by Nalini Singh
"I have something to show you," she said, unable to understand the strange ache inside of her.
He followed her to the table, listened in silence.
"I'm near certain," she said after explaining the process by which she'd come to her conclusion, "this is a name." She touched a particular grouping of symbols. "The sample I have to work with is so small that it's possible I could be way off, but I think the sound is something like Asis or Esis."
Dmitri went very, very quiet. "Isis."
A skeletal hand gripped her throat, squeezed. "Tell me about her." Dmitri's face was all hard lines when she glanced up after making that demand, his eyes so remote that she saw nothing and forever in them. "Dmitri." Somehow, her hand was on his forearm, his skin hot through the fine linen of the shirt, his tendons taut.
His face, however, showed nothing. "You shouldn't be touching me right now, Honor."
She jerked away her hand, but the fear she felt had nothing to do with him. It was in her very bones, brought to life by a name that meant nothing . . . and yet it incited not only fear but an anger beyond rage, beyond fury. "Tell me."
Dmitri's voice remained oddly flat as he said, "Isis was the angel who Made me. I stabbed her in the heart and cut her into pieces for it."
Pleasure, vicious and wild, intertwined with a haunting despair, roared through her. Shocked, she dropped the pen she'd been using to explain her reasoning and stumbled backward from the table.
Dmitri's eyes didn't move off Honor as she shoved her hands into her hair, pulling it loose from the messy bun at her nape, and made her way to the kitchen with jerky steps. "That's where I saw this code." On Isis's writing desk--at the start, when she'd taken him to her chambers. "She called it her little secret, but her courtiers and friends had to know it because she wrote notes to them using the code." Too many immortals to single out a name, but he would set that line of investigation in progress.
Right now, it was Honor who held his attention.
As he watched, she began to make tea with the methodical motions of a woman who had often done the same task--and yet who now took care with each and every step of the process. The kind of thing Ingrede had done when she needed to calm herself.
"What," he murmured, leaning on the bench that separated the kitchen area from the dining and living areas, "do you know of Isis?"
The space was open on both sides, so he couldn't block her in, but Honor, skittish as she was, didn't seem to want to run from him. At this moment, as she poured boiling water into a glass teapot, her bones pushing white against her skin, she seemed to be fighting only herself.
"Nothing," she said, putting down the hot water jug and setting the pale red-orange tea to steep. "Yet I want to dance on her grave."
The naked emotion in her voice found an echo inside him. "There is no grave," he said, looking into those deep green eyes full of secrets. "We made sure nothing of her remained." Except it seemed something had survived, some tainted piece now attempting to take root.
"We?"
He saw no harm in sharing the truth--it had never been a secret. "Raphael was there. We killed Isis together." The bond forged in that pain-soaked room beneath the keep, and in the blood and viscera of Isis's death, was one nothing would ever break.
Honor braced her hand on the counter. And then she met his gaze with those eyes that belonged to an immortal, and asked a question he would've never expected from the scared woman who had first walked into his office. "Who were you before Isis, Dmitri?"
"I broke it." A disconsolate whisper.
"Let me see."
"Will you tell Mama?"
"It'll be our secret. There, it's fixed."
"Dmitri, Misha, what are you up to?"
"Secret things, Mama!"
Laughter, sweet and feminine and familiar, followed by Ingrede's quiet footsteps. Heavy with child, she kissed first her giggling son, then her smiling husband.
"I was another man," he said, put on edge by the forceful draw he felt toward Honor. He may have led a life of debauchery after his world burned to ash, may have blackened his soul and indulged in every vice there was in an effort to numb the pain, but he had never, ever betrayed Ingrede where it mattered. His heart, it had remained untouched, encased in stone.
"I will love you even when I am dust on the wind."
This hunter shattered on the innermost level was not likely to tempt him to break that promise . . . but there was no denying that there were hidden depths to her. Depths he was compelled to explore. "You're an excellent shot," he said.
A shrug. "I practice, and Valeria wasn't exactly a moving target." Lines marred her forehead. "I should feel bad about taking advantage when she was pinned up like a butterfly, but I don't. What does that make me?"
