Archangel Rafe (A Novel of The Seven Book 1) (24 page)

“Please.”

“We cannot.” He nudged her with his erection. “This is forbidden.”

She didn’t want to be responsible right now. And even as disappointment washed over her, Rafe skimmed his hard, callused hand down her body.

“But I would give you this.” He slid his finger along her wet sex. Even as her mind cried out for more, for all of him, her body began to move against his hand. Rafe entered her with one thick finger, then two and even as she clutched against him, trying desperately to pull him inside her, her body betrayed her. Her core burst in orgasm, lit up her body with flame, and blew her mind with pleasure.

Rafe muffled a shout as he spurt his seed over her stomach.

Angelina held on to sensations crowding her. The thud of his heart against her breast. The slick skim of his weight on top of her. The solid bulk of his hips cradled in hers. The soft sough of his labored breath against her neck.

If she could stay right here, in this moment forever, she would chose not to leave this bed. She would hold onto the sense of euphoria and belonging as long as she could.

But of course the moment was too perfect to last.

Rafe lifted his head from the curve of her shoulder. He stiffened and rolled away from her. She mourned the loss of his weight but realized she couldn’t stay here even if she wanted to. Her life was full of responsibilities and commitments. But someplace deep inside where she needed, just for a little while, to be free, her hopes crumbled into dust.

Rafe grabbed the damp towel from the floor and lovingly cleaned her stomach. Then he dropped the towel and pulled her into his arms. Angelina curled around Rafe intimately, and savored the solid support of his ribcage and the hard contours of his chest. Maybe if she distracted him they could stay in this bed just a little longer.

He turned her shoulders so she faced him, which forced her to look at him. She pressed her eyelids closed, deliberately refusing. Like a little kid who knew punishment was imminent.

This was it. She was destined to be fired from healing. She’d held a kernel of hope in her heart which had blossomed with each successful time she’d put her hands on someone. And then it had been suddenly smashed under the dead woman’s body, crushed under the force of the little girl’s tears.

Mrs. Hooper was likely a fluke. An aberration. Maybe Gary had actually been the one to save her and somehow Angelina just got caught in the wake of his expertise.

“What’s wrong?”

Apparently Archangels didn’t have the same filters about the after part of sex. Mere men never wanted to talk. And conversation was not exactly what she had expected. As if all the resistance fled in a single breath, she sighed. “I didn’t save her.”

THIRTY-FIVE

“The mother?”

Rafe tried to get his head around her statement. But it was difficult. His heart still pounded as if he’d run a four-minute mile and his body still throbbed from the most explosive sexual encounter he’d ever had. And they hadn’t even consummated their passion.

But Rafe forced himself to focus on the misery in Angelina’s gaze.

The mother had been beyond help. Angelina needed to understand that the mother’s death had not been her fault. They needed to discuss this. And he needed to teach her how to hold herself in reserve.

“Her death was not your fault.” If anything, it was Rafe’s fault. Angelina was still in training. Under normal circumstances, he would never have put a newly transitioned Angel in that position. Trying to diagnose and heal an unknown and sometimes virulent disease was not a job for a newbie.

But they didn’t have the luxury of waiting. The Council had decreed she had to be a part of this investigation, so her training had to be on the job.

“She died,” Angelina said flatly.

The mother. Tomasz’s wife. A Nephilim.

“She was beyond help.” But Rafe’s thoughts returned to that mark.

“I grew up without a mother.” Angelina cleared her throat as if the words had stuck there.

He knew her grandmother had raised her, but he didn’t know why. “What happened?”

“She took off.” Angelina shook herself as if coming out of the trance. “My dad left when I was a month old. Then mom couldn’t handle two little girls on her own so she dropped us on my Grammy’s doorstep and just left.”

“It’s hardly the same.”

“The girl’s mother is gone.”

“But she didn’t leave, she was sick,” Rafe argued.

“The end result is the same.” Angelina stared at cross-stitched sampler of a family tree on the wall next to the bed. “The loss will change her life. Change her view of herself.”

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Weak sunlight snuck through the curtains to cast late evening rays over the bed. As if the sun was drawn to her, the rays gently bathed her face in a pure soft light.

