by Nalini Singh
It hurt to see him, to know what he must’ve suffered. Vampires didn’t lose consciousness easily—and, given the savagery of the attack, she’d bet his attackers had kicked his head last. That way, he would’ve been conscious for almost the entirety of the ordeal. “Do you know who he is?”
“No. His brain is too bruised.” Raphael slid his arms under the vampire, a carefulness to his movements that made her heart squeeze. “I need to get him to a physician.”
“I’ll wait and—” She froze as he shifted the body to get a better hold. “Raphael.”
The air was suddenly kissed by frost. “I see it.”
There was a square of jarringly unbruised skin on the vampire’s breastbone, as if it had been left specifically unharmed. The cold-blooded nature of the beating made her stomach curdle. These people would have attacked his brain last. “What is that?” Because while the vampire’s skin wasn’t bruised, it wasn’t unmarked. A symbol had been burned into his flesh. An elongated rectangle, slightly flared at the bottom, sat atop an inverted curve, which in turn covered a small bowl. Holding it all up was a long, thin line.
“It’s a sekhem, a symbol of power from a time when archangels ruled as pharaohs and were called the scions of the gods.”
Elena felt her face flush hot and cold. “Someone wants to take Uram’s place.”
Raphael didn’t tell her not to jump to conclusions. “Do your track. Illium will watch over you until I return.”
She looked up as Raphael rose but couldn’t isolate Illium’s blue wings even against the light show of the approaching sunset. Thankfully, her legs waited to tremble until after Raphael had left. Her archangel had finally seemed to hear her today—she had a feeling he’d think long and hard before ever again forcing her to act against her will.
But there was nothing to stop him from picking her up bodily and dumping her in bed if he realized the extent of her exhaustion. Her wings felt like hundred-pound weights on her back, her calf muscles so much jelly. Blowing out a breath, she dug up a fraction more stamina from somewhere and started circling out from the spot where they’d found the body, glad that this area, while not abandoned, appeared shut up.
As a result, there weren’t a lot of scents to muddy the trail. The tree in the corner, some kind of a cedar, its branches bowed with the weight of its foliage, didn’t trump the smell of pine trees in autumn, their needles littering the earth. And that scent belonged to the vampire who’d been beaten into an unrecognizable pulp. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find a single other new scent.
There was also no evidence of activity on the ground, the paving stones clean, but for a few stray leaves and some clearly delineated spots of blood near the dark smudge where they’d discovered the body. Examining the scene with extreme care so as not to compromise any trace evidence, she confirmed the splatter was contained within a radius of about one foot.
“Dumped from a low height,” she said to Raphael when he landed beside her. “And since this place is rife with wings . . .” Her body swayed.
Raphael had her in the iron of his embrace before she could even register the lapse. “Then you can do nothing. We’ll speak to the vampire when he wakes.”
“The site? Needs to be processed, just in case.”
“Dmitri’s on the way with a team.”
It went against the grain to give up without a fight, but her body was shutting down on her, her wings threatening to drag their way through the blood. “I want to know what the victim says.” The words came out slurred, her last thought that anyone cold-blooded enough to brand a living being as a message was probably not going to be an improvement on Uram.
Sire.
Easing quietly from bed less than an hour after he’d placed Elena on the sheets, her wings spread out in a caress of midnight and dawn as she lay on her stomach, Raphael pulled on a pair of pants and met Dmitri in the hallway outside. The vampire’s face was expressionless, but Raphael had known him for hundreds of years. “What did you discover?”
“Illium recognized him.”
“How?”
“Apparently the male was wearing a ring he won from Illium in a game of poker.”
Raphael had seen the vampire’s fingers. Most had been shattered so badly they’d been nothing more than crushed pebbles in a sack of skin. And yet, that skin hadn’t been broken. That level of brutality took both time and an emotionless kind of focus. “Who?”
“His name is Noel. He’s one of ours.”
