by Nalini Singh
“I’ll provide it,” Raphael said. “I want you to listen to Michaela’s story of how she received his offering and tell us how far Uram has devolved.”
Elena looked at him, squinting against the brightness at his back. “How would I know?”
“You’ve hunted vampires who’ve devolved.”
“Yes, but Uram is no vamp.” She really wanted to know why and how in hell an archangel had gone so wrong. Her earlier anger at being told to run this blind rose anew.
“For the purpose of this hunt,” Raphael said, steel in his tone, “he is. Michaela.”
The female archangel leaned back in her chair. “I woke to the sound of something tapping against my window. I assumed it to be a trapped bird and got up to release it.”
The image should’ve been incongruous with Michaela’s selfish beauty, but there was a powerful sense of truth in her words. Perhaps, to be “human” in her eyes, you had to have wings.
“But,” the archangel continued, “when I reached the window, I found no bird. As I was about to turn away, my eye fell on the lawn and I noticed a lump sitting in the center. I thought it was an animal that had crawled there to die.” No shudder of distaste, rather a sense of sadness. Again, it felt true.
Animals obviously ranked higher in Michaela’s worldview than humans. Having seen some of the things humans were capable of, Elena couldn’t disagree.
Michaela took a deep breath. “I opened the balcony doors and asked one of the guards below to check on it. As you know, the lump turned out to be a burlap sack filled with seven human hearts.” A pause. “My guards tell me they were still warm.”
26
Elena’s stomach didn’t roil this time. She’d expected as much. “This kind of stuff—taking trophies, taunting people, or in your case, giving gifts—is behavior similar to what you see in vampires after the bloodlust first takes control. At this point, they’re more animal than human.”
“We knew that, hunter.” Michaela made the last word an insult, wiping out any warmth Elena might’ve felt over the archangel’s attitude toward nonhumans.
“Then I can’t give you more.” She was out of her depth and it was no use pretending otherwise. No hunter in known history had tracked an archangel. “But I will tell you one thing—Uram is far bolder than any vampire. He was there tapping on your window.” She saw Michaela shiver, couldn’t blame her for being creeped out. “If he carries on at this speed, he’ll leave the animal stage behind and start thinking with high-level calculation within the week.”
“So soon?” Raphael asked.
She nodded. “Most devolved vamps’ first kills are messy, as this was. But it was secret, too. He knew he’d be caught if he didn’t hide it.”
Raphael nodded. “And vampires in the grip of bloodlust don’t think that clearly.”
“Over sixty percent are caught locked in bloodthrall at the site of their first kill.” A state between lust and stupefaction, it made the vampires insensate to everything around them. Elena had once walked right up to one—he hadn’t moved even when she neckleted him, a beatific smile on his face, his hands still buried in his victim’s chest. “I have a feeling,” she continued, shaking off the memory, “that Uram never went into bloodthrall. If he had, the hearts wouldn’t have been warm.”
“That is . . . unexpected,” Raphael said. “Bloodthrall would have slowed him down.”
“But even the worst vampiric killer doesn’t slaughter every night,” Elena began. “There should be a lull. He’s fed the lust—he’s bloated with power, with—”
“You forget—he’s not a true vampire.” Raphael’s frame came into view as he shifted slightly. “He won’t stop. For now, it seems he hunts at night and during the early morning, so we have the daylight hours to regroup. If he devolves as fast as you predict, then he’ll start to hunt in daylight, too.”
Elena’s eyes widened. “You’re saying he’s always in bloodlust.”
“Yes.”
“Dear God.” That made Uram a monster beyond comprehension.
The scrape of a chair, the sound muffled by the carpet but still somehow harsh.
Elena looked up to find Michaela on her feet.
“I can’t sit here and listen to you speak of Uram this way. You have no comprehension of what it is to lose someone you’ve known half a millennium.” Her eyes met Elena’s and at that second, Elena believed her.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Michaela flicked off the sympathy. “I don’t need a mortal’s pity. Raphael, I would speak with you.”
“I’ll escort you out.”
As they left the room, their wings occasionally brushing, Elena felt a surge of jealousy so strong her hand was on her gun before she realized it. The touch of cold metal against warm skin was what brought her back. Gritting her teeth, she turned and attacked the sandwiches with relish.
By the time Raphael returned, she was no longer starving, which was probably why she didn’t stab a fork through his eye when she saw the brush of bronze angel dust on his wing. “Is that like a cat marking its territory?”
Raphael followed her gaze, flaring out the affected wing. “Michaela isn’t used to being denied.” Picking up a fancy cloth serviette, he came to her. “Wipe it off.”
The urge to rebel against the command smashed up against her need to rub that bitch’s mark off his wing. Stupid possessiveness won. “Turn around.”
He did so in graceful silence. Standing, she dampened the cloth with water before touching it to his wing. She was very careful not to get any of the sticky stuff on herself, but her caution appeared to have been unnecessary. “It’s coming off easy. Not like the one you dusted me with.” Even now, the light caught on stray flecks embedded in her skin, flecks she was sure Michaela had seen.
“I told you—yours was a special blend.”