His chest grew tight at her stunning beauty and haunted eyes.

“Is that what happened to you?” He really wanted to know. She seemed to have so little confidence in her own abilities. Rafe understood now that before when she refused the gift of healing it had less to do with rejecting the gift and more to do with her belief in her own worthiness.

She shrugged and tucked her head under his chin, effectively blocking her gaze from his.

As he stared down at the delicate curve of her neck, he finally understood. “I’m sorry.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I know this is difficult.”

“Right.” She laughed, the sound a harsh bark in the dim room. “Do you want to do it now?”

Do it? His thoughts went immediately to the wrong place. Suddenly Rafe was violently aware of the fact that they were still ensconced in the cozy bed. Her lush body pressed against his side, her leg thrown over his thighs and her soft, wet curls flirted with the tense muscles of his thigh.

And he might have thought that was what she meant, except her sorrow permeated every corner of the room, and weighted her down. He could literally see her despondence. Worse than when he’d first invaded her dreams.

Her gaze was dead. “I failed.”

“Wrong.” He grabbed her hand and held her palm against his beating heart.

“She died.”

“Angelina, she couldn’t be saved.”

But she just shook her head, a look of devastation on her face. No matter what he said. “Look, you must learn how to protect yourself.”

“Why?”

“You need to know when you’ve had enough. If you keep healing when your energy stores are depleted, or if you take in too much excess energy, the
Vis Viva
will overwhelm your body and you will die.”

She lifted her head, and the movement pressed her breast to his chest. “You mean....”

Her pulse beat in her neck and hope shone from her gaze as he waited for her to finish her sentence.

“You are not sending me back?”

“Of course not. Why would you think that? You have already recovered from an attempt that would have killed most healers. Your gift is extraordinary.” This conversation was important. She needed to understand her role and her duty.

“Extraordinary?” She blinked, as if trying to process his assertion.

“Yes.”

Angelina shifted slightly, and the sheet that covered her breasts dipped, the edge caught on the hard point of her nipple. “How do I protect myself?”

Her hand rested over his heart as the organ boomed in his chest. He only partly paid attention as her succulent areola played peek-a-boo with the old white sheet.

“Time.” Rafe gently brushed a stray hair from her cheek. “Give yourself a few minutes between healings.”

“Time?”

“Although you may not need too much. You are uncommonly strong.”

She nodded.

“You really are extraordinary.” The sheet finally gave up the fight, and slipped to reveal her rounded, female form. The temptation was too much to ignore, so he lowered his head.

“Okay,” she answered breathlessly.

“But if you get overwhelmed, you can always call me.” He sipped and worshiped her breast, marveling at the soft skin and supple roundness.

“How are you able to find me?”

“Every healer is connected to my consciousness. If you call me, I will come.”

“Any time?”

Rafe lifted his head to stare into her eyes and pledged, “I vow it to be so.”

She nodded. But he could still see the hesitation in her.

“You must embrace your destiny.” He gave in to the impulse to stroke the inside of her arm, and trace her blue veins. He was reminded of Tomasz and how he’d stroked the arm of his dead wife. The Nephilim. Dead from the disease.

Many of the sick were Nephilim.

The Nephilim. Rafe needed to think more about the significance. Suddenly he realized what nagged at him. Had all of the people who contracted the disease had Nephilim blood? Was that the connector between why certain people fell ill, while others were perfectly fine?

THIRTY-SIX

The lonely crow of a rooster jerked him out of his thoughts. He needed to get to the lab to compare the blood samples they had taken against the analysis from the dead chicken.

“Rafe?” He glanced down at Angelina, wrapped in his arms. Her breath tickled his neck as he inhaled her gardenia scent. He hated to break this connection. For a few moments, he lay in the comforting embrace of the old saggy mattress and savored their closeness.

But the lull was fleeting and the clock was ticking.

“We need to go to the Angelic Realm.” Rafe gently ran his hand down her soft skin and meshed his fingers with hers. “Now.”

Angelina rolled away, the worn sheets wrapped around her body, as a flush spread over her pale skin, she stretched her arms over her head. “What for?”

“We need to go to the lab.”

