[ Truyện Tiếng Anh] Angel's Blood

Author : Nalini Singh

Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux knows she is the best- but she does not know if even she is good enough for this job. Hired by the dangerously beautiful archangel Raphael, a being so lethal that no mortal wants his attention, Elena knows failure is not an option—even if the task is impossible.
Because this time, it's not a wayward vamp she has to track. It's an archangel gone bad.
The job will put Elena in the midst of a killing spree like no other—and pull her to the razor's edge of passion. Even if the hunt does not destroy her, succumbing to Raphael’s seductive touch just might. For when archangels play, mortals break.

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 1



When Elena told people she was a vampire hunter, their first reaction was an inevitable gasp, followed by, "You go around sticking those sharp stakes in their evil putrid hearts?"

Okay, maybe the actual words varied but the feel was the same. It made her want to track down and exterminate the idiot fifteenth-century storyteller who'd made up that tale in the first place. Of course, the vampires had probably already taken care of it-after the first few of them ended up in whatever passed for an emergency room back then.

Elena didn't stake vampires. She tracked them, bagged them, and returned them to their masters-the angels. Some people called her kind bounty hunters, but according to her Guild card, she was "Licensed to Hunt Vampires Assorted Others"-which made her a vampire hunter, with the attendant benefits, including hazard pay. That pay was very healthy. It had to be to compensate for the fact that hunters occasionally had their jugulars torn open.

Still, Elena decided she needed a pay raise after her calf muscle started protesting. She'd been stuck in a cramped corner of an alley in the Bronx for the past two hours, a too tall female with pale, almost white hair and silver eyes. The hair was a pain in the butt. According to her sometimes friend Ransom, she might as well wear a sign announcing her presence. Since dyes wouldn't work on it for longer than two minutes, Elena had a great collection of knit caps.

She was tempted to pull her current one down over her nose, but had a feeling that would only intensify the malodorous "ambience" of this dank piece of New York City. That led her to thinking about the virtues of nose plugs-

Something rustled behind her.

She swiveled . . . to come face-to-face with a stalking cat, its eyes reflecting silver in the darkness. Satisfied the animal was what it seemed, she returned her attention to the sidewalk, wondering if her eyes shone as freakily as that cat's. It was a good thing she'd inherited dark gold skin from her Moroccan grandmother or she'd have resembled a ghost.

"Where the hell are you?" she muttered, reaching down to rub at her calf. This vamp had led her on a merry chase-through his own sheer stupi***y. He didn't know what he was doing, which made him a little hard to second-guess.

Ransom had once asked her if it bothered her to round up helpless vampires and drag their sorry asses back to a life of virtual slavery. He'd been laughing hysterically at the time. No, it didn't bother her. Just like it didn't bother him. The vamps chose that slavery-of a hundred years' duration-the instant they petitioned an angel to Make them almost-immortal. If they had stayed human, if they had gone to their graves in peace, then they wouldn't have found themselves bound by a contract signed in blood. And while the angels did take advantage of their position, a contract was a contract.

A flash of light in the street.

Bingo!

There was the target, chomping away on a cigar and boasting on his cell phone about how he was a Made man now and no prissy angel was going to tell him what to do. Even with several feet of distance between them, she could smell the sweat pooling under his armpits. The vampirism hadn't yet advanced enough to melt away the fat he wore like a spare coat, and he thought he could run out on a contract with an angel?

Idiot.

Walking out, she pulled off her knit cap and stuffed it in her back pocket. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders in a soft cloud, distinctive and bright. It wasn't a risk. Not tonight. She might have been well known by the locals, but this vampire had a distinct Australian accent. He'd recently arrived from Sydney-and his master wanted him back in that city, pronto.

"Got a light?"

The vampire jumped and dropped his phone. Elena barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. He wasn't even fully formed-the canines he'd flashed in surprise were only baby teeth. No wonder his master was pissed. The bonehead had to have scuttled after not much more than a year or so of service.

"Sorry," she said with a smile as he retrieved the phone and weighed her up. She knew what he saw. A lone female with bimbo blonde hair, dressed in black leather jeans and a form-fitting long-sleeved top in the same color, no visible weapons.

Because he was young and stupid, the image made him relax. "Sure, sweet thang." He reached into his pocket for the lighter.

That was when Elena leaned forward, one hand sweeping behind her back and under her top. "Tut-tut. Mr. Ebose is very disappointed in you." She'd retrieved and locked the necklet into place before he processed the meaning of that huskily spoken censure. His eyes bulged red, but instead of screaming, he stood silently in place. A hunter's necklet had a way of freezing a man. Fear was a live thing skittering across his face.

She'd have felt sorry for him if she hadn't known that he'd torn out four human throats in the course of his escape. That was not acceptable. The angels protected their get but even they had limits-Mr. Ebose had authorized the use of any and all force necessary on this one.

Now, she let that knowledge bleed into the open, let the vampire see her willingness to hurt him. His face lost what color he'd managed to retain. She smiled. "Follow me."

He trotted behind her like an obedient puppy. Damn, but she loved the necklets. Her best friend, Sara, liked to shoot the targets with honest-to-god arrows-the arrowheads were doctored to contain the same control chip that made the necklets so effective. The instant it touched skin, the chip apparently emitted some kind of an electromagnetic field that temporarily short-circuited a vampire's neural processes, leaving the target open *****ggestion. Elena didn't know the science of it all, but she knew the limits and advantages of her chosen method of capture.

Yeah, she did have to get closer to her targets than Sara, but conversely, there was no chance of missing and hitting an innocent bystander. Which Sara had once done. It had cost her half a year's pay to settle the lawsuit. Lips curving at the thought of how pissed her friend had been at not making the shot, Elena opened the passenger-side door of the car she'd parked nearby. "Inside."

The baby vamp squeezed in his girth with effort.

Making sure he was belted in, she called Mr. Ebose's head of security. "I've got him."

The voice at the other end instructed her to drop the package off at a private airstrip.

Unsurprised by the chosen location, she hung up and began driving. In silence. It would've been a bit redundant to try to make conversation, as the vamp had lost the ability to speak the instant she clamped him. The muting was a side effect of the neural straitjacket created by the necklet. Before the inception of the chip-embedded devices, vampire hunting had been something of a suicidal career choice, as even the babiest vamps had the ability to tear a human to pieces. Of course, according to the latest research, vampire hunters weren't quite human, but they were close enough.

Arriving at the airstrip, she cleared security and was directed onto the tarmac. The team charged with escorting the vampire back to Sydney was waiting beside a sleek private jet. Elena took the captured male to them and they immediately nodded at her to go on in. She had to stow the package personally, as they didn't have the license to handle him at this point in the journey. Clearly, Mr. Ebose had good lawyers. He wasn't taking any chances that could lead to him being brought up on charges by the Vampire Protection Authority.

Not that the VPA had ever managed to make cruelty allegations stick. All the angels had to do was display a couple of photos of humans with their throats torn out, and the jury was ready not only to acquit, but to give them a medal in the process.

Elena escorted the vamp up the steps and to the large open crate at the back of the passenger hold. "Inside."

He walked in then turned to face her, terror pouring off him in a wave that had already soaked through his shirt.

"Sorry, bud. You killed three women and one old man. That tilts the pity slate way over in the wrong direction." Slamming the door on him, she padlocked it. The necklet would go with him to Sydney, from there it'd be returned directly to the Guild, as per the agreed protocol with all chip-embedded devices. "He's ready to go, boys."

The head guard-all four had followed her inside-looked her up and down with eyes the startling shade of robin's eggs. "No injuries. Impressive." He handed over an envelope. "The transfer has been made to your Guild account, as agreed."

Elena checked the confirmation slip. Her eyebrows rose. "Mr. Ebose has been generous."

"A bonus for early and unharmed capture of the target. Mr. Ebose has plans for him. Old Jerry was his favorite secretary."

Elena winced. The problem with being basically immortal was that you could have a lot of things done to you and not die. She'd once seen a vampire who'd had every one of his limbs amputated . . . without anesthetic. By the time the Guild rescue squad liberated him from the clutches of the hate group that had kidnapped him, he'd been beyond reason or coherence. But there had been a video. That was how they knew the tortured man had remained conscious throughout. She bet the angels didn't show that video to the petitioners who came in their...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 2



The first thing she did after recovering from the compulsion to throw up was call the Guild. "I need to speak to Sara," she told the receptionist.

"I'm sorry. The director has left the office."

Hanging up, Elena punched in the number to Sara's home line.

The other woman picked up after barely half a ring. "Now, how did I know I was going to hear from you today?"

Elena's hand clenched on the phone. "Sara, please tell me I'm having a delusion and you did not sign me up to work for an archangel."

