Angel’s Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(41)
Author: Nalini Singh

A very male appraisal gleamed in those eyes. "I could lick it off you."

The embers low in her body flamed up, melting her from the inside out. "No, thanks." Yes, please, her body murmured. "I need to shower anyway."

The austere expression on his face shifted to pure sensuality between one heartbeat and the next. "I’ll wash your back."

"An archangel deigning to wash a hunter’s back?" She raised an eyebrow.

"There would be a price, of course."

"Of course."

His head tilted up without warning. "It seems we’ll have to postpone that discussion."

She turned her head in the same direction, but could see nothing except a painfully bright sky. "Who’s up there this time?"

"No one you need to concern yourself about." The arrogance was back full force. Then he snapped out his wings and the air rushed out of her.

Someone so beautiful shouldn’t exist, she thought. It was impossible.

I’m only beautiful to you, Elena.

She didn’t tell him to get out of her head this time. She kicked him out.

He blinked, his face otherwise expressionless. "I thought I’d imagined that little trick of yours."

"Guess not." Her elation had her grinning so hard her face felt like it might crack. Damn, if she could really do this . . . But then logic reasserted itself. Doing this gave her one hell of a headache, so she had to stop being stupid and keep it in reserve for when she really, desperately needed it. "Logic sucks."

Raphael’s lips curved but this time, the smile held an edge of cruelty, a reminder that the man she’d kissed was also the Archangel of New York, also the man who’d held her over a mortal fall and whispered of death in her ear. "Eat," he said now. "I’ll return to join you."

Again, that sense of deja vu hit her as he simply stepped back off the roof. She stood in place this time, though her stomach went into free fall. But then there he was, winging his way upward, the wind of his flight whipping air across her face. It was tempting to keep watching after him, but she turned away, well aware she was walking a very thin line.

Raphael wanted her, but that was something separate from his duties as the Archangel of New York, a fact she’d do well to remember-even if she survived Uram, she’d still likely be marked for death. The simple fact was that she knew too much. And she wasn’t even close to getting Raphael to swear an oath. Damn. Striding over to the breakfast table, she hesitated. Back to the elevator shaft or to the wide-open sky?

In the end, she chose the elevator shaft. She could probably handle anything that came out of the elevator, but she knew damn well she couldn’t survive an archangel. The first thing she did was grab the knife beside her plate and slide it into her boot. It was only sharp enough to cut bacon but it could do some damage if necessary. Then she ate. Food was fuel and she needed to be fully charged if she was going to go hunting. Adrenaline thumped through her, laced with the icy bite of fear-but that just amped up her excitement.

She was hunter-born-this was what she was made for.

There was a sound at her back, a whisper of awareness along her hunter senses. "Sneaking around, Dmitri?" She’d scented him the instant he stepped out of the elevator.

"Where’s Raphael?"

Surprised at his curt tone, she watched as he moved around to stand beside the table. Gone were any and all hints of elegant sexuality, everything that normally sugarcoated the truth of what he was. She looked into that handsome face and knew he’d seen kings fall and empires rise. Dmitri had held a sword once upon a time, she thought, certain he had far more in common with some ruthless age of blood and death than the civilization hinted at by his perfect stone gray suit. "He’s in a meeting," she said, pointing up.

Dmitri didn’t follow her gesture as most humans would have, continuing to stare at her with an intensity that would’ve scared many, that probably should have scared her. "What?" she asked.

"What do you see, Guild Hunter?" His voice was deep, whispering of things better left unwitnessed, horrors caged in the depths of the night.

"You, sword in hand," she said honestly.

Dmitri’s face remained calm, unrevealing. "I still dance with steel. You’re welcome to watch."

She paused in the act of taking a small croissant from the bread basket. "Has Raphael rescinded his hands-off policy?" She’d simply assumed not. Stupid, stupid.

"No." The breeze ruffled his hair but the strands settled back into perfect lines as soon as it had passed. "However, since you’re going to be dead soon, I want to taste you before it’s too late."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." She bit into the croissant with a snarl. It was one thing to think that herself, quite another to hear it from someone else’s lips. "But I suggest you stick to your pretty blondes. Hunter blood’s too sharp for your palate."

"The blondes come too easily to my embrace."

"Are you using weird vampire powers on women?"

He laughed and it was more echo than sound, holding none of the heat she’d come to associate with him. This one spoke of thousands of yesterdays, an eternity of tomorrows. "If seduction is a power, then yes. I’ve had centuries to perfect what a mortal man must accomplish in a few paltry years."

She remembered the ecstasy on the blonde’s face, the sensual hunger on Dmitri’s. But he hadn’t been looking at the blonde. "Have you ever loved?"

The air seemed to stop moving as the vampire by the table watched her without blinking. "I see why you intrigue Raphael. You have little sense of your own mortality." His eyes turned from human to pure obsidian in the blink of an eye. No whites, no irises, nothing but pure, unrelieved black.

She barely stopped herself from reaching for the knife in her boot. He’d likely decapitate her before she so much as touched metal. "Neat trick. Do you juggle as well?"

A pause filled with death, then Dmitri laughed. "Ah, Elena. I do believe I’ll be sorry to see you dead."

She relaxed, sensing the change in his mood even before his eyes returned to normal. "Nice to know. Maybe you can name one of your kids after me."

"We can’t have children, you know that." His tone was matter-of-fact. "Only the just-Made can."

"My job mostly involves tracking the under-hundred crowd-I don’t come into a lot of contact with that many really old vamps. Not enough to have long conversations with, anyway," she told him, finishing off her orange juice. "What do you consider just-Made?"

"Two hundred years or so." He shrugged, the gesture very human. "I’ve heard of no conceptions or impregnations after that point."