[ Truyện Tiếng Anh] Angel's Blood

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 31



Her body chose that moment to shiver.

Raphael's chuckle was husky, male in a way that said he knew he had her. "Bath first, I think."

"I thought you were playing hard to get."

He stroked a finger down her throat, making her shiver again for a far different reason. "I just want to set the ground rules before we do this."

She forced her feet forward, toward the bathroom. "I know the rules. Don't expect anything but a dance between the sheets, don't go all calf-eyed, yadda yadda." The words were flippant but she felt a tug in the region of her heart. No, she told herself, utterly horrified. Elena P. Deveraux would never be stupid enough to give her heart to an archangel. "Is that about-holy ****!" She stepped into the bathroom. "It's bigger than the bedroom!"

Not quite but close. The "bath" was almost the size of a small swimming pool, the steam curling off it pure, sensual temptation. A shower stood to her right, but it had no glass walls, the area defined only by an expanse of gold-flecked tile. A lightbulb went off in her head. "Wings," she whispered. "It's all to accommodate those beautiful wings."

"I'm glad they meet with your approval." The sound of something wet hitting the cool white of the tile had her glancing back.

Raphael's shirt was on the floor, his chest threatening to make her drool. Stop it, she told herself. But it was hard not to stare at the most beautiful male body she had ever seen. "What're you doing?" Her voice came out husky.

He raised an eyebrow. "Taking a bath."

"What about the rules?" She found her fingers were at the bottom of her T-shirt, ready to pull the sodden material over her head.

He kicked off his boots, watching her peel off the T-shirt to reveal the very circumspect sports bra she wore underneath. "We can discuss those in the bath." His voice held the promise of ***, and when she looked down, she realized why. The rain had turned her black bra into a second skin, the soft material delineating her nipples with perfect clarity.

"Fine with me." Unable to look at him and think at the same time, she turned her back and got rid of her boots and socks, before peeling off the bra. Her fingers were on the waistband of her cargo pants when she felt his body heat behind her. A second later, he was tugging the tie off her hair. Surprisingly, he was careful, so it didn't hurt. The wet strands hit her bare back a few moments after that.

Lips on her neck. Hot. Sinful.

She shivered again, goose bumps rising across her flesh. "No cheating."

Big, warm hands stroked up her damp torso to cup her breasts. She jerked at the bold move, moaned. "Enough. I'm cold." Though he was doing a great job of heating her up from the inside out.

More kisses along her neck.

She put her hands over his, and tipped her head to the side to give him better access. He trailed his tongue down, chasing a droplet of water that fell from her hair, down her nape, and along one shoulder, before drawing back. As she straightened, his thumbs hooked into the sides of her pants.

"Nuh-uh," she said, pulling away. "Rules first."

"Yes, the rules are very important."

She waited for him to move around her. He didn't. Her lips curved. And she decided that since she was living dangerously, she might as well go all the way. Undoing her pants, she pushed them and her panties down in a single push, before stepping out of the garments and kicking them aside. That done, she glanced over her shoulder.

The archangel's eyes held cobalt lightning. Alive. Vivid in a way that proclaimed his immortality. Her breath caught but she knew that if she planned to tangle with this particular male, she had to stand her ground. Throwing him a wicked smile, she walked up the steps built into the side of the bath and into the water.

"Ooooooh." Liquid heat. Pure heaven. She ducked under, came up pushing hair out of her eyes.

He was where she'd left him, watching her with those impossible eyes. But this time, she wasn't mesmerized. Not when she had his naked body there for her delectation. The archangel was built like a fantasy, his chest sculptured with the honed muscles of a man who had to be able to carry his own body weight-and more-in flight.

Her gaze caressed the lines of his chest, his abdomen, skated down. She sucked in a breath, forced her eyes back up. "Come here."

He raised an eyebrow, but then, to her absolute astonishment, obeyed the order. As he entered the bath, she found herself gauging the powerful muscle of his thighs-what would it be like to have all that strength around her as he buried himself inside her? Her stomach clenched. Never had she craved a man with such hunger, never had she been more aware of her own femininity. Raphael could snap her like a twig. And for a woman who had been hunter-born, that wasn't a threat . . . but the darkest of temptations.

Her hand fisted under the water as she remembered how he'd made her cut herself. She hadn't forgotten, had no romantic fantasies that he'd change, become more human. No, Raphael was the Archangel of New York and she had to be ready to take that man to her bed. The water lapped at her breasts as he settled on the opposite side, his wings folded to his back, his hair beginning to curl from the steam.

"Why the delay?" she asked, having seen the blatant evidence of his arousal.

"When you've lived as long as I have," he said, eyes heavy-lidded but definitely on her, "you learn to appreciate new sensations. They are rare in an immortal's life."

She found she'd moved toward him. He hooked an arm around her waist, pulling her closer until she straddled him as he sat on a ledge below the waterline, her legs wrapped around his waist.

He settled her firmly against him.

Sucking in a breath, she said, "*** isn't new to you," and rocked her heat over the exquisite hardness of him. Good didn't begin to describe how it felt. How he felt.

"No. But you are."

"Never had a hunter before?" She grinned, nibbling on his lower lip.

But he didn't smile. "I've never had Elena before." The words were husky, his eyes so intent she felt owned.

Draping her arms around his neck, she leaned back so she could look into his face. "And I've never had Raphael."

At that moment, it felt as if something changed in the air, in her soul.

Then Raphael's hands spread on her lower back and the feeling dissipated. Nothing, she thought, it had been nothing but an overactive imagination. She was tired, frustrated, so damn greedy for this immortal who'd made no secret of the fact that, lust or not, he might yet kill her.

"The rules," Raphael said, catching her gaze, holding it.

She pressed closer, continuing to rub her heat along his aroused length. Today, she needed the pleasure Raphael could provide. And if there was a little sensual cruelty mixed in with the pleasure, so be it. "Yeah?"

He stilled her movements with those powerful hands of his. "Until this ends, I'll be your only lover."

Her muscles tightened at the absolute possession in that statement. "Until what ends?"

"This hunger."

The problem was, she was afraid this fury would never end, that she'd go to her grave craving the Archangel of New York. "Only if you meet a con***ion of mine."

He didn't like that, his bones sharp against skin gone taut. "Tell me."

"No vamp, human, or angel honeys for you either." She dug her nails into his shoulders. "I won't share you." She might be a toy, but she was a toy with claws.

His expression thawed, those cobalt eyes holding a distinct gleam of satisfaction. "Deal."

She'd expected to have to fight him. "I mean it. Not one lover. I'll cut off the hands they used to touch you, dump their bodies where no one will ever find them."

He seemed amused by her gruesome threat. "And me? What would you do to me? Shoot me again?"

"I'm not feeling guilty for that." But she did. Just an eensy bit. "Does it hurt?"

He laughed, and the open pleasure in it was a caress. "Ah, Elena, you are a contradiction. No, it doesn't hurt. It's healed."

She wanted to be a tough-ass, but that smile of his was doing things to her, melting her from the inside out. "So, what turns on an archangel?"

"A naked hunter is a good start." He pulled her harder against his ****, holding her in place when she would've wiggled. "My wings," he told her, kissing her neck, finding that sensitive little spot just above her collarbone.

It made her soften, return the favor. "Wings?" She nipped at the tendons of his neck, feeling languorous heat crawl up her body-she'd thought she wanted a short, hard **** to screw up her brains enough that she could come down from the adrenaline buzz, but now that she was in his arms, a slow descent into sensual oblivion sounded far better.

When he didn't answer, she decided to do some exploring of her own. Moving one hand, she stroked firmly along the top edge of his right wing. He went tense against her, the waiting kind of tense, the kind that told her she'd either done something very good or something...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 32



Raphael dropped her lightly on the bed.

"Nice." She sighed at the decadent feel of the sheets against her skin, her eyes locked with those of an archangel. His gaze was so hotly male, so proprietal that she wondered, for a fleeting second, if she'd made a mistake. What if he wanted to keep her? "Did you ever have a slave?" she asked.

His lips curved slightly, but it was an amusement tempered with sensual demand. "Many." He gripped her ankles, spread her legs. "All very eager to serve-in every possible manner."

She tried to kick out but he hauled her closer, face drawn in a way that was intrinsically ***ual. "Some of them had spent years learning to drive a man to ecstasy. The vampires had had hundreds of years to practice."

"Bastard." A cutting denunciation, but her stomach was tight with anticipation, her breasts hot.

"However"-he pulled her up to meet his thrust as he buried himself inside her in one powerful stroke-"none of them did I forbid from taking other lovers."

Her back arched as she tried to assimilate the impact of his entry into her body, the extreme fullness, the stretched ecstasy. When she could finally draw breath, she found him in the same position, as if he, too, was fighting for control. "You don't strike me as the sharing type." Her voice was raw.

"No. If one went to another man"-he began to pull out with slow deliberation-"there were dozens ready to take her place. It mattered little to me."

She was almost beyond thought now, her entire being focused on the point where their bodies joined. What reason remained collapsed under the heady, seductive force of his words.

"If you take another lover, Elena"-he thrust back in, making her gasp-"what I do to him will become a nightmare etched in human memory." And then there were no more words, only movement-the slick motion of body against body, the thrust and parry of male and female, the lush, erotic explosion into ecstasy.

