by Nalini Singh
“The Beaumonts buck the curve,” Janvier continued. “They’ve managed to get at least one family member Made in every generation. This time, it was two.”
“Monique and Frédéric. Brother and sister.”
A nod. “That kind of success makes them a powerhouse—with Monique and Frédéric, the Beaumonts now have ten living vampires connected by blood. The oldest is half a millennium old.”
“Antoine Beaumont.”
“Cutthroat bastard,” Janvier said in an almost affectionate tone. “Would probably sell his own children upriver if he thought he could profit from it.”
“A friend?”
“I saved his life once.” Lifting his face to the sun, Janvier soaked in the rays like some sybarite on a European coast far from the humid, earthy embrace of a Louisiana summer. “He sends me a bottle of his best Bordeaux every year—along with a proposal that I should consider marrying his daughter Jean.” Pronounced in the French way, the name sounded sensual and electric.
Her fingers tightened on the hand-painted coffee cup. “Poor woman.”
He turned his face back to her, devilment in his eyes. “On the contrary, Jean is quite keen on the match. Last winter, she invited me to keep her warm in a most beautiful cabin in Aspen.”
Ashwini knew when she was being played. She also knew Janvier was fully capable of spinning a tale to keep her here—purely for his own amusement. “I can bet you Jean isn’t thinking of Aspen right now. In fact, it’s a good bet she’s thinking only of murder.”
“The situation?” And there was that quicksilver intelligence again, the thing that kept drawing her back to him in spite of her every vow to the contrary.
“Monique is what, Jean’s great-granddaughter times nine?”
Janvier took a moment to think about it. “Perhaps ten, but it matters little. Jean dotes on the child. Antoine calls both Monique and Frédéric his grandchildren.”
“The woman’s twenty-six,” she pointed out, “hardly a child. And her brother’s thirty.”
“Everyone under a hundred is a child to me.”
“Funny.”
“I do not talk of you, cherie.” His smile slid away to expose a darker edge, one that had seen centuries pass. “You carry too much knowledge in your eyes. If I did not know you were human, I’d think you, too, had lived as long as I.”
Sometimes, she felt as if she had. But the demons that clawed into her mind night and day had no place in this discussion. Breaking Janvier’s too-perceptive gaze, she said, “Monique’s been kidnapped.”
“Who’d dare rise against the Beaumonts?” Open shock.
“Not only are they a power in their own right, but the angel who controls Atlanta holds them in high favor.”
“He did,” she said, turning her eyes back to him, enjoying the play of sunlight on his body. It was a simple pleasure with a potent kick—even the demons couldn’t hold up against the sensual temptation that lapped against her senses. “But seems like your buddy Antoine’s managed to piss Nazarach off.”
Janvier rose to his feet, brow furrowed. “But even so, to take on Antoine is to slit your own throat.”
“The Fox kiss doesn’t think so.”
“A kiss?” Shaking his head, he walked to stand in front of her, one hand braced on the counter. “You’re speaking in the truest sense of the word—a group of vampires banding together for a common purpose?”
“Yep.”
“I haven’t heard of a formal kiss of vampires for over a century.”
“Some guy named Callan Fox apparently decided to revive the idea.” Curious, compelled, she ran her fingers along a curving scar on Janvier’s chest, just above his left nipple. “I didn’t give you this.”
“If only,” he murmured, playing along. “I would be honored to carry your marks.”
“Too bad vampires heal so quickly.” She found herself tracing the scar, seeing something familiar in it. But unlike with every other person she knew, there was no pulse of memory, no unwanted invasion into her mind as her gift, her curse, pulled her into Janvier’s past. Instead of seeing his secrets, knowing his nightmares, all she felt was warm, silken skin, a little imperfect, and all the more intriguing for it.
“Was this made by a knife?” she asked.
“Of a kind—a sword.” Closing his fingers over her wrist, he brought her hand to his mouth, pressing lingering kisses along the knuckles. “Will you tease me this way forever, Ashwini?”
2
Only a few more decades,” she said, feeling her stomach tense, her toes curl. “Then it’ll be time for a new hunter to chase you.”
She expected some amusing comeback, but Janvier’s face grew still, so very, very still. “Do not speak of your death with such ease.”
“Since I’m not about to sign a Contract giving over a hundred years of my almost-immortal life,” she said, one hand remaining pressed against him, the other in his grasp, “death is a certainty.”
“Nothing is certain.” He released her hand to tug at strands of her unbound hair, eyes warming from within. “But we’ll discuss your humanity another time. I find myself intrigued by the idea of this Fox kiss.”
Reaching into her back pocket, she brought out the nifty PDA that Ransom, another of the hunters working out of the New York Guild, had given her as a Christmas present. “This is Callan Fox.” She flicked to a picture of the tall, heavily muscled blond. “According to my info, he turned two hundred this year.”
