by Nalini Singh
“I’ve lost two daughters already! I won’t lose another!”
Stunned by the raw declaration, her mother’s words still fresh in her mind, she squeezed the doorjamb in an effort to find her lost sense of reason. “You’re doing this to protect her?”
Ripping off his glasses, Jeffrey dropped them on the desk, meeting her gaze with unshielded eyes of the same distinctive gray that marked her and Eve as blood. “Do you know what happened when you were sixteen?” he asked, his hands fisted to bloodlessness. “You went to the Academy in the holidays and returned to your boarding school with broken ribs. Three months later, it was a dislocated collarbone, six months after that a black eye and a fractured jaw.”
Elena hadn’t realized the boarding school had reported the injuries, much less that her father had kept track of them, he’d done such a good job of freezing out anything to do with the fact his daughter was hunter-born. “It was necessary,” she said through her shock.
The only reason she’d even been able to attend those intensive holiday classes was that the Guild had gone to bat for her, getting a judge to sign an order that did away with the need for Jeffrey’s consent. Like Eve, Elena would’ve gone mad without the outlet of those practice sessions where she could give her ability free rein; a hunter-born had to hunt, the need a compulsion.
But when she’d communicated with her father, it had been with her hunter skin locked away; a child hungry for his approval, she’d pretended to be the nice, normal, obedient daughter he wanted her to be. The fraught peace created by her silence, and his, had lasted until she turned eighteen and enrolled at the Academy full-time over his objections. Their bitter fight that night had left her emotionally bloodied, the resulting estrangement lasting a decade. “I had to become more skilled than the va—”
“Yes, because the monsters are so strong, they could tear off your head with their bare hands!” Stalking around the desk, he grabbed her by the upper arms and shook so hard that her teeth clattered. “Do you know what it’s like to watch a woman get her head torn off? The blood spurts hot and dark and it gets in your mouth, in your eyes, in your nose, until it’s the only thing you can see, all you can smell!”
32
Elena couldn’t move, even to break the bruising tightness of Jeffrey’s hold. She didn’t understand what he was saying, the words making no sense in the context of who he was: Jeffrey Parker Deveraux, his blood so blue, it was created from the foundations of the city. History, family, tradition, that was the Deveraux way. The blood and the death had come with Elena, Jeffrey’s “abomination” of a daughter.
“I was four,” he said, his breath hot on her face. “Playing under the covered bench where she cleaned her tools. She was agreeing how I’d make a great policeman, while I played with my trucks and she sharpened her blades”—eyes falling to the blades on her forearms, his fingers digging deeper into her flesh—“and that’s when they came for her. Three vampires who wanted vengeance for having been returned to their masters to face punishment.”
Elena started to tremble, her heart stuttering in her chest. As far as she knew, Jeffrey’s mother was alive and well and active on the boards of several major charitable organizations. Cecilia Deveraux was also not, and had never been, a hunter.
“When I tried to help her,” Jeffrey said, “they laughed and tossed me aside as if I weighed nothing.” Jagged words. “The fall broke my legs, one of my arms. I tried but couldn’t get to her. Instead I had to watch while they kicked my mother, beat her, breaking every bone in her body before they ripped off her head.”
“Papa.” It was the first time she’d called him that in an eon. “Papa, I’m sorry.” Sliding her arms around his chest, she held him, his body an icy rock. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Her father’s arms came around her, crushing her so tightly, she could barely draw breath. One hand cupping her head, the other around her upper back over her wings, he held her close to his heart, his breath choppy. When his body shuddered against her own, she thought he might be crying, but it was a thought her mind couldn’t accept.
Her father didn’t cry. The child in her confused and shaky, she just held on until his breathing evened out, his hand stroking over her hair with a gentleness she’d never again expected to experience from her father.
“I will always be your father . . . and I wish to God I wasn’t.”
