“I hear you discovered something while searching for us,” I saidtohim.
“I did,” Raphael replied. “Perhaps we should discuss thisalone.”
Wren glared daggers at him when he looked pointedly to her. Like the rest of the golden angels, Raphael had a connection to life that allowed him to harvest energy from all living things and use it as a weapon. He could kill Wren as easily as she could step on an ant, but that didn’t faze her as she held hisstare.
“I brought the Wilders to you. I will hear what you have to say,” Wrenstated.
“It may be best for you and all the humans to return to the wall,” Raphaelreplied.
“I don’t run fromthings.”
“She’ll hear what you have to say,” Iinterjected.
Raphael’s eyes slid to me. He was stronger than I was, but he wasn’t more powerful than Kobal, and Kobal had put Bale and me in charge. Because of that, he would do as I commanded. Raphael may not like it, but on this plane, Kobal was hisleader.
Raphael nodded briskly, and Wren shot me an irritated look for interfering. I smiled sweetly at her in return. I knew the smile would drive her nuts, but she’d been doing that to me for a couple of months. As I’d suspected it would, her scowl turned into a full-onglare.
“Now that’s love,” Bale murmured frombesideme.
“It’s something,” I replied. “How long before Magnus, Hawk, and the othersarrive?”
“They should be here any minute now,” Bale said. “They only know as much about this as I do. Now that Raphael has a tidbit of information, he’s enjoying withholding itfromus.”
“I bet he is.” I looked toward where Raphael stood with his hand on his sword. There were only a few times I’d seen the angel look at all unsettled by something; this was one of them. His eyes traveled continuously over the woods before rising to the sky, where they remained longer than Iliked.
“Chatting with your brothers and sisters above?” I asked Raphael. Unlike Caim and the rest of the fallen angels, whose bond to life and the angels in Heaven severed after their fall, Raphael could still communicate with his fellow non-fallenangels.
“No,” Raphaelreplied.
“Good.” I wasn’t fond of Caim or Raphael, but Idespisedthose cowardly pricksabove.
Magnus and Hawk slipped from the forest with Erin, Vargas, Shax, and Lix following behind. “Where are the rest of the humans?” Raphaelinquired.
“You said you wanted to speak with us privately, so we told them to make camp about a hundred yards that way.” Hawk jerked his thumb over his shoulder to point behind him. “You’re alive,” he greeted as he slapped me on myshoulder.
“It will take far more than an ouroboros to kill me,” I assured him.Or perhaps it will only take one woman,I thought as my attention returned to where Wren was edging away from the others. She was even trying to avoid Erin and Vargas, who were both as humanasher.
Hawk followed the direction of my gaze and his mouth parted in realization when he spotted my mark on Wren’s neck. Newly turned from human to demon; Hawk was still learning all he could do, and as a canagh demon, he required nourishment from sexual energy as well as wraiths to survive. He didn’t have a problem feeding on the wraiths, but before learning he was a canagh demon and that his kiss could enslave another, he’d accidentally ensnared a human woman when he’d had sexwithher.
He held onto enough of his human tendencies that he hadn’t forgiven himself for it yet. As punishment, he went far too long without sex. So long that I feared one day the honorable soldier might snap and do something he wouldregret.
Tall and broad, Hawk was thickly muscled and only a couple inches shorter than me. He ran a hand through his short, dark brown hair as his blue eyes studied Wren. He wasn’t looking at her sexually, but I still stepped in front of him to block his viewofher.
His eyes flew up to mine, and he stepped back. “I wasn’t looking at her like that,”hesaid.
“I know,” Ireplied.
Hawk had spent enough time around Chosen pairs to know not to get between them. However, when she edged further away, I realized the attention Wren was receiving from the demons and angels bothered her, even if she pretended not to notice everyone staring at the marks onherneck.
“Glad you’re safe,” Vargas said to Wren and squeezed her arm as he walked by her toward me. “Youalso.”
I grasped Vargas’s extended hand and squeezed it. There weren’t many humans I was fond of; Sergeant Anselmo Vargas was one of them. His eyes, so deep a brown they were nearly black, twinkled with amusement when they held mine. Within those eyes were lighter flecks of golden brown color. His close-cropped black hair emphasized the broad cheekbones and olive complexion of his Peruvian heritage. At five-ten, he was far faster than his stocky build suggested hewouldbe.
“What is it you saw, Raphael?” Caim inquired, drawing my attention back to theangels.
ChapterThirty
Wren
