by Nalini Singh
A faint curve of his lips at last, his head dipping to press a kiss over the bite he’d taken of her breast, the mark red yet. “Yes.” He rose, did up his pants, and dragged her to her feet. “It may become my favorite way to work out our differences.”
“Not if you do this to all my clothes,” she said, realizing the ripping and tearing sounds had been for real. “Damn it. I just changed.” Sudden panic, a glance at her watch. “I still have fifteen minutes to make the meet with Ransom.” Racing into the bedroom, she stripped off her weapons, slithered out of her clothes, and—after a quick dash into the bathroom to wash some hotly personal fluids from her body—returned to re-dress.
An insane three minutes later, and Raphael, wearing a black shirt identical to the one she’d shredded, slid her longest blade down her back again. “The hunt might run late,” she said. “So don’t send the squadrons out looking for me.”
“Either you have forgotten your prior engagement,” Raphael said as she rapidly rebraided her hair, “or you’re attempting to avoid it.”
It came to her in a rush of memory—heavy embossed paper, a polite invitation it had taken her hours to draft, a response elegant and formal but with a delicate, whimsical drawing of a lemur in one corner. “They didn’t cancel?”
“Elijah offered, but I told him we’d like to see him and Hannah at our table.” Folding his wings tightly to his back, he walked out onto the balcony, the winter air a cold blast as she followed. “I think it’s time we began to build some true friendships among the Cadre. Other alliances are already forming that may be destructive in the war to come.”
Rubbing at her bare arms, she tried to remember if she’d left spare full-length sheaths at the Tower. However, it wasn’t only the wind and the thickening cloud layer that had the hairs rising along her arms. “You’re thinking about Neha and Lijuan.” The two powerful archangels were neighbors, had always had a cordial relationship.
“It could be a lethal liaison.”
Elena thought of a Manhattan under siege from a hail of fire and ice, while the reborn fed on mortal flesh in a bloody plague across the city, and felt her gorge rise. “Jason said he’s positive Neha hasn’t been taken in by Lijuan.”
“Neha also has a twin in her territory who may yet lead her army against Neha,” Raphael pointed out. “And she blames me for the death of her child.” A reminder that no matter Neha’s acceptance of Jason into her territory in the recent past, certain wounds continued to fester. “Lijuan, meanwhile, has been very polite about keeping both her reborn and her forces away from their shared border.”
Put that way Elena could see the alliance forming in front of her eyes. “Elijah and you—you’re friends already.”
“Of a sort. He has always offered his support to me in matters of the Cadre.” Acknowledging a passing squadron led by Illium, who looked every inch the blooded fighter she so often forgot him to be, Raphael shot out a random bolt of energy.
Elena sucked in a breath as Illium gave a single command and the squadron split to avoid the bolt . . . which Illium deflected with the sword he’d pulled from his back. It hit the Tower without causing damage, and Illium saluted them with a grin before continuing onward. “That wasn’t angelfire.” An archangel killer, angelfire could shatter concrete.
“No, it was a weak strike meant to test the squadron’s alertness.” Eyes on the city, Raphael returned to their earlier topic of conversation. “If Elijah and I are to create a true friendship, an alliance that’ll hold in the fighting to come, then I must not only invite him into my territory, but trust him on a level beyond.”
“You’re going to tell him the full effects of the Falling?” Open surprise in his consort’s tone.
“No.” He trusted none of the Cadre enough to share the compromised status of his defenses. “Elijah may have offered the olive branch of friendship, but he has also held his territory for longer than I’ve been an archangel. He is as ruthless as any of us.”
“How bad is it?” Elena asked quietly. “Now that you’ve had a chance to assess all the injuries.”
“We’ve begun the process of transferring in men and women from outlying areas to bolster our defensive force, but Tower personnel are chosen for a reason. They’re the best of the best, each personally tested and selected by Galen.” Furthermore, his weapons-master made it nonnegotiable that each fighter return to the Refuge once every two years for intensive training.
