[ Truyện Tiếng Anh] Angel's Blood

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 11



She put the message tube on Raphael's desk. "I can't accept this."

He lifted a finger, keeping his back to her as he stood by the windows, phone to his ear. It seemed odd to see an archangel with such a modern device, but her reaction made no logical sense-they were masters of technology, no matter that they looked like something out of fairy tale and legend.

How much truth was in those legends, no one knew. For all that angels had been part of mankind's history since the earliest **** paintings, they remained shrouded in mystery. Since man, as always, hated a vacuum, those of her kind had spun a thousand myths to explain the existence of angelkind. Some called them the scions of the gods, others saw them as simply a more advanced species. Only one thing was certain-they were the rulers of the world, and they knew it.

Now His Highness kept talking in a low murmur. Irritated, she started prowling around the room. The deep shelves on the side wall caught her attention. Made of a wood that was either a true ebony or had been treated to appear that way, they displayed treasure after treasure.

An ancient Japanese mask of an oni, a demon. But this one held an edge of mischief, as if it had been made for a children's festival. The artwork was precise, the colors brilliant, though she felt the age of it like a heavy weight in her bones. On the shelf next to it sat a single feather.

It was an extraordinary color-a deep, pure blue. She'd heard rumors of a blue-winged angel in the city over the past couple of months, but surely those rumors couldn't be true? "Natural or synthetic?" she whispered almost to herself.

"Oh, very much natural," came Raphael's smooth voice. "Illium was most distressed at being stripped of his prized feathers."

She turned, lines marring her forehead. "Why did you damage someone so beautiful? Jealous?"

Something sparked in his eyes, hot and certainly lethal if let out. "You would have little interest in Illium. He likes his women submissive."

"So? Why take his feathers?"

"He needed to be punished." Raphael shrugged, walking to stand less than a foot from her. "It was being grounded that really hurt him-the feathers grew back within a year."

"A blink of time."

The danger level seemed to lessen at her sarcasm. "For an angel, yes."

"So, were his new feathers like before?" She told herself to stop staring into those eyes, that no matter what he said, such contact had to make it easier for him to invade her mind. But she couldn't look away, not even when those flames turned into what looked like tiny whirling blades. "Were they?" she repeated, her voice rough with sudden hunger.

"No," he responded, reaching out to trace the shell of her ear. "They grew back even more beautiful. Blue edged with silver."

Elena laughed at the scowl in his voice. "That's the color scheme of my bedroom."

Naked heat sizzled between them. Powerful. Vibrant. His eyes still locked with hers, Raphael trailed his finger down her jaw to her neck. "Are you sure you don't want to invite me in?"

He was so utterly beautiful.

But male, very male.

Just one taste.

It was the darkness in her, the small core conceived on a blood-soaked kitchen floor the day she lost her childhood.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

"Come here, little hunter. Taste."

"No." She jerked away, palms damp with a thin sheen of fear. "I just came to return the rose and ask you if you had any more information about Uram's whereabouts."

Raphael lowered his hand, his face contemplative when she would've expected fury at being denied. "I'm good at vanquishing nightmares."

She stiffened. "And creating them. You left that vampire out in Times Square for hours." Stop, Elena, her mind ordered. For God's sake, stop! You have to make him give you an oath of safety-but her mouth wouldn't listen. "You tortured him!"

"Yes." Not even a tinge of remorse.

She waited. "That's it? That's all you have to say?"

"Did you expect guilt?" His expression stilled, became cold as frost. "I'm not human, Elena. Those I rule are not human. Your laws don't apply."

She clenched her hands painfully hard. "The laws of common decency, of conscience?"

"Call it what you will but remember this"-he leaned in, speaking in an icy whisper that cut across her skin with whip-lash cruelty-"if I fall, if I fail, the vampires go completely free, and New York drowns in the blood of innocents."

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

She reeled under the impact of those brutal images. One a memory. One a possible future. "Vampires aren't all evil. Only a small percentage of them ever lose control, same as the human population."

His hand cupped her cheek. "But they're not human, are they?"

She remained silent.

His hand was hot, his voice glacial. "Answer me, Elena." The arrogance he displayed was breathtaking, but what made it worse was that he had every right to it. The power of him . . . it was beyond staggering.

"No," she admitted. "Bloodlust-ridden vampires kill with a viciousness that's unique-and they never stop. The death toll has the potential to reach thousands."

"So you see, iron control is necessary." He came even closer, until the fronts of their bodies touched and his hand slid down to her waist. She could no longer see his face without tilting back her head. It seemed like too much effort at that moment. All she wanted was to melt. Melt and take him with her, so he could do erotic, luscious things to her aching body.

"Enough of vampires," he said, his lips on the shell of her ear.

"Yes," she whispered, her hands stroking up his arms. "Yes."

He kissed his way down past her ear, along her jaw, before answering. "Yes."

Ecstasy laced her bloodstream, a biting pleasure she had no desire to resist. She wanted to peel off his clothing and find out if an archangel really was built like a man, to lick his skin, mark him with her nails, to ride him, possess him . . . be possessed by him. Nothing else mattered.

His lips touched hers and she moaned. The hands on her hips tightened as he lifted her without apparent effort and began to kiss her in earnest. Fire traveled through the raw eroticism of the openmouthed kiss to curl her toes, coming to pool in the vee between her thighs. "Hot," she whispered when he let her breathe. "Too hot."

Ice silvered the air and it was a cool mist that surrounded her, seeping into her pores in a stroke of possession. "Better?" He kissed her again before she could answer, his tongue inside her, his body hard and perfect and-

Nothing else mattered.

The words were wrong. The thoughts were wrong.

Sara mattered.

Beth mattered.

She mattered.

Raphael's lips traveled down her neck and to the flesh exposed by the open buttons of her shirt. "Beautiful."

I have not taken a human lover in eons. But you taste . . . intriguing.

She was a plaything.

To be toyed with and discarded.

Raphael could control her mind.

Giving a scream of pure rage, she kicked off him hard enough to send herself sprawling. The shock of pain as her tailbone connected with the floor snapped the final tendrils of a desire so visceral, so addictive, it made a fool out of her even now. "You bastard! Is rape what turns you on?"

For a single fleeting second, she thought she saw shock shadow his expression, but then that familiar arrogance looked back at her. "It was worth a try." He shrugged. "You can't say you didn't enjoy it."

She was so mad she didn't stop to think, to consider why she'd come here. Giving another scream, she rushed him. To her surprise, she got in a few good licks before he grabbed her arms and forced her against a wall.

His wings spread out to block her view of the room and it wasn't until he growled, "Leave us!" that she realized someone else had entered.

"Yes, sire."

Vampire. Dmitri.

And she'd been so ****ing disoriented, so filled with manufactured lust turned into rage, that she hadn't heard him enter. "I'm going to kill you!" Her sense of violation had her humiliatingly close to tears. She should've expected such tactics from Raphael but she hadn't. Which made her an A-grade moron. "Let me go!"

He looked down at her, the blue of his eyes suddenly dark-as if a storm had rolled in. "No. In this state, you'll force me to hurt you."

For a second her heart kicked. He cared. She screamed again. "Get out of my head!"

"I am not in your head, Guild Hunter."

The use of the formal title was a verbal slap, one that brought her back to her senses. Instead of responding with the blood-fury boiling inside her, she took several deep breaths and tried to go to that calm place in her mind, the same place she went to whenever the memories of Ariel-No, she couldn't return there. Why wouldn't the past leave her alone today?

Another deep breath.

The scent of the sea, cool, crisp, powerful.

Raphael.

She opened her eyes. "I'm fine."

...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 12



Elena walked out the Tower door and kept going, ignoring the taxi standing by. An incandescent anger, richer, deeper, more deadly than anything she'd ever before felt, fired through her nerve endings, causing pain but also keeping her alive, keeping her going.

