by Nalini Singh
Light. Warmth. Illusion.
The seemingly ordinary surburban yard in front of him was set with sensors, likely connected to booby traps that could be set off from inside the house. Raphael guessed there was a basement leading to a hidden exit—no hunter would ever allow her family to be trapped.
If he hadn’t been in the Quiet, he might’ve been impressed. The security was brilliant, would hold perfectly well against a high-level vampire, though probably not Dmitri. He was far too experienced. But even Dmitri would have had to dodge the weapons. Raphael, on the other hand, didn’t even have to step foot inside the house.
But you should, a primeval, reptilian part of his mind whispered, you should teach them a lesson, teach them that no one stands against an archangel and comes out the winner.
He considered the instruction with the chill reason of his current emotional state and disregarded it. The Guild Director was intelligent and good at her job. It made no sense for Raphael to kill her—such an action would throw the Guild into chaos, during which a considerable number of dissatisfied vampires would try to escape from their masters. Some might even succeed because the hunters would be too broken up by the death of their director to be effective. Humans were so weak.
None of yours will escape, that voice whispered again, a voice he only ever heard during the Quiet. They wouldn’t dare. Nobody disobeys you, not after we made an example out of Germaine.
Germaine was now somewhere in Texas, but the vampire had never forgotten his hours in Times Square and he never would. They were branded into his memories, pain such as no one should survive. Raphael remembered taking care of Germaine during another time of Quiet. After the Quiet, he recalled that he’d been dissatisfied with what he’d done. Accessing his memories, he found that he’d felt . . . remorse. He’d gone too far.
What a ridiculous idea. What a ridiculous emotion. He was an archangel. Germaine had dared attempt a betrayal. His punishment had been just. As would the Guild Director’s be if she stood in Raphael’s way.
Kill her child, the voice murmured. Kill her child in front of her. In front of Elena.
17
An alarm blared next to Elena’s bed, jerking her out of a fitful sleep. Already fully dressed, she got up and started running. Vivek was waiting for her, his door open. “Hurry! On the phone! Sara!”
Vaulting over his wheelchair when it got in her way, she picked up the receiver. “Sara?” Fear was a vile taste on her tongue, sharp and pungent.
“Run, Ellie,” Sara whispered and there were tears in her voice. “Run!”
Ice turned her limbs useless. She stood there. “Zoe?”
“She’s fine,” Sara sobbed. “She wasn’t here. Oh, God, Ellie. He knows where you are.”
Not for a moment did Elena think Sara was talking about Dmitri. No vampire, however powerful, would reduce her friend to this. “How? What did he do to you?” Her fingers clenched on a knife handle and only then did she realize she’d drawn it.
“How?” Hysterical laughter cut off midstream. “I told him.”
The shock immobilized her. “Sara?” If Sara had betrayed her, then she had nothing left.
“Oh, Ellie, he flew to the window and looked at me, told me to open it. I didn’t even hesitate!” It was almost a scream. “Then he just asked me where you were and I answered. I answered! Why, Ellie? Why would I answer?”
Elena’s breath rushed out of her. Trembling with relief, she put out a hand to brace herself against Vivek’s computer panel. “It’s okay, Sara.”
“It’s not fucking okay! I ratted out my best friend! Don’t you dare tell me it’s okay!”
“Mind control,” Elena said before Sara could really get into her tirade. “He plays with us like toys.” He’d certainly played with her—her body, her emotions. “There was nothing you could’ve done.”
“But I’m immune,” Sara said. “I’m Guild Director partly because I have a natural immunity to vampire tricks, like Hilda.”
“He’s not a vampire,” Elena reminded her distraught friend. “He’s an archangel.”
A deep, shaky indrawn breath. “Ellie, there was something seriously wrong with him tonight.”
Elena frowned. “What do you mean? Did he do anything . . . evil?” She had to force out the word. Some stupid, deluded part of her didn’t want to believe that Raphael could be evil.