“The outlying areas—they won’t be left vulnerable?” Checking the gun she carried in an inner thigh holster, having swapped out one of her blades for the sleek piece, Elena slid it back, the fine lines of her face troubled in the stormy light. “Since we’re taking their people.”
It was exactly the kind of question a consort was meant to ask, one that challenged without judgment. He knew Elena often thought she didn’t know the “rules” of immortal behavior, but knowledge of pomp and ceremony was useless without the heart to love their people and the courage to speak her mind. “It’s considered cowardly to nibble away at a territory and no archangel wishes such a stain on his or her honor.”
“Well,” she said, as a spit of rain hit her cheek, the sky holding the deluge for now, “I guess that’s good news.”
“In a sense. But there’s no shame in being clever about your invasion.” Immortals valued intelligence as much as strength. “To soften up a city for an attack by engineering an event such as the Falling? It would be considered a good strategy in the aftermath.”
“The diseased vamp.” Eyes of winter gray met his, the rim of silver faint in this light. “It can’t be a coincidence.”
“We’ll know nothing for certain until Keir completes his tests, but I’ve told all senior angels and vampires to report any aberrant or troubling behavior. No such disease can be permitted to gain a foothold anywhere in the territory.” He looked to the clouds once more. “Complete your task for the Guild, Elena. Be visible in the doing. Our objective remains the same—not to give our enemies any indication that the city has been so grievously wounded.”
“Far as I’m concerned,” Elena bit out, “if the Falling was a planned attack, it wasn’t clever but cowardly. Murder from a distance.”
Words he’d expect from a warrior.
A fleeting kiss, her weapon-roughened fingertips on his cheek. “I won’t be late.”
He watched her leave in a sweep of midnight and dawn, her wings unlike any other, and he knew he’d damn his own honor and take vengeance on the world should anyone dare lay a finger on her.
8
Ransom was sitting on his bike staring at a taped-up fold out map when she landed beside him only four minutes behind schedule. His black leather jacket undone to reveal a dark green tee, paired with leather pants and the heavy black boots he’d been wearing earlier, mirrored sunglasses hiding his vivid green eyes, he looked like an ad for the bike company, far too pretty to actually be dangerous.
Except, of course, for the guns strapped to his thighs, the blades and extra firepower he wore hidden underneath his jacket. “Anything from your sources?” she asked.
“Zip,” he said, without taking his eyes off the ancient map he refused to give up, even though, like every hunter, he had a Guild-issued smartphone with full GPS capability. “But at least we now know Darrell isn’t crawling around in the underground.”
Not in the mood to tease him today about his infamous map, she glanced around and forced herself to return the polite smile of the vampire who passed on the sidewalk, his cane and hat as dapper as the suit that encased his short, bowlegged form.
Copper dust and cinnamon spice, with an underlying hint of burnt oak.
Complex and interesting and unique.
“I always wanted to ask something,” she said in a deliberate attempt to get her mind off the repulsive nature of the attack against the city—and after Raphael’s comments about “softening up” a city, she had few doubts that that was exactly what it had been. “Do you scent the same things I do?�
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Ransom made a face when she described what she’d picked up from the passing vamp. “Yeah, except I don’t say shit like ‘cinnamon spice with a hint of burnt oak.’ I say ‘dude smells like an electrified tree with a side of doughnut topping.’”
Choking on unexpected laughter, she leaned her arm on his shoulder and looked down at the map, aware of two stroller-pushing nannies stopping to sneak photos of them from the other side of the quiet street. “So who are we going to see?” A whiff of citrus, strong and clean. “Nice shampoo.”
“Lemons, smart-ass. My gran says it’s the best way to get rid of bad smells. Darrell’s grandmother, on the other hand, owns that building there”—a nod to the right—“and if Darrell is close to anyone, it’s likely to be his gran.”
“I didn’t realize you knew him.”
“I don’t, not really. We were on one hunt together three years ago.” Folding away the map, he gave it to her to slide into the daypack he wore. “He didn’t say much, but I picked up that his gran pretty much raised him—a quick online search gave me this address for her.”