The bastard, the goddamn bastard!

Tears pricked. She refused to let them rise. To do that would be to admit that she'd expected something more from Raphael, something human.

Catching a familiar scent, she spun on her heel, knife in hand. "Go home, vamp." Her voice was molten fury.

Dmitri gave a courtly bow. "Be that I could do as my lady asks. Unfortunately"-he straightened, his shades reflecting her own angry image back at her-"I have other orders."

"Do you always do as your master commands?"

His lips thinned. "I stay with Raphael out of loyalty."

"Yeah, right. Like a little puppy dog." She dug in her claws, in the mood to draw blood. "Do you sit up and beg when he asks, too?"

Dmitri was suddenly in front of her, having moved so fast he was gripping her knife hand before she could draw breath. "Don't push me, hunter. I'm the head of Raphael's security force. If it were up to me, you'd be strung up in chains, screaming as your flesh was flayed off your bones."

The erotic scent of him made the image even more barbaric. "Didn't Raphael tell you to stop the scent games?" She dropped a knife down from her arm sheath and into the palm of her weaker hand. Weaker, not weak. All hunters could fight with both hands.

"That was last night." He bent closer, the planes of his face exquisitely drawn, the curve of his lips touched with a hint of cruelty. "Today, he's probably extremely pissed with you. He won't mind if I take a discreet bite." A hint of fang as he flashed her on purpose.

"Right here on the street?" she asked, looking up at the line of his throat, vividly conscious of the push of his erection.

He didn't bother to glance around. "We're near Archangel Tower. The streets belong to us."

"But"-she smiled-"I. ****ing. Don't!" Slashing out with her knife, she carved a line across his throat.

Blood sprayed in an arterial rush but she'd already dodged out of the way. Dmitri grabbed at his neck and fell to his knees, his shades falling away to display eyes blazing fire. She read her death in those eyes.

"Don't be a baby," she murmured, wiping the knife on the grass and sliding it back into the sheath. "We both know a vamp your age will recover within the next ten minutes." A violent wave of vampire scent crashed into her senses. "And here come your flunkies to help you out. Nice talking to you, Dmitri darling."

"Bitch." It was a wet gurgle.

"Thanks."

He actually smiled, hard, lethal, scary as hell. "I like bitches." The words were already clearer, his healing progressing at a faster pace than she would've believed.

But it was the dark hunger in his tone that got to her. Damn kinky vampire had actually liked the knife. ****. Turning her back to him, she ran. The second he healed, he'd come after her. And right now, she was worried less about being killed than about being seduced out of her ****ing mind.

Dmitri might make her ache with need, but she didn't want him when he wasn't around to dose her with that scent of his. It was a compulsion, that scent, far stronger than any other she'd ever heard of. But that was hardly surprising given who he called sire.

Raphael had taken her between one breath and the next. She'd thought she'd learned to detect him, to pick up the odd sense of disconnection between mind and self that had accompanied his earlier attempts. But this time, there had been nothing. One second she was worrying about vampire serial killers, the next she was crawling all over him, trying *****ck his tongue down her throat. If she hadn't snapped out of it, she was pretty sure she'd have been sucking other things, too.

Her face flushed.

Not in anger, though that was there. In desire. In heat. She might not want Dmitri when he was out of range, but she wanted the archangel. That made her a candidate for the asylum, but under no circumstances did it excuse what he'd done.

An instant later, she passed out of the restricted Tower zone to hit busy city streets, but instead of slowing down, she pushed herself even harder. Reaching into her pocket as she ran, she pulled out a cell phone and pressed in an emergency code. "I need a retrieval," she gasped as soon as someone answered. "Sending location." She pressed a button, activating the special GPS widget-it would transmit her location to the Guild computers until she switched it off. Because she couldn't stay in one place. The second she did, the game was over.

She kept an eye out for a taxi, but, of course, there were none in sight.

Two minutes later, tendrils of hunger snaked around her, searching, caressing. A sumptuous warmth bloomed in the pit of her stomach. Shoving a fist against that body part, she took in another gasp of air and made a hard left. High-class department stores zipped by, followed by the Zombie Den-the hangout of choice for the vamps and their whores.

Images of the erotic scenes she'd witnessed last night filled her head.

Opulent.

Sensual.

Seductive.

Not whores, addicts. And the worst thing was, she couldn't blame them. If Raphael ever got her in bed-not a chance since she was going to cut off his balls the first opportunity she got-she'd probably crave him to the end of her days. Infuriated, she pumped up her arms and swerved around a kid on a skateboard.

"Where's the vamp?" the kid called out, jumping off his board in excitement. "Dude . . ."

Oh, ****! She glanced over her shoulder and saw Dmitri gaining on her. The blood on his shirt was a scarlet flower but his neck was fine, his pretty face wiped clean. Snapping back her head, she darted into traffic, crossing the road to the blaring of horns, curses, and several excited screams. A tourist started snapping photos. Great. He'd probably get a shot of her being vampire-bit right before Dmitri turned her into a begging, crawling thing concerned with *** alone.

Her gun was suddenly in her hand. Knives were her weapon of choice, but if she was going to stop the son of a bitch before he got to her, she'd have to shoot him in the heart. There was a very slight chance she might actually kill him that way, and if she did, she'd be brought up on charges. Unless, of course, she could prove harmful intent. She could see it now.

"See, Your Honor, he was going to **** me silly, make me like it."

Yeah, that would fly. With her luck, she'd end up with some old fogey of a judge who thought like her father-that women were pawns, spreading their legs their only talent. Fury boiled through her in a second violent wave. She was about to turn, her finger already on the trigger, when a motorcycle screeched to a stop in front of her. It was pure black, as were the rider's clothes and helmet. But there was a discreet gold G on the gas tank.

Switching direction, she jumped onto the back and held on for dear life.

Dmitri's hand brushed her shoulder as the motorcycle peeled away. She turned to find him standing at the curb, watching her go. He blew her a kiss.

Raphael closed the door to the black-on-black room. For a second, he stood in the utter lack of light and considered what he was about to do.

Lijuan was totally removed from humanity.

What had happened between him and Elena had been very human, very real.

He set his jaw, knowing he had no other choice. Not with Caliane for a mother. If this was the beginning of some kind of a degeneration . . .

Walking instinctively to the center of the room, he focused his angelic abilities to a shining beam deep within. Like the glamour, this was something only an archangel could do. But unlike the glamour, it demanded a far heavier price. For the twelve hours after he did this, he would be Quiet, ruled by a part of his brain that had never known mercy and never would.

It was why he rarely used this form of communication. In the aftermath, he became something far closer to the monster that lurked in his heart, in the hearts of all archangels. Power was a drug and it didn't only corrupt, it destroyed. It was during one of these Quiet periods that he'd punished the vampire who had ended up in Times Square.

The punishment had been nonnegotiable. But the Quietness in him had changed the timbre of it to something close to evil. Now, Raphael made sure not to schedule anything that could turn destructive during these periods. The problem was, once he went cold, he saw things in a different light and could very well change his mind.

But this had to be done.

Centered, ready, he spread out his wings to their fullest extent. The tips just barely touched the edges of the room and he could taste the blackness of the walls in his throat. Most humans and vampires believed that angel wings weren't sensitive except at the arched line above the shoulders. They were wrong. Some quirk of angelic biology meant that an angel was fully conscious of any impact on his wings, whether it be in the center or at the very edge of his primaries.

Now he soaked in the blackness as if it were power. It wasn't. The power came from within him, but the lack of stimulation-a...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 13



Ransom stopped the motorcycle in the bowels of Guild HQ. Pulling off his helmet, he hung it on the right handlebar. "My, but you lead an interesting life, Elieanora."

