by Nalini Singh
Which particular offer?
“The one about fucking me into oblivion.” She had to forget—the blood, the death, the viscera of evil sprayed on the walls of that innocuous-looking town house.
A better man wouldn’t take advantage of you in your current emotional state.
“Good thing you’re not a man.”
Yes.
Her thighs clenched at the eroticism implicit in that single word. Sticking the key in the ignition, she started the car and pulled out. The scent of rain, of the sea, faded from her mind. Raphael had left. But she could still taste him on her tongue, as if he’d exuded some exotic pheromone that rewired her body to scent angel, not vampire.
Not that she cared.
The hanging bodies, the shadows on the wall—
No, there had been no shadows. Not today.
Her hands clenched on the steering wheel as she came to a stop at a red light, her vision hazed by rain, by memories. “Stuff it back,” she ordered herself. “Don’t remember.”
But it was too late. A single, terrifying shadow took shape on the wall of her mind, swaying in the breeze from the open windows.
Her mother had always liked fresh air.
Someone honked and she realized the light had turned green. Mentally thanking the other driver for snapping her awake, she focused every part of herself on driving. The rain should’ve made it hell but the streets were eerily quiet. As if the gathering darkness was a malevolent force that had captured the population, taking them to earth, to death.
And that quickly, she was back in the huge entranceway to the Big House, the house Jeffrey had bought after . . . After. Such a Big House for a family of four. Above her was a mezzanine floor with a lovely white railing, so strong, metal not wood. Elegant, old, the perfect home for a man who planned to be mayor.
“Mom, I’m home!”
Quiet. So quiet.
Panic in her throat, pain in her eyes, blood in her mouth.
She’d bitten her tongue. In fear. In terror. But no, there was no trace of vampire.
“Mom?” A tremulous question.
Looking at the huge hallway, she’d wondered why her mother had left one high-heeled shoe in the middle of the tile. Maybe she’d forgotten. Marguerite was different. Beautiful, wild, artistic. Sometimes she forgot the days of the week, or wore two different shoes, but that was okay. Elena didn’t care.
The shoe fooled her. Made her step inside.
A crash of noise and memory shattered under the heart-thudding reality of the present. She slammed the car to a shuddering halt, sickeningly aware that something had just ricocheted off her windshield. “Jesus.” Unclipping her belt, she opened the door and got out. Had she hit someone?
The wind tore at her hair as the rain pelted down with bruising force. The storm had come out of nowhere, a freak blip on the radar of nature. Fighting against the wind, she walked around to the front of the car, eerily conscious that there was absolutely no one else on this stretch of road. Maybe people had decided to wait out the rain. Blinking water from her eyes, she figured it’d be a long wait.
There was a leaf on her windscreen, stuck to one of the still-running wipers. A solid branch lay a few feet in front of the car. Relief whispered through her, but she checked under and behind the vehicle to be sure. Nothing. Just a branch thrown by the wind. Getting out of the rain, she slammed the door shut and turned on the heater, chilled to the bone. Freezing from the inside out.
Wiping her face with an open palm, she drove the rest of the way to Raphael’s with a steely focus on the here and now. The ghosts kept whispering in her ear but she refused to listen. If she didn’t listen, they wouldn’t be able to touch her, wouldn’t be able to drag her back into the nightmare.
She was pulling up in front of the house when her cell phone rang. It had been in her pocket and was drenched, but seemed to function fine when she turned off the engine and flipped it open. She recognized the incoming number. “Ransom?”
“Who else?” Jazz in the background, the singer’s voice smoky and low. “I’ve been hearing things, Ellie.”
“I can’t tell—” she began.
“No,” he interrupted. “I’m hearing things I think you need to know.”
“Go on.” Ransom had contacts the rest of them didn’t, having grown up on the streets. Most people who got out lost their street cred. He hadn’t—being a hunter was considered an even better position in the hierarchy of the streets than being a gangbanger.
“There’s been a lot of vamp and angel activity over the past few days. They’re everywhere.”
“Okay.” That wasn’t news. Raphael had his people looking for signs of Uram or his victims.
“Whispers of girls disappearing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Should I be warning the pros?” His voice was tight.
She knew some of those streetwalkers and high-end call girls were his friends. “Let me think.” She considered everything she’d picked up about the victims. “I think, for once, they’re safe.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. The targets all looked . . . innocent.”
“Virgins?”
Elena realized she hadn’t thought to check. A mistake she’d rectify as soon as possible. “Yeah, probably. But still, it wouldn’t hurt to tell your friends to look out for each other.”
“Thanks.” He blew out a breath. “That’s not why I called, though. Word is, there’s a hit out on you.”
She froze. “What?”
“Yeah, it gets better.” Anger vibrated through the wires. “Apparently an archangel wants you dead. What the hell did you do to him?”
Her forehead furrowed. “Not him. Her.”
“Ah. I wouldn’t worry about it, then.” Pure snark. “According to the gossip, your head’s wanted on a silver platter—literally, by the way—”
“Gee, thanks for clearing that up.”
“—but the hunt’s not authorized to begin yet.”