The last thing Elena remembered was thinking that maybe she'd underestimated the force of their combined hunger.

She woke to the realization that she was sleeping on something warm, soft, and silky. Spreading her fingers, she found herself petting-"Oh!" She jerked upright, horrified. A heavy male arm pushed her back down.

"Your wings," she whispered, stroking her hand down the splendor of one.

"They're strong." A lazy masculine statement, full of . . . something.

She was about to turn and look at him when she saw the state of her body. "Oh, no, you didn't!" She glittered from head to toe, angel dust in her pores, on her eyelashes, in her mouth. The special blend.

He caressed his hand over her hip, along the dip of her waist, over her breast. "It was . . . not on purpose."

Was that embarrassment she heard in his voice? Frowning, she licked some of the glittery stuff off her lips. It made her body all warm and tingly-as if she wasn't already burning up from the inside out. "Is this like-um-being a little quick off the mark?"

He squeezed the arm he had around her midsection. "Any complaints?"

She smiled, realizing she was right-the archangel had lost control. "Hell, no." Twisting in his arms, she wiggled up to look into his face. Her smile faded. "You look . . . different." Nothing she could explain, nothing she could touch. But . . .

His expression grew shadowed. "You've made me a little more human."

Flashes of memory. Raphael bleeding out from a gunshot wound. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know." His kiss was a fever and he was inside her before she knew it, their coupling fast, furious, and utterly magnificent.

Much, much later, as they faced the promise of a new day, she tried to wash off the angel dust, with only marginal success. Her skin continued to shine but it wasn't as noticeable. And thankfully, the stuff didn't, in fact, glow in the dark. "If someone tastes this," she said to Raphael as he watched her dress from his relaxed position by the fireplace, "will they want to jump my bones?"

"Yes." Those eyes gleamed. "So don't let them taste."

She stilled at the menace in his command. "Don't go around killing people on my account, Raphael."

"You made your choice."

To sleep with an archangel.

"I think the ***ual high is starting to wear off," she muttered, pulling on a new pair of cargos in dark khaki, and a black T-shirt. She threw on a black sweater as well. It was early morning and still dark outside, the temperature having dropped along with the rain. "I mean it, Raphael, you go around killing innocent people, I'll hunt you." She didn't bother to hide her weapons-including the special gun-from him as she pulled them out of the overnight bag and concealed them on her body.

His face was expressionless as he watched her, his wings backlit by the flames, his magnificent body naked but for a pair of black pants. "The honeymoon is over?"

She walked across the carpet to stare up into a face she knew she'd see in her dreams the rest of her life. "Nope." Fisting her hands on his naked chest, she waited for him to lower his head, and then took a kiss. "Here's a tip-you want to call me your toy, go ahead. Just don't expect me to be one."

A hand on her nape, a warning grip. "Don't attempt to manage me, little hunter. I'm not-"

The rest of his words disappeared in a crash of white noise.

Come here, little hunter. Taste.

"Elena." The sharp word pulled her back to the here and now.

"Fine." She cleared her throat. "Glad we sorted that out. The rain's stopped-"

"What do you see?"

She met his eyes, shook her head. "I'm not ready to tell you." Might never be.

He didn't threaten to take it from her by force. "It's still drizzling lightly. That should help keep him in Stupor."

"Yeah." Drawing back, she folded her arms. "I didn't think about that. They don't like the cold, do they?" It was a rhetorical question. "Especially after a glut."

"But then again, Uram isn't a vampire."

She blew out a frustrated breath. "Then what the hell is he? Tell me!"

"He is an Angel of Blood." He walked to the window, but she knew he saw things far more sinister than the predawn gloom. "A true abomination, a thing that should never have existed."

The anger that emanated from him was an almost physical force. "Is he the first?"

"He's the first archangel to become bloodborn in my memory. But Lijuan says there have been others."

Elena's mind filled with the images she'd found of the oldest of the archangels. Lijuan was the only one of the Cadre who showed even the first signs of age. It did nothing to detract from her exotic beauty-her face, her bones, her pale, pale eyes. And yet, there was something subtly wrong about Lijuan. As if she didn't belong in this world anymore.

"The first archangel you know of," she murmured, thinking that through. "What about ordinary angels?"

"Very good, Elena." He didn't turn from the window, as remote as he'd been on that rooftop what felt like weeks ago. "Those others were easily contained. Most were young males with little of the intellect Uram seems to have retained after his transition."

"How many?" She stared at the back of his head as if she could force him to speak. "One a year?"

He met her eyes in the window's dusky reflection as she came to stand behind him. "No."

Biting back her frustration, she moved around to lean against the glass so they were face-to-face. "You're obviously very good at covering the tracks of the bloodborn-humans don't even have legends about this."

"In most cases, the victims alone learned the truth-and they did so minutes before their deaths."

"That makes me feel extra special." She found herself tracing the delicate gold edging of a feather near his biceps. "Tell me-these bloodborn, is it a madness they're born with?"

A sweep of sinfully rich lashes against skin she'd kissed not so long ago. "We all carry the potential to become bloodborn."

Startled at the straight answer, she dropped her hand. "What, no warnings about too much knowledge?"

"You already know too much." A smile that hinted at age, at ruthlessness, at things better left unimagined. "It's good you've come to my bed. No one will dare touch my lover."

"Too bad immortals have such fleeting interests." The cold of the glass at her back was beginning to seep into her bones, but she didn't move. "Since I already know so much, tell me why an angel turns vampire."

His face closed over. "You're still human."

She barely restrained the urge to kick him. "I'm also a hunter tracking an archangel. You pulled me into this. Give me the tools I need to fight."

"Your job is to find Uram. It's your ability we need."

We. The Cadre of Ten.

"How am I supposed to do that job if you insist on hobbling me?"...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 33



Raphael flew her to her father's, landing on the street with a smooth grace that would've stunned onlookers, had anybody been watching. But it was too early for anyone but the birds, especially in this exclusive area.

The scent hit her the second they landed. The by-now familiar bite of acid tinged with the thick richness of fresh blood. "Uram," she said to Raphael as they started up the steps. "He knows I'm tracking him."

Raphael scanned the street. "Either he stripped the mind of someone who knew about your involvement, or he saw you on the hunt."

"Glamour." Lips pursed tight, she pushed through the door her father had told her he'd leave open. "Jeffrey's in the study. He said the body's in the upstairs apartment." An apartment she'd always assumed was used as an extension of her father's office.

They went straight up. It was as she was about to push open the door that she remembered Geraldine. Pale skin, perfect suit, vampire scent laced into her perfume. "Hell." She walked through.

There was no one in the living room. Crossing the carpet only after making certain she wouldn't be trampling evidence that could lead to Uram, she followed the scent to the doorway of what proved to be a bedroom. The woman lay exactly as Jeffrey had described. It was as if someone had started to perform an autopsy and been interrupted midway. Her chest was cracked open to display her insides, flaps of skin hanging off her rib cage.

But that wasn't what held Elena frozen on the doorstep.

It wasn't Geraldine. This woman had skin dusted with the gold of a tropical clime and hair a pale, pale blonde. Fine bones, a length that would equal height on the short side of average, lips that had smiled easily in life. Her fists clenched. "It was definitely Uram." A truth forced out through gritted teeth. "I'll follow the scent."

She was about to push past Raphael when he caught her arm. "Don't take foolish chances because you're angry at your father."

"I'm not angry." Her emotions were a chaotic stew she couldn't understand. "She looks like my mother," she blurted out. A faded copy, a pale imitation. But nothing like the wintery elegance of Jeffrey's new wife, Gwendolyn.

"She was his mistress."

"You knew?" Of course he'd known-the Cadre of Ten wouldn't trust anyone it hadn't investigated inside out. "Never mind. My father isn't the issue-Uram's starting to hunt me and mine. He's baiting us."

Releasing her, Raphael walked into the room. "Your father said she was warm to the touch when he arrived?"

She nodded in a jerky motion, feeling as if everything in her body was out of sync. "He checked for a pulse." God alone knew why. "Means Uram hasn't been up and around long. Probably a couple of hours at most."

"I don't believe he took blood from her. There are no marks but the ones that caused her death."

"He's probably still glutted." She couldn't believe she sounded so normal when she was on the verge of screaming. Jeffrey had forbidden her and Beth from even talking about Marguerite after her death, yet he'd kept this woman, this shadow of her mother, with him. But Jeffrey's hypocrisy wasn't the fault of this poor, brutalized stranger-she deserved to have her killer brought to whatever justice the Cadre meted out to its own.

"Glutted," she repeated, forcefully corralling her skittering thoughts, "but not stupid." Uram was beginning to act more like a thinking being. "Most vamps caught in bloodlust don't reach that stage until at least three or four months after the bloodlust first sets in. The only one who's known to have survived that long after turning was-" The name stuck in her throat, a vicious, cutting evil.

"Slater Patalis," Raphael completed for her. "Venom's arrived to complete the cleanup. I'll fly above. I've asked Dmitri to stay out of range."

"Good." She turned away, unable to look at the woman on the bed. "What about my father?"