Something warm and melty spread through her body. “Marking me, angel boy?”
“I prefer to do that with my cock.”
Shocked by the rush of wet heat between her thighs, she put the napkin on the table. “All gone.”
He flexed his wings, then turned. “You truly are an enigma. So fearless in hunting vampires, so prudish in your sexual tastes.”
“I’m not fearless. I’m scared shitless,” she said. “And as for the rest—being an enigma is good, right? After all, you only play with your toys as long as they amuse you.” She didn’t know how it had happened, but she found herself backed up against the table, with Raphael blocking her in.
When he lifted her to the table itself, she didn’t protest. She even spread her thighs to accommodate him. Part of her was still cold. What she’d seen in that warehouse had brought too much to the surface. That sound, that dripping, it was a never-ending drumbeat in her head. She wanted to forget. And Raphael—dangerous, seductive, lethal Raphael—was far better than any drug. “No dust,” she murmured as he slid his hands up her thighs to grab her hips. “I don’t have time to wash it off.”
But he didn’t kiss her. “Tell me about your nightmares, Elena.”
She froze. “Spying again?” She was human—she kept forgetting he had no respect for the boundaries of her mind.
His eyes turned chrome blue. “I have no need to. You don’t have sex in your eyes. You have death.”
She wanted to shove him away, but part of her—the cold part—liked the heat of his touch, was excited by that veiled hint of menace. No other man had ever come close to handling everything she was.
So she satisfied her urge to kick at him by leaning back, palms down on the table. It was a good thing they weren’t near the food, otherwise, her hair would’ve been in the coffee. “So,” she said, “you’re an expert in reading women?”
“I’ve been alive a long time.”
She felt her eyes narrow. “Have you and Her Royal Bitchiness ever fucked?”
He squeezed her hips. “Be careful, Elena. I can’t always be around to protect you.”
“Is that a yes
?” She could imagine them mating in flight, a blinding—a goddamn beautiful—image of white gold and bronze.
“No. I’ve never taken Michaela up on her offer.”
“Why not? She’s hot—tits and ass are all men ever see.”
“I prefer lips.” He bent and bit down a fraction too hard on her lower lip before raising his head. “And yours are quite succulent.”
Michaela’s, she thought on a crashing wave of pleasure, were nicely shaped but thin. But—“I’m not buying.” She didn’t change her position. “Who the hell cares about lips?”
“If you were on your knees with your lips wrapped around my cock, I would care a great deal.”
The image made tiny inner muscles tighten in damp readiness. “How come guys always think of women going down on them? How about the other way around?”
Cobalt lightning, hands sliding down, thumbs rubbing along the inner crease of each thigh. “Take off your pants.”
Her stomach clenched.“We have a killer to discuss.”
“But you want to forget.”
“You haven’t answered my question.” Breathless words, her body so hungry.
“I choose not to sleep with Michaela because I have no liking for black widows. Her poisonous whispers probably helped drive Uram to this.”
She sat up, gripping his forearms. “This? What is this?”
His thumbs continued to move, touching the very edge of exquisitely sensitive flesh that ached for a harder, deeper caress. “You don’t need to know.”
A flash of fury overlaid the lust. “I can’t work blind.”
“Treat him as a vampire, the most dangerous vampire in the known universe.” One of his thumbs pressed against her clitoris. “Now, take off your pants.”
She fought to draw in air. “Fat chance. Tell me about Uram.”
He pushed closer, his wings brushing her knees. Then, to her disappointment, he moved one of his hands . . . only to thrust it up under her T-shirt.
Her heart ricocheted around her chest as he cupped her breast, but she forced out the words. “Why can I scent him now when I couldn’t before?”
Raphael slid his hand off her breast, back over her thigh and to her knee. The other hand he slid below her own arm to place palm down behind her, his biceps brushing her breast. “Because”—he lifted her leg, hooking it around his waist as he pulled her forward—“he drew first blood.” Their lower bodies came into direct contact and she couldn’t help it. She moaned.
“But,” she said through the haze, “I wasn’t able to scent Erik, the just-Made vamp.”
“I misled you at the time, Elena. Both Bernal and Erik were Made around the same time—but Bernal was allowed to feed, while Erik wasn’t, not until after the test.”
That Raphael had been able to curb the bloodhunger of one of the just-Made was another example of his sheer power, but Erik wasn’t the one she wanted to talk about. “Why? Why did Uram turn vampire?”
“He’s still an archangel.” Rocking her against him, he shoved up her T-shirt, bent his head, and bit her nipple through her bra.
She jerked, pulling at his hair. “Stop that.” But he was sucking now and oh, damn, it felt good. Like he’d be the best sex she’d ever imagined, much less had. “Raphael.”
He raised his head. “I’ll give you a choice.”
She pushed her T-shirt back into place, feeling way too vulnerable. Her nipple ached in the most sexual way. “Yeah?”
“Either I splay you out on the table and drive my cock into you, or—”
“—or?” She wanted to snuggle up to him, taste the tendons in his neck.
“Or, I splay you out on the table and lick you to your pleasure, then drive into you.”
“Gee.” She was having trouble thinking past the needy pulse between her legs. “I choose option c.”