She rubbed her cheek against the braid hanging down his back, too happy with him to tell him to stop using that stupid name. Not only was it not her name-okay, maybe on her birth certificate-it made her sound about a hundred years old. According to Ransom, she'd been drunk the night she confessed her secret shame. She thought it was more likely he'd hacked into some database and stolen the intel.

Reaching back, he patted her thigh. "Am I going to get lucky tonight?"

"You wish." Grinning, she slapped away his hand and got off the bike.

His too-handsome-to-live face bore a wide grin. "It was worth a try." With high cheekbones and rich copper-gold skin inherited from his Cherokee ancestors, not to mention green eyes from Ireland-via a short sojourn in an Australian penal colony-he was pretty enough to lick up like ice cream.

It was almost a pity they were just friends. Almost. "The night I sleep with you, you'll cry like a baby."

His eyes widened as he unzipped his leather jacket. "I know you're into knives, but in bed? Isn't that taking it a little far?"

Leaning in, she put her hands on his shoulders. "The instant we have ***, we stop being friends. Tear-time, honey pie." It was a relief to be doing something as normal as bantering with Ransom.

He wrapped an arm around her waist. "You don't know what you're missing."

"I'll survive." She knew full well he didn't really want to mess up their friendship. And the second *** intruded, that's exactly what would happen-Ransom didn't deal well with intimacy. He might not be sleeping with Elena, but she bet she knew him a hell of a lot better than his girlfriend did. "And I won't even tell Nyree you were hitting on me."

Shadows moved across his face. "She left me."

"Well, that's a new one. It's usually you doing the cutting and running."

"She said I had commitment issues." He squeezed her waist in emphasis. "Where the hell does she get that from?"

"Er, Ransom"-she patted his cheek-"your longest relationship, not counting me or Sara, was with Nyree and that was what, eight weeks?"

He scowled. "Who the **** needs commitment? We had good times. I can find another piece of ass the second I walk into a bar."

Despite all the problems in her own life-certain-death job, kinky vampire, superpowerful archangel-she felt her attention switch completely. "Wow, hell froze over while I wasn't looking. You care about her."

He dropped his arm. "I let her leave stuff at my place. Girly ****."

Which, she assumed, was as good as a marriage certificate to him. "And?"

"And what?"

Sensing that line of questioning would get her nowhere, she changed gears. "That's your plan-to go out and find an easy lay?"

"You're the morality police now?"

The shrug made her muscles protest, threatening to remind her of how she'd overstretched them in the first place. "Hey, none of my business if you and Nyree decide to find new bed partners."

His skin turned white over bone. "She lets any other ****er lay a hand on her, he'll be singing soprano the rest of his miserable life."

"Maybe you should let Nyree know." Elena decided that was about the limit of the advice she was capable of right then. It was time to return to the nightmare of her life. "Now get your cute butt up off there. We need to powwow with Sara."

"She's on her way," he told her, sprawling back on the bike with an easy grace that made most women drool. "When you called for a retrieval, she told me to haul ass and to make sure you stayed hidden until she knew what was going on."

Elena remembered what Sara had implied about spies in the Guild. Raphael's spies. Her hands fisted. "I hate men."

Ransom sat back up, face absolutely expressionless. "What happened?"

And she knew that if she told him, he'd be ready to go archangel hunting with her. She called him her sometimes-friend because they tended to fight half the time, but when push came to shove, Ransom would stand at her back. But this was a private war. "Personal stuff," she answered, just as the elevator doors opened to reveal Sara.

She strode out, a petite woman with skin the rich, melting color of cinnamon coffee and huge brown eyes set off by dark hair cut in thick, straight bangs and twisted up off her neck. Her tailored burgundy suit and white lace camisole screamed executive, but she had her feet perched on what looked like five-inch high heels. "You smell like you've been running a marathon," was her greeting to Elena. "And you"-a glance at Ransom-"look like a reject from a biker show."

"Hey!" Ransom took offense. "I'll have you know I'm a certified biker dude."

Sara ignored him to fix Elena with a gimlet eye. "Ellie, my darling, please explain to me why the office has been flooded with calls about, and I quote"-she crooked her fingers in the air-"a vicious vampire on the loose, a crazy knife-wielding maniac, and oh, this one's my favorite-an assassin carrying a gun!"

"I can explain."

Sara folded her arms and tapped one fashionably clad foot. "Explain why you flashed not only a knife but a gun? I hope to God you didn't actually use either of them without authorization because if the VPA gets ahold of it, we're screwed."

Elena rubbed the back of her neck. "Exigent circumstances. He was trying to make me his bed buddy. I declined. He gave chase."

Ransom choked back what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "Why did you say no? It's been a dry spell of what, forever?"

She threw him a dirty look before returning her gaze to Sara. "You know I'd never have considered using the gun otherwise."

Sara held up a hand. "How, exactly, did you 'decline' his offer?"

"By slitting his throat."

The silence in the garage was broken only by the sound of water drip-dripping somewhere in the distance. Sara just stared. So did Ransom. Then the idiot male started laughing hysterically. He laughed so hard he fell off the bike and onto the scarred concrete of the garage floor. Even that didn't stop him.

Elena would've kicked him, except he'd probably use the chance to pull her down with him. "Shut up before I do the same to you."

He tried to stop laughing. Failed. "Jesus, Ellie. You are awesome!"

"What you are," Sara muttered, "is a magnet for trouble."

"I-" Elena started to defend herself.

Sara held up her hand again and started counting off on her fingers. "Because of you, I have messages on my phone from the governor and the freaking President of the United States of America." Down went one finger. "Because of you, half of New York now thinks there's a wild vampire on the loose." Another finger. "Because of you, I got three more gray hairs!"

Elena grinned at the last. "I love you, too."

Shaking her head, Sara finally bridged the distance between them and hugged her with ferocious strength. After this many years of friendship, they had the height thing figured out. Elena bent, Sara tiptoed, and they met in the middle. Breaking apart, they looked at each other. "Are you in trouble, Ellie?"

Elena bit her lower lip and glanced from Ransom's suddenly sober face to Sara's. "Sort of. Raphael and I had a slight . . . disagreement." She wasn't sure why she wasn't serving him up on a platter. Maybe it was because she was terrified of what he'd do to her friends-hunters or not, they were no match for an archangel. Or maybe it was something far more dangerous. "And Dmitri apparently thinks that makes me fair game."

"The vampire?" Sara clarified. "Raphael's security chief?"

"Yep." She shoved a hand through her hair. "You guys are not going to believe this-when I cut his throat, he got off on it. He thinks I'm the hottest thing since blood on a stick."

"There's no such thing as blood on a stick." Of course, that was Ransom.

"Exactly!" She threw up her hands. "I'm not into weird vampire **** either!"

"Okay, this isn't as bad as I thought," Sara muttered. "Do you think he'll lay a complaint with the VPA?"

Elena thought back to the air kiss. "No. He's having too much fun."

"Good for the Guild, not so good for you." Sara tapped her foot again. "Right, you'll go to ground in the Cellars until you can contact Raphael and get him to rein in Dmitri. In the meantime, Ransom will deal with lover boy-"

"No," Elena interrupted.

Ransom stood, brushing off the seat of his pants. "You don't think I can handle him?" There was an edge to his tone.

"Don't be so male," she snapped. "He has the scent thing happening." And Ransom was hunter-born. Not as strong as Elena, but strong enough to be vulnerable.

...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 14



"How did you lose her?" Raphael stared at Dmitri, impassive.

"She cut my throat."

Raphael looked at the vampire's clean shirt, his damp hair. "It occurred soon after she left if you've had time to clean up."

"Yes. She didn't want an escort home."