Michaela, the bitch, was playing mind games. “Appreciate the warning.”
“So what are you going to do? Get the hell out of Dodge or kill an archangel?”
“I do love your confidence in me.”
A snort. “Hell, no. I just know I’m in your last will and testament.”
“I’m too valuable alive right now.”
“And when the job is done?”
The car door was pulled open from the outside, wings filling her vision. “Then I’ll reconsider my options. Talk to you later.” She closed the phone before he could say anything else, and looked up into eyes so blue they shouldn’t have been possible. “Michaela really wants me dead.”
Raphael’s expression remained unchanged. “I don’t let anyone break my toys.”
It should’ve pissed her off, but she smiled. “Wow, I feel all mushy inside.”
“Who were you speaking with?”
“Possessive much?”
He cupped her cheek, his hand wet, his hold uncompromising. “I don’t share my toys either.”
“Watch it,” she murmured, twisting in her seat until her feet touched the sodden earth outside. “I might decide to be irritated. I have a question.”
Silence.
“Were they virgins?”
“How did you know?”
“Evil is predictable.” A lie. Because sometimes evil was an insidious thief that crept in and stole what you most treasured, leaving only echoes against a wall.
A thin shadow, swinging almost gently. Like on a swing.
Raphael rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “I see nightmares in your eyes again.”
“And I see sex in yours.”
He rose, tugging her out of the car and trapping her with her back to the opening. Behind him, his wings flared out, gleaming with rain wetness. There was an edge to that sensual mouth, a touch of savagery in the way it curved.
Elena leaned forward and put her arms around his neck, letting herself luxuriate in the sheer strength of h
im. Today, she was going to break all the rules. Forget about sleeping with a vamp, she was going straight to the top and to hell with it. “So, how does an archangel do it?”
A gust of wind buffeted them, stealing away her words. But Raphael had heard. Leaning in, he brushed his lips over hers. “I haven’t agreed yet.”
She blinked. Then scowled as he drew back. “What, you’re playing hard to get now?”
He turned. “Come, Elena. I need you healthy.”
Cursing him under her breath, she shut the car door—the interior was already soaked—and walked toward the house, Raphael a quiet presence by her side. But not restful. No, he was quiet like a jaguar was quiet. Lethal danger momentarily contained. She was still scowling when they reached the door.
The butler held it open. “I’ve prepared the bath, sir.” A glance at her, a hint of curiosity. “Madam.”
Raphael dismissed Jeeves with a look and the butler melted away into the woodwork. “The bath is on the next floor.”
She headed up the stairs, stomping more than stepping. He’d teased her to fever pitch, but now, today, when she actually needed the release, he was playing with her. Exactly as you did with a toy, she realized. Fine, if he wanted it that way, she’d focus on work. “Were you able to confirm if he had sex with the women?”
“Yes, but only at the town house. The warehouse victims were all untouched in that way—that’s why we believe the others were also virgin before he took them.” He was at her back, following close enough that his breath whispered over her nape as they reached the top. “Down the hall, third door to your left.”
“Much obliged,” she said sarcastically, noticing that there was nothing but air beyond the railing to her right—as if the core of the house was one huge, open space.
“Does it mean something—the sexual contact?”
“Could be. But there were no marks on the bodies aside from the death wounds, so that part may have been consensual.” Archangels were charismatic, sexy, quite unbelievably compelling. Uram may have turned into a monster, but outside, he probably appeared just as attractive as the Archangel of New York. No, she thought immediately, Raphael was in a league of his own.
“Or it was after death.”
She was too tired to be disgusted. “Possible.” Reaching the third door, she put her hand on the doorknob. “He may have sublimated the feeding urge with sex for a small amount of time. But only blood’s going to satisfy him now.” Her hand tightened. “More women are going to die because I lost the scent.”
“But less than if you’d never been born,” he said, tone matter-of-fact. “I’ve lived centuries, Elena. Two or three hundred deaths is a small price to pay to stop one of the bloodborn.”
Two or three hundred?!
“I won’t let it get that far.” She pushed open the door—and stepped into a fantasy. Her breath rushed out of her as she stood there, staring.
Flames leaped in the fireplace to her left, the golden glow surrounded by dark stone that shimmered with hidden threads of silver. In front of the fireplace was a huge white rug that looked so fluffy and comfortable she wanted to roll around on it—naked. Talk about pure indulgence.
On the opposite side of the room was a door that seemed to open into the bath. She could see the edge of white porcelain fittings, a counter made of the same marble as the fireplace. Inside, she knew a hot bath awaited, a bath her cold bones desperately needed. But still she stood there.
Because between the fireplace and the temptation of the bath was a bed. A bed bigger than any she’d ever seen. One that could’ve accommodated ten people without any of them touching the other. It sat high off the floor but there was no headboard or backboard, just a smooth expanse of bed covered by lush midnight-blue sheets that promised to stroke across her skin in an exotically delicious caress. The pillows sat on the opposite end to the door, but could as easily have been on this side.
“Why”—she coughed to clear her throat—“why so big?”
Hands on her hips, pushing her forward. “Wings, Elena.” A rustling snap as Raphael extended his wings to their full length, then the click of the door locking behind them.
