncontrollable wildness of it to his hands, then released it as he would angelfire. In every other way, his power manifested as either blue or a blinding blaze, but this was a luminous white-gold with iridescent edges of midnight and dawn ... and when it hit Lijuan, she bled.
Her shock obvious, she stared at him as the dark red stain spread across her front. Capitalizing on her disbelief, he hit her again, but the fire within him was already fading, and this hit was nowhere near as potent as the first. But, it was enough. It caught one of her wings, and she shrieked in rage before changing direction and slamming through Amanat’s shield, out into the rain-lashed night.
Raphael went after her, the rain slicing at his face like so many sharp knives . . . but the Archangel of China was gone. Hovering to a standstill, he searched the forested landscape, thinking her wing might’ve collapsed, crumpling her to the earth. But the forest lay undisturbed, the storm-dark skies empty.
She’d had a reservoir of power, he realized, had used it to escape by taking her other form for a short period. There was no way to track her—but she was vanquished for now and would think twice before attacking him or his own again. Now . . . now he had to face the monster who had given birth to him.
Elena, having moved the last of the men and women of Amanat to safety, away from the damaged buildings, ran up to a small rooftop, then took flight, Illium at her side. It didn’t take long to spot Raphael’s mother on another, much higher rooftop. Caliane’s white gown was streaked with black, that face of impossible beauty burned on one side, but all that was superficial to an archangel.