"He knows only that his lover was killed by a rogue vampire. That's a rumor it's to our advantage to spread."

Venom's scent curled up the stairs as they headed down. "The woman has family," the vampire said. "No one in the city, however."

Elena had a sudden, choking thought. "Did she have children?" A brother or a sister she'd never known about?

It was Raphael who answered. "No. I'm certain."

She gave a jerky nod at the firm answer, and he turned back to Venom. "Her body can't be found."

"Of course. I'll ensure there's a paper trail leading out of the city." The vampire began to climb up. "Jason has returned."

Having reached the hallway, Elena fought the urge to go to her father's study, knowing it would only end in another shouting match. "Who's Jason?" she asked instead, focusing on filtering out Venom's scent and drawing a bead on Uram's.

"One of the Seven."

The Angel of Blood had gone out the back door, she thought, heading that way. "Why are you getting rid of the body? She was torn up, but it looks like classic vampire overkill."

"Uram may have left traces on her."

She pulled open the back door, felt a stickiness on her palm, and looked down. Rust stained her skin. Dried blood. "He's taunting us." She rubbed her palm clean against her pants, wanting to wash it off, but not enough to chance losing the scent. It was fresh, clean, vivid in the clarity of the day after a rainstorm. That was a bonus-with so much having been washed away, the new scents were richer, more intense.

Blood drops a few feet from the door. She didn't want to consider where they'd come from, not when taking souvenirs was Uram's thing. Which reminded her-"Michaela?"

"I've warned her."

Almost able to see Uram's scent in the ozone-lashed air, she began running, barely aware of the wind generated by Raphael's wings as he rose to the sky. A group of early commuters got out of her way as she almost sprinted out of the alley behind the building and into the busier street on the other side, but no one looked skyward. Glamour, she thought. It made her skin creep to think Uram could've been watching her at any time since the hunt began.

Another drop of blood, this one buried into the asphalt by the pounding of feet rushing this way and that as the city woke. She noted it but kept running, dodging well-dressed businessmen and shopping-cart-pushing homeless with equal ease. More blood, this drop large enough to have people circling it with wary looks. She wondered if anyone had called the cops. It being New York, she expected not.

Raphael would need to send a cleanup crew here, too. Mentally tagging the spot, she continued to follow the scent, excitement lacing her blood like the most powerful of drugs. Her ability infused every inch of her skin, every element of her being.

This was who she was. Hunter-born.

She felt like she was swimming through acid burned in sunlight by the time she found herself in front of a building that looked surprisingly familiar. Where was she? She blinked awake out of the almost trancelike state she'd fallen into and read the sign.

The NEW Children's Museum

ENDOWED BY DeverauX Enterprises

Her blood chilled, horror flooding her mouth, until she read the fine print and realized the museum was closed due to refurbishment. Thank God. If some child had gone inside . . .

Is he in the building?

It was tempting to wrap the scent of rain, of Raphael, around herself, but she resisted, tugging on the echoes of Uram's trail instead. "Either that or we just missed him." Wondering if Uram had broken in, she checked the door and found it locked. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated. "The scent's not that strong by the door."

She took several steps back and turned in a slow circle. There! Squeezing around the side of the building, she made her way to the back, fear, anger, and the thrill of the hunt thrumming in her blood. The parking lot was empty but that wasn't what held her interest. A small door at the back lay open, swinging gently to and fro in the light breeze.

Heart in her throat, she followed the scent and entered. She didn't have to go far.

Geraldine lay in a crumpled heap by the doorway, as if she'd been dumped in a hurry. Sensing life, Elena went down on her haunches and-"Oh, Jesus!" Geraldine's throat was slashed, but she was conscious, her eyes full of terror. Elena didn't know how the hell she was still alive.

"Hold on." She fumbled with her cell phone. "I'm calling an ambulance."

"Don't." Raphael's shadow filled the doorway, blocking all light. "I'll have Illium take her to a healer. He's almost here."

She met his eyes, knew she didn't have time to argue. "Fine." Her tone asked for a promise the other woman wouldn't be harmed.

"We'll have to remove her memories." Unsaid were the words, if she lives.

Geraldine coughed as Raphael gathered her up in his arms. "V-vam-" It was more air than sound, her hand clamped tight...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 34



Her entire body stilled. "I don't talk about that."

He knew the facts, but hearing the odd brittleness in her voice, realized they told him nothing. "Beth isn't suitable," he said, instead of fencing with her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." He'd made it a point to find out . . . because he'd known Elena would want to know.

"Aw, ****." She rubbed a hand over her face. "He's a moron but he loves her."

"He loves immortality more," Raphael said with centuries of experience. "Did he not, he would've waited until she, too, was accepted."

Elena looked at him, an inscrutable expression on her face. "Do you believe in anything good anymore?"

"If we're able to kill Uram, then perhaps I'll believe that evil does not always win." Perhaps. He'd seen too much malice done to believe in the fairy tales that comforted humans through their firefly life spans.

Shaking her head, Elena began walking toward Michaela's home. "I'm starving."

"You ran a long distance." He sent a message to Montgomery to prepare food fit for a hunter.

"What happens if you don't eat?"

Another question no one had thought to ask him for over a thousand years. "I fade."

"Get weak?" She crouched, touched the earth, and brought her fingers up to her nose. "I thought I scented something but it's gone."

He waited until she was up again before answering. "No, I literally fade, become a ghost. Food anchors our physical form."

"Then why don't other angels starve themselves-you know, to get the invisibility thing happening?"

"Fading doesn't incur invisibility, just washes us out. Since lack of food also leaches power, being faded is not a good thing."

"So if I want to make an angel vulnerable, I should starve him?"

"Only if you plan to contain him for the next fifty years." He watched shock, then consternation fill her face. "Starvation is a relative concept. Unlike a vampire, an angel will not easily fade."

"Vamps don't fade, they shrivel," she muttered, and he had the sense that she was remembering something. "The older they are, the more they shrivel." She stopped at the edge of Michaela's lawn and looked up at the archangel's window. "Same concept, though, I guess."

"Yes." Following her gaze, he remembered how she'd looked up from that very spot yesterday. "Do you scent him?"

"Yes." She bit her lower lip and glanced back the way they'd come, before returning her attention to the window. "Something's wrong."

"It's too quiet. Where are the guards?" He scanned the area, looking for Uram's distinctive wings. "He can't have reached here much ahead of us. Geraldine's memories have him dumping her when he sensed pursuit."

She shot him a narrow-eyed look. "What was he planning to do-make her into art, shock the people who found her?"

"Yes."

"Figures. Can you do a flyover?"

He gathered his wings, gave an upward push, and was airborne. It was a freedom he'd always taken for granted . . . until he saw the hunger for flight in a hunter's eyes. No overt signs, he told her, the mental link effortless by now.

"I'm going in."

That was unusual, how very easily she spoke to him. He knew Elena thought she was only speaking out loud, that he was taking the words from her mind, but that wasn't quite true-she instinctively knew how to arrow her thoughts so they didn't get lost in the jumble of an active mind. She could also block him when she wanted. It hurt her, but she could do it. The arrogance in him wasn't exactly pleased by that, but the archangel found it intriguing.

Catching a downward draft, he winged down to land behind her. "You will not go in alone." No mortal could hope to win against Uram.

She didn't argue, the look in her eyes-focused, hunter-born-saying that at this moment, she saw him only as another tool. With a sharp nod, she closed the distance to the house, but, rather than going around the front, she jimmied open the sliding doors on one side. "I'm drowning in his scent," she whispered. "He's here."

Raphael put a hand on her back. "I'll go first."

"This is no time to pull macho crap."

"It could be a trap. You're mortal." Stepping through the doorway, he scanned the room-the library. "Come."

She followed on quiet feet. "Scent's deeper inside."

He opened the doors to the library and stepped out. Riker was staked to the wall in front of him, a wooden chair leg embedded in his throat. The vampire was still alive but unconscious-likely from the blow to his head that dripped blood down his temples.

"Jesus," Elena whispered. "He's having a very bad week. Do we leave him?"

"He won't heal until the stake's removed."

"Then let's go. I can only deal with one psychopath at a time." She nodded left.

He began walking that way, not particularly surprised when he found another one of the guards impaled on a savagely compelling sculpture from Michaela's years with Charisemnon. The vampire's head hung at the wrong angle for life. "He's dead."

"Broken neck?"

"Decapitation"-he showed her how the head was barely attached by a few tendons-"coupled with removal of the heart. It wasn't planned, though. This was just to get him out of the way." He put a foot on the stair.

"No." Elena pointed in the other direction. "Deeper inside."

A scream shattered the air.

He stopped her from running. "That's what Uram wants." Pushing her behind him, he headed toward the sound. Uram was a master of strategy-he'd obviously figured out that Elena was the linchpin. Take her out and he could evade the Cadre for years-there were other hunter-born, but none as gifted as Elena. And if Uram wasn't executed within half a century of his devolution, he might gain enough power to rule. And the world would drown in blood.

Elena tugged on his wing. He glanced over his shoulder, about to warn her not to distract him. It could prove fatal, even for an immortal. She was pointing up. He nodded. I know. Michaela's home had high ceilings, as was the case with the homes of most angels. Her living room, like his, was basically the central core of the house, the upper floors arranged around the edges. Uram wouldn't be waiting below, he'd be waiting above.