"Human. Flawed."
"Strange how that actually makes me feel better." She reached to open an upper cupboard. The motion pulled her gray sweatshirt a fraction tighter over her full breasts, but nowhere near enough to showcase a body that Dmitri was damn certain was meant to be showcased.
Hmm . . .
Turning on his heel, he began to prowl around her apartment. When he turned in the direction of what he guessed was her bedroom, she said, "That's private, Dmitri."
He ignored her.
Heard her swear a blue streak.
But he was already at her closet by the time she ran around the counter to follow. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Seeing who you were before Valeria and Tommy." He pulled out a short scarlet dress with a plunging neckline and no back. "This, I like."
Honor, her cheeks as red as the dress, grabbed the hanger from him. "For your information, I never wore this. It was a gift from a friend."
His enthusiasm cooled. "That's the kind of dress a man buys."
"Or a girlfriend who likes to jerk my chain," she muttered, shoving the dress back into the closet. "Now get out."
He reached in to pull out a number of other items instead, throwing them on the bed. Shirts and simple tops, for the most part, but all of them fitted. Nothing like the shapeless tees and sweatshirts she'd taken to wearing. Throwing them on the bed, he said, "Get dressed properly and I'll show you something you've never before seen."
Glaring at him, she started to put the clothing back. "I happen to be working--the rest of the ink won't decode itself."
A cold burn of anger invading his veins at the reminder of Isis, he shut the closet doors with deliberate care. "From what I saw," he said in a tempered voice, "you've been going around in circles."
A blown-out breath. "I've almost got it. It's there on the tip of my tongue."
"A break will help." While she dressed, he'd make a few calls, including one to Jason. If someone was attempting to revive or revere Isis in any way, shape, or form, Dmitri wanted to know. So he could crush the repugnance.
Movement, Honor walking to the vanity to pick up a brush. "Where are we heading?"
"You'll find out when we get there."
Narrowed eyes. "Leave so I can get dressed."
"Don't take too long." Striding out to her glare, he began to make his phone calls. Jason hadn't heard even a whisper of anything related to an angel named Isis, but promised to alert his network. Dmitri also contacted Illium, instructing him to brief the rest of the Seven. His final call was to Raphael.
The archangel's response was simple. "You're certain?"
"Yes," he said, understanding the question. "I'll handle it." Isis was his nightmare.
Hanging up, he was staring out at a Manhattan still swathed in the graying kiss of night, the Tower dominating the skyline, when the scent of wildflowers in bloom grew stronger. It tugged at long-buried emotions in him, that scent, made him remember the mortal he'd been so many years ago that entire civilizations had risen and fallen during his lifetime.
"Let's go."
He turned to see Honor dressed in ill-fitting jeans and a loose white shirt. "I said properly dressed." He knew full well what she was doing with her s
hapeless clothing, and it turned him merciless. "Just because the predators can't get a good look at you doesn't mean they don't consider you fresh meat."
Fury spotted red high across her cheekbones. "Fuck you, Dmitri."
"Right now?" He gave her a deliberately taunting smile. "Come over here, then, darling."
He saw her hand twitch, knew she was fighting the urge to go for her gun, drill him in the heart. "You know what?" she said. "I think I'd prefer my own company. Get out."
"Pathetic, Honor," he said, well aware the painful buttons he was pressing. "Valeria--if she still has her tongue, which is doubtful--would be laughing at what she's made you."
Honor went motionless. "I think I'm starting to hate you."
"Doesn't bother me." There was strength in hate. It was why he'd survived that dungeon. "It'll make it even sweeter when I have you naked and wet for me."
Not answering, she slammed her way into her bedroom. Ten long minutes later she stepped back out. This time, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, she was dressed in skintight jeans tucked into knee-high black boots, topped with a close-fitting black tee over which she'd thrown a hip-length leather jacket in the same shade. He'd been right--her breasts were luscious, her body a knockout.