“We still don’t have the background report?” With a hunt this time-critical, they needed the information yesterday. If Vivek had been in charge . . . but he wasn’t.
“Apparently”—a clenched jaw that told her he was about to deliver bad news—“there was some kind of computer meltdown. Guild’s working manually to put the report together.”
Frustration churning in her gut, she stepped back so he could swing off the bike, keeping her eyes open for any movement from behind the curtained windows of the regal old home that was their destination. Complete with fancy cornices marred by not a speck of city grit, the entire place was painted a gleaming white.
“Ms. Flaherty is indisposed,” a maid told them when they reached the door.
“This is about her grandson, Darrell.” Ransom showed the stately white-haired woman his Guild license. “I think she’d like to know.”
A hint of what looked like true concern on her face before she gestured them into a room off the hallway. “Please wait in the morning room.”
Wings just fitting through the doorways, Elena walked to stand in front of a window that overlooked the street, while Ransom prowled around the room after dropping his daypack on a chair upholstered in burgundy with swirls of gold, the arms and back carved of honey-colored wood.
They heard the quiet hum of what might’ve been an elevator several minutes later, then the maid wheeled Ms. Flaherty into the room. Darrell’s grandmother wore a peach-colored turban on her head, her body thin underneath a flowing caftan of soft violet, her mocha-colored skin papery thin. However, the hand she reached up to squeeze the maid’s appeared strong, her brown eyes alert and clear.
A face, Elena thought, that held as much strength and character as beauty. Not a woman who’d break under the troubling news of her grandson’s mental state—if she didn’t already know. Could be Darrell had come home to hole up, try to get his head on straight. It’d be the best possible outcome.
Folding her hands on her lap rug after the maid left, Ms. Flaherty looked straight at Elena. “Is my grandson dead?”
“As far as we know, he’s alive,” she said at once, because if Ms. Flaherty didn’t know of Darrell’s whereabouts, any other answer would be a torment.
The tiniest slump of her shoulders before the elderly lady took control of the situation. “Stop looming and sit.” She didn’t speak again until they’d both obeyed. “So, if he’s not dead, then he must be in trouble. How bad is it?”
“He hasn’t crossed the line yet.” Ransom had apparently come to the same conclusion as Elena about Darrell’s grandmother: she might appear weak but this lady wouldn’t thank them for pussyfooting around. “We need to haul him in before he does something the Guild can’t fix.”
“He put an innocent vampire in the hospital,” Elena elaborated, when Ms. Flaherty turned to her. “The beating was merciless.”
“Lucky for him, he chose a vampire just out of his Contract, with dreams of cruising the world and no time for hassles with an official case.” Ransom leaned forward, arms braced on his thighs. “The Guild Director convinced him to accept a payout in lieu of laying charges, which means the Guild doesn’t have to officially suspend Darrell’s license, but he hurts anyone else and he’s done.”
“That’s not my boy.” Ms. Flaherty’s body vibrated with unhidden outrage. “Darrell does his job. He doesn’t abuse those he hunts.”
“The things we see in the course of the job?” Elena held the elderly lady’s sharp eyes. “It can cause cracks that don’t heal without intervention, and Darrell recently walked into a nightmare.”
Ms. Flaherty’s fingers trembled on the lap rug, but her voice didn’t crack when she spoke. “I haven’t seen or heard from him in a week, and he always calls me every couple of days, especially since I’ve had this dratted cold I can’t seem to shake.” A deep breath that caught, but she waved off their concern to point a finger at Ransom. “You find my boy before he comes to harm. Don’t you let him down—you’re his Guild. He always said you were like family.”
• • •
“We are family,” Ransom muttered once they returned to the bike, neither one of them of the opinion that Ms. Flaherty had lied. “Why didn’t the idiot just come in when he realized he was losing it? He knows no one would’ve blinked an eye if he needed more counseling—or, hell, if he wanted to get drunk every day for a week. We would’ve gone with him, carried him home from the fucking bar.”
