The damn robes that hid their wings made them all so anonymous, but at least their hoods were down tonight. She took note of the two speakers: one was the tall male with mahogany skin who’d first shown her and Raphael to their suite, the other shorter, more square-appearing with silky blond hair. His skin looked to be not-enough-sunlight white with a flush of red underneath.

Guild Hunter, while Astaad appears to believe you are merely being a supportive consort by standing next to me without saying a word, I know different. Raphael’s wing spread slightly over hers. What is it?

I’ll tell you later, she said, trying her damndest to look interested in the conversation Raphael was having with Astaad on the audible level. I just overheard something so interesting my pulse is doing somersaults. I need a minute to get it together.

Raphael’s thumb brushed over her spine as he replied to Astaad with zero indication he’d missed any of the conversation. She didn’t know how he did that—have a physical and mental conversation at the same time. She didn’t realize she’d asked him on the mental level until the crisp bite of the wind swept through her mind.

I have had a thousand five hundred years of practice, hbeebti. He turned to smile down at her.

And her overworked heart, it kicked. Because his gaze held affection and love and so many other things she could’ve never imagined the first time she looked into those eyes of searing blue.

“Ah, you make me miss my Mele.”

Astaad’s words had Elena turning to the other archangel, even as she leaned a little closer to Raphael, needing to feel his warmth, the strong beat of his life. The more time she spent in Lumia, the more it felt as if this place was cold down to the bone, not in temperature but in its soul.

For a while, speaking with Gian, she’d almost begun to question her initial views on the place, but now that she knew he was a liar, it was easy to see the entire web of charm he’d constructed in front of her. It had been done so skillfully that she’d been partially caught in it even as she believed herself standing separate, critical-eyed.

Elena would not be making that mistake a second time.

“I miss her, too,” she said to Astaad. “I wish we didn’t live so far apart.”

Astaad inclined his head. “And these times of war make travel difficult. Mele did enjoy her time in New York earlier this year. Thank you for hosting her.”

“It was my pleasure.” The other woman was a scholar rather than a hunter, but she and Elena had clicked from the first. “Mahiya also loved spending time with her. I hope she’ll visit again.”

“She would be delighted to do so,” Astaad said, “but I find it difficult to have her far from me.” His features altered, tension humming beneath his skin as shadows darkened his eyes. “I have faith in your honor, Raphael, but I do not have such faith in all our brethren—I can see them harming Mele to get to me. Many know that of all my concubines, she is the most favored.”

“I wish I could disagree,” Raphael said in a tone as grim. “But honor is no longer what it once was.”

Astaad stroked his neat black goatee, nodding slowly in silence.

Elena’s blood chilled without warning, her spine stiffening. She caught a sensual, smoky perfume the next second. Not too thick, not cloying. Just right.

Curling her fingers into her palm to still the itch to go for a weapon, she kept her expression neutral with sheer strength of will as Michaela came to stand beside Astaad. “How is Dahariel?” she asked the other archangel. “I have not seen him these many months.”

This is interesting.

Archangel, you have a talent for understatement.

15

Astaad raised a thin black eyebrow. “My second is as strong and hale as he ever was. He hasn’t succumbed to a mystery illness, gone mad from the toxin, or had an accident befall him.”

Michaela threw back her head and laughed and it was an exquisite sound. Her eyes were sparkling when she looked at Astaad again, her amusement apparently genuine. “Ah, you know how to wound me, old friend.” She sent Raphael a fond glance. “Not all of my lovers have come to such terrible ends.”

The implication was clear but Elena was no new consort easily manipulated by venomous barbs. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said to Astaad before shooting Raphael a smile, “I see Hannah calling me over.”

Raphael held her in place with the gentle pressure of his fingertips on her lower back. “In fact, if you could excuse us both,” he said to Astaad and Michaela. “I must speak to Elijah before dinner begins, on a matter to do with our shared border.”

“Of course. We will talk again.” Astaad lifted Elena’s hand to his lips for a good-bye that fit him. She’d come to realize that the Archangel of the Pacific Isles had a decidedly romantic side. She could see why Mele and his other women adored him.

“Careful, Raphael,” Michaela murmured with a touch of malice in her tone, “or I’ll start to think you do not like me.”

“Has there been a man born who does not like you?”

Raphael’s question seemed to delight the female archangel. She was beaming when they left—and didn’t seem to realize that Raphael had simply posed the question, not answered it. “So,” Elena said once they were out of earshot, “the Bitch Queen is still intent on hitting on you.”

“Sadly, she will remain forever unfulfilled. I do not sleep with spiders who eat their mates after sex.”