Angels' Flight

“Surrender.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” She was the most precious thing in his life.

“I’m an angel, too. An immortal. Treat me as one.”

The haunting plea beneath the demand broke him. He’d lay the world at her feet if she so asked. “Promise me you’ll stop me if I’m too rough.”

Huge dark eyes looked into his, raw with desire and a need that rivaled his own. “I promise.”

Taking her at her word, this woman who understood pain on a level most would never comprehend, he tightened his grip to steel and ravaged her mouth as he held them in position with faint movements of his wings. When she slid up just enough that she could cradle him between her thighs, he angled them until they faced earthward, bit down on the curve of her shoulder… and shut his wings.

They plummeted.

Jessamy’s scream held wild delight, no terror. Teeth bared in fierce joy, he snapped out his wings again right before they would’ve crashed into the mountains, dipped left and took them on a heart-stopping flight into and through a large cavern, barely avoiding the razor-sharp edges of rock that would have cut and bruised, before shooting out a jagged hole caused by some long-ago event, and spiraling up into the night sky once more.

“That was wonderful!” Jessamy’s grin was as feral as his.

Laughing in primal happiness, he stole a kiss before breaking it off to concentrate on beating his wings ever harder as he pushed them high, high up into the sky. When his mate rubbed with feminine impatience against him, he was so deep into the dance that he hooked her leg around his waist and slid into her in a hard, almost brutal thrust. Too late, the mists parted. “Jessamy, did I—”

She squeezed her inner muscles, cutting off his words. “Let’s fall again.”

Perfect, she was perfect. The most primitive pleasure in every drop of his blood, Galen didn’t do a straight vertical drop this time. Controlling their descent with the brute power of his wing muscles, he dropped for a heartbeat before jerking to a sudden stop, his body rocking deep into her with the jolt.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Until Jessamy attacked his mouth, her hunger voracious. Any control he might have retained was lost, the thread snapping with an almost audible sound. Keeping her locked to him with one arm, he fisted his free hand in her hair, and took her down in an almost impossibly fast spiral that seemed destined to end with their bodies broken on the unforgiving mountains.

Pulling up at the last possible instant, he winged his way back to the skies without giving Jessamy time to catch her breath. No warning, no gentleness, he fell again, her body tight and hot and silken around him. Feeling her muscles start to spasm, pleasure rocking her body, he ran his lips down to the pulse in her neck as they rose, sucked hard as they fell.

Jessamy’s muscles felt like they’d turned to liquid, her thighs in danger of sliding off Galen’s body when he took them high into the starry night again, each beat of his powerful wings pushing the hard length of him inside her in a sensation so deep, she felt branded. Tiny inner muscles continued to clench and unclench with the aftershocks of the most violent pleasure she’d ever experienced.

Right when she thought she could bear no more, she glanced up, saw the naked passion of him, and felt her body quicken to shocking readiness. “Strong, gorgeous man,” she said, giving him words because her Galen needed words. “Just so you know—you’re mine. Always and forever. So don’t even think about changing your mind.”

Shuddering, he dropped his head, pressed his cheek to her own, and murmured words in a language both beautiful and ancient. Tears burned in her eyes, passion torn through with wild tenderness.

I’m yours.

So simple. So powerful. His heart laid at her feet.

He locked his mouth to her own before she could find her voice, and they plummeted in a passionate kind of insanity. Lost in the magnificent power of him, she hardly felt the spray of water on her back when he jerked them up above the pond, rising a bare wing-length before bringing them to a gentle landing on the snowy verge.

His clothing was soft beneath her back, the ground hard. And Galen… he was an inferno.

She screamed as he gave her his surrender, hard and hot and without restraint.

15

The exhilaration of their dance continued to hum through her veins days later, as she completed her notes about Raphael’s territory that she would enter into the histories when she returned to the Refuge.

Outside the library window, she could see the archangel drilling with a mixed unit of angels and vampires, the snow a seamless white blanket in every direction. Children’s laughter drifted up from the mortal city, carried by a whimsical wind, and she felt a poignant tug in her soul, an awareness of the forces and duties that pulled her to her home in the mountains… while her barbarian must wing his way back to Raphael’s territory, his task not yet complete.

But she would not think of it now. This was her time to love Galen.

That winter day, and the ones that followed were beyond beautiful, the skies a crystalline hue in the day, studded with gemstones at night. Jessamy spent the season in the arms of a warrior who told her she was his everything, even as his wounded heart struggled to accept that her love for him was no flickering candle flame but a light as constant as the sun.

Spring came as a blush, delicate and budding. Jessamy’s heart sighed at seeing the world awaken again, though it was a difficult time, too, for she had to say good-bye to the friends she’d made at the Tower. Difficult, but not painful, because she was no longer trapped in the Refuge. And so it had become home, rather than a cage.

Trace kissed her on the hand out of sight of everyone the morning of her departure. “If you ever tire of him, you know you have but to turn those lovely eyes my way.” Impudent words, true warmth.

“Thank you for being my friend.” He’d been a part of her journey, and she would never forget him. “You will come see me when you next visit the Refuge.”

“Only if you strip your barbarian of his weapons and tie him up for good measure.”

The memory made her smile as she stood on tiptoe not long afterward, and brushed her lips against Raphael’s cheek. “I’ll visit your land again. It has a claim on my heart now.”

“Do not wait so long this time.” Relentless blue eyes dark with an edge of sorrow, and she knew he was sorry to see her go, this ruthless archangel who had once been a boy she’d held when he bumped his knee. “The city will grow, but the skies and the lands around the Tower will be yours to explore so long as I rule.” He allowed her to step back, and into the arms of the man who would fly her home. “Take care with her, Galen.”

Galen didn’t reply, his expression making it clear the instruction deserved no response. Raphael laughed, the sound rare, a fading echo of that tiny blue-eyed boy who was the beloved son of two archangels. Beside him, Dmitri stood silent and watchful, but for the smile curving his lips. For once, it reached the vampire’s eyes. “Safe journey.”

They swept off the Tower roof on the heels of Dmitri’s words, escorted to the border by two wings of angels in perfect formation. She was the ostensible reason for the display, but she knew it was respect for Galen that drove the squadron. Pride filled her heart for the man who was hers, a man who’d forged his own place regardless of those who sought to stifle and crush him.

His mother had written again, urging him to return to Titus’s land, take up the lesser position and “improve his skills.” The subtle attack on Galen’s self-confidence had enraged Jessamy, but he’d simply shaken his head and said, “She’s afraid, Jess,” a depth of understanding in his eyes that would surprise those who saw only the hard, blunt surface.

Squelching her own anger, Jessamy had cupped his cheek. “Do you want to see her?” Tanae was his mother—as a child who loved her parents regardless of the oft painful quiet between them, she could understand