"Did you provoke the attack?" he asked calmly, because the answer mattered nothing to him, except as a test of Dmitri's loyalty.

"I wanted to taste her."

Raphael struck out without warning, slamming Dmitri to the floor with a broken jaw. "I told you she was off-limits. Are you challenging my authority?"

The vampire stood, waiting for his jaw to heal enough that he could speak. "You fought."

"Yes, but I didn't rescind my order."

A bow of Dmitri's head. "My apologies, sire. I did not realize her blood was yours." Disappointment in his eyes, but no hint of rebellion. "I'm surprised you only broke my jaw."

With the dazzling clarity of absolute Quiet, Raphael could see that Dmitri was sincere. "I need you functional. We have work to do."

"I can track her."

That was a secret no mortal knew. Vampires like Dmitri, the ones who gained the ability to entrance hunters with the seduction of scent, could also sometimes turn the tables on their foes. "That's not necessary." This was his hunt-he knew where she'd go. If he was wrong, he knew who to ask. They would answer.

"What would you like me to do?" Dmitri asked, his voice almost normal. He was old enough that most injuries-especially those that involved little to no loss of blood-healed relatively quickly.

"Get me the Guild Director's home address, as well as that of Ransom Winterwolf."

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 15



Elena made the word "hide" then waited as Vivek thought. "Anytime this century, V."

"Patience." He sat with absolute stillness, but it was no act of self-discipline. Vivek had lost all feeling below the shoulders in an accident as a child. If he hadn't, he'd have been hunter-born. Instead, aside from his considerable duties as Cellar Manager, he functioned as the Guild's eyes and ears in a connected world, his high-tech wheelchair built for wireless capability-he often knew what people were saying about the Guild before the words even passed their lips.

Now, he murmured something under his breath and on the computer board, the letters shifted to make home. "What next, Ellie?" It was clear he wasn't talking about the game.

She tapped her fingers on her thigh. "I need to talk to Sara."

"You're under blackout orders."

"Then you talk to her-tell her she's in danger. Everyone knows she's the one person certain to know my location." And it wasn't Dmitri she was worried about.

Vivek used a vocal command to open the door through which she'd entered. "Go. I'll make the call then let you back in."

She wasn't in the mood for his childishness. "I'm not going to steal your damn codes!"

"Go or I don't move."

Shoving away from the computer console, she strode out. "Hurry up." The door snapped shut behind her.

Sliding down to sit with her back against it, she didn't stop to consider that Ransom might also be in danger. She wasn't used to thinking of him as vulnerable. She wouldn't have worried so much about Sara either, before the baby. Not only could Sara take care of herself, but her husband, Deacon, was a lethal son of a bitch. But God, Zoe was so little.

The door slid open behind her. "Sara wants to talk to you." Vivek sounded peevish.

She walked in to find him sulking in the blackout booth, which meant Sara didn't want him listening in. Elena winced. When Vivek sulked, life in the Cellars got very uncomfortable-bone-melting temperature changes, odd smells in the air, food that tasted like sawdust. Once, she'd had to spend a whole torturous month down here after Vivek had had a fight with Sara. Talk about a **** storm. But Vivek's moods were nothing, not when Sara's life was on the line.

Elena picked up the old-fashioned phone. It was so old it was hackerproof. "Sara, you need to get down here with your family."

"The Guild Director doesn't turn tail and hide." Sara's tone was hard, revealing the steel backbone that had given her the strength to hold her position in a profession overrun with testosterone.

"Don't be an idiot!" Elena clenched her hand hard enough that her nails left half-moon crescents on her palms. "Dmitri isn't some baby vamp. He's Raphael's head of security!"

"And that's something else we need to discuss-just how big a 'disagreement' did you and Raphael have?"

Her soul chilled. "Why?"

"Because I came back to my office to find a new message waiting-he's looking for you, Ellie."

"I'll talk-"

"You're going nowhere near him," Sara snapped. "You didn't hear the message. If a naked blade could speak, that's what it would sound like."

Elena cursed under her breath. What the hell had happened between her leaving the Tower and the message? He'd let her go without a fight. So why was he hunting her now? "Are you sure he's that angry?"

"Angry isn't the word I'd use. Lethal would fit better." There was real concern in Sara's voice. "What did you do to piss off an archangel?"

Loyalty warred with the inexplicable need she had to keep what had happened in the office, private. "I hit him."

A long, indrawn breath. "You hit an archangel?"

She recalled the sense of danger that had blasted off him like heat radiation. "It was his own fault, so if he stops to think about it, he'll calm down."

"Archangels aren't exactly good at saying sorry." Sarcasm dripped from every syllable. "It doesn't matter what he did, you'll have to grovel or he'll grind you to dust."

"I won't grovel." Not for anyone. "You know that."

"Of course I know that, you moron. I was making a point."

"The point being that I'm dead meat." Because she wouldn't apologize to that bastard. Not even to save her own life.

"Pretty much."

"That proves my point."

"Which is?"

"That you need to get Zoe and Deacon to a safe house. If Raphael's gunning for me, he'll come after you and yours to get my location." She paused, swallowed bile. Her life was one thing, but . . . "I won't let my pride put your family in danger. I'll call him and-"

"Shut up." Quiet words. Furious words. "I'll get Zoe out of the city. Deacon and I can look after ourselves."

"Sara, I'm sorry."

"You really ****ing think I'd let you barter your soul so easily?" She hung up.

Elena felt like ****, but knew her best friend would forgive her. And Sara angry meant Sara in action. About to return the receiver to the cradle, she hesitated. A swift glance showed that Vivek had pointedly turned his back to her. Taking the chance, she pressed the cutoff button, then quickly dialed an outside line. "Hurry up," she muttered under her breath as the phone rang and rang on the other end.

"Beth Deveraux-Ling speaking."

At the sound of that familiar voice, moisture threatened to film Elena's vision. She cut it off with the ruthless ease of practice. "Beth, it's Elena."

"Why do you keep using that name?" Beth asked and Elena could almost see her frown. "You know Daddy prefers you use your full name, or Nell if you must shorten it."

"Beth, I don't have time for this. Is Harrison there?"

"Harry doesn't like talking to you." Her voice lowered. "I don't even know why I do-you turned my husband over to an angel."

"You know why," Elena reminded her. "If I hadn't brought him in, the next hunter would've had orders to execute him. Angels don't like losing their property."

"He's not property!" Beth sounded close to tears.

Elena rubbed at her temples with her fingers. "Please, Bethie, get Harrison. This is important." Her sister was high-strung at the best of times, and quite incredibly spoiled to boot. "He'll want to know."

A stubborn pause before Beth finally folded. Elena waited for several seconds, eyes trained on Vivek's back. He'd know she'd made an outside call the second he exited the cubicle but she had to do this. And there was no danger to the Guild-even if someone traced the call, it was set up to come back to a dummy account.

"Elena?"

She snapped to attention. "Harry, look, I need-"

"You need to listen," Harry interrupted.

"I don't have time for your-"

"I'm trying to help you." It was a sharp reproof. "I don't know why-maybe I don't want to be known as the brother-in-law of the hunter who was found spitted on a stick in Times Square! I can't believe you managed to insult someone of Dmitri's stature."

Elena froze. "You know?"

"Of course I know. Dmitri's the most senior vampire in the area and I report directly to him unless my master wants a face-to-face." His voice turned bitter. "I've been having quite a lot of chats with Andreas since you ended my hope of escape."

"Damn it, Harry, you signed a contract. In blood!"

"I wouldn't expect you to understand family loyalty," he said, slicing right through her heart. "But I suspect your life is important to you."

"I called to warn you," she gritted out, refusing to let her twerp of a brother-in-law hurt her. "You might be a vampire, but Beth is mortal."

"Not for long. We've petitioned for her to be Made."

