by Nalini Singh
Dmitri jerked Valeria's face back toward him, the act ungentle. "You kept the invitation, didn't you?"
"Yes. It was a memento." Lips trailing over his jaw. "Did you bring her for me, Dmitri? Can I have her all to myself?"
Honor touched her hand to Dmitri's back again, not knowing why she believed that would do any good, not even knowing why she thought she could possibly read this vampire so old and powerful it made her bones ache to think about it.
"First tell me who you shared her with," he whispered, ignoring the fact that Valeria had tugged open the tie of her robe to expose creamy skin framed in crimson. "I want to know who else has your tastes."
"But I want her to myself." Petulance.
"Valeria."
The woman all but orgasmed at the command in that voice full of knife blades and midnight screams. "They say you make it hurt, Dmitri."
In response, he used his grip on her hair to pull her head back so hard it made tears form in her eyes. She licked her lips, made no effort to cover the dark pink nipple exposed by the shift of satin over skin. "Tommy. I saw Tommy there once when I ran late during my turn with her."
Honor remembered that day, remembered the elegant female voice arguing with the deeper male one as Valeria cajoled the man into allowing her to stay.
"We'll play together." The sound of clothes brushing up against each other, the wetness of a slow kiss. "You know you like the way I play."
The man--Tommy--had eventually folded. Together the two of them had . . . they'd made Honor scream. Her hand clenched on Dmitri's T-shirt as he moved the hand not in Valeria's hair to close around her throat. "Just Tommy?"
"There were others, but I never saw. We had our own times." Breasts rising and falling, lips parting.
"The invitation, Valeria." Unvarnished command. "Tell me about the invitation."
The brunette shaped the rigid muscle of his chest with possessive hands Honor wanted to break into a thousand pieces. "In my bedroom, in the top drawer of the little table beside the bed." Fingers trailing down to tug up his tee, revealing skin of a warm, dark tan. "I'll show you when we go up." Again, her eyes shifted to Honor. "I want her."
That was when Dmitri smiled, arched Valeria's neck again . . . and slit her throat with about as much emotion as might be expected from a hunting cat taking down prey, the heavy blade a sleek silver shimmer in the morning sunlight.
As the female vampire clapped her hands around her throat, he gripped her by that throat and pinned her against the wall with the blade thrust into her neck. "Don't pull it out," he ordered when Valeria went to do exactly that. "Or I'll cut off your hands."
Honor had jerked up her gun at the first slice, but now her eyes met Dmitri's as he raised an eyebrow. She shook her head. "I can't shoot her now." Not when the vampire was pinned like an insect, the red satin of her robe a wetter, richer shade, her skin bloody cream.
Dmitri moved toward Honor, and she realized that aside from the hand he'd used to grip Valeria's throat, he'd managed to avoid getting any blood on himself in spite of the arterial gush--which led to the very scary conclusion that he'd done this before. "You," he said, touching her chin with the fingers of his clean hand, before ripping out the roses from a vase and upending it to wash the bloody one clean, "are too human."
Yes. It was a welcome shock, a confirmation that she'd retained the core of herself no matter the horror of that dark pit where Valeria and Tommy and their grotesque friends had used her until they tore her very spirit to tatters. Walking past Dmitri to face the brunette vampire, she said, "Anything else you'd like to share about my kidnapping and assault?" to the monster with the wide blue eyes.
Dmitri took a seat on the chaise, reaching over to choose a chocolate from the crystal bowl on a nearby table. When Valeria bared her teeth at Honor, refusing to answer the question, he shot the other woman through the thigh, in almost precisely the spot where the female vampire liked to feed.
Valeria screamed, high and shrill.
Honor understood that the punishments used for immortals, their bodies able to recover from brutal injuries, weren't the same as for mortals. But she'd never been up close and personal with the merciless reality of it. "Does it bother you at all?" she asked Dmitri when Valeria's screams died out into sobs.
He shrugged, shoulders moving with muscled grace beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt. "No." Putting his gun down beside the crystal bowl, he said, "Valeria, be a good hostess and answer Honor's question," before popping one of the chocolates into his mouth.
