by Nalini Singh
“Could they be mistaken?” Michaela asked, and perhaps there was a touch of caring in her tone.
“No.” Neha’s eyes shifted across the room. “I sent a sample to Elijah, too.”
“I had Hannah look at it,” Elijah said. “Neha is right. It’s too late for Uram.”
“He is an archangel—the hunter will not be able to kill him even if she finds him,” Lijuan said, her shimmering white hair waving in a breeze that wasn’t there. With age came powers so extraordinary that seeming “human” in any sense became close to impossible. Lijuan’s eyes, too, were a strange pearl gray that existed nowhere on this earth. “One of us will have to see to that duty.”
“You just want him dead because he threatened your power!” Michaela snapped.
Lijuan ignored her, as Raphael might a human. Lijuan had seen archangels come and go. Only she remained. Uram had been her closest contemporary. “Raphael?”
“The hunter is tasked with tracking Uram,” he answered, recalling the terror in Elena’s eyes when he’d told her of that task. “I’ll execute him. Do I have the Cadre’s agreement?”
One by one, they all said, “Aye.” Even Michaela. She valued her life more than she valued Uram’s. For they all knew that Uram was in New York because of Michaela. If he crossed the final line, it was his former lover who’d become his most desired target.
So it was done.
Raphael stayed in the room as the Cadre took their leave one by one. It was rare for the membership to gather in one place. They were powerful beyond measure, but it was better not to tempt the young ones. Some aspired to take their place through death. It was always the young who embraced such delusions. The older ones had gained the wisdom to know that to be an archangel was to surrender part of your soul.
Soon, only Elijah remained in the room, on the other side of the semicircle from Raphael. “Will you not go home to Hannah?”
Elijah’s pure white wings shifted slightly as he stretched out his legs and leaned back in his chair. “She’s with me wherever I go.”
Raphael didn’t know whether the other angel meant that literally. Some long-mated angelic pairs were rumored to share an effortless mental link, untrammeled by time or distance, but if they did, none ever talked about it. “Then you are indeed blessed.”
“Yes.” Elijah leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “How could this have happened with Uram? Why did no one see?”
Raphael realized the other man truly had no idea. “He wasn’t mated and Michaela cares for no one but herself.”
“Harsh.” But he didn’t refute the summation.
“You have Hannah to tell you if you’re getting close to the edge. Uram was alone.”
“There were servants, assistants, other angels.”
“Uram was never merciful,” Raphael said. “He rewarded any show of spine with torture. As a result, his castle was filled with those who hated him and those who feared him. It didn’t matter to them if he lived or died.”
Elijah looked up, his eyes clear, almost human. “There’s a lesson for you there, Raphael.”
“Now you are acting like my big brother.”
Elijah laughed, the only archangel aside from Favashi who ever did such a thing and meant it. “No, I see in you a leader. With Uram gone, the Cadre of Ten has the potential to fragment—you know what happened the last time we splintered.”
The Dark Age of man and angel, when vampires bathed in blood and the angels were too busy warring with each other to care. “Why me? I’m younger than you, than Lijuan.”
“Lijuan is . . . no longer of this world.” Frown lines creased his forehead. “She is, I think, the oldest angel in existence. She’s gone beyond petty problems.”
“This is no petty problem.” But he understood Elijah’s meaning. Lijuan no longer looked upon this world. Her sight was focused somewhere far in the distance. “If not Lijuan, why not you? You’re the most stable of us all.”
Elijah fanned out his wings as he thought. “My rule in South America has never been challenged. It’s true I have a steel hand with dissent, but,” he said, shaking his head, “I have no desire for killing or blood. To hold the Cadre together, the leader must be more dangerous than any other.”
“You call me brutal to my face,” Raphael commented softly.
Elijah shrugged. “You inspire fear without Astaad’s cruelty, or Michaela’s capriciousness. It was why you clashed with Uram—you were too close to taking what was his. The leadership is already yours, whether you know it or not.”
“And now Uram is being hunted.” Raphael saw, in that vision, his future. To be tracked like an animal. By a woman with dawn-colored hair and eyes as silver as a cat’s. “Go home to your Hannah, Elijah. I will do what has to be done.” Draw blood, end the life of an immortal. But that, of course, was a misnomer. An archangel could die . . . but only at the hands of another archangel.
“Will you rest this night?” Elijah asked as they both stood.
“No. I must speak to the hunter.” To Elena.
6
Elena finished her preliminary research on Uram and sat back, nausea a pulsing fist in her throat. Uram had ruled—and as far as the rest of the world knew, still ruled—parts of eastern Europe and all of neighboring Russia. Oh, just like America, those countries had their presidents and prime ministers, their parliaments and councils, but everyone knew that true power rested in the hands of the archangels. Government, business, art—there was nothing they didn’t influence, either directly or indirectly.
Uram, it appeared, was a very hands-on sort of guy.
