Angel’s Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(42)
Author: Nalini Singh

Two hundred years.

Twice her lifetime. And Dmitri spoke of it as if it were nothing. So, how old was he? And how old was the man he called sire? "Does it sadden you? Knowing you’ll never have children?"

A shadow passed over his face. "I didn’t say I’d never been a father."

Raphael’s return saved her from choking on the foot in her mouth. Somehow she knew to look up, to see the fantasy of his wings backlit to glowing life by the sun. "Beautiful." A whisper.

"So, he has enthralled you."

She forced herself to look away and toward Dmitri. "Jealous?"

"No. I have no need for Raphael’s leavings."

She narrowed her eyes, but he wasn’t done.

"You can hardly sit in judgment on those who prefer vampire lovers now." A curl of scent snaked around her, insidious in its seduction. "Not when you wear Raphael’s colors in your skin."

She’d forgotten about the damn dust. Raising her hand, she rubbed at her face. Her fingers came back shimmering white gold. The temptation to bring those fingers to her lips and lick was so strong, she had to force her hands down to clutch at her thighs. The dust left streaks against the black material, glittering trails of accusation. Dmitri was right-she’d well and truly fallen.

But that didn’t mean she was going to offer herself up to this vampire, no matter the sex and sin taste of him. "Stop, or I’ll extract your canines while you sleep," she said under her breath. "I mean it, Dmitri."

The scent twisted around her body, infiltrating her very veins. "So sensitive, Elena, so exquisitely sensitive. You must’ve been exposed to our beauty very young." There was anger in his tone then, as if the idea repulsed him. "Who?" He vanished the tendril of scent.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Come here, little hunter. Taste.

Her stomach revolted. She’d forgotten his scent, buried the memory of the shameful rush of heat between her legs, the incomprehension in her child’s mind. "He’s dead," she whispered, eyes on Raphael as he landed on the edge and began walking toward her.

"Did you kill him?"

"Would you hurt me if I had?"

"No. I may be a monster," he said, his voice strangely gentle, "but I’m not a monster who preys on children."

They both went silent as Raphael approached. Terror kicked in her chest as she truly saw him-he was glowing, bathed in that white-hot overflow of energy that promised death. She pushed back her chair, stood.

But she left the knife in her boot. No need to antagonize him if the rage wasn’t directed at her. "Raphael," she said as he came to stand on the other side of the table.

His eyes were blue flame when he looked at her, but it was Dmitri he focused on. "Where are the bodies?"

"Brooklyn. There were-"

"Seven," Raphael interrupted. "Michaela received their hearts special-delivery this morning."

Chapter 23

"Uram?" Elena asked, trying not to think about the stomach-churning "delivery" Raphael had just described. "Is he-"

"Later." Raphael cut her off with a slice of his hand. "First we’ll go to the site and see if you can track him."

"He’s an archangel. I scent vampires," she pointed out for what felt like the millionth time, but neither archangel nor vampire was listening.

"I’ve organized transport," Dmitri said and she had the sense that more information was being communicated than the words she could hear.

Raphael shook his head. "I’ll take her. The longer we wait, the more the scent will dissipate." He held out his hand. "Come, Elena."

She didn’t argue, her curiosity rabid. "Let’s go."

And that was how she found herself tucked against Raphael’s chest as he flew her to an abandoned warehouse in an unfamiliar part of Brooklyn. She ended up squeezing her eyes shut for most of the journey because Raphael was doing that invisible thing again, and this time he’d extended it to cover her. It made her nauseated to not be able to see herself.

"Do you sense him?" he asked moments after he landed on a patch of dirt with a few struggling clumps of grass and helped her get to her feet.

She took a deep breath and was hit with an influx of smell. "Too many vamps. It’ll make it harder to separate out the scents." She couldn’t see a single vampire, couldn’t see any living creature at all, but she knew they were there-though this wasn’t a place anyone would want to end up.

The chain-link fence on either side was ragged with holes, the buildings scrawled over with graffiti, the grass scraggly underfoot. There was a pervading sense of disuse, but overlaying that was the odor of rotting garbage . . . and something even more foul. She swallowed bile. "Alright. Show me."

He nodded at the warehouse in front of her. "Inside."

The large warehouse door slid up, though he’d spoken in a low tone. She wondered if he could speak to all his vampires mind-to-mind. But she didn’t ask that, couldn’t. Because the scent of garbage, of disuse, was suddenly wiped out by stomach-churning foulness.

Blood.

Death.

The sickening miasma of bodily fluids left to stew in an airless space.

The urge to gag tore at her throat. "Never thought I’d say this, but I wish Dmitri was here." She’d welcome his seductive scent at this point. A wash of clean, fresh, rain scent hit her on the heels of that thought. She drew it in, then shook her head. "No. I can’t afford to miss the cues. But thank you." Then she stopped hesitating and walked into the horror.

The warehouse was huge, the only light coming in through narrow windows high up on the walls. Her brain couldn’t understand the piercing clarity of that light until she felt the crunch of glass underfoot. "The windows are all broken."

Raphael didn’t reply, moving behind her like a midnight shadow.

She crunched her way through the glass and onto a patch of clear concrete. Deciding to focus, she stood in place, widened her senses, searched.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

No, she thought, teeth gritted, this was no time to lose it.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

She shook her head but that sound-the soft, wet splash of blood hitting a hard surface-didn’t disappear. "The dripping," she said, realizing the sound wasn’t in her head. Horror choked off her breath but she made herself move forward, through the gloom and toward the very end of the cavernous space.

The nightmare came into sight slowly.

At first, Elena couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t figure out what it was that she was seeing. Everything was in the wrong place. It was as if some sculptor had gotten his pieces mixed up, stuck them into place while blindfolded. That leg, the bone, it had been driven through a woman’s sternum, her torso ending in a bloody stump. And that one, she had beautiful blue eyes but they were in the wrong place, staring out at Elena from the gaping maw of her neck.