That left Raphael at a disadvantage. This house had been remodeled from a human dwelling, rather than being designed for angelic inhabitants. There were no high windows he could use to fly straight through to the living area. He'd have to walk in the door. Elena tugged again, until he bent his ear to her lips.

"Let me go in, distract him. You come in straight after-he won't have time to kill me."

Had anyone outlined this scenario to him before he met Elena, his answer would've been instant. Yes, send in the hunter, distract the bloodborn. And if the hunter died, it was a small price to pay to win this war. But now he knew her, now he'd taken her, now she belonged to him.

Her eyes narrowed, as if she could read his thoughts.

"Go in low," he said, knowing he'd startled her. "He'll aim for head-height. Roll."

She nodded. "He's definitely in there. The scent's crawled into my blood it's so thick, so heavy." Then she was moving toward the doorway.

The next few instants went at inhuman speed. Elena rolling inside, chunks shearing off the doorway, a howl of rage, and then Raphael was in the room, looking up at Uram as the other archangel fired bolts of pure energy at Raphael's hunter.

He launched himself upward, gathering his own energy. This, too, was why he'd been asked to lead the hunt. Of the Cadre, only four could create the energy bolts. It was a gift that came with time-but only if the imprint for it was already there. And unlike with the room of Quiet, this energy didn't have to come from within. As he rose, he drew power from electrical sources, shorting out the lamp burning below.

He threw the first bolt at Uram before the other archangel realized he was there. It hit midchest, throwing Uram against the wall. But Uram wasn't an archangel for nothing. Stopping himself from crashing through the wood, he threw back a ball of red-hot flame. Raphael dodged it, knowing that if it hit his wings, he'd go down. Angelfire was one of the few things that could truly damage an immortal.

Angelfire and a hunter's gun, he corrected. Elena, did I see you arm yourself with that little pistol you used to unman me?

Another exchange of blue and red, huge holes in the wall, dust floating to the earth in serene quiet. As they fought, he watched Uram, tried to see the monster. But the archangel looked as he always had, his new fangs hidden from sight as he focused on repelling Raphael's blows, attacking with his own.

A passing fireball singed Raphael's wing. Shrugging off the shrieking nerve endings, he returned fire, catching the tip of the other angel's left wing. Teeth bared, Uram howled and the...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 35



Elena couldn't help staring at the new angel. His face . . . she'd never seen anything like it. The entire left-hand side was covered in an exotic tattoo composed of fine dots and swirling curves, the ink pure black against his glowing brown skin. There was a hint of Polynesia in that skin, that tattoo, but the sharpness of his facial features hinted at part of her own ancestry. Old Europe mixed with the exotic winds of the Pacific-it was one hell of a ***y combination.

"Jason," Raphael said in greeting.

"You're injured." The new angel's eyes went to Raphael's wing. "This can wait." He shifted slightly, the rustle of his wings alerting Elena to the fact that she hadn't truly seen them. Frowning, she squinted into the dimness of the hall-the stained glass dull without sunlight-but still saw nothing aside from an indistinct shadow.

She had to ask. "Where are your wings?"

Jason gave her an inscrutable look, then flared out a wing in silence. It was a deep, sooty black. The wing didn't reflect light but seemed to absorb it, the edges fading into the spreading gloom. "Wow," she said. "Guess you make one hell of a night scout."

Jason glanced from her to Raphael. "The report can wait, but it's important you hear it."

"I'll join you in an hour."

"Sire, if early evening would suit, I'd like to fly out to check on something else."

"Contact me when you return."

With a short nod, Jason left. Elena didn't say anything until after both she and Raphael had cleaned up and were tucking into the food Jeeves had brought up. But first things first. "Your butler laundered my clothes," she said from her cross-legged position on the bed. The cargos and T-shirt from yesterday had been waiting for her, washed and ironed.

Raphael raised an eyebrow in front of her, having chosen to sit on the bed, too, one leg on the mattress, the other foot-first on the floor beside it, his injured wing draped gently across the sheets to promote optimal healing. To her pleasure-and she was too achy and frustrated to lie to herself about how he made her feel-he'd asked her to spread a special ointment on the injured section. She knew full well it was a measure of how their relationship had changed that he'd kept her with him while he was injured. No Dmitri tying her to a chair this time. "I highly doubt that," he said now. "Montgomery runs the house-he'd never sully himself washing clothes."

"You know what I mean, Archangel. He's like the house-work fairy-only better!"

"Somehow, the idea of Montgomery as a fairy doesn't have the same effect on me as it appears to have on you."

"Give it time." She bit into her everything-and-more sandwich. "So, Jason's your spy. Or should I say, spymaster?"

"Very good, Guild Hunter." He ate the other half of the sandwich in about three bites. "Though some would say his face makes him too distinctive."

"That tattoo-it had to have hurt." She winced, having been too chicken to get inked herself. Ransom had tried to talk her into one when he'd gotten the band around his arm. Watching the blood being blotted off his skin hadn't inspired her to follow suit . "How long do you think it took?"

"Exactly ten years," Raphael said, watching her with those eyes that seemed to see straight through to her soul.

She shook her head as she finished off the sandwich. "Crazy comes in all forms, I guess."

Raphael held up an apple. "A bite?"

"Tempting me, Archangel?"

"Ah, but you've already fallen, hunter." He used a sharp knife to cut into the fruit and put a slice to her lips, watching her bite off the end with concentrated interest. "Your mouth fascinates me."

The languid heat in her body, ever present around Raphael, seemed to grow, spread, until it was in every part of her, a living, demanding beat. Swallowing her bite of apple, she crawled around the food to kneel in front of him. When he raised the rest of the slice to her lips, she bit down, holding on to his wrist.

Eyes locked, the living warmth of him against her fingertips, it was more erotic than a kiss from another man. Her lips brushed his fingers.

Something hot and male spread across his face, a look that told her very well where he wanted her to put her lips. But what he said was, "Another slice?"

She shook her head with regret. "You have to heal and I need to start running the trace again." Uram couldn't have gone far. Most likely he'd been forced to return to one of his earlier hiding places. Which meant there was a high chance it was in the circuit they'd already mapped out. "This could be our best shot."

Raphael put down the knife and the rest of the apple, tracing her lips with his finger. "Did you hear what Michaela said?"

"That he's all monster?" She shrugged, even as lust snaked around her like a heady perfume. "No surprise after what we saw at that warehouse."

"Would you hunt me, Elena? If I became bloodborn?"

Her heart froze in her chest. "Yes," she said. "But you'll never become a monster." Yet she remembered the knife cutting into her hand, remembered, too, that vampire in Times Square.

A humorless smile. "That's hope, not knowledge." He shook his head. "We're all as susceptible to the lure of power. The blood makes him stronger, harder to defeat."

Cupping his face in her hands, she looked into eyes that had seen thousands of sunrises before she was even a glimmer in the scheme of the universe. "But you have an advantage," she whispered. "You're a little bit human now."

Angel of Blood

They thought he was down.

That was their mistake.

Agony shot through his wing and chest as remnants of Raphael's blue fire attempted to take hold and burrow. Gritting his teeth, he left his hiding place and flew a short distance to a normally inviting public area that had turned murky in the cloudy weather, full of shadowy corners that made it the perfect hunting ground. The glamour served him well, and he tore out the throats of two vagrants before they ever knew they were stalked.

Their blood raced through him like lightning, pushing out the blue fire until it dissipated harmlessly in the air. No longer fighting off an attack, his body focused on repairing torn muscle and cartilage. By the time he bent his head over the fifth throat-the soft, delicate flesh of a young female, his preferred kind of sustenance-he was ready to fly again . . . at least enough to take the mortal hunter out of the equation. Once she was dead, no one would be able to find him.

He smiled and wiped the blood from his mouth with a clean white handkerchief. Yes, warm was best. For a tempting moment, he considered taking another, but knew he didn't have the time. He had to hit before he was expected, while Raphael's defenses were down and the hunter thought herself safe.

After that, he would sink his fangs into Michaela's heart, drink her blood straight from the source. And he'd keep her, he decided. The urge to tear her apart was overwhelming, but he'd fight it. Why kill that which could provide so much exquisite power? Mortals were too weak, but an archangel . . . Ah, he could drink from Michaela for eternity. She'd heal every time.

He wondered if Michaela had told Raphael he'd already fed from her once. He licked his lips. She'd been sweet. Powerful. Piquant. And now she carried a little bit of him within. Yes, an archangel would make the most perfect of refreshments. He'd build her a pretty cage, so she could watch as he played with his other pets-so she'd know that she was the lucky one, the one he'd chosen *****stain him for eons.

But first, he had to break the hunter's neck.

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 36



Raphael walked out onto the third-floor balcony, Elena's words still vivid in his mind. You're a little bit human now.

Lijuan had warned him to kill Elena for that very reason. His reaction to being shot, the pain, the blood, had strengthened his belief that this hunter was dangerous to him. But what if, with the danger, came something else, an immunity to the madness of power, of age? After all, he'd wakened from the Quiet much sooner than he should have.