It had been the first story she’d found—a news article about the president of a tiny country that had once been part of the Soviet Union. The president, one Mr. Chernoff, had made the mistake of defying Uram publicly, calling for citizens to boycott the draconian archangel’s businesses, as well as those of his “vampire children,” and patronize those run by humans. Elena didn’t agree with the president’s rhetoric. Being humancentric was a kind of prejudice, too. What about all those poor vampires who were only out to make a living for their families? Most vampires didn’t automatically gain power with the transformation—that took centuries. Some would always remain weak.
After reading the first few paragraphs of the article, which summarized President Chernoff’s policies, she’d expected the story to end with a notice of his funeral arrangements. To her surprise, she’d discovered the president was alive . . . if you could call it that.
Soon after his inflammatory comments, Mr. Chernoff had suffered an unfortunate car accident—his driver had lost control of the wheel and crashed into an oncoming semi. That driver had walked away without a scratch, a feat labeled “miraculous.” El presidente hadn’t been so lucky. He’d had so many broken bones the doctors said he’d never regain full use of his limbs. His eye sockets had shattered inward, destroying his eyes. And his throat had been crushed just enough to ruin his vocal cords . . . but not to kill him.
He could no longer hold a pen or type.
He could no longer speak.
He could no longer see.
No one had dared enunciate it, but the message had come through loud and clear. Defy Uram and you would be silenced. The politician who’d stepped in to take Chernoff’s place had pledged allegiance to Uram even before he took the oath of office.
Say what you would about Raphael, she found herself thinking, but at least he was no tyrant. She had no illusions about the fact that he ran North America with an iron fist, but he didn’t meddle in inconsequential human affairs. A few years back, they’d even had a mayoral candidate who’d pledged to flout the archangel should he be elected. Raphael had let the campaign run, his only response a slight smile when some reporter dared approach him.
That smile, that hint that he found the whole situation ridiculous, had sunk the mayoral hopeful’s chances as surely as the Titanic. The man had slunk off, never to be seen again. Raphael had achieved victory without drawing a
single drop of blood. And he’d retained his powerful status in the eyes of the population.
“That doesn’t make him good,” she muttered, worried about the direction of her thoughts. Raphael might shine in comparison to Uram, but that wasn’t saying much.
It was Raphael who’d threatened to harm little Zoe, no one else.
“Bastard,” she muttered, repeating Sara’s imprecation. That threat put him in the same league as Uram. The European archangel had reportedly once destroyed an entire school full of five-to-ten-year-olds after the villagers asked him to remove his pet vampire from their midst.
Elena would have frowned on such a request had the vamp not been taking blood forcibly. He’d violated several of the village females, left them broken. The villagers had turned to Uram for help. He’d replied by killing their children and stealing their women. That had been over three decades ago and none of those women had ever been seen again. The village no longer existed.
He was, without a doubt, a very bad man. And she was—
Something tapped on the plate-glass window.
Hand sliding down to retrieve the knife hidden under the coffee table, she glanced up. Her eyes locked with those of an archangel. Silhouetted against the glittering Manhattan skyline, he should’ve appeared diminished, but he was even more beautiful than in daylight. It was a measure of his control that he barely had to move his wings to maintain position—the sheer power of him buffeted her even through the glass.
She swallowed and stood. “That window doesn’t open,” she said, wondering if he could hear her.
He pointed upward. She felt her eyes widen. “The roof isn’t—” But he was already gone.
“Damn it!” Angry at him for catching her unawares, for inciting this assuredly fatal edge of attraction, she slid the knife back, closed the laptop, and left the apartment.
It took her several minutes to get to the roof and push open the door. “I’m not coming out there!” she called out when she didn’t see him. The top of her building had been designed by some avant-garde architect who believed in form over function—a series of uneven, jagged peaks spread out in front of her. It was impossible to walk on them without sliding and falling to your death. “No, thank you,” she muttered, feeling the wind whip her hair off her face as she waited with the door partly open. “Raphael!”
Maybe, she thought, the architect hadn’t been avant-garde at all. Maybe he’d simply hated angels. That sounded good to her about then. She might admire their wings, but she had no misapprehensions about their inner goodness. “Inner goodness. Hah!” She snorted and suddenly he was landing in front of her, his wings flooding her vision.
She backed up a step without meaning to and by the time she recovered, he was inside and closing the door. Damn it, she hated that he could make her react like a green recruit tracking her first vamp. If it went on like this much longer, she’d lose all respect for herself. “What?” she asked, folding her arms.
“Is this how you welcome all your guests?” His mouth held no hint of a smile, yet it was sensuality personified, lush and ultimately seductive.
She took another step backward. “Stop it.”
“What?” A hint of genuine confusion in those blue, blue eyes.
“Nothing.” Get a grip, Elena. “Why are you here?”
He stared at her for several long seconds. “I’d like to talk to you about the hunt.”
“So talk.”
He looked around the confines of the landing no one ever used. The metal stairs were rusted, the single lightbulb yellow and on the verge of going out. Flicker. Flicker. A two-second stretch. Then flicker, flicker. The pattern kept repeating, driving her half crazy. Raphael was obviously not impressed either. “Not here, Elena. Show me to your rooms.”
She scowled at the order. “No. This is work—we’ll go to Guild headquarters and use a meeting room.”