Raphael felt his anger turn granite-hard. He’d allow no one to butcher his people. Before he could speak, Dmitri said, “Why didn’t you tell me he’d been branded?” The words fell like mines between them, a scab hiding still raw wounds.
5
“The burn will fade.” Raphael held the vampire’s gaze. “It will fade.”
Dmitri said nothing for several moments before drawing in a long breath. “The healers found something stuffed in Noel’s chest cavity. The ones who took him broke him open, then allowed him to heal enough to conceal it.”
It was another example of the methodical nature of the beating. “What was it?”
Dmitri withdrew a dagger from his pocket. It had a small but distinctive G on the pommel, the symbol of the Hunters Guild. A cold blade, rage unsheathed, sliced through Raphael’s veins. “He plans to become Cadre by destroying what another archangel created.”
The old ones saw Elena as exactly that—Raphael’s creation, his possession. They didn’t understand that she held his heart, held it so utterly that there was nothing he wouldn’t do, no line he wouldn’t cross to keep her safe. “Did you find anything at the scene that could lead to the identity of the one behind this?”
“No, but there aren’t many who’d dare taunt you,” Dmitri said, putting the dagger back into his pocket. “Even fewer who’d think they could get away with it.”
“Nazarach is in the Refuge,” he said, knowing the other angel was more than old enough to be dangerous. “Find out who else might consider themselves a contender.”
“There’s only one on the verge of becoming an archangel.”
The Cadre alone was supposed to be privy to that truth, but Raphael trusted Dmitri far more than he trusted his fellow archangels. “He also has no need to play these kinds of games.” To be an archangel was to be Cadre. It was as simple—and as inevitable—as that.
“It’s one of the old ones.” Angelic history told of a few rare instances of those who were not archangels becoming Cadre. They never lived long. But the fact of their existence gave dark hope to those who craved the drug of power without understanding the price it inevitably demanded. “Someone strong enough to seduce others.”
“There’s something else,” Dmitri said as Raphael was turning to go back to Elena. “Michaela”—he named another member of the Cadre of Ten—“has sent a message to say she’s about to arrive at the Refuge.”
“She waited longer than I expected.” Michaela and Elena were like oil and fire. The female archangel couldn’t stand to be anything but the center of attention. And yet when Elena, with her rough hunter clothing and pale hair, walked into a room, the balance of power shifted in the most subtle of fashions. Raphael didn’t think Elena was even aware of it—but it was why Michaela had despised her from their very first meeting.
“Whether it’s against Michaela or this pretender, she”—Dmitri glanced at the closed door at Raphael’s back—“isn’t strong enough to defend herself. It would take very little effort to end her life.”
“Illium and Jason are here. Naasir?” He’d trust only his Seven to watch over her.
“On his way back.” Dmitri, as the head of Raphael’s security, knew exactly where each of his men was at any given time. “I’ll make sure she’s never alone.”
Raphael heard the unspoken words. “And will she be safe with you?”
The vampire’s expression altered. “She weakens you.”
“She is my heart. Protect her as you did once before.�
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“If I’d known the consequences of that decision . . . But it is done.” When Dmitri gave a curt nod, Raphael knew his Seven wouldn’t move against her. Some archangels might have killed Dmitri for daring to stand against him, but the vampire had earned that right.
More, Raphael understood the value of what Dmitri and the rest of his Seven had given him. Without them, he may well have become another Uram, another Lijuan, long before Elena was even born. “Give Illium the majority of the shifts. Elena’s less likely to object to him.”
Dmitri snorted. “Her precious Bluebell’s going to fall in love with her, and then you’ll have to kill him.”
“What better guard for Elena than one who loves her?” As long as that guard never forgot it was an archangel’s mate he watched over. Betrayal would not be tolerated. “When’s Michaela scheduled to arrive?”
“Within the hour. She’s extended an invitation to dinner.”
“Accept it.” It was always better to know your enemy.