As he waited for Jason to arrive, he considered who he'd been when he first met Elena. He'd torn into her mind, terrorizing her without the least care. Could he do so again? Yes, he thought, having no illusions as to his natural goodness. He was fully capable of doing the same again. But whether he'd choose to do it . . . there lay the true question.

Jason entered the balcony from above, landing in a neat way that made him the most perfect of spies. "I expected to see Illium here."

"He's keeping watch over Elena." Raphael would've preferred to give her a vampiric driver as well, but another vampire that close would hamper her ability to pick up Uram's trail. So she was driving herself, with Illium flying above. Raphael was housebound by his angelfire-scored wing-it was healing at a rapid pace, and he could still fly, but to do so would strain the injury and he needed to be in top con***ion for when Uram rose again.

Elena had been gone for most of the day, calling him with updates as she cleared one section of Manhattan after another. It was strange to realize that despite having a myriad of other matters on his plate, he . . . missed her. She'd become important to him, this mortal with the spirit of a warrior. "Now, tell me."

"It's as you thought," Jason said. "Lijuan wakes the dead."

Raphael felt the biting freshness of the water-tinged breeze coming off the river, and wondered if Lijuan would be as she was if she hadn't killed the human who'd threatened to make her a little bit mortal. "Are you certain?"

"I saw her raise them."

"Do they live?" He turned to face the other angel.

Deep revulsion whispered in the depths of Jason's eyes. "I wouldn't call it life, but there is some spark within, some glimmer of the person they once were."

This was worse than anything Raphael had thought. "Not puppets as we believed?"

"They are that, but they're also more. Abominations that walk, see, hear but never talk. Their silence is drowned out by the screams in their eyes. They know what they are."

Even an archangel's soul could feel the chill hand of horror. "How long can she maintain them?"

"Of the reborn I saw, the oldest was a year old. He was starting to become senile, that spark long gone." A pause, and then the usually temperate angel said, "It's a mercy when that part of their soul dies."

"And Lijuan has complete control over these reborn?"

"Yes. For now, she plays with them as one would with a new toy. But there may come a time when she turns them into an army."

That cold hand closed around his heart. For if the reborn marched on the living, civilization would fall as terror overtook the world. "Those she wakes-are they the newly dead?"

"No," was the disturbing answer. "Those are easier, but she's begun on the older dead-even those that have . . . rotted. She's somehow able to clothe them in flesh." Jason paused.

"What is it?"

"It's rumored their new flesh comes from consuming the bodies of the more recently dead, the ones Lijuan does not wish to reawaken, and I know they must then drink blood *****rvive." Jason's voice dropped even lower. "There are also whispers that she gains something from the rebirths, somehow absorbs power."

A bloodborn of another sort, Raphael thought, knowing that no hunter had been born-human, vampire, or angel-who could destroy Lijuan should that prove true. "Have your men maintain watch." Jason was the perfect spy, but as Elena had guessed, he was an even better spymaster. "We must know if she begins large-scale rebirths." The Cadre of Ten could do little while Lijuan played in her own lands. More, most of the members would choose to do little. They each had their own games, their own perversions. Raphael couldn't judge them-he'd countenance no interference in his domain, either.

Elena saw a fragment of humanity in him. But was he human enough to save himself from becoming another Lijuan? "Go. Rest. We'll talk more later."

Jason dropped off the balcony before rising in a steep climb, his wings visible until he rose up above the cloud layer. It was why the angel much preferred the night.

Dmitri.

Sire. The response was close. The vampire entered the balcony a few moments later, having just returned from their healers. "Venom reports that the cleanup at and around Jeffrey Deveraux's office, as well as at the museum, was completed earlier this afternoon. Geraldine is dead."

Raphael's first thought was of Elena-she'd be saddened at the death, though the woman had been all but a stranger. "What of the survivor we found at the warehouse?"

"I was able to trace her identity. Her name is Holly Chang, age twenty-three." Dmitri folded his hands behind his back. "She doesn't carry the mutant variant of the toxin, but she does carry something."

Raphael remembered his conversation with Elena. "Does she need to die?"

"Not at this stage. She's not contagious-and we need to discover the truth of whatever it is Uram did to her."

"Is she human still?"

Dmitri paused, frowned. "No one is certain what she is-she needs blood, but not as much as a vampire, and she does gain some energy from food. She may be the result of an aborted attempt at conversion."

"Without the proper procedure and with the mutant strain in Uram's blood, it should have been impossible."

"The healers and doctors think she may simply have been unlucky enough to be one of those who are easily Made-but now that she's been partially transformed, an attempt at full conversion may kill her." There was a long-buried edge in Dmitri's voice. Like Holly Chang, Dmitri had been Made against his will.

All because Isis had known Raphael's weakness-that he had a heart. More, she'd known that Dmitri was the descendant of a mortal Raphael had once called friend. So she'd stolen Dmitri's mortality . . . and made Raphael watch. That had been almost a thousand years ago. And Raphael had thought his heart dead for most of them.

Before Elena began to matter.

"Be easy, Dmitri," he said now. "We won't abuse her, but we must monitor her progress." If she carried the taint of the bloodborn, she had to die.

Dmitri nodded. "I've got her under twenty-four-hour watch." Another pause. "If I may, sire."

"Since when do you ask for permission?"

The vampire's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Elena makes you vulnerable. I don't know how, but she does." His eyes went to the injured wing. "You're healing at a slower rate."

"Perhaps an immortal needs a vulnerability," Raphael said, thinking once more of Lijuan's "evolution."

"I-" A cell phone rang.

Raphael nodded at Dmitri to go ahead and answer, readying himself to take off. Dmitri's raised hand stopped him. "It's the Guild Director."

Raphael took the phone. "Director."

"I don't know what the hell you've got Ellie into but I have a feeling it has to do with the girls disappearing around town." Her dislike of him was a taut thread that vibrated with pure anger.

"Elena is lucky to have you for a friend."

"If anything happens to her, I don't care who you are, I'll shoot you myself." Worry mingled with the violent anger to turn her voice harsh.

Had it been anyone but Sara making the threat, Raphael would've meted out swift punishment-perceived weakness in an archangel could lead to death for millions. But he'd never been a hypocrite. He'd done unconscionable things in the Quiet, crossed an inviolable line when he forced this woman to betray one of her deepest loyalties. The scales were not close to even. "Do you have something to share, Director?"

"Five bodies were just found in Battery Park, all drained of blood. They were hidden very well."

Uram had acted fast to replenish his energy. "Have the authorities been alerted?"

"Sorry, couldn't stop it," Sara said, telling him she had her finger very much on the pulse of the city. "But the bodies are in transit in morgue vans-I'm guessing you have to make them disappear. Don't kill the attendants when you do it."

"That won't be necessary." Sometime after his two-hundredth birthday, Venom had gained the power to entrance humans, much as a cobra did its prey-something Raphael was sure Elena would be aghast to discover. The vampire used it rarely as Neha would not be pleased to realize she'd lost so valuable an asset. However, it would come in useful today-none of Uram's victims could be allowed to be put under the microscope. Holly might be...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 37



"Be quiet," Elena murmured, pulled out of blissful sleep by an arrogant voice that insisted she get up. "I wanna sleep."

"You dare give me orders, mortal?" Ice-cold water splashed across her face, snapping her awake to a nightmare.

At first, she couldn't quite assimilate what it was that she was seeing. Her mind simply refused to put the pieces together. And there were so many pieces. Torn, distorted, impossible pieces. Her stomach twisted, the nausea from the head injury she'd sustained when Uram smashed her face into the dash, merging with the horror of the here and now.

She fought it, refusing to reward the monster with her terror. But it was hard. They'd all been wrong-Sara, Ransom, even Raphael. Uram hadn't taken fifteen victims. He'd taken others, people who wouldn't be missed. Rotting limbs, a gleaming rib cage, evidence of his vicious madness littered the room. A room without light, without air. A cell. A crypt. A-

Snap out of it!

It was her hunter sense, the thing that had marked her from birth.

Swallowing her panic, she focused, and realized the room wasn't, in fact, pitch-dark. Uram had blacked out the windows but some light-too sharp, too white to be natural, which meant she'd been out long enough for night to fall-seeped in around the edges. It was that light that had allowed her to see the sickening truth of the room. Torn bodies thrown about like so much garbage. But not all were in pieces. Against the opposite wall, chains locked around his wrists, she saw the withered body of someone who'd once been human.

Then that dried-out husk blinked and she realized he was still alive. "Jesus!" It came out before she could stop herself.

The monster in front of her, the thing that wore the shell of an archangel, followed her gaze. "I see you've made Robert's acquaintance. He was a loyal one, followed me across the oceans without complaint. Did you not, Bobby?"

Elena watched the cruel humor on Uram's face and realized she'd never understood true evil until this moment. Robert was a vampire, that much was clear. No human that desiccated would still be alive-it looked as if the vampire had lost every ounce of moisture in him but for his large, glistening eyes. Eyes that pleaded with her for deliverance.

Uram turned back to her, his own eyes-a vivid, beautiful green-dancing with laughter. "He thought he was special because I took him with me. Unfortunately, I forgot about him for a while." That power-filled gaze became angry, tinged with red. The sparkling green was suddenly putrid.

