by Nalini Singh
She was holding her sister’s hand. It had been torn off at the wrist.
• • •
Raphael walked into the suite at dawn to find his consort in bed, her body rigid and her hands fisted. Immediately putting his hands on her shoulders, he shook, knowing she needed to be wrenched out of the vicious grasp of nightmare. “Elena, wake!” Elena!
A jerk of her head, but she didn’t wake. Tugging her toward him with a grip in her hair, he kissed her, kept kissing her until he felt her nails dig into his arms, her body losing that ugly nightmare tension. The sob that tore from her when he broke the kiss had him crushing her close.
“I hate this,” she said, after the storm had passed and they sat on the edge of the bed staring out at the approaching dawn. Her voice was flat, near defeated, unlike the woman he knew.
Not closing the distance she’d put between them because he sensed she wasn’t ready, her hands white-knuckled on the edge of the bed, he kept his eyes on the clean line of her profile. “You’re having far fewer nightmares than you did when we first met.”
Jaw clenched, she stared down at the carpet. “And I still wake up like that, terrified out of my skin.” A throb of anger beneath the defeat, his Elena rising through the battered and bruised places in her soul. “When does it stop? When do I get over it?”
Judging she wasn’t willing to listen to reason—she might not even hear him in her current self-punishing mood—he rose. “We’re not scheduled to leave for two hours.” He could not be seen to be racing back to New York. “We have time for a sparring session.”
She didn’t get up. “I had one with Isabel last night.”
This, Raphael realized, was even more serious than he’d believed. Elena never turned down a chance to spar with him—he was one of the few people who pushed her to her absolute limit, uncaring of the risk attendant in causing even unintentional harm to the consort of an archangel. To him, the inevitable bruises were acceptable if the lesson would help her stay alive.
Picking up her favorite blades, he threw them at her. Hands snapping up, she caught both. “I said”—spoken through gritted teeth—“I don’t want to.”
“And I say you’ve sulked long enough.” He stripped off his formal wear and pulled on a pair of pants suitable for sparring.
Eyes of silver-gray slitted in frigid outrage. “I just dreamed I had my sister’s severed hand in my own. Sorry if that inconveniences you.”
Raphael shrugged and very deliberately used the one thing he knew would infuriate her enough to cut through the apathy. “I’ll see if Tasha is up for a session, then,” he said and reached for the doorknob. “Be ready to leave in two hours.”
The knife quivered to a stop on the doorjamb an inch from his face.
25
Not saying a word, and aware of Elena swearing behind him as she rushed to pull on clothes, he walked out and down the steps into the courtyard. When she emerged a couple of minutes later, it was in khaki cargo pants and a specially designed black tank that took her wings into account. Like his, her feet were bare, but she had knives while he was unarmed.
A fair balance, given his extreme strength and speed.
When he made a “come on” gesture with both hands, Elena narrowed her eyes and threw one of those blades at his face. He was distracted just enough by the unexpected act that she almost swiped him with the second blade as she came in low. Grinning, he avoided the strike with a twist that slapped her with his wing.
It wasn’t meant to hurt, only to distract in turn, but Elena had learned from their past sessions, and turned with him, going for his wing with the blade in her grip. His consort had a tendency to make mistakes when angry, but not today—he’d succeeded in angering her to the point where she fought with icy fury.
Barely avoiding the sharp bite of metal, he used his wings to lift himself a foot off the ground in order to avoid a kick. “A little slow, hbeebti.”
She smiled at the taunt . . . and threw the second blade directly at his wing. Positioned as he was, he couldn’t avoid it in time and it pinned his wing to the wall of the house. But he was an archangel, had it out a split second after it went in, his body ready to handle her secondary attack.
“You now have no knives,” he said, exhilaration in his blood as he parried her fists and kicks. Elena couldn’t truly hurt him, not yet, but her fighting style was unique, one she’d created as she reworked her hunter training and adapted Galen’s teachings to take her personal strengths and vulnerabilities into account. And because she hadn’t been an angel all her life, she didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to be able to do certain things, so she just went ahead and did them.
That element of surprise made each session as fun for him as it usually was for her.
Now she came in close . . . and suddenly had two more knives headed straight for his neck. Blocking them using a maneuver he’d learned from Alexander before the other archangel started to view him as a threat, he bared his teeth. “That’s cheating.”
“Oh?” A saccharine-sweet smile. “Didn’t realize we were playing fair.” Another fury of blades, their bodies moving with a speed and a ferocity that had drawn an intrigued audience of three—Keir, Isabel, and Naasir. All watched from the balconies that ringed the courtyard and someone clapped when Elena managed to swipe his forearm, drawing blood.
Ignoring the cut, he touched the tip of the knife he’d pulled out of his wing to her cheek to register a hit. He made sure it didn’t break skin, for his passionate, beautiful lover didn’t heal as fast as he did, but she made no effort to hide her fury that he’d gotten so close. Twisting out of reach before she could take advantage of his proximity, he moved to come at her from behind.
She threw the knives over her shoulders without turning.