“I recognize that face.” A frown, as if he were sifting through layers of memory. “Now I remember—I met him in Nazarach’s court when he was serving out his Contract. The other vampires in the court misjudged him then, thought him slow.”
“And you?”
Fingers trailing up her arm, playful and light. “I saw an almost brutal intelligence, coupled with ambition. It doesn’t surprise me that Callan has managed to put together a kiss and at such a young age. Do the other vampires in the group look to their founder for leadership?”
“Seems that way. Funny thing is, there are at least a couple of three-hundred-year-old vamps in the kiss, and one who might be approaching the four-century mark.”
“Not all vampires gain power with age.” Putting one foot on the outside of her stool, he flicked through the photos of the other vampires in the kiss. “Look at me. I’m still as weak as a babe.”
“Does that line ever work?” She took back her precious gadget when he started to go into her personal albums.
A slashing smile. “You’d be surprised at how many women just love to console poor, desolate me. Who’s the boy in that photo?”
Her heart twisted. That boy was now a man, a man who refused to see her as anyone but the mirage she’d once been. “None of your business.”
“Such pain.” Janvier’s fingers stopped for a second, before his hand curved over her upper arm. “How can you breathe past it, cher?”
Because when there was no other option, the mind learned to compensate… even if it could never forget. “You want to know more about this op or not?”
“One day,” Janvier said, shifting until the heat of him touched her in an aggressive masculine caress, “I will know your secrets.”
Part of her wanted to lean in, to be held. But that part was buried so deep, even she wasn’t sure if it would ever see the light. “Then you’d be bored.” Pushing at that chest that tempted her to jump straight into madness, she hopped off the stool. “Guild’s been hired by Nazarach.”
That got Janvier’s interest. “Angels usually let high-level vamps sort out their own feuds.”
“I have a meet with him tomorrow morning.” She moved aside the leg he’d braced on her stool, the muscle of his thigh flexing with strength. “Guess I’ll find out his motives then.”
All trace of charm left Janvier’s face, exposing the almost feral ruthlessness of his true self. “You will not go to him alone.” It was an order.
Intrigued—Janvier never used force when he could as e
asily persuade—she put one hand on her hip. “I know his rep.” Going into a hunt blind was just asking for death. Especially when it involved an angel who inspired as much whispered terror as Nazarach. “I’m not his type.”
“You’re wrong. Nazarach has always collected the unique and unattainable.” Stepping back, he walked to the wardrobe, the line of his back sleek with muscle. “Give me a moment to dress and pack.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“If you walk out of here alone, I’ll simply follow you.” Steel in those moss and shadow eyes. “Much easier to take me along.”
She shrugged. “You want to waste your time, that’s up to you.”
A pause as he studied her, cool intelligence rising past the hot burn of temper. “You intended to take me along all the time,” he said at last. “Now you try to play me. Shame on you, Ashwini.”
How the hell did he read her that way? “Guild says this is touchy,” she admitted. “I figured the fact that you know the players would provide a nice noncombative entrée into their world.”
“So you will use me.” Pulling on a white T-shirt, he covered up that body her fingers wanted to stroke, wanted to know, safe in the knowledge that it would be only Janvier under her fingertips, no ghosts, no echoes, nothing but the beautiful, infuriating vampire himself. “Perhaps I’ll ask you for recompense.”
“Half my fee.” Fair was fair—it’d be much faster and easier to get to Callan Fox with Janvier by her side.
“I don’t need money, cher.” Pulling out a duffel, he began to pack with almost military efficiency. “If I do this, you will owe me a favor.”
“Not to hunt you?” She shook her head. “I can’t promise that. The Guild would have my badge.”
He waved off her words with that wicked, wicked smile he seemed to save just for her. “Non, this favor will be between Ashwini and Janvier, no one else. It will be personal.”
The sensible thing would’ve been to walk away… but then, she’d never been big on sensible. “Deal.”
Nazarach ran Atlanta from a gracious old plantation house that had been converted for angelic inhabitants. “Very Southern,” Ashwini said as the limo glided down the drive. “Must admit, it’s not quite what I expected.”
Janvier stretched out his long legs as much as he could. “You’re used to Archangel Tower.”
“Hard not to be. It dominates Manhattan.” Raphael’s Tower, the place from which the archangel effectively ruled North America, had become as much a symbol of New York as the ubiquitous red apple. “Have you ever seen it at night? It’s like a knife of light, cutting through the sky.” Beauty and cruelty intertwined.
“Once or twice,” Janvier said. “I’ve never been close to Raphael, though. You?”
She shook her head. “I hear he’s one scary s.o.b.”
The vampire driving them met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “That’s putting it mildly.”
Janvier leaned forward, his interest buzzing along her skin. “You’ve met the archangel?”
“He came to Atlanta for a meeting with my sire six months ago.” Ashwini saw goose bumps rise over the vampire’s skin. “I thought I knew what power felt like. I was wrong.”