Walking over to stop bare inches from a female form that was all but vibrating with rage, he reached out to touch her, the compulsion undeniable. A blur of movement, an elbow to his chest, his legs being kicked out from under him, and suddenly he was crashing onto the floor, looking up at an Honor who was no victim.
Dmitri laughed.
Honor didn't know what she'd expected, but that laugh, deep and masculine and hotly real, wasn't it. When he lifted a hand toward her, she ignored it . . . though it was troubling, how much she wanted to straddle that beautiful body and lean down to kiss those sensual, laughing lips--as if he hadn't just cut into her with the pitiless blade of his voice.
His laughter faded into a smile that was very, very male. "Come here."
She walked to the door instead . . . but she was no longer so sure that when it came to this madness inside her, a madness that bore Dmitri's name, that she'd emerge the winner.
Honor froze when Dmitri brought the car to a halt around the back of a discreet black building in Soho. "You bastard," she said, her voice so soft it was almost not sound. Erotique was the club of choice for the more high-ranked vampires. Its hosts and hostesses--mostly human, but with the occasional "new" vampire thrown in--were trained to know how to deal with the older almost-immortals. Some called the dancers within its exclusive walls the geishas of the West.
Bracing his hand against the back of her seat, Dmitri shot her a glance that appeared darkly amused . . . if you didn't look into those eyes, cold and brutal. "There is a high chance," he said in a voice that was black satin over her breasts, "that at least some of the vampires you'll meet here tonight have already had a taste of you."
"Come on, hunter. Scream a little more. The blood tastes better when you do."
Spots in front of her eyes, her breath strangling in her chest. Her gun was in her hand and pointed at Dmitri's head before she was aware of pulling it from the shoulder holster. "I'm leaving."
Dmitri moved at lightning speed, and suddenly her gun was in his grip, that sensual face an inch from her own. "Taunt them with your survival, Honor. Or run like a scared rabbit. Your choice."
The violence within her body needed release--she wanted to hit Dmitri, bloody him. "Why do you care?" It was a harsh whisper. "I'm just a new diversion for you."
"True." Touching the nose of her gun to her cheek. "But I find there's no fun in playing with someone who's already half dead." He put the weapon in her lap and pushed open his door to step out. "Strange," he murmured, snicking the door shut, "how you sometimes remind me of her, and yet you don't have even a glimmer of her spirit."
She stared at his retreating form as he headed toward the back entrance of the club, leaving her alone in a panther of a car, gun heavy in her holster as she slid it back in. His words had been calculated to incite a reaction, but they still hit. Hard.
"You're no fun anymore, hunter. I expected more resistance to this game."
Vaulting out of the vehicle, she stalked after Dmitri. He glanced over his shoulder, waited for her to catch up. "Try not to shoot anyone." A low purr that stroked her senses with an intimacy as lush as the sinuous scent of midnight roses. "We need people to talk."
They'd reached the door by then, a door the bouncer was already holding open. "Sir," he said, keeping his eyes scrupulously off Honor.
"He looked surprised," she said once they were inside the back corridor. "Not usually your scene?"
"No." Angling his head in her direction as they turned toward the throaty sound of a jazz singer coming from the left, he said, "They'll assume I have you in my bed."
13
Closer, the singer's voice tangled with the music of soft conversation. The voices were elegant, cultured . . . just like the ones she'd heard in the basement. "I know," she said, determined not to let this drive her back into the dark, "but since you have a reputation for enjoying pain, I'm sure they won't be surprised if I give in to the need to stab you."
A gleam of laughter in those eyes so dark and old, but he said nothing as they walked through the doorway into what appeared to be a very genteel bar, complete with a chanteuse in a glittery green dress on a low stage to the side. The lighting was soft, the groupings of tables intimate, the clientele dressed in immaculate formal clothing. "A bit early for cocktails."
"Or very late," Dmitri answered. "Time means little here."
All the men and women in her line of sight were old enough that vampirism had worked its magic, honing their looks to a level of beauty only possessed by the rare mortal. "I expected . . ." In truth, she'd never thought that much about Erotique, but what she had heard focused on an aspect that was missing here. "The dancers?"
