That was all the encouragement the voracious hunger inside him needed. Spreading through his veins, it took him over, a rippling black fire. He returned to the bed in a dark wave of heat, flipping Elena onto her front, pulling her legs up and spreading them wide.
It was the rawest, most primitive way to possess a woman, but his hunter pushed up on her elbows, gave him a challenging look, and said, "I'm waiting."
He slid into her in a single hard thrust. Her scream echoed off the walls, but it was a scream that held equal parts demand and need. Gripping her h*ps tight, he pulled out almost fully, then slammed back in. There was no mercy in him any longer, but Elena didn't ask it from him.
Learn to fly fast, Elena, he said as he pushed them both to a final, blinding peak.Then we will dance in the sky.
They did have that bath - much later, Raphael stroking the washcloth over her wings with lazy movements as she leaned on the rim. "That feels so intimate."
"It is." A kiss pressed to the ultra-sensitive edge where her right wing grew out of her back. "Allowing someone to care for your wings is considered an act that takes a relationship well beyond the sexual."
Limbs heavy with desire sated, she thought about that. "Can I wash your wings?" It would be the most delicious of indulgences, the most exquisite of pleasures.
"You've had that right since our first bath."
The unadorned truth of his words made her heart ache.
"But," he continued, placing the washcloth on the rim as he fit himself to her back, "right now, you're in no shape to do anything but relax."
She heard the thread of male pride in that, felt the ache translate into sensual affection.
"You give good sex, Archangel."
A squeeze of her br**sts, his free hand reaching between them to stroke two fingers into her. Sucking in a breath, she found her voice. "Again?" Heat uncurled in her abdomen.
"Again." Withdrawing his fingers, he dropped a kiss to the curve of her neck, his erection nudging at her.
"Be gentle."
She felt him smile at her echo of his earlier words.For you, Elena, anything. He slid into her in a smooth thrust, her body stretching to accommodate him in sharp ecstasy. And when he moved this time, it was slow and deep, a claiming so tender, he would've stolen her heart if she hadn't already given it to him high above a ruined Manhattan.
Elena was fairly certain her muscles were jelly the next day, but she crawled to the training session with Galen regardless. Raphael had given her the massage he'd promised her before they fell asleep, and nothing was actually torn or broken, so it was going to be all about working through the muscle pain.
Galen took one look at her and threw her what felt like a ten-ton metal brick. She stared at the claymore - and it sure looked like the heavy Scottish weapon - for a second, then set her feet and lifted. Her biceps quivered, but the damn blade ended up vertical, the tip pointed to the cloudy blue sky.
Galen scanned her shoulders, her arms. "You're stronger than a normal mortal."
"I'm no longer mortal," she pointed out, only just keeping the claymore upright.
"No one has records on an angel Made, but if the same principles apply as with vampires, then your strength won't increase to immortal levels for a significant period."
Shrugging, she left it at that. The fact that the hunter-born were slightly stronger than ordinary humans wasn't exactly a secret, but neither was it advertised. And while she might now be an immortal, she was still hunter-born, still a member of the Guild. Those were loyalties she'd never betray.
"Throw it to me."
She narrowed her eyes and walked across the snow-sprinkled ground to hand him the blade. "What? Do you want to prove to me how weak I am? You can do that with one punch."
"But then Raphael would kill me." An imminently practical response as he took the claymore and turned to retrieve something from a small table in the corner of the training area. He was shirtless once again, but still wore that thin metal band around his left arm, the metal a solid gray with the slightest sheen. A small amulet of some kind hung from the center, but she couldn't put a handle on its origins.
Norse? Maybe.
She had no trouble seeing him as part of a bloodthirsty warrior culture. Glancing away from the armband, she found herself the focus of at least twenty pairs of curious eyes.
"We've got an audience again."
To her surprise, Galen frowned. "We don't need one - not in the condition you're in."
Raising a hand, he made a sharp downward gesture.
A silver blue bullet dropped out of the sky, streaking toward the ground like lightning unleashed. Illium's landing was wildly showy, a hard, fast drive that left him grinning on one knee, his wings spread in blatant display. "Vain," she told him, figuring her heart would stop trying to leap out of her throat any minute now.
He rose to his feet. "It's not vanity if it's truth, Ellie."
Shaking her head, she looked to Galen. "What's Bluebell going to teach me?"
"Nothing. Illium is going to play butterfly."
Elena had no idea what the other angel meant until he ushered her inside the huge building that overlooked the ring of beaten earth they'd been using for the past weeks. An indoor training salle, she realized as Galen closed the doors, locking out their audience.
"Impressive." The ceiling soared, reminding her of an amphitheatre stripped down to its very basics.
"Voles-tu, mon petit papillon."
Illium laughed at Galen's instruction to "fly, little butterfly" and gave the other angel a desultory finger, replying in a language Elena thought might have been Greek.