Elena woke from a mercifully dreamless sleep to the knowledge that she wasn’t alone. And it wasn’t the clean scent of rain, of the wind, that filled her senses. Her shields, however, remained down. Shifting on the bed, she glanced through the open balcony doors to see Illium’s distinctive blue wings spread out as he sat nonchalantly on the railing, his legs hanging over the steep plunge of the gorge.
Silhouetted against the starlit sky, he appeared a being out of myth and legend. But as she’d seen this afternoon, if this place was a fairy tale, it was the dark and blood-soaked original. “You’ll fall off if you’re not careful.”
He turned to glance at her. “Come sit with me.”
“No thanks. I just finished healing all my broken bones.” She’d shattered so many when she’d fallen in New York. But strange as it was, there’d been no pain in those final moments. All she remembered was a sense of peace.
And then Raphael had kissed her.
Golden and exquisite, erotic beyond compare, the taste of ambrosia had filled her mouth as Raphael’s arms held her safe, as her archangel seized her from death itself.
“The look on your face,” Illium murmured. “I once had a woman look at me that way.”
Elena knew Illium had lost his feathers, lost his ability to fly, for speaking angelic secrets to a mortal . . . a mortal he’d loved. “Did you look at her that way, too?”
Those eyes of beaten gold were compelling even with the distance between them. “Only she’d know. And she went to earth long before the world grew cities of steel and glass.” He returned his attention to the vista before him.
Sitting up in bed, she stared at the curving beauty of his wings, shimmering silver blue in the dark, and wondered if Illium still mourned for his human lover. But that was a question she had no right to ask. “The vampire?”
“His name is Noel. He hasn’t regained consciousness.” His voice was a naked edge. “He’s one of ours.”
And she knew they wouldn’t stop until they tracked down the assailant. The hunter in her approved. “What about this angel’s attempt to become Cadre?” The world didn’t need another archangel with a penchant for the most malicious kind of pleasure.
“Secondary.” A flat statement. “It’ll be taken care of when we execute him for the insult to Noel, to Raphael.”
Elena understood about cutting off evil at the root, but she wasn’t used to the swift justice of immortals. “I’m guessing angels don’t have a judge and jury system.”
A snort. “You saw Uram—would you have wanted him to have a day in court?”
No. Mind turbulent with the memories of Uram’s atrocities, she said, “Tell me about Erotique.”
Illium raised an eyebrow at her mention of the exclusive Manhattan club patronized by vampires. “Thinking about a career change?”
“Geraldine worked as a dancer there.” Elena would never forget the plea in the other woman’s eyes as she lay dying after Uram slit her throat. “She wanted so badly to be Made.”
“I don’t know that she would’ve enjoyed immortality.” Swinging his legs off the railing and down onto the balcony, Illium walked over to lean his shoulder against the doorway. “Geraldine struck me as a natural victim.”
Elena remembered that pale, pale skin overlaced with the scent of vampire. The world would have called her a vamp-whore, and once, Elena would have agreed with them—that was before she’d stood in a room full of vampires and their lovers, before she’d understood that while seduction could be a drug, it could also be the most adult of exchanges, a game in which the victor would spend the night seeing to the loser’s pleasure.
But Geraldine hadn’t been like the men and women Elena had seen in the Tower, full of an easy sensual confidence. Illium was right. She’d been a victim. “And she’d have been that for eternity.”
“Yes.” Wings a delicate arc over his back, Illium met her gaze. “Trust me on this, Ellie. It’s not a good thing to be.”
“Why do you sound as if you know?” she asked, aware she’d never forget the mute desperation of Geraldine’s dying plea. “You’re no victim.”
“I Made a human once,” he murmured, his lashes shading the expression in his eyes. “He was biologically compatible, and he passed all the personality tests. But he had no . . . core, no sense of self. I only discovered that later, when it was too late. He’d tied himself to another angel by then, one who enjoyed having a victim.”