"I don't know anything else," the vampire sobbed, her eyes rimmed red with her tears. "J-just about T-Tommy."
"Oh, don't worry," Honor said, remembering how Valeria had sipped at her own tears, how she'd giggled when Honor screamed so much her throat turned raw, her voice gone, "we'll get to Tommy." She didn't know what Valeria heard in her voice, but the vampire suddenly looked afraid in a way Honor would have never expected in a vampire of her age and power.
"He did everything, remember?" Valeria said, hands rising to her throat again as the wound began to heal around the heavy hunting knife.
"I wouldn't." Dmitri ate another chocolate.
Dropping her hands in spasming fear, Valeria continued to speak to Honor, eyes shimmering with tears. "He was the one who hurt you--I just wanted to feed."
Yes, Tommy had hurt her, as only a man could hurt a woman. But only because Valeria had egged him on. Before that, his physical assaults had been relatively minor in the scheme of things--the bastard had enjoyed her blood more than anything else. Valeria, however, had always been very inventive when it was just her and Honor in the dark.
"Oh, did that hurt?" A whisper-soft laugh. "Naughty me. But a girl has to feed."
"Dmitri," Honor said, "I've changed my mind."
And then she shot Valeria through the other thigh.
10
It worried her a little that she didn't hesitate, but this woman, who now screamed because it was her own flesh on the line, had tortured her. Who the fuck was anyone else to say what would make her feel better . . . because putting that bullet in Valeria sure as hell did. "I'm done." Never again would this pathetic creature stalk her in her nightmares.
"See if you can find the invitation." Dmitri rose to his feet. "Valeria and I need to talk in private."
Holstering her weapon, she turned to him. "Don't kill her." It would be too quick, not enough. And from what Valeria had done to her, her expertise in certain kinds of pain, Honor knew she was far from the vampire's first victim.
A lazy smile that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "Trust me."
The strange thing was that she did. Perhaps that made her a self-deluding fool, but it didn't change the fact of it. Leaving him with the terrified vampire, who was already whimpering and attempting to cajole a man Honor knew no female wiles would ever influence, she strode out and up the stairs.
The theme of opulent elegance continued on through the rest of the house, the artwork on the walls displayed in frames gilded with gold, but tastefully so, the runners handmade in tones that didn't break the flow of the decor, an exquisitely carved marble banister bordering the curving staircase to the second level. The bedroom boasted a massive four-poster bed of dark wood with curtains tied neatly back at the corners. The sheets were finest Egyptian cotton, tumbled from Valeria's early morning wake-up.
It was as she was opening the bedside drawer that the first scream reverberated through the house, so high-pitched that Honor couldn't imagine what Dmitri was doing to Valeria. Pity stirred within her, but she set her jaw and kept going. Because if Dmitri showed mercy here, then other vampires would soon begin to give in to their darkest lusts and the world would turn bloodred.
There.
The invitation was a silver card folded in half.
Ennui is such a bore, is it not, Valeria? Words written in black ink in a graceful hand that could've been either male or female. I have an entertainment that should satisfy even your jaded app
etites.
Below that was an address, a list of three dates and times, and a note that said: Should you wish to indulge, come at the same times on the same days in the weeks following.
There was no signature, and though Honor had handled the note with care, she knew there were unlikely to be any fingerprints. Still, she went down to the kitchen, to the accompaniment of another chilling scream, and found a plastic bag. Not Ziploc, but it would do for now. Placing the card inside, she walked back to the morning room, the halls full of a lingering silence broken only by the sound of Valeria's whimpers.
She stepped inside to find not a speck of blood on Dmitri's body or clothes, his bronzed arms catching her eye as he tucked his gun into an ankle holster with the unhurried actions of a man who knew he was the most dangerous thing in the room by far. Valeria by contrast, was somehow . . . diminished.
"I have it," she said.
"Good." He angled his head toward the drive. "Illium will watch Valeria until Andreas's men arrive."
