by Nalini Singh
Simone’s fingers were trembling so hard, the red liquid in her wineglass sloshed over the edge as she put it down on the table. “Sire, I would never—”
“Lying,” Nazarach interrupted, “is something I despise.”
“Sire,” Antoine said, putting a protective hand over his mate’s, “I’ll take responsibility for any missteps. I’m the older party.”
Nazarach’s amber eyes glowed as he looked at the vampire. “Noble as always, Antoine. She would sell you to the highest bidder, if it came down to it.”
Antoine gave a faint smile. “We all have our foibles.”
Nazarach laughed and there might’ve been a glimmer of amusement in it—but it was the amusement of an immortal, a knife that made others bleed. “I’m pleased Callan didn’t manage to kill you, Beaumont.” Turning, he looked at the man he’d just mentioned. “The young lion—one not very good at guarding what you aim to keep.” His hand stroked over Monique’s hair again, a silent, merciless taunt.
Callan’s eyes cut to Janvier. “I trusted too easily. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“That mistake,” Janvier corrected with shrugging insouciance, “saved your life.”
Nazarach’s expression didn’t change, but his voice, it held a layer of white frost. “The Cajun is right. You took that which is mine. Why shouldn’t I rip your bones from your skin while you stand screaming?”
Callan stood, then fell to one knee. “My deepest apologies, sire. I was… overzealous in my attempt to prove to you that I can bear you better service than those who take their position for granted.”
For a moment, there was no sound, and Ashwini knew it was the instant of judgment. When Nazarach’s wings snapped back to lie sleek against his spine, no one dared draw breath.
“Simone,” he said in that soft, dangerous voice. “Come here.”
The slender woman got up, trembling so hard she could barely walk. Antoine rose with her. “Sire,” he began.
Nazarach shook his head in a sharp negative. “Only Simone.” When it appeared as if Antoine might open his mouth, the angel said, “I’m not that indulgent, Antoine, even for you.”
Clearly reluctant, Antoine retook his seat. And that, Ashwini thought, was the price of immortality. Giving up part of your soul. She watched as Simone reached the angel, but before she could go down on her knees, Nazarach caught her by her upper arms and bent his head to her ear.
What he said to her, no one would ever know. But when she turned back to the room, her face was a shock of white, her bones cutting against her skin. Nazarach’s right hand remained on her shoulder as he met Antoine’s eyes. “It seems Simone will be my guest for the next decade. She agrees she has some lessons to learn about dealing with angels.”
Antoine’s face grew tight, but he didn’t interrupt.
“You will stay loyal to me, Antoine.” A quiet order, a brutal warning, his fingers playing over Simone’s pale, pale cheek. “Utterly loyal.”
“Sire.” Antoine bowed his head, looking away from the woman he called his own.
But Nazarach wasn’t finished. “For what you’ve done, I’ll spare your life, but not those of your children’s children. There will be no more Beaumont vampires, not for another two hundred and fifty years.”
Frédéric sucked in a breath and Ashwini didn’t have to ask to know why. The vampire had just been told he couldn’t have children unless he wished to watch them die. And since vampires weren’t fertile for long after the transformation, that meant he’d never ever have a child.
Callan had remained unmoving all this time, but raised his head when Nazarach called his name.
“If you wish your kiss to remain in Atlanta, you’ll sign another Contract. A century of service.”
It appeared, on the surface, an almost easy punishment—after all, Callan sought to serve Nazarach anyway. But seeing the way Nazarach’s hand moved on Monique’s head, Ashwini knew very well that the angel understood there was something between the beautiful vampire and the leader of the Fox kiss. And he would use that knowledge to torment Callan whenever and however he felt like it.
There was no blood that night. Not any that could be seen. But as Ashwini watched Simone slide to her knees on Nazarach’s other side, she understood that some wounds bled rivers of pain that stained both people and places. Simone’s silent screams were already weaving themselves into the graceful arches of Nazarach’s home.
8
Ashwini had never been more glad to get out of a place. Leaving at first light, she didn’t draw a clear breath until the taxi was at least ten minutes from the plantation house.
“You sensed things in Nazarach’s home,” Janvier commented from beside her.
“Not just his home.” If she’d had to touch Nazarach… Her soul shrank from the horror. “Then there’s Antoine. Even Simone. She’s done some nasty things in her time.”
“And still you feel sorry for her.” Janvier sighed. “Why am I the only one you never feel sorry for?”
“Because you’re a pain in the ass.”
A masculine laugh as the taxi driver brought them to a stop at the train station. Paying him, she got out and grabbed her duffel while Janvier did the same with his. Callan had returned both early this morning, his eyes holding the promise of future retaliation.
“So,” Janvier said as she found some cash to buy a ticket from the machine, “we are back to being adversaries?”
“I owe you a favor. I won’t forget.”
“Neither will I.” Reaching forward when she took the ticket and turned, he cupped her cheek. “If I asked you to trust me, Ashwini, what would you say?”
“Words mean squat. It’s the doing that counts.” And because he’d bled for her, she raised her hand to his cheek, putting them in perfect harmony. “Thank you.”
His expression shifted, becoming starkly intimate in the hush of the early-morning platform. “Stay with me. I’ll show you things that’ll make you laugh in delight, scream in passion, cry for the sheer joy of it.”
He knew her, she thought. Knew her well enough to offer her the wildest of rides. “You’ve started the doing,” she murmured, “but you’ve got a way to go.”
“Who hurt you, cher?” A gentle question, and yet she saw the chill intent in his eyes.
Unsurprised he’d understood what she’d never told anyone, she shook her head. “No one you can kill.”
A slow blink, lashes sweeping down to cover his eyes. When they swept back up, she expected to see the Cajun charmer again. But what met her was that same simmering darkness, that feeling he was ready to spill heart’s blood. “Do you love him?”
“I did once,” she answered honestly. “Now I feel nothing.”
“Liar.” His fingers moved on her skin, hot and real and mercifully quiet. “If you felt nothing, you wouldn’t run so far and hard.”
Her spine went stiff, but she held his gaze as the train rolled into the station. “Maybe I run because I like it. The freedom, the excitement, why would I give that up?”
“Part of you is the wind,” he murmured. “Oui, that is true. But even the wind sometimes rests.”
Shaking her head, she slid her hand around the back of his neck, soaking in the intrinsically male heat of his skin. “Then consider me an endless storm.”
The Cajun kissed exactly as he looked—raw and earthy and lazy… in the best way. The patience of him made her toes curl with the knowledge that he’d kiss her as exquisitely in other, softer, darker places. Agile hands stroking over her back, he held her to him as he explored her as thoroughly as she explored him. Decadent, sharp, wild, the taste of Janvier filled her mouth.
And when she pulled away, he bit her lower lip. “Until next time, Guild Hunter.”
“I’ll be holding a crossbow next time.” It was a certainty, given Janvier’s penchant for pissing off high-level angels.
A slow, so slow smile. “You might be my perfect woman.”
“If I am, you’re in serious troubl
e.” She stepped back, and up into the train carriage, on the heels of the final warning tone. “I don’t date vampires.”
“Who said anything about dating?” He gave her that wicked smile he seemed to save just for her. “I’m talking blood and sex and hunting.”
As the train pulled away, Ashwini knew she was in trouble. Because Janvier didn’t know her; he knew her. “Blood and sex and hunting.” It was one hell of a tempting proposition.
Fishing out her phone, she called the Guild Director. “Sara, I’ve changed my mind.”
“On?”
“The Cajun.”
“You sure?” Sara asked. “Last time you hunted him, you told me to keep you away from him or you’d end up in solitary confinement after throwing him into a lava pit.”
“Solitary confinement might be good for me.”
A pause. “Ash, you do realize you live in the Twilight Zone?”
The affection in the comment made her grin. “Normal is overrated. Just make sure I get any hunts where he’s involved.”
“You got it.” The Guild Director blew out a breath. “But I have to ask one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you two flirting?”
Ashwini felt her lips curve. “If he’s not gator-bait by the next hunt… possibly.”
Angels’ Judgment
Cadre of Ten
The Cadre of Ten, the archangels who ruled the world in all the ways that mattered, met in an ancient keep deep in the Scottish Highlands. No one—human or vampire—would dare trespass on angelic territory, but even had they felt the need to give in to the suicidal urge, it would have proved impossible. The keep had been built by angels, wings a prerequisite for access.
Technology could’ve negated that advantage, but immortals didn’t survive eons by being left behind. The air above and around the keep was strictly controlled, both by a complex intrusion detection system and by units of highly trained angels. Today’s security had turned the sky into a cascade of wings—it wasn’t often that the ten most powerful beings in the world met in one place.
“Where is Uram?” Raphael asked, glancing at the incomplete semicircle of chairs.
Michaela was the one who answered. “He had a situation in his territory that required immediate attention.” Her lips curved as she spoke, and she was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman who had ever lived . . . if you didn’t look beneath the surface.
“She makes Uram her puppet.” It was a murmur so low that Raphael knew it had been meant for him alone.
Glancing at Lijuan, he shook his head. “He’s too powerful. She might control his cock, but nothing else.”
Lijuan smiled, and it was a smile that held nothing of humanity. The oldest of the archangels had long passed the age where she could even pretend at being mortal. Now, when Raphael looked at her, he saw only a strange darkness, a whisper of worlds beyond either mortal or immortal ken.
“And are we not important?” A pointed question from Neha, the archangel who ruled India and its surrounds.
“Leave it, Neha,” Elijah said in that calm way of his. “We all know of Uram’s arrogance. If he chooses not to be here, then he forfeits the right to question our decisions.”
That soothed the Queen of Poisons. Astaad and Titus seemed not to care either way, but Charisemnon wasn’t so easily appeased. “He spits on the Cadre,” the archangel said, his aristocratic face drawn in sharply angry lines. “He may as well renounce his membership.”
“Don’t be stupid, Chari,” Michaela said, and the way she did it, the tone, made it clear she’d once had him in her bed. “An archangel doesn’t get invited to join the Cadre. We become Cadre when we become archangels.”
“She’s right.” Favashi spoke for the first time. The quietest of the archangels, she held sway over Persia, and was so good at remaining unnoticed that her enemies forgot about her. Which was why she ruled as they lay in their graves.
“Enough,” Raphael said. “We’re here for a reason. Let’s get to it so we can return to our respective territories.”
“Where is the mortal?” Neha asked.
“Waiting outside. Illium flew him up from the lowlands.” Raphael didn’t ask Illium to bring their visitor inside. “We’re here because Simon, the mortal, is growing old. The American chapter of the Guild will need a new director within the next year.”
“So let them choose one.” Astaad shrugged. “What does it matter to us as long as they do their job?”
That job happened to be a critical one. Angels might Make vampires, but it was the Guild Hunters who ensured those vampires obeyed their hundred-year Contract. Humans signed the Contract easily enough, hungry for immortality. However, fulfilling the terms was another matter—a great many of the newly Made had changes of heart after a few paltry years of service.
And the angels, despite the myths created around their immortal beauty, were not agents of some heavenly entity. They were rulers and businessmen, practical and merciless. They did not like losing their investments. Hence, the Guild and its hunters.
“It matters,” Michaela said in a biting tone, “because the American and European branches of the Guild are the most powerful. If the next director can’t do his job, we face a rebellion.”
Raphael found her choice of words interesting. It betrayed something about the vampires under her tender care that they’d seize any chance of escape.
“I grow tired of this.” Titus stirred his muscular bulk, his skin gleaming blue-black. “Bring in the human and let us hear him.”
Agreeing, Raphael touched Illium’s mind. Send Simon in.
The doors opened on the heels of his command and a tall man with the sinewy muscles of a street fighter or foot soldier walked in. His hair was white, his skin wrinkled, but his eyes, they sparkled bright blue. Illium pulled the doors shut the instant Simon cleared them, cloaking the room in lush privacy once more.
The retiring Guild Director met Raphael’s eyes and nodded once. “I am honored to be in the presence of the Cadre. It’s not a thing I ever thought to experience.”
Unsaid was the fact that most humans who came into contact with the Cadre ended up dead.
“Be seated.” Favashi waved to a chair placed at the open end of the semicircle.
The old warrior settled himself without any fuss, but Raphael had seen Simon in his prime. He knew the Guild Director was feeling the kiss of age. And yet, he was no old man, never would be. He was a man to be respected. Once, Raphael might’ve called such a man a friend, but that time had passed a thousand years ago. He’d learned too well that mortal lives blinked out with firefly quickness.
“You wish to retire your position?” Neha asked with regal elegance. She was one of the few who continued to keep a court—the Queen of Poisons might kill you, but you’d admire her refined grace even as you took your last agonizing breath.
Simon remained coolly composed under her regard. Being Guild Director for forty years had given him a confidence he hadn’t had as the young man Raphael had first seen take the reins. “I must,” he now said. “My hunters are happy for me to stay on, but a good director need always consider the health of the Guild as a whole. That health flows from the top—the leader must be eminently capable of undertaking an active hunt if necessary.” A rueful smile. “I’m strong and I’m skilled, but I’m no longer as fast, or as willing to dance with death.”
“Honest words.” Titus nodded approvingly. He was most at ease among warriors and their kin—for though he might rule with brutal strength, he was as blunt as the hard line of his jaw. “It’s a strong general who can give up the reins of power.”
Simon acknowledged the compliment with a slight nod. “I’ll always be a hunter, and as is custom, I’ll remain available to the new director till my death. However, I have every faith in her ability to lead the Guild.”
“Her?” Charisemnon snorted. “A female?”
Michaela raised an eyebrow. “My respect for the Guild has suddenly increased a
hundredfold.”
Simon didn’t allow himself to get drawn into the dialogue. “Sara Haziz is the best possible person to take my place for a number of reasons.”
Astaad settled his wings. “Tell us.”
“With respect,” Simon said quietly, “that is no concern of the Cadre’s.”
It was Titus who reacted first. “You think to defy us?”
“The Guild has always been neutral for a reason.” Simon’s spine remained unbending. “Our job is to retrieve vampires who break their Contracts. But through the ages, we’ve often found ourselves in the middle of wars between angels. We survive only because we are seen as neutral. If the Cadre takes too much of an interest, we lose that protection.”
“Pretty words,” Neha said.
Simon met her gaze. “That makes them no less true.”
“Is she capable?” Elijah asked. “This, we must know. If the American Guild falls, the ripple effect could be catastrophic.”
Vampires would go utterly free, Raphael thought. Some would slip softly into an ordinary life. But others, others would murder and kill. Because at heart, they were predators. Not so different from angels when all was said and done.
“Sara is more than capable,” Simon said. “She also has the loyalty of her fellow hunters—I’ve had a significant number of them come up to me this past year and suggest her name as a possible successor.”
“This Sara is your best hunter?” Astaad asked.
Simon shook his head. “But the best will never make a good director. She is hunter-born.”
Raphael made a note to find out her name. Unlike normal members of the Guild, the hunter-born came out of the womb with the ability to scent vampires. They were the best trackers in the world, the most relentless—bloodhounds tuned to one particular scent. “And Sara?” he asked. “Will she accept?”
Simon took a moment to think. “I have not a single doubt that Sara will make the right decision.”