Archangel's Blade

by Nalini Singh

  "We did interrupt her during a feed," Dmitri drawled as they walked up the steps.

  Jiana blanched at their approach, but she wasn't staring at Dmitri . . . and the knowledge in her eyes was damning. "I didn't know." A whisper, her hand clenching on the doorjamb. "When I accepted the invitation, I didn't know. And when I saw you there, I didn't hurt you. Please, you have to remember."

  Honor put a hand on Dmitri's forearm, stilling his forward motion. "That scent." Rich and sweet and speaking of wealth. "Yes, I remember."

  "I'm sorry. Here, would you like some water?"

  Drinking because her captor, the one who controlled the others, hadn't bothered to give her any water or food that day, she took in as much as she could. "Thank you."

  "No, it's nothing." Muted sobs. "I can't help you. Please don't ask me to."

  Honor heard the panicked tremor of fear in that voice, knew there would be no deliverance at those slender hands. "Who are you afraid of?"

  "Who are you afraid of?" she asked again, meeting eyes dark as onyx.

  Jiana seemed to collapse in on herself. Hugging her arms around her trembling body, she stepped back in silent invitation. Inside, the house was as elegant as the grounds were harmonious, the decor relatively modern--light dominated, the walls painted a lush cream.

  A skillful portrait of Jiana hung on one wall. It was a nude, beautifully done in its languid eroticism and framed with a simplicity that drew the eye to the art, not the surroundings. The decor flowed flawlessly from the hallway to the room into which Jiana led them, bright splashes of color provided by the furniture.

  Collapsing on one of those jewel-toned sofas, Jiana braced her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. "I haven't slept since the day I left you there."

  Honor experienced the same strange mix of anger and pity she'd felt in that basement. "I was the one who was tied up, but you were weaker." Even now, it seemed impossible. Then, it had made her laugh in near-hysterical amusement.

  Dmitri leaned against the armchair on which Honor took a seat, a tiger on no leash but his own. He said nothing, but from the expression on Jiana's face, the female vampire knew exactly what she faced.

  "Always so weak when it comes to him," she whispered, tears rolling down the sublime perfection of her features. Her despair made her appear even more vulnerably feminine.

  The hairs rose on the back of Honor's neck. Was she being expertly played? Or was Jiana's startling attractiveness nothing but a distraction to the grief that seemed to be tearing her apart?

  "Even when I saw what he'd done," the woman continued, "I couldn't betray him."

  "Who?" Honor asked. "You can't keep his secret any longer, Jiana. He's planning to do it again."

  A sob rocked through the vampire's thin frame. "I know." Wiping her tears, she reached into the drawer of a little end table to pull out the by-now-familiar textured envelope. "He sent me this."

  Honor knew what she'd find, but she took it and slid out the enclosed card anyway.

  Perhaps this one will be more to your liking. I haven't told the others, but it is to be a pair, a man and a woman. You will enjoy that, will you not, Mother?

  26

  Honor's voice came out a whisper. "Mother?" Vampires were fertile until about two hundred years of age, and the children they sired or bore to that point, mortal. But Jiana was at least four hundred.

  It was Dmitri who solved the question of how a child of Jiana's could have survived to perpetrate such atrocities. "Jiana was a young vampire, still under Contract, when she gave birth to Amos. Her son was Made on his own merits. He's highly intelligent, was meant for the Tower."

  Her blood ran ice-cold, even as her earlier suspicion that Jiana was a gifted actress died a quick death--a mother's love was nothing rational. "Please tell me he's not there."

  Dmitri touched her hair, the caress unexpectedly tender. "No."

  "Was he always so--" She swallowed the term she wanted to use at the hollow blankness of Jiana's eyes.

  "Amos was . . . changed in ways he shouldn't have been when he was Made."

  Jiana gave a cracked laugh. "He went insane, Dmitri. Like some do, the ones we never talk about." Pushing back thick black hair streaked with fine threads of brown and red, the motion jerky, she locked gazes with Honor, her own holding a sudden, violent anger. "Did you know that, hunter? A small minority of the Made go mad during the transformation."

