“Do you call me a liar?” He’d never enjoyed teasing anyone before he met his hunter.

Stroking her fingers through the hair at his nape, she used her teeth on his jaw. “I don’t know how to do all that fancy stuff.”

“You are my consort.” A kiss placed on her cheekbone. “You may do things any way you wish.”

Gray eyes rimmed with a very, very thin circle of purest silver met his as her fingers pressed on the back of his head. “Yeah? In that case, I think I’d like to distract you.”

He allowed her to bring them closer, angling his head so he could take that stubborn mouth, those soft lips. She tasted of wildness barely contained, a brilliant, blinding mortal fire. Ready for the blaze, he was startled to feel her hands move to cup his face, her hold tender in a way that leveled his defenses as she whispered, “Let me love you tonight.”

Enchained, he made no protest when she slid off the desk, switched off the lights, and turned to tug him to the warm glow of the fireplace. As he watched, she undid the straps that held her black top snug to her body and dropped it to the rug—to reveal lush breasts he’d marked with his kiss more than once. Tonight, it was the fire that marked her, flickering over her skin and burnishing her in red gold, creating sultry shadows he wanted to explore with his mouth, his body.

She sighed in pleasure when he slid his hand over the curve of her waist, but her fingers were on the buttons of his shirt. He shrugged it to the floor the instant it was open, wanting her hands on him. She gave him exactly that. Palms flat on his chest, she stroked over his pectorals, his rib cage, his abdomen. “I could do this,” she mumured, exploring the ridges and dips of his body with a slow intensity that made his cock throb, “for hours.”

Palming the erotic weight of her breasts, he bent to press a kiss to her shoulder. “I’m afraid your consort does not have such patience.” He used his thumbs to tease her nipples as she twined her fingers through his hair, as she tugged him up, as she seduced his mouth with her own.

When she drew back to kiss her way down his neck to his chest and lower, he permitted it. The night was yet young and he’d discovered he had a weakness for being loved by Elena. What wicked things are you planning to do tonight, Guild Hunter?

Kneeling in front of him, her wings spread behind her in an extraordinary display—gleaming midnight shading to indigo, to a deep, haunting blue before whispering into dawn and a shimmering white gold kissed by the firelight—she tilted up her head to give him a provocative smile. “You’ll just have to wait and see.” Reaching up, she undid the fastenings on his pants, brushing the rigid push of his cock with her fingertips as she did so. He had no compunction in helping her strip off the remainder of his clothing, in standing naked and aroused before her.

So proud, Elena thought, so beautiful. Fisting him with her hand, she stroked once, tight and smooth. His hand clenched in her hair, and when she looked up, she saw he’d thrown back his head, the cords of his neck standing out so strong and taut that she wanted to rise up, bite down on them. Then there were his wings, magnificent in their power.

He was pure addiction. And he was hers. To take. To pleasure.

Placing the palm of her free hand flat on the thick muscle of his thigh, she leaned in to lick at the head of his cock.

Elena. A warning not to tease.

Another night, she might have done just that, but tonight, she wanted to love him hot and sweet. Sliding her grip to the base of his arousal, she closed her mouth over the head. His shout was gritted out, those muscular thighs unyielding as rock as his hand pulled at her hair. And the taste of him ... Moaning around the rigid length covered by velvet-soft skin, she took an inch more. Sucked wet and deep.

A harder tug on her hair. Now, Elena.

She hadn’t had her fill, nowhere near close, but there were other ways to satiate her hunger. Releasing him after laving her tongue over the thick vein that ran along his arousal, she rose up and nudged him backward until his knees hit the back of one of the chairs not far from the fire. “Sit.”

A raised eyebrow, pure masculine arrogance.

Lips curving even as things low in her body pulsed with the darkest of sexual cravings, she stepped back to pull off her jeans and panties. This time, when she pushed at the muscled silk of his chest, he went down into a sitting position, his hands sliding over her rib cage to settle on her hips. Instead of tugging her forward as she’d expected, he leaned down to press a kiss to the dip of her navel. Hunter mine.

Heart aching under the rush of emotion, she weaved her fingers through his hair. “I love you, Archangel.” Her body trembled at the intimacy of his breath against her skin, the rough caress of his jaw. When he lifted his head, she didn’t wait, couldn’t wait. Shifting to straddle him, she fitted him to the ultrasensitive entrance to her body, sliding down that hard heat oh-so-slowly, his hands possessive brands on her hips.

A shudder rippled through her as she succeeded in sheathing him. Holding him within her, caressing him with intimate muscles until he whispered promises of retribution, she put her own hands on his shoulders, squeezed. “Brace me, Archangel.”

Would you ride tonight, hbeebti? Strong hands moving down over her thighs to grip her just below the knees as he sucked on her lower lip before inciting a languorous tangling of their mouths.

Oh, yes. Then, as the storm continued to rage outside, she took her archangel, slow and deep, and again, until the crashing wildness of pleasure swept them both under.