The hateful words no longer hurt, not when she heard the fear she’d been too angry to hear the first time. Her father, this man who held her with such fierce tenderness, was afraid to watch his daughter die the same horrific death as his mother. It altered the bedrock of their relationship, left her without a mooring.
Dead certain the brittle moment would end the instant she stepped back, the wall of pain and loss that divided them once more in place, she held on for just a little while longer. So did he. In silence, their words locked down where they couldn’t hurt and cut and make the other bleed.
The world, however, continued to spin, the sound of a chopper passing overhead breaking the fragment out of time in two. They drew apart without a word, her father turning to walk to his desk, pick up his spectacles, while Elena backed out of the doorway. Heading around the side of the house, she gritted her teeth and made a vertical takeoff into the cold air, bringing herself to a hover in front of Eve’s window.
Her sister, the skin around her left eye purplish black, was waiting for her, came into her arms without hesitation. Elena saw Amy’s forlorn face in the window next door as they left, her hand pressed to the glass. It’s all right, Elena wanted to say. I’ll bring her back. Gwendolyn would accept nothing else. All Elena had to do was keep Eve away from Jeffrey until Gwendolyn returned. Her father, she’d realized at last, would never be rational when it came to hunters and hunting, the brutal wounds inflicted too young, the scars too aged.
Chest aching, she concentrated only on flying slow and steady toward the Enclave, the flash of blue that appeared in her vision an unexpected brilliance. “Ellie? Which beautiful maiden do you have there?” A wink directed at her youngest sister. “Hello, Evenstar.”
Eve poked out her tongue at Illium, having met the other angel on visits to the Tower to see Elena, but shifted into his hold when he offered. “I’m heavy,” she said, before Elena could protest.
“You’re a feather.” Illium held Eve’s sturdy little body as if it weighed nothing. “But Elena isn’t yet strong enough to carry another more than a short distance. I, on the other hand, can do this.” With that, he shot up into the sky, Eve’s delighted scream rippling through the air.
Hearing it, Elena shut the door on the questions roiling in her mind, because her first priority had to be the emotional health of her sister, and continued on toward the Enclave. Illium would make sure Eve got home safe, and the excitement of the blue-winged angel’s daredevil tricks would help ameliorate the stress of Eve’s last few hours.
Landing at the house, she tracked Montgomery to the kitchens, where he was discussing the dinner menu with Sivya. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, rubbing a hand over her face. “But Eve will be staying with us tonight, possibly tomorrow, too. Could you have a room made up for her?”
“Of course, Guild Hunter.” The vampire’s eyes searched hers. “Is she well?”
Elena knew the question was meant for her, too, but she wasn’t ready to go there yet, wasn’t ready to think about how she felt. “Cookies or some cake wouldn’t go amiss,” she said instead.
“I’ll make certain Miss Evelyn has everything she needs.”
“Thank you.” Leaving the butler to organize things, she made an important call and returned outside just in time to see Illium land. The sunlight at his back made the blue of his wings glow, his hair wind-wild and his grin as open as the gold of his gaze.
It was a sight gorgeous and infrequent.
As she’d seen so clearly that night at the blood café, behind Illium’s playful personality lay a terrible sadness that cast shadows on his sou
l. As behind her father’s anger lay a horrific loss.
Had Marguerite known?
Yes. She’d been Jeffrey’s heartbeat, his lover in every way, the trust between them absolute. For Marguerite to then do what she had, to leave him when he had to have been grappling with the nightmare repeat of his childhood . . .
Elena rubbed a fisted hand over her heart, forcing another smile as Eve ran over, cheeks flushed and hair as wild as Illium’s. At eleven years of age, her sister had a child’s spirit, but her face could turn as solemn as an adult’s without warning. As it did now.
“Thanks for coming.” Big gray eyes holding her own. “I knew you would.”
“You need to thank Amy when you see her,” Elena said, bending to hug her close. “She called me.”
“Amy always takes care of me.” Stepping back from the hug after squeezing her tight, Eve said, “This is going to make Mom and Father fight, isn’t it?”