  Like every hunter, Honor had heard the rumors, but this was the first time it had been confirmed. "If that's true, I'd have assumed the angels would have eliminated the problem." The angelic race didn't hold power because they played nice.

  Jiana's anger faded as fast as it had awakened, a poignant pain carving deep grooves around those lush lips. "Amos's madness was not a bold thing. It was a quiet, creeping taint. He was a hundred years old before he began to show the first signs, two hundred before I could no longer deny them." She wiped her cheeks for the second time, seemingly unaware that her robe was gaping open at the top to expose the inner curves of her breasts, high and taut. "By the time he reached three hundred, I knew nothing could be done. I dedicated myself to curbing his excesses so they wouldn't lead to execution."

  To Honor's surprise, Dmitri walked across to hunker down in front of Jiana, taking the woman's long, fine-boned hands in his. "He is your son. You protected him. But he knows what he's doing is wrong and he's choosing to continue to do it."

  A true psychopath, Honor thought, remembering how Amos had crooned to her after punching her in the stomach.

  "You shouldn't have made me angry." A hand stroking down her back in a mockery of care. "I didn't bring you here to hurt you." His lips along her jaw, over her throat. "So be an obedient pet and do as you're told."

  She'd bitten his ear instead, hard enough to almost tear off a chunk. He'd punched her so violently for that, she'd blacked out . . . and woken to find herself bleeding.

  "It's the madness." Jiana's tremulous voice cut through the horrific memory, her tone a plea. "That's what drives him."

  Honor wasn't so sure. Amos had struck her as coldly intelligent, a man who--as Dmitri had said--had chosen to revel in his sadistic urges rather than attempting to fight them. Not only that, but he'd consciously nurtured the sickness in others.

  "He was spoken to when his leanings became clear"--Dmitri's voice was gentler than Honor had ever heard it-- "given both warning and an offer of assistance. He chose to walk away."

  Jiana's lower lip trembled, and then she was falling into Dmitri's arms, her cries so primal her entire frame shook as if her bones would fall to pieces. Honor's own heart ached, her eyes burning in maternal sympathy.

  She was a mother, she understood what it was to need to do everything in her power to protect her child.

  Honor blinked, physically shaking that eerily familiar voice out of her head. Familiar, but not her own--she had never borne a child, never nurtured a life within her womb. Yet her emotional response to Jiana's pain was so deep that she couldn't not be torn by it, even knowing that the depth of her understanding was an impossible thing.

  Dmitri's broad shoulders were rock steady in her vision as he held Jiana, and she knew. She knew. Dmitri had had a child. No, that was wrong. He'd had children. Unsettled by that almost angry mental correction, she rubbed at her temple, but the thought stuck, seemed so very right that she couldn't unthink it.

  "Where is he, Jiana?" Dmitri asked after Jiana's sobs quieted into painful silence.

  The gorgeous vampire shook her head, her hair sliding over her face as she pulled away. "I haven't seen him for three weeks. He has done this before, gone away. But he always contacts me to tell me his whereabouts. This time, there is only silence." Her eyes went to the envelope. "Except for that. It came five days ago."

  Terrible as it was, Honor could understand Jiana's maternal instincts overriding all else--even when faced with the malevolent reality of her son's evil. However, there was one thing that made no sense to her. "Why are you in sec
lusion?" So much so that the vampire had had to feed from the blood junkies. "From that card, it looks like he wants to please, not hurt you."

  "Yes." A tight smile. "I hate this, prostituting myself to stay alive."

  Again, her response made no sense--surely Jiana had enough contacts that she could've arranged something more palatable. Oh. "You're punishing yourself."

  Jiana gave a shaky smile. "I asked him to stop--they found you so soon afterward, I believed he'd played some part in that. Then the card came . . ." She tugged the edges of her robe closed over her breasts, her words fading as her eyes turned distant. "I guess you always hope. Against all reason."