"Er . . . um . . ." Sara Haziz, Guild Director for the entire U.S. of A., and all-around tough-ass, suddenly sounded more like a nervous teenage girl. "Hell, Ellie, it's not like I could say no."

"What would he have done-killed you?"

"Probably," Sara muttered. "His vampire lackey made it very clear that he wanted you. And that he is not used to being denied."

"You tried to say no?"

"I am your best friend. Gimme a little cre***, here."

Slumping into the sofa cushions, Elena stared out at the Tower. "What's the job?

"I don't know." Sara began to make soft cooing sounds. "Don't worry-I'm not wasting my breath in a futile attempt to calm you down. The baby's awake. Aren't you, sweetie pie?" Kissing noises filled the air.

Elena still couldn't believe Sara had gone and tied the knot. And had a baby to boot. "How's Mini Me?" Sara had named her daughter Zoe Elena. Damn if Elena hadn't sniffled like a baby herself when she found out. "Hope she's giving you hell."

"She loves her mommy." More kissing noises. "And she said to tell you she's gonna Mini Me you after she grows a few more feet. She and Slayer are a crack team."

Elena laughed at the mention of the monster dog that lived to slobber on unsuspecting people. "Where's your beloved? I thought Deacon liked doing the baby stuff."

"He does." Sara's smile was apparent even through the telephone line and it made something inside Elena clench in the most vicious of ways. It wasn't that she begrudged Sara her happiness, or that she wanted Deacon. No, it was something far deeper, a sense of time slipping through her fingers.

Over the past year, it had become increasingly obvious that her friends were moving on to the next stages of their lives, while she remained in limbo, a twenty-eight-year-old vampire hunter with no strings, no attachments. Sara had put down her bow and arrow-except for the odd urgent hunt-and taken on the most critical desk job in the Guild. Her lethally skilled tracker of a husband had gone into the business of manufacturing hunter tools (and changing diapers), with a slow grin that all but shouted contentment. Hell, even Ransom had had the same bed partner for the past two months.

"Hey, Ellie, you gone to sleep?" Sara asked over the baby's happy squeals. "Having dreams about your archangel?"

"More like nightmares," she muttered, squinting as she caught sight of an angel coming to land on the Tower roof. Her heart skipped a beat as his wings flared out to slow his descent. "You never finished telling me about Deacon. Why isn't he on baby duty?"

"He's gone to the store with Slayer to pick up some double-chocolate very-berry ice cream. I told him the cravings stick around for a while after birth."

Sara's delight in fooling her husband should have made Elena laugh, but she was too aware of the fear crawling up her spine. "Sara, did the vampire give you any hint of why he asked for me?"

"Sure. He said Raphael wanted the best."

"I'm the best," Elena muttered the next morning as she got out of the taxi in front of the magnificent creation that was Archangel Tower. "I'm the best."

"Hey, lady, you gonna pay me or just talk to yourself?"

"What? Oh." Pulling out a twenty-dollar note, she bent down and crushed it into the cabbie's hand. "Keep the change."

His scowl turned into a grin. "Thanks! What, you got a big hunt coming on?"

Elena didn't ask how he'd pegged her for a hunter. "No. But I do have a high chance of meeting a horrible death within the next few hours. Might as well do something good and up my shot at getting into heaven."

The cabbie thought she was a riot. He was still laughing as he drove off, leaving her standing on the very edge of the wide path that led up to the Tower entrance. The unusually bright morning sunlight glared off the white stone of the path, sharp enough to cut. Pulling off her shades from where she'd hung them-in the vee of her shirt-she placed them gratefully over her tired, sleep-deprived eyes. Now that she was no longer in danger of being blinded, she saw the shadows she'd missed earlier. Of course she'd known they were there-sight wasn't her primary sense when it came to vampires.

Several of them stood along the sides of the Tower but there were at least ten others hidden or walking around in the well-cared-for shrubbery outside. All were dressed in dark suits teamed with white shirts, their hair cut in the sleek, perfect lines patented by FBI agents. Black shades and discreet earpieces finished off the secret-agent effect.

But internal commentary aside, Elena knew these vampires were nothing like the one she'd tagged last night. These guys had been around a long time. Their intense scent-dark but not unpleasant-when added to the fact that they were guarding Archangel Tower, told her they were both smart and extremely dangerous. As she watched, two of them moved out of the shrubbery and into the path of direct sunlight.

Neither burst into flames.

Such a violent reaction *****nlight-another myth embraced by the moviemakers-would have made her job a heck of a lot easier. All she'd have had to do was wait until they went down for the count. But no, most vampires were perfectly capable of walking around twenty-four hours a day. The few that suffered from light sensitivity still didn't "die" when the sun came up. They simply found shade. "And you're procrastinating-soon you'll be composing an ode to the gardens," she muttered under her breath. "You're a professional. You're the best. You can do this."

Taking a deep breath and trying not to think about the angels she knew were flying overhead, she began walking toward the entrance. Nobody paid her any overt attention, but when she finally reached the door, the vampire on duty bowed his head in a small nod and opened it for her. "Straight through to the reception desk."

Elena blinked and removed her sunglasses. "Don't you want to check my ID?"

"You're expected."

The doorvamp's insidiously seductive scent-an unusual trait thought to be an evolutionary adaptation against the hunters' tracking abilities-swirled around her in a sinister caress as she thanked him and walked through.

The air-con***ioned lobby was a seemingly endless space dominated by deep gray marble shot through with discreet veins of gold. As an example of wealth, good taste, and subtle intimidation, it took first prize. She was suddenly very glad she'd traded in her usual jeans and T-shirt combo for a pair of tailored black pants and a crisp white shirt. She'd even tamed her slithery hair into a French twist and stuffed her feet into high heels.

Those heels hit the marble with sharp businesslike sounds as she crossed the lobby. As she walked, she noted everything around her, from the number of vampire guards, to the exquisite-though slightly odd-flower arrangements, to the fact that the receptionist was a very, very, very old vampire . . . with the face and body of a well-maintained thirty-year-old.

"Ms. Deveraux, I'm Suhani." The receptionist rose with a smile and walked out from behind her curving desk. It, too, was stone, but of a jet so well polished, it reflected everything with mirror perfection. "I'm so pleased to meet you."

Elena shook the woman's hand, sensing the flow of fresh blood, the beat of a racing heart. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Suhani who it was that she'd breakfasted on-the blood was unusually potent-but she caught the impulse before it could get her into trouble. "Thank you."

Suhani smiled and, to Elena's eyes, it was a smile filled with old knowledge, with centuries of experience. "You must've made good time." She glanced at her watch. "It's only seven forty-five."

"The traffic was light." And she hadn't wanted to start this meeting out on the wrong foot. "Am I too early?"

"No. He's waiting for you." The smile faded, to be replaced by a slightly disappointed expression. "I thought you'd be . . . scarier."

"Don't tell me you watch Hunter's Prey?" The disgusted comment was out before she could stop it.

Suhani gave her a disconcertingly human grin. "Guilty, I'm afraid. The show is just so entertaining. And S. R. Stoker-the producer-is a former vampire hunter."

Yeah, and she was the Tooth Fairy. "Let me guess, you expected me to carry a big sword and have eyes that glow red?" Elena shook her head. "You're a vampire. You know none of that is true."

Suhani's expression...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 3



Elena's instincts were screaming at her to grab the knife in her boot, do some damage, and get the hell out, but she forced herself to stay in place. The truth was, she wouldn't make it more than two feet before Raphael broke every single bone in her body.

It was exactly what he'd done to a vampire who'd thought to betray him.

That vampire had been found in the center of Times Square. He'd still been alive. And he'd still been trying to scream-"No! Raphael, no!" But his voice had been a rasp by then, his jaw hanging on by stringlike tendons, his flesh missing in places.

Elena-out of the country on a hunt-had seen the news footage after the event. She knew the vamp had lain there in agony for three hours before being picked up by a pair of angels. Everyone in New York, hell, everyone in the country, had known he was there, but no one had dared help him, not with Raphael's mark blazing on his forehead. The archangel had wanted the punishment witnessed, wanted to remind people of who and what he was. It had worked. Now the mere mention of his name evoked visceral fear.

But Elena wouldn't crawl, not for anyone. It was a choice she'd made the night her father had told her to get on her knees and beg, and maybe, maybe, he'd accept her back into the family.

Elena hadn't spoken to her father in a decade.

"You should have a care," Raphael said into the unnatural silence.

She didn't collapse in relief-the air continued to hang heavy with the promise of menace. "I don't like to play games."

"Learn." He settled back in his chair. "You will live a very short life if you expect only honesty."