He settled her back against his erection with the arm around her back. “There is no option c.”
Oh, to hell with it. She leaned in and grazed that beautiful throat with her teeth. A girl had to live. His arm tightened as she sucked, as she tasted. Then he said, “Does option c involve you sucking on other parts of my anatomy?”
Damn, but the archangel could be sexy when he wasn’t in a killing frame of mind. Giving a last, regretful lick, she pushed away. “I’m not fucking you, not until you tell me the truth about Uram.”
Something dark crawled across his face. “Sexual blackmail, Elena?”
She snorted. “You treat me like a pet. Go fetch the bad archangel/vampire/whatever the fuck he is, Ellie, but don’t you dare ask me why. It’d be too much for your little human head.” Dropping the saccharine-sweet tone, she glared. “I don’t sleep with men who think I’m a brainless twit.”
That lethal darkness turned to amusement but she was aware she was skating a razor-thin edge. Raphael was indulging her for reasons of his own. The archangel who’d forced her to close her hand over a knife blade was also Raphael and she’d do well to remember that—no matter how badly she lusted after him.
“The more you know,” he said, “the bigger a liability you become.”
“I already know too much.” She held her ground. “This isn’t about protecting me—it’s about protecting the archangels.”
“To trust a mortal is the ultimate in foolishness. It’s what cost Illium his feathers.”
Oh, he knew exactly how to get to her. “I’m not just a mortal. I’m Elena Deveraux, Guild Hunter and the woman you pulled into this shit. The least you can do is tell me why.”
“No.” A flat declaration made by the Archangel of New York. “Nothing you say will sway me. No mortal can know. Not even the one I want to fuck.”
The cold place had filled with lust. Now it filled with pure fury. “That puts me in my place, doesn’t it?”
The bastard kissed her. She was so mad, she bit him hard enough to draw blood. Raphael pulled back, lip already beginning to swell. “We are no longer even, Elena. You’re now in debt.”
“You can deduct it from my slow and painful death.” She dropped her leg from his waist. “It’s time to talk murder.”
He leaned in, caging her with his arms. “You’re holding a knife again.”
She clenched her hand around the handle. “You drive me to violence.” Sliding the knife back into her boot, she folded her arms and tried not to think about how good he smelled. “What did you do with the survivor?”
“Dmitri has taken her to our healers, our doctors.”
“Because she might be infected. With what?”
“Uram’s madness.”
She was so shocked at getting a straight answer that it took her close to a minute to respond. “That’s not possible. Madness isn’t catching.”
“Uram’s brand may be.”
Christ. “But she’s human.”
Raphael’s eyes flamed cobalt. “She was. Now the doctors will tell us what she’s become.” He paused. “We know she ingested some of Uram’s blood—it could’ve been by accident but more likely, he made her feed from him.”
She didn’t give in to pity. That woman—girl, really—had survived a monster intent on destroying everything she was. She deserved a fucking medal for courage, not pity. “If she is infected, will you kill her?”
“Yes.”
Elena wanted to hate him for that, but she couldn’t. “Four years ago,” she found herself saying, “there was a rash of killings on the banks of the Mississippi. Young boys strangled; their eyes removed.”
“A human.”
“Yes. A hunter.” Bill James had been her friend once upon a time, her trainer before that. “We—me, Ransom, and Sara—had to find and execute him.” Hunters always took care of their own.
A cool whisper of a breeze as Raphael unfurled his wings and curled them back in. “So many nightmares in your head.”
“They make me who I am.”
“Did you kill this hunter?”
“Yes.” It had come down to the two of them. “Sara was badly injured, Rans
om too far away, and Bill was about to kill a terrified young boy. So I stabbed him through the heart.” No time to get her gun, so much blood everywhere, the look of betrayal in Bill’s eyes as his heart pulsed one last time, a chaos of memory. Now she looked up into another pair of eyes. “If that girl’s become a monster, she needs to die.”
“Am I a monster, Elena?”
She looked into that perfect face and saw the echoes of cruelty, of time. “Not yet,” she whispered. “But you could be.”
His jaw was a harsh line. “It’s a symptom of age—cruelty.”
It hurt her to know that the humanity in Raphael—buried deep, but there—might one day cease to exist. Yet at the same time, she couldn’t help but be glad for his immortality. Someone this magnificent shouldn’t die. “Tell me about the Quiet.”
His wings extended to their full width. “We must go to Michaela’s home and see if you can pick up a scent—there’s a good chance he spent hours watching her before today.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “Fine. We flying?” Her heart hitched—she was becoming used to being carried in Raphael’s arms, the sound of his wings steady and powerful.
“No,” he said, lips curving as if he’d read her excitement. “Michaela’s American home is next door.”
“Convenient.” For sneaking into Raphael’s bed.
He finally moved enough that she could hop down. “Michaela has been many things through the centuries—scholar, courtesan, muse—but she’s never been a warrior.”
My lovers have always been warrior women.
She wondered how many of those women had been as foolish as her—foolish enough to walk into his arms knowing that if push came to shove, the archangel would end her life with a single, final thought. “It’s time for this warrior to earn her keep.”