22

The next day, having received a message early that morning, Elena found herself flying down to land in front of a gated home in the Palisades area. Set back from the street and shaded with perfectly manicured greenery, it shrieked of money. Even the architecture—old, elegant, timeless—told her she was looking at something that had cost in the millions.

I could afford this.

It was a startling thought. She kept forgetting that she was rich now, that the Cadre—through Raphael—had paid her the fee they’d agreed on when she had “accepted” the Uram mission. Snorting at the memory of exactly how she’d been dragged into the whole bloody mess, she folded back her wings and stared at the glossy black door of the home only a few feet away.

Narrow. Too narrow for angelic wings.

It was stupid to feel rejected. Her sister Beth had lived here with her husband, Harrison, since the day they had married—both had been human at the time. Then Harrison had applied to be Made a vampire, been accepted . . . and broken the century-long contract of service he’d signed on for as a condition of being Made. Elena was the hunter who’d brought him back to face his punishment. Harrison didn’t understand that he couldn’t hide for eternity, that the longer it took for his angel to track him down, the worse the price he’d have had to pay.

As a result of Harrison’s antipathy, Elena had never been invited inside Beth’s home. She didn’t begrudge her sister for standing by her husband, had done her best to make sure Beth knew that. However, by the same token, she refused to disappear from Beth’s life. No matter what, her sister knew she could pick up the phone and Elena would come.

The door flew open at that instant, revealing a gorgeous strawberry blonde dressed in what appeared to be a cashmere sweater in cream paired with a polka-dotted knee-length skirt, the shape full and feminine. “Ellie!” Her sister ran. “Ellie!”

As she caught Beth’s smaller, softer body, Elena felt time unravel, scrolling backward until they were children again. Beth had always been the baby, and she’d toddled around after Elena as Elena had in her turn toddled around after Ari and Belle. Now, of the four children Marguerite had borne, only two remained—and Elena had become the big sister. “Hey, Bethie.”

Beth’s arms remained locked around Elena, her face damp against Elena’s neck. “You didn’t come see me first. You’re supposed to come see me first!”

Another bittersweet reminder of childhood, Beth’s insistence that she come first in Elena’s life. “I thought you just got back today? Weren’t you in the Caymans?”

A sniffle. “You have wings. You could’ve flown to me.” Pulling away at last, Beth reached out and touched the upper curve of Elena’s wing.

It was a sensitive spot, a place she allowed Raphael alone to caress. “Lower, Beth,” she said with conscious gentleness.

Beth shifted her hold at once—forever the younger sister, used to taking orders. “They’re so pretty, Ellie.” Sweet words, shining eyes of a translucent turquoise that had come from Marguerite, a single moment uncolored by the choices they’d both made. “I’m glad you have wings. You always wanted to fly.”

A flash of memory, Elena in her homemade cape, “flying” after a giggling Beth. It was impossible not to smile. “How are you?”

A shrug, her hand falling away. “Okay.”

Worried by the muted response from a sister who’d always been vibrant, if not a little high-strung, Elena brushed Beth’s hair away from her face. “You know you can talk to me. Have I ever let you down?”

“You turned my husband in to his angel.” Open petulance.

“Beth.” Harry had chosen his fate when he asked to be Made—and unlike Vivek, he’d been healthy as a human, could well have lived the full span of a mortal life. If the servitude he’d signed on for now grated, he had no one to blame but himself.

Beth’s sullen expression broke, her face seeming to collapse in on itself as she began to cry in great, gulping sobs. Shattered by her sister’s pain, Elena took Beth into her arms and rocked her. “Talk to me, Bethie. Tell me what’s wrong.” So I can fix it.

It was what she did, a self-imposed duty.

Even after Jeffrey had thrown her out of the Big House, Elena had checked in every week with Beth, made sure her sister was okay. Beth, too, had stuck by Elena in her own way. When Jeffrey had dumped Elena’s things out on the street, it had been sweet, compliant Beth who’d gone out and saved Elena’s most important treasures from the elements. She’d done it in secret, but she had done it.

“I’m not as strong as you, Ellie.” Whispered words as they stood hidden in the shadow of the Big House. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t cry, sweetheart.” Taking her sister into her arms, holding her tight. “It’s okay. I’m strong enough for both of us.”

Now, Elena pressed her lips to her sister’s temple. “Beth?”

“Oh, Ellie.” Beth pulled away with a hiccup. Using a handkerchief to dab at her face, she managed to look beautiful even with eyes rimmed in red and a nose that had gone raw at the tip. “They won’t Make me, Ellie. That was always the plan, that Harry and I, we’d both become immortal and then we’d be together forever, but they said they won’t Make me.”

Elena’s blood ran cold. She’d asked Raphael about Beth, been told that her sister wasn’t biologically compatible. If they tried to infuse her with the toxin that turned human to vampire, she’d either die or go incurably insane. “I’m sorry—”