by Nalini Singh
Dr. Reuben rose, too. "I'm glad you came." Reaching into a cupboard, she pulled out a small book covered in gold and white swirls. "Some hunters never talk, but I've found that putting words down on paper can help."
Honor took the notebook, having no intention of using it. "Thanks."
"It's for your eyes alone. Burn it afterward if you want."
Giving a nod, Honor strode out of the small, discreet office two blocks from Guild HQ.
It wasn't until she was back in her apartment, laptop open to the tattoo file, that she allowed herself to think about why she'd gone. Perhaps it had been the slowly awakening anger inside of her, a cold, bright thing that was all teeth and gleaming edges. Then again, perhaps it had been the knowledge that, stupid or not, she wanted to taste the dark sin of Dmitri's lips. Or perhaps it had been the nightmares.
All her life, she'd felt alone, rootless. Even now, when she had friends, loyal and strong, there was a huge hole deep within--as if she'd lost something terrible and precious. As a child, she'd thought she must be a twin, that her mother had kept one and given away the other. However, as an adult, she recognized the sense of loss as something other, outside of herself. That strange, piercing loneliness was never more prevalent than after a nightmare--whether waking or sleeping.
"Enough," she muttered. "Time to work."
And work she did, until the city began to pulse with a quieter beat, the sky that impenetrable opaque shade between midnight and dawn. She shouldn't have given in to sleep but she was tired, her eyes gritty from the parade of sleepless nights, and oblivion hit before she knew it.
It was the sound of a woman's endless, ragged screams that jerked her awake. Her body was curled up into a tight ball on the sofa, wracked by dry sobs, the lingering echo of the woman's torment ripping holes in her soul. Unable to bear it, she stumbled to the bathroom and threw ice-cold water on a face ravaged by an anguish so deep, she'd never felt its like. How could that be? She'd been tortured and broken . . . but this desolation, it came from another place, so very, very deep that it had no name.
Swallowing the burn in her throat before the sadness could recapture her in its aching grip, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. It was barely five a.m. but the three hours of sleep she'd gotten tonight were better than the hour the previous night. Washing off the sweat, she pressed her head against the tile and simply let the water roll over and off her.
She'd always loved water. Part of the reason she'd ended up in Manhattan was because it was surrounded by water. It had been a considered decision to apply to the Academy. She'd wanted to study ancient languages and knew that the Guild would cover her fees if she signed a contract to remain active on the roster for at least four years after graduation.
The four-year mark had come and gone, but she'd never even considered leaving. Not only had the other hunters become her family, but her expertise in ancient cultures and languages was a skill in constant demand, given the fact that theirs was a world ruled by immortals. The thought circled her mind back to the Tower and to the vampire who had always been her darkest, most secret weakness.
Switching off the shower, she stepped out to dry herself off, forcing her brain to focus on the task that had left her with a splitting headache the previous night. Whatever it was that had been tattooed on the vampire's face--and on the back of his right shoulder, according to the photos she'd received from the pathologist--was so idiosyncratic as to defy logical explanation. And yet she knew there had to be one. Because regardless of how the head had come into Dmitri's hands, the body had been an unmistakable message.
Dressing in jeans and a plain white tee, she headed out into the kitchen area, which flowed off the lounge, to prepare some tea. The view from the entire front section of the apartment was the same--the Tower. Brilliant with light against the dark early morning skies, it drew the eye like a lodestar.
Walking to the glass wall, tea in hand, she watched a solitary angel come in to land. He was only a silhouette from this far out, but even then, his grace was extraordinary. Not one of the "normal" angels, she thought. This was someone akin to the black-winged angel Dmitri had spoken with on the balcony outside his office.
The knock on her door was so unexpected that she didn't startle, just stared. When it came again, she put down the tea, pulled her gun, and walked on silent feet to the peephole. The vampire on the other side was a sleek predator she should've shot at first glance. Instead, she opened the door. "Dmitri."
Dressed in black jeans, a T-shirt of the same color, and a butter-soft leather coat that reached his ankles, he looked like the most sinful fantasy she'd ever had, the kind that left a woman damp and slick and ready. Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, she caught the tendrils of sumptuous pleasure and blade-sharp sex in his scent.