Elena's soul went ice-cold. "You are not dragging her into that world. Does she have any idea of what she's signing on for or did you tell her it was all roses and fairy tales?"

"Oh, believe me, Elieanora, we know it's not perfection but it is immortality. And not that you'd have any comprehension of the concept, but I love Beth-I don't want to spend eternity without her."

That halted Elena, because, all his faults aside, Harrison Ling did actually seem to love his wife. "Look, Harry, we can fight about this later-hide from Dmitri until this blows over."

"Why should I hide?"

"He'll try to get my location out of you."

"He already asked and I told him I didn't have a clue," Harry replied. "Since he appears to know precisely how close you are to your family, he believed me."

"Just like that." Elena frowned. "No strong-arm tactics?"

"Of course not. We're civilized beings."

Elena's mind rebutted that...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 16



Raphael stood outside the nondescript little house in a suburb of New Jersey, silently applauding the Guild Director's cleverness. The woman had left her beautifully restored brownstone for this little wooden house surrounded by a hundred other such houses. Her home looked utterly ordinary except that he knew it was a fortress. He also knew that the director and her husband, both extremely experienced hunters, were taking turns at keeping an eye out for vampires, weapons close at hand.

Of course, to shoot, they had to see. And he was simply not there to their senses-he'd wrapped the glamour around himself the second he dived off the balcony of his penthouse suite and into the fading light of Manhattan, his power almost completely restored. True darkness had fallen during his flight and now he looked through windows that shimmered gold.

Light. Warmth. Illusion.

The seemingly ordinary surburban yard in front of him was set with sensors, likely connected to booby traps that could be set off from inside the house. Raphael guessed there was a basement leading to a hidden exit-no hunter would ever allow her family to be trapped.

If he hadn't been in the Quiet, he might've been impressed. The security was brilliant, would hold perfectly well against a high-level vampire, though probably not Dmitri. He was far too experienced. But even Dmitri would have had to dodge the weapons. Raphael, on the other hand, didn't even have to step foot inside the house.

But you should, a primeval, reptilian part of his mind whispered, you should teach them a lesson, teach them that no one stands against an archangel and comes out the winner.

He considered the instruction with the chill reason of his current emotional state and disregarded it. The Guild Director was intelligent and good at her job. It made no sense for Raphael to kill her-such an action would throw the Guild into chaos, during which a considerable number of dissatisfied vampires would try to escape from their masters. Some might even succeed because the hunters would be too broken up by the death of their director to be effective. Humans were so weak.

None of yours will escape, that voice whispered again, a voice he only ever heard during the Quiet. They wouldn't dare. Nobody disobeys you, not after we made an example out of Germaine.

Germaine was now somewhere in Texas, but the vampire had never forgotten his hours in Times Square and he never would. They were branded into his memories, pain such as no one should survive. Raphael remembered taking care of Germaine during another time of Quiet. After the Quiet, he recalled that he'd been dissatisfied with what he'd done. Accessing his memories, he found that he'd felt . . . remorse. He'd gone too far.

What a ridiculous idea. What a ridiculous emotion. He was an archangel. Germaine had dared attempt a betrayal. His punishment had been just. As would the Guild Director's be if she stood in Raphael's way.

Kill her child, the voice murmured. Kill her child in front of her. In front of Elena.

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 17



An alarm blared next to Elena's bed, jerking her out of a fitful sleep. Already fully dressed, she got up and started running. Vivek was waiting for her, his door open. "Hurry! On the phone! Sara!"

Vaulting over his wheelchair when it got in her way, she picked up the receiver. "Sara?" Fear was a vile taste on her tongue, sharp and pungent.

"Run, Ellie," Sara whispered and there were tears in her voice. "Run!"

Ice turned her limbs useless. She stood there. "Zoe?"

"She's fine," Sara sobbed. "She wasn't here. Oh, God, Ellie. He knows where you are."

Not for a moment did Elena think Sara was talking about Dmitri. No vampire, however powerful, would reduce her friend to this. "How? What did he do to you?" Her fingers clenched on a knife handle and only then did she realize she'd drawn it.

"How?" Hysterical laughter cut off midstream. "I told him."

The shock immobilized her. "Sara?" If Sara had betrayed her, then she had nothing left.

"Oh, Ellie, he flew to the window and looked at me, told me to open it. I didn't even hesitate!" It was almost a scream. "Then he just asked me where you were and I answered. I answered! Why, Ellie? Why would I answer?"

Elena's breath rushed out of her. Trembling with relief, she put out a hand to brace herself against Vivek's computer panel. "It's okay, Sara."

"It's not ****ing okay! I ratted out my best friend! Don't you dare tell me it's okay!"

"Mind control," Elena said before Sara could really get into her tirade. "He plays with us like toys." He'd certainly played with her-her body, her emotions. "There was nothing you could've done."

"But I'm immune," Sara said. "I'm Guild Director partly because I have a natural immunity to vampire tricks, like Hilda."

"He's not a vampire," Elena reminded her distraught friend. "He's an archangel."

A deep, shaky indrawn breath. "Ellie, there was something seriously wrong with him tonight."

Elena frowned. "What do you mean? Did he do anything . . . evil?" She had to force out the word. Some stupid, deluded part of her didn't want to believe that Raphael could be evil.

"No-he didn't even mention Zoe or threaten her in any way. But then he didn't need to, did he? He could twist my mind like a pretzel."

"If it's any consolation," she said, remembering Erik's animal stare, Bernal's terrified compliance, "he can apparently do that to vampires as well."

A sniff. "Well, at least the bloodsuckers don't have anything on me. You have to get the hell out. He's on his way to you now and in his current mood, he might just destroy the Guild to get to you. He knows all the codes-I gave them to him." Another short scream. "Okay, I'm calm now. I told Vivek to change the codes but I don't think that'll stop Raphael. He wants you."

"I'm outa here. And I'll leave a message making sure he knows I'm in the wind so he doesn't come after Vivek."

"Go to the Blue safe house."

Blue was an unmarked delivery truck that would blend seamlessly into traffic, effectively disappearing the driver. "I will," Elena lied. "Thanks."

"What the hell for?" Sara spit out. "But I can give you this-he wasn't acting normal. I've spoken to him on the phone and you know how good I am with voices. It was different-flat, toneless . . . cold. Not angry, not anything, just cold."

Why did everyone keep using that word? Raphael was many things, but he'd never struck her as cold. However, she didn't have time to ask for details. "I'm heading out now. I'll check in when I can. And don't worry-no matter what, he won't kill me. He needs me to finish the job." She hung up before Sara could realize there were worse things than death. Some of them involved screaming and screaming and screaming until your voice broke.

"New codes." A piece of paper rested in the printer tray. "Use them to get out-I'll change them again the instant you exit the elevator."

She nodded. "Thanks, Vivek."

"Wait." He zipped his chair off to a small locker in the corner. She didn't know what he did, but the locker suddenly swung up. "Take that."

Elena picked up the small, sleek gun. "Won't do much good against an archangel but thanks anyway."

"Don't shoot his body," he told her. "Those rounds are meant to shred an angel's wings."

No! The idea of destroying the incredible beauty of those wings caused an almost physical pain in her heart. "They grow back, heal," she forced herself to say.

"Takes time. And we've been keeping records-it takes an angel longer to heal his wings than anything else. It'll cripple him long enough that you can get out of a tight spot. Unless . . ." Fear spiked his tone. "I heard what you said about mind control. If he can do that from a distance, I don't know if anything will help."

She tucked the gun into the back of her pants after making sure the safety was on. "He's not controlling me now, so there's a limit to his abilities." At least she hoped so. "I don't think he'll come down once he knows I'm gone but you need to be safe. Has Ashwini left?"

