Warrior's Angel (The Lost Angels Book 4) by Heather Killough-Walden

classifications he now possessed: archangel, vampire, Nightmare. At the moment, Michael could close his eyes, expand his concentration, and “see” beyond the confines of the walls around him.
    A few floors down, a bustling kitchen was preparing for a banquet. People in white milled about, pots steamed and boiled, and a head chef barked orders in French. Michael’s consciousness soared over this crowd as if he were flying. He moved through two double doors and into an enormous banquet hall beyond, where decorations were being applied and tables and chairs were being laid in their places.
    Michael skipped a bit, moved out of the building altogether, and was h overing over a busy interstate. I-94 sparkled with red and white lights, sometimes shot through with blue. He soared over the street that took him from South Michigan Avenue, where he caught the faint sounds of an orchestra playing Bach, up north to the cracking of a bat and the roaring of a crowd at Cellular Field. Instinct guided him East, and Michael moved through space and time until he was floating over Chicago’s Four Seasons hotel.
    There, he waited.
    He could feel her inside, her heart pulsing like a second star. Her presence pulled at him. One thing he unfortunately could not fight in this new vampirism of his was the blood lust that indelibly came with it.
    She would taste like heaven.
    Though he knew could choose another woman that night to satisfy his hunger, he refrained. The Warrior Archangel in him wanted one woman only. Now that he’d set eyes on her, touched her – held her, no other woman would suffice, not for anything. His transformation into a vampire had not made that part of him weaker as Samael had undoubtedly hoped. If anything, it had made it stronger. He was part incubus as well, but despite the Nightmare within him, he possessed absolutely no desire to seduce half of the female population of the planet.
    Rhiannon. Only her.
    He didn’t only desire her body or her blood. He craved more than the feel of her hair against his fingers and the scent of her in his head. He wanted her soul. He longed for her smile.
    He needed her love.
    He’d slipped up on the dance floor with her earlier that night. He’d come too close to damning himself.
    She’d overwhelmed him. A fiery goddess, all flame and righteousness and incredible warrior strength, she’d enthralled him and subjugated his will. He’d been more her slave than she’d been his as he’d pulled her into his arms and felt her melt against his body. So hot….
    Her scent surrounded him, from the shampoo in her hair to the maddening rush of her blood just beneath the surface of that porcelain skin.
    And when he’d bent to whisper in her ear, a tendril of his control had come unraveled and he’d momentarily struggled with the darker natures warring within him, natures that assured him he could have what he wanted and there would be no consequences. He could sink his teeth into his archess and drink of her deeply; he could block the minds of the patrons around him, shielding them from their consciousness. He could take her – right then, right there, on the floor of that cathedral, in front of hundreds of unsuspecting revelers. He could do it all, and it would be divine , and she would be his.
    But the warrior in him had won out, and as he’d placed a tender kiss upon her pulse and her lightning had sliced through the night to reign havoc on the festivities, he’d found the strength he needed to retreat from her and allow her to escape her fate. For now.
    Lightning.
    He smiled as he pulled back from his mental trip and opened his eyes. He’d been the cause of that lightning that she’d unconsciously called down upon them. Oh, she would fight it. She would undoubtedly deny it. She was a battle he knew he was going to have to fight hard and long. But deep down inside, she knew that he’d gotten to her. She didn’t know how and she didn’t know why, but there was an archess inside