“I don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of this true love thing.” He’d fed ambrosia into her mouth, changed her from mortal to immortal, given her wings—wings!—all because of love. For her, a hunter, a mortal . . . no longer mortal.

“Be that as it may, it’s time you return to bed.”

And then she was in his arms, though she had no memory of having released the railing—but she must have, because her hands were filling with blood again, her skin tight. It hurt. Even as she tried to ride out the slow, hot burn, Raphael carried her through the sliding doors and into the magnificent glass room that sat atop a fortress of marble and quartz, as solid and immoveable as the mountains around them.

Fury arced through her bloodstream. “Out of my mind, Raphael!”

Why?

“Because, as I’ve told you more than once, I’m not your puppet.” She grit her teeth as he laid her on the cloud-soft bedding, the pillows lush. But the mattress held firm under her palms when she pulled herself up into a sitting position. “A lover”—God, she could still barely believe she’d gone and fallen for an archangel—“should be a partner, not a toy to manipulate.”

Cobalt eyes in a face that turned humans into slaves, that sweep of night-dark hair framing a face of perfect grace . . . and more than a little cruelty. “You’ve been awake exactly three days after spending a year in a coma,” he told her. “I’ve lived for more than a thousand years. You’re no more my equal now than you were before I Made you immortal.”

Anger was a wall of white noise in her ears. She wanted to shoot him as she’d done once before. Her mind cascaded with a waterfall of images on the heels of that thought—the wetly crimson spray of blood, a torn wing, Raphael’s eyes glazed with shock. No . . . she wouldn’t shoot him again, but he drove her to violence. “Then what am I?”

“Mine.”

Was it wrong that sparks sizzled along her spine at hearing that, at seeing the utter possession in his voice, the dark passion on his face? Probably. But she didn’t care. The only thing she cared about was the fact that she was now tied to an archangel who thought the ground rules had changed. “Yes,” she agreed. “My heart is yours.”