"Yes, and nobody else was down here." His eyes were scared but resolute. "I'll lock up behind you, then bunk down." He nodded at the entrance to the secret room hidden behind a wall. He could survive in there for days. "Be safe, Ellie. We need to finish our game."

Bending, she gave him an impulsive hug. "I'll beat your skinny ass when I come back." Now it was time to keep herself alive . . . and whole. Because there were lots of body parts a hunter didn't need in order *****ccessfully track prey.

Raphael stood in front of the elevator he'd been told would transport him to the Cellars. But it appeared he had no need to go down below. His quarry had been flushed out.

The message was pinned to the side of the elevator doors, held up by a nail that had been driven in with enough force that concrete dust littered the ground.

You want to play, angel boy? Then let's play. Find me.

It was a challenge, clear and simple. A foolish thing for the hunter to do. In the Quiet, he couldn't be enraged, but he understood strategy very well. She wanted to draw him away from the Guild and her friends.

He considered that. That primeval part of him whispered, Will you let her lead you around on a leash? She insults you.

He ripped the note off the wall. "Angel boy," he read out loud, crumpling the paper in his hand. Yes, she needed to learn some respect. When he found her, she was going to beg for mercy.

I don't want her to beg.

The echo of his own words stopped him for several long seconds. He remembered that he was intrigued by the hunter's fire, that she relieved the boredom of centuries. Even in the Quiet, he understood the decision not to harm her. To prematurely break a new toy, one that promised such pleasure, was a foolish act. But there were ways to ensure respect without fully destroying the object of his search.

The Guild could wait. First, he had to teach Elena Deveraux not to play games with an archangel.

Elena drove to the Blue safe house through the streets with grim purpose. She wasn't going to hide-that would simply lead to more problems for those she cared about. She had every certainty that Raphael would go after them one by one until he found her. So she did the only thing she could to keep them all safe.

She went home.

And waited, gun in hand.

Raphael stood outside an apartment building, and even in the Quiet, he knew that he was dangerous. If Elena was inside those walls, then blood would spill. There was no room for flexibility in his mind. This was one place where he would not accept or permit her presence.

Wrapping the glamour around himself once more, he entered the apartment through the front door, breaking the dual deadlocks without effort.

Voices from the other room. Male and female.

"Come on, baby, just-"

"I'm through listening to you!"

"I admit I was an idio-"

"A giant, pigheaded imbecile would be more like it."

"**** this!"

The sound of rustling, then jagged breaths. Hot, deeply ***ual.

Raphael entered the bedroom and pinned Ransom to the wall with a single hand around his throat before the hunter could say a word. But Ransom reacted fast, snapping out with his legs and screaming, "Get out, Nyree! Run, baby!"

Nyree?

Something hit Raphael's back. He looked over his shoulder to find a small, curvy female pelting him with whatever object came to hand. When her fingers closed around a heavy paperweight, he flicked a finger and sent her to sleep. She collapsed slowly into the sofa.

The hunter stilled. "If you've hurt her, I don't care what I have to do-I will find a way to kill you."

"You can't," he responded, but let the man go. "She's sleeping, nothing more. It'll allow for an easier conversation."

...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 18



"You know what," she said, fighting to keep her expression calm, "the only thing I'm sure about right this second is that you're acting out of it."

Is that why you have a gun?

Her hand froze on the weapon, the beads of sweat on her spine turning to ice. "What gun?"

His hair whipped off his face as if caught in a driving wind, but he kept his position without any apparent effort. His face was so pure in its beauty that her heart kicked a beat. It was as if he'd been carved by the most masterful of artisans, the lines of his face clean and quintessentially male. Without a doubt, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

Or perhaps, I am simply that to you.

She flinched, snapping out of the fascination. And this time, she knew he hadn't been messing with her mind-that thought had been her own stupi***y at work. "Simply what?" she asked, just to keep him talking.

Beautiful.

She snorted. "Believe me, angel boy, you turn female heads wherever you go."

Most women see cruelty in me, too much for beauty.

Caught short by that apparently honest assessment, she found herself staring at him with new eyes. Yes, there was cruelty in him. He wasn't pretty, wasn't handsome, wasn't anything so tame. He was dangerous and strong, the epitome of what appealed to her hunter senses. All her life, she'd been too strong, too fast, too unfeminine for human men. They liked her, but after a while, most claimed she made them feel emasculated.

She'd never let on how much that hurt, but it did, it hurt a hell of a lot. Maybe she wasn't a tiny doll like Beth, but she was very definitely female. And she appreciated the male of the species, most especially this male. "You're capable of cruelty," she agreed quietly, "perhaps even horror, but you haven't crossed over into evil."

Haven't I?

Her palm lay sweaty on the gun. "No."

You sound very certain. And yet you accused me of rape this morning.

Her temper spiked. Ignoring the warning cry of her own common sense, she pulled out and held the gun openly at her side. "This morning, you tried to take by force something I might've given you freely had you waited."

A long pause filled only with the sound of her adrenaline-spiked breaths. She wondered what he heard out there, in the velvet darkness of the night, with the streets so far below.

Such honesty.

"I said 'might.' And buddy, your chances went down the drain the instant you pulled that stunt. I won't be manipulated into ***." Not even by a ***-god of an archangel.

He seemed to be thinking that over. His eyes met hers through the glass. He shrugged. *** is fairly pointless anyway.

That made her blink. It didn't fit at all with the darkly sensual man who'd devoured her like his favorite candy that very morning. "Are you alright?" she asked, wondering if he was on some sort of angelic drug.

His response was to blow out the plate-glass window between them. It happened so fast, she barely had time to throw up her arm to shield her eyes. One second the window was there, the next, it was lying in several neat pieces on her carpet. Not a sliver had touched her. When she dropped her arm, she found herself looking out at a huge square of darkness, the wind sliding into her apartment on smooth, silky wings.

Raphael was nowhere to be seen.

Scared, but not for herself, she looked down at the gun in her hand. With trembling fingers, she clicked on the safety again. She'd fired in instinctive self-defense, aiming not for Raphael's face, but for his wings as Vivek had advised. An angel without wings . . .

"Oh, God." Stepping carefully over the large shards of glass-eight perfect triangular pieces-she made her way to the edge and glanced down.

A whisper of wind from behind her. "Definitely no problems with vertigo."

She might've fallen had he not had his hands securely on her hips. "You bastard! You scared me to death!" Twisting, she tried to get away.

He held her still, wrapping both arms around her waist. "Behave, Elena."

The oddness of his tone clanged a serious alarm bell in her head. She couldn't help but think of her earlier thoughts-there were a lot of things worse than death. "Are you planning to drop me?"

"You just told yourself that I won't kill you, that I'm more likely to torture you."

Something snapped. "Get. Out. Of. My. Head!" Squeezing her eyes shut, she shoved outward with every ounce of will-power she possessed. It was a stupid, human reaction, but she was human in every way that mattered.

Behind her, Raphael sucked in a breath. Startled, she intensified her attempts to block him, even as the spiraling emptiness of a deadly fall spread out in front of her. Elena didn't look away-she'd rather face death than have her mind invaded, for what was that if not another form of crawling? But she damn well wasn't going to go without a fight. She switched the way she held the gun. This time, she would purposefully aim for his wings.

"Well, well," Raphael said against her ear. "It seems the hunter-born have another skill."

Her head was starting to ache. But she kept up the pressure, hoping her brain would learn to do this automatically after a while. Of course, that wasn't going to be an issue if she didn't get away from Raphael. It was becoming clearer by the second that whatever was wrong with him it was very, very dangerous for her. "Why are you here, doing this? Is it because I cut Dmitri?"

"He was under orders not to touch you."

Tired of leaning away, she relaxed into him, her head against his chest. He took her weight with ease. "What did you do to him?"