Sensing the danger had passed-for now-she unclenched her fingers with an effort of will. The force of the blood rushing back into them was painful in its extremity. "I didn't say I expected honesty. People lie. Vampires lie. Even-" She caught herself.

"Surely you're not going to practice discretion now?" The amusement was back but it was tempered with an edge that stroked like a razor across her skin.

She looked into that perfect face and knew she'd never met a more deadly being in her life. If she displeased him, Raphael would kill her as easily as she might swat a fly. She'd be smart to remember that, no matter how the knowledge infuriated her. "You said I had to do a test?"

His wings moved slightly at that instant, drawing her attention. They truly were beautiful and she couldn't help but covet them. To be able to fly . . . what an amazing gift.

Raphael's eyes shifted to look at something over her left shoulder. "Less a test than an experiment."

She didn't twist around, had no need to. "There's a vampire behind me."

"Are you sure?" His expression remained unchanged.

She fought the urge to turn. "Yes."

He nodded. "Look."

Wondering which was worse-having her back to an enigmatic and highly unpredictable archangel, or to an unknown vampire-she hesitated. In the end, her curiosity won out. There was a distinctly satisfied expression on Raphael's face and she wanted to know what had put it there.

Shifting, she turned sideways with her whole body, the position allowing her to keep Raphael in her peripheral vision. Then she looked at the two . . . creatures who stood behind her. "Jesus."

"You may go." Raphael's voice was a command that awakened abject terror in the eyes of the one who looked vaguely human. The other scuttled away like the animal it was.

She watched them leave through the glass door and swallowed. "How old was . . ." She couldn't call that thing a vampire. Neither had it been human.

"Erik was Made yesterday."

"I didn't know they could walk at that age." It was an attempt to sound professional though she was creeped out to her toes.

"He had a little help." Raphael's tone made it clear that that was all the answer she was going to get. "Bernal is . . . a fraction older."

She reached for the juice she'd rejected earlier and took a drink, trying to wash away the stink that had seeped into her pores. The older vamps didn't have that ick factor. They-except for the unusual ones like the doorvamp-simply smelled of vampire, like she smelled human. But the very young ones, they had a certain rotten-cabbage/putrid-flesh smell that she always had to scrub three times over to get rid of. It was why she'd begun collecting the body washes and perfumes. After her initial contact with one of the newly Made, she'd thought she'd never get the smell out of her head.

"I didn't think a hunter would be so disturbed at the sight of the just-Made." Raphael's face appeared oddly shadowed, until she realized he'd raised his wings slightly.

Wondering if that implied focus or anger, she put down the glass. "I'm not, not really." True enough now that that first, instinctive flash of disgust had passed. "It's the smell-like a coating of fur on your tongue. No matter how hard you scrape, you can't get it off."

Open interest showed on his face. "The feeling is that intense?"

She shivered and looked around the table for something else to take the edge off. When he pushed a cut grapefruit in her direction, she dug into it with relish. "Uh-huh." The citrus fruit's acidic juices dampened the reek a little. At least enough that she could think.

"If I asked you to track Erik, could you?"

She shivered at the memory of those almost-dead/ not-quite-alive eyes. No wonder people believed those stories about vampires being the walking dead. "No. I think he's too young."

"What about Bernal?"

"He's on the bottom floor of the building right now." The barely Made vampire's odor was so noxious, it permeated the building. "In the lobby."

Golden-tipped wings spread to shadow the table as Raphael put his hands together in a slow clap. "Well done, Elena. Well done."

She looked up from the grapefruit, belatedly aware she'd just proven how good she was when she should've flubbed it and gotten out of this, whatever "this" was. ****. But at least he'd given her some idea of the job. "Do you want me to track a rogue?"

He rose from his chair in a sudden, liquid movement. "Wait a moment."

She watched, transfixed, as he walked to the edge of the roof. He was a being of such incredible splendor that simply seeing him move made her heart squeeze. It didn't matter that she knew it was a mirage, that he was as deadly as the filleting knife she carried strapped to her thigh. No one, not even she, could deny that Raphael the Archangel was a man made to be admired. To be worshipped.

That utterly wrong thought snapped her out of her dazed state. Pushing back her chair, she stared hard at his back. Had he been messing with her head? Right then, he turned and she met the agonizing blue of his eyes. For a second, she thought he was answering her question. Then he looked away . . . and walked off the roof.

She jumped up. Only to sit back down, blush reddening her cheeks, when he winged upward to meet an angel she hadn't seen until that moment. Michaela. The female equivalent of Raphael, her beauty so intense that Elena could feel the force of it even from this distance. She had the startling realization that she was looking on at a midair meeting between two archangels.

"Sara's never going to believe this." She forgot the stench of young vampire for the moment, her attention hijacked. She'd seen photos of Michaela, but they came nowhere close to the reality of her.

The other archangel had skin the color of the most exquisite, fine milk chocolate and a shining fall of hair that cascaded to her waist in a wild mass. Her body was quintessentially female, slender and curvy at the same time, her wings a delicate bronze that shimmered against the richness of her skin. Her face . . . "Wow." Even from this distance, Michaela's face was perfection given form. Elena fancied she could see her eyes-a bright, impossible green-but knew she had to be imagining it. They were too far away.

It made little difference. The female archangel had a face that would not only stop traffic, it would cause a few pileups in the process.

Elena frowned. Despite her appreciation for Michaela's looks, she was having no trouble thinking straight. Which meant the damn arrogant blue-eyed bastard had been ****ing with her mind. He wanted her to worship him? They'd see about that.

No one, not even an archangel, was going to turn her into a puppet.

As if he'd heard her, Raphael said something to his fellow archangel and winged back down to the roof. His landing was a lot more showy this time. She was sure he paused to display the pattern on the inside surface of his wings. It was as if a brush dipped in gold had started at the top edge of each wing and then stroked downward, fading to white as it neared the bottom. In spite of her fury, she had to face the truth: If the devil-or an archangel-came to her and offered her wings, she might just sell him her soul.

But the angels didn't Make other angels. They only made blood-drinking vampires. Where angels came from, no one knew. Elena guessed they were born to angelic parents, though, come to think of it, she'd never actually seen a baby angel.

...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 4



Elena sat in Central Park, staring at the ducks swimming around in a pond. She'd come here to try to get her head on straight but it didn't seem to be working. All she could think about was whether ducks had dreams.

She figured not. What would a duck dream about? Fresh bread, a nice flight to wherever the hell it was ducks went. Flight. Her breath caught in her throat as her mind flashed with snapshots of memory-beautiful gold-streaked wings, eyes full of power, the shine of angel dust. She rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes in an effort to erase the images. It didn't work.

It was as though Raphael had implanted a damn subliminal suggestion in her head that kept spewing out pictures of the very things she didn't want to think about. She wouldn't put it past him but he hadn't had time to mess with her that deep. She'd taken off less than a minute after he'd told her not to fail. Oddly enough, he'd let her go.

The ducks were fighting now, quacking at each other and diving with their beaks. Jeez, even the ducks couldn't stay peaceful. How the hell was she supposed to think with all that racket? Sighing, she leaned back on the park bench and looked up at the clear spread of sky. It reminded her of Raphael's eyes.

She snorted.

The color was about as close to the agonizingly vivid hue of his eyes as a cubic zirconia was to a diamond. A pale imitation. Still, it was pretty. Maybe if she stared hard enough, she'd forget about the wings that haunted her vision. Like now. They spread over her line of sight, turning blue into white-gold.

Frowning, she tried to see past the illusion.

Perfect gold-tipped filaments came into focus. Her heart was a hunted rabbit in her chest, but she didn't have the energy to be startled. "You followed me."

"You seemed to need time alone."

"Could you put down the wing?" she asked politely. "You're blocking the view."

The wing folded away with a soft susurration she knew she'd never associate with anything other than wings. Raphael's wings. "Will you not look at me, Elena?"

"No." She continued to stare upward. "I look at you and things get confused."

A male chuckle, low, husky . . . and inside her mind. "Avoiding my gaze gains you nothing."

"Didn't think so," she said softly, anger a dark ember in her gut. "Is that how you get your kicks-forcing women to worship at your feet?"

Silence. Then the sound of wings unfurling and snapping shut. "You are using up your lives."

She chanced a look at him. He was standing at the water's edge, but his body was turned toward her, those eyes of impossible blue having shaded to midnight. "Hey, I'm going to die anyway." It tended to make a person cavalier. "You said so yourself-you can **** me over with your mind anytime you please. I'm guessing that's the least of your little bag of tricks. Right?"

He gave a regal nod, strikingly beautiful in an opportune ray of sunlight. A dark god. And she knew that thought was her own. Because the very thing that repelled her about Raphael also attracted her. Power. This was a man she couldn't take on and hope to win. A hotly feminine part of her appreciated that kind of strength, even as it infuriated her.