"In another section," Dmitri told her. "There's an entire floor below us, as well as a number of other more intimate areas similar to this one."
"Dmitri." A stunning woman in a clinging black dress that reached her ankles and showcased her assets with sensual elegance crossed the room to them, her steps quick. "I didn't know you were coming or we'd have set up a private room for you and your guest."
"Get us that corner table, Dulce." His voice was that of a man who expected instant obedience. "Champagne. And find Illium."
The barest flicker of . . . something on the perfect bones of Dulce's face, gone as fast as it had appeared. "Yes, of course."
Honor saw the couple already at the corner table move with alacrity when they saw the hostess heading toward them. There was more than a little fear in their movements. Aware that vampires of a certain age had preternatural hearing, she leaned up to speak against Dmitri's ear. With any other man, any other vampire, she'd have been close to throwing up by now . . . but whatever inexplicable alchemy existed between her and Dmitri, it allowed her to breathe in his scent, say, "Do you keep them afraid on purpose?"
His hand only just brushed her lower back. "Means I have to execute fewer of them."
She didn't say anything else until they were seated and Dulce had melted away after serving the champagne. "Dulce isn't human." It had been the eyes that had given her away. An intense deep purple, jewel bright against raven black hair. No human had eyes that color--and the contact lenses hadn't been invented that could mimic that kind of otherworldly beauty.
"No. She manages Erotique, has done so for the past ten years." A raised eyebrow. "You didn't think I'd be greeted by anyone less than the manager, did you, Honor?"
She didn't take the bait. "Why are we here?"
"Look in the corner diagonally opposite."
Following his gaze, she saw a tall, sandy-haired vampire with a curvy brunette in his lap. Neither had noted Dmitri's arrival--and the reason why was clear. The vampire's pale hand lay on the shimmering silver of the woman's ankle-length gown, dangerously close
to the full curves of her breasts, his lips nuzzling the long line of her throat. They both went motionless an instant later, and then the vampire was feeding, his throat muscles moving, as the brunette threw back her head in silent orgasm.
Honor's hand clenched around the champagne flute in front of her. Scanning the room, she realized more than one vampire was feeding--and they weren't all male. An ethereally lovely woman with Hispanic features was stroking her hands into the hair of a slender blond male, the crystal blue sharpness of her nails dramatic points against his skin as she wrenched him down to feed just above the pulse point in his neck.
"I thought," she said, throat dry, "this was a club, not a feeding orgy."
Dmitri's laugh was a rope of fur twining around her senses. "So innocent, Honor." He took a sip of his champagne. "Some vampires come here because they know they'll find a willing partner should they need one, partners who know what to expect. But most of the others are lovers indulging in a little harmless exhibitionism."
Obviously noting her gaze on the female vampire, he said, "That's Amalia. She likes them young--but he's legal, adult enough to make a choice." There was something in that statement, something old and buried and so angry.
"You're watching the vampire with the attractive brunette," she said, knowing that even if Dmitri did get her into bed, that's all it would ever be--sex. Erotic, sinful, dangerous sex, but nothing beyond a physical coupling. No secrets would be shared, no bonds forged. "Why?"
"That is Evert Markson. Tommy's best friend."
Her head jerked up. "You knew he was going to be here."
"Evert has the rather distasteful habit of feeding at Erotique on a regular basis."
It was hard not to stare at Markson, but she kept her attention on Dmitri. "You just told me vampires come here to feed."
"Only now and then, when they don't have a regular lover or donor. Perhaps if they are visiting from out of town." He placed his champagne flute on the table. "The reason Evert needs to feed at Erotique is that he hurts his lovers so badly that not even the worst of the groupies will go near him now. The hostesses here only acquiesce on the condition that he feeds in public, where he can be monitored."
Heart in her throat, Honor looked back at the brunette in Markson's arms, seeing what she'd missed earlier--the shallow breaths, the white lines bracketing full lips pursed tight. "She's not orgasming, is she?" The urge to get up and tear the vampire off the other woman had every muscle in her body tense to breaking point.