“No—he didn’t even mention Zoe or threaten her in any way. But then he didn’t need to, did he? He could twist my mind like a pretzel.”
“If it’s any consolation,” she said, remembering Erik’s animal stare, Bernal’s terrified compliance, “he can apparently do that to vampires as well.”
A sniff. “Well, at least the bloodsuckers don’t have anything on me. You have to get the hell out. He’s on his way to you now and in his current mood, he might just destroy the Guild to get to you. He knows all the codes—I gave them to him.” Another short scream. “Okay, I’m calm now. I told Vivek to change the codes but I don’t think that’ll stop Raphael. He wants you.”
“I’m outa here. And I’ll leave a message making sure he knows I’m in the wind so he doesn’t come after Vivek.”
“Go to the Blue safe house.”
Blue was an unmarked delivery truck that would blend seamlessly into traffic, effectively disappearing the driver. “I will,” Elena lied. “Thanks.”
“What the hell for?” Sara spit out. “But I can give you this—he wasn’t acting normal. I’ve spoken to him on the phone and you know how good I am with voices. It was different—flat, toneless . . . cold. Not angry, not anything, just cold.”
Why did everyone keep using that word? Raphael was many things, but he’d never struck her as cold. However, she didn’t have time to ask for details. “I’m heading out now. I’ll check in when I can. And don’t worry—no matter what, he won’t kill me. He needs me to finish the job.” She hung up before Sara could realize there were worse things than death. Some of them involved screaming and screaming and screaming until your voice broke.
“New codes.” A piece of paper rested in the printer tray. “Use them to get out—I’ll change them again the instant you exit the elevator.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Vivek.”
“Wait.” He zipped his chair off to a small locker in the corner. She didn’t know what he did, but the locker suddenly swung up. “Take that.”
Elena picked up the small, sleek gun. “Won’t do much good against an archangel but thanks anyway.”
“Don’t shoot his body,” he told her. “Those rounds are meant to shred an angel’s wings.”
No! The idea of destroying the incredible beauty of those wings caused an almost physical pain in her heart. “They grow back, heal,” she forced herself to say.
“Takes time. And we’ve been keeping records—it takes an angel longer to heal his wings than anything else. It’ll cripple him long enough that you can get out of a tight spot. Unless . . .” Fear spiked his tone. “I heard what you said about mind control. If he can do that from a distance, I don’t know if anything will help.”
She tucked the gun into the back of her pants after making sure the safety was on. “He’s not controlling me now, so there’s a limit to his abilities.” At least she hoped so. “I don’t think he’ll come down once he knows I’m gone but you need to be safe. Has Ashwini left?”
“Yes, and nobody else was down here.” His eyes were scared but resolute. “I’ll lock up behind you, then bunk down.” He nodded at the entrance to the secret room hidden behind a wall. He could survive in there for days. “Be safe, Ellie. We need to finish our game.”
Bending, she gave him an impulsive hug. “I’ll beat your skinny ass when I come back.” Now it was time to keep herself alive . . . and whole. Because there were lots of body parts a hunter didn’t need in order to successfully track prey.
Raphael stood in front of the elevator he’d been told would transport him to the Cellars. But it appeared he had no need to go down below. His
quarry had been flushed out.
The message was pinned to the side of the elevator doors, held up by a nail that had been driven in with enough force that concrete dust littered the ground.
You want to play, angel boy? Then let’s play. Find me.
It was a challenge, clear and simple. A foolish thing for the hunter to do. In the Quiet, he couldn’t be enraged, but he understood strategy very well. She wanted to draw him away from the Guild and her friends.
He considered that. That primeval part of him whispered, Will you let her lead you around on a leash? She insults you.
He ripped the note off the wall. “Angel boy,” he read out loud, crumpling the paper in his hand. Yes, she needed to learn some respect. When he found her, she was going to beg for mercy.
I don’t want her to beg.