Hearing that from a vampire who was no newborn made Ashwini damn glad she was “only” dealing with a midlevel angel. “Huge windows that open out into nothing,” she said, caught again by the timeless elegance of the plantation house as it came into focus. “Easy to fall out of one.”
Janvier put his arm around the back of the seat. “Angels can fly.”
“Janvier.”
A chuckle, fingers stroking across her hair as he removed his hand. “Would you like to fly?”
She thought of her dreams, that sensation of falling endlessly, caught in a whirlwind of nightmare. “No. I like my feet set firmly on the ground.”
“You surprise me, cher. I know how much you like jumping off bridges.”
“I’m attached to a bungee cord at the time.”
“Ah, far safer, then.”
The car came to a stop before she could return the amused volley, and they stepped out into Atlanta’s lush embrace. “Would you?” she asked, glancing at him all loose-limbed and roughly sexy beside her as they walked to the front door. “Like to fly?”
“I’m bayou-born. One of the first after my people came to Louisiana.” He slid his hands into his pockets, his voice holding the music of his home. “It’s water that’s in my blood, not air.”
“The hunter-born hate water.” It was no secret—not for a vampire as experienced as Janvier.
“But you’re not one of the bloodhounds,” Janvier pointed out. “Water doesn’t mask a vampire’s scent for you—you’re a tracker. You rely on your eyes.”
“Trackers hate water, too.” A snarl directed squarely at him. “It destroys the trail.”
“Hey, now,” he said, still in that easy, unhurried voice, “I took you through the bayou, sugar. Lots of damp earth—plenty of signs for a tracker to follow.”
“I had mold growing in my toes by the end of that hunt.”
“Now I find myself envious of mold—see what you do to me.” Teasing words, a gaze that stroked her with fire.
“You ever make me hunt you in that kind of damp again,” she said, feeling her stomach give a little twinge as his eyes moved over her, proprietary in a way they had no right to be, “I’ll make you eat the bloody mold.”
Janvier was still laughing when they walked up the final steps to find the door being held open by a small, wrinkled woman who was unquestionably human. Even if Ashwini hadn’t noticed the myriad other signs that proclaimed her mortality, the simple fact was the angels only accepted Candidates between the ages of twenty-five and forty. And once Made, a vampire was frozen in time—except, of course, for the gradual polish of a beauty no mortal would ever possess.
But there was another kind of beauty in this woman’s face, marked as it was by the experiences of a life lived to the fullest. A life still being lived that way, Ashwini thought, watching those bright blue eyes take in Janvier with a definite glint of female appreciation—one that didn’t dim as she invited them inside. “The master is waiting for you in the living area.”
“Will you show us the way, darlin’?”
The woman dimpled. “Of course. Please follow me.”
As they walked behind the older woman, Ashwini jabbed Janvier with her elbow. “Do you have no shame?”
“None whatsoever.”
An instant later they were being shown through doors large enough to accommodate an angel’s wings. The maid whispered away after letting them in, and while Ashwini’s hunter senses would never let her ignore the woman’s exit, it occupied only a very small part of her mind. Because Nazarach was waiting for them.
And if he was only a midlevel angel, then she was damn grateful she’d never been, and likely never would be, in the presence of an archangel.
The Atlantan angel was about Janvier’s height, with gleaming black skin and eyes of such a direct, piercing amber, it was as if they were lit from within. That illusion of light was power, of course, the power of an immortal. The incredible force of it lay like a shimmering film in his eyes, on his skin, and, most magnificently, on his wings.
“You like my wings,” the angel said, and his voice was deep, holding a thousand voices she tried not to hear, tried not to know.
“It’d be impossible to do otherwise.” She held those ghostly voices at bay with a will honed by a lifetime of fighting for her sanity. “They’re beyond beauty.” A burnished amber, Nazarach’s wings were not only unique, but so exquisitely formed, each feather so perfect, her mind had trouble accepting they existed. When he flew, she thought, he’d look like a blinding piece of the sun.
Nazarach gave her a small smile, and perhaps there was warmth in it, but it was nothing human, nothing mortal. “As it is impossible to do anything but appreciate you, Guild Hunter.”
The tiny hairs at the back of her neck s
tood up in screaming warning. “I’m here to do a job and I’ll do it well. If you want to play games, I’m not your girl.”
Janvier stepped forward before Nazarach could reply to what was surely a highly impertinent statement. “Ashblade,” he said, using the nickname he was responsible for coining, “is good at what she does. She’s not so good at playing by the rules.”
“So”—Nazarach turned his attention to Janvier—“you’re not dead yet, Cajun?”
“Despite Ash’s best attempts.”
The angel laughed, and the shattering power of it swept around the room, crawled over her skin. Age, death, ecstasy, and agony, it was all in that laugh, in Nazarach’s past. It crushed her, threatened to cut off her breath, leaving her trapped forever in the terror-choked hell that had sought to claim her since childhood.