  Dmitri's hair shone silky and touchable in the sunlight as they stood on the front steps of Jiana's gracious home. "Jewel Wan," she said to him, "might've given you Jiana's name but you knew it couldn't be her." He'd treated the other vampire with courtesy since the second they arrived.

  When he said nothing, she clamped her hand on his arm. "How long have you suspected Amos?"

  Dark eyes pinned her to the spot, told her nothing. "What good would it have done you to know who I had in mind?"

  "Stop protecting me! I don't need it anymore!"

  Dmitri's expression shifted, the stone becoming a piercing arrow. "When have I ever protected you?"

  "What?"

  I know you will always take care of me.

  She clasped her hands to her temples. "That voice." So deep inside of her.

  "Honor?" Dmitri's hand on her lower back, his breath lifting the curling tendrils of hair along her temple as he leaned close. "Tell me what's wrong."

  "No, it's nothing," she said, because to give any other answer would be to acknowledge the aural hallucination. "Just the . . . echo of a dream." Seeping over into her waking life. "You should've told me."

  "I'm almost a thousand years old." His hand moved in slow, circular motions on her back, but his words were as calculatedly harsh as his touch was tender. "You're so young it's laughable. You have neither the strength nor the right to question my decisions."

  With those words, he negated the commitment they'd made to each other. Perhaps he didn't see it as such, but she couldn't be with a man who expected to maintain that chasm of distance between them. "Do you know how to find Amos?" she asked, putting aside the hurt she felt, though it was a raw, tender thing. Giving up wasn't an option. However, she needed time to regroup, to sit down and figure out if Dmitri was ever going to be ready for the kind of relationship she needed.

  The idea that the answer might be no . . . it caused a crushing blackness in her soul.

  "I've already checked his normal haunts and bolt-holes." His gaze lingered on her face, as if he'd read her very thoughts, but thankfully that was one ability he didn't possess. "He'll eventually surface. In the meantime, my men will continue to watch this house--he's always had an unhealthy attachment to his mother."

  "Yes." No normal son would think of inviting his mother to join in a sexual game, to attempt to please her with his choice of victims. "What will you do with her?"

  "That's up to you. You're the victim."

  "No, Dmitri, I'm a survivor."

  "Yes." No hesitation. "But recompense is still yours."

  "That woman is going to punish herself for the rest of her very long life. Let her be."

  "I'll speak to her." He turned to walk toward the entrance. "Are you coming?"

  "No, I think I'll stay here." But she didn't. Stepping down to the drive as soon as he disappeared inside, she took a seat on the edge of the fountain. The water fell in a soothing cascade of sound behind her, the breeze a caress over her cheek as she tried to understand the irrational depth of her anguish. She'd always known Dmitri was never going to be human in any sense.

  He isn't my Dmitri.

  Again that voice, from so very deep inside of her. As if it came from her soul itself. This time, rather than fighting it, she listened.

  Always so strong, so protective. But never hurtful. Not to me. Never.

  Whoever this figment of her imagination was, Honor thought, she truly was living in a fantasy world. Dmitri was no one's knight in shining armor and if it scraped her to bloody rawness to admit that, then she had only herself to blame. Because Dmitri had never lied to her, never pretended to be something he wasn't.

  "Don't fool yourself about me, Honor. The human part of me died a long time ago."

  "Where are we going?" she asked when the Ferrari pulled away from Jiana's estate.

  "Angel Enclave--Jiana owns a house there." His words were cool, practical, and she wondered if he even understood how he'd damaged the fragile something between them. "It's standing empty, but I've had men watching it for a while. However, I think it's time I had a look inside."

  Another thing he hadn't told her. Another illustration of the fact that while he might appreciate her skills in certain areas, when it came to treating her as an equal . . . But then the idea was laughable, wasn't it? She'd lived a mere twenty-nine years to his centuries, was mortal to his powerful vampire.

  However, none of the logic seemed to matter, and she was no closer to understanding or corralling the violent depth of her emotions by the time Dmitri drove deep into the Angel Enclave, an exclusive settlement along the cliffs that hugged the Hudson. In most cases, the houses were set so far back from the road that it felt as if they were driving through uninhabited land, the trees on either side of the road ancient behemoths that almost blotted out the sky.