“He’s dead?”
“Of course. Victims never last long.”
It was a stark glimpse into one of the darker sides of immortality. “The longer you live, the more mistakes you make.”
“And the more sorrows you carry.”
Perhaps she should have been startled by the solemn comment, but Illium, she was beginning to learn, was an angel who rarely showed his true face to the world. Much like the man he called sire. “Do you remember everything?”
“Yes.”
A gift. A curse.
Bruisingly aware that memories could make you bleed as effectively as any razor, she took a step back from the past. It would return to haunt them both soon enough. “Are your eyelashes like your hair?”
He followed her lead without skipping a beat. “Yes. They’re very beautiful—want to see?”
Her lips twitched. “Vanity is a sin, Bluebell.”
“When you have it, flaunt it, I say.” Grinning, he wandered over to perch on the side of the bed. “Look.”
Curious, she did. He’d told the absolute truth—his eyelashes were inky and black tipped with the same bright blue as his hair, a startling contrast against the gold of his eyes. “They’re okay,” she said offhandedly.
He scowled. “And here I was about to offer to brush your hair.”
“I’ll brush my own hair, thank you.” Pushing at his shoulder, she nudged him off the bed. “Grab me the brush.”
He threw it to her before returning to the balcony. “Why haven’t you asked why I’m here?”
“I’m not at full strength, Raphael is overprotective, it’s not difficult to do the math.” Her frustration at her current physical state did nothing to negate the cold, hard truth—her head would make a mighty fine trophy for more than one immortal. Especially the most beautiful and most vicious one of them all.
“Apparently, this aspirant,” Illium said over his shoulder, “plans to make his mark by stabbing a Guild dagger through your heart. Or maybe by using it to hack off your head one piece at a time.”
The echo of her own thoughts startled her—but it shouldn’t have. Because like it or not, she was hot news in the angelic world, the first angel Made in living memory. “I think I need some food before I start thinking about all the horribly painful ways I could conceivably die.”
“There’s some in the living area.”
“Where’s Raphael?”
“At a meeting.”
Elena had been saved by her instincts more than once. Now, her hand clenched on the carved wooden handle of the br
ush. “With who?”
“It’ll only make you mad.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“Who’s currently trying to save you from unnecessary fretting.”
Fretting? “Stop stalling and tell me.”
Turning with a huge sigh, Illium said, “Michaela.”
A flash of memory, bronze angel dust on Raphael’s wings. Elena ground her teeth together. “I’d think the Refuge would be too quiet for Her Royal Bitchiness.” New York, Milan, Paris, that was more Michaela’s milieu.
“You’d be right.” His eyes gleamed. “But seems she’s developed a sudden interest in the place.”
Yanking the brush through her hair, she found the hair-tie she’d left on the bedside table and put the unmanageable mass up in a high ponytail. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, Illium gave a pointed cough. “I wouldn’t suggest going to them in your present condition.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Elena muttered. “I want to do some exercise.”
“You’re supposed to rest ’til morning.”
“Trust me, I know my body.” She stood with a groan. “If I don’t loosen these muscles now, it’ll be worse tomorrow.”
Illium didn’t say anything, simply watched as she walked to the bathroom. Closing the door, she splashed water over her face and willed herself to stop thinking about what might be happening between Raphael and Michaela. She wasn’t worried that Raphael would sleep with Michaela—quite bluntly, Raphael wasn’t the cheating kind. If he tired of her—and yeah, it hurt to even consider that—he’d tell her to her face. More, she had a feeling he saw through Michaela’s beauty to the venom inside.
But it was impossible to forget the female archangel’s stunning face, that body that had seduced kings and destroyed empires. By contrast, Elena’s own face—reflected in the mirror—was too thin, her skin carrying the pallor of a year spent in sleep. Confidence wasn’t exactly easy. “Enough.” Putting down the face-towel, she walked back out.