Archangel’s Blade (Guild Hunter #4)(50)
Author: Nalini Singh

Moving with preternatural speed, he snapped Jewel’s neck before the vampire even had the chance to draw in a breath to scream. “She’s not dead,” he said after it was done. “At this level of strength, she’ll rise again unless I decapitate her. Venom can fly her to Andreas in the chopper.”

Shocked at the brutal swiftness of the punishment, she said, “I thought it would make me feel better, the idea of her being tortured, but it doesn’t.”

“There can be no mercy here.” The words of a man who had seen centuries pass, rivers of blood soak the earth. “The instant word gets out that we’re doing clean executions, the Made will lose the fear that ensures they don’t dare things such as this more often.” He sent a message to Venom as he spoke. “For the old ones, death is no threat. But pain . . . everyone fears pain.”

She understood what he was saying, certainly had no loyalty to Jewel, and yet—“It seems so . . .”

“Inhuman?” A grim smile. “We aren’t mortals, Honor. We never will be.”

She wondered if he was giving her a warning. If so, it was unnecessary. “I’ve always seen you, Dmitri.” No matter if she believed there was more to him, this vein of darkness was also an integral part of his nature, couldn’t be ignored or wished away.

Chopper blades sounded at that instant, and soon Venom was landing the machine. The vampire whistled when he saw the carnage, but said nothing, picking up Jewel Wan’s body and stowing it with all the care you might show to a sack of potatoes. “You want a ride?”

“No, we’ll drive.”

Venom slanted Honor an assessing look, but said nothing as he got into the helicopter and lifted off in a wild rush of air.

Leaving the abandoned Town Cars where they were, she and Dmitri got back into the rental. A couple of calls later, and Dmitri had organized a cleanup crew both for the cars and for the guards.

“What will happen to them?” she asked.

“Nothing to the two who didn’t lift a weapon against me as long as they prove to have had no knowledge of Jewel’s actions. The other one will suffer a punishment.” His eyes met hers for a second. “By disobeying me, he disobeyed Raphael. That can’t be permitted.”

The instant it was, Honor knew, many of the Made would break their bonds, surrender to bloodlust, begin to hunt living prey. “The three names she gave, do you know them?”

“Yes. They’re part of the same social circle as Jewel and the others.”

“She’s enough of a bitch that she might have snuck in a name that doesn’t belong, out of spite.”

“We’ll find out soon enough—I’ve sent instructions that they’re to be watched. They’ll be brought to the Tower for questioning tomorrow morning.”

Releasing a long breath, she said, “I just want to finish this.” Wanted to get on with the life she’d decided to live.

“You will.”

Sitting in the passenger seat with Dmitri tangling her in fur and chocolate and sin, luscious and irresistible, Honor watched the miles pass by, the motion soothing, lulling her into sleep . . . into dreams.

“You are my wife.”

“And you are a jealous man.” Shoving her hands into her hair she blew out a breath. “If anyone has cause to be jealous, it’s me.”

“You know I would never touch another woman.”

“And you think I would touch another man?”

Silence, his face harsh with shadows. “Other men covet you.”

Shaking her head, she reached out to lay her palm against his stubbled jaw. “I’m no great beauty.”

His fingers closed over her wrist, his other hand coming to lie at her waist. “You don’t see it, but I’m a man. I do.”

Sometimes she wondered what she was doing with him, this beautiful creature every woman in the village watched with admiring eyes. It was as if they knew how he moved when inside a woman, how he could play a woman’s body until she would do anything he desired. Except she knew they didn’t. For he had waited for her, though his body had to have demanded satisfaction, offers no doubt coming his way from women who did not honor their husbands.

“You are my heart,” she said, taking his hand and placing it over the beating organ. “It doesn’t matter if another man should give me a thousand promises, it’s to you that I belong.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

“Honor.”

Ignoring the masculine voice that tried to pull her into the waking world, she fought desperately to hold on to the dream—because the woman she was in that hazy place, she was loved, loved so deeply that it was a little terrifying.

“Honor.” A caress of orchids and gold, decadent, luxuriant, enticing.

She jerked upright in her seat to find that they were driving into the parking garage beneath her building. “I fell asleep.” In a car. With a man. With a vampire.

“You were smiling.”

“Just a dream.” One so vivid she could almost feel the stubble of her dream lover’s jaw on her palm. “Do you dream?”

Reaching across after parking the SUV, he stroked a finger over her cheek, where she could feel lines caused by sleep. “In sleep, I remember memories, times long past.”

She caught his hand against her cheek, had a disorienting sense of déjà vu. “Good memories?” she asked, the feeling shimmering out of existence as quickly as it had awakened.

Thick black lashes coming down, rising again. “There are times when even good memories aren’t welcome.” Remote words, but he didn’t break her hold.

Lights cut across the garage behind them an instant later, destroying the intimacy of the moment . . . and yet neither of them moved. “Come upstairs.” It wasn’t an invitation she would have even considered making a bare few weeks ago. But she’d been another woman then.

Dmitri rubbed his thumb across her chin before dropping his hand, but she didn’t need words to read the dark heat in his expression, his lips suddenly softer, erotically tempting. Pulse hammering in her throat, she got out of the car and led him to the elevators, aware of him twining fine tendrils of exotic scent around her. Not susceptible enough to be coerced by it, she allowed herself to luxuriate in the sensation.

He got a call just before they entered the apartment. She wasn’t able to figure out anything from listening to his half of the conversation, but he told her the details after he hung up. “Venom’s confirmed a watch on two of the names Jewel provided, is tracking the third.” Putting his cell phone on her coffee table, he said, “It might be better to keep an eye on them for the time being.”