"So if you can do all that, what's this other guy capable of?" She turned away from the erotic seduction of his face and toward the ducks. "I'll be mincemeat before I get within a hundred feet."

"You'll be protected."

"I work alone."

"Not this time." His tone was pure steel. "Uram has a penchant for pain. The Marquis de Sade was a student of his."

Elena wasn't about to show him exactly how much that freaked her out. "So he's into kinky ***."

"That's one way to look at it." Somehow, he put blood and pain and horror into that single comment. The emotions wormed their way through her pores and wrapped around her throat, choking, cloying.

"Stop it," she snapped, eyes locked with his once more.

"Apologies." A slight curve of his lips. "You're more sensitive than I expected."

She didn't believe that for an instant. "Uram? Tell me about him." She didn't know much about the other archangel beyond the fact that he ruled a chunk of Europe.

"He's your prey." His face closed over, midnight eyes going near black, expression shifting to that of a Greek statue. Distant. Inscrutable. "That's all you need to know."

"I can't work like that." She stood but kept her distance. "I'm good because I get inside the target's head, predict where he'll be, what he'll do, who he'll contact."

"Rely on your inborn gift."

"Even if I could scent archangels"-which she couldn't-"it's not magic," she pointed out, frustrated. "I need a starting point. If you haven't got anything, I'll have to work it out from his personality, his patterns of behavior."

He walked toward her, closing the distance she wanted to keep. "Uram's movements can't be predicted. Not yet. We must wait."

"For what?"

"Blood."

The single word chilled her from the inside out. "What did he do?"

Raphael lifted a finger, tracing it over her cheekbone. She flinched. Not because he was hurting her. The opposite. The places he touched . . . it was as if he had a direct line to the hottest, most feminine part of her. A single stroke and she was embarrassingly damp. But she refused to pull away, refused to give in.

"What," she repeated, "did he do?"

That finger passed over her jaw and whispered along the line of her neck, giving excruciating, unwanted pleasure. "Nothing you need to know. Nothing that will help you track him."

Raising her hand with effort, she pushed his off, knowing her success was very much a case of him indulging her. And that chafed. "Finished playing your *** games?" she asked point-blank.

His smile was less a shadow this time, those changeable eyes sliding from black to something closer to cobalt. Alive. Electric. "I wasn't doing anything to your mind, Elena. Not that time."

Oh, ****.

He' d lied. Obviously, he'd lied. Elena let out a sigh of relief and collapsed onto her sofa. She wasn't idiotic enough to be attracted to an archangel. That left door number two-that Raphael had been playing with her mind and telling her otherwise was simply some sort of a twisted way for him to mess with her.

The annoying little voice inside her head kept whispering that that kind of manipulation didn't mesh with what she knew of Raphael. On the roof, he'd made no secret of the fact that he'd been in her mind. Lying seemed beneath him. "Hah!" she said to the voice. "What I know about him isn't enough to fill a thimble-he's manipulated mortals for centuries. He's good at it." Not good. Expert.

And she was now in his hands.

Unless he'd changed his mind in the hours since she'd hauled ass from the duck pond. Her mood brightened. Reaching over to open up the laptop on the coffee table, she booted it up and used her wireless Internet connection to look up her Guild account. The transaction history showed one recent deposit.

"Too many zeros." She took a deep breath. Counted again. "Still too many."

So many that it made Mr. Ebose's substantial payment look like chump change.

Hands sweat-damp, she swallowed and scrolled down. The payment had come from "Archangel Tower: Manhattan." She'd known that. Obviously, she'd known that. But seeing it in black and white was a jolt to the system. The deal was done. She was now officially working for Raphael. And only Raphael.

Her Guild status had been changed from "Active" to "Contracted: Indefinite Period."

Closing the laptop, she stared out at the Tower. She couldn't believe she'd stood on top of that cloud-piercing building only that morning, couldn't believe she'd dared disagree with an archangel, but most of all, she couldn't believe what Raphael wanted her to do. Thousands of tiny little creatures skittered about in her stomach, inciting nausea, panic . . . and a strange, vibrant excitement. This was the kind of job that made legends out of hunters. Of course, to be a legend, you generally had to be dead.

The phone rang, blessedly ending that particular line of thought. "What?"

"Good day to you, too, sunshine," came Sara's cheerful voice.

Elena wasn't fooled. Her friend hadn't made it to the position of Guild Director by being Ms. Congeniality. Nerves of steel and a will like a bull terrier more like it. "I can't tell you anything," she said bluntly. "Don't even ask."

"Come on, Ellie. You know I can keep a secret."

"No. If I tell you, you die." Raphael had made that very clear before he'd let her leave Central Park.

Tell anyone-man, woman, or child-and we'll eliminate them. No exceptions.

Sara snorted. "Don't be melodramatic. I'm-"

"He knew you'd ask," she said, remembering what else the Archangel of New York had said to her...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 5



Raphael closed the door behind him and walked into the huge basement library hidden beneath the graceful beauty of a large cottage in Martha's Vineyard. A fire burned in the hearth, the only source of illumination other than the wall sconces, which created more shadows than light. There was a sense of age about this place, a quiet knowledge that it had been here far longer than the modern home above.

"It is done," he said, taking his seat in the semicircle of armchairs in front of the fire. It was too hot for him, but some of his brethren came from warmer climes and felt the promise of autumn in their bones.

"Tell us," Charisemnon said. "Tell us about the hunter."

Leaning back in his chair, Raphael glanced around at the others who sat with him. The Cadre of Ten was in session. But incomplete. "We'll need to replace Uram."

"Not yet. Not until after . . ." Michaela whispered, eyes tortured. "Is it really necessary to hunt him?"

Neha closed her hand on the other angel's shoulder. "You know we have no choice. He can't be left to indulge his new appetites. If the humans ever discover-" She shook her head, almond-shaped eyes full of dark knowledge. "They would fear us as monsters."

"They already do," Elijah said. "To hold power, we've all had to become a little bit the monster."

Raphael agreed. Elijah was one of the oldest among them. He'd ruled in one way or another for millennia, no sign of ennui in his eyes even now. Perhaps it was because Elijah had something the others didn't-a lover whose loyalty was unimpeachable. Elijah and Hannah had been together for over nine hundred years.

"But," Zhou Lijuan pointed out, "there is a difference between being feared, but looked upon with awe, and being totally abhorred."

Raphael wasn't so sure that line existed but Lijuan was an archangel cut from a different time. She held power in Asia through a matriarchal network that instilled respect for her in their children, and had been doing so for eons. If Elijah was old, then Lijuan was truly ancient-she'd become woven into the very fabric of her homeland, China, and of the lands around it. They told tales of Lijuan in whispered tones and looked upon her as a demigod. In comparison, Raphael had only ruled for five hundred years, a mere blink of time. But that could prove an asset.

Unlike Lijuan, Raphael hadn't ascended so high that he'd ceased to understand mortals. Even before his transformation from angel to archangel, he'd chosen the chaos of life over the elegant peace of his brethren. Now he lived in one of the world's busiest cities and, unbeknownst to its denizens, often watched them. As he'd watched Elena Deveraux today. "We have no need to debate secrecy," he said, cutting into Michaela's soft sobs. "No one can know of what Uram has become. It has been that way for as long as we've existed."

A slow round of nods. Even Michaela wiped away her tears and sat back, her eyes clear, her cheeks flushed. She was beautiful beyond compare. Even among angelkind, she'd always been the brightest of stars, never lacking for lovers or attention. Right then, her gaze met his and deep within them was a sensual question he chose not to answer. So. She didn't mourn Uram; she mourned herself. That fit far better with her personality.

"The hunter is female," she said a second later, her tone slightly edgy. "Is that why you chose her?"

"No." Raphael wondered if he'd have to warn Elena about this new threat. Michaela didn't like competition and she'd been Uram's lover for almost half a century, an incredible commitment for someone of her mercurial nature. "I chose her because she can scent what no one else can."

"Why, then, must we wait?" Titus asked, his soft tone at odds with the gleaming, muscular bulk of his body. He appeared a man carved from jet, as roughly hewn as the mountain stronghold he called home.

"Because," Raphael answered, "Uram has not crossed the final line."

A hush.

"You're certain?" Favashi asked, her words gentle. She was the youngest of them all, the most mortal in her thinking. Her heart and soul remained unscathed by the inexorable passage of time. "If he hasn't yet-"

"You hope too easily," Astaad interrupted in that harsh way of his. "He killed every one of his servants and retainers the night he left Europe."

"Why then did he not cross the line, do . . . what we must never do?" Favashi asked, unwilling to back down. That was why, despite her gentleness, she was the archangel who held sway over Persia. She bent, but Favashi did not break. Ever. "Surely he can be reclaimed?"