“Okay.”

Within a few minutes they were back in the laboratory where he’d first subconsciously drawn her to him. Rafe stared at the table where she’d loved him with her mouth. Angelina flushed when she noticed his attention on the table. They had to focus.

Rafe worked to compare the blood samples.

“Can I help?” Angelina peered over his shoulder. “I may not have gotten my degree but I aced chem.”

They worked together efficiently. Rafe observed the various slides under the microscopes, and dictated his thoughts to Angelina. She interjected with points he’d overlooked or not connected.

Once they made the correlation between the sick chickens and the sick people the rest had come together. He still wasn’t sure how or why the chickens first contracted the disease. And when he ran the computer analysis, he finally found what had been bothering him. The chickens had a strain of Archangel DNA within them. That meant someone had genetically modified the chickens to produce a hybrid animal. Just like frost resistant strawberries had arctic fish DNA injected into their strawberry seeds, the sick chickens had Archangel DNA.

That meant the DNA could only have come from the Third Sphere. This was huge.

Rafe requested an urgent audience with Nora.

“Raphael.” She shimmered into the room, pristine, as always, in her long white gown.

She brought Victor with her. He nodded prissily at Rafe and then eyed Angelina speculatively. Thank goodness Sam, the Archangel of Love, wasn’t here.

“We found the connection, but there is a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” But Victor stared at Angelina as if he could see through to her soul. “Beyond the obvious.”

Okay. So Victor knew of Rafe’s attraction to Angelina. But he hadn’t broken the law.

Yet.

But it also meant he’d be Banished in a heartbeat if he ever did consummate his relationship with Angelina. “First off, the Nephilim are definitely alive.”

Nora started.

Rafe thought back to Stas’s assertion. Then thought of Tomasz and his wife. “Maybe they aren’t all bad.”

Victor said, “Perhaps not. We cannot know.” Victor’s gaze catalogued Angelina’s tumbled hair and the beard burn on her neck. “And based on your recent activities, you are less than impartial about the subject.”

“They haven’t shown any aggression.” Angelina moved to defend the Nephilim.

“Is she always this bold?” Victor sniffed.

“She has a mind of her own,” Nora said firmly. Her approval was a welcome surprise for Rafe. Pride in Angelina’s guts, in her sheer determination, swept through Rafe.

He was so struck by the fact that she commanded Nora’s respect, he only noticed Victor’s actions in his peripheral vision at the last minute. Victor extended his left hand toward Angelina’s forehead and Rafe thought he knew what Victor intended.

“No.” Rafe lunged across the table, knocked Victor’s hand away from Angelina’s face, and shoved him back against his chair. “No.”

Victor said to Rafe, “You certainly have changed your attitude toward humans.” His tone was snide, his demeanor nasty.

“You will not,” Rafe commanded.

“What was that about?” Angelina’s eyes were wide as she looked from Rafe to Victor.

“He was about to remove your Khafi, your spirit from your body.” Rafe’s chest heaved as he fought to control the rage that threatened to blow off the top of his head.

This was done usually after the body was dead. To remove the spirit while the Angel was still alive was horrifically painful.

Angelina crouched into a fighting stance. “Just try it.”

“She is to be protected,” Rafe said fiercely. “We need her in this war.”

“Of course.” Victor raised one eyebrow into an inquisitive arch. “You jumped to a rather vicious conclusion. I merely wanted to ward her spirit so the Latifa could not be performed against her.”

“Your promise, you will not harm her.” Rafe stood with his shoulders back, hands fisted into weapons and a scowl on his face.

“Raphael, I am aware of her importance,” Victor chastised. “Perhaps you would do well to leave me to do my job.”

“And what’s that?” Angelina asked.

“I am a Virtue. The Virtues inhabit the Second Sphere and must ensure the Cosmos remain in order. By any means necessary.” His threat was clear. Anything or anyone in the way of that goal was toast.

Angelina opened her mouth as if to argue, and Rafe shook his head sharply. Each sphere has a hierarchal structure. The Virtues are the warriors of the Second Sphere. The conscience and the protectors of the Universe. They did not need to invoke the wrath of the Virtues by arguing with Victor.