Valeria made a low, pleading sound just as Honor looked out the window--to glimpse the astonishing sight of an angel with wings of silver-kissed blue coming to land on the verdant green of the lawn. "He's . . ." Her breath rushed out of her. She'd seen still photos, even television images of the blue-winged angel, but none of it had done him justice. None of it could.
The impact was even more startling up close. Staring at him as they met by the car, she took in the eyes of Venetian gold, the black hair dipped in shimmering blue, the face that was so pure in its beauty, he should've been too pretty. He wasn't. He was simply the most beautiful male creature she had ever seen in her life.
Meeting her gaze, he said, "I' m Illium."
Her lips threatened to curve at the unashamed curiosity in those golden eyes. "Honor."
Dmitri, having taken a quick call on his cell phone, opened the driver's-side door. "Valeria tries anything," he told Illium, "cut her arms off."
The blue-winged angel didn't look the least disturbed by the order. Added to Dmitri's obvious trust in him, it made it clear that, beauty or not, Illium was no pretty ornament. Though, she thought, catching the acute intelligence in that face as he spoke to Dmitri, he was fully capable of using the impact of his looks to his advantage.
"Elena and Raphael are on their way," he now said. "Be landing around six tonight."
Giving a crisp nod, Dmitri slid into the car. "Honor. Stop flirting with Illium. It only encourages his vanity."
"He's right." Illium walked around to open the passengerside door for her. "I'm also a gentleman, unlike some people."
As she got in the car, their eyes met and she wondered who he was beyond the startling beauty and the charm, this Illium with his wings of blue. "Thank you."
His responding look was assessing . . . almost gentle. "You're not like the others."
"What?"
Dmitri roared away before Illium had a chance to respond. When she glanced back, it was to see him watching them with a distinctly considering expression on his face, his wings spread to catch the early morning sunlight. Silver threads glittered, turning him into a living mirage. "I thought," she said, after he disappeared from view, "angels were higher up in the food chain than vampires." And yet Illium had taken orders from Dmitri.
"He's one of the Seven, Raphael's elite guard," Dmitri told her as they turned out of the gates. "I lead them."
Raphael's second. The reason for the title was suddenly so much clearer. "I've never met an angel like Illium." Regardless of his stunning appearance, he had seemed more "human" than any other immortal she had ever met.
A hard glance. "Flirt with him if you want, Honor, but you're mine."
The blunt words were a shock . . . and not. "I don't know what this--between us--is," she said, acknowledging the dark fire that had burned between them from the start, "but I do know that for my mental health, I need to stay far, far away from you."
"Too bad." Said with the same lack of emotion with which he'd shot Valeria.
It scared her. A sane response. What wasn't sane was that she wanted to reach out and touch the brutal angle of his jaw, soften him somehow. Impossible. "If it comes down to it, I'll die to hold on to my freedom," she said, letting the wind whip her hair off her face. "I won't ever be a prisoner again, yours or anyone else's." It was a vow she'd made as she lay a broken doll in a hospital bed, one she'd spill the dark red of heart's blood to keep.
Dmitri shifted gears with the ease of a man used to power. "I don't intend to break you, Honor." The harsh edge replaced by black silk, sinful and tantalizing as the rich scent of chocolate seeped into her very bones. "I intend to seduce you."
A burst of heat low in her body, a pulse of attraction that followed no rules of rational behavior . . . and an obsession she couldn't fight. "Ever had a woman say no to you, Dmitri?"
"Once." He turned the corner with a smile that made her want to cup his face, trace those beautiful lips with her own. "I married her."
Dmitri wasn't certain why he'd told Honor that, when he spoke of Ingrede to no one. Raphael alone knew, and the archangel respected his wish to keep silent on the matter, on the wound that had never healed. "Tommy," he said, changing the direction of the conversation when Honor opened her mouth as if to ask him about the only woman in his long, long life who had ever held his heart, "is Thomas Beckworth the Third."
Honor's gaze lay heavy on him but she took the cue. "Tommy is a common name."