"No," Neha responded, as cool as Favashi was warm. In her homeland of India, snakes were worshipped as gods and Neha was worshipped as the Queen of Snakes. "I've made discreet inquiries with our doctors. It is too late. His blood is poison."

"Could they be mistaken?" Michaela asked, and perhaps there was a touch of caring in her tone.

"No." Neha's eyes shifted across the room. "I sent a sample to Elijah, too."

"I had Hannah look at it," Elijah said. "Neha is right. It's too late for Uram."

"He is an archangel-the hunter will not be able to kill him even if she finds him," Lijuan said, her shimmering white hair waving in a breeze that wasn't there. With age came powers so extraordinary that seeming "human" in any sense became close to impossible. Lijuan's eyes, too, were a strange pearl gray that existed nowhere on this earth. "One of us will have to see to that duty."

"You just want him dead because he threatened your power!" Michaela snapped.

Lijuan ignored her, as Raphael might a human. Lijuan had seen archangels come and go. Only she remained. Uram had been her closest contemporary. "Raphael?"

"The hunter is tasked with tracking Uram," he answered, recalling the terror in Elena's eyes when he'd told her of that task. "I'll execute him. Do I have the Cadre's agreement?"

One by one, they all said, "Aye." Even Michaela. She valued her life more than she valued Uram's. For they all knew that Uram was in New York because of Michaela. If he crossed the final line, it was his former lover who'd become his most desired target.

So it was done.

Raphael stayed in the room as the Cadre took their leave one by one. It was rare for the membership to gather in one place. They were powerful beyond measure, but it was better not to tempt the young ones. Some aspired to take their place through death. It was always the young who embraced such delusions. The older ones had gained the wisdom to know that to be an archangel was *****rrender part of your soul.

Soon, only Elijah remained in the room, on the other side of the semicircle from Raphael. "Will you not go home to Hannah?"

Elijah's pure white wings shifted slightly as he stretched out his legs and leaned back in his chair. "She's with me wherever I go."

Raphael didn't know whether the other angel meant that literally. Some long-mated angelic pairs were rumored to share an effortless mental link, untrammeled by time or distance, but if they did, none ever talked about it. "Then you are indeed blessed."

"Yes." Elijah leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. "How could this have happened with Uram? Why did no one see?"

Raphael realized the other man truly had no idea. "He wasn't mated and Michaela cares for no one but herself."

"Harsh." But he didn't refute the summation.

"You have Hannah to tell you if you're getting close to the edge. Uram was alone."

"There were servants, assistants, other angels."

"Uram was never merciful," Raphael said. "He rewarded any show of spine with torture. As a result, his castle was filled with those who hated him and those who feared him. It didn't matter to them if he lived or died."

Elijah looked up, his eyes clear, almost human. "There's a lesson for you there, Raphael."

"Now you are acting like my big brother."

Elijah laughed, the only archangel aside from Favashi who ever did such a thing and meant it. "No, I see in you a leader. With Uram gone, the Cadre of Ten has the potential to fragment-you know what happened the last time we splintered."

The Dark Age of man and angel, when vampires bathed in blood and the angels were too busy warring with each other to care. "Why me? I'm younger than you, than Lijuan."

"Lijuan is . . . no longer of this world." Frown lines creased his forehead. "She is, I think, the oldest angel in existence. She's gone beyond petty problems."

"This is no petty problem." But he understood Elijah's meaning. Lijuan no longer looked upon this world. Her sight was focused somewhere far in the distance. "If not Lijuan, why not you? You're the most stable of us all."

Elijah fanned out his wings as he thought. "My rule in South America has never been challenged. It's true I have a steel hand with dissent, but," he said, shaking his head, "I have no desire for killing or blood....

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 6



Elena finished her preliminary research on Uram and sat back, nausea a pulsing fist in her throat. Uram had ruled-and as far as the rest of the world knew, still ruled-parts of eastern Europe and all of neighboring Russia. Oh, just like America, those countries had their presidents and prime ministers, their parliaments and councils, but everyone knew that true power rested in the hands of the archangels. Government, business, art-there was nothing they didn't influence, either directly or indirectly.

Uram, it appeared, was a very hands-on sort of guy.

It had been the first story she'd found-a news article about the president of a tiny country that had once been part of the Soviet Union. The president, one Mr. Chernoff, had made the mistake of defying Uram publicly, calling for citizens to boycott the draconian archangel's businesses, as well as those of his "vampire children," and patronize those run by humans. Elena didn't agree with the president's rhetoric. Being humancentric was a kind of prejudice, too. What about all those poor vampires who were only out to make a living for their families? Most vampires didn't automatically gain power with the transformation-that took centuries. Some would always remain weak.

After reading the first few paragraphs of the article, which summarized President Chernoff's policies, she'd expected the story to end with a notice of his funeral arrangements. To her surprise, she'd discovered the president was alive . . . if you could call it that.

Soon after his inflammatory comments, Mr. Chernoff had suffered an unfortunate car accident-his driver had lost control of the wheel and crashed into an oncoming semi. That driver had walked away without a scratch, a feat labeled "miraculous." El presidente hadn't been so lucky. He'd had so many broken bones the doctors said he'd never regain full use of his limbs. His eye sockets had shattered inward, destroying his eyes. And his throat had been crushed just enough to ruin his vocal cords . . . but not to kill him.

He could no longer hold a pen or type.

He could no longer speak.

He could no longer see.

No one had dared enunciate it, but the message had come through loud and clear. Defy Uram and you would be silenced. The politician who'd stepped in to take Chernoff's place had pledged allegiance to Uram even before he took the oath of office.

Say what you would about Raphael, she found herself thinking, but at least he was no tyrant. She had no illusions about the fact that he ran North America with an iron fist, but he didn't meddle in inconsequential human affairs. A few years back, they'd even had a mayoral candidate who'd pledged to flout the archangel should he be elected. Raphael had let the campaign run, his only response a slight smile when some reporter dared approach him.

That smile, that hint that he found the whole situation ridiculous, had sunk the mayoral hopeful's chances as surely as the Titanic. The man had slunk off, never to be seen again. Raphael had achieved victory without drawing a single drop of blood. And he'd retained his powerful status in the eyes of the population.

"That doesn't make him good," she muttered, worried about the direction of her thoughts. Raphael might shine in comparison to Uram, but that wasn't saying much.

It was Raphael who'd threatened to harm little Zoe, no one else.

"Bastard," she muttered, repeating Sara's imprecation. That threat put him in the same league as Uram. The European archangel had reportedly once destroyed an entire school full of five-to-ten-year-olds after the villagers asked him to remove his pet vampire from their midst.

Elena would have frowned on such a request had the vamp not been taking blood forcibly. He'd violated several of the village females, left them broken. The villagers had turned to Uram for help. He'd replied by killing their children and stealing their women. That had been over three decades ago and none of those women had ever been seen again. The village no longer existed.

He was, without a doubt, a very bad man. And she was-

Something tapped on the plate-glass window.

Hand sliding down to retrieve the knife hidden under the coffee table, she glanced up. Her eyes locked with those of an archangel. Silhouetted against the glittering Manhattan skyline, he should've appeared diminished, but he was even more beautiful than in daylight. It was a measure of his control that he barely had to move his wings to maintain position-the sheer power of him buffeted her even through the glass.

She swallowed and stood. "That window doesn't open," she said, wondering if he could hear her.

He pointed upward. She felt her eyes widen. "The roof isn't-" But he was already gone.

"Damn it!" Angry at him for catching her unawares, for inciting this assuredly fatal edge of attraction, she slid the knife back, closed the laptop, and left the apartment.

It took her several minutes to get to the roof and push open the door. "I'm not coming out there!" she called out when she didn't see him. The top of her building had been designed by some avant-garde architect who believed in form over function-a series of uneven, jagged peaks spread out in front of her. It was impossible to walk on them without sliding and falling to your death. "No, thank you," she muttered, feeling the wind whip her hair off her face as she waited with the door partly open. "Raphael!"

Maybe, she thought, the architect hadn't been avant-garde at all. Maybe he'd simply hated angels. That sounded good to her about then. She might admire their wings, but she had no misapprehensions about their inner goodness. "Inner goodness. Hah!" She snorted and suddenly he was landing in front of her, his wings flooding her vision.

She backed up a step without meaning to and by the time she recovered, he was inside and closing the door. Damn it, she hated that he could make her react like a green recruit tracking her first vamp. If it went on like this much longer, she'd lose all respect for herself. "What?" she asked, folding her arms.

"Is this how you welcome all your guests?" His mouth held no hint of a smile, yet it was sensuality personified, lush and ultimately seductive.