Not the reason for her response, but the lush addiction of it certainly didn't help. It was a good thing she wasn't a true hunter-born--because he was potent. "You usually visit around this time?"
"I was passing." He leaned against the doorjamb, lifting the large manila envelope in his hand.
The blades in his scent grew razored, cutting across her senses with deadly eroticism. Suddenly all she saw in his eyes was a menace as sensual as a caress in the dark and as lethal as a stiletto. "What have you done?" The question escaped every filter of social nicety and convention.
"Nothing that didn't need to be done." Pushing off the doorjamb when she released her death grip on the edge of the door and stepped back, he walked into her apartment.
She tugged the envelope from him the instant the door was closed, sliding away her gun even as she allowed herself to indulge in the wicked, beautiful scent of him. "Further photos of the victim's tats?"
"No."
Opening it, she pulled out several sheets of paper, along with a number of blown-up photographs. At first, she didn't understand what it was she was seeing, and then she did and her blood boiled. "This is my medical report." Specifically, from the humiliating examination after her rescue. The doctor and nurse had both been gentle, kind, but there in that examination room, there had no longer been any way to pretend that it hadn't happened, that she hadn't been turned into--
Choking the river of memory, she focused on the here and now, on the anger so incandescent in her vision. "Where did you get this?" Her hands trembled with the need to hurt him, this vampire who played with her as if she was an amusing toy.
Stalking to the window where she'd stood only moments before, he said, "That's not really a question."
No, it wasn't. "You bastard," she said, throwing everything onto the coffee table, the edge of pleasure she'd taken in his presence eradicated by the ice of his voice, an unforgiving reminder that he was not human, that he had no conscience as she knew it. "What right do you have to invade my privacy?"
"I wanted the images they took," he said without turning.
Her stomach roiled. "I knew you liked pain, but I didn't realize you got off on torture."
A glance over his shoulder. "Of the bite marks, Honor." Her name sounded like the most decadent of temptations, touched by a sensuality that was as natural to the male in her apartment as breathing . . . even when he was coated in the ice of what she belatedly recognized was rage, tempered and deadly.
Bite marks.
Her own anger chilled by the cold of his, she picked up the stack of paper and photos, flipped until she came to the pages that listed the bites on her body, with associated images. "There's nothing you can learn from this." At the end, they'd torn at her as if she was a hunk of meat, shredding and ripping.
"You'd be surprised." Shifting on his heel, he shrugged out of the coat, throwing it over the back of one of her sofas to reveal muscled arms free of weapons . . . but for the long, thin blade angled in a sheath across his back. Somehow it didn't surprise her that he was a blade man, though from the gun she was certain he had in an ankle sheath, she knew he didn't have a problem with modern weaponry either.
She sto
od her ground when he came to stand next to her, though the force of her clenched jaw sent pain shooting down the bone. No more fear, she vowed, even knowing it couldn't be as simple as that, the primal core of her brain scrabbling at her to run--or to fight, shooting and cutting and kicking.
The heat of his body insistent against her skin, Dmitri pointed out a set of three bites that were small and evenly spaced. They'd survived the violence later because of their location--the only mercy was that they had healed without leaving scars, so she wasn't constantly reminded of how they'd come to be. "Back of my left thigh--"
"--a few inches up from the knee," Dmitri completed.
Small, fine-boned hands on her body, delicate fangs sinking again and again into that one area. "Blood Ruby," she whispered. "The vampire always smelled of Blood Ruby." The fashionable perfume had been an opulent cage around her senses, and it brought up her gorge still--a stranger on the street, in a store, it didn't matter. She caught a whiff of it and bile coated her throat as a cold sweat broke out over her body. "I used to dream of slitting her throat and watching her flop about at my feet while I drowned her in that stuff."
Dmitri's eyes--dark, so, so dark--met hers. "Would you like to pay her a visit?"
9
Silence. In her mind. In her soul. An endless stillness. "You've seen her feed before." The words shattered the quiet, had her dropping the papers in her hand. They floated to the carpet with a strange, serene grace.