Elena stayed very, very still in the corner where he'd dumped her, wondering if he'd thought to take her weapons. She couldn't feel anything on her body but maybe he'd missed one or two-like the ice pick-thin knife in her hair, or the flat blade that slid into a sheath built into her shoe. She flexed her toes and felt the reassuring firmness of her boots. Ransom had given her the boots as a gag gift-she'd never loved the idiot more than she did at that moment.

Uram's eyes bored into her. "But my loyal Bobby did come in useful"-back to Robert-"didn't you? He made a most appreciative audience for my little games."

Elena saw the way the vampire's hands curled in the chains, the way his wasted body flinched, and felt her fury ignite. Uram had to know what he was doing-vampires were almost immortal, but they needed blood to truly survive. By not allowing him to feed, he'd effectively caused Robert's body to eat itself. The vampire would never actually die, not of starvation. But his every breath had to be agony by now. And if this went on much longer . . .

Elenas thoughts filled with the one and only case of vampiric starvation she'd ever encountered. It had been in a textbook she'd studied during her final year at Guild Academy. That vampire-S. Matheson-had been caught in a family feud involving his sire. Someone had locked him in a concrete coffin and buried him in the foundations of a building under construction.

He'd been found ten years later.

Alive.

If you could call it that. The contractor who'd unwittingly smashed open the coffin thought he'd found a skeleton, and called the authorities. The M.E. was excited by the prospect of mummified remains. He arrived at the site with a small crime scene crew and they began shooting photos, taking measurements as the workmen watched. Then one of the crime scene techs cut her finger while turning the head of the skeleton and before she knew it, she'd lost the finger, the bone sliced clean in half by one razor-sharp fang.

The paramedics had been called. S. Matheson's body had regenerated under the constant flow of transfusions. But his brain had undergone some kind of an irreversible metamorphosis. S. Matheson didn't speak, didn't do anything but smile like a fool and wait for someone to come too close. Three doctors lost parts of their bodies to the flesh eater before S. Matheson disappeared without a trace. The general consensus was that the angels had taken care of him. Not good for business to have a vampire who ate people.

Robert hadn't reached that stage yet. There was still something in those eyes, something that felt and understood humanity. She watched as Uram stalked to the vampire, blocking Elena's view of his actions. Then Robert made an awful sound, and she barely stopped herself from screaming at Uram. Instead, she took the opportunity to slide her foot closer. Closer.

Uram turned, a slight smile on his lips. "What do you think of my work?"

She'd girded herself, knowing he'd done something monstrous. But nothing could've prepared her for the sight that met her-pity choked her throat, sent rage rocketing through her. Uram had taken Robert's eyes. Now, holding her gaze, Uram took the slippery orbs to his mouth, as if about to bite in. She didn't blink.

"You're a strong one." Chuckling, he threw the orbs to the floor, crushing them beneath the heel of his boot. "No nutrition."

Dismissing a Robert who seemed to have stopped moving, he wiped his hands fastidiously on a handkerchief and came toward her. "You are very quiet, hunter. No heroics to save the poor vampire?" A raised brow that was incongruously regal.

"He's only another bloodsucker," she said, sick to her stomach. "I was hoping he'd keep you distracted long enough that I could escape."

He smiled and the chill that crept up her spine felt like the crawling of a thousand spidery fingers. Then, still without speaking, he crouched down, put his hand on her ankle. Smiled wider. And twisted. The snap of the bone sent pain shrieking through her, so hot and vicious that she screamed.

Raphael!

She felt her vision blur as the smothering wings of unconsciousness closed around her once more. But something caught her mind before it could spiral down into darkness. Tell me where you are, Elena.

Sweat curled down the sides of her face, stuck her T-shirt to her back. But she held on to that voice, Raphael's voice, and clawed her way back to full consciousness. Uram was still crouched in front of her, watching her with the well-pleased expression of someone who'd cornered his prey. "You smell like acid," she whispered. "Jagged, bright, distinctive."

His expression changed, became curious in an almost childish way. But it was the most distorted version of a child's curiosity she'd ever seen. "What about Bobby?" Another smile even as his eyes turned red again. "He wants to know."

She swallowed. Water, she said inside her mind, hoping like hell that Raphael was listening. I can smell water. "Bobby," she whispered. "Bobby smells like dust and earth and death." And there's a noise. She concentrated. Cutting, chopping, a steady rhythm. I should know what it is.

Uram stroked a strand of hair off her face. She waited for him to snap her neck, but he drew back his hand a moment later. Even as relief whispered through her, she realized he was feeding on her terror, torturing her with uncertainty. The bastard was keeping her live for his pleasure . . . or was he?

"Why am I alive?" she asked him.

Be quiet, Elena.

Oh, shush. I'm cranky when I'm hurt.

Uram smiled again, his hand squeezing her ankle. The pain almost threw her into the void, but he knew exactly when to relax the pressure. "Because you're his weakness. It made more sense not to kill you once I thought about it."

It's a trap. Don't you dare let him hurt you.

I will deal with Uram. Your task is to remain alive.

The order almost made her smile, even in the depths of nightmare. "I'm a toy, nothing more."

"Of course." Releasing her ankle, Uram waved off her words.

His ready agreement shook her more than she liked. But hey, given her current projected life span, she figured she had the right to love idiotically. Love. Oh, hell. "If I'm so forget-table, what's my value as a hostage?"

"Because, hunter," he said with no hint of fang, as smooth as a vampire who'd been around for a few hundred years, "Raphael is possessive about his toys."

Icicles grew in her heart at the certainty in that tone. "You sound very sure."

"In the time of beauty, of kings and queens, we were in the same court for a century." He tilted his head. "You did...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 38



He shot upward, into the clouds, higher than angels were meant to go, until his head ached and the fire died for lack of oxygen. Then he plummeted, using his momentum to launch angelfire at Uram's body. The Angel of Blood dodged all bolts but one, taking the hit on his thigh.

Raphael could feel his wings straining as the wounds-both new and old-started to hurt. It wasn't disabling, not yet. But it would be soon. Uram had gotten enough angelfire onto him that pieces of it had stuck. Those pieces would continue to eat through his flesh until they were dug out. He had less than ten minutes before his wings weakened to the point that he couldn't fly. Then he felt a tendon snap and remembered.

He was a little bit human now.

So be it. He'd rather die a little human, he thought with strange clarity, than become a monster. Elena! Live! He continued to send that order even as his own strength waned and more and more of Uram's bolts seared his skin, his wings. You must live. She had *****rvive. Her spirit burned too bright to be so easily snuffed out.

And he realized . . . that fragile, mortal life wasn't just important to him. It was more important than his own. Wake, Guild Hunter!

He finally got close enough to Uram to chance another blow, but his power reserves were running low. Below him, the city was a spreading darkness as they both sucked power from the electricity grid, from anything they could. Cars stalled and died, batteries went flat, pylons overloaded. Still Raphael kept pulling. But he knew his body was going to give out long before the available power did.

He hit Uram's wing and it wasn't enough. The Angel of Blood had glutted himself on his kills and, even weakened, his wing healed faster than an ordinary angel's, faster than even an archangel's. Uram laughed and created another ball of angelfire. But this one he shot toward the half-destroyed apartment.

Elena!

Raphael intercepted the blast, taking the hit on his shoulder. Pain seared through his body as the fire touched bone and began eating its way through. Blinking away the sweat falling into his eyes, he kept fighting, hovering above the apartment so Uram couldn't destroy it.

"You fool," Uram taunted. "You'd give up immortality for a mere woman?"

Raphael answered by staying where he was, deflecting the angelfire Uram shot his way with unrelenting force. He could sense his men coming closer. He warned them to stay out of range. Only an archangel could withstand angelfire for longer than a few seconds. Then one of Uram's bolts hit his uninjured shoulder.

The fire had already eaten through one side to expose the whiteness of bone. His load-bearing muscles were failing one by one. But he kept fighting, hitting Uram several times, vaguely aware that Manhattan was now completely without power, pitch-black under his feet. Farther out, in Queens, in the Bronx, lights continued to go out in a slow, dark, wave.

More power lay beyond those areas, but his body was close to giving out. Filling it with as much energy as he could contain, until the glow of it blazed from his skin, he readied himself for a final, suicidal clash. If he could make contact with Uram's body, he might be able to burn them both up. A high price to pay, but an archangel turned Angel of Blood could tear the world apart, end civilization itself.

Throwing back just enough angelfire to keep Uram from coming closer, but not enough to drain himself, he watched for a gap in his opponent's defenses, for a single mistake. But when his chance came, it wasn't because Uram made a mistake. No, it came because of a hunter too stubborn *****rrender to evil.

Gunshots fired from the open side of the torn apartment building, ripping through the bloodborn angel's wings.

Uram screamed and began to spiral down, shooting angelfire as he fell. Raphael flew toward the tumbling archangel, leading with his hands. As one hand impacted on Uram's chest, he held on to to the bloodborn angel with his other and thrust. His hand went through Uram's rib cage to hit his heart.

"Good-bye, old friend," he said, knowing that nothing of the angel he'd once known remained in this monster. Then he released a final, shocking blast of angelfire. It spread through Uram's body like a fever-the dying archangel's grabbing hands threatened to take Raphael down with him. But Raphael had to live. Because if he didn't, Elena would die.