  When Dmitri stopped, it was in front of gates watched over by a vampire Honor didn't recognize. Stepping out of the car, and to the ornate metal gates, she pushed them open while Dmitri spoke to the guard. Inside, she saw the drive was relatively short--though the gates disappeared from view when, walking forward alone, she turned a corner. It was beyond tempting to keep going, to see what might very well have been the lair of the monster who'd tortured her, but this wasn't like with Jewel Wan. She could still think, understood that to go in without backup would be foolhardy.

  "Honor."

  She turned to see Dmitri walking toward her--and suddenly the dam broke. "I have every right," she said, referring to the strange compulsion between them for the first time.

  Not even a blink.

  Stubborn, always so stubborn. So sure he is right.

  On that, she agreed with the voice inside her mind.

  The wind whispered slow and easy through the trees, through Dmitri's hair as she stood waiting for a response from a vampire used to explaining himself to no one. Her fingers spread, and she found herself closing the distance between them to stroke her hand through that thick dark silk. It was an intimate act, one for which she asked no permission, though he was a man no one would touch without invitation.

  He didn't stop her, lifting his own finger to trace the line of her jaw. "You're asking me to act human," he said after a long, quiet moment untouched by time. "I'm not human, haven't been for a long time."

  "And you," she said, fingers lingering at his nape, "are trying to make me believe you have no capacity for true emotion when I know different." Dmitri's heart wasn't dead, his soul not irrevocably tainted, of that she was certain.

  Sliding his free hand down to her lower back, he tugged her closer. "Who are you, Honor St. Nicholas?" It was a strange question, but one to which Dmitri needed an answer. Because this mortal, her scent was that of wildflowers from a mountainside lost in time.

  Haunting pools of emerald green met his as she shook her head. "I don't know."

  Her answer made sense to him, though it was an impossibility. "Come. Let's explore this house."

  "I thought you would've already done it."

  "I had my men look through it, but it may be time for a deeper examination with everything else we know."

  Walking beside him, Honor was both grace and a lush feminine beauty. But she also had a deep vein of strength that had well and truly awakened . . . and that intoxicated. He wanted to reach out, to touch her again, the unrelenting need far bey
ond simple lust. However, that would have to wait--her desire to enter the house, to run Amos to ground, was a pulse against his skin.

  Unlocking the front door, he pushed it open. At first, there was nothing, only the slightly musty smell of a house that had been shut up for a while. Then he caught a whiff of the most putrid odor, that of rotting flesh.

  Honor went motionless beside him, her gun smoothly in hand. "There's something dead inside."

  "Long enough to have decomposed." Which meant that either Amos had somehow snuck back in past the guards and left a gruesome message, or something else was going on. "Yet not so long ago that the others who came here had reason to be suspicious."

  "Dmitri."

  Following the direction of Honor's raised arm, he saw her pointing at a flat-screen television on the wall. The power indicator was dead. And when Honor flicked on a light switch, nothing happened. "The electricity's down. Blown fuse maybe."

  "It's an older home," Dmitri said, following the fetid scent. "Such things happen."

  The rank smell took them not into a basement as he'd half expected, but to a large room at the back of the house. There was no lock, nothing to differentiate the door from any other along the corridor.

  "God." Honor put a hand up over her mouth and nose as he pushed open that door--the odor was vile here, so concentrated it felt akin to soup.

  The room itself was barren but for a wooden shelf that held a number of books and magazines, and a single armchair that looked as if it had been banished here because it was too ratty for the main living areas. Beside it sat a small burn-scarred table set with a crystal tumbler and a bottle filled with dark red liquid. The rug on the floor was threadbare.

  It was the kind of shabby, comfortable den a man might create to get a little peace and quiet . . . except if you looked carefully, it became clear the armchair was angled toward a particular section of the wall. Normally, there would've been nothing to differentiate it from the rest of the room, the reason his men had missed it, but right now, water seeped from beneath that section to soak the rug.