The echo of his own words stopped him for several long seconds. He remembered that he was intrigued by the hunter’s fire, that she relieved the boredom of centuries. Even in the Quiet, he understood the decision not to harm her. To prematurely break a new toy, one that promised such pleasure, was a foolish act. But there were ways to ensure respect without fully destroying the object of his search.
The Guild could wait. First, he had to teach Elena Deveraux not to play games with an archangel.
Elena drove to the Blue safe house through the streets with grim purpose. She wasn’t going to hide—that would simply lead to more problems for those she cared about. She had every certainty that Raphael would go after them one by one until he found her. So she did the only thing she could to keep them all safe.
She went home.
And waited, gun in hand.
Raphael stood outside an apartment building, and even in the Quiet, he knew that he was dangerous. If Elena was inside those walls, then blood would spill. There was no room for flexibility in his mind. This was one place where he would not accept or permit her presence.
Wrapping the glamour around himself once more, he entered the apartment through the front door, breaking the dual deadlocks without effort.
Voices from the other room. Male and female.
“Come on, baby, just—”
“I’m through listening to you!”
“I admit I was an idio—”
“A giant, pigheaded imbecile would be more like it.”
“Fuck this!”
The sound of rustling, then jagged breaths. Hot, deeply sexual.
Raphael entered the bedroom and pinned Ransom to the wall with a single hand around his throat before the hunter could say a word. But Ransom reacted fast, snapping out with his legs and screaming, “Get out, Nyree! Run, baby!”
Nyree?
Something hit Raphael’s back. He looked over his shoulder to find a small, curvy female pelting him with whatever object came to hand. When her fingers closed around a heavy paperweight, he flicked a finger and sent her to sleep. She collapsed slowly into the sofa.
The hunter stilled. “If you’ve hurt her, I don’t care what I have to do—I will find a way to kill you.”
“You can’t,” he responded, but let the man go. “She’s sleeping, nothing more. It’ll allow for an easier conversation.”
Ransom’s knife hand was suddenly slashing toward Raphael’s wings. He actually grazed the feathers before Raphael locked his mind, forcing him to drop the blade. Sweat broke out on the other man’s brow as he fought the compulsion.
“Interesting. You’re very strong.” Raphael considered this. He could kill the man, but then the Guild would lose one of its finest hunters. “It’s not in my best interest to kill you. Don’t try to attack me and you’ll live.”
“Fuck you,” Ransom said, attempting to move forward. “I won’t tell you where Ellie is.”
“Yes, you will.” He focused his abilities without remorse, without anything but cold purpose. “Where is she?”
Ransom smiled. “I don’t know.”
Raphael stared at the other man, knowing it to be the truth—no one could lie under compulsion. There were rumors of humans who had some kind of immunity to angelic powers, as a number of them had to vampiric ones, but Raphael had never met one—not in the fifteen centuries of his existence. “Where would she hide if she was trying to protect her friends?” he asked instead.
He could see Ransom fighting not to answer, but the compulsion won. “She wouldn’t hide.”
Raphael thought that over. “No, she wouldn’t, would she?” He walked to the front door. “Your lady will wake in a few minutes.”
Ransom coughed as Raphael set his mind free. “I owe you a punch to the jaw. Maybe a black eye or six, too.”
“You’re welcome to collect,” Raphael said, seeing in this hunter another possible diversion from the jaded edge of immortality. “I won’t even punish you if you succeed.”
The hunter, now crouching by his woman, raised an eyebrow. “Sure you’ll be around for me to hunt? Ellie’s probably waiting, carving knife in hand.”
“I may indulge my toys,” Raphael said, “but only so far.”
“What the fuck did she do, anyway?” Ransom asked and Raphael saw the delaying gesture for what it was—the hunter was trying to give his friend as much time as he could.
You must kill her.
Lijuan’s voice was a cool whisper in his mind, as pitiless as the winds of Quiet. “That is between me and Elena,” he said. “You’d do well to stay out of this war.”