He wrenched back an instant before Uram exploded in a burst of pure white light, lighting up the whole of Manhattan in a single second-long blast. Then it was over and Uram was not only dead, but erased from the cosmos. Not even dust remained.

Bleeding from wounds that continued to worsen as the angelfire dug in ever deeper, Raphael should have landed. Instead, he beat his barely functional wings upward.

One of Uram's last, desperate bolts had hit the building. Raphael knew Elena had to have been on the very edge of the eight-story structure when she'd shot up at Uram. That edge was now gone, but he could feel Elena's life, feel her dying flame. Elena, answer me.

Quiet, peaceful, a hush of sound. Then, Stay a little human, won't you, Raphael?

A request that was almost not a sound at all. But it was enough. He followed the mental thread to discover her broken body on the narrow ledge provided by a precariously hanging neon sign. Her back was shattered, her legs twisted in a way that was nothing natural. But she smiled when she saw him. And her hand still held the gun that had saved more lives than anyone would ever know.

He dared not touch her, afraid he'd cause her to slip over the ledge. "You are not to die."

A slow blink. "Bossy." It was a sound bubbled through with blood. The voice isn't working so good.

I hear you.

Tell me the secret now, won't you? How do you Make vampires?

He could hear the teasing even in that fading whisper. Our bodies produce a toxin that needs to be purged at regular intervals. The older we are, the longer the intervals.

Uram waited too long.

Yes. We build up an immunity, but only to a point. After that, the toxin begins to bond with our very cells, mutating in the process. However, that base immunity meant an archangel always had a certain level in his blood. Enough. It would be just enough.

The only way to purge the buildup before it goes critical is by transfer to a living human. Angelic history told of a time when they'd given in to despair at the loss of so many mortal lives, and tried to purge it into animals. The resulting carnage had been such that even Lijuan would not talk of it. We know we get something back from the transfer, something that keeps the toxin stable, but even after all these millennia, we know not what.

But . . . A pause, as if she was gathering her strength, determined to have her curiosity satisfied. The tests? Compatibility?

He'd answer every question, betray every secret, if it would hold her here. Only some are born with the ability *****rvive the toxin, to use it as fuel for the transition from mortal to vampire. The others die. And despite their cruelty, despite the lack of compassion engendered by age, no immortal wanted to bear the stain of that much slaughter. To promise life and give only death was a step too far into the abyss. Before the tests, perhaps one in ten made it through.

Ah . . . Not even a whisper now.

His canines elongated, and a strange, beautiful, golden taste filled his mouth as he felt a tear slide down his face. He was an archangel. He had not cried in over a thousand years. So now you know-that's why so many morons get Made.

Weak laughter in his head. I guess a dying woman can be stupid if she wants. I'm crazy about you, Archangel. You scare the **** out of me at times, but I want to dance with you anyway.

His heart stopped beating when her voice faded, and he leaned forward, his mouth overwhelmed by the taste of beauty, of life. "I won't let you die. I had your blood tested. You're compatible."

Her lashes struggled to open, failed. But her mental voice, though weak, was adamant. I don't want to be a vampire. Bloodsucking's not my thing.

"You must live." And then he kissed her, feeding that golden taste, that intoxicating blend, into her mouth. You must live.

That was when the sign gave away, tearing loose from the building and plunging to the ground in a shattering crash. Elena didn't fall alone, gathered as she was in Raphael's arms, his mouth fused with hers. They fell together, his wings close to destroyed, his soul melded to that of a mortal.

If this is death, Guild Hunter, he thought to his mortal as angelfire scored through his bones and touched his heart, then I will see you on the other side.

Sara stared upward, tears rolling down her cheeks. The Archangel of New York was falling, and in his arms, he carried a body that streamed bright near white hair. "Ellie, no, you can't ****ing do this," she whispered, so angry she could hardly form words. She'd run down here with a crossbow the second things had started turning to ****, knowing Ellie would need her. Ransom had turned up minutes later, gun in hand. But the fight had taken place too far above for either of them to help.

And now Raphael fell and there was nothing they could do.

It was like she was seeing things in slow motion, watching as her best friend lay broken in an archangel's arms, those magnificent wings shredded beyond redemption. There was no time to prepare a soft landing,...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 39



Three months later, when Raphael walked in to take his place at a meeting of the Cadre, the gasps of surprise were genuine. Even immortals, it seemed, had written him off. He slid into his chair and placed his hands loosely on the arms. "I hear you're debating how to divide my territory."

Neha was the first to recover. "No, of course not. We were speaking of Uram's successor."

He smiled, let the lie pass. "Of course."

"You did well in halting him," Elijah said.

Charisemnon nodded. "Pity it came *****ch a public end. For a while, the mortals speculated that he was the cause of the disappearances in your region-how did you turn the tide?"

"I have good men around me." It had apparently been Venom's idea to frame Robert "Bobby" Syles. He'd made the perfect fall guy-and given his sickening predilection toward children, no one had felt any guilt in blackening his name. A few judicial hints, some rumors of Bobby's depraved leanings, and proof of his having entered the United States was all it had taken.

The world, humans, vampires, and angels alike, didn't want to believe that an archangel had turned murderous. A battle between two archangels was something they could accept-most thought it had been a fight for control of the area, were happy with that understanding. To see Uram as a killer would've been too much, a fundamental shift in the fabric of the universe as they understood it.

Charisemnon humphed while Titus nodded. It was Favashi who spoke next. "We are glad to see you, Raphael."

He thought she might truly mean it. So he gave a small nod. She smiled, her face beautiful in a way that had made kingdoms fall. But he felt nothing, his heart given to a mortal. "So, you are discussing successors?"

"More accurately," Astaad pointed out, "the lack of them. There is one, as we all know, who may soon become an archangel. But he isn't yet."

"And Uram's territory needs guidance now." Michaela's gaze met Raphael's across the circle, a malicious delight in it that he understood too well. But all she said was, "I can undertake some of the work, but I have enough to handle in my own lands."

"Very magnanimous of you, Michaela," Neha murmured with an elegant trace of sarcasm. "Does your landlust know no end?"

Michaela's eyes flashed. "And I suppose you have no interest in it?"

So it began, the rounds of propositions and rebuttals, alliances and oppositions. Only Raphael and Lijuan, sitting next to him, took no part. Instead, Lijuan touched his arm with pale, delicate fingers. "Did you and Uram speak much before he died?"

"No. He was beyond speech."

"A pity." She moved her hand back to the arm of her own chair. "I would've liked to learn more about the subtle effects of long-term exposure to the toxin."

Raphael raised an eyebrow. "Surely you're not considering it?"

A soft laugh hidden in the sounds of the argument going on around them. "No, I value my sanity."

Raphael wondered if Lijuan could truly be called sane anymore. Jason had managed to gain more details of the other archangel's court-half her "courtiers" were the reborn, creatures who followed her commands with unswerving obedience. "I'm happy to hear that. Ending the life of an angel as powerful as Uram was difficult enough. I dare not think about what it would be to have you turn bloodborn."

Lijuan's eyes sparked with eerily girlish mischief. "Oh, such flattery will go to my head." She leaned back in her seat. "I was curious only because Uram seemed to have better control over his impulses than the young ones who turn. Is it not possible that he was right, that if we could traverse the problematic period, we might come out of it with enormous power on the other side?"

"The problematic period, as you put it," he said, watching the byplay between Neha and Titus, sweet poison against granite will, "turns us into killers without compare. Our most recent investigations indicate that, counting his servants, Uram killed close to two hundred people in less than ten days."

"But he was thinking."

"Only of more death." Raphael kept his tone temperate through sheer force of will. That Lijuan was considering this even on a peripheral level was a very bad sign. "Had we given him a year, he would've torn apart thousands, glutting himself each time. That is what makes an angel bloodborn, the inability to stop, to fight the lust for blood and power."

"I killed the last one, did you know? The one the humans call the father of all vampires." She laughed at the idea. "He was highly intelligent, evaded me for years, even ruled a sector."

"He bled the sector dry," Raphael reminded her. "He had no control over his instinct to kill-a puppet of his own desire. Is that what you would call power?"

Lijuan gave him an inscrutable look, a look filled with things such as he'd never seen and never wished to see. "You are a clever one, Raphael. Have no fear, I will not turn. It holds little interest for me now. As you well know."

He didn't apologize. "Only stupi***y excuses ignorance."

That made Lijuan giggle again. "Now you are being cruel to the others."

He wondered over that. If the others truly didn't know about Lijuan's evolution, then they were going to get an extremely unpleasant surprise one of these days. "I believe they've reached a consensus."

The others had split Uram's territory to their satisfaction, rearranging the boundaries of their own lands to satisfy their landlust. Raphael let them do so. His territory was already one of the largest, and even more important, one of the most productive and profitable. He had no desire to haggle over land Uram had beaten in*****bmission. Weakness had never interested Raphael.

No, he was drawn to warriors.

Michaela smiled at him again as the meeting ended, lingering behind with Elijah. "It's a pity, is it not, Raphael," she said after the room cleared of all but the three of them, "that your hunter died?"

He didn't say a word, just watched her.