“It matters little to me.” A shrug that drew her attention to the breadth of his shoulders, the powerful arch of his wings. “I can fly there within minutes. It’ll take you at least half an hour, perhaps longer—there has been an accident on the road leading to your Guild.”
“An accident?” Her mind flooded with the gruesome details of the “accident” she’d just been reading about. “Sure you didn’t arrange it?”
He gave her an amused look. “If I wished to, I could force you to do anything I wanted. Why would I go to the trouble of such maneuverings?”
The bald way he pointed out his power, and her lack of it, made her fingers itch for a blade.
“You shouldn’t look at me in that fashion, Elena.”
“Why?” she asked, prodded by some heretofore unknown suicidal streak. “Scared?”
He leaned a fraction closer. “My lovers have always been warrior women. Strength intrigues me.”
She refused to let him play with her like this, even if her body disagreed. Vehemently. “Do knives intrigue you, too? Because touch me and I will cut you up. I don’t care if you throw me off the nearest balcony.”
He seemed to pause, as if thinking. “That is not how I would choose to punish you. It’d end far too quickly.”
And she remembered that this was no human male she was parrying with. This was Raphael, the archangel who’d broken every single bone in a vampire’s body to prove a point. “I won’t let you into my home, Raphael.” Into her haven.
A silence weighted with the crushing pressure of a hidden threat. She remained still, sensing she’d pushed him far enough tonight. And while she knew her worth, she also knew that to an archangel, she was, in the end, expendable.
His blue eyes filled with flames as power crackled through the air. She was an inch away from taking her chances and trying to outrun him in the narrow confines of the stairwell, when he spoke. “Then we’ll go to your Guild.”
She blinked in wary disbelief. “I’ll follow you by car.” Her ride was a Guild vehicle—like most hunters, she was out of the country so much that keeping her own wasn’t worth the hassle.
“No.” His hand closed over her wrist. “I don’t wish to wait. We’ll fly.”
Her heart stopped. Literally. When it kicked back to life, she could barely speak. “What?” It was an undignified squeak.
But he was already opening the door, tugging her along.
She dragged her heels. “Wait!”
“We fly or we go to your home. Choose.”
The arrogance of the command was breathtaking. As was the fury. The Archangel of New York did not like being told no. “I choose neither.”
“Unacceptable.” He pulled.
She resisted. She wanted to fly more than anything, but not in the arms of an archangel who might drop her in his current mood. “What’s so urgent?”
“I won’t drop you . . . not tonight.” His face was so perfect it could’ve belonged to some ancient god, but there was no compassion in it. Then again, the gods had hardly been merciful. “Enough.”
And suddenly she was on the roof, with no knowledge of having taken the steps from the landing. Rage flowed through her in a jagged wave of white lightning, but he wrapped his arms around her and rose before she could do much more than part her lips. Survival instincts kicked in. Hard. Locking her arms around his neck, she held on for dear life as his wings gained momentum and the roof fell away at dizzying speed.
Her hair whipped off her face, the wind bringing tears to her eyes. Then, as if he’d gained enough altitude, Raphael altered the angle of his flight, sheltering her against the wind. She wondered if he’d done it on purpose, then realized she was falling into the trap of trying to humanize him. He wasn’t human. Not even close.
His wings filled her vision until she dared turn her head and look at the view. There wasn’t much to see—he’d taken them above the cloud layer. Goose bumps broke out on every inch of her skin as the cold seeped into her bones. Her teeth threatened to chatter, but she had to speak, had to let the anger out before it carved a hole in her soul. “I told you,” she
gritted out, “not to mess with my mind.”
He glanced down. “You’re cold?”
“Give the man an award,” she said, breath misting the air. “I’m not built for flight.”
He dived without warning. Her stomach went into free fall even as wild exhilaration raced through her bloodstream. She was flying! It might not have been by choice, but she wasn’t going to cut off her nose to spite her face. Holding on tightly, she absorbed every second of the experience, tucking away the sensory memories to savor later. It was then that she realized she had no reason to fear an accidental fall—Raphael’s arms were like rock around her, unbreakable, immovable. She wondered if he even felt her weight. Angels were supposed to be far stronger than either humans or vampires.
“Is that better?” he asked, lips against her ear.
Startled at the warm timbre of his voice, she blinked and realized they were now skimming just above the high-rises. “Yes.” She wouldn’t thank him, she thought mutinously. It wasn’t as if he’d asked her permission before launching them heavenward. “You didn’t answer me.”
“In my defense”—an amused comment—“it wasn’t so much a question as a statement.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you continue to push into my mind?”
“It’s more convenient than wasting time waiting while you talk yourself into something.”
“It’s a kind of rape.”
Chill silence, so cold the goose bumps returned. “Be careful with your accusations.”
“It’s the truth,” she persisted, though her stomach was shriveling into a terrified little ball. “I said no! And you went in anyway. What the hell else do you call it?”
“Humanity is nothing to us,” he said. “Ants, easily crushed, easily replaced.”
She shivered, and this time it was out of pure fear. “Then why allow us to live?”
“You amuse us occasionally. You have your uses.”