"Valeria confirmed." When she'd realized that begging and pleading wasn't going to work, the female vampire had attempted to hold the information hostage. It had only taken a couple of broken bones to end that. Dmitri had made certain those breaks echoed the half-healed fractures he'd seen on the X-rays taken after Honor's rescue.
"Please, Dmitri," Valeria had cried. "Don't turn into a monster because of a mortal."
It had made him smile in genuine amusement. "Dear Valeria, I was a monster before you were born." He'd become one the instant the cottage burned, taking the best part of him with it.
"According to a search I asked Venom to run while you were upstairs," he said, glancing away from a memory that would haunt him for all eternity, "seems like Tommy's gone to ground."
A whisper of scent, wildflowers in bloom as Honor shifted in her seat. "He can't know we're onto him."
The scent of her wrapped around him, touching him on a level he didn't permit any woman. "No," he said, hand tightening on the steering wheel, "but he's connected enough that he must have realized you were working for me."
Honor caught the lines of tension around his mouth, had to curl her fingers into her hand to stop the urge to lean over and stroke them away. This madness, it might just get her killed.
"We'll go to Tommy's home," he continued when she didn't interrupt, "see what we can discover."
That home proved to be as ostentatious within as Valeria's had been elegant. Ornate scrollwork on the moldings, wallpaper so ugly it had to have been bought more with reference to cost than taste, the furniture clunky and covered in floral fabric as hideous--and undoubtedly as expensive--as the wallpaper.
But the bedroom was what took the cake.
"Wow," Honor said, staring at the enormous circular bed covered in pink satin sheets as well as thousands of bloated pillows edged in white fur. "I didn't think people actually had beds like this outside of a porn set on steroids." Unable to stop herself, she looked up. "A mirrored ceiling. I'm shocked."
Dmitri began to laugh, and it was a wild, beautiful sound that cut off with harsh abruptness. "Honor, leave the room." An order coated in frost.
Her stomach clenched. It would've been so easy to turn on her heel, to allow him to shield her--and that was what he was attempting to do, this dangerous creature who would never be human--but to do so would be to give in to the bastards who had tried to destroy her. "No more running," she said, keeping her tone calm through vicious force of will. "Show me."
A taut moment, dark, dark eyes examining her.
"Honor."
"Some battles," she said softly, holding that gaze full of secrets so very old, "a woman has to fight on her own."
His cheekbones cut against his skin as he said, "Behind you."
The blown-up black-and-white photograph covered the entire wall facing the bed. It was of a naked woman hanging from heavy chains by her wrists, her legs spread and manacled to the floor. Her head was slumped, her hair falling around her face, the side of her breast bleeding where a vampire had fed.
It was Honor.
Walking across to that image that threatened to catapult her back into a nightmare, she took out a blade and slowly, methodically, began to cut it to pieces. "I forgot," she said, swallowing her rage when it threatened to drown her, "that he took pictures."
Click. Click.
The sound had humiliated her anew when she had thought herself hardened to everything her abusers could do to her. "Then he began bringing the video camera." Which meant there were recordings of her somewhere, recordings where she tried not to scream as Tommy hurt her. That was why she'd forgotten--because she couldn't bear the shame of knowing others, perhaps her friends, would see her trapped and helpless and degraded . . . but of course, she had never truly forgotten.
"We'll find the original images and recordings." Dmitri began going through the bedroom with quiet, focused fury, ripping out drawers, emptying shelves. "He'll have kept them for himself, a secret thing, because as soon as they got out, he knew I'd slit his throat."
"You can't know that." A pain in her chest, so huge, so heavy.
Dmitri walked over to help her pull off the last piece, watched in silence as she tore it into even smaller shreds. "No matter what," he said, when the last scraps fluttered to the ground at her feet, a thousand black and white moths, "those images will never see the light of day."
In his eyes, she saw a chilling prophecy of death.
Tommy wasn't the smartest of men--they found the memory cards holding the photos and videos in a wall safe. Dmitri said nothing when she disappeared to the car--and to her laptop--to check that the images gave no clues that could lead to the identification of the other members of this sick little group.