Her smile widened. "She'd outlived her usefulness in any case." She flicked her hand, brushing aside Elena's life as one would a fly. "I was rather disappointed I didn't get to hunt her, but it's as well-I'll be very busy now that I have part of Uram's land to govern along with my own."

Elijah looked at Raphael. "You liked the hunter?"

It was Michaela who answered. "Oh, he was quite possessive over the mortal. He warned me off from hurting her." A deeply vicious smile. "But now she is dead and you must court me. Perhaps I will accept you."

Raphael raised an eyebrow. "You're not the only female angel."

"But I am the most beautiful." Giving him another smile edged with broken glass, she swept out.

Elijah stared after her. "I'm very glad I never dipped in that particular pond."

"You surprise me," Raphael said. "I thought I was the only one."

"I had been with Hannah for over a century by the time Michaela found me." He shrugged. "I'm not her type in any case, as the mortals say."

"Everyone is her type. And no one." The only person Michaela cared about was herself. "Do you think she ever attempted to seduce Lijuan?"

Elijah choked on his laugh. "Careful, old friend. You will give me a heart attack."

Raphael didn't return the laugh. "What is it you want to say, Eli?"

The other archangel's laughter faded. "Lijuan. She raises the dead."

"We can't yet say if the power is good or evil." Though Raphael knew what he believed. "She's the oldest of us all-we have no template to judge her evolution."

"True. But, Raphael"-Elijah paused, sighed-"you're old enough to know that the powers we achieve with age are tied intrinsically to who we are. That Lijuan should manifest an ability associated with death, it tells us a great deal about her."

"What about you?" Raphael asked, keeping secret his own newfound gift. "What has age brought you?"

Elijah's smile was inscrutable. "But those are the secrets we keep." He rose as Raphael did. "The hunter, you truly cared for her?"

"Yes."

The other archangel put his hand on Raphael's shoulder. "Then, I'm sorry." His sympathy seemed honest. "Mortals . . . they burn so bright, but their light goes out too quickly."

"Yes."

Illium was waiting for him at the Tower. "Sire." As with Dmitri and Venom, it was a title of respect, not truth.

Elena would've questioned him about that had she been here. And she would've worried about her "Bluebell." "How is your healing progressing?"

Flaring out the wing that had borne the worst damage, Illium winced. "It's almost complete." He looked at Raphael's healed body, a body that had been eaten through with an incredible amount of angelfire. "The difference between angel and archangel."

"Is age and experience."...

Angel's Blood
Angel's Blood Chapter 40



Wake up, Elena.

Elena frowned, batting away the sound. Every time she tried to sleep, he told her to wake. Dratted man. Didn't he know she needed to rest?

Elena, Sara has set her hunters on me.

As if he had anything to worry about from even the toughest vampire hunter.

She's threatening to tell the media I'm doing unnatural things with your body.

A smile in her mind, in her soul. The archangel had a sense of humor. Who knew?

Ellie?

He never called her Ellie, she thought, yawning. The first thing she saw when she blinked open her eyes was blue. Endless, fathomless, brilliant blue. Raphael's eyes. And that quickly, she remembered. The blood, the pain, the shattered bones. "Damn it, Raphael. If I have to drink blood, I'm going *****ck your gorgeous body dry." Her voice was husky, her anger absolute.

The archangel smiled and it held such fierce joy that she wanted to grab on to him and never let go. "You're very welcome *****ck any part of my body you wish."

She wouldn't laugh, wouldn't surrender to the hunger she saw in those immortal eyes. "I told you I didn't want to be a vampire."

He fed her chips of ice, cooling her parched throat. "Are you not at least a little glad to be alive?"

She was a lot glad. Being with Raphael . . . oh, well, how bad could blood taste? But-"I'm not doing any vampire lackey stuff."

"Fine."

"I'm only drinking your blood."

That made his smile widen. "Fine."

"That means you're stuck with me." She jutted out her chin. "Try to throw me off for some bimbo and we'll see who's immortal."

"Fine."

"I expect-" That was when she felt the weird lumps under her back. "Whoever made this bed did a **** job. It's all lumpy."

Blue, blue eyes laughed at her. "Really?"

"Hey, it's not fun-" Her words ended on a choked breath as she turned her head and saw what she was lying on. Wings. Such beautiful wings. A rich, evocative black that swept gracefully outward in subtle increments of indigo, deepest blue, and dawn until the primaries were a vivid, shimmering white gold. Midnight wings. Incredible wings. And she was squashing them. "Oh, my God! I'm crushing an angel. Let me up!"

Raphael helped her rise when she held out her hand. The tube stuck into her arm hindered her movement. "What?"

"To keep you alive."

"How long?" she asked, shifting to look over her shoulder. His answer was lost in the rush of white noise that crashed across her brain. Because she hadn't been squashing anyone . . . but herself. "I have wings."

"A warrior's wings." He brushed his finger over one edge and the sensation rocketed through her entire body. "Wings like blades."

"Oh," she said when she could speak again, "I guess I really am dead then." That made sense. She'd always wanted wings and now she had them. Ergo, she was dead and in heaven. She turned. "You look just like Raphael." He smelled of the sea, a clean, fresh bite that made her body sing.

He kissed her.

And he tasted far too real, far too earthy, to be a figment of her imagination. When he drew back, she was stunned to see the emotion in his eyes. It was shocking enough to make her forget the magic of the wings at her back. "Raphael?"

That blue glittered fever bright, the skin pulled taut over his cheekbones. "I'm very angry at you, Elena."

"So what else is new?" she quipped, but found herself stroking the arch of his wing.

"I am immortal and you tried to save my life by endangering your own?"

"Stupid, huh?" Leaning close, she rubbed her nose over his. Stress-touches, she thought stupidly, they were called stress-touches, the little things that lovers did to anchor each other, the things that were their secret language. Her and Raphael's language had barely begun, but it held a promise so raw, so rich, her heart twisted inside her chest, almost afraid of the fury of it. "I couldn't let you be hurt. You belong to me." Such an arrogant thing to say to an archangel.

He closed his eyes, dropping his forehead against hers. "You'll be the death of me, Elena."

She smiled. "You need a little excitement in that boring old life of yours."

Those eyes opened, blinding in their intensity. "Yes. So you will not die. I've made certain of it."

She was half convinced she'd imagined the wings, but the beautiful sweep of midnight hadn't disappeared when she checked out of the corner of her eye. "How the hell did you attach prosthetic wings to my back in the course of a . . ." She paused. "Okay, no soreness from the wounds so, what, it's been a week? No, longer." She frowned, trying to reorder splintered pieces of memory. "I had broken bones . . . my back?"

The archangel smiled again, his forehead still touching hers, his wings arching over to shadow them in their own private world. "The wings aren't prosthetic and you've been asleep for a year."

Elena swallowed. Blinked. Tried to breathe. "Angels Make vampires, not other angels."

"There is one-how would you put it-loophole."

"Loophole? More like a giant ****rn if I have wings." She held on to him, the only solid thing in a shifting universe.

"No, it is the tiniest of holes, barely a pinprick. You're the first angel to have been Made in all the years of my existence."

"Lucky me," she whispered, brushing her fingers along his nape and drinking in his sigh of pleasure. This moment, it felt frozen out of time. Here, she was simply a woman, and he was simply a man. But like all moments, it had to pass. "What are the requirements?"

"Nothing we've ever been able to manipulate, though angels have tried for millennia." Those incredible, unearthly eyes held her prisoner. "The one and only time an archangel can Make another angel is when our bodies produce a substance known as ambrosia."

A snapshot of memory-the golden, melting heat of his kiss, the delicate sweetness, the lush sensuality, the taste that was an erotic sensation and whispered caress in one. "The mythical food of the gods?"

"Every myth holds a grain of truth."

She couldn't help it, she kissed him again. And the taste of him rushed over her in a tumultuous wave. He was the one who broke the kiss.

You were very badly injured, Elena.

The aches inside her were a testament to that truth. That didn't mean she had to like it. "Tell me about ambrosia then." A bad-tempered command.

"Ambrosia," he said against her mouth, "is produced instinctively at a single point in an archangel's life."

Images of his shredded wings, the living burn of angelfire. "Near death?" She touched him, checking, exploring, convincing herself he was alive.

"We've all been near death more than once." He shook his head. "No one has ever been able to pinpoint the trigger."

"But?"

"But it is legend that ambrosia only rises when-"

She held her breath.

"-an archangel loves true."

The world stopped. The air particles seemed to still above her, the molecules suspended as she stared at the magnificence of the man who held her in his arms. "Maybe I was just biologically compatible." It came out a ragged whisper.

"Perhaps." The possession of lips against her neck. "We have eternity to discover the truth. And in that eternity, you will be mine."

She thrust her hands into his hair, feeling heat spread through her body in a rolling wave. But she couldn't surrender. Not until they got one thing straight. "Fine-so long as you don't think that gives you the right to rule my life."

He came over her as she lay back down. "Why not?"

She blinked at the cool arrogance of that question, and realized that her existence had just become a whole lot more interesting. Forget about hunting an archangel, she was about to learn how to dance with one without losing herself in the process. Exhilaration spiked through her bloodstream. "This is going to be some ride, Archangel."