She was alone with the Archangel of New York. In front of a bed made to accommodate wings.
31
Her body chose that moment to shiver.
Raphael’s chuckle was husky, male in a way that said he knew he had her. “Bath first, I think.”
“I thought you were playing hard to get.”
He stroked a finger down her throat, making her shiver again for a far different reason. “I just want to set the ground rules before we do this.”
She forced her feet forward, toward the bathroom. “I know the rules. Don’t expect anything but a dance between the sheets, don’t go all calf-eyed, yadda yadda.” The words were flippant but she felt a tug in the region of her heart. No, she told herself, utterly horrified. Elena P. Deveraux would never be stupid enough to give her heart to an archangel. “Is that about—holy shit!” She stepped into the bathroom. “It’s bigger than the bedroom!”
Not quite but close. The “bath” was almost the size of a small swimming pool, the steam curling off it pure, sensual temptation. A shower stood to her right, but it had no glass walls, the area defined only by an expanse of gold-flecked tile. A lightbulb went off in her head. “Wings,” she whispered. “It’s all to accommodate those beautiful wings.”
“I’m glad they meet with your approval.” The sound of something wet hitting the cool white of the tile had her glancing back.
Raphael’s shirt was on the floor, his chest threatening to make her drool. Stop it, she told herself. But it was hard not to stare at the most beautiful male body she had ever seen. “What’re you doing?” Her voice came out husky.
He raised an eyebrow. “Taking a bath.”
“What about the rules?” She found her fingers were at the bottom of her T-shirt, ready to pull the sodden material over her head.
He kicked off his boots, watching her peel off the T-shirt to reveal the very circumspect sports bra she wore underneath. “We can discuss those in the bath.” His voice held the promise of sex, and when she looked down, she realized why. The rain had turned her black bra into a second skin, the soft material delineating her nipples with perfect clarity.
“Fine with me.” Unable to look at him and think at the same time, she turned her back and got rid of her boots and socks, before peeling off the bra. Her fingers were on the waistband of her cargo pants when she felt his body heat behind her. A second later, he was tugging the tie off her hair. Surprisingly, he was careful, so it didn’t hurt. The wet strands hit her bare back a few moments after that.
Lips on her neck. Hot. Sinful.
She shivered again, goose bumps rising across her flesh. “No cheating.”
Big, warm hands stroked up her damp torso to cup her breasts. She jerked at the bold move, moaned. “Enough. I’m cold.” Though he was doing a great job of heating her up from the inside out.
More kisses along her neck.
She put her hands over his, and tipped her head to the side to give him better access. He trailed his tongue down, chasing a droplet of water that fell from her hair, down her nape, and along one shoulder, before drawing back. As she straightened, his thumbs hooked into the sides of her pants.
“Nuh-uh,” she said, pulling away. “Rules first.”
“Yes, the rules are very important.”
She waited for him to move around her. He didn’t. Her lips curved. And she decided that since she was living dangerously, she might as well go all the way. Undoing her pants, she pushed them and her panties down in a single push, before stepping out of the garments and kicking them aside. That done, she glanced over her shoulder.
The archangel’s eyes held cobalt lightning. Alive. Vivid in a way that proclaimed his immortality. Her breath caught but she knew that if she planned to tangle with this particular male, she had to stand her ground. Throwing him a wicked smile, she wa
lked up the steps built into the side of the bath and into the water.
“Ooooooh.” Liquid heat. Pure heaven. She ducked under, came up pushing hair out of her eyes.
He was where she’d left him, watching her with those impossible eyes. But this time, she wasn’t mesmerized. Not when she had his naked body there for her delectation. The archangel was built like a fantasy, his chest sculptured with the honed muscles of a man who had to be able to carry his own body weight—and more—in flight.
Her gaze caressed the lines of his chest, his abdomen, skated down. She sucked in a breath, forced her eyes back up. “Come here.”
He raised an eyebrow, but then, to her absolute astonishment, obeyed the order. As he entered the bath, she found herself gauging the powerful muscle of his thighs—what would it be like to have all that strength around her as he buried himself inside her? Her stomach clenched. Never had she craved a man with such hunger, never had she been more aware of her own femininity. Raphael could snap her like a twig. And for a woman who had been hunter-born, that wasn’t a threat . . . but the darkest of temptations.
Her hand fisted under the water as she remembered how he’d made her cut herself. She hadn’t forgotten, had no romantic fantasies that he’d change, become more human. No, Raphael was the Archangel of New York and she had to be ready to take that man to her bed. The water lapped at her breasts as he settled on the opposite side, his wings folded to his back, his hair beginning to curl from the steam.
“Why the delay?” she asked, having seen the blatant evidence of his arousal.
“When you’ve lived as long as I have,” he said, eyes heavy-lidded but definitely on her, “you learn to appreciate new sensations. They are rare in an immortal’s life.”
She found she’d moved toward him. He hooked an arm around her waist, pulling her closer until she straddled him as he sat on a ledge below the waterline, her legs wrapped around his waist.
He settled her firmly against him.