"His jaw will have healed completely by now."

The night darkness was so close, the lights from the other buildings so bright, it felt as if she was standing on the edge of the world. But it wasn't the emptiness in front of her that was the real threat. "Does violence excite you?"

"No."

"Hurting me," she pushed, "making me bleed, that gets Dmitri off. Same for you?"

"No."

"Then why the **** are you holding me here?"

"Because I can."

And she knew that in this mood, he really might break her.

So she shot him. No warning, no second chances. She simply aimed blindly behind her and shot. The second his arms loosened, she sent herself sideways. She could've as easily fallen, but she trusted her reflexes and they didn't let her down.

She landed on the huge shards of plate glass. They held, but she cut the side of her face and the palms of both hands as she clutched at the glass to keep from sliding off and out into the pitch-black of the night. The instant she had any leverage, she used one of her more acrobatic moves to flip over the glass and to a crouching position on the carpet.

Shoving the hair out of her eyes, she looked toward Raphael. He lay crumpled on the glass, propped up against the table where she'd put her phone what felt like hours ago. He was staring down at his wing, and when she followed his gaze, what she saw made her sick.

The gun had done what Vivek had promised. It had almost destroyed the bottom half of one wing. What Vivek hadn't told her was that when an angel's wings got hurt, he bled. And he bled dark red. It dripped onto the glass, sliding across the clean surface to sink into her carpet. Shaking, she got up. "It'll heal," she whispered, trying to convince herself. If she'd crippled him-"You're immortal. It'll heal."

He looked up, a dazed incomprehension in those incredible, unreal blue eyes. "Why did you shoot me?"

"You were torturing me with fear-probably would've ended up throwing me off the ledge a few times and catching me again, just to hear me scream."

"What?" He frowned, shook his head as if trying to clear it, then looked at the open space where her window used to be. "Yes, you're right."

That wasn't the answer she'd expected. "You were there-why do you sound like you can't believe it?"

His eyes met hers again. "In the Quiet, I'm . . . changed."

"What's the Quiet?"

He didn't answer.

"Do you go there a lot?"

His lips tightened. "No."

"So, are you normal now?" Even as she asked, she was running into the kitchen for towels. When she came out, it was to find him in the same position. "Why won't it stop bleeding?" Her voice rose as panic took hold.

He watched her try to stem the flow without success. "I don't know."

She glanced at the gun she'd left on the other side of the room. Maybe it was stupid to remain here, but she knew this Raphael as she hadn't the other. Whatever the Quiet was, it had turned him into the worst kind of a monster. But was she any better? That gun, the damage it had done . . . Grabbing her phone, she called the Cellars, her fingers slick with Raphael's blood. In front of her, his blue eyes seemed to dim, his head dropping back. "Come on," she said, cupping his cheek with fingers stained red. "Stay awake, Archangel. Don't go into shock."

"I'm an angel," he murmured, his voice slurred. "Shock...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 19



An hour later, Elena tugged at the restraints locking her arms to the chair. All she succeeded in doing was tightening the ropes around her ankles. Hog-tied. She was hog-tied! Her arms had been wrenched behind her back and tied, then the rope run down to wrap securely around one ankle, before crossing over to her other ankle. The final touch had been to take the rope back up to her wrists and around her waist to the back. She was effectively chained to a heavy chair that she had no hope of tipping over.

"I can smell blood, Elena," Dmitri drawled, walking back into the room. "Are you trying to flirt?"

She glared at him, recalling exactly how much fun he'd had divesting her of her weapons. He hadn't been crass. No, he'd been sensuality personified, that damn drugging scent of his snaking through her body like the most potent aphrodisiac on the planet. She'd still managed to get in some kicks-before being bound, having her cuts disinfected, and parked in what looked like a small sitting room somewhere in the higher levels of the Tower. "How's Raphael?"

Dmitri came to stand in front of her, having taken off his charcoal suit jacket and dark red tie to reveal a crisp white shirt. The top few buttons were open, exposing a delicious triangle of bronze skin. Not a tan, she thought. He was clearly from somewhere with a hotter sun, somewhere exotic and-"Stop it!" Now that she was concentrating, she could distinguish the faint scent he was stroking over every inch of her skin.

He smiled and there was a promise of pain in that smile. "I wasn't focusing anything on you."

"Liar."

"I confess." He came even closer, bending down to brace his hands on the arms of the chair. "You're very sensitive to my scent." He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath. "Even sweaty and bloody, you have a unique scent of your own. It makes me want to take a big, greedy bite."

"Not in this lifetime," she said, voice husky with the strength of will it was taking to resist his slow seduction.

She'd misjudged Dmitri because he didn't leak power like the other old ones she'd met, which meant he was in a class of his own . . . and probably more than capable of throwing off the effects of a control chip.

That was a secret hunters had died to protect-because sometimes, a vampire's second-long disorientation, his belief that he'd been tagged and immobilized, was all you had. In that second, you could escape or do actual damage. "Why are you fixated on me?" she asked bluntly, burying her knowledge of the chip's fatal flaw. As far as she knew, only angels could read minds-and they had no reason to sabotage the effectiveness of a hunter's most powerful weapon-but she wasn't taking any chances. "You're so ****ing ***y"-damn it, it was true-"you've got to have women throwing themselves at you. Why me?"

"I told you-you make things interesting." His lips curved but the bloody spikes in his eyes reminded her he wasn't exactly happy with her right then. "You'll live, you know."

"I will?"

"At least until you complete the job." He stared at her.

She stared back. Dmitri very likely knew every detail of the job, but if he didn't, she wasn't going to spill the beans and dig her grave even deeper. "You can't imagine how much pleasure that gives me."

"What do you know about pleasure, Guild Hunter?" His tone turned blade sharp, his skin almost glowing from within.

Her throat dried up as she realized she'd been wrong again. Dmitri wasn't only powerful, he was powerful. So old that now he wasn't concealing it, the age of him made her bones ache. "I know that what you promise as pleasure will lead inexorably to pain."

He blinked, his lashes incongruously long. "But with a master of the art, all pain is pleasure."

Shivers raked up her spine, brushed across her nipples. "No, thanks."

"The decision is no longer up to you." He rose to his full height. "Are you hungry?"

Startled by the pragmatic question, she shook off the drugging aftereffects of his scent, and took a moment to think. "I'm starving."

"Then you'll be fed."

Scowling at the way he'd phrased that, she said nothing as he disappeared out the door, only to return several minutes later with a covered plate. When he removed the lid, she found herself looking at what appeared to be a dinner of grilled fish in some kind of white sauce, teamed with lightly sauteed vegetables and baby potatoes. Her mouth watered. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." He grabbed another chair and moved it opposite her without effort, though it was the twin of the one she sat in, unable even to tilt. "What would you like first?"

She set her jaw. "I am not letting you feed me."

He speared a piece of carrot. "The men who accompanied me to your apartment-do you know who they were?"

She kept her mouth shut, not trusting him not to shove food at her while her guard was down.

"Members of the Seven," he said, answering his own question. "Those vampires and angels who protect Raphael with no thought to our own advancement."

Curiosity was a flame inside her, enough for her to speak. "Why?"

"That's for us to know." He ate the carrot with every appearance of enjoyment. While vampires couldn't gain sustenance from such food, she knew they could digest a certain amount without problem. It was why most low-level vamps were able to pass for human. "What you need to know is that we'll get rid of anything, and anyone, who poses a threat to him, even if it means we forfeit our own lives."

"And that's supposed to make me feel happy about you shoving a fork in my direction?"

He scooped up a piece of the fish, making sure to coat it with the sauce, which looked tauntingly delicious. "Until Raphael wakes, I'm constrained against hurting you. He gave me a direct order not to. The others aren't subject *****ch orders. I hand them this fork and walk out that door, and you'll understand a whole new meaning to the word 'pain.' "

She blew out a breath. "Free my hands at least-you know I can't hurt you without weapons."

