Archangel’s Blade (Guild Hunter #4)(22)
Author: Nalini Singh

Valeria’s eyes closed, her body shuddering from the contact with his muscled body. “I would take the credit”—a husky whisper—“but you’d find me out.”

Dmitri’s laugh would’ve made Honor thrust a blade in his gut and run as far as humanly possible. But Valeria smiled, opened her eyes. “I got an invitation.” A greedy look over at Honor. “Her fear was so potent by the time I got there, but she wouldn’t scream or beg. Not for weeks.”

Dmitri jerked Valeria’s face back toward him, the act ungentle. “You kept the invitation, didn’t you?”

“Yes. It was a memento.” Lips trailing over his jaw. “Did you bring her for me, Dmitri? Can I have her all to myself?”

Honor touched her hand to Dmitri’s back again, not knowing why she believed that would do any good, not even knowing why she thought she could possibly read this vampire so old and powerful it made her bones ache to think about it.

“First tell me who you shared her with,” he whispered, ignoring the fact that Valeria had tugged open the tie of her robe to expose creamy skin framed in crimson. “I want to know who else has your tastes.”

“But I want her to myself.” Petulance.

“Valeria.”

The woman all but orgasmed at the command in that voice full of knife blades and midnight screams. “They say you make it hurt, Dmitri.”

In response, he used his grip on her hair to pull her head back so hard it made tears form in her eyes. She licked her lips, made no effort to cover the dark pink nipple exposed by the shift of satin over skin. “Tommy. I saw Tommy there once when I ran late during my turn with her.”

Honor remembered that day, remembered the elegant female voice arguing with the deeper male one as Valeria cajoled the man into allowing her to stay.

“We’ll play together.” The sound of clothes brushing up against each other, the wetness of a slow kiss. “You know you like the way I play.”

The man—Tommy—had eventually folded. Together the two of them had . . . they’d made Honor scream. Her hand clenched on Dmitri’s T-shirt as he moved the hand not in Valeria’s hair to close around her throat. “Just Tommy?”

“There were others, but I never saw. We had our own times.” Breasts rising and falling, lips parting.

“The invitation, Valeria.” Unvarnished command. “Tell me about the invitation.”

The brunette shaped the rigid muscle of his chest with possessive hands Honor wanted to break into a thousand pieces. “In my bedroom, in the top drawer of the little table beside the bed.” Fingers trailing down to tug up his tee, revealing skin of a warm, dark tan. “I’ll show you when we go up.” Again, her eyes shifted to Honor. “I want her.”

That was when Dmitri smiled, arched Valeria’s neck again . . . and slit her throat with about as much emotion as might be expected from a hunting cat taking down prey, the heavy blade a sleek silver shimmer in the morning sunlight.

As the female vampire clapped her hands around her throat, he gripped her by that throat and pinned her against the wall with the blade thrust into her neck. “Don’t pull it out,” he ordered when Valeria went to do exactly that. “Or I’ll cut off your hands.”

Honor had jerked up her gun at the first slice, but now her eyes met Dmitri’s as he raised an eyebrow. She shook her head. “I can’t shoot her now.” Not when the vampire was pinned like an insect, the red satin of her robe a wetter, richer shade, her skin bloody cream.

Dmitri moved toward Honor, and she realized that aside from the hand he’d used to grip Valeria’s throat, he’d managed to avoid getting any blood on himself in spite of the arterial gush—which led to the very scary conclusion that he’d done this before. “You,” he said, touching her chin with the fingers of his clean hand, before ripping out the roses from a vase and upending it to wash the bloody one clean, “are too human.”

Yes. It was a welcome shock, a confirmation that she’d retained the core of herself no matter the horror of that dark pit where Valeria and Tommy and their grotesque friends had used her until they tore her very spirit to tatters. Walking past Dmitri to face the brunette vampire, she said, “Anything else you’d like to share about my kidnapping and assault?” to the monster with the wide blue eyes.

Dmitri took a seat on the chaise, reaching over to choose a chocolate from the crystal bowl on a nearby table. When Valeria bared her teeth at Honor, refusing to answer the question, he shot the other woman through the thigh, in almost precisely the spot where the female vampire liked to feed.

Valeria screamed, high and shrill.

Honor understood that the punishments used for immortals, their bodies able to recover from brutal injuries, weren’t the same as for mortals. But she’d never been up close and personal with the merciless reality of it. “Does it bother you at all?” she asked Dmitri when Valeria’s screams died out into sobs.

He shrugged, shoulders moving with muscled grace beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt. “No.” Putting his gun down beside the crystal bowl, he said, “Valeria, be a good hostess and answer Honor’s question,” before popping one of the chocolates into his mouth.

“I don’t know anything else,” the vampire sobbed, her eyes rimmed red with her tears. “J-just about T-Tommy.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Honor said, remembering how Valeria had sipped at her own tears, how she’d giggled when Honor screamed so much her throat turned raw, her voice gone, “we’ll get to Tommy.” She didn’t know what Valeria heard in her voice, but the vampire suddenly looked afraid in a way Honor would have never expected in a vampire of her age and power.

“He did everything, remember?” Valeria said, hands rising to her throat again as the wound began to heal around the heavy hunting knife.

“I wouldn’t.” Dmitri ate another chocolate.

Dropping her hands in spasming fear, Valeria continued to speak to Honor, eyes shimmering with tears. “He was the one who hurt you—I just wanted to feed.”

Yes, Tommy had hurt her, as only a man could hurt a woman. But only because Valeria had egged him on. Before that, his physical assaults had been relatively minor in the scheme of things—the bastard had enjoyed her blood more than anything else. Valeria, however, had always been very inventive when it was just her and Honor in the dark.