She took another step backward. "Stop it."

"What?" A hint of genuine confusion in those blue, blue eyes.

"Nothing." Get a grip, Elena. "Why are you here?"

He stared at her for several long seconds. "I'd like to talk to you about the hunt."

"So talk."

He looked around the confines of the landing no one ever used. The metal stairs were rusted, the single lightbulb yellow and on the verge of going out. Flicker. Flicker. A two-second stretch. Then flicker, flicker. The pattern kept repeating, driving her half crazy. Raphael was obviously not impressed either. "Not here, Elena. Show me to your rooms."

She scowled at the order. "No. This is work-we'll go to Guild headquarters and use a meeting room."

"It matters little to me." A shrug that drew her attention to the breadth of his shoulders, the powerful arch of his wings. "I can fly there within minutes. It'll take you at least half an hour, perhaps longer-there has been an accident on the road leading to your Guild."

"An accident?" Her mind flooded with the gruesome details of the "accident" she'd just been reading about. "Sure you didn't arrange it?"

He gave her an amused look. "If I wished to, I could force you to do anything I wanted. Why would I go to the trouble of such maneuverings?"

The bald way he pointed out his power, and her lack of it, made her fingers itch for a blade.

"You shouldn't look at me in that fashion, Elena."

"Why?" she asked, prodded by some heretofore unknown suicidal streak. "Scared?"

He leaned a fraction closer. "My lovers have always been warrior women. Strength intrigues me."

She refused to let him play with her like this, even if her body disagreed. Vehemently. "Do knives intrigue you, too? Because touch me and I will cut you up. I don't care if you throw me off the nearest balcony."

He seemed to pause, as if thinking. "That is not how I would choose to punish you. It'd end far too quickly."

And she remembered that this was no human male she was parrying with. This was Raphael, the archangel who'd broken every single bone in a vampire's body to prove a point. "I won't let you into my home, Raphael." Into her haven.

A silence weighted with the crushing pressure of a hidden threat. She remained still, sensing she'd pushed him far enough tonight. And while she knew her worth, she also knew that to an archangel, she was, in the end, expendable.

His blue eyes filled with flames as power crackled through the air. She was an inch away from taking her chances and trying to outrun him in the narrow confines of the stairwell, when he spoke. "Then we'll go to your Guild."

She blinked in wary disbelief. "I'll follow you by car." Her ride was a Guild vehicle-like most hunters, she was out of the country so much that keeping her own wasn't worth the hassle.

"No." His hand closed over her wrist. "I don't wish to wait. We'll fly."

Her heart stopped....

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 7



She screamed . . . and came to a hard landing on her butt, hands braced against the rough caress of expensive tile. "Ummph." Swearing inwardly at the bitten-off sound of surprise, she sat on the ground, trying to catch her breath. Raphael stood above her, a vision out of a painting of heaven and hell. Either. Both. She could see why her ancestors had seen in his kind the guardians of the gods, but she wasn't sure he wasn't a demon. "This isn't the Guild," she managed to say after much too long.

"I decided we would talk here." He held out a hand.

Ignoring it, she pushed herself to her feet, barely stifling the urge to rub at her bruised tailbone. "You always drop your passengers?" she muttered. "Not so graceful after all."

"You're the first human I've carried in centuries," he said, those blue eyes almost black in the darkness. "I'd forgotten how fragile you were. Your face is bleeding."

"What?" She lifted a hand to a tingling spot on her cheek. The cut was so thin she could hardly feel it. "How?"

"The wind, your hair." Turning, he began to walk toward the glass enclosure. "Wipe it off unless you want to offer the Tower vampires a nightcap."

She rubbed it off using the sleeve of her shirt, then fisted her hands, looking daggers at his retreating back. "If you think I'm going to follow you around like a puppy . . ."

He glanced over his shoulder. "I could make you crawl, Elena." No trace of any humanity in his face, nothing but the glow of such power that she wanted to shade herself from it. It was an effort not to take a stumbling step backward. "Do you really want me to force you onto your hands and knees?"

At that second, she knew he'd do exactly that. Something she'd either said or done had finally pushed Raphael beyond his limits. If she wanted *****rvive this with her soul intact, she'd have to swallow her pride . . . or he'd break her. The realization burned going down and sat like a rock in her stomach. "No," she answered, knowing that if she ever had the chance, she'd stab a knife in his throat for the insult to her pride.

Raphael watched her for several long minutes, a cold standoff that turned her blood to ice. Around her burned a million city lights, but up on this roof, there was only darkness-except for the glow coming off him. She'd heard people whisper of this phenomenon but had never thought to witness it. Because when an angel glowed, he became a being of absolute power, power that was usually directed to kill or destroy. An angel glowed just before he tore you into a thousand pieces.

Elena stared back, unwilling-unable-to give in. She'd gone as far as she could. Anything else and she might as well crawl.

Get on your knees and beg, and maybe I'll reconsider.

She hadn't done it then. She wouldn't do it now. No matter the cost.

Right when she thought it was all over, Raphael turned and continued on to the elevator cage. The glow faded between one breath and the next. She followed, disgustingly aware of the sweat that had broken out along her spine, the sharp taste of fear on her tongue. But overlaying that was a deep, deep anger.

Raphael the Archangel was now the most hated person in her universe.

He held the door open for her. She walked through without saying a word. And when he came to stand beside her, his wings brushing her back, she stiffened and kept her eyes locked on the elevator doors. The car arrived a second later and she walked in. So did Raphael, his scent like sandpaper against her hunter-born senses.

Her knife hand was itching for a blade, almost painfully needy. She knew the feel of cold steel would center her but that sense of safety would be an illusion, one that might put her in even more danger.

I could make you crawl, Elena.

She clenched her teeth so hard her jaw protested. And when the elevator doors opened, she strode out without waiting for Raphael-only to come to an abrupt halt. Corporate decor sure had changed if this was considered business-appropriate. The carpet was a lush black, as were the gleaming walls. The sole pieces of furniture in her line of sight-a couple of small decorative tables-were also in the same exotically rich shade.

It shimmered with hidden color, with possibility.

Bloodred roses-arranged in crystal vases perched atop the small tables-provided a lush contrast. So did the long rectangular painting along one wall. She walked to it, mesmerized. A thousand shades of red in a fury that was somehow coolly logical, sensual in a way that spoke of blood and death.

Raphael's fingers on her shoulder. "Dmitri is talented."

"Don't touch me." The words dripped off her tongue like blades of ice. "Where are we?" She swiveled to face him, making a concerted effort not to go for a weapon.

Blue flames in his eyes but no violence. "On the vampire floor-they use this for . . . well, you'll see."

"Why do I need to? I know all there is to know about vampires."

A faint smile on his lips. "Then you won't be surprised." He offered her his arm. She refused to take it. His smile didn't falter. "Such rebelliousness. Where did you inherit it? Certainly not from your parents."

"One more word about my parents and I don't care if you break me into a million ****ing pieces." Said through gritted teeth. "I'll cut out your heart and serve it to the street dogs for dinner."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure I have a heart?" With that, he began to move down the corridor.

Not wanting to follow a step behind, she caught up so they walked side by side. "A physical one, probably," she said. "An emotional one? Not a chance."

"What does it take for you to truly fear?" He seemed genuinely curious.

Once again, it appeared she'd skated the thin edge of danger and come out alive. But it had been a close call-she wondered how forgiving Raphael would be after she completed the job and was no longer of use. She wasn't going to stick around to find out.

"I was born a hunter," she said, making a mental note to organize an escape hatch. Siberia sounded good. "Not many people know what that means, the inevitable consequences."

"Tell me." He pushed through a glass door and waited until she'd passed before closing it. "When did you realize you had the ability to scent vampires?"

"There was no realization." She shrugged. "I could always do it. It took me until I was about five to understand it was something different, abnormal." The word slipped out, her father's word. She felt her mouth thin. "I thought everyone could do it."

"As a young angel might think everyone can fly."

Curiosity spiked out of the anger. "Yes." So there were child angels. But where? "I knew our neighbor was a vampire before anyone else did. I accidentally ratted him out one day." She still felt bad about that, though she'd only been a child at the time. "He was trying to pass as human."

Raphael's face settled into lines of displeasure. "It would've been better had he given the chance to someone else. Why accept the gift of immortality if you wish to be human?"

"I gotta agree with that one." She shrugged. "Mr. Benson was forced to move out after a neighborhood uproar."

"Not a tolerant place, your childhood home."

"No." And her father had been at the head of that intolerance. How it had humiliated him that his daughter was one of the monsters. "A few years later, I felt Slater Patalis brush by as he murdered his way across the country." Her heart froze in her chest, chilled by the secret horror connected to that name.