Elena wanted to lie, tell Eve it would be all right, but her sister was too smart and oddly wise for that. “Yes. I think this is going to cause a very big fight.”
“Could you get Amy?” Eve looked at Illium, not Elena. “It wouldn’t be hard for you to carry her. She’s—”
Elena touched Eve’s shoulder to get her attention. “I rang her. Amy wants to stay at home.”
Unhidden distress. “But Father will punish her for calling you.”
“No, I don’t think he will.” Jeffrey’s mind was on the distant blood-soaked past, not the petty infringements of today. “Here.” She handed Eve her phone. “Why don’t you talk to Amy yourself?”
Walking a small distance away, Eve made the call. When Illium went as if to speak, Elena shook her head. She couldn’t talk about what was wrong. Not now. But when he raised an arm, she allowed herself to lean against him, to accept the undemanding warmth of his friendship, his wing heavy against her own.
“Amy’s being dumb,” was Eve’s blunt appraisal when she walked back to them, her face set in pugnacious lines. “She says Father shouldn’t be alone, even after he was so mean to me. I hate him.” Arms folded, jaw set, she glared at the grass.
“I hate you!”
“Don’t say that.” Elena crouched down in front of her sister even as her skull rang with the words she’d spoken the day she walked out of the Big House, never to return. “He might have crossed a line today, but whatever Jeffrey’s done, he’s done it out of love for you.” It was a love twisted by tragedy until it threatened to become a stifling cage, but it was love nonetheless. “I think it’s too late for me and him, but not for you.”
Eve’s glare didn’t fade, but her response held an uncertainty that made her youth and innocence clear. “I thought you hated him, too. Don’t you?”
“I’m not sure what I feel for Jeffrey. I do know that you love him.”
Scuffing at the ground, Eve bit down on her lower lip. “He’s a good father except about the Guild.”
“Everyone has blind spots.”
“I guess.”
• • •
A half hour later, Elena left Eve in Montgomery’s capable hands, knowing the elegant vampire was lethal, would protect her with his life, as would the rest of the staff. She wouldn’t have made the same decision had Eve appeared the least scared or intimidated, but her youngest sister had settled in without a hitch. Having borrowed Elena’s laptop, she’d set herself up at the kitchen table and logged into her school account to do homework, was chatting to Sivya about her science problems when Elena left after receiving a hunt order from the Guild.
She could’ve asked to be replaced, but she needed some way to release the tension coiled up inside her, get her brain clear again. Checking the hunt details on her phone one more time, she took off at a run over the snow-dusted cliffs, the water glittering under the afternoon sunlight, as if a dip wouldn’t give you hypothermia within seconds. The hunt order was relatively simple: she was to retrieve a thirty-year-old vamp who thought he was too good to bow and scrape to the angel who was his master.
Nothing unusual about that. Seduced by the idea of immortality and the beauty it so often bestowed, people lined up to be Made, but found the reality of a hundred years of service to the angels hard to swallow. What made Sidney Geisman different was that he’d written a booklet denouncing the “slavery” into which he’d been “tricked,” a booklet that had gone viral among other young vampires.
Needless to say, his angel was beyond pissed. Elena knew Sidney’s punishment would be harsh, an example to others who might seek to follow his seditious path, but while she pitied him, it wouldn’t keep her from doing her job as a hunter. Because Sidney hadn’t been tricked, not in any way, shape, or form.
The angels made zero attempt to hide the consequences of being Made, of what was required of those who served them. Even forgetting general public knowledge, all Candidates who passed the first part of the selection process were given the euphemistically termed “Intake and Orientation” file and told they were free to walk out the door should the contents of the file not be to their liking.
As consort, Elena had seen a copy of that file firsthand: it went into extreme detail and included graphic images of the punishments that might be meted out to a vampire should he or she fail to please the angel who held his or her service. Smack bang in the center of the file was a four-page article detailing the vicious public sentence handed to one vampire, whom Raphael had left in Times Square after breaking every bone in his body.