Ransom’s face turned stony. “I don’t know how angels do it, but out here, we stick by our friends. She calls, I’ll answer.”
“And you’ll die,” Raphael replied. “I don’t share that which is mine.”
According to Elena’s watch, she’d been sitting on her sofa staring out at the Tower for close to an hour. Maybe her choice of location wasn’t as obvious as she’d thought. She frowned and tugged at the T-shirt she’d changed into after her arrival. That was when her cell phone rang. Pulse rocketing as she recognized the personalized ring tone, she pulled it out and put it to her ear. “Ransom? Oh, my God, he got to you!”
“Calm down,” Ransom replied. “I’m fine.”
“Your voice sounds a little husky.”
“He’s a strong motherfu—Sorry, babe.”
Elena frowned. “Huh?”
“Nyree,” he explained. “She thinks I swear too much. Of course, she just swore a blue streak when she woke up from the nap your boyfriend put her in during our conversation.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“I’m insulted—I can handle myself.”
Relief washed through her. “Yeah, yeah. So?”
“So the big, bad, and able-to-mind-control angel thinks you’re his. As in ‘I don’t share my woman.’ ”
Elena swallowed. “You’re messing with me.”
A bark of laughter. “Hell, no. This is way too interesting as it is.”
“Oh, Jesus.” She bent over and stared at the carpet, trying to think. Yes, she’d kissed him. And yes, he’d been sending out some strong vibes—vibes she’d responded to despite herself—but all that was de rigueur for the powerful angels and vampires. Sex was just a game. It meant nothing. “Maybe he was saying that to put me on edge.” That would make more sense.
“Oh, no, babe. This was for real.” His voice became serious. “The man wants you—but I’m not sure if he wants to fuck you or kill you.”
Rising from her bent-over position, Elena stared out at the window in front of her. Her stomach nose-dived. “Ah, Ransom? I have to go.”
Silence. Then: “He found you.”
Her eyes on the wide spread of white gold as Raphael hovered effortlessly outside, she closed the phone and put it very carefully on the small table next to the sofa. “I’m not letting you in,” she whispered, though there was no way he could hear her.
I can get in anytime I please.
She froze at the crystal clarity of his tone. “I told you—no fucking with my head!”
Why?
The chill of that single word got thr
ough to her as nothing else could have. Sara had been right—there was something different about Raphael tonight. And it was very, very bad for her. “What’s wrong with you?”
Nothing. I am Quiet.
“What the hell does that mean?” She inched her hand toward the gun at her back, never moving her eyes off his face as he watched her through the glass. “And why are your eyes so . . . cold?” That word again.
He stretched out his wings even farther, fully displaying the gold and white pattern on the underside. So beautiful it threatened to distract. “Clever,” she said, focusing deliberately on his face. “Trying to manipulate me without using your mind.”
You were right when you said I need you fully functional. Too much mind control and I could bend your mental pathways permanently.
“Bullshit,” she muttered, having almost reached her gun. “You can hold me for a while but the second you stop exercising active control, I’m free.”
Are you sure?
Oddly enough, though he was scaring the bejesus out of her right then, she didn’t feel as vulnerable to the threat of compulsion as she usually did. When he was being his normal arrogant, lethal-as-hell self, there was a pulse of sexual attraction between them that scrambled her usual defenses.
But this man—this cold, cold man with death in his eyes . . . Her hand closed on the butt of the gun.
18
“You know what,” she said, fighting to keep her expression calm, “the only thing I’m sure about right this second is that you’re acting out of it.”
Is that why you have a gun?
Her hand froze on the weapon, the beads of sweat on her spine turning to ice. “What gun?”
His hair whipped off his face as if caught in a driving wind, but he kept his position without any apparent effort. His face was so pure in its beauty that her heart kicked a beat. It was as if he’d been carved by the most masterful of artisans, the lines of his face clean and quintessentially male. Without a doubt, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