"I do that, you're dead." He lifted the fork toward her mouth. "You're alive right now because I'm keeping the others from you. If they think you can manipulate me . . ."

She didn't trust him an inch. But she was starving and she was a hunter-she knew a hunger strike would achieve nothing while weakening her. She opened her mouth. The fish was as delicious as it looked. But she held it in her mouth for almost a minute, tasting carefully. Only when she was satisfied it was clean, did she swallow. "No narcotics?"

"Unnecessary. It's not like you can fly." He fed her a bite of potato. "And Raphael will want to see you as soon as he wakes."

"His wings?"

Dmitri raised an eyebrow. "You sound like you care."

She couldn't see any point in lying. "I do. I only meant to get away from him-he was acting really weird." She ate. "I mean, he's immortal. It should've just given me enough time to get a head start."

"True." He fed her another forkful, sliding out the tines more slowly than was warranted. When she narrowed her eyes, he gave her that cool, dangerous smile that never reached his eyes. "Which is why you've just gone from hunter to the number one threat to angels."

"Oh, please." She shook her head when he offered her broccoli. Smiling, he ate it, then fed her a forkful of peas instead. She ate, thought it over. "That kind of a gun's been used before." It couldn't be a secret, not if it had been fired against angels.

"Yes. We know of it. It causes temporary damage." He shrugged. "The archangels apparently find it a fair weapon, given that humans have few other ways to combat angels who get too pushy."

"Maybe it was a bad angle," she murmured. "Did I hit a major artery or something?" She knew all about vampire biology, but angels were another matter altogether. "Enough," she said when he offered her another bite.

He put down the fork. "You'll have to ask Raphael those questions-if you still have your tongue, of course." Getting up, he disappeared a second time, returning with a bottle of water.

After drinking and managing not to dribble, she looked at him again. Still darkly ***y, still an inch away from ripping out her throat. "Thanks."

His answer was to lay one finger against the pulse in her neck. "So strong, rich and sweetly potent. I look forward to my own dinner-too bad it's not you."

Then he was gone.

Elena watched the door with absolute focus as she began twisting in her chair, determined to get out of the ropes. Dmitri was protecting her against the others right now, but who knew how long that would last.

The only problem was, the ropes had been tied by an apparent master.

But with a master of the art, all pain is pleasure.

Bondage, that figured. Dmitri probably liked to tie his women up in all sorts of interesting positions. Her face flushed. She didn't want him-not when...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 20



Elena went utterly quiet, much as she imagined a small mouse might in front of a very big, very bad cat with large teeth. "Raphael?" she whispered, though she knew that fresh, clean, rainy scent as well as her own. And that was something that made no sense at all-how could he have a scent inside her head?

Go to sleep, Elena. Your thinking is keeping me awake.

She took a deep breath. "How are you-the injury?"

Are you bound?

"Yes." She waited for an answer to her own question.

Good. I wouldn't want you disappearing before we had a chance to talk about your penchant for weaponry.

Then the sense of him was gone from her head. She whispered his name again, but knew he was no longer listening. Her guilt soon morphed into anger. The bastard-he could've had her released, but he'd left her tied up. Her wrists were sore, her back hurt from the damn chair, and-"And he's got a right to be pissed." Raphael had terrified her on that ledge tonight, but he hadn't actually harmed her. Meanwhile, she'd shot him. If the man was furious, he had reason. That didn't mean she had to like it.

And there was still the matter of his compelling her to have ***.

Humiliating as it was, she'd told him the truth tonight-if he'd only waited, it was highly likely she'd have crawled all over him voluntarily at the first opportunity.

Her cheeks burned. She was going to have Idiot tattooed on her forehead as soon as she got out of here. From the start she'd told herself to be wary, to never forget that she was nothing but a throwaway source of entertainment for Raphael. Apparently that didn't matter to her hormones.

The archangel made her burn.

The worst thing was, she couldn't blame the fascination on lust alone. Raphael was far too intriguing a male for anything that simple. But tonight, tonight he hadn't been right. Or maybe, another part of her whispered, he had been-what if the stranger she'd shot had been the real Raphael . . . the Archangel of New York, a creature capable of torturing another being until that person was nothing but a screaming, destroyed piece of monstrous art.

Raphael's eyes were closed, but he wasn't truly asleep. He was in a semiconscious coma, a con***ion for which humans or vampires had no equivalent. The angels knew it as anshara , a state of being that could be achieved only by those who had lived longer than half a millennium, and that allowed both reason and deep rest at the same time. Now, the conscious part of him was absorbed in knitting the wound Elena had made with her little gun, while the rest of him slept. A useful state. But not one that could be brought on by choice.

Anshara only came to pass when an angel had been badly injured. That had happened rarely in the last eight hundred years of Raphael's existence. When he'd been young and inexperienced, he'd damaged himself-or been damaged-a few times.

Images of dancing in the sky before his wings tangled, and he plummeted to earth with the certain understanding that his blood would paint a red carpet across the meadow floor.

Ancient memories. Of the boy he'd been.

Broken arms, broken legs, blood spilling out of a shattered mouth.

And her. Standing over him, crooning. "Shh, my darling. Shh."

Sheer terror racing through his bloodstream, his heart heavy with the knowledge that he was helpless to stop her . . . his mother, his greatest nightmare.

Black haired and blue eyed, she'd been the feminine image from which he'd been cast. But she'd been old by then, so very old, not in appearance but in the mind, in the soul. And unlike Lijuan, she hadn't evolved. She'd . . . devolved.

In the present, he could see his wing knitting together filament by filament but it wasn't enough to keep the memories at bay. During anshara, the mind disgorged things long locked away, covering the soul in a layer of opaqueness no mortal could hope to understand. These were the memories of a hundred different mortal lifetimes. He was old, so old . . . but no, he wasn't ancient. These memories weren't all his. Some were those of his race, the secret repository of all their knowledge, hidden inside the minds of their children.

Caliane's memories rose to the surface.

And he was looking down at his bleeding and broken body from a crouching position, watching his/her hand stroke his hair off his face. "It hurts now but it had to be done."

The boy on the ground couldn't speak, drowning in his own blood.

"You will not die, Raphael. You cannot die. You are immortal." Leaning down to press a cool kiss against the bloody ruin of the boy's cheek. "You are the son of two archangels."

The boy's miraculously undamaged eyes filled with betrayal. His father was dead. Immortals could die.

Sadness shifted through Caliane. "He had to die, my love. If he had not, hell would have reigned on earth."

The boy's eyes grew darker, more accusing. Caliane sighed, then smiled. "And so must I-that is why you came to kill me, is it not?" Soft, delighted laughter. "You can't kill me, my sweet Raphael. Only another of the Cadre of Ten can destroy an archangel. And they will never find me."

A shocking transition into his own mind, his own memories. Because he had none of Caliane's after that-she'd made the memory transfer as he lay so badly injured he hadn't even been able to crawl for months. Nor had he been able to lift his eyes to watch her take flight. Instead, his last memory of his mother was of the sight of her bare feet stepping lightly across the verdant green of the meadow, a trail of angel dust sparkling in her wake.

"Mother," he tried to say.

"Shh, my darling. Shh." Then a gust of wind blew dirt into his eyes.

When he blinked awake, Caliane was gone.

And he was looking into the face of a vampire.

Blood born

He fed.

His parched bones swelled, filled with life.

But he needed more.

So much more.

This was the ecstasy the others had been trying to keep from him while bloating themselves with power. Now they would pay the price. Blood dripped from his canines as he screamed a challenge that shattered window glass on every building within a mile radius.

It was time.