Startled by the unexpected tactic, he almost took one in the chest, only his agility saving him from a wound that would’ve taken at least ten minutes to repair. Turning the instant the blades left her hands, Elena swept out with a kick to capitalize on his shaky balance, but she’d forgotten her wings.
Grabbing one, he hauled her close, his blade at her throat. “I win,” he said, both their chests heaving.
A sharp prick against his heart. “Wanna bet?”
Grinning, he bent his head and kissed her, half expecting her to slide the blade in, she was so pissed. But she returned his kiss, hot, wild, and wet, her tongue rubbing against his own. “You ever taunt me with Tasha again,” she said in a harsh whisper when they broke the kiss to gasp in air, “and I will geld you.”
Raphael winced. “That would take at least a day to repair. Are you sure you want to lose my . . . attributes for that long?”
A twitch of her lips, eyes bright. He could see her struggling to hold in the laughter, but it was a losing battle and she was soon doubled over with her hands on her knees, her laugher wild color in the air.
For the first time, I envy you, Raphael.
Glancing up, he caught Keir’s gaze. It’s not every man who has his lover out for his blood.
Keir’s laugh was quiet, as, waving good-bye, he disappeared into his suite. It was Naasir who jumped down onto the courtyard with feral grace. Picking up the discarded knives, he held them out to an Elena who was now upright and wiping tears of laughter from her face.
“Thanks,” she managed to say, before secreting away the knives with such speed, Raphael couldn’t follow her movements or tell where exactly she’d hidden the sleek weapons.
“Why did you cheat?” the vampire asked, head cocked. “With the knives?”
“Er, I was fighting an archangel who can crush me like a bug. Of course I was going to cheat—especially since we had a score to settle.”
Naasir stared at her, then grinned. “We’ll spar when I’m in New York.”
Twenty-five minutes later, they’d showered and dressed in preparation for the trip home, and Elena still wasn’t sure quite what had happened. “Does he like me now?” she asked, as they ate a light breakfast in readi
ness for heading out on the wing.
“Naasir likes very few people, but I think he finds you interesting.”
“Hmm.” She bit into her honey toast. “I’m not sure I want to be found ‘interesting’ by a tiger creature. He probably finds other fresh meat interesting, too.”
“Tiger creature?”
“Stop laughing.” Scowling, she poured him a glass of orange juice and pushed it across. “Sorry about the funk when I woke up.”
He took the juice, the humor fading from eyes the breathtaking hue of a high mountain lake. “Why today?” he asked gently. “You’ve never been so defeated by the nightmare memories.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” It had simply felt as if she’d been beaten to a bloody pulp, every one of her achievements erased by the crushing ugliness of horror. “I just”—she blew out a breath—“I wish I could be fixed, so I could remember my sisters, my mother, without the pain.”
Raphael didn’t offer her platitudes, just grim pragmatism. “You’re young. The memories will never disappear, but they’ll lose their power to cause such harm over time.”
“No offense, but I don’t want to be screaming myself awake for the next hundred years.” The immortal concept of “time,” she’d learned, was far different from a mortal’s.
“You’re far too stubborn for such a possibility to come into being.” Reaching across, he rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “There’s a reason the nightmares are getting worse, and you know why.”
Startled, she frowned. “What reason? It’s not close to the anniversary.”
“Sometimes, hbeebti, you surprise me.” Dropping his hand, he said a single word—“Eve”—and all the pieces fell into place.
Her half sister, only a little older than Elena had been when Slater Patalis destroyed her world, was just coming into her power as a hunter. As Elena had been that fateful year. “Wow,” she whispered, her fingers motionless on the white tablecloth. “How did I not see that?”
“It is too close a hurt.”
“Maybe.” Picking up her juice, she finished the glass before speaking again. “I guess some part of my subconscious is terrified it’ll happen again.”
“Yes—especially as you’ve now formed a true bond with Eve.”
Where before, they’d been strangers with half the same blood. “Do you think Jeffrey’s scared, too?” she asked, thinking of the vicious wounds it must score on a man’s soul to bury first his children, then his wife.
“His emotional state is irrelevant.” Raphael’s face was brutal in its repudiation. “It’s because of him that you didn’t have what you needed to heal as a child.”
She knew he was right, but it was strange, how now that she’d finally begun to look at Jeffrey through the eyes of an adult and not a child, it was so much harder to despise him. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for what he did to me, but I might not hate him if he gets it right with Eve.” Except she was terribly afraid that was a futile hope.
• • •
A half hour later and they were on their way out of the city when who should flag them down onto a rooftop but Tasha. “I’m so glad I caught you,” she said, her hair tied back to showcase the blade she wore diagonally across her back. “I did so wish to say good-bye.”
Trying not to gag at the oh-so-sincere comments that came her way in the next few minutes, Elena smiled. “I’m sorry we can’t stay longer, but it looks like rain.” She put on her best frown as she tilted back her head to stare at the clouds.
“Elena is right,” Raphael said to Tasha. “We cannot risk a delay.”
“Of course.” Tasha was all elegance and charm when they said their good-byes. “I hope we’ll meet again soon.”
That was very bad of you, Elena, Raphael said once they were in the air. You know the coming sun shower will pass in but a moment.