"One of our few mistakes."

Not really a mistake, she thought, not if he'd been normal going in. But she couldn't say that without betraying Sara. "So you see, I'm used to fear. I grew up knowing the bogey-man lurked outside."

"You lie to me, Elena." He stopped in front of a solid black door. "But I will let it pass. You'll soon tell me the truth of why you dance with death so eagerly."

She wondered if he had Ariel and Mirabelle's names in his files, if he knew the truth of the tragedy that had destroyed her mother and turned her father into a stranger. "You know what they say about being overconfident."

"Exactly." A small nod. "So tonight, I'll show you why those you call whores seek their vampire lovers."

"Nothing you do or say will convince me to change my mind." She scowled. "They're little more than drug addicts."

"Such obstinance," he murmured, and pushed open the door.

Whispered sounds, laughter, the tinkle of glass. It flowed out like an invitation. Raphael's eyes dared her to step inside. Fool that she was, she accepted the challenge and-slipping a knife from an arm sheath into her palm-walked in, piercingly aware of the archangel at her back, the naked vulnerability of her spine . . . until her mouth dropped open in shock.

The vampires were having a ****tail party.

She blinked, taking in the muted, romantic lighting, the plush couches, the hors d'oeuvres accompanied by slender flutes of champagne. The food was clearly for the human...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 8



Human lover.

The words unlocked her from the prison of sensory delight the Archangel of New York had spun with cool control. She was a toy to him, nothing more. After he was done, she'd be discarded like all unwanted toys. Used up. Forgotten. "Find someone else to amuse yourself with. I'm not in the market." She pulled away, and this time, he let her go.

Wary, she spun around to face him. She expected anger, perhaps fury, at being denied, but Raphael's face was a mask, watchful, unbreakable. She wondered if he'd been playing with her all along. Why the hell would an archangel take a human lover when he had a harem of stunning vampire beauties to pick from?

Say what you would about the dietary requirements, vampirism sure did do great things for the skin and body. Any vampire over five decades old was svelte, with flawless skin. Their allure, too, grew with each passing year-though the intrinsic force of it depended on the individual. Elena had met very old vampires who remained more prey than predator, but the truly powerful ones . . .

Some, like Dmitri, were good at hiding their strength, their incredible charisma, until they wanted to use it. Others had gone too far along the timeline and leaked power almost continuously. But even the weak ones, the ones who'd never be anything close to what Dmitri was now, were stunningly beautiful.

"I get the lesson," she said when he remained silent. "I should be more tolerant of other people's ***ual practices."

"An interesting way to put it." He finally lowered his wings, folding them neatly behind his back. "But you've only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg."

She wondered if the TV anchor had his fingers in the vamp's panties by now. "I've seen enough." Her face grew hot at the sense that all sorts of erotic things were going on behind her back.

"A prude, Elena? I thought hunters were free with their affections."

"None of your damn business," she muttered. "We either leave or I accept Dmitri's offer."

"You think that matters to me?"

"Sure." She met his eyes, forced herself to hold her ground. "Once that vamp sinks his fangs into me, I won't be able to walk or work."

"I've never heard a man's **** described as a fang before," he murmured. "I'll have to share your estimation of his skills with Dmitri."

Elena knew her blush was burning up her cheeks but she refused to let him win this verbal skirmish. "Fang, ****, what's the difference? It's all ***ual to a vampire."

"But not to an angel. My **** serves a highly specific purpose."

Lust-sharp, dangerous, unbidden-squeezed her chest so tight she could barely breathe. Her blush receded as all the heat in her body shifted. To low, damp places. "I'm sure it does," she said sweetly, standing firm even as her body betrayed her. "Servicing all those vampire groupies must get tiring."

His eyes narrowed. "Your mouth could get you into more trouble than you can handle." Except he was looking at that same mouth with anything but censure. He was looking at it as if he wanted it wrapped around him.

"No way in hell," she croaked out past the thickening in her blood.

He didn't pretend not to understand her out-of-the-blue comment. "Then I shall make sure we are very much in heaven when it happens." Eyes darkly indigo with challenge, he turned to open the door.

She stalked out-after sneaking a last, guilty look at the festivities. Dmitri was staring straight at her, his lips brushing the milk-and-cream skin of the blonde's arched neck, his hand lying perilously close to the soft rise of her breasts. As the door closed, she saw his fangs flash bright. Her stomach twisted in a vicious shock of hunger.

"Would you go to his bed sweetly?" Raphael asked against her ear, his voice an unsheathed blade. "Would you whimper and beg?"

Elena swallowed. "Hell, no. He's like double-frosted chocolate mud cake. It looks good, you want to eat the whole thing, but in reality it's too sickly sweet." Dmitri's sensual nature was suffocating, heavy, a blanket that repelled even as it attracted.

"If he is cake, what am I?" Cruel, sensual lips against her cheek, her jaw.

"Poison," she whispered. "Beautiful, seductive poison."

Behind her, Raphael went so still she was reminded of the calm before a storm. But when the storm hit, it was delivered in a silky smooth voice that shoved deep inside her, laying her bare. "Yet I think you would rather drown in poison than gorge on cake." His hands closed over her hips.

Lust in her throat, brutal and demanding. "But then, we both know about my self-destructive streak." Stepping away, she put her back to the wall and faced him, willing her body to stop readying itself for a penetration she'd never allow. "I have no desire to be your chew-toy."

The lines of his face might've been starkly masculine, but at that instant, his lips were pure temptation, soft, bitable, sensual in a way only a man's mouth could be. "If I were to splay you out on my desk and thrust my fingers into you right now, I think I'd find different."

Her thighs clenched as need spasmed through her. The image of those long powerful fingers thrusting in and out of her as she lay helpless was suddenly the only thing she could see. Closing her eyes just made it worse so she flicked them open to stare fixedly at the black shimmer of the opposite wall. "I don't know what kind of kinky **** goes on in this building, but I don't want any part of it."

He laughed, the sound full of dark, male knowledge. "Perhaps you've led a more sheltered life than I'd believed if you think of that as kinky."

It was a taunt that dared her to respond. She fought the urge. So what if she wasn't as openly ***ual as some of the other hunters? So what if the testosterone gang had named her the Vestal Virgin after she turned them down one after the other. She wasn't, in fact, a virgin, but if it would keep her safe from Raphael's erotic games, she'd play along. "I'd like to stay sheltered, thank you very much. Can we please have this meeting before I fall asleep?"

"My bed is very comfortable."

She could've slapped herself for giving him that opening, especially when her brain began *****pply her with visions of him in bed, wings stretched out, thighs bare, co-She gritted her teeth. "What did you want to tell me?"

His eyes gleamed, but all he said was, "Come." He began to stride back to the elevator.

Running, she caught up, irritated at the way he expected her to obey. Like she was a puppy. However, for once, she kept her mouth shut. She wanted to get as far away as possible from the vampire floor with its reek of ***, pleasure, and addiction.

The elevator ride was short, and this time when she exited, it was into a classy setup. Cool white was the overriding theme, with elegant accents of white gold. But when Raphael ushered her into his office, she found that his desk was a huge black chunk of polished volcanic stone.

If I were to splay you out on my desk and thrust my fingers into you right now, I think I'd find different.

She cut off the thought before it could crawl into her mind again, remaining on the far side of the desk as Raphael circled it to stand by the glass, his gaze on the city lights and, beyond them, the dark spill of the Hudson.

"Uram is in the state of New York."

"What?" Startled but pleased by the abrupt shift into work mode, she raised her hands to fix the mess the wind had made of her hair, pulling it back into a tight ponytail. "That makes our job stupid-easy. All I have to do is alert the hunter network to be on the lookout for an angel with dark gray wings."

"You've done your homework."

"His pattern is as distinctive as yours," she said. "Almost like a gypsy moth's."

"You will not alert anyone."

She set her jaw, any lingering hint of desire dying a quick death. "How am I supposed to do my job if you cut me off from the very things I need to do it effectively?"

"Those things will be useless to you in this hunt."

"Oh, come on!" she yelled at his back. "He's a big fricking angel with one-of-a-kind wings. People will notice him. And could you face me when we're talking?"

He turned, his eyes blue flame. Power licked off him in waves she could almost feel. "Uram won't stand out. Just like I don't."

She frowned. "What are you talking about-Oh, ****." He wasn't there anymore. She knew he had to be there but he was no longer visible to her sight. Swallowing, she walked to his last known position, and reached out.

To touch warm, male skin.

A ghostly hand closed over her wrist when she would've pulled back. Then one of her fingers was sucked into the mouth she'd stared at earlier, the hot-wet heat a violent provocation to the renewed pulse between her thighs. That was when she realized she couldn't see that part of her finger. "Stop it!" Wrenching away, she stumbled back against the desk.