Below the article were the words: Betrayal will not be tolerated.
Sidney Geisman, Elena thought as she landed on the roof of a skyscraper to the south of the Tower, appeared to be suffering from a case of buyer’s remorse. Too bad. You couldn’t return the gift of near-immortality, so you were stuck paying the price for it. Not that she thought Sidney would be rushing to return that particular gift, even if it was possible. Cynical, perhaps, but she bet every hunter in the Guild would say the same. Too many people wanted to do the whole “have your cake and eat it, too” thing.
A single knock on the glass door to the roof atrium and it slid aside to leave her face-to-face with a slim vampire dressed in a brown tunic with a mandarin collar and gold detailing, his pants the same brown shade. “Guild Hunter,” he said, then hesitated. “My humble apologies. I should’ve used ‘Consort.’”
“No, ‘Guild Hunter’ is fine.” All this polite deference made her skin itch, but it was part and parcel of being with Raphael and since she had no plans of ever changing that, she’d have to learn to deal. “Do you have what I need?”
“Yes.” Walking to the table just inside the atrium, he opened a flat black box to retrieve a neatly folded shirt. “Will this do?”
Elena took the item of clothing and tried to hone in on the scents trapped within the fabric.
Raspberry and ginger, with a hint of mint.
A pretty, refreshing scent but it wasn’t from the shirt. “If you’d step back past the doors.”
“Of course.”
Waiting until the wind swept away the raspberry and ginger, she took another deep breath.
An astringent chemical . . . disinfectant, softened by a delicate caress of lilies.
“I need the secondary sample,” she said. “You made sure to take it from a different location?”
“Yes, the shirt was from his washing basket, and this T-shirt is from his gym bag.”
The second test returned the same reading, the disinfectant not a taint but part of Sidney’s scent, as interpreted by her hunting abilities.
“Thank you.” Returning the T-shirt, she walked off the edge of the roof, snapping out her wings before she could even begin to fall. Her next destination was the home of Sidney’s mortal family, the address part of the background report attached to the hunt order. All vampires with living relatives eventually went home, the smart for a clandestine visit, the stupid to stay.
Sidney, it turned out, fell into neither group.
“I haven’t seen him sin
ce he took up that filthy habit.” Words spit out by the elderly woman who answered the door, her hazel eyes watery with age but her cheeks hot spots of color. “Drinking blood is the devil’s work.” She slammed the door in Elena’s face.
Not taking the woman at her word, Elena circled the small, neat house without picking up even a sliver of Sidney’s scent. “I guess home isn’t sweet for you, Sid,” she muttered, hauling herself up the fire escape ladder to the second floor. She’d become expert at low-height takeoffs in an effort to balance out her inability to do regular and easy vertical takeoffs; and having done the latter once today already, she wasn’t going to risk another unless it was a life-or-death situation.
Now, she gritted her teeth and got herself airborne before she kissed pavement. Once in the air, she ignored the other addresses in the prehunt report and headed instead to a particular section of Central Park: the Blood Theater.
33
Sidney was a man proud enough of his opus that he’d put his name on it—someone like that wouldn’t be satisfied with disappearing into the mist, bereft of an audience. No, every instinct she had told her he’d have hit the Theater as soon as he could.
“Do you know what it’s like to watch a woman get her head torn off?”
Shutting down the resurgence of memory before it could incapacitate, she winged her way across the green space at the core of Manhattan. About to land in the correct section, her brain suddenly poked at her to consider the situation . . . and maybe part of that poke came from the echo of her father’s words, though she couldn’t think about that now.
As soon as she landed, she would become vulnerable in a way that—ironically—she’d never been as a human. Her wings would make it hard for her to run at speed, dodging between the trees near impossible. A vertical takeoff would also not be a viable option if the hunt went bad, since she couldn’t get aloft fast enough. Added to that, the Theater was in an isolated section of the park and, while night hadn’t yet fallen, winter darkness was starting to edge the light in the sky.