I also know Tasha McHotpants is regretting she didn’t scoop you up when you were young and single. Altering her mental tone, she said, Oh, Raphael, what luck I caught you. And me dressed up like a warrior with a sword and everything. She snorted. Luck my ass.
McHotpants?
Shut up. I’m mad. Especially after that stunt you pulled this morning.
Then you know I’m more partial to knives than swords anyway.
Teasing me right now could be bad for your health.
To her surprise, he did go silent. It wasn’t until he pointed out the volcano some distance to their left that she understood why, her own blood heavy with turbulent emotion. Later that day, a young woman who’d done nothing but go for a walk in the woods would be laid to rest in the heart of that volcano.
As soon as the rites were completed, Amanat would once again become a closed city, according to what Raphael had told her as they showered. Caliane had agreed to stand sentinel against the darkness on this side of the world, while they fought it on the other. Much as Elena wanted all their preparation to be for nothing, she knew that was a wasted hope.
The drums of war pounded closer with every heartbeat.
• • •
Winging into Manhattan after the jet landed on a private airfield nearby, Elena breathed deep of the biting cold air of home. It had promised snow for a couple of weeks without delivering, but she felt sure that’d change very soon. “Anything from Aodhan?” she said, when Raphael came alongside.
“No, the city has been quiet since we—” He paused, his eyes locked on the Hudson.
“What is it?” It appeared as it always did to her, but she knew he had the piercing eyesight of a bird of prey.
“Watch.”
The water began to crash and froth even as he spoke. Managing to hover beside Raphael as he halted at the river’s edge, Elena glanced to the right . . . and that was when she saw it, the wave of red. Rich and dark, it rolled down the river in an eerie tide that made the hairs rise on the back of her neck, the scent of living iron pungent in the air. “Is that blood?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” He swept down to the water, hovering lower than she could manage with her current wing strength, until his fingertips skimmed the red stain.
Bringing his fingers to his nose, he shook off the wet and rose to her side. “Blood,” he confirmed. “But it’s weakening.”
As they watched, the water turned rose red, then pink, then blush, until it was the murky brown of a churned-up Hudson again, the unmistakable scent gone as if it had never existed. That was when the snow began to fall, airy flakes that whispered over her wings and face to settle on the city, a caress of whiteness to erase the blood.
“What we just saw”—she stared at the water—“should’ve been impossible.”
“Did Jessamy not say something about blood raining from the skies during the Cascade? This would seem to fall along the same continuum.”
“And the archangels were not who they should be, and bodies rotted in the streets and blood rained from the skies as empires burned.”
“Jesus, Raphael,” Elena said, as the historian’s words rang in her mind, “this is really happening.” And it wasn’t just going to be a war. “It’s going to be an event that changes the face of our world.” Her brain could barely comprehend the scale of what was coming.
Raphael’s eyes met hers, the snow continuing to drift from a crystalline sky. “In the hours I spent with Caliane, she told me more of the last Cascade.” Shadows of terrible darkness in the intense, impossible blue of his eyes.
“I almost don’t want to know,” she whispered, all the while aware this was a truth that couldn’t be avoided.
Her archangel angled his wings toward the Tower, and she did a wider sweep to follow. “You are consort to an archangel. You no longer have a choice.”
26
Aodhan was waiting for them on the Tower balcony outside Raphael’s office. “Sire, I’ve sent out people to keep watch for any signs of unrest caused by the event.”
The event.
Elena guessed there really was no other way to descri
be a river turning to blood.
“Panic has been stifled before it could take root.” Aodhan’s eyes reflected splinters of Manhattan as he looked toward the water. “However, members of the public no doubt captured live footage of the event and the Tower will need to issue an explanation.”
“No.” Raphael’s tone was autocratic, his face stripped of all traces of “humanity.” “There are to be no explanations. Say only that it is Cadre business and if anyone insists on further information, tell them to contact me directly.”
Anyone stupid enough to take him up on that offer, Elena thought, deserved what they got. Most mortals never came near an archangel for a reason—the power differential was so vast it created a gulf that couldn’t be crossed from either side except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. The longer she spent in the immortal world, the more she understood that that gulf was a safety net; anything else would lead only to death for countless humans.
Still—“People will be scared.” She had to speak for the humans and the ordinary vampires, because Raphael simply didn’t understand that kind of helplessness. He’d never been weak, not even as a child. “If we don’t do something to reduce their fear, the morale of the city could dip to dangerous levels, and it’s already shaky after the Falling.”
“Illium is of the same opinion,” Raphael said, his skin glowing with a fine undertone of power she’d never before seen. It defined his bones even more sharply, his eyes such violent flames it was difficult to look at them. “He requests your assistance in creating a diversion.”
Elena hesitated. Raphael, you’re doing the scary archangel thing. The really scary one.
Resettling his wings to shrug off the snow, he touched his fingers to her jaw as Aodhan disappeared into the Tower. The touch made her skin tingle, her heart thud against her ribs, because the power of him was a pulse in her blood. “You’ve become stronger,” she whispered, her relief intermingled with worry, because while this was good news, she didn’t like the sudden cold remoteness of him.