“He’s in a bad place, not thinking straight.” Elena refused to fail at bringing Darrell home. Maybe she couldn’t halt an archangelic war, or make her father into a decent human being, but this one fracture she could and would mend. “Since we don’t have specifics, how about we start trying the usual Guild haunts?”
“That’s what I w—” Grabbing his phone at the chime, he gave her the thumbs-up. “Sara’s been talking to his friends, sent us a list of his other known hangouts. One of his buds already scoped the apartment, found it empty.” Sliding on his sunglasses, he e-mailed the list to her phone. “You take the top half, I’ll take the bottom, see if we can pick up a trail. If you think you have him, call me—with his head screwed up as it is, he might forget we’re family.”
“You call me, too.” Scanning her half of the list after getting his nod, Elena noted a gun shop, a clothing resupply store that catered to hunters and cops, an apartment that apparently housed a discreet pro, and the New York Public Library. “He must like to read.” Somehow, that small, unexpected fact made him more human, more real.
“Yeah. Always has a paperback in his back pocket.” Tugging on his helmet, Ransom straddled the bike, flicked up the kickstand with a boot, turned the key, and kick-started the engine. The machine roared to purring life. “Get on. I’ll run you over to a building you can use as a launchpad.”
“No, thanks. I’ll have to spread my wings to keep them off the street and next thing I know, I’ll be clipped by some cabbie in a bad mood.” Elena wasn’t going to flirt with being grounded again. Not to mention she’d then have to deal with one extremely pissed-off archangel.
Devil-may-care grin on his face, Ransom gunned the bike. “Come on, Ellie. I bet we stop traffic.”
“Be visible in the doing.”
She had a feeling Raphael hadn’t considered this when he’d spoken those words. It was no doubt a bad, bad idea, but damn if it wouldn’t get a stupid amount of coverage, maybe give the city something to smile about.
“They should make motorcycles for angels.”
It was a kick to the gut, that splinter of memory. The words had been spoken by the young angel whose funeral cortege would reach the Refuge after darkfall, his statement directed at a friend as the two of them sat with their legs hanging off a Tower balcony to the left of where Elena stood. She’d smiled at the time, but now the words incited a renewed wave of angry sadness.
This one’s for you, she though
t and swung her leg over the thrumming machine. However, she didn’t sit—that would leave her wings touching the street. Instead, she placed her hands on Ransom’s shoulders and stood on the footholds. She had to spread her wings a little to avoid tangling them in the bike, but it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. “You’re going to have to deal with considerable drag.”
“My sweet girl eats drag for breakfast.” Then they were off, the wind slamming into her face and her wings as Ransom executed a turn and roared down the street to the wide-eyed astonishment of everyone they passed. Laughing, Elena threw back her head and enjoyed the ride as that young soldier would’ve, had he only been given the chance.
She and Ransom had unquestionably made an impression by the time he brought the bike to a gentle stop in the silent street behind an older building. “This do?” he asked, nodding at the external fire stairs that led all the way to the roof.
“Yep.” Hopping off the bike, she checked her wings. “Still in one piece.”
“Told ya.”
Bumping his fist to her own, he roared down the street.
I do believe that is the first time any angel has ridden a motorcycle.
Grinning at the kiss of the wind and the rain inside her mind as she climbed up the fire escape, she said, I bet that gets our would-be invader’s panties in a bunch.
An . . . interesting image, but as a distraction from the state of our defenses, it was inspired. If, however, I didn’t know Ransom was much in love with another, I’d now have to kill him.
No touching my friends, remember?
I wouldn’t have to touch him to kill him.
Very funny. Having made it to the roof, she flared her wings and, sweeping off the edge of the building, flew in the direction of the gun shop as Raphael returned to Tower business. She’d debated heading for the pro first, men being men, but according to Sara’s intel, Darrell hadn’t visited the woman in over two months. The gun shop, however, was one he went to every time he was in town.
