Archangel’s Blade (Guild Hunter #4)(32)
Author: Nalini Singh

Honor clicked off the safety on her gun. Across from her, Dmitri shook his head, and she remembered that, age notwithstanding, she’d sensed no hint of true power in Evert Markson. A heart shot might kill him—and they needed him to talk. Forcing herself to back off from the edge, no matter how satisfying it would be to turn the bastard’s heart into fleshy shrapnel, she followed in silence as Dmitri opened the bedroom door and walked inside.

Dressed in nothing but pink lace panties and a white baby tee, a short woman with café au lait skin, her hair a storm of tight curls, stood facing the door. The instant she saw them, she ran into the bathroom at her back and shut the door, depriving Evert of a hostage. Swiveling around, the vampire screamed and launched himself at Dmitri, hands out like claws.

Honor shot him through the knees.

Dmitri glanced at her as the ghost-pale vampire crumpled in a spray of blood and bone. “I didn’t need the help, sweetheart.” A mild statement.

“I know.” Markson had hurt her in ways that had caused internal damage it had taken the doctors months to fix—seeing him scream wasn’t enough to erase the memories, but it was something. And . . . he’d been trying to hurt Dmitri. Honor wouldn’t allow that. Not Dmitri. “Neighbors probably heard that.”

“No, they didn’t. Evert had this house soundproofed, didn’t you, Evert?”

“I don’t know anything, I swear.” Sobbing words, snot running out of his nose.

Dmitri smiled, as gentle as a dagger sliding between the ribs.

And Evert folded. “He has this rough woodland cabin upstate—in the Catskills. No one thinks to look for him in a place like that.” Wiping away his tears, he struggled up into a sitting position against the bed, his wounds already beginning to heal. “He’s not picking up his phone, though.”

“Number?”

Evert rattled it off, hazel eyes too innocent to belong to this creature, jumping to Honor before swinging back to Dmitri. “I thought you were in on it,” he whispered, rubbing the sleeve of his suit jacket across his nose. “I thought you okayed it.”

14

Even before Honor had learned what Isis had done to Dmitri, she had never—not for an instant—considered that possibility. Didn’t now. Because if she had always understood one thing, it was that Dmitri didn’t share what was his. “Why?” she asked instead. “What possible reason could you have for thinking that?”

“When Tommy invited me,” Evert said, his breathing no longer choppy, his eyes awash with tears, “he said it was a new game all the high-level vamps were playing.”

“If you thought I was in on it,” Dmitri asked in a silken whisper, “why did you run from the club?”

Eyes jerking back and forth, tears mingling with the sweat pouring down his face. No more words. No more lies. Suddenly Honor didn’t care what happened to him—he was too pathetic. “Do what you have to,” she said to Dmitri, stepping close enough that he had to bend down so she could whisper in his ear, the masculine heat and primal sin of him stealing into her lungs to infuse her blood. “But he’s not worth a piece of your soul. Don’t give him that.”

His breath whispered over her cheek, his words a low murmur that wrapped her in lush intimacy, making her feel oddly protected . . . safe. “You sure I have a soul?”

“It might be battered and scarred, but it’s there.” Many would call her a fool for believing that, but there was nothing rational in her when it came to Dmitri. Just instinct, primitive and unrelenting. “So don’t waste it on this bottom-feeder.” Pulling back, she strode to the door of the bathroom and knocked.

Evert’s ex-mistress opened it at once. Having put on a white terry-cloth robe, she followed Honor down the stairs, before taking the lead to bring them out into a small, paved backyard. “I’m Shae.”

“Honor.”

“Evert broke my jaw once.” The pretty woman sat down in one of the outdoor chairs placed around a square wooden table. “For fun.”

Grabbing a seat opposite, Honor focused on the ugly mottled mark forming on Shae’s otherwise unblemished skin. “Why stay with him?”

A shrug. “I was only seventy when I met him.”

Honor’s spine twitched at the realization that Shae, petite and with those bruised human eyes, was a vampire. “Dashing older man, right?” she said, forcing herself to remain relaxed. Shae was no threat, her power so muted as to be negligible—the reason her body hadn’t yet been able to heal the damage caused by Evert’s vicious slap.

“Yes.” The other woman shook her head, her curls catching on the terry cloth. “Stupid, but hey, we’re all stupid once in a while.” A penetrating glance. “Dmitri, huh? No offense, but talk about stupid.”

Yes, it was. Probably the worst mistake of her life—but walking away wasn’t an option. Not anymore. If it had ever been. “You sound very certain we’re involved.”

“Puh-leeze, as my great-niece would say.” Shae shoved her hands through her hair, either agitated by the events of the morning or constitutionally incapable of staying still.

So young, Honor thought, so vulnerable, and it was a curious thought to have about a woman who had more than half a century on her. But then, time wasn’t everything. Dmitri would’ve been a force to be reckoned with soon after his Making. Shae would always be the quarry, rather than the hunter.

Eternity, Honor thought, was a long time to spend as a victim. “What do you know about Tommy?”

“Prick friend of Evert’s. He’s four hundred years old and still has that smarmy, sweaty look that says a man’s thinking about getting you naked—and not in a nice way.” The vampire tugged her robe tighter around herself. “Evert wasn’t lying about the cabin. They took me there once.” Her silence was heavy with secrets too terrible to be voiced.

Neither of them spoke for long moments filled with the cheerful sounds of birds scolding one another, their day long begun.

“I’m so afraid,” Shae said when the birds scattered with a bright chorus, fine lines pinching out from her mouth, “that that’s what I’ll become as I age. Depraved, finding pleasure only in the humiliation and suffering of others.” A look of unhidden concern. “Even Dmitri . . . he’s barely on this side of the line, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He was no innocent, would never be one. “Tell me more about Tommy.”