"She's five hundred years old--peculiar habits tend to get around. Feeding from the femoral artery in the thigh isn't unusual." A dangerous pause. "Not between lovers," he corrected, and it made her wonder if that was how he preferred to drink. "But from the back? It's muscle."
"It hurts," Honor said, not knowing why she admitted that. "That's why she does it. It always hurts." Looking down at the gun somehow in her hand again, she said, "Will you stop me if I shoot her?"
"No." Not even the slightest hesitation. "But you might want to wait until after I finish questioning her--it'd be a bitch to wait for the bullet wound to heal."
Part of her wasn't sure if he was joking, but she read the cutting anger in his eyes well enough. She knew it had nothing to do with her. No, what had him ready to mete out the most brutal punishment was the fact that an old vampire he likely trusted to maintain order had been playing some very nasty games. Honor didn't much care about his motivations if it got her to within killing distance of one of the creatures who had turned her into their own personal "blood pet" for two interminable months.
They pulled up to the gates of an estate in Englewood Cliffs just as dawn was streaking the sky in watercolors of peach, pink, and golden blue. Dmitri had stored her laptop in the trunk of his Ferrari and put down the top. She found a welcome freedom in the crisp whip of the wind, using the time to gather her defenses, to ready herself for the thick, nauseating scent of Blood Ruby.
The gates, tall and ornate and covered with dark green ivy, swung open with stately grace the instant the guard saw the car. The drive was dappled in sun and shadow from the oak trees that lined it, and the house, when it came into view, spoke of another century--a heavy and ostentatious one. "Not a vampire who believes in moving with the times."
"No." Dmitri brought the car to a halt in front of the shallow steps that led up to the entrance. "In certain periods, it was the done thing to keep your 'cattle' within easy reach. Valeria continues to hold to that practice, though it's come to be considered an archaic one by most of her contemporaries."
Valeria.
Her hands wanted to grab the huge hunting knife in the sheath at her ankle and rush through the door, gut the vampire, but she forced herself to wait though her pulse beat only a single word--vengeance. "Did the cattle volunteer?"
"There are always those who volunteer." He pushed open his door and stood to strip off his coat, revealing the soft black cotton of his T-shirt.
She thought of Carmen, how the blonde had debased herself before Dmitri, until Honor had been humiliated for her. "You've never had any trouble."
Dmitri didn't answer until they met in front of the car. "There are different kinds of trouble."
She saw something unexpected in him at that moment, a quiet, dark thing as raw and painful as that which lived within her. "Dmitri," she began, just as the door of the house opened to reveal a maid in a crisp black and white uniform.
"It's time."
Her entire body going hot then cold at his words, she walked up the three wide steps with him. The maid stepped aside as they neared. "The mistress is in the morning room, sir."
Honor had no idea what a morning room was, but Dmitri gave a clipped nod. "We won't need you. Take the day off. The Tower will contact you tomorrow."
The maid paled, but said only, "Yes, sir. The cook is also here."
"Tell her she doesn't need to be. Valeria's cattle?"
"In the guesthouse."
"Get them out. You have five minutes."
"Yes, sir." Bobbing her head, the maid bolted down the hall.
That was when Honor realized she'd caught a glimpse of fang. "She was a vampire." Yet Honor felt no fear; the other woman was obviously so much weaker than her, regardless of her vampirism.
"Young," Dmitri answered, shutting the door with a quiet snick. "Serving out her Contract. I'd say first decade."
"No wonder she seemed so human."
"Some of the weak ones never lose that core of humanity." With that, Dmitri led her down the corridor--it was lined with carpet of deep burgundy, the walls covered with the most exquisite cream paper embossed with a subtle motif. Near-immortality did give the Made longer to gain wealth, but Honor had known vamps hundreds of years old who'd never reached this level of affluence. So either Valeria had begun with wealth or she'd created it through a combination of power, will, and ruthless determination.
Dmitri entered a doorway to the right, a shadow in black.