Raphael appeared as a mirage, then solidified. "I was proving a point." He shifted to stand in front of...

--- Gộp bài viết: 09/10/2016, Bài cũ từ: 09/10/2016 ---

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 9



Raphael watched the taxi pull away, surprised she'd taken it. Elena was proving the most unpredictable of all those under his command. Of course, she'd argue with that description, he thought, amused in the way only a lethally powerful immortal could be.

The door opened behind him. "Sire?"

"Dmitri, you are to stay away from the hunter."

"If the sire so wishes." A pause. "I could reduce her to begging. She would no longer disobey your orders."

"I don't want her to beg." Raphael was surprised to find that to be true. "She'll be more effective with her spirit intact."

"And after?" Dmitri's voice was full of sensual anticipation. "May I have her after the hunt? She . . . draws me."

"No. After the hunt, she's mine." Any begging Elena would be doing would fall on his ears alone.

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 10



He was going to kill her.

Elena sat bolt upright in her beautiful artwork of a bed. The headboard was a one-of-a-kind design of the most delicately formed metal, while the white-on-white sheets and puffy comforters were embroidered with tiny, tiny flowers. To the right of her bed were sliding French doors that led out onto a small private balcony she'd turned into a miniature garden. And beyond that lay the view of Archangel Tower.

Inside, the walls were papered in a heavy cream design with accents of blue and silver that echoed the deep blue carpet. The curtains on the French doors were gauzy and white, though there was a heavier set of brocade curtains she usually kept tied back. Huge sunflowers bloomed against the white porcelain of the large Chinese vase in the opposite corner of the room, bringing the sunshine inside.

She'd been given that vase by a grateful Chinese angel after she tracked down one of his wayward charges. The young vampire-having barely completed her Contract-had decided she didn't need angelic protection anymore. Elena had found her huddling terrified in a *** shop that catered to a very weird set of clientele. The job had taken her into the bowels of the Shanghai underworld, but the vase was a piece of light, unblemished by time. The whole room was a haven, one she'd spent months getting just right.

But right then, she could've been sitting on a dirt floor in a hovel somewhere south of Beijing. Her eyes were open but all she saw was a frozen image of that vampire in Times Square, the one not a single ****ing person had dared help. She knew she wouldn't end up that way, not if Raphael wanted the whole thing swept under the rug, but she was most certainly dead.

He'd told her about glamour.

As far as she was aware, no hunter, no human, knew about that particular little piece of archangelic power. It was akin to seeing the face of your kidnapper-no matter what he says after that point, you know you're done for.

"No. ****ing. Way." Clenching her hands on her beautiful Egyptian cotton comforter, she narrowed her eyes and considered her options.

Option 1: Attempt to back out.

Probable result: Death after painful torture.

Option 2: Do the job and hope.

Probable result: Death but probably no torture (good).

Option 3: Get Raphael to give her an oath not to kill her.

Probable result: Oaths were serious business so she'd live. But he'd still be able to torture her until she went insane.

"So think of a better oath," she muttered to herself. "No death, no torture, definitely no turning me into a vampire." She bit her lower lip and wondered if the oath could be extended to her friends and family. Family. Yeah, right. They hated her guts. But she didn't want them ripped open while she was forced to watch.

Blood hitting tile.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

A whistling, gurgling plea.

Looking up to find Mirabelle still alive.

The monster smiled. "Come here, little hunter. Taste."

Drip.

Drip.

A wet, tearing sound, thick, obscene, out of a nightmare.

Elena shoved off the comforter and swung her legs over the side of the bed, face ice-cold. That particular memory had the ability to destroy any and all warmth in her soul. Sitting there with her head in her hands, she stared down at the deep blue of carpet and tried to zone out. It was the only way to escape when the memories found a hole in her defenses and snuck inside, their talons as grasping and as venomous as that of-

Something smacked to ground on the balcony.

The gun she kept under her pillow was in her hand and pointed toward the French doors before she even realized she'd moved. Her hand was steady, her body flushed with adrenaline. Scanning the balcony through the gauzy curtains, she saw no one, but only a very stupid hunter would lower her guard that easily. Elena wasn't stupid. She got up, unmindful of the fact that all she wore was a white tank top and mint green panties cut to mimic tiny shorts, the sides slit halfway up and decorated with pretty pink ribbon.

Gaze focused outside, she used her free hand to push the gauzy curtains aside, one at a time. The balcony came into full view. No pissed-off vampire stood there. The ****ers couldn't fly but she'd once seen three of them scale a high-rise building like a pack of four-legged spiders. That bunch had done it as a joke, but if they could do it, so could others.

She double-checked.

No vampire. No angel, either.

Her arm was starting to ache a little from holding the gun in position but she didn't breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, she started scanning the edges of the balcony-she had a lot of plants out there, including creepers that hung down from the curved "roof" she'd had added-but she made damn sure nothing ever blocked her view of the balcony rim. If someone was clinging out there, she'd be able to see their fingertips.

More importantly, any intruder would've left streaks on the gel she sprayed out there every week. The stuff was made specially for hunters and cost an arm, a leg, and a kidney, but it was a highly effective way to detect intrusion. When inactive, it blended into any surface, but once touched by either vampire, human, or angel, it turned a vivid, unmissable red.

The gel was undisturbed and her senses didn't detect vampire.

Relaxing only slightly, she shot a quick look downward. Her eyebrows rose. A plastic message tube lay next to her lush red begonias. She scowled. The begonia stalks were easily breakable. If whoever had dropped this had so much as bruised the plants she'd babied to blooming health despite the cool kiss of summer's end, there'd be hell to pay. Finally convinced the area was secure, she lowered the gun and clicked open the door.

The breeze brought her the vibrant living pulse of the city but nothing else.

Even then, she was very, very careful as she edged out her body and rolled the tube toward her using her foot. She'd almost gotten it inside when she saw the feather drifting down to land gently on a curling fern. Kicking the tube inside, she lifted her gun and pointed it to the balcony roof-the guy who'd built it for her had told her she was crazy to block even part of the view, but he'd obviously never thought of danger coming from above.

Sure, she'd lost some visibility, but no one could ambush her from above without warning-though obviously she was getting too reliant on that shield if she'd missed her uninvited guest. That wouldn't happen again.

"This ammo goes through stone, much less the fake stuff you're sitting on," she called out. "Get the hell off there before you break it!"

The flap of wings sounded immediately. A second later, a flushed angelic face peered at her upside down. Her eyes rounded. She hadn't known angels could do that. "You the delivery boy? Straighten up-you're giving me vertigo."

The angel nodded then righted himself. He looked like one of those mythical cherubs the Renaissance artists had liked to paint, his face round and sweet, his hair all golden curls. "Sorry! I never saw a hunter before. I was curious." His eyes went huge as his gaze drifted south. His wings had already been beating fast as he tried to keep position, but now they went hyper.

"Eyes up or I'll shoot a hole in your wing."

His head snapped up, cheeks red. He dipped slightly to the left before righting himself. "Sorry! Sorry! I just got out of the Refuge. I-" He gulped. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that! Please don't tell Raphael."

Since the angel looked like he was about to cry, Elena nodded. "Relax, kid. And next time you have a delivery, come to the front door."

He winced. "Raphael said I had to do it this way."

Elena sighed and waved at him. "Shoo. I'll take care of Raphael."

The young angel looked terrified. "No, it's okay. Please don't. He might . . . hurt you." The last two words were less than whispers.

"No, he won't." Elena was going to make the archangel swear an oath. Though she had no idea how. "Now go-Dmitri gets jealous."

The boy paled and took off so fast she barely saw him. Well now, that was interesting. As far as anyone knew, angels controlled vampires. But what if power was much more fluid? It was something she'd have to consider.

Later.

After she'd made Raphael promise not to kill, maim, or torture her.

Locking the doors after checking on and watering her precious begonias-the yellow one was blooming like full summer wasn't a month past, which put a smile on her face-she pulled the curtains shut and slid the gun back under the pillow. Only then did she pick up the message tube and unscrew it.

The phone rang.

She considered ignoring it. Her curiosity was killing her. But a quick glance at the caller ID showed it was Sara. "Hey. What's up, Ms. Director?"

"I was going to ask you the same question. I had a really weird report last night."

Elena bit her lip. "From who?"

"Ransom."

"Figures," she muttered. The other hunter had the strangest hobby, considering his fascination with guns and weaponry. The fact that they lived in a major metropolitan city full of light pollution didn't seem to faze him. "He was stargazing, wasn't he?"

Sara blew out a breath. "With his super-duper high-powered gee-whiz...