"Dmitri, darling," came a smoky voice that made Honor's body fill with cold terror. Then she caught the dark, musky scent of Blood Ruby. Freezing with her back to the wall beside the doorway, she tried to get the tremors to stop, to control the nausea that threatened to bring up the tea that was all she'd had for breakfast.
"Valeria," Dmitri drawled, even as he twined tendrils of exquisite chocolate and rich liqueur around Honor's senses. The potency of it overwhelmed the musk of Valeria's signature perfume, allowed Honor to draw in a breath.
Dmitri spoke again before the woman in the room could respond. "Did I get you out of bed?"
A low, intimate laugh. "That's one thing you're always welcome to do."
Another sickening jolt. She'd never thought to ask Dmitri if he'd slept with the female vampire. Anger followed hard on the heels of the roiling ugliness of the supposition, a hard, vicious bite that made her want to stab him in that muscular back. The very strength of her reaction was a slap, grounding her once more. Wiping her palms on the thighs of her jeans, she pulled out her gun.
Dmitri seemed to sense the instant she steadied, because he straightened and said, "I've brought you a visitor."
"Oh?" A curious question as Dmitri shifted aside to allow Honor to step into the opening.
Valeria was reclining on a cream-colored chaise lounge set in front of a window, dressed in a crimson satin robe that stopped midthigh--the belt tied loosely enough at her waist that the inside curve of one perfect breast was artfully exposed. She'd angled her head to ensure the early morning light hit it at the ideal angle to heighten her already stunning features. Long golden brown hair curled over her shoulders to bounce against nipples gone hard and ready where they touched the satin.
As an invitation, it couldn't have been clearer.
Until that deep blue gaze turned from its appreciation of Dmitri's body to fall on Honor. Suddenly Valeria was limbs in motion, fury a red flush across the creamy skin of her face as she rose to her feet--but Honor glimpsed a split second of the most vicious hunger beneath the rage. Valeria was recalling how
she'd used Honor, debased her. And she wanted only to do it again.
"Well . . ." Calculation in those stunning eyes that spoke of immortal beauty. "You brought me a snack. You always were a sweetheart."
Honor saw Dmitri tense and--without thinking--reached out to touch him on his back out of sight of Valeria. Not yet. Coiled tension, taut muscle, but he didn't strike, this beautiful predator with death in his eyes. "This is a nice room," he murmured instead in that silken voice Honor never, ever wanted to hear in the dark.
Lines marred the smoothness of Valeria's forehead. "What?"
"Small windows, though," Dmitri continued, his back flexing slightly under Honor's spread hand. Startled to realize she was still touching him, she dropped it. "Means," he added, "there's only one exit."
Honor had always known Dmitri was ruthless, but it was when she glimpsed the dull haze of fear creep over the lake blue of Valeria's gaze that she understood exactly where he stood in the food chain. The female vampire glanced around, her eyes wild when she faced them again. "It was just a bit of fun, Dmitri. You know how it is."
"Hmm. Tell me."
Valeria seemed to take the slow purr as encouragement. "Life can get so tedious after centuries of excess. It was a naughty little thrill to have the hunter at our disposal." Walking forward, sleek thighs exposed in teasing glimpses through the crimson satin, she ignored Honor to stroke her hand down Dmitri's chest, slow and with unhidden pleasure.
Honor's fingers clenched on the gun. It took teeth-gritting control not to put a bullet right between those blue eyes so wide and alluring.
Dmitri simply raised his hand, closed it over the vampire's. "An intriguing game," he said, his voice dropping as he tugged Valeria ever closer, until he was speaking with his lips brushing her ear, her breasts flush against his chest. "I wouldn't have thought you that creative." He fisted his free hand in the brunette's hair.
Valeria's eyes closed, her body shuddering from the contact with his muscled body. "I would take the credit"--a husky whisper--"but you'd find me out."
Dmitri's laugh would've made Honor thrust a blade in his gut and run as far as humanly possible. But Valeria smiled, opened her eyes. "I got an invitation." A greedy look over at Honor. "Her fear was so potent by the time I got there, but